Are Gen Times a Problem?
Before I start talking about gen times I should first give a little context. I’ve recently just got back into the game and I’m surprised to see how much the game has changed. Back when I stopped playing, some time before the Knight’s release, I would say that the game was in a somewhat healthy spot (at least from what it was before). The big perk rework update had nerfed generators to 80 seconds and the basekit BT + haste made being tunneled way more bearable. The biggest problems at the time were instadown Nurse, a few perks like STBFL and Prove Thyself, map size, no solo queue information, and survivor items like medkits and BNP. Now most of these problems have been fixed (Nurse and map sizes are still iffy imo) and nerfs to BNP and medkits have made survivor objectives take longer. On paper, generator times should be at an all time high.
But when you look at games and the current meta that just isn’t true. Never have I seen so many survivors running Hope and Adrenaline and so many killers running No Way Out. If gen times were truly at a good place this meta would be straight up be unviable. Before, the only endgame perk that were used consistently were Adrenaline and NOED. Running anything else was seen as a waste and it was considered a better idea to run something that helped throughout the whole match. This is especially true on survivor, where the endgame isn’t guaranteed. Now players are expecting to reach the endgame almost every game, to the point they are spending half their slots on endgame perks. This is something i’ve noticed in actual games too. Reaching the endgame happens wayy more often then it did before, in both my survivor and killer matches.
I’m not sure why this is the case. My theory is that regression perks are too weak, but it’s probably more complex then that.
Comments
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No the issue is Spawns
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Are gens too quick in a match with super optimal survivors in a squad with comms? Yes.
Are gens too quick in a match with average survivors including solo queue? No.
Therein lies the problem. How do you slow down the most optimal squads without making matches for average survivors even harder? Survivor is both the strongest and weakest role in the game. Making it really difficult to balance. For example, if BHVR makes the BNP weak enough that four together isn't as strong, what will one do when an average solo queue player brings it with them? Next to nothing. That's not great for an extremely rare add-on.
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NWO was a popular perk even before 6.1.0. As was Adrenaline. Gen regression has overall become weaker than before and around 6.1.0, which means that gens will regress less in your average match. This is not a bad thing necessarily. Because it also means, that the focus for killers shifts more towards chases and less towards: "How much longer can I stall the game while making at least some small progress?" or worse in 6.1.0: "Can I hold the match hostage until either the survivors give up / dc or the match shuts down?"
The issue is, that at the same time the survivor meta first shifted from stacking second chances to spam healing faster than any killer could ever hit you and then to: "Let's just stay injured and do gens." Or in other words; the survivor meta has shifted towards gen efficiency (not quite the same as gen rush but both have similar results).
This is why we see some killers leaning more into a hyper aggressive play style and also why UW has such a high popularity. If the gens are gonna get done anyway, might as well try to kill them as fast as possible. So the competition is no longer about who can delay their opponent longer, but who can outpace their opponent with both sides trying to keep the match as short as possible. Now, we don't see this to an extreme extend (luckily) because the regression meta is still working well but regardless it is where the game is headed towards.
The issue is not just regression perks being too weak but the survivor meta being to keep the match as short as possible. Which is why you still see so many medkits and toolboxes. If you can save even a second of time than that already puts you in a slightly better position. With MfT being a meta perk that extends chases and doesn't afford you to do anything special to get value out of it, there is more time for survivors overall to work on gens and as a result they get done faster. For many killers it is normal to lose 2-3 gens for their first chase. That is already 35%-55% of the survivors' objective and it forces the killer to play around the remaining 2-3 gens more actively. This can either happen by playing the long game (literally) or by doing everything to progress faster and more efficient than the survivors.
Both metas have led to gen times being shorter overall. To fix this, they'd need to find a healthy middle ground between delaying the other side and accelerating the own progression. A balance by sledge hammer approach is not going to work this time.
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By splitting them up into different queues.
Casual match:
- You can only play with solo queue or a single friend
- No MMR/matchmaking
- Game is balanced as it is now (maybe even with some buffs to survivors as a whole, basekit kindred?)
Ranked match:
- You cany only play with a squad of 4
- Shows your MMR to you and other players.
- Game is balanced such that survivors are more nerfed and/or killers are buffed (maybe like, survivors have to repair 6 gens instead, or gens take 100 seconds, or something like that), or maybe the killer win condition is to just kill 1 survivor, or get 6 hooks or something like that.
Now you balance both modes different in terms of "basekit" for both sides, and your problem is solved. Give killers a 2x bloodpoint bonus for playing the ranked mode.
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tbh, I think it's mostly because efficiency has gone through the roof. Survivors have little else to do instead of being as efficient on gens as possible - even soloQ mates eventually learn that it's smart to ocasionally put "gens before frens - and literally anything else" cause if that gen gets hit by painres and pop it's just gone. If the dominating mindset is "make gen before that chased surv there is on hook" you do gens real efficiently. Conversely, killers faced with that kind of gen efficiency feel the need to get maximum pressure as well. It's the efficiency/optimisation cycle of hell.
