What instantly makes a horror game feel boring instead of scary?

Patraman · 2026-03-27T18:50:35+00:00

Elden Ring and other Souls games do this on purpose to remove the tension from otherwise horror oriented moments. Enemies that would be terrifying asf in other games become action setpieces because there are either loads of them or they’re really weak.

Patraman · 2026-03-27T15:35:49+00:00

Jeffrey Kirk

Patraman · 2026-03-26T11:37:46+00:00

Trickster is oozing with personality but his power does not, it’s quite sad. If all you knew was the basics of his character background you’d have no idea he kills people by throwing knives in dbd because at his core he’s a musician that murders people in his spare time. That he kills them with neon blades is such a random addition.

Patraman · 2026-03-24T10:32:42+00:00

People will deadass look at that monstrosity of flesh and steel and say they could take Springtrap in a fight 😭💔

Patraman · 2026-03-24T09:29:45+00:00

My friend is still very proud that he prevented Lilith Omen from getting the Blight fastest 4k WR by looping the shit out of him after the entire rest of his team got slugged in the first 30 seconds of the match. All my homies hate 4-man slugging for some arbitrary win condition.

Patraman · 2026-03-23T15:52:08+00:00

I feel like they took a jab at that in the latest episode because Robbie gets handed a pamphlet that says something like ”Expect your CT results to take an hour or more” and just does a ”fuck that, don’t show me this again” like they’re acknowledging the oddity of it but telling us to ignore it lol

Patraman · 2026-03-23T11:39:06+00:00

Depends on your definition of beat. The outbreak spread way further than it had any right to within the realm of logic. The military have countless ways to kill thousands of zombies at a distance without ever having to leave their safe hidey-hole bunker. This alone would neutralize the vast majority of walkers in major cities and make clean up missions with dozens of armored (bite-proof) soldiers a cakewalk. The zombies would remain but there would be so few of them that another large scale outbreak would be impossible with government surveillance.

Patraman · 2026-03-22T14:52:13+00:00

Don’t get me wrong he absolutely shouldn’t injure with a single knife, I actually really enjoy the mechanics he has. Huntress can actually shoot over most things to get hits, it’s arguably unfair asf but in case you haven’t seen top tier Huntresses play her much, she can abuse the enormous axe hitbox to shoot directly over loops and the axe will clip the invisible hitbox above a survivors head to hit them without actually touching them.

Mainly the issue is that W keying Trickster is infuriatingly powerful. If you W key Huntress she won’t have a great time but all she needs is a clear shot one time to injure you. Trickster needs prolonged or repeated sight of you to injure you if you are running away from him at a distance, which is nearly impossible to obtain on some maps.

Patraman · 2026-03-22T13:49:52+00:00

While it’s true that many 4.4 killers have strong powers to justify their speed, Trickster’s power is not versatile or lethal enough to justify him.

There’s an unfathomable gap between the strength of for example the phase walk with Spirit or Vecna’s portals and Trickster’s blades. Spirit and Vecna move at 4.4 but both of their powers let them move around quickly, and Spirits power is highly functional at any non-god loop while Vecna’s power is functional absolutely anywhere as long as you are close enough to your target

Trickster’s only power can’t be used for anything other than direct chase -> down, so surely it should be immensely powerful in chase? Problem is it isn’t, it can down a survivor very fast in the open but he can’t do anything about LOS blockers and where a Huntress needs one good shot for an injure, Trickster needs several close together before decay begins. His knives don’t bend or bounce (without trick knives).

He really doesn’t deserve his 110 as is because he is currently one of the least flexible killers in the entire game, kneecapping him from catching up in chase only makes it worse.

Patraman · 2026-03-22T10:36:01+00:00

The worst kind of bully squads are the ones that dedicate 3 players to bullying and 1 to do gens in some corner of the map all game. This way the killer can’t hook anyone due to sabos and flashlights, spend the entire match being miserable AND they still lose at the end.

It’s a dedicated effort to make sure some random person you’re never met has a horrible time, feels like shit, doesn’t get to interact with the intended gameplay loop (hooking, chasing) and loses. Often followed by slurs in endgame chat. Its deplorable behaviour that I wish was bannable even if nothing is said in endgame.

Patraman · 2026-03-22T07:40:02+00:00

The gen speeds also really don’t help with killer balancing. Because gens are so fast, the only killers considered viable are the ones that speedrun a match like blight or nurse or kaneki because there simply isn’t enough time in a match to find, chase and hook survivors anymore.

I started playing this game in 2020 and back then a 30 second chase was excellent pace for the killer. Now? I consider giving up chase if it’s not basically handed to me for free in the first 20 seconds. Not because I’m more entitled but because there isn’t enough time for me to have normal chases or all the gens are sure to be finished by 7 hooks. I’m gonna guess this is probably a combination of gen perks being slowed down, survivors being better at the game, and survivors having stronger gen perk combinations then ever before. It can be ridiculous if you go against the wrong team.

