Responsibility for tunnelling
Question: who is responsible for the vast amount of tunnelling in the game? Read on before you answer.
1. Yes, it is a viable strategy as a killer when you're about to lose the game to wrestle back control.
2. A solo survivor going about their business is the first to be found. They are then completely tunnelled out of the game at 4/5 gens. They rejoin the queue, and depending on the time of day, the whole process before getting into their next game may take 30 minutes. There is a lack of value there & it is not a fun experience.
3. A solid SWF team are running circles around a mid to low experienced killer, there may be some toxicity in actions or communication. The killer then feels the only way they can win a match in future is by tunnelling someone out early and therefore that is their tactic in every match.
Needless to say, this is NOT every killer and never has been. In my experience (3 years in the game), the frequency of unnecessary tunnelling is the highest it has ever been - today 10 out of the 12 killers matched with employed hard tunnelling. Yesterday, not quite as high but definitely estimated to have occured more than 70% of matches. On a good day it's around 50%.
There then becomes a problem where the majority of killers hard tunnell from the start & most matches become boring/frustrating to the point where that player loses interest, finding another game to play instead. Do we want to lose game time and buy-in from existing players from this increased play style? Do we want new survivors scared off by this when they first start playing the game?
I want a balanced game where both killer and survivor enjoy the game. I don't want the game to haemorrhage quality streamers and players because they find the game boring & one dimensional. This is happening whether you care to admit it or not.
If that means slowing down gen repair speeds, do it. If that means buffing some killers in certain powers, do it. Get rid of Prove Thyself, do it.
To answer my own question from the top. We are all responsible to a certain extent for tunnelling. However, BHVR are ultimately responsible for promoting their game to be played in a way which generates maximum players (and spending), non-toxic behaviour & a fun product to play. They need to find a way to do so as once players start jumping, it is a slow sinking ship - they have started jumping.
Comments
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I blame the survivors for not attempting to stop it, you have 6 free health states at your disposal as a team, and you blame me that you didn't use them? Seems rather illogical. But I never went to survivor school to get my degree in survivornese. I might be missing something obvious as an uneducated country folk.
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It's circumstancial, nobody is to "blame"
A killers actions is their responsiblity but a lot of killer tactics or strats aren't always proactive, some of them are reactive and tunnelling can be both. You can proactively go out of your way to try and get one person out of the game asap to secure an advantage or you can reactively start tunnelling someone when you're trying to recover from a losing game.
Also as @ThiccBudhha Survivors do also have things they can do to help, taking hits for teammates is a very powerful thing and can def make or break a match. If survivors are splitting up super effectively on a big map, the killer may have to stick with what they got and try to recover so it's on you to get involved and try to help (If you care that is, the game doesn't necessarily consider altruism skillful)
In the same vein as survivors being able to crack out gens super quick because the killer is unable to win chases quick enough, that's not the survivors fault necessarily.
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I would love if the game promoted spreading out hooks by rewarding the killer by, I don't know, not throwing the game while doing so? We recently got the new change with DMS and people pairing it with Pain Resonance, and imo it's such a nice change. It incentivizes spreading out hooks, while rewarding you by giving you more time to do more chases. It's such an amazing change, and it's a shame people want DMS nerfed. It honestly gave much more fun gameplay, compared to without it and killers usually resorting to camping and tunneling to create pressure.
It's not that powerful if you think about it, since it blocks gens from regressing, but it's so satisfying to be rewarded for spreading out hooks. It's why I love perks like BBQ and No Way Out, and to a certain extent, Grim Embrace, although the reward you get from Grim isn't that good. The thing is we should start moving on from perks and start making something to reward the killer by spreading out hooks and not camping in the base game. No, I don't mean bloodpoints, I mean something that would give killers an advantage to make them go out of their way not to tunnel and to spread hooks. That's where the difficult part is, and I'm wondering what a good idea would be.
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Taking hits for team mates is very powerful. Hence why point number 2 of a solo queue survivor experience. They rarely get that team mate support & don't have comms. I dare to say a large portion of the players who come to DbD start off as a solo...which is exactly my point in their experience being hard tunnelled at 5 gens. Not many will stick around.
It's an entirely different mode & experience for SWF. BHVR still haven't realised they need a ranked SWF and unranked solo queue - tweak the rule sets between the two (i.e. longer gen repair times for SWF).
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I'm cautiously optimistic about the upcoming solo Q changes from BHVR, it'll be a small step in the right direction - first of many hopefully.
SBMM is showcasing the diff between solo and premades in the data I'd imagine, if they're willing to share info on stuff about solo q with us. You know BHVR, always about their stats
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