A glaring problem with the developers 'anti-camping' measures
So my takeaway from this recent update is that the developers are under the impression the 'endurance' status effect is the best solution for countering camping killers.
We got basekit BT, extended perk BT and Off the Record as 'anti-camping' measures
However, there is a huge glaring flaw with this line of thinking - it's what we as a community have dubbed the 'grab game'.
Essentially for those who aren't aware, the grab game is what happens when a healthy survivor goes for a rescue and the killer intercepts (And this can happen without camping, but camping often coincides with it)
What then happens is the following on loop until one side makes a mistake:
Survivor starts unhook animation then cancels repeatedly.
Killer waits to get a potential grab.
Either the killer hits the unhooking survivor or gets a grab.
This has not been addressed with these changes and I'm of the school of thought that survivors shouldn't unhook in the killer's face anyway BUT killers these days are often forcing stage 2 by proxy camping/straight up face camping since it's an effective strat. With the increased generator times, I expect this to happen way more frequently.
All of the 'anti-camping' measures don't do a thing if survivors can't unhook to begin with. There are some killers who unhooking in their face is impossible even without the grab game's existance.
What do you think, should the 'grab game' be changed? Let me know.
Comments
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It makes no sense from a gameplay perspective though
This is like DH all over again, as a Killer you have to sit and wait and as a survivor you have to keep spamming an interaction until one side 'messes up' (In reality boredom takes over most of the time)
You can't address camping and not talk about hook grabs
Also yeah Bubba needs a change, his power ignores every single 'anti-camping' measure BHVR has put forward.
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Hook grab should be available only 10s after hooking the survivor to prevent insta unhook then it should be disabled and killer should go on patrol instead of being "im chillin near the hook" andy that waits for hook grab mini-game
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This update already has loads of EGC complications
I'm not against hook grabs as a concept, but the grab game is just a nonsensical back and forth that only ends when one sides either makes a mistake or gets bored. There's no skill apart from knowing "ok i'm close enough for a grab" or "ok he's close enough for a grab"
The grab game is even more tilted in the killer's favour now with this update, they have an even shorter weapon wipe cooldown
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Okay but you can't 'address camping' but leave in one of the killer's biggest camping tools
You shouldn't unhook in the killer's face
But if the alternative is letting someone hit stage 2 because the killer refuses to leave, you have no other option besides doing gens (Which as you are aware, takes even longer now)
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I'm optimistic but also wary
We both know just because the game might be healthier overall, people can and will still take liberties to abuse the unhealthy aspects of it
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There's pretty much no downside to facecamping now. Generators take longer. Doing side objectives takes too much time. Hook states are still as quick as they were. Survivors still have to travel and find generators and if they don't do that incredibly quickly they won't complete the generators in time. Person being facecamped will also get frustrated and just give up.
It's a complete mess and will rely on killers being "kind" to avoid facecamping scenarios.
The grab game is nonsensical and isn't fun. It's also biased towards the killer because the survivor NEEDS to do the unhook before the hook state timer runs out. The killer can see that.
This doesn't even count perks or killer powers that can be effectively used for passive game slowdown. Artist brings corrupt, deadlock, and dead man's switch. Gets their first down which causes generators to be unblocked but most probably haven't been worked on very much. Throws the person on hook and DMS activates. Sends birds to scare people off of generators for 45 seconds and then sits down to facecamp. If she gets a grab, she drops them in front of the hook and goes back to facecamping. If she doesn't successfully play the grab game, she hook trades, scares people off of generators, and then DMS procs for 45 seconds on all generators. Deadlock ensures that the most progressed generator can't be worked on after one is completed. She will succeed at the grab game at least once with how many times it will be played.
Pinhead can do something similar. Probably run the same build. Someone has to get off to do the box which means they aren't doing a generator. If they don't, the box will make it impossible to do generators. Same story as above.
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Yeah I agree for the most part
I'm hoping there's some killer changes in the patch notes that weren't mentioned in the update itself that'll address some issues like with Cannibal.
I'll be satisfied if that's the case
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Precisely how I feel about it too!
You can nerf his camping and keep his chase the exact same
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Grab games doesn't really need to be a thing imo.
If you're in a situation where you're camping a survivor, it'll just end up as a hook trade, if grabbing were removed. Sure they'd get a free save, but they'd take a hit beforehand and go through the unhook animation and by that time you can just down the unhooker.
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Grab Game is fine from a killer main POV. From a survivor POV, if it was changed so a successful grab still results in an unhook (so an instant hook trade, while letting you hit the unhooked survivor to apply deep wounds) would be better.
