The Doorman's Ultimate Improvements

BoschyBee

New member
I'm so sick of The Doorman ultimate. It feels like actual punishment for the mistake of queuing into the same lobby as The Doorman. There doesn't seem to be any real counter-play and in several circumstances you might as well just walk away from the game and go grab water. Even if you bother to try escaping the Baroness, he's had prep time and you are dead.

My hot take is that I don't think the ultimate itself if the problem. Vyper/Maurice and Krill both lock a player into a similar scenario. Even Dynamo, Holliday, and Paradox's result in a similar game state where the player is briefly locked down. You can argue that these kinds of ultimate's are unfun to play against, but at the very least none of them feel even remotely as bad as Doorman's ultimate.

Doorman's version of this seems like it is just a significantly better version of Vyper/Mo and Krill without any of the real drawbacks.
Pros:
- You get the benefits of not being locked in place like Combo
- You get the easier targeting of Combo instead of the semi-skillshot of Bola.
- The ultimate cannot be interrupted unless you kill doorman, who just so happens to have a literal teleport
- Free Damage if you caught a target without stamina.
- It's single target, so unlike bola it can't accidentally help the enemy. (E.g. Accidentally Bolaing into ally Dynamo Ult)
- You get a loud ass cue when they are about to be vulnerable again

Cons:
- Target is invulnerable while in the Baroness.
- You need to setup for a kill when they leave the Baroness. (AKA get spirit nuked with bells and maybe a cart stun bozo)


Ideas for Improvements/Fixes.
Remove/Reduce the Unlocking Sounds/Effects:
This puts the onus on Doorman to actually be ready to trigger the trap when you escape. Removing it would again give the player a slight bit of hope they aren't going to be insta-killed regardless of if they do the parkour minigame or not. Targets get the benefit of potentially escape quickly enough to trip up Doorman and slip through their grasp. However, this retains the lethality of the ultimate as long as doorman can trigger their trap in time. Likewise, you could also use the anticipation from right before you are returned to quickly tell the situation without immediately having focus drawn to you at the same time.

Honestly, I don't think you need lore reason for this one.


Add more Minigames:
If we have to play a stupid minigame every single time, at least give us different hotel themed minigames to make it more interesting. Having to do that same god damn minigame is so tedious and uninteresting. Having a few different ones would at least remove the tedium of being forcefully pulled out of the game to play the same god damn parkour minigame over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

If you need a lore reason its because the baroness is under renovation so you're dealing with that fact.





Other Ideas That might not be as good, but could probably work
Allow us to intentionally Bail out from the minigame:

Add a button or another elevator behind us at the start that does something like 2x damage and maybe a debuff idk. If the ability to cancel the ability is already being given to the target instead of doorman, why not give the target more control. If you can tank it or just want to get it over with you can hit the button to skip the minigame. That way falling can still reset a player, but the option to bail is still there.

If you need a lore reason it's what happens when you try to check out early or don't show up for your stay at the Baroness. You still have to pay your reservation fee or something.

Escape Directions:
If our reward for bothering to try to escape is "less damage" before we get insta-killed, honestly why even bother. Instead I think having two doors that determine your momentum would make it at least worth the effort to escape instead of just waiting for the torture to end. That way you actually feel like there is some hope of escaping? Having a door to shoot you upward or forward would at least give the player some semblance of control and to actual reward them from escaping. Or you could have there be multiple escape routes corresponding with directions. Going left shoots you out to your left, going forward shoots you out forward, etc.


If you need a lore reason it's because the baroness values it's guests or something so it's being courteous and giving you a small advantage when successfully leaving.

Small Invulnerability / Resist:
Again just getting back to the idea of like, making playing minigame feel remotely worthwhile. You should still be able to kill off the ultimate, but if a player escaped the baroness can they please have like any leg up in escaping Jerma's meat grinder waiting for them?


If you need a lore reason again it's because the baroness values it's guests or something so it's being courteous and giving you a small advantage when successfully leaving.
 
Add more Minigames:
If we have to play a stupid minigame every single time, at least give us different hotel themed minigames to make it more interesting. Having to do that same god damn minigame is so tedious and uninteresting. Having a few different ones would at least remove the tedium of being forcefully pulled out of the game to play the same god damn parkour minigame over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

If you need a lore reason its because the baroness is under renovation so you're dealing with that fact.
.........This makes the dev's work harder than it needs to be. Theyre already designing one game, and you want them to design multiple other mini-games....just for one hero? Its a little unreasonable and overtuned.

Other Ideas That might not be as good, but could probably work
Allow us to intentionally Bail out from the minigame:

Add a button or another elevator behind us at the start that does something like 2x damage and maybe a debuff idk. If the ability to cancel the ability is already being given to the target instead of doorman, why not give the target more control. If you can tank it or just want to get it over with you can hit the button to skip the minigame. That way falling can still reset a player, but the option to bail is still there.

If you need a lore reason it's what happens when you try to check out early or don't show up for your stay at the Baroness. You still have to pay your reservation fee or something.
Theyve already tried something like this and it just rendered the ult inoperable against tanks. Ults are supposed to have a high impact. Thats what makes them ults. Its also why the cooldown are super long.

