Whispers and Hooked Survivors
They should change Whispers, so that it isn't active when the nearby survivor is on a hook. It's a slight buff that would also be kind of encouraging Killers using it not to camp the hook.
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I feel like this change would cause more camping rather than encourage killers to not camp. If it's still active after the killer hooks someone then they would most likely end up looking for the nearby survivor rather than leaving the hook.
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In order to cut camping more killers should have a range limit when nearby a hooked survivor like how The Artist has, for example: Bubba's chainsaw is disabled when X amount of meters away from a hooked survivor. Making killers bleed bloodpoints if they stand too close to a hooked survivor frankly isn't gonna do anything if the killer is mad enough at the survivor because in the long run they can just play another game with BBQ and got those bloodpoints back tenfold. But they should definitely crack down hard on camping because it's the most scummy 'strategy' in the game currently and wins nothing for both sides because the other survivors just end up rushing gens and escaping while they have the chance. In order to prove this I played Insidious Basement Bubba for a dozen games and in every one of them the survivors instantly learned what I was doing and rushed gens, or all of them just disconnected. Also while doing this experiment it seriously made me question why people do this because those matches were genuinely the most boring I've had playing Dead by Daylight, just sitting there watching a hooked person while the generator complete noise goes off every 30 seconds was about as much fun as watching paint dry.
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This would absolutely encourage camping rather than a lack of it, because anytime you hook someone and hte icon is active you know its time to pitch your tent and wait until it turns off because as long as it is on you have absolutely 0 reason to leave.
Rather than eliminating or reducing camping it just optimizes it. Sure if the perk isn't on the killer wont ever camp because that would be stupid, but it isn't super rare for a survivor to be hanging around and hiding nearby waiting for you to leave before they get an unhook, but non optimal camping isn't the kind of thing that needs to be gotten rid of, it already doesn't work, if you camp when no survivors are nearby, you're just throwing.
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Yeah, as already stated above it would do the opposite of discouraging camping. There’s good reason it includes hooked survivors. Lit up or not, it would be used to simply proxy the area to determine when a survivor is attempting to rescue. So it’s a no from me on this change.
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But camping is legitimate strategy. The devs said it themselves.
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Yet they haven't added anything to encourage camping? You even get bloodpoints for pre-dropping and such in a way because of the "pallet drop" sub-category, even if they said this they clearly still recognize it's a scummy thing to do as they've added two perks which are designed to counter camping and tunneling in Borrowed Time and Decisive Strike, the closest thing they've ever added to encourage camping was old Dying Light and that was beat into the dirt very quickly and changed to what it is now. In my opinion, if a game actively dissuades you from doing a strategy it isn't a legitimate strategy in a competitive scenario
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That's what Killers do anyways because it's one of the few perks that considers a hoooked survivor as a nearby survivor, when most perks don't.
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Just because the devs said it's a valid strategy doesn't mean that they should be trying to incentivize it. I'm like 99% sure that when they said that they also brought up how it really sucks for the person that does get camped since they essentially just die and that they were going to try to make it better for the person who gets camped (which obviously hasn't happened). There's no reason for there to be anything that could incentivize camping when just about everyone dislikes the playstyle.
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The difference would be that the killer taking a huge risk if they decide to camp just because whispers is active right after they hook. They don't know if the only person in the radius is the hooked person or if there are other players. They're essentially camping with no information on where anyone is.
With the change to Whispers that you proposed the killer could be 100% sure that no one is nearby or that someone is nearby and promptly leave to patrol gens or start looking for the person near the hook.
The only place camping rates might decrease would be at low MMR where the killer might not know that Whispers activates for hooked people as well.
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You havn't convinced me. Knowledge is power, and I believe that if the Killer knew there was not survivors around the hook, they would be more likely to leave the hook.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
It seems that there is a large Whispers loyalty subgroup in the community, which is interesting - because I never seem to find the perk used in game.
I don't want to take loyal users away from the perk, but it seems like there are those that are worried that it may host some unintended side effects - which I believe we both may disagree with.
I once suggested this change:
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Hear dark whispers when a survivor is within a radius of 40/36/32 meters.
While in this radius, survivors hear a very light echo of this perk.
This perk is not activated by hooked or dying survivors.
During chase and for 5 seconds after, You do not hear the whispers, but survivors in chase hear whispers at increased volume.
Description: “The voice of The Entity surrounds you and fills the air with incomprehensible dread”
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Whispers is a niche information perk that can be used well by veterans, but has a few pitfalls. It has a tendency to net false positives. By limiting what triggers it, it instantly becomes more useful. It is immediately viable at determining if there are nearby survivors after a chase or hook. And, in chase, it is no longer an additional layer of audio that the killer has to push through - and that extra level of auditory blockage is passed to the Survivor, which can also make chases more frightening. By adding an audio dynamic as well as two exclusions, Whispers is suddenly a contender for top tier information and can be utilized in almost any build.
