Let's brainstorm how hooks could be reworked
There are many issues frequently addressed that lead back to how hooks and hooking work:
Face camping, Proxy camping, tunneling, 4%-ing to nope out of a match asap, gabs - or lack thereof -, hook durations — and probably a few others that I missed. Either way, I think it's safe to say that many people are - for one reason or the other - unhappy with how hooks and hooking works.
To address some of the issues I think it might be time to think about if hooks should even stay in their current form, or if they should be fundamentally changed.
Frequently people suggest to make hooks work similar to Pyramid-head's cages, where a survivor respawns on a different hook if the killer stays too close for too long. - But just like cages can get abused by Pyramid-head this could be abused by any killer: just stay close and survs will have to run across the map several times, wasting a huge amount of time.
Another suggestions that crops up rather often is that the 4% outside of specific perks should be removed so survs can't just nope out of a game and screw their team.
I took those two ideas as inspiration and wondered: What if hooks worked as follows:
A survivor gets hooked. They can't 4%. The hook stage is 10 seconds (?) longer. Instead of going second stage (/being sacrificed) the entity grabs them and spits them out next to a random hook at least x tiles away from where the killer currently is. Other survs can still unhook the survivor earlier. If a survivor gets spat out by the entity the killer gets 3 seconds killer instinct / a noise notification on the location of the other survivors and the most progressed gen is blocked and highlighted for x seconds (idk, 10 seconds?). This mechanic is disabled once all gens are powered.
The intention would be that, on the one hand, it makes no sense for a killer to stay close to the hook; it takes too long to wait for the hookstage and they don't get to tunnel the same surv immediately either. On the other hand, survs should also be discouraged from a "just never unhook" playstyle by making the time one surv is out of commission by being on a hook longer and pointing the killer directly to where they need to put pressure if no one goes for an unhook.
There's probably a bunch of issues with that concrete idea - but what about the general direction? Perks should be pretty unaffected by this. - Except for those that get proc-ed upon unhooking. But that's not unsolve-able either: E.g. Floods could just proc upon a surv getting spat out. And perks like make your choice could proc on a random survivor.
Other ideas are welcome too!
Comments
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Outside a perk, I think the manual 4% should be removed. In it's place an auto unhook attempt right before going into 2nd stage.
Might be issues with survivors trying to save last second so maybe a proxy trigger is needed.
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Just respawn survivors after set amount of time, like 30 seconds, do that two times and survivors will die next time
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The problem there is that hooks create pressure by (usually) getting atleast 1 survivor off the gens to grab the other. That pressure is needed atleast for those not running 4 slowdowns till sundown.
For the topic: We prefer the suggestion of that survivors get 1 try at the swing with an alternative punishment like broken for X time or something.
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Removing the 4% won’t change much. If a survivor wants out they’ll run up to the killer after being unhooked and go down again. This happens very frequently to me as a Huntress main if I down people too fast or hit a gap shot. And I do oblige and kill them immediately because they want out of the game so why not? Better than them getting angry and exploding gens/ dropping all the pallets. Proxy camping would be solved either as the distance for the cage relocation is 8 meters. And 1/4 the roster can comfortably camp 16 meters away.
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It does change much, if easy method to go way out is removed, the amount of leaving players will decrease
You'll understand this if you have played a game with DC penalty off, the amount of throwing was not even comparable
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I mean how crazy do we potentially want to go? If we're reimagining the game it can get pretty broad.
On the base level, removing the 4% would be an easy solution and wish they would do it (plus the hook checks on 2nd stage). If they really think players should be allowed to leave a game, that's fine, just allow them to DC without a penalty if it is really impossible to keep players in the game.
I'm looking forward to them trying the game mod with no hooks. If I remember the description, you get to be downed twice and can pick yourself back up (death on the 3rd down) after a set amount of time, but you don't have to pick yourself up if you aren't ready (killer standing right there).
Here's one random idea I had while reading through the thread:
No hook timer - instead a survivor on the hook decreases gen speed. If the killer camps, survivors just stay on gens, but if they go to chase a survivor and no one goes for the save the gens will actually be slower than rescuing.
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You guys really want DBD to be a completely different game, huh?
