Dear BHVR (Camping and Tunneling Issue)
I have been playing Dead by Daylight since it had first released back in June of 2016. Once the game had made its first debut, it was no secret the game was incredibly Survivor Sided.
2016 DBD:
- Self-care: Had the shortest heal rate ever! (If I remember correctly, it only took roughly 15 seconds to fully heal, and it could easily be done even in chase if you dropped like 2 pallets)
- Exhaustion: This was a huge issue back in 2016. Let's say you were running Sprint Burst, and you just used it to get a bit of distance from a killer who was chasing you. No matter how much you were running, exhaustion would constantly go down and you'd only have to keep running for like 40 seconds and you'd immediately get another Sprint Burst. No walking required.
- Sabotage: 3 words. Hooks. Didn't. Respawn. Yep, that's right. Survivors used to be able to load into a game and immediately bum rush all the hooks basically making it impossible for the killer to do anything but slug the survivors as they came about. Not to mention that survivors also used to be able to destroy killers' traps basically rendering some killers powerless.
As you can see there were a magnitude of things that were completely unfair about the game back in the game's early stages of life. Mainly due to how survivor sided the game was. Survivors may as well have been the noble men, and the killers just the beggars on the side of the street simply begging for an ounce of fairness... Now, let us jump to the DBD of today.
2022 DBD:
The game has come a long way, that I can say confidently. For the most part, the game feels much more breathable for both Survivor and Killer. Hooks respawn after a certain amount of time after they were sabotaged, healing takes a bit longer than 15 seconds, and exhaustion is no longer broken. Many new perks and base kit additions have since been added into the game that simply make DBD feel fresh and new.
I know many people (Namely Survivors) still complain about somethings such as the Decisive Strike nerf, and Dead hard Nerf, but to me (as a survivor main) I honestly thought those changes weren't too bad, or enough of a change for me to change face about how sided the game appeared to be for both Killer and Survivor. The perks feel pretty balanced for the most part in my opinion... however, as you no doubt read from the title of my discussion, I have indeed noticed a rise in camping and tunneling killers in DBD since the past couple of updates and patches. I've felt it a bit more since the Rank Reset just happened as both killers and survivors would like to reach Iridescent 1 before the months end to get their hands on that free million blood point reward.
I know these issues with camping and tunneling are unavoidable as you cannot control what the average player does in game - but I do, however, have a few ideas on what could possibly aid in decreasing the rate at which it happens.
With the recent release of the Resident Evil: Project W chapter release, we received 3 characters in total: Albert Wesker (Killer), Ada Wong (Survivor), and Rebecca Chambers (Survivor). For my idea I would like to more specifically focus on the two perks: Wire Tap, and Reassurance.
Wire Tap:
Wire Tap is an incredibly useful survivor informational perk. Once you repair a generator for about 33% the perk will activate. Once it does, the survivor is capable of trapping the gen and once the killer gets within, I believe it was 14 meters it will alert all survivors that the killer is approaching that gen. The perk stays active for roughly 80 seconds I think before it deactivates, and you must repeat the repair process to be able to use it again.
My idea of a change for this perk would be to increase the meter detection range from 14 meters to 20 meters. I only say this because I notice that one of Wesker's perks: Awakened Awareness lets any killer running the perk see any survivor within 20 meters of range when they are carrying a survivor on their shoulder.
I know some people will feel like that change is too high for how easy it is to get Wire Tap, so that is not the only change I propose. I'd also suggest changing the amount needed to repair from 33% to 50% to kind of air out the perk a bit. You don't get Wire Tap at the beginning of the gen, but towards the middle instead, and then you as a survivor must decide if you would like to use it as soon as you receive it once the gen is basically half gone or wait for another gen where you could get more value out of the 80 second perk run time upon its activation.
Reassurance:
During the PTB, Reassurance was a little overpowered to say the least. Any survivor running the perk could continuously place Reassurance on a hooked survivor, thus keeping them held hostage on hook. The perk was created as a way of countering camping killers, but it was a bit broken during the play test.
Upon the live release the perk was slightly nerfed so that it could only be triggered once per hook state, but with no cooldown. It was a great change in my opinion, as now the survivor being kept on the hook wouldn't be stuck there for an unlimited amount of time, and the game wouldn't continue indefinitely. My only complaint about Reassurance would have to be the required distance one must be in order to activate the perk.
6 meters simply feels like way too short a distance - especially if you were facing let's say a Bubba who was camping a survivor with his chainsaw revved ready for when a survivor comes in for the save. If a survivor running reassurance, simply wanted to swoop in to either give the hooked survivor more time to hang while the others did generators, or more time while the others thought of a plan to go for the save, 6 meters would not be enough distance to do it even the slightest bit safely. More often than not the killer will see you as it's quite simply not enough space, you might as well need to hug the survivors dangling legs to get the perk to activate. I've done a couple of tests in a custom lobby with a couple friends of mine on a magnitude of different maps, and in the end, I came up with an idea of a slight buff to Reassurance.
Instead of 6 meters to activate on a hooked survivor, I simply suggest upping the required distance to roughly 10 to 12 meters. That way, if someone was to be facing a camping killer, the survivor running Reassurance could get not only the hooked survivor more time, but the rest of the team more time as well to either think of a saving strategy, or to focus on more generator work.
Alright, now I'm done ranting about perks, I promise - for now it is time to move on to the topic of Solo Que.
Solo Que:
Not everyone has access to play with their friends all the time - or maybe they do, but don't have access to comms, and don't know what their team is doing. Regardless, I know a majority of survivors play in Solo, though SWF is slowly becoming greater as time goes on. If a killer is camping you in Solo Que, it's pretty safe to say that a big fraction of the time you're simply left sitting on the hook to either second stage or to death. I believe it'd be nice to have some type of base kit kindred. And no - I'm not referring to a carbon copy of the perk.
I feel it'd be a nice addition if survivors got little icons (that only they could see as a team) next to their names. You know, to let each other know silently what the others were doing. So, for instance: if a survivor was working on a generator, a little gear would be present next to their characters name. If they were healing, have a little bandage next to their name. The same goes for other things such as opening a chest, gate, cleansing or blessing totems. And let's say as per our topic, the killer is camping a survivor that is on the hook, or they are heavily proxying the area around them. If the killer is within a certain range of a hooked survivor solely based off their killer given terror radius, have a little knife icon next to the hooked survivors name, so that it'd let the other survivors know the killer was still at a close range, and that going for the save would be unsafe for not only them, but their teammate as well.
I play both Survivor and Killer, and I try to not be biased towards these topics - but I've recently found myself playing more Killer recently due to the rise in camping and tunneling. It's made my survivor side of gaming unenjoyable as of recent - as once I load into the game, I get a huge repeat of perks and play styles. Survivor has felt really oppressive recently, but I try to hold on to hope that it is simply because people are simply trying to rank up as fast as they can, and don't just play the way they do to ruin another's game.
I do also want to thank everyone who took the time to read over everything in this thread. I would love to hear what you think about my ideas or what you would rather do instead to tackle the issues. Criticism is always welcome. I just want the game to be a 50/50 Survive, kill ratio instead of a 39/61 Survive, kill ratio.
Thank-you all again!