The issue with Singularity isn't his power level. It's the ratio between complexity and reward
At a high level, Singularity is undeniably strong. The issue isn't his power level, but his complexity-to-reward ratio.
He demands significantly more planning, execution, adaptation and mental bandwidth than most killers, while often achieving outcomes that other top-tier killers can reach with far less effort.
A killer can be difficult without feeling unrewarding. Singularity sometimes occupies an awkward space where the skill ceiling is exceptional, but the practical return on that investment doesn't always feel proportional.
I don't think he needs raw power buffs. What he needs is better reward for good setup, map awareness and game knowledge.
For example:
- Disabled Biopods recover after 35 seconds instead of 45.
- More consistent Biopod placement on awkward surfaces.
- Slightly faster camera recovery after exiting a Biopod.
- Better visual feedback when a pod has line of sight but cannot complete a lock-on.
- Slightly faster post-teleport recovery, as there are situations where a successful teleport still doesn't provide enough pressure to secure a hit.
None of these changes would suddenly make him overpowered. Singularity would remain one of the most demanding killers in the game and would still require substantially more macro-management than most of the roster.
They would simply reduce the amount of friction between player skill and actual in-game value.
Right now, there are several killers who not only achieve comparable or better results on average, but also require far less effort and mastery to reach that level of performance.
Comments
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I would say he is way easier to play when you can just hold the button and make camera "find" you a survivor.
He is still more difficult to play than most killers, but nowhere near as bad compared to his release.Kinda an issue is he is noob stompy killer, you need to coordinate quite a lot to deal with good singularity.
But overall I would say he is in quite a good spot.1 -
I honestly don't think the complexity to reward ratio is inherently a problem. It can become one such as how Artist/Unknown sometimes feel to play, but Singularity starts feeling like an A tier pretty fast already IMO, even if you aren't completely cracked at him.
I can get behind some of the changes you suggest but don't think I'm behind these two:
Disabled Biopods recover after 35 seconds instead of 45.
The EMP economy can already become oppressive if there's weak links on the team or a Survivor dies, I don't think Survivor counterplay against Biopods should be nerfed like this.
Slightly faster post-teleport recovery, as there are situations where a
successful teleport still doesn't provide enough pressure to secure a
hit.I think this is part of the appeal of slipstream TP, it's not a ranged attack, you secure hits through understanding the ball and chain logic, when/how you should be using the overclock buff, what distance is worth teleporting for its own sake etc. To my knowledge, most situations where slipstream TP truly isn't enough are ones where the Survivor is burning through a valuable resource or the Killer TP'd at the wrong time. Maybe there's some specific scenario I'm not thinking of that really should be a hit but isn't with current TP recovery, but right now it feels strong enough IMO
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I thing Singularity is fine as they are. It is okay to have strong but difficult to play killers in this game. For those that prefer a less complex or more simple and streamlined killer there a many other options. Let Singularity be complex for those how enjoy that aspect of Singularity.
Also Singularity is already pretty strong when played well. Buffs to make him easier to play would also likely have to come with nerfs later on to compensate.
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I feel like him being complex but strong is completely fine.
Overall, the level of power some S tiers and A tiers have should require a certain amount of effort and skill.
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I'd agree here. There is a miserable valley between skill complexity and results in this game. It's not as easy to fix as a few buffs, but there's absolutely no reason that Killer X should put in multiple times the effort only to get the exact same result - that's the entire principle of 'Balance.' If you put in X1, you should get Y1 out of the machine.
If a killer takes X5 effort, they should get out Y5 result. If they put in X5 effort and get out Y1 result, then your balancing is flatly wrong. This is, wittingly or not, exactly what survivors complain about with ghoul. He requires X1 effort (in most cases) but provides Y2 result and they reasonably dislike that. Equally counterplays are similar. If a survivor puts X1 effort into a counterplay they should see Y1 result. X5 effort and Y1 result (as with Singularity) on counterplay would be deemed universally unacceptable and imbalanced.