Needless to say, however, it was not very well received. Many members of the community expressed concern that Whispers in this form loses its edge as a slug detector - but also can, in certain circumstances, promote camping.
These fringe theories about camping promotions are tragically misguided, especially when higher levels of play are involved. On the contrary - it can quickly and easily keep killers from staying at a hook they suspect may be in danger should they witness Whispers deactivate. In addition, the range is generous enough that the perk's activation does not give a definitive idea of a nearby survivor's location - meaning the best way to triangulate them would be to walk away from the hook some distance. As a counterpoint as well, if a killer sees Whispers activate and chooses to camp the hook - either the team is doing something useful in the vicinity that the killer is ignoring (such as a generator) or the nearby survivors can hear the dark voices and deduce the perk's employment - leaving the hook and causing Whispers to deactivate, making killers walk away from the hook shortly after.
To add injury to insult, the truth of the matter is that campers camp - they simply do not need a logical reason to do so.
If campers choose to take this information perk instead of other camping favorites, it will quickly turn into a counter to their playstyle. Not only will they be encouraged to leave the hook when nobody is near, but survivors rushing to the hook can hear this perk and deduce that the killer is camping and leave the hook to complete objectives. A camper taking Whispers is like giving the hooked survivor a gentle Kindred and serves little purpose other than to annoy their ears as they stand idly by... or tell them what they already know: that they are wasting their time camping.
The idea of removing hooked survivors from the radius causing camping rather than mitigating it is an interesting debate with good points on both side.
There is no definitive "Yes this will generate more campers" or "No this will discourage camping if anything" conclusion.
Needless to say, though, the players who have concerns about such a change have valid concerns, but it does not mean that their concerns would be realized should the change go though.
I believe the following change should be considered at bare minimum to aid in our mutual concerns - without putting a bitter taste onto the tongues of those who love it the way that it is:
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Hear Dark Whispers when a survivor is within a radius of 40/36/32 meters.
This audio is directional, and increases in volume and specificity based on distance.
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This version is a very soft change, removing the survivor’s ability to hear the perk while it senses them - and provides superior tracking ability to help killers find survivors much faster. It makes knowing the location of survivors much more accurate in 1v1 situations, but can get overwhelmed with groups, especially when they are spread out.
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If camping is that bad, why isn't everyone running Kindred and Camaraderie?
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Kindred is pretty popular in solo queue, but Camaraderie is very bad. The issue is that survivors can’t run many perks outside the meta if they want to guarantee having a somewhat decent match.
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People also aren't experienced enough to know that Camaraderie is in effect. If you see the survivor's struggle bar stop, you know it's in effect. But hardly anyone uses it for some reason, so they're never looking for it.
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“For some reason”.. hmm, I wonder why. (No, I don’t.)
- Only works during the struggle phase
- Doesn’t tell other survivors its in play at any point
- Still requires another survivor to come near the hook, basically offsetting the extra struggle duration gained (at least without coordination on comms.. ironic, given the perk icon and background, haha)
- And at the end of the day, really doesn’t guarantee you’ll still be rescued or make a lasting impact on the trial (depending on the killer and your teammates)
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It still has potential imo, at least in swf. I'm all for buffing it as well.
We could try giving the perk notification to the survivor who procks the Camaraderie, so at least they would know.
The crazier buff I had in mind though is making it work for both hook states, not just the second one. If it comes down to it, that could be the solution perk for camping, just as DS and BT are the solution perks for tunneling. It wouldn't stop camping, but it would severely punish it if survivors used the perk. And since they'd actually have to equip the perk to use it, the killer knows they can only have 3 chase/other meta perks max, which gives them an incentive to go for chases, coupled with Camaraderie not allowing them to effectively camp anyway.
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It certainly wouldn’t hurt its better potential for use if it worked on both hook states and told other survivors it is in play. My idea is that it would be on a pausable timer like Lucky Break (60 seconds sounds good too!). And it could have an unlit blue teammate icon when hooked (like Prove Thyself) so teammates know someone has to go proc it.
Anyhow, sorry but we have gone off the topic of the post here. 😅
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What do you think the killer would do if the perk doesn't deactivate after hooking the survivor? Sure, they would be much less likely to camp if it isn't active after the hook but the killer would be much more likely to camp if Whispers is active after the hook.
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the devs are even helping to improve the killer experience, but doing it wrong and making SoloQ's situation worse as well as the overall satisfaction of the survivors
The latest changes, adding this buff with the new hemorrhage meta, will encourage ways to play that are unhealthy for the game, especially with A+ and S killers that are already powerful enough.
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I don't see what you mean, if a survivor is that close then it is in their best interest to stay near the hook and look for the survivor. I don't see that encouraging more camping, it's encouraging to stay near the hook when it is necessary to do so.
Literally this buff encourages the Killer to play more appropriate to their role.
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