Losing the old Freddy
Couldn't the Freddy rework just be a new killer who uses the same concepts, but is just re-themed somehow? It seems like what was described on the stream could be the basis for a good Lovecraftian sanity-based killer.
We've had all kinds of buffs and nerfs and adjustments since the game started, but this is going to be the first time a killer has been effectively removed, and replaced with something different. I like Freddy the way he is -- he's fun whether he is "good" or not -- and I am effectively losing the entirety of the character that I have invested large amounts of time and effort in, to be replaced with a different character that uses the same skin and name.
Can't Freddy just stick around, and you use the redesigned concept for a new killer? What would be so bad about that?
Comments
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You get an upvote! Yea I would like if they would keep current Freddy as well I believe that Freddy will come out a worse killer from this rework. Freddy is actually currently better than most think surprisingly if you master this killer you can do pretty well with him. I would at least like an option to swap to new/old freddy although I know the likelihood of that happening.
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Signing up for that too.
They can simply add choice if you want to play old Freddy or new Freddy, with different cosmetics. You take current outfit - you play old one, you take new outfit - new Freddy.
Simple as that.
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I agree, it's an interesting concept they've come up with for the rework but feels like it's going to be a learn from the ground up scenario and would have been better on a new killer. I love the way Freddy plays currently, the way skill checks/wake up work, the invisibility and lullaby/TR, the control of who is in the dreamworld, the aura reading to keep tabs on everyone. Kinda wish there was a choice as to which playstyle you wanted.
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Whether the new Freddy is better or worse, I bet we're still losing what I hold most dear about him, which is his unparalleled ability to track survivors via auras, while effectively staying stealthed. This is the thing that draws me toward him the most, and it's a really powerful tool to balance out his significant downsides. There will be no killer like this in the game, once he's gone. So, that really bums me out. Freddy is really unique, and a lot of players like him as-is, even if he isn't among the "best" killers.
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Most people don't know when to stop chasing a survivor this is clear with Freddy. A big portion of his potential is being able to put everyone to asleep while also using perks like "Overcharge" and Lullaby to make the survivors regress the gens big time. People for some reason also don't realize the mind game you can master at the start of the dream transition if you know the timing when Freddy goes in and out of the survivors vision you can mind game. Add-ons make him really strong. He isn't really high tier but he still is way better than people believe. This is why I think the rework is going to make him way worse he can be a great gen stopper if the Freddy has mastered his killer.
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I run him with Bitter Murmur (since gens will inevitably get popped), BBQ & Chili (for obvious tracking capability), and Nurse's Calling (ditto -- and it's doubly useful because sleeping survivors usually sit and heal after they wake themselves up).
Fourth perk is Monitor & Abuse, which is like a magic trick when combined with his aura-reading, because you can basically end chases by just not engaging, then surprising them as soon as they think you're gone. It synergizes really well with Nurse's Calling, too.
I will prioritize putting people to sleep (ideally in groups) over hitting survivors. If I find someone early, I will usually sleep them, hit them once, and then leave them alone about 99% of the time, because I've effectively taken them off the map in terms of contribution while they figure out how to deal with the sleep state. So I go off somewhere else, then come back to them later. By the time 2-3 gens have popped, I've snowballed pretty well.
Also, most people don't understand the most key thing about Freddy, which is sweeping around with M2 held down if you're not in a chase. You catch so many survivors that way.
Man, I'm gonna miss him. :(
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To be fair this new Freddy fits Freddy's character way more. The dream world is his realm, and he always makes his targets see illusions(most of the time of blood), and the like. At least the original Freddy did. The remake Freddy sucked tbh(and the movie did as well), so I'm glad they're using at least PART of the original Freddy in the remake. Also if you were to use Freddy's base character ideas for another killer, I would feel like Freddy as a character was just being replaced or forgotten. He's one of the most iconic horror movie figures in existence. He deserves to have his actual character represented. If you want to keep old Freddy, THAT should be a new killer.
