Why is Skull Merchant still not altered?
Let me take you back to 2019. People are getting banned for making 3-gens practically impossible by using Ruin, Distressing, Thanatophobia(which also slowed down healing back then) and Sloppy Butcher, while playing Doctor.
The reason for their bans were due to basically holding the game hostage even though it was theoretically possible to finish the final generator within 1 hour. It was difficult and required getting rid of Ruin at all costs, but it was possible. I did this in customs with competitive friends of mine, and while we knew we would be able to coordinate to finish gens within 1 hour, we all would DC the moment we saw any Doctor force a 3-gen with Ruin.
Now, we have Skull Merchant being able to do the exact same thing that Doctor was able to do, and in fact, its even worse. Because generators back then were only 80 seconds, healing was much faster and toolboxes were also twice as strong.
So really, why is Skull Merchant still not altered? she's been out for longer than 3 months and hasnt recieved the revisitation that every killer and perk would recieve. People in the past had to sit out a ban for exploiting for doing something that was equally annoying. People excuse it as in-game mechanics, but so did people back in 2019.
I am not saying that people who play Slow Merchant should be banned (altho, forcing players to basically not play for longer than 45 minutes without ending the match on purpose makes me want to side with banning), but Skull Merchant should be disabled untill she's recieved a mini-rework that fixes her.
I am aware that devs are trying to figure out a generic fix on 3-gens, but depending on the map and spawn RNG, SM is capable of holding 5 generators consistently. The only way to fix 3-gens in a way that affects SM is to unlock an already finished gen every 5 minutes that no gens have been completed, and that would absolutely break the game on any other killer that is not Skull Merchant. So please, fix SM first.
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i think your more describing forever freddy where people would bring swing chains, jump rope and pop+ruin+sloppy+thano to endless 3 gen the game. I think doctor's version was running distressing, hex:ruin, overcharge and unnerving presence. doctor had these add-on called order add-on that made his static charge build madness over time. the way it worked was that the closer you were in heartbeat, the more madness would build-up and order add-on increased the amount of static charge build-up. the result was that you could never cleanse ruin because the survivor would constantly go into tier 3 interrupt the totem cleanse. all you could do is work on gens that would constantly be affected by old hex:ruin skill-checks on top of the madness making skill-check harder and an unlimited source of overcharge skill-checks since doctor would just spend time in treatment mode walking around kicking gens 24/7 until server closes.
skull merchant is new old hostage doctor with shotgun speakers and that other grey add-on to regress gens.
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She cant hold 5 gens unless they somehow all stacked right next to each other, I can break one of those 5 gens in solo Q.
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Back in 2019, there was no limit to how long a game could be extended. I don't believe dedicated servers were even officially released at that point either.
A doctor back in 2019 could hold the game forever whereas a Skull Merchant game ends in an hour.
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People still didn't learn what holding the game hostage means?
You have option to give up at any point.
She doesn't want to kill you? Then ignore drones and work on gens. That will make her either kill you, or you escape...
Just make it free to DC after 20 minutes and you keep your current BP. That will fix hiding survivors too and everyone is happy....
Also make it if game has only bots left, then game ends.
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The 3 gen situation as a whole is being looked into, we are also going to revisit Skull Merchant, she has had some updates but we do want to address the 3 gen potential. Unfortunately neither of these things are quick fixes and with limited time and bandwidth it's not something that can be rushed out. However, we have not forgotten about these two things and they are actually being worked on.
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I know there wasn't any ETA for the change to 3 genning and Skull Merchant's update during the most recent AMA, however since 1 month has passed, is there any date or rough estimation for the release period that can be offered at this point in time?
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The 3 gen problem has two parts to it, and both need to be addressed at the same time.
1) Killers that are just patrolling and kicking generators, and refusing to commit to a chase with a survivor, is a major problem.
2) Survivors that are excessively pre-leaving generators before the killer arrives, and refusing to commit to repairing generators, is a major problem.
Any 3 gen fix that addresses problem 1, without addressing problem 2, will just encourage survivors to get easy wins by excessively pre leaving generators. For example, if BHVR just forces a generator to be super far away, then survivors can excessively pre leave generators, and easily win, because the travel time between generators is too long for the killer to defend. If BHVR forces generator regression to have a limit, then survivors will excessively pre leave generators until the max generator regression happens, then they get their easy win.
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I'm aware of the problems behind 3 gen, i'm not sure why you're telling me about it when my comment was asking if anything has changed in terms of a release date since the last answer they gave to the 3 gen issue and Skull Merchant changes at the reddit AMA 1 month ago where they didn't give a release window at the time.
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If only "Gen Tapping" doesn't exist; I dislike the fact that 2.5 seconds of a killer's time to instant regress 2.5 charges of a generator repair and start thw regression, can be undone by a Survivor Tapping the gen repair button and leave it so it doesn't regress. It is also possible to fix a generator silently, by constantly Tapping the generator and cut off gen audible that way, when the killer is close and not focus on the generator while chasing another survivor.
If only, Survivor need to do a instant skill check, like Overcharge to undo a killer's regression. 3 gens is difficult, because of map rng and sometimes, survivor mistakes when they get herded to go fixing Generators in the "safer parts of the map" and less focus on the gens that need priority.