That way you actually feel like there is some hope of escaping? Having a door to shoot you upward or forward would at least give the player some semblance of control and to actual reward them from escaping.
Its not supposed to be rewarding. Its supposed to be a punishment. Its worth mentioning that Doorman has to actually walk up to you in order to use the ult. You dont watch ur spacing, then the Doorman gets to ult you
 
.........This makes the dev's work harder than it needs to be. Theyre already designing one game, and you want them to design multiple other mini-games....just for one hero? Its a little unreasonable and overtuned.
I somewhat agree, because this would obviously be more work, which is why I still think the first option is the best or at least more realistic. That being said I don't actually think it would be that much extra work. The current way the Baroness seems to work is it just teleports the player to a spot hidden below the map. You can actually see it if you noclip in the hub because I imagine that that area always needs to be loaded for Doorman to work.

I'm not asking for extremely complex variations or additions, but just any. The only system addition I think would need to be made to how the current logic of the Ultimate works is alternative cleared condition triggers.

Some examples that come to mind:
- A few different Parkour challenges. (can still be static this doesn't need to be like randomly generated)
- "Clear the riff raff" where you have to quick kill a few troopers to escape.
- Slide Challenge where you have to slide down the correct path
- "Courtesy Call" where you have to quickly hit targets
- A downward version where you have to fall and avoid hitting things
- Etc.

While in abstract those seem like way more work, again there really is only a few new things to be added. Namely accounting for targets as a trigger for escape instead of the volume at the end elevator

Theyve already tried something like this and it just rendered the ult inoperable against tanks. Ults are supposed to have a high impact. Thats what makes them ults. Its also why the cooldown are super long.
Vyper Bola: 90s - 65s (T2)
Mo Combo: 90s
Doorman: 120s - 70s (T5)

Assuming you have no cooldown reduction. Other ultimates about catching you with bad spacing:
Geist: 185s - 150s (T1)
Dynamo: 230s
Paradox: 75s - 60s (T1)

Semi-Spacing reliant ults:
Shiv: 105s
Victor: 190s
Lash: 155s - 130s
Kelvin: 170s - 125s

That seems like a pretty low cooldown to me. Although again your point is valid about tanking the damage, I do remember that being an issue. I think it could have been balanced in such a way where maybe it does percentage health or something. I'm not convinced it is a great solution either though.

Its not supposed to be rewarding. Its supposed to be a punishment. Its worth mentioning that Doorman has to actually walk up to you in order to use the ult. You dont watch ur spacing, then the Doorman gets to ult you
True, ultimates aren't supposed to reward you for getting hit by it. Like I said I don't think the ultimate itself is the problem, or even ultimates of this style are that bad. However, no other ultimates also make force you to literally go play a minigame.

Doorman forcefully taking someone out of a fight is a reward, eliminating/obfuscating the information the target has is a reward (see drifter ult), and the trap you can activate for when the target escapes is a reward. I really really like the ultimate conceptual. However, with how much it already rewards the player for casting it, how relatively low its cooldown is, and how much it asks of the target in a way that often is not worth bothering and not seen in other ultimates, I think giving the target a slight chance at escape would make it not feel as annoyingly oppressive as it currently does.
 
u can counterspell his ult btw just so u know
 
The only system addition I think would need to be made to how the current logic of the Ultimate works is alternative cleared condition triggers.

Some examples that come to mind:
- A few different Parkour challenges. (can still be static this doesn't need to be like randomly generated)
- "Clear the riff raff" where you have to quick kill a few troopers to escape.
- Slide Challenge where you have to slide down the correct path
- "Courtesy Call" where you have to quickly hit targets
- A downward version where you have to fall and avoid hitting things
- Etc.
.......That looks an awful lot like extra work. Youre not talking about adding mechanics into the game. Youre talking about adding mechanics to a single hero ability. Individually, some of these are interesting. But altogether: no. It adds too much noise to his kit.

While in abstract those seem like way more work, again there really is only a few new things to be added. Namely accounting for targets as a trigger for escape instead of the volume at the end elevator
With this ur just replicating the initial issue, just replacing tanks with dps. A hero with a high dps can escape very easily and effectively rendering the ult useless, which is a balancing problem going the other way.
Doorman's ult being a movement challenge makes sense. Even if you have an advantage, you have to account for all your movement tricks/options for after you escape the hotel. So there are layers of decision-making with how you want to escape the hotel.

Vyper Bola: 90s - 65s (T2)
Mo Combo: 90s
Doorman: 120s - 70s (T5)

Assuming you have no cooldown reduction. Other ultimates about catching you with bad spacing:
Geist: 185s - 150s (T1)
Dynamo: 230s
Paradox: 75s - 60s (T1)

Semi-Spacing reliant ults:
Shiv: 105s
Victor: 190s
Lash: 155s - 130s
Kelvin: 170s - 125s

That seems like a pretty low cooldown to me.
120s is not a short cooldown. 70s is a T5, thats maxing it out. But thats neither here nor there, because these abilities need to be assessed in context with how the ability works with the rest of the kit.
For example: Vyper's ult has a low cooldown, but its also a skillshot ie an ult she can miss.
Then you have Geist, whose ult has similar range to Doorman's but her whole kit is just pure spirit damage. Her ult just does more of what her other abilities do.
Then you have Dynamo. Longer cooldown, but his ult catches more people. Same as Lash
 
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