Remove hook grabs for anti-camping
Looking through the developer update, I like the changes to make a weaker version of Guardian/BT basekit. There's still one issue though when it comes to facecamping. Killers can still just grab a person while they are unhooking and the person on the hook is stuck there.
As this patch is meant to address some of the more unsavory aspects of facecamping and generator speeds are being reduced, I think this will make some forms of facecamping with killers like Pinhead easier and more effective.
Pinhead can down a person and then just stand near the hook while his box provides a distraction to the survivors trying to complete generators. Along with just a small number of slowdown perks, like Deadlock, this can lead to a situation where Pinhead just facecamps without consequences. If someone tries to go for the save, he can play the "grab game" and grab the survivor trying to save the person on the hook which completely nullifies the changes in this patch.
Hook grabs are fun when they happen for the killer, but I think in the new meta we want to reduce the effectiveness of facecamping. Otz has mentioned numerous times on his stream that hook grabs should be removed and situations like the above should just end up with trades of who is on the hook. If hook grabs are removed, the new Guardian/BT stuff will not affect hook trades and it gives survivors more time to complete generators when playing against a facecamping killer.
None of the changes listed in the developer update address this form of facecamping which, while not the most effective strategy, still is effective and is, most importantly, just not fun.
Comments
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Nobody is really talking about easy unhook. If you unhook in the killer's face, you should go down and be put on the hook next.
The problems caused by hook grabbing and that it's so appealing when doing tactics like facecamping is a problem. And since this is apparently important, I say this as a person who plays primarily killer. It's just too easy to stand next to the survivor while they're trying to get the unhook and wait for them to either leave (where you go back to facecamping and they lost valuable time), for them to attempt the save and for you to wait it out to get the hook grab (making it a free down and successful camping), or forcing multiple survivors off generators to body block to get the save (which is successful in its own right and hard to coordinate in solo queue).
It's one of the most unsavory aspects in this game and requires little to no skill from the killer beyond patience, but with a large amount of payoff. With the nerfing of survivor second chance perks, the choices to prevent this are also fewer in a field that was already pretty small.
Again, nobody is talking about "free ez unhook". We're talking about facecamping the survivor on the hook. I agree the person doing the unhook should go down, but it should require some amount of skill from the killer to do this. In this update, they'll have less cooldown from the successful attack AND the survivor will get less distance AND dead hard will no longer give distance and invincibility. Most killers should be able to get that second hit after the unhook pretty easily and otherwise the survivors had to do some really good teamwork to prevent that and they SHOULD be rewarded for good teamwork such as good body blocking.
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Yeah I don't know why the hook grab is still a thing It's insane.
I'm genuinely so tired of the hook face off that happens when a killer is face camping.
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Is it? It's incredibly biased towards the killer's side and mostly relies on latency. Having a better internet connection is the skill involved and otherwise it's just a 50/50. I personally don't view it as a skill but a high risk game that is mostly lose/lose for the survivor. If you get the hook grab, then free down and you can go back to facecamping. If you don't, you still got a hit and can get an easy second hit.
This is my personal opinion, but I think the idea that killers need to "secure a kill" and that unhooking during EGC should be difficult to impossible is a detriment to the game. If you're at EGC and there's multiple survivors ready to go for the save, you already lost and you should just accept it. I think that's just survivors playing well and that should be encouraged. Given an MMR system that is just kills/escape based, I think you'll get more accurate numbers when survivors can meaningfully make plays to save their teammates that aren't downright stupid strategically.
At the current moment, if you've got 3 people safe and 1 on hook, the better move is always to just leave and let the killer have his pity kill. The only thing that causes survivors not to do that is they play with friends and want to get that 4-man out. Hook grabs can turn a situation that, in my opinion, is already a loss for the killer, and instead turn it into a "win" because the survivors have attachments to their friends from outside of the game and are willing to die in the video game to try and get their friend out.
Again, I straight up believe the killer has already lost in this scenario. I don't think camping to "secure a kill" should be a thing. I think that's unhealthy for the game and I think it encourages a negative feedback loop for MMR. The game will consider you to have "beaten" the player on the hook who may have run you for 5 gens, but you then just facecamp and your team all leaves you so they can get their ez out.
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You say that, but you also shouldn't have a free ez kill if you're just standing in front of a hook.
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It's not a free easy scenario for you and many killers can still facecamp incredibly well with their powers! The survivor doing the unhook still gets punished and will go down almost immediately! And they nerfed the survivor perks that prevent that! The only thing you could really do was to take a hit, use the weapon cooldown to unhook, then dead hard away immediately.
But, in this update, we'll have the following:
Next, we’ve reduced the cooldown for successful basic attacks by 10% (now 2.7 seconds, previously 3 seconds) and reduced the duration of the Survivor’s speed boost upon being hit by 10% (now 1.8 seconds, was 2 seconds).
We also have:
There are two main ways Dead Hard is used: To dodge a hit and for distance (to get to a nearby pallet or window). In the latter case, there’s not much a Killer can do. Therefore, Dead Hard will now provide the Endurance effect for 1 second when activated. If you time it right, you’ll prevent the hit and gain a movement speed boost.
What other perks allow you to avoid the second hit? With the reduced cooldown, I'm not even sure if you can get the unhook anymore after taking this hit. If you can, you're almost certainly going down during it.
As a killer player myself, I'd like to have a challenge. I already explicitly avoid hook grabs when playing because I find them boring and too effective. When I'm playing survivor, I'd like to not have the killer's most effective tactic to be facecamping my friend.
You talk about EGC, but what happens when this is done at 3-5 gens left? Right at the beginning of the game? While generators now take 90 seconds instead of 80? How do I coordinate in a non 4 person SWF to have one other person come to help me get the unhook? Since I need to coordinate with a second person, does that mean that that person is not on a generator too? What skill is involved with standing in front of a person on the hook and facecamping them and how does it make a fun and engaging game?
I mentioned at the beginning that hook grabs are fun when you get them in some circumstances and they're exciting in those circumstances. They're not without any merit. They also create a nightmare situations when taken to an extreme that's incredibly easy to do and incredibly frustrating. And they can mostly be done on with every character. Characters like Artist and Pinhead are even more effective because they can put pressure on survivors from anywhere on the map.
Do you have an argument other than, "Survivors shouldn't get things for free" when they aren't getting things for free? It's still not easy. You're playing against latency not against the killer.
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Grab game is a boring chore for both sides
It should be changed.
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Idk, i just think if survivors shouldn't have a safe unhooking, then it's fair to say killer's shouldn't have a pretty easy time to get a kill or 2 hook states. I just feel like their original statement goes both ways.
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This mostly encapsulates my thinking. When you're getting an unhook, the killer already has all of the advantages and they're going to get a free down. They shouldn't get two. If survivors coordinate well enough that they can prevent the unhooker from going down, they made a good play and should be rewarded.
This applies especially because they're nerfing the second chance perks that would have been used in this situation.
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No thank you. It's a fun age healthy interaction between survivors and killers. Gets validated 70% of the time anyway
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Exactly exactly
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I'd personally find this healthy too. Although I still think the killer should have to try to get the second hit. If you're going to camp, it should at least require a bit of skill.
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