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This is a core issue though, especially with killers who don't have much chase potential/mobility. Why would I commit to a chase as Trapper, for example, when I could sit around my already-trapped three-gen?
Early game needs some kind of integrated slowdown so weak killers don't feel like the game is over if they lose even one gen before their first chase or two ends.
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Why would any killer commit to a chase, when the survivors are never at the generators when the killer gets there? I know we were told the visual terror radius doesn't provide more information than the audio terror radius, but it really does feel like survivors are excessively pre-leaving generators way more often since the visual terror radius was added to the game.
The lullaby radius and terror radius have way too much distance, considering how super instant the survivors get warned by the visual terror radius.
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L take.
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If you need more bandwidth get Verizon Fios smh
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I'm watching one of my favorite streamers have an absolutely miserable time dealing with this exact strategy. I know you guys can't put in any significant changes right now but please destroy this strategy as soon as possible. It's horrible watching people that usually uplift the community have their soul drained by this abomination of a killer and the awful people that play her like this. Do whatever you have to.
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This is a great thing to know. If I can give some tips for early changes, as Skull Merchant main, I think this stuff can help at making the experience less miserable against her in the short time. Also some of the changes I thought for her in general and other stuff I thought about after I made this document.
- Skillcheck Add-Ons have to go: Shotgun Speaker and Adi Valente are not healthy and make that playstyle too rewarding (Eternal, the best team in the world, admitted that skillchecks were the hardest part to manage during that showcase of 52 minutes). A fast fix can be increasing the possibility of having more skillchecks under the drone and decreasing the great skillcheck area for Adi Valente. In the long time I would suggest avoiding stuff that has effects on skillchecks at all.
- Brown Noise Generator: Oblivious is active for XX seconds (30?) after that a Clawtrap is deactivated. I think that Skull Merchant stealth potential should be applied from a correct use of her power and that add-on is too obnoxious as it is in its current status in indoor maps.
Of my suggested changes, longer clawtraps and unhackable status being removed are the most important and can be applied sooner than later. Unhackable is what makes her more oppressive, considering the time survivors have to wait to deactivate a drone safely and how she can just remove and replace the drone to restore the unhackable, making it kinda infinite. Removing unhackable would make the clawtrap gaming more effective and forcing the killer at taking choices based on the infos she gets, while getting some chasing buffs.
I know it takes time for a deeper rework, but maybe these tips can work while we wait for the more important changes, making the experience against Skull Merchant less problematic. Thank you for your time and patience <3
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I went against 2 skull merchants this week 1 was a hex devour hope, penti undying type one it was quite a fun game with 2 escapes. Wasn't able to cleanse devour as they had drone on it but we did gens an 2 of us got out
the other game we had like a full on stealth one an my god i jumped haha They deserved the 4k after those jump scares an we messed up a fair bit
I don't mind this killer or any killer as long as i get killer variety.
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So do survivors...
Killer is really not as strong as his iri add-ons...
Survivors with 4x insta heal, or 4x BNP will demolish most killers.
But same as with killer. Survivors are not as strong as their best add-ons.
Trapper is one of weakest killers. Even with his best add-ons, it's not difficult to beat, if you don't let him hook in basement...
He got even weaker with vaulting buff.
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Just to state,... Most survivors are SoloQ... So they won't have 4x Insta Heals or 4x BNP... Even with that, the insta-heals (which I've never seen or used) are one-time use. Rare add-ons for Killers are constant/match long add-ons.
Killer add-ons will ALWAYS be way more OP than survivor add-ons.... unless they, for example, make survivor add-ons also last for the entire match.
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But it doesn't decide killer power level.
You don't have killers playing 50 games in a row with iridescent addon.
We can talk about yellow/brown, that's possible to use regularly.
His iridescent addons don't make him S tier killer. He is still bad. He is currently even worse than before because of survivor changes/perks.
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Hmmm, I do have a feeling that one thing will get address first while the other thing will be address on a later date.
Like, "Hey, were droping the 3 gen update but we're going to bring a rework to Skull Merchant in a future Mid-chapter patch (or vice versa."
Either way, I am looking forward to both changes regardless how long it takes <3.
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Killswitch her 3 gen addons then,please. They arent useful anywhere BUT 3 genning. Nobody will miss them.
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The whole killer is designed to 3gen, it's not like the add-ons play a major part in it
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Not true. Her addons substantially carry a lot of the experience. If you saw the world chess championship team Eternal (i believe) match a lot of the missed skillchecks happened purely due to addons. Hearing her come over also is harder due to the obli addon.
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You mean the skill check addons? What if I want to run an impossible skill check build? Acting like they are good for nothing but 3 genning is just completely wrong.
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These people have been waiting for months already. Instead of saying we are working on it, give us a way out when we encounter skull merchant. Playing against 3 gens skull merchant is hopeless and time wasting.
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Better than when they say some killers are where they want them to be (Myers, Trapper), or some perks are fine (MFT).
You know it will be changed at least...
BHVR fixes are slow and often fail anyway. You still didn't get used to it?
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C'mon, mistakes of past should not be repeated.
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You know, the funny thing is that for all the times I've ended up with a three gen as Killer, it isn't because I forced it: it's because the survivors did it to themselves and if I dare to take advantage of the mistake they made they moan about it in post-game chat about me having no skill.
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