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Making Spirit more fun, while keeping her a top tier killer
Okay. Here's the deal.
Spirit just isn't very healthy for the game. As for whether or not she's balanced, I personally don't think she's overpowered. However, there are two main issues that come with Spirit.
1) She isn't hard to play. A top tier killer like Spirit should naturally be hard to learn, like Nurse, or Hag, or Huntress. All three of those killers are incredibly hard to master in their own different ways, but you get rewarded as you improve, and a bad player using them will get absolutely stomped. With Spirit? Just buy a decent headset. Anyone can pick up Spirit and instantly start rolling in the 4ks, and while it is possible to be a skilled Spirit (in the sense that you can play her in a way that takes skill), you don't have to in order to win.
2) She isn't fun to play against. The main reason for this is that the only counterplay to Spirit is to rush gens as quickly as possible (M1 simulator) or try to predict what she'll do in a chase (which is quite literally guesswork). Neither of these things are particularly fun, and they both stem from one core issue: Spirit gives the survivor absolutely zero information to work with. Against Nurse, you can tell when she's going to blink because of the charge time, and you can even tell where she'll blink by looking at where the Nurse is facing. Against Huntress, you can see her wind the hatchet up. Against Spirit? It's literally guesswork.
This rework aims to correct both issues, giving survivors more counterplay and interactivity during a chase, while retaining Spirit's immense strength and the things that make her fun to play as, without changing the core aspect of her power.
1) Entering Phase Walk is now instant, and does not interrupt your momentum. This makes her power a lot more reactive and easy to slip into, allowing for greater satisfaction while not making her absolutely broken. Survivors will instantly disappear upon entering Phase Walk, instead of the gradual "crystallization" effect they currently go through.
2) The Spirit's invisibility is replaced with her passive phasing effect, and she no longer leaves a husk behind. This is the core of the rework right here. Spirit is still unable to see survivors, but they can see her, which allows for counterplay. In this way, a Spirit is actually forced to rely on M1 mindgames to get her hits, with the added advantage of being much, much faster.
3) The Spirit can no longer hear survivors' breathing while phasing. This turns "buy a good headset" (thanks Scott for that amazing guide) into what Spirit was meant to be: predicting where a Survivor would go and reacting accordingly.
Summary:
- Spirit is too easy to justify her strength.
- Spirit is, for a majority of people, not fun to go against.
- The rework is as follows:
- Entering Phase Walk no longer requires a charge up time
- Spirit is no longer invisible while phasing; she instead has her passive phasing effect
- Spirit can no longer hear survivors' breathing while phasing
Have at it!
Comments
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If the survivors can see the Spirit, I think she should be able to hear them. Currently, going against Spirit's power is almost pure guesswork - we don't want to flip it so that using her power is pure guesswork. That's just the same problem, but pushed onto the killer instead.
The only other problem I can see is that if you add the passive phasing effect to her power, there's no way to know whether she's using her power or not at any given moment. Or was that intentional?
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I mean, you can tell because she'll be zooming way faster than usual, but I do intend to remove passive phasing while she isn't using her power. That is a fair point on not being able to hear survivors, but my intent is to make a Spirit rely on M1 mindgames and then predict whether or not they fall for it. I do definitely see your point though, and if enough people agree, I'll add it in.
Two more things to clarify:
1) Spirit will no longer have collision while phasing
2) Spirit will no longer have passive phasing while outside of her power
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That makes more sense. I'm a little cautious about how much removing passive phasing would detract from her aesthetic, cause I feel like it adds a lot to her spook factor at the moment, but I'm not sure. I'd probably have to see it in action to decide, but maybe there's a way to keep both in there somehow.
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Yeah, which is why I moved it to the phase walk instead of just removing it entirely ^-^
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This wouldn't keep her top tier.
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First of all, it requires more than headphones to play Spirit, I have a good headset and still can’t play her. Second, fun is subjective.
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- Sounds like a you problem.
- True, but when the majority of the community says she's unfun to play against, has no counterplay, is generally unhealthy for the game... maybe you should listen.
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Explain, please.