Put another way, if survivors had to put five times the effort into killer counter play, they'd be upset and understandably so when they saw the exact same, standard result. When this is the case people call for nerfs, and again this is understandable. The same logic should be presented for the killer, adjusted for asym of course.
Nurse players have to put in 5X Effort (high skill), and get a 5X Result, and people hate it but understand that a Nurse putting in X1 is going to get less out of it on the return to the point that low MMR Nurse is a meme. No one complains about the Nurse who is bad, they only complain about the Nurses who aren't. This tells me, by example, Nurse is not imbalanced but instead has a strong showing at high skill expression and the survivor counter-play should be addressed to make sure X1=Y1, so to speak.
Singularity is the same. He's too easy to counter en masse, requires setup, requires tactical thinking, requires map knowledge and predictive modeling. The end result of all that is still a result that is underwhelmingly similar to what any other killer could get for landing an M2.
It's just disappointing, I suppose. I like Lary alot but the high intensity of his cycle does not reward appropriately so I skip him in favor of better X1=Y1 killers like Dracula. I main Huntress who is screwy, but she's about as far down the negative slope as I'm willing to go most days.0 -
There is a miserable valley between skill complexity and results in this
game. It's not as easy to fix as a few buffs, but there's absolutely no
reason that Killer X should put in multiple times the effort only to
get the exact same result - that's the entire principle of 'Balance.' If
you put in X1, you should get Y1 out of the machine.If a killer takes X5 effort, they should get out Y5 result. If they put
in X5 effort and get out Y1 result, then your balancing is flatly wrong.This sounds like a sensible balancing idea on the surface, but if you actually want to accomplish it, you either need to make peace with only the high complexity Killers being good, or you need to make all Killers use/capable of roughly the same complexity level.
This is ultimately just part of how "technical" character archetypes in videogames need to work. You need to assume their mains will put up with the high level of complexity and balance around that, in the same game as characters who are fundamentally less complex and still need to be viable. If anything, you can assume that high complexity, even if the reward ratio for the learning is worse, will be part of the appeal for their mains, who will always be a relative minority in the playerbase.
And in general, trying to balance the game around "I can't be bothered to put effort in" is not going to end well.
Not saying there aren't ways to make the high complexity characters more appealing, but Singularity cannot keep his identity while chasing the target audience of people who just want an easy, strong Killer after a long workday like Ghoul. At some point you have to make peace with that
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Difficulty and power level should have no correlation. People choose to play different killers for their design/power uniqueness. Otherwise we would have everyone playing ghoul or wesker(oh, wait….)
If people chose to play singularity, they probably like his design/lore/power. Not because he is strong. Making killer easier to play doesn't solve anything and most of the time just murders their uniqueness.
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As a P100 Singularity. (My hidden main) I think he’s in a great spot actually. The small buffs and QOL they did to his kit was really good. They made him a hell of a lot less frustrating to play while still keeping most of his skill ceiling.
If I would adjust anything about him it would be a few of his addons. That’s about all.
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You're absolutely right.
I know I came off as suggesting that the end result of an X5 Y5 is the desired result but you did nail the idea that it would just create a scenario in which playing an X1 would become obsolete. That's very much part of the problem. I also agree that characters like Lary cannot hold their identity and be aligned to the lowest common denominator.
I don't really have an answer in the end of this. Mathematically it has to be more rewarding to play X to Y if you want the character to exist (sparing Mains as you mentioned) but I think that kind of is the problem. The community wants more variety, but the way things have been balanced reduce to the idea of if you do see a Twins player, you get terrified because they are likely a 2000 Hour monster on Twins. Same for Lary. It turns the idea of pleasant variety into a psy-op and flips the entire system on its head.
We want variety, but we really do not want to be in that situation. Equally we want decent balancing, but the more we try to pressure BHVR to balance perks and killers alike the more we see them use the crutch tactic of over-homogenization as other studios do. Not because they want to but because that's far, far easier to do than to try balancing a game with this many options and perks.
I digress. Point it, you are right Lexi - but I do feel there's still a point of comfortable balance between "Balance for fun" and "Balance for output" That we have to strike for overall cycle health.1