Might as well just play a different game
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Not really. - Changing how hooks work doesn't really change how the game itself works. Personally, I'm coming from a place where I want to take into account both the reasons why players camp and tunnel and why players dislike these playstyles. - I mean, if you consider camping an tunneling an integral part of DBD and without it, it's a completely different game then, uh, yes, I suppose I do want it to be a completely different game. But I for one don't consider it an essential part of DBD.
Besides, Bhvr has introduces mods and even if a different kind of hooks system doesn't work for the "normal game" maybe it works for an alternate game mode.
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As crazy as you want to go. - It's brainstorming and sometimes the craziest ideas have something to them that someone can run with.
Game mode without hooks? Where did you read about that? — I don't really keep up with plans anymore, so I usually just know stuff when it's officially announced for a set date.
As for being on hook reducing gen speeds: In principle I like the idea - but at least for me the issue with "just hammer gens" when someone gets camped is that it's just really boring to do. And it sucks to be the person being camped. Not so much in swf - but as solo. Plus, there are killers where it's actually impossible to rescue. …. It might also be a tad to abusable. At times greeding that gen leads to a hook stage being lost - and I think that's a fair consequence of gens over frens - but on some occasions also a necessary sacrifice.
I do think a surv that on the one hand can't 4% to nope out of a game but on the other hand gets more or less a "fresh start" is somewhat more likely to at least go "tf, then I just go sit on this gen until the killer comes by". Which is more than then noping out immediately. And maybe, if they stick around just a little longer, they change their mind. Some of the reflex noping-outs against e.g. Skullmerchant could be addressed that way.
People actively sabotaging the match is a different story - but I think if those people were actually (temp) banned with video evidence of them just going around throwing all the pallets and sandbagging and whatnot that would be an easy-to-fix issue. I'm not usually in favour of bans, they're more of a last resort. But at that point I think all other options have been exhausted.
As for the teleporting: It's not supposd to work like Pyramid-head. I just took the general idea of survs teleporting as an inspiration. They stay on the hook the killer put them on until the stage-timer is up. Then they get teleported to a random location at least two tiles away (which should be 32m+) from where the killer is at the time of teleportation. This should make it virtually impossible to to tunnel. A killer can still force a hook stage by (proxy) camping if they so wish - but it'll not have the same effect since it a) takes longer and b) they can't get right back on the surv.
In terms of pressure that's why I thought about extending the hook stage plus having the killer waste less time searching for where they need to actively pressure by pointing them directly at where they need to pressure. So on the one hand the killer wastes less time and the surv that's on hook and not rescued itself is the additional time a surv is off a gen. - Considering that this surv will not have someone to reset them immediately and will likely run around half-life for a while/will need to find another surv to reset (and even in swf players will not have to spend time walking to reset) which is additional time lost.
And could you elaborate a bit further on the one try with an alternative punishment? I don't quite follow. What exactly is the "swing" referringto (I assume an attempt at unhooking yourself - but might have misunderstood sth). What chance of success does the one try have? When does a surv get it? And what is the alternate punishment for?
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Not sure if your suggestion would work the way you'd want. Giving killer instinct for a few seconds after another survivor gets spit out isn't to big a risk and having a longer timer lowers the pressure on survivors (they can afford to wait longer to unhook and probably progress the gens more). Being longer on a hook isn't that much pressure for the killer as having 1 on hook with 1 rescuing (or better being 1 hook 1 rescuing and 1 chased). We generally don't have a problem with how hooks currently work, but more how people will easily take advantage of that to tunnel or camp, more than likely making a dull game for said hooked sap.
"Swing" is the survivor trying to unhook themselves. Basically there was a idea we heard that (we're paraphrasing here) the survivors get to try and swing once and it doesn't deplete the bar. Instead it adds some form of penalty, like broken for X time, longer to heal, etc when tried (successful or failed with perks changing this). This makes sure it can't be abused to leave a match easily, keeps swinging and potential comebacks in the game, and putting it as more of a last resort. But all said, this is more about the 4% than how hooks work.
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Then add like 20% speed penalty to all survivors while someone is respawning, if all we want to fix is gameplay problem we really don't think about balancing
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MMaking survivors automatically respawn somewhere instead of dying will kill survivor-survivor interaction and turn all survivors into "genrushers". No pressure when you dont need to get off the gen to save a survivor.
Something similar was one of the changes that killed deathgarden.
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Killer can always leave em bleeding out on the floor if they show they don't wanna play. Some killers take exception to Survivors who give up and sell out their teammates.
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