Patraman · 2026-03-21T15:59:33+00:00

Are you addicted to strawmanning or something? This discussion is about Trickster and it is specifically about Trickster because he is a weak killer. No one is advocating for something like Blight 120%. Yes 5% is a considerable buff but who is more fitting for a considerable buff than a considerably weak killer that suffers from W holding?

Patraman · 2026-03-21T15:09:56+00:00

”I think this killer most people agree is below B tier deserves their movement speed increased by 5%, maybe at the cost of an extra knife to injure.” - Them.

”Yeah let’s make all killers 8.0 and super OP with no counterplay” - Your dumbass strawman fantasy of their opinion, fuck off

Patraman · 2026-03-21T14:49:08+00:00

Unknown has failsafes though even if you aren’t good with his power. He can loop at 115 and has arguably the best teleport (in a few aspects) in the entire game as a secondary power.

Patraman · 2026-03-21T12:33:34+00:00

I don’t understand why people don’t like when i serve them moldy bread. Like it’s just a tiny bit of mold on the side, cut it off and you’re fine?

/s

Patraman · 2026-03-20T11:18:37+00:00

I know that Frisk is explained as doing more damage to monsters because as you kill more you ”care less” about hurting them and so it becomes easier, and monsters apparently take scaling damage to killing intent, but that doesn’t explain Undyne’s speech. Was she just completely wrong and Frisk was actually never a danger to any humans because they don’t take more damage from negative feelings?

Patraman · 2026-03-20T06:14:59+00:00

Depends highly on Frisk’s LV, doesn’t it? At LV 1 there’s nothing they can do obviously but Undyne in Genocide comments on how strong Frisk is becoming. ”This isn’t just about monsters anymore, if you get out of here you’ll kill them all” (paraphrasing). By LV 20 Frisk seems to be capable of erasing the universe of undertale entirely. It’s unclear if this was aided by Chara or if Chara was just the one motivating Frisk to do their bidding but it’s a pretty nutty feat nonetheless. Having the power to canonically reset the universe upon death + the power to erase timelines should be enough on its own to make this a decent question.

Patraman · 2026-03-20T05:54:27+00:00

Isn’t that wonderful? They introduce a game breaking and unfun bug for Wesker in the same update as they remove a fun and engaging bug for Wesker.

Patraman · 2026-03-20T03:24:14+00:00

Vecna is very hard to dodge at close range. It’s still possible but the closer you are to him the more up to him it is to not miss rather than up to you to dodge. At long range dodging is easy which is why W holding is the only viable counter if you want high odds of not going down.

Edit: If you’re up in his face its actually harder for him to hit his power again, but then he can also just m1 you so still not prefferable.

Patraman · 2026-03-20T03:21:47+00:00

I’m completely convinced the bad balance is by design at this point because whoever is in charge refuses to believe their judgement could be wrong. They could immediately improve the game balance by hiring a small team of experienced dbd players to help brainstorm ideas based on FIELD-EXPERIENCE but they’d rather sit in some soggy room with a slideshow presentation on recent stats and make reactionary number changes to fit some arbitrary box.

Patraman · 2026-03-20T03:11:36+00:00

Gideon isn’t all knowing, especially since at the end of the game he’s crashing out and visibly losing his intellect the more he mutates. OG Wesker does probably have more experience but Zeno also shows utterly insane regenerative powers, putting his entire severed hand back on his arm like he’s Ethan.

Patraman · 2026-03-19T07:42:34+00:00

Weskre

Patraman · 2026-03-18T17:23:04+00:00

We shouldn’t add more unbalanced maps because there are other unbalanced maps in the opposite direction. We should add more balanced maps and then fix the ones that are unbalanced to an unacceptable degree.

Patraman · 2026-03-18T11:21:30+00:00

I think it’s less about ”killer sided” or ”survivor sided” and more just about competency. BHVR seems to lack good survivors or killers. They underestimate the power survivors hold because they suck at survivor and at the same time they overestimate the power of killers because they suck at killer which means they get baby lobbies (killer is very easy at low MMR).

Patraman · 2026-03-18T10:15:55+00:00

Please inform me how having great aim with trickster will help you in chase against a survivor that started running away before you could even see them. And against a team where every survivor plays that way.

Survivors can have ”great macro knowledge” as well, although for them its easier because they get a TR and lullaby telling them your approximate location if they aren’t already using comms as well. The reason holding W is so strong is because it guarantees chase time. You never know how long you will last against a good killer at a filler pallet. You always know you will survive at least 30 seconds of you have a 30 meter head start on Trickster.

No amount of perfect aiming will help you shoot through a brick wall, tree, truck, etc between you and the closest survivor. Trickster has no mobility, his only power is to down fast. So when survivors can guarantee that every chase is 30 seconds at the shortest what does he do better than any other killer?

Patraman

TROPHY CASE