Since pretty much all matches start off with "lemme see if i can tunnel that surv out" chances are the vast majority of matches will see the endgame; but it's a 3v1 and maybe one or two extra hookstages. - Tunneling/camping a second person becomes that much easier with e.g. NWO.
And as surv being healthy and fast in EG becomes that much more important. If you're the unlucky one who got tunneled out no amount of anti-tunnel perks would have changed that. - You're either good enough to survivive until the gates are open or you aren't - and chances are 99% of players are not. And if you're not the one tunneled out you gonna need that speedboost and few other perks will have actual value since the killer is busy tunneling anyway.
And if it's survs reacting to killers or killers reacting to survs is a chicken and egg kinda discussion I'm not really interested in; whichever came first we're now at a point where it's a self-perpetuating thing; a circle where everyone can point to plenty past experiences to justify what they're doing and why they're doing it.
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"Killer good, survivor bad"
You killer mains always want easy matches, it's pathetic. Survivors may as well start on the hook at the beginning of a match and immediately die.
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As has been said it's hard to 'balance' gen times because there's such a colossal gulf between SWFs who focus heavily on doing gens, and solo players who are doing archives, chilling, memeing, not very good, etc.
Gens are technically slower now than they've ever been. We got 10 seconds added onto them a while back, had BNP's nerfed to shave off 5 seconds of boost from them, and had the most popular gen-speed perk, Prove Thyself, nerfed.
Even with all of this, however, if a team of survivors actually prioritise gens and do them efficiently, even without toolboxes and gen-speed perks, they can complete them pretty damn fast, regardless of how fast killers are getting hooks, and that is an issue. You can't really solve it though without making gens take even longer for disorganised, random solo squads, and in many solo games gens can take an age as it is.
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No, we don't. Please do not generalize. What I wish to have are balanced matches. I want to move from 4K to 3K or 2K then at a draw I would start thinking what went wrong. I could also see how the MMR changed.
The issue is how I alternate between 0K and 4K. Because I use the same killer and same perk combination I do not understand what went wrong when I lose. And if I win (3-4K) the match is already sweaty as gen times are just as fast.
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All gen regression perks where nerfed to the ground. Current regression is a placebo, it does absolutelly nothing unless you already have the upper hand of the match. Gens fly nowdays because most killers can't do absolutelly nothing to stop them. The time it takes to find, down and hook a survivor far outweighs the regression you get from it.
If survivors played optimally with at least one of them always attached to a gen, the match will be over under 8 minutes. Now, under these circunstances, we require the killer to do a total of 12 hooks... It is unrealistic, and if the killer keeps winning it is either because he ignores the "rulebook" or these survivors are really bad coordinated.
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Wow, that's so edgy and outright original, the tactful and sparing use of over exaggeration threw a tactful spotlight on the problem and opens up so many venues of discussion.
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That would be fine if chase perks were very effective. The problem is that survivors don't need toolboxes for those gens to fly.
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map spawns and the lack of a early game mechanic for killers , thats the only things missing in order to make the early game more fair on both sides.
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It could work. Do you think it's something that BHVR would consider doing though?
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I've been bringing Hyperfocus (I'm pretty good at hitting the great skill checks) Prove Thyself, and Deja Vu in the same built. The speed of the gens is hilarious.
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Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this, if you split up queues, then wait time will be longer and probably unfair for SWF squads since most people tend to dodge them. It seems like we killer players are always gonna have to take the L on this.
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Where on earth in there did you read "i'm a killer main who wants easy matches"
Am i missing something here?
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Doubtful. In general i think they would be worried about population size at that point. But i think basically they have 2 options:
Option 1: Just add voice chat to the game and be done with it
Option 2: Split up the queues.
I don't think they want to do option 1, but if they aren't willing to split the queues up they have to do something to bridge the gap, and voice chat is about the only thing that will. The only problem with that, is that you can't guarantee that your team uses it, and you have a ton of other problems like toxic chat you need to deal with. So that's why i think splitting the queues would be better.
Most other online games do this already by have an unranked and a ranked mode. For the larger games they also often have an extra split in ranked for solo queue vs teams as well. For example DotA/LoL/CS2 have all of this.
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no it's not, it's pretty balanced right now. Usually when I get my first kill it's 2-3 gens left. I run at least 3 gen perks in every build for any killer, for some it's 4. Sometimes I get only 1 kill but it's usually because of my own mistakes or bad map, but other than that I feel like gen times are pretty balanced right now, they give fair chance both for killer and survivors, you just need to use your time efficiently and kill as fast as you can.
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