A buff for killers in camping hooks, though, is shorter hit cooldown. At 2.7 seconds, survivors no longer have time to tank a hit, unhook, and use Dead Hard after the animation (which previously was annoying when the unhooker would DH through the unhooked survivor and force the killer to hit the BT), which makes it almost impossible to secure a 4 man escape against a camping killer.
It's easier than ever to save the hooked survivor with build-in BT, but if the killer's smart, it's extremely difficult to also guarantee that the unhooking survivor doesn't get hooked themselves. And I think that's fine, if survivors want to hook trade in the endgame, let them.
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I think the "grab game" should stay, especially if survivors get built-in mini-Borrowed Time and can bodyblock preventing the killer from getting the unhooker. Unhooking a survivor should be dangerous and if you do it in the killer's face you must accept that you're most likely going on the hook.
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Something to be clear about, the "grab game" isn't about whether or not unhooking is dangerous for the unhooker. I think everyone agrees it should be dangerous for the unhooker and lead to them being on the hook.
The "grab game" is about whether the survivor currently on the hook should stay on the hook which enables facecamping. The killer gets a free down and they camp the survivor who is already on the hook and likely now going to second stage/instadeath.
The only way to counter it is to try and bait the killer into hitting you when you fake it which is also inherently more based on latency than anything else.
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I really like this point of view. As a survivor main I never really though about it and the grab was inconvenient, but the actual double effect aspect never really came to me.
As camping is a strong strategy and (just to be clear) this update does absolutely nothing to address it, something to let the hooked person get off it after the unhooker gets grabbed would be a nice change.
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Are you really expecting the killers to get so many good buffs, so that fair play becomes much more viable, but then keep their hook defense strengths as is? Camping needs to be discouraged a lot, and removing the ability to grab an unhooking survivor is a must. The hook phase duration also needs to be increased from 60 to 90 seconds. There is no reason for killers to get easy, skillless wins by camping now that their normal gameplay is buffed noticeably.
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This is an absolute must. The killer will still be able to probably down the unhooking survivor, but at least the unhook can't be prevented any more. They might even need to increase the unhooking speed slightly now that the hit recovery time of killers is also slightly lower.
Which is also kind of a buff to camping, now that I think about it.
To be fair, they also 100% need to increase the hook phase duration of survivors as well, ideally from 60 to 90 seconds. That's the way you nerf camping properly.
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"I need to camp to win" has always been a false choice. "If gens didn't go so quickly I could choose not to play in this specific way" doesn't actually have any discouragement for playing that way and now that strategy is more effective. The same people who said the above will still say the same thing and ask for more nerfs to survivors rather than acknowledge that maybe they should just play better.
Because apparently playing killer shouldn't require actual skill and this is a power fantasy rather than a casual PvP online game.
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Yeah I hope they'll do what you're saying especially hook phase duration, if they release update as it is long-term effects will be disastrous, facecamp will become even more common
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If you make the game more rewarding when you don't camp, people will camp less. They are decreasing chase times, so you will likely see less camping. Because they won't need to camp you.
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I've been thinking for some time now that a nice encourage not to camp would be the gens would get done even slower if the killer was e.g. 24 meters away from hooked survivors. Don't know if that's good though.
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Chasing requires skill. Camping does not. If you get the same result from both of these, what do you think players will do?
Chasing is fun for both sides and is the most fun part of the game. Camping forces one survivor to be the designated loser while the others sit on generators. It is not fun for survivors.
This "they won't need to camp you" isn't going to stop someone from camping you because you didn't actually make it less rewarding. Survivors shouldn't have to only get a fulfilling game by the kindness of the killer's heart. If you haven't noticed, many of the people who play killer on this forum seem to believe that they are in the power role and so the game should automatically be won for them and that if we don't acquiesce to every silly demand they have, they will be "forced" to tunnel and camp.
They were going to tunnel and camp anyway because all they really cared about is winning and camping is still incredibly strong and gets you a lot of wins.
If you want to win, you should outplay your opponent and demonstrate some skill. Chasing demonstrates skill. Learning how to use a killer power in chase demonstrates skill. Macro decisions about who to chase and where demonstrate skill. Standing in front of a hooked survivor close enough that you can kiss them does not demonstrate skill. That last one is about as powerful as the previous ones and that's the problem.
"The camping will continue until my kill rate improves."
