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Ghostface is mediocre at best, blunt nerfing him is the wrong move

anarchy753
anarchy753 Member Posts: 4,212
edited June 2019 in Feedback and Suggestions

Gonna preface this by saying, no, buffing "killer instinct" add ons is not a buff, that's a kick in the teeth following a nerf. Oh hey, we just made life harder for you but hey, the add ons that only have an impact when your power is repeatedly failing are slightly better!

  • 1. Base time to mark a target is too long.

One of the nerfs he's receiving is to his marking time add ons because they stacked too well. Fair enough, if it got to marking under a second then they can afford some nerfing. HOWEVER, 4 seconds at BASE is ######### huge.

On the first mark of the match, maybe, but every attempt after that has everyone on high alert, with noise alerts that you're near, and 4 sets of eyes. It's 1 second less than tiering up with Myers, and nobody would ever suggest Myers would be balanced if he required a full tier of stalk every time he wanted a down. That's before considering that he gets stripped of his power for 30 seconds for being looked at.

Honestly, consider how many times Myers gains a full tier without being looked at? Even when he has M&A/Dead Rabbit and has a tiny TR in tier 2. You're on high alert so you spot him, and the only thing that keeps him viable is that you need to break line of sight, not glance over your shoulder once every 30 seconds.

  • 2. He is going to be even easier to break out of stealth.

Survivors are complaining how hard it is to break people out of stealth. So? We widely accept Myers as one of the (more) balanced killers that is actually fun to play against. Compared to him, he gains less from stalking as he gains none of the chasing benefits, and he only gains exposed against one survivor at a time. It SHOULD be difficult to disable a power that is objectively already a weakened version of an existing power.

On top of this, many people are experiencing issues with the line of sight effects. I personally am continually broken out of stealth by survivors who have a solid wall between us despite "a percentage of Ghost Face's body" being required to be visible. I'm not talking "maybe your arm was sticking out" I'm talking Killer Instincts showing me someone well and truly with a brick wall between us.

  • 3. The range to break him out of stealth is laughable.

If you're going to make it easier to reveal him from closer up, like in a chase as you say is the major issue, the base range of breaking stealth needs to be reduced. Go load up the Pale Rose, sit up on top of the boat, have Ghostface stand half the map away and tell me that it's balanced that he doesn't have a power for 95% of the match.

Many people are having issues with grass as well, standing in particularly long grass not only makes it impossible to stalk due to completely blinding you, but makes it very difficult to reveal you even out in the open. Grass, not corn or reeds or whatever, JUST GRASS, needs to not be considered an obstacle.

On top of that, an issue we've had since Pig, the crouched camera should be significantly raised. When looking at a crouched Ghostface, he's just bending his legs. From the killer's perspective his face is motoring along the ground like a roomba of death. It doesn't reflect how hunched over he is, and it greatly impacts his ability to do ANYTHING while crouched.

  • 4. "Leaning" is a mess

More often when you press to lean, you get a nice view of the wall as Ghostface mashes his face into it. The mechanic needs to be fixed to pull you properly to the edge of the wall, and potentially turn the edge of the wall invisible temporarily. Many situations make it very difficult to get a view leaning, let alone consistently, and yet it's being used as a justifier for why his stalk speed is so #########.

There is also such a huge degree of debris on maps that on a vast majority of gens, the only "lean" that can get a view of them is 2 meters from the survivor where they can hear the gimp suit noises and immediately leave.

  • 5. His add ons are boring and mediocre at best.

Have we learnt nothing from the 15 other killers about add ons? We want reliability in powers. We want effects that make us feel like they're really impacting a match, specifically at higher tiers.

What we don't want is gimmickey ultra rares where strange mechanics are played with without any realistic effect in the match.

Movement speed while stalking is an abysmal effect. You're still basically immobile with them, and all you want movement speed for is hiding when spotted, at which point you no longer stalk. This is already known from Myers and should never have even been suggested on him. Similarly movement while crouching is awful, mostly because of the issues with the crouching camera.

His ultra rares are laughable. One forces you to rely on the leaning mechanic which sucks, and the other reveals all survivors outside your terror radius on downing a mark. You know what'd be nice? If you could do anything with that info, but wait, the slug on the ground prevents you making any use of your ability when you get those reads. If you're running a perk like BBQ, you're getting way more useful info, at a more opportune moment, that doesn't burn your add on slots.

Where are the aura reads while stealthy that all other stealth killers get? Where's the hidden bdsm noises? Hell, where is "slightly increases time to mark/slightly lowers movements speed + survivors cannot break you out of night shroud" Give us something interesting, real ultra rares that shuffle up the match and make it interesting.

  • 6. Reduce the cooldown.