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The problem with this sentiment is that it goes against the stated problems with Freddy. He's a killer who low level survivors can't properly understand and can't hope to be really useful and consistent in high level play. His current power takes universal options off the table for at lest 7 seconds. That by design isn't what they wanted to have him be. Does he have a strong gimmick? Yes he does, but the problems that come with it and the fact that it doesn't really express Freddy's proper power as a dream demon. If you watch his films he doesn't put people to sleep. He preys upon them with mind games and tricks after they eventually falls asleep.
His new power gets him much closer to what he actual does in the films and gives people who play him and play against him a better understood way to interact with him.
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I acknowledged that Freddy has a useful gimmick in terms of strength. That still doesn't make up for the fact that the killer loses momentum in situations where waiting for that transition eliminates the possibility of universal techniques. Current Freddy doesn't have the ability to swing through palettes on a moment's notice or use quick strikes to interrupt Survivor actions. He can grab out of lockers, but can't grab off gens or unhook attempts.
Making the game slower is cool, but the same results can be achieved with other killers on top of having those universal utility options. You playing him and staying in red rank consistently with him means you know how to play the killer role well in general. You could take that skill and a few extra hours learning any other killer and get the same results with the right builds. That said, pull back and look at Freddy from a design and balance perspective.
Do new players to the game understand through context clues what is happening to them when they face Freddy? The devs' internal data seems to suggest the answer is no. Now, everyone has to take time to learn the game, but because Freddy is such an outlier in terms of play lower level players can't use the universal context clues they've learned from dealing with other killers. That means you created a 'Beginner's Trap". You want to avoid those as much as possible. On the other end of the spectrum you have a killer who has a power that adding aggravation to the game on both sides. Survivors whose learned to be optimal tend to dislike this that arbitrarily make them sub optimally.
Freddy just shoots a laser out of his hand and just makes you sleep. There isn't any counterplay on that interaction and the result is your just worse at doing everything. That doesn't feel particularly engaging. From the killer side you have a killer who can make some quasi interesting mind games. Yet, at the heart of his design he is an m1 killer with a power that doesn't have long term usage in the chase. You get aura reading, but at high ranks that overall is less useful. Freddy also wastes time waiting for people to fall asleep before he can harm them. During that transition state they can still pop a gen and get adrenaline resetting your momentum in a crucial moment. That is unneeded frustration placed on the player. Why would you want that?
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Whenever we learned him it was too late. :(
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There are an overwhelming number of things that a new player will not understand immediately. Not to say that this is a healthy standard at all, but it's a pretty universal problem in this genre, and it shouldn't be used as a cudgel to squash interesting character designs, which the current Freddy most certainly is, whether he is weak or not.
Plenty of characters would reasonably fall into the "newbie trap" bucket. I remember taking a particularly long time to figure out exactly ######### was going on with Doctor when I was new, Nurse and Spirit both "cheat" the normal rules in confusing ways, and Myers has basically no terror radius (which a new player is trained to use as their first warning sign). I'm not defending Freddy in terms of complexity; there's a lot of stuff going on with him for sure, but once you understand him, you're good to go -- as is the case with any killer.
You say: "His current power takes universal options off the table for at lest 7 seconds. That by design isn't what they wanted to have him be." He was added to the game 20 months ago, so I don't think that's really a justifiable argument in terms of design intent; any urgency on this front left the building well over a year ago. But now, they're removing a character from the game -- one that players have spent substantial time and in-game resources on -- and replacing it with a different character that, in all likelihood, will not appeal to a substantial number of current Freddy players.
Freddy is appealing because he has strong and global aura-reading abilities, and very useful stealth (but these come at an action cost). At the very least, the new Freddy should retain these aspects. Either that, or -- at worst -- players should get the option to refund the BP they've spent on this character who is suddenly not the character they've been playing. 😛
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(Also, on the subject of Freddy's universal option issues... I mean, players who can't get past this just won't play him anyway. Why remove him from the game as an option for players who understand, and are willing to put up with his weaknesses?)