As a killer main who doesn't camp but gets camped very often when playing as survivor, I'd like that meta to shift. I'd like the game to not be complete ######### half the time based on the whims of the killer. Some games I get are really fun and fulfilling, but only if the killer specifically decides that game will be fun for me. When I play killer, there's really nothing the survivors can do to change the enjoyment of the game for me. Even if they do generators really quickly, I still get to chase and have fun in chases.
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You're mistaken. There's some anti-tunnel (with a big nerf to DS to undo everything else)
But there's no anti-camping in the update. They actually buffed camping via increased gen time, reduced hit cooldown and leaving hook grabs untouched.
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The grab change though would be a nerf mainly to M1 killers.
I feel like there should be some kind of other mechanic or incentive so that M2 ones don't get that much of a reward from camping - most notably of course Bubba, Trickster, sometimes Oni when his power is ready and more.
Like Pyramid Head's cages that move - not saying it's good and can't be exploited, but I would go towards something systematic not something that stops only some killers.
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The whole section was named 'Camping and Tunnelling'
Def was intended as a address to camping imo.
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Well. If they intended, they failed. Really hard too. Game is about to become Deathgarden 2.0
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"there's really nothing the survivors can do to change the enjoyment of the game for me"
You must play low MMR. In high MMR people do stuff like this:
- Throw pallets and spend a few seconds healing in front of each pallet, until they completely heal a health state. After you finally hit them again, they syringe and heal during chase.
- Perfectly Dead Hard every. single. time. Faking out rarely works for whatever reason.
- Everyone takes protection hits for each other making downs exceptionally difficult.
- Everyone has the magical ability to know what everyone else is doing at all times and where they are located. (Discord, the Fifth Perk Slot)
- Chases always take a minimum of Forever because no one makes mistakes.
- People using macros that flashes the flashlight 9999999 times per second, which could give you seizures if you are photosensitive.
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Um, all of those are things I consider fun and increase my enjoyment of the game? Except the flashlight macros. I like when my opponents aren't potatoes and they are creative in ways I don't expect. I like when they use teamwork and outplay me. It gets boring to do the same mindgame over and over again, bait out the badly aimed dead hard to nowhere, and get an easy down.
But nice just assuming that because I like the game to be challenging and that I don't mind losing that must mean I play at low MMR. Also, even if I were, would that really invalidate my opinion? I said I don't really care if survivors do generators really fast. I just like to be in chases. If I'm getting matched with people way above my skill level to the point where it's frustrating, then I hit next game and let the matchmaking put me against someone new.
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This comment is so accurate it honestly made me chuckle xD
Although I must say that even when those things happen, I still get to play till the end - well as the killer I have to, but still, for survivors being camped or tunneled to death, the match does end prematurely. I am a survivor main though, so my opinion here might be skewed.
Also as for "Everyone has the magical ability to know what everyone else is doing at all times and where they are located. (Discord, the Fifth Perk Slot)"
I mostly play solo so SWF doesn't apply to me but I do admit I have this 5th perk xD I noticed that after many hours in the game you just acquire an incredible map awareness or you're just able to make much better educated guesses at where the other survivors might be, which path the killer will choose to get to you from a hook etc.
Playing killer despite me preferring to play as survivor (and despite me being a terrible killer) actually helped me in understanding these things, but other than that it's just experience having played hundreds of matches and being able to analyze them as they happen.
I also don't use flashlights and my DH attempts rarely work :P
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When the survivors are good (high MMR) playing killer is annoying even if you kill all of them.
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No, they need to do both. And now that they are encouraging to not camp by buffing normal gameplay, they absolutely have to nerf camping, and hard. You really want a mechaninc that gives you good chances to win just by standing in front of a hooked survivor? I don't know any other online game that has such a skillless and unfun strategy be so effective.
Hook grabs removed and hook phase duration increased to 90 seconds would still not make unhooking in front of the killer none-dangerous. It just wouldn't be as effective as playing the killer normally, and skillfully. Which is exactly what this game needs.
Killers are getting their biggest frustrations addressed, survivors should get the same, and the tunneling nerfs that are happening aren't nearly enough, and don't nerf camping either. That's absolutely bad.
I also do not have any interest in sitting in 20 minute queue times as killer, and I am scared exactly that will happen as well.
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Lmao see that's the problem. There are way too many people that will still resort to camping as soon as the game is going badly for them, no matter if it's caused by unbalance or because they were just outplayed, because the can't admit to mistakes or will just tell themselves that the game is still unfair.
There is no way around it, you can't just give killers more reason to not camp and then hope the problem of camping and tunneling will go away. Especially when these buffs actually even encourage camping as well, which the increased gen times will do if the hook phase duration isn't increased. Killers camping hooks should not be as effective at doing so, and unhooking survivors in front of such killers should not be as dangerous or hard as it is now.
