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"Tunneling is the Most Effective way to Win"... a map mobility problem

UndeddJester
UndeddJester Member Posts: 4,971
edited May 12 in General Discussions

Just musing to myself and friends, I have a thought on tunneling.

"Tunneling is the best way to win" has been a mantra we've heard now for quite some time. This perspective came about after slugging, 3 genning and gen regression in general all got nerfed, and people instead swore blind that Tunneling was the only effective strategy left for killers.

This is a mantra that I never really believed, and have maintained that if survivors play around hooks properly and don't make it easy to tunnel (via fast unhooks before the killer can leave, looping near the hook, unnecessary exchanges, etc.) tunnelling is no more effective than any other strategy in the game... especially when you start throwing the various anti-tunnel perks into the equation... however I've come to realise that I mostly have preferences for M1 killers, and tend to maintain m1 killer habits even when playing stronger and more mobile killers... as such I do hold the belief that for m1 killers... it is certainly far less viable to hardcore tunnel, as in order to do so you tend to also have to camp, and camping is highly inefficient without VERY good reason.

On survivor I understand the mantras above, since I typically play without exhaustion and second chance perks, I frequently play with a great deal of caution and discipline surrounding hook timers and Killer positioning when unhooking, especially on fast killers. Since I'm all too familiar with the times where getting unhooked without these kinds of perks will get you killed (and often ranting at my soloQ team mates for it), my experience with more map mobile killers has typically been not bad for tunneling, since you can often make it quite inconvenient for even fast killers to come back for the tunnel if you pay attention, and only those REALLY dedicated to tunneling come back in these scenarios.

However since playing against the Ghoul a lot, I've faced a pretty sharp uptick in killer coming back to the unhook, even when it SHOULD be highly inconvenient to do so... and after playing so many times against this, it's a factoid I've kinda known for a while, but largely not really seen as a big issue...

If a map mobile really wants to tunnel, it carries nowhere near the same risk it does for less mobile killers, and there isn't really much you can do about it. Numerous times we say something like "You're playing Blight... why do you feel you need to tunnel", but the reality is, on someone like Blight, he absolutely can do it without penalty, and not pay any mind or concern to the macro of the game (at least against all but the most hard gen rush and loop skilled of SWF teams), which is the penalty other killers have to consider.

Map mobile killers thus can have the best of both, where they can still exert pressure on the map, but still race back to tunnel, and usually with the lethality to chew through survivor tunnel defences quickly. This is something the top tier killers tend to have in common as a threat:

  • Nurse
  • Blight
  • Ghoul
  • Dracula
  • Spirit
  • Hillbilly
  • Twins
  • Old Chucky
  • Wesker

Other killers can also be good tunnelers, but don't have the free mobility that these killers do:

  • Pyramid Head needs to linger not far and have knowledge of his cage spawns.
  • Xenomorph needs to get to a station to tunnel effectively.
  • Sadako needs to have a live TV nearby.
  • Freddy needs a generator and his TP off cooldown.
  • Huntress needs to linger not far and have line of sight
  • Legion needs to chain his hits without getting stunned out of power (and is Legion)
  • Wraith is a good tunneler, but does have to play the m1 game and can fall victim to second chance perks and good loopers quite hard.
  • Oni can tunnel well, but his ability to do so is tied to blood availability and is slug dependent (which itself can backfire)

You get the idea, these killers are also good tunnelers, but can't turn on back to hook on a dime and get back to tunnel while still exerting strong pressure elsewhere... they can tunnel, but there is a cost that comes with it...

These and all other killers not on this list have to actively sacrifice pressure on gens and other survivors in order to tunnel effectively... and as such for these killers I genuinely don't believe tunnelling is cut and dry the most effective way to win...

However for these highly lethal and mobile killers... the mantra certainly does hold true... tunneling is the best way to win... and this means your answer to tunneling against such killers is pretty gonna be gen rush harder and just hope you win the war of attrition... it means that gen defence can never be buffed by virtue of the fact that these kind of killers exist...

However... at this point in the games life cycle... I'm not convinced this disparity can ever be solved...

🥺

Post edited by UndeddJester on

Comments

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 4,971
    edited May 12
    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3926228#Comment_3926228

    All fair points, and I think broadly we agree... and I 100% agree that comms is obviously a factor, but the HUD does a pretty good job of explaining the situation to you in soloQ. If you pay good attention to it, it covers more or less everything you need to know most of the time, and I believe players who utilise it well render tunneling to be nowhere near as effective on a low mobility killer as its ordained to be.