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This would kill her viability.
Currently her power can be used for both bee-lining, Pallet mindgames, catching people who are pathing ect.
But with this you could ONLY use it for beelinging, since if you try to mindgame a loop they can just see you and react to whatever you do.
They don't have to predict you and thus there is no mindgame. You could only catch Survivors at already unsafe pallets/windows, but you don't need to be the Spirit to do that.
And if you try to cut them off by predicting their pathing then whelp too bad they can just see you doing it and not go there.
You cannot have a mindgame if you don't first have information denial. That's why Nurse doesn't mindgame people, she uses her mechanical power to down you. Same for Huntress.
Hag sometimes does mindgames with if she is teleporting to her traps or not, but that is only possible because the trap models look like her and it doesn't tell you what she is doing with them.
Nurse and Huntress have so many tells because they brute force loops. Spirit moves fast yes but doesn't actually stop you from using Windows and Pallets to get away, so she can't just rely on brute force. Thus her information denial is extremely important and without it her dynamic doesn't work.
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This is probably one of the worst ideas of a rework I have seen. At the very least, if you are making Spirit visible while phasing, she should be able to see Survivors, ESPECIALLY considering you cant hear them breathe anymore. You are just making it a complete guess on the killer making the power literally only useful for catching up. How... and please be serious... How is this more "skilful" than a Killer who has to trap Survivors into doubting whether to go one way or another or walk in a direction as opposed to the opposite?
And even if we did that (letting her see Survivors), you are making her power literally a Legion 2.0; an uninteresting power compared to its former self. At least you can down Survivors, so thats the only reason that prevents her power from being worse than Legion.
I find the whole "SpIrt Is EZ tO pLAy wItH hEaDPhoNez" meme extremely dumb. And yes, its not an opinion, its a meme and nothing more.
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I am curious to see how this will play out.
Just remove the visibility while in phase, the removal of sounds would work well enough as a nerf. No need for the addition of making her ability essentially useless due to survivors seeing her periodically.
Still: I am curious to see how Spirit will now seem to work if this actually gets implemented. Maybe a wee bit excited. Not bad lad.
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LoL
To even remotely think that this rework would leave this killer viable is hilarious to say the least.
1) Unfun? Sounds like a you problem
2) No counterplay? Not true.
3) I suggest we stop to listen to bad survivors. I don't want free wins as survivor.
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... So what would she be gaining for the tremendously bad drawback of losing her invisibility, the usage mindgame and collision?
Cant see ######### except memetically bad scratchmarks AND is visible?
I think killers produce more viably fair survivor nerf ideas.
Survivors just memetically suck at balancing killers.
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Let me correct the title:
"Making spirit a trash killer, even worse than legion, who can be bullied and looped for 5 gens"
Perfect
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This would kill her entirely
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Spirit is balanced right now. There is a visual cue when she actually starts phasing (not just presses the button), you can hear her footsteps, crows are spooked, and grass/bamboo/corn will move when she moves through it.
It's not easy for spirits on console, as turning to hit another survivor takes a lot of mechanical skill. And there are times where sounds you hear sound in one direction and you swing but it was somewhere else. Sounds can definitely lie to you when phasing.
Besides, Iron Will exists, and quite a few people run it if they think a spirit is coming.
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Even when I, a killer player, come up with a survivor concept that even has a perk that a lot of survivors would like, they still complain about it. Can't please everyone.
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OooOOoo that sounds fun. Link?
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For context, I am a hardcore killer main. I'm just ######### okay bear with me
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Let's destroy spirit but I'm a killer main
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yeah I'm not really helping my case am I lol
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In seriousness, I posted this without really thinking it over. I actually figured this would be a buff for a good Spirit (hence me being #########), but hey this is why I'm not a dev
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So, allow me to understand correctly.
You want to remove her ability to be invisible whilst phasing, allow survivors to see her whilst phasing and for her to not be able to hear survivors? Where is the mind games? You will literally lose survivors the instant you phase.
Nice joke.
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ikr, I'm a regular clown
and my idea is just as good as he is lol
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