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I hadn't heard the idea to make grabs on unhooking a 100% trade before and I really like it - just make it so that unhooking can't be cancelled once started and that a grab still pulls the hooked survivor off in exchange. It'd also curtail the survivor bm where they intentionally spam unhooks on someone they don't actually intend to rescue.
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I don't really have an issue with the grab game, but I do think they should slightly decrease the amount of time required to unhook a survivor to compensate for the reduced basic attack cooldown. And hook stages need to take longer.
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Yes it should be changed. The survivor should be able to grabbed more easily. Even if they cancel they should still be grabbed.
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Yeah some people definitely do seem to think that way.
I do agree that there can be situations where you can't really win unless you camp and tunnel. At high ranks, survivors can definitely still have the upper hand, at least if you don't camp and tunnel. But it's also not as bad as some people here claim.
But these issues are being addressed now, so there is no reason why camping and tunneling shouldn't be addressed adequately as well. It's ridiculous that some people seem to expect to have their issues with killer addressed, by making the proper gameplay much more viable, but then not have their easy way out, which takes almost 0 skill, not be nerfed as well, despite it being insanely unfun for survivors. It's an obvious double standard.
So I really hope, and am optimistic, that the devs will listen to all the complaints, buff the anti-tunneling measures to 12 second duration, and also add some proper anti-camping measures, which again, would probably just need to be increasing the hook phase duration to 90 seconds and removing hook grabs.
Suddenly, Dead by Daylight is in such a better, and more healthy, spot, for both sides. And player count will rise up, also for both sides.
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Enjoy those 20 minute killer queue times, if this update makes it live just the way it is. At least I am positive that will be the result of these changes.
Any good dev should be interested in good game design, and camping is the opposite of that. Right now, it's already way too effective for the insanely low amount of skill it requqires. It doesn't need to be buffed, it doesn't need to stay, it needs to be nerfed. Name me one other game that has such a cheap, and skillless tactic, be so effective.
I can not believe there are people that actually think killers should have their frustrations fixed, but survivors not. How biased can one become? I have a hard time believing you play survivor, honestly.
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Another bigger issue you should bring up is that you can still body block while under the Endurance status effect, which means survivors all now can force out the now base kit endurance effect by blocking an exit with their body.
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Many other people have brought up this issue so I don't feel the need to personally.
I made this thread primarily to talk about how ineffective the 'camping measures' are, so to speak
It's a valid point though, not disagreeing with that
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Nobody in this thread has said that unhooking should be safe and without punishment. We've said camping is too powerful and that hook grabs make camping much more powerful and detract from the overall fun of the game. The killer has many options for punishing unhooks. There should be some counter play that requires equivalent skill.
You keep saying, "Survivors shouldn't get a free escape," but we're saying the opposite is also true. The killer should not get a free kill just because they're in front of the survivor. If the survivors group together and go for the save together and get a 4-man out, they outplayed you. They won. Your MMR will go down and you'll get matched with someone easier next time. That's how healthy video games work. It's a video game not a power fantasy.
It is dangerous to unhook in the killer's face. It already is and it will continue to be. Unhooking in the killer's face still almost guarantees a hook trade especially since weapon wipe speed is faster. What we're saying is that if you do that you don't get two downs. One of those downs is on a survivor who will probably now hit second stage or insta-sacrifice.
If you're a killer who doesn't facecamp, these changes wouldn't effect you. If they got rid of hook grabs, it would effect exactly 0% of my games. When a hook trade is happening, I don't wait to play the grab game because I personally think the grab game is BS. I trade and throw the survivor who did the save back on the Scourge Hook. I don't camp at the endgame because I don't care for pity kills.
On the other hand, when I play survivor, I play against these killers constantly and it's frankly just boring. The best play becomes, "Leave my friend on the hook and take the easy escape out of the gate." Other times it's, "I looped the killer for 5 gens and now they're going to facecamp me to death."
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The counter play is hit them while they're unhooking. Then hit them again. Proceed to put them on the hook. If this isn't fast enough, you can even let the first hit interrupt the unhook. It just shouldn't result in a grab.
I've been disagreeing with you and consistently saying that the unhooker should be punished. I haven't heard a single person in this thread describe that. What's been said is that a successful grab should not result in two downs. Both the person already on the hook and the unhooker. Only the unhooker should go down.
Maybe this wasn't obvious but if the unhooker is injured, I think grabs are fair game. Unhooking should be interruptible and preventable if the survivor going for it is injured.
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