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I think majority of people who complain about Freddy are people who only play with Nurse and Spirit. When the new Freddy comes out they'll complain that he's not viable as well.
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Too many people (including myself) unfortunately didn't see his true potential until the devs had already started on the rework. Some people still don't see it and just go "lul Freddy 7 seconds". I tried Freddy with the purpose of stalling the game 1 or 2 months ago and it went much better than I expected. It was pretty fun. Now that playstyle could go away and given the state of the three most recent Killers, we could see Freddy actually become the worst Killer in the game.
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I'll just wait for the PTB, which should come in 2 weeks if I calculated correctly. No need to criticize the new Freddy before.
I like Freddy and the stuff you can do even against stronger Survivors, but I really hate that he is very defenseless. The reason why I do not use Ruin with him. I'm curious how the teleportation and the pallets/snares will work. I really like the Aura reading and invisibility (I know the new Freddy becomes visible when in close proximity but that's fine) so these are the only things I would like to see.
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I think we need to make a distinction between what is and isn't happening with Freddy. He's not being removed from the game and though I understand what you mean by that a lot of others won't if they don't read the thread properly. What they are doing is reworking his power. Currently, they've stated that Freddy will still be invisible at long range and begin to flicker in and out of view as he gets closer to a survivor till he is completely visible at close range. Survivors will now fall asleep passively over time and will need to be woken up by other survivors who aren't asleep or use a clock at a static location to wake themselves up. Freddy will be able to place Dream Snares down that survivors can be caught in while they are asleep. They are also considering giving him a teleport that target's gens. He gains universal striking and grabbing options.
What Freddy is losing is decreased action speeds on all actions. He's no longer in tangible and ultimately separated from the game. He will no longer have to do an action that puts someone asleep. Aura reading may also be gone, but I don't remember them giving a concrete statement about that.
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The character IS the power. If they change the power completely, then the old character is now gone. If new Freddy does not have stealth and global aura-reading -- the capabilities that his effective game plan revolves around -- then yes, the have removed that character and replaced him with something else.
Again, I'm saying that it's fine to implement this new design, just leave the old power in as well, maybe put the new power on a new killer. Why does the old one need to be removed?
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The truth is, his design is garbage and they're not gonna let a licensed character with an objectively garbage design.
People have been begging (and rightfully so) for this rework for ages now. Now we're getting it.
The only people defending Freddy's current iteration either struggle way too much with tracking or are extremely afraid of change.
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Besides, he's the most boring killer to go against and your fun isn't the only thing that matters.
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I think @Dococtober made a similar post with a solution being to be able to choose between the old and new power. Everyones happy
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None of these arguments hold water, because he's been in the game for almost two years. There can never be a defensible argument around design intent, because there has been no urgency. They should just leave the original power in the game, and use the new power for a new killer, so that nothing has to be lost.
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I like the current Freddy now and main him quite often. What I don't like tho is how defenseless he is at endgame and how easily survivors can wake up. If the gates get powered, whoever is awake is escaping, plain and simple. I'm excited that there changing that, but I'm afraid he's gonna get the legion/GF treatment of a power that has a cooldown and survivors can break him out or some dumb crap. Freddy is my favorite character of all time, so I hope he finally gets the right re-work, but I seriously have my doubts
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Yeah, anything that isn't stealth and can't read auras globally is not going to be an improvement. I like the idea of the new design's snare traps and teleporting to gens, but he needs to be able to see auras of survivors who are asleep (and outside of his terror radius), just like he can now.
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It's not as if they just had a backup idea on the table. Things take time to research, prototype, test internally, create art assets, finalize the design, do a complete pass on addons, code everything into the game properly. None of that is a quick process and it wasn't as if the entire team would have been tasked with doing this. The majority keep working on upcoming content, balance and bugfixes.
Changing an entire power wholesale is the first of its kind in DBD. You had no reason to believe that something they've never done before was going to just get done quickly. The fact that it didn't happen quickly as it means they've had time to make something much better than what they usually tun out. Freddy will be the only killer to have spent this much time "In development".