It's frankly absurd. We're here for a game, not to stare at a cooldown for most of a match. 30 seconds is the longest cooldown we've had yet, and it is empirically not even close to the strongest power to compensate.


TLDR;

Ghostface needs proper attention, not a kneejerk nerf to make things easier.

  • Nerf marking speed add ons BUT improve the base time. 4 seconds to mark and being breakable for 30 seconds vs 5 second for an evil within tier show complete unbalance in his power.
  • Fix buggy reveals from behind solid walls.
  • Make it easier to reveal at close range AND harder/impossible to reveal at longer range.
  • Fix the crouch camera to be more accurate of how high his head is, stop grass from blinding you, stop grass from obstructing stalking/revealing.
  • Adjust the leaning mechanic. Improve visibility while leaning.
  • Give us add ons that are worth the slots, ones that improve our power not ones that give us consolation prizes for the mechanics sucking.
  • Reduce the cooldown.
Post edited by anarchy753 on

Comments

  • DocOctober
    DocOctober Member Posts: 2,230

    "Roomba of Death", that made my entire day.

    Joking aside, I full-heartedly agree with your points, it's ridiculous that they even think of nerfing him in his current state.

  • cwtfern
    cwtfern Member Posts: 136

    "Fix the crouch camera to be more accurate of how high his head is, stop grass from blinding you, stop grass from obstructing stalking/revealing."

    This!

    His camera seems way too low. Crouching is more of a hindrance than anything. It makes it significantly harder to spot survivors, let alone see where you're going at all. Seriously, how is this useful when all I see 90% of the time is a bunch of grass and debris in my face? I feel like it's far lower to the ground than Pig's camera, whom Ive never had a problem with spotting survivors.

    "Fix buggy reveals from behind solid walls"

    This too.

    I'm constantly being broken out/breaking him out long after he's broken line-of-sight and no part of him is actually visible. I can't count the number of times Night Shroud has been deactivated after he's fully hidden himself. The sound indicator will keep going even if you've fully ducked behind cover.

    Also, I already mentioned this in another thread: He is nearly unplayable on maps with two-story buildings. The chapel, the asylum, pale rose, Haddonfield, mother's dwelling all have completely safe spots that serve as lookouts where survivors can spot you from almost anywhere and deactivate your power.

    Line-of-sight does not work as they can see over pretty much every obstruction. Even if you do manage to hide, there is no way to approach stealthily if the survivors are near the building.

    Organized teams have already figured this out and will usually have a designated "spotter" when they see they're going against GF. It's especially bad on maps where the building is in the center and all but the very edges of the map are visible. If the "spotter" has Balanced Landing, good luck ever catching them. You'll chase them away from their perch and a minute later they're back up there breaking you out of your shroud yet again.

  • anarchy753
    anarchy753 Member Posts: 4,212
    edited June 2019

    Absolutely. It also seems pretty common that if a survivor continues to look in your direction after you duck behind cover, you still get revealed, as though the new object between you isn't considered as breaking line of sight.

    Such as https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/c4fv0f/so_survivors_can_stalk_me_gf_when_i_cant_even/

  • Tru3Lemon
    Tru3Lemon Member Posts: 1,358

    amen brother you know how to balanced killers hope the devs LISTEN THIS or else ppl will lose hope for dbd

  • cwtfern
    cwtfern Member Posts: 136
    edited June 2019


    Tru3ta1ent, Bahroo, Otzdarva, Oroboro, and several other DbD streamers, some of whom are fog whisperers, all agree that Ghost Face is garbage and nobody will ever play him at high ranks. A week later, you already don't see him much at all. This Killer died quicker than Plague. Such a shame.

    The devs don't want to listen even when they ask the community directly for feedback. Again I ask, what was the point of holding that poll if they're just going to do whatever they want, anyway? I wouldn't be half as disappointed if they didn't demonstrate that they care about community feedback.

    From what I've seen, the only people saying Ghost Face is too strong are rank 20's and trolls. He is embarrassingly weak. Please stop making Killers whose powers are reliant on the survivors being bad at the game. It doesn't work at high ranks.

    Post edited by cwtfern on
  • Shad03
    Shad03 Member Posts: 3,732

    DbD Dev: Wow, you raise some good points, it wasn't insulting and people agree with you. We really see the error of our ways annnnnnd no we won't listen to you. Have fun with the nerfs!

  • bubbascal
    bubbascal Member Posts: 316

    OP, I would suggest you tag a few people like @Peanits and @not_Queen to get their attention when making these types of posts. You have a higher chance of getting their attention if you do. 😀

  • anarchy753
    anarchy753 Member Posts: 4,212

    Yeah, but it is the balance feedback section, seems a bit odd to tag them for every thread.