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What good can you do with Spies From the Shadows?
I've always wondered if this perk has it's advantages or disadvantages.
What's good and/or bad about the perk?
Is the perk fine? Does it need some tweaks? A rework?
Let me know.
Comments
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Most SV don't care for crows and run past them. This can give the Killer good information. Downside: annoying explosions
Tweak? I'd would like to get 2 sec of aura reading. This would make the perk very very good.
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I wish SFTS had a crow's caw instead of the normal explosions, might use it a little more then. Also think TOTH should have a different sound, it can be hard to tell if someone blew up a gen or touched a totem if they're right next to eachother.
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It's kind of one of those mediocre informational perks, like Bitter Murmur and the like. Issue with it is that a lot of other informational perks can trump it. Perks like A Nurse's Calling very much trump SFTS.
It does have the benefit of being one of those Perks Survivors never expect to see (kind of like Agitation or Blood Warden can screw them over because they don't expect it) so they rarely take counterplay into account.
However, it's still a Perk that requires a lot of activation conditions I'm not a fan of. How many Survivors within 36 meters who are doing things that disturb crows are Survivors you weren't going to find anyway? Unlike a lot of other detection Perks it doesn't feel all that reliable IMO.
Call me crazy but my dream SFTS rework would be a global range, having a QoL change so it's less annoying (maybe even other QoL changes like telling you which Survivor tripped the crows on the HUD), but at the cost of giving the crows unique glowing eyes so the Survivors know you're running it. (also, making your movement never scare crows would just be a nice touch)
This I think would make SFTS more powerful while also offering more opportunities for Survivor counterplay and would significantly change the feel of a match. Like others have said Survivors just ignore crows right now and unless SFTS was buffed into the ceiling that'll never change, but I think letting them know when SFTS is active would make it an interesting hybrid between informational perk and game slowdown perk.
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A lot of it depends on the map. Using it on the Lab map is borderline OP as you'll have notifications all the time as the map is loaded with birds. Other maps that have only a few crows will do little for you.
I think it's okay to take the perk randomly sometimes but I'd save it for a map offering on a place like the Lab. I'm not really sure which maps have a lot of crows vs ones that don't as I don't really pay attention to them unless they're flying away in the distance but if you're going to use a map offering and you know it has a lot of crows, I'd take Spies.
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So spies is actually supposed to have a cooldown, but is currently bugged and very low priority for the devs I am assuming. So that is why you get so many explosions right now.
Now to be clear, I prefer the bugged version over the actual version, because the bugged version gives me a direction the survivor is running in. Which is a really good feature of the perk.
If we are talking about making the perk really good it should work as follows:
The Crows found in the world can communicate directly with you.
100% of the time, cawing crows give you a visual cue and reveals the aura of the survivor for 3 seconds when you are within a range of 20/28/36 metres.
Spies from the Shadows has a cool-down of 10 seconds.
"In the shadows they torment, scarring our minds with each scream."
Basically the great thing about the bugged version of Spies right now is the fact you can get the location a survivor is running, however, I understand why the devs had a cooldown built in... 8 explosions in a row is extremely annoying. With my change, I would want them to fix the bug, but add aura revealing to the perk so you can still get the direction the survivor is running. I chose 3 seconds as its short enough to turn and find the survivor and see where they are going, but I also extended the cooldown to make it take longer to trigger.
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You have an easier to use, but not better than Whispers.
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Looks like a text mistake rather than a bugged perk. Because if they did that it would be nurse level unicorn status.
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It is a great perk to use in combination with others. Nurse's and Spies works quite well together. You are approaching the area but LoS is broken. You see the healing aura, but they stop before you can get around the LoS blocker. Nobody is there, you start to move left, but a crow explosion happens to the right. You move over and they start running.
The match starts and you are heading for generator 5, but an explosion happens to your right, somewhat near generator 2. Heading that way now. Get closer, another explosion happens showing the survivor moved more towards gen 2. You engage in a chase that much sooner.
If you know how to use the information, Spies is a great perk and very underrated. I would not put an aura read to it, though it would be ez mode, it would become too powerful and ultimately get nerfed back. Personally, I have severe colorblindness and BHVR has zero colorblind mode. Their anti-cheat often flags NVIDIA's colorblind mode, so I stopped using it. I have to hunt by motion and information. I can't see scratch marks, blood trails, or most survivors when they stand still in corners where they blend. So tracking information and anticipating the next move is huge for me. Spies is very helpful with that at times.
In Hawkins, Spies is pure crap and more annoying than anything.
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If they did what?
The perk is supposed to have a cooldown, it actually used to work, but about 4-5 patches ago, it broke and they never fixed it because I think more people liked it this way.
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I see this perk more like a beginner type of perk.An easier form of whispers so to say.
If you're more experienced in the game then you know how to keep an eye on the crows.
And the inconsistency of the spawns from crows also hinders it's usefullness
I guess if they made the spawns from crows more consistent across all maps it would be an alright tracking perk.
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One of my favorite perks and pretty useful in my opinion. Just walking around the map, suddenly get the notification and found a survivor. Or I hook someone, turn my back and the crows near me go off, which I could've missed without the perk. I like it 👍🏻
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Most people don't even consider it, so they don't bother avoiding crows. As far as finding people goes, it's pretty good.
The downside is that you get a lot of loud noise notifications, so you might miss things like missed skill checks unless you're paying close attention.
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I personally love it. I'm a pretty new killer but it really helps when I lose someone mid-chase. An aura read would be nice too. I think it should have a longer range honestly to compensate for the very circumstantial activation.
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Nothing really, it was ok when they tweaked it a few months ago but they quickly nerfed it back to hell. Don't waste a perk spot, unless you're doing a bit with scarecrow outfit Wraith or Hillbilly
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I've never used it, but a name like 'spies from the shadows' makes it sound like a really good perk at first impression.
With a name like that, the perk could have so much potential.
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Some maps don't have a lot of crows and there will be a lot of games where it doesn't activate once, it only really works well on small maps but small maps are already good for killer
It could use some aura reading and more crows in maps
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It's amazingly bad and is sadly often the first perk in my prestige bloodwebs, it's not as useless as mindbreaker or cruel confinement but it's very very close. If the crows were better than maybe
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You basically have to be close enough to see the crow fly away anyways for it to activate and it has a long cooldown each time.
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When they announced the Redeemer would set off crows, I thought Spies would work with Deathslinger and actually be useful.. sort of like a more narrow Static Blast
nope.. Spies doesn't proc even though redeemer shots make them scatter
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Its almost like its kinda cheap this game has like 3 sound files it uses over and over again...
Maybe add something custom for some of these notifications, like for spies and discordance.
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Maybe make totem touch notifications a wind as the entity warns of a totem being touched
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