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For the sake of keeping both us old Freddy mains happy and those that look forward to new Freddy, I suggested that the devs give him two equip-able powers, the old one and the new one, so that we could choose.
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Tell me how a power that's designed EXCLUSIVELY to make the game longer with little to no skill expression or interactiveness is good for the game.
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If this is the bar, then any number of things would need to be removed or reworked -- Hex: Ruin, Overcharge, Corrupt Intervention, Thrilling Tremors, Deerstalker, Doctor in general, Pig in general, slugging in general. Most of those mechanics have some form of counterplay, as does Freddy's sleep state (fail a skill check or get woken up by a teammate).
The bigger issue is that -- by design -- it is always in the killer's best interests to draw out the game, because time is never on their side.
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Why literally everyone wanted a rework and now so many "keep old Freddy" threads emerge?
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Paranoia.
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Pig and Doctor have interactiveness on their game delay. Removing Pig's trap is probably the most fun part about facing her, and Doctor... Well, not so much for snapping out of it, but at least it's a series of skill checks and he needs more than right click you to delay the game.
Overcharge doesn't really work against good survivors other than specific builds. Ruin is universal pressure and can be cleansed, and hitting greats is somewhat skillful counterplay. Thrilling Tremors does almost nothing to delay the game, it has a lot more to do with the information you gain. Deerstalker is for slugging builds, which have a lot more to do with pressure than anything else.
None of those you mentioned is a slow down action speed for free that you get by right clicking someone. Slowing down action speed classically doesn't promote good gameplay, they've mentioned how they feel about that multiple times. Having a killer's entire design promote ######### gameplay - unlike a specific perk or add-on doing so - isn't a good thing.
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We will have to begin a support group for old Freddy's players :,-(
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He's hard to get results with because he's bad, not because his kit is hard to learn.
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@White_Owl because there has to be people who complain. Always.
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I'm most definitely not, unless DBD Freddy has feelings that are being hurt by my comments,.
All I'm saying is that it's hard to get results with him because he's bad. The same applies to Bubba, Doctor or Trapper. You have to work a lot harder with them at red ranks than Nurse or Spirit, but it's not because their skill ceiling is high, it's because they suck when compared to actually good killers.
The same is true for Freddy. He has just as much as a ceiling as any other M1 killer. He's hard to get results with because he's bad, not because he's hard to play.
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Or why don't they just save the rework idea to a killer imo. Like Pennywise.
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overcharge adds 4second more of worktime on a gen..
its worth more if they can work 8+ seconds on a gen while sleeping than getting the overcharge skillcheck.
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I remember trying to show my friends the nifty way that freddy can catch all 4 survivors, and then have an easier time getting hits and downs.
They always said: "The secret to beating freddy was gen rushing."
This confused me, considering he could slow you down and find you.
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I'm anxious about the upcoming changes, but I have a strong hope it will be fine.
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See. I love the current build on freddy as well, but the problem is, he is not viable against red rank swf teams at all: Regardless of the add ons. The skill checks come up too quick and the survivors are guaranteed to intentionally miss them to avoid the speed penalty. The rework is a joke as well. No killer should need to depend on add ons to make them usable.
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His rework look disappointing as fk only worth wild thing is teleport but even then it meh. But then again did we really expect anything great from these devs no just more 💩 i dont know who owns/in charge of this game but they need start spring cleaning of these devs.
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@DudeDelicious I'll start this response by saying, I am not a killer main. Someone challenged me and I peeked in and stuck around to test his theories. Now to respond.
The problem is not REACHING red ranks. I've always been able to do this. Even when the ranking system was on steroids after the plagues release. I don't know what platform you're on, but I'm on xbox. There is NOT enough time to get the job done. Period.
It's too easy to break out of dream world. This is why they centered his perks around endgame. I get 31k - 32k pt games, but safety pip because I can only pull off 1k MAYBE 2k in the process. No camp, no tunnel.
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