    In SoloQ, you can factor in the travel time to your decision making for m1 killers to make a reasonable judgement on if the killer is tunneling or not, and if an m1 killer enters/drops chase (or never enters it), then you can usually assess when you should unhook with pretty good accuracy. An m1 killer HAS to commit somewhere because time is so much more precious for m1 killers. You obviously can't expect other SoloQ players to adhere to these principles, but you can certainly make the assessment yourself, and if the killer drops chase, you've got some time to try and slip away to relative safety or hide somewhere.

    Even if you don't lose the killer, you can waste a significant portion of their time looking for you, or even just walking to you, amplified further by perks. The simple number of variables of where you could have gone or what you could be doing is much higher for m1 killers.

    The point I'm making is, even if you're in a SWF, a mobile killer can still always effectively return to hook to tunnel, for an m1 killer its a much bigger gamble even in SoloQ. A shout out might buy you maybe an extra couple of seconds or so against Blight, but seeing a Myers drop chase in SoloQ is giving maybe 10 seconds of more to react. The fact is vs. a mobile killer there are simply far less places you could have gone or actions you can take by the time the time the killer gets there. Even hiding in a locker with Iron Will isn't really an option more often than not because a mobile killer can see whether you'd had time to leave or not, and can assess you're still in the area.

    This strength of mobility to my mind directly correlates to the effectiveness of tunneling, and I don't think there is a way around it... because for m1 killers tunneling is not really that strong, and is quite managable for competant survivors... but for many S tiers, it's borderline unmanageable even in really good coordinated teams.

    EDIT: This obviously applies to more than just tunneling of course. Slugging, holding 3 gens, everything is far more effective by virtue of having less time to get across the map.

    I merely picked tunneling because it's talked about as being the most effective way to win, which I maintain, is only true for killers who have the mobility to effectively do it.

  • RpTheHotrod
    RpTheHotrod Member Posts: 2,826
    edited May 12

    What's not quite realized is the reason tunneling is rampant in dbd. Surprisingly, it's because of the number of survivors. Why?

    We must first understand that there are two ways people tend to view the game.

    The first way is the actual way the game is designed per BHVRs own statements. It's one killer vs 4 individual survivors each with their own win condition, but survivors are not considered a team. Survivors do not win or lose together and can choose to work together or work lone wolf. In a situation like this, for every survivor against the killer, each escape rate gets lower for survivors for balance. For example, if it was one killer vs 1 survivor, then the escape rate should be 50%. If there were two survivors, then obviously we could no longer keep survivors at a 50% escape rate, as it would be unfair for the killer who has multiple opponents. What's the balanced escape rate for 4 survivors? 38.5%. However, that low of escape rate isn't very fun for the individual survivors, so they have been given plenty of buffs. Recent official stats shows that escape rates range from around 40% (solo queue) all the way up to 48% (for 4 man squads). This ends up making it unbalanced while 4 survivors live. Once one survivor is eliminated, the balance between 3 and 4 survivors is a drastic change and becomes more manageable. Thats usually why you see killers only tunneling the first player out at high end play.

    The second way to view the game is to disregard BHVRs design and just pretend survivors are a team. If they were a team and all win/lose together, then this opens up the possibilities of ties. What's the escape rate in this case for each survivor for balance? 44.2%. This leaves solo/duo/trio slightly underperforming, but full 4 man squads still overperforming. This, once again, heavily encourages killers to tunnel out the first survivor.

    So whether you view view game as it's designed (1 killer vs 4 individual opponents) or as a team game, both cases have 4 survivors as having the advantage the moment the game begins. It's an uphill battle until one survivor is eliminated.

    It's a challenge to address because while 4 survivors have a very big advantage, once eliminated, the 3 remaining survivors are at a big disadvantage. Trying to nerf 4 survivors in some way would inevitably then hurt 3 survivors once the 4th is gone. It's a problem the game created from It's inception. It would have been likely better to have a strengthened 3 man game (as in stronger survivors but a max of 3).

    NOTE: this naturally is a base line and does not consider individual killer strength. Some killers are powerful enough to handle even full man squads with ease (such as blight). The numbers provided are about balance design as a whole across all killers. Some killers are underpowered and have it even worse, and some killers are overpowered and aren't held to the 4 survivors advantage. Also, the answer isn't to reduce the number of survivors then buff them considering the logo, merchandise, and so on...BHVR would never reduce the number of survivors. I'm just pointing out that designing the game with 4 survivors from the get go has created this problem that's frankly hard to fix without negatively affecting solo queue OR weak/average killers.

    Post edited by RpTheHotrod on
  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 4,971
    edited May 12
    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3926330#Comment_3926330

    It's an interesting perspective, though I don't necessarily believe it's a byproduct directly of the number of survivors, since the respective strength of the individual player correlates to the strength of the team as a whole.

    If for example we rudimentaraily say that survivors are 1/4 the strength of the killer, losing one player leaves the survivor team with 75% of it's strength. Whereas if we're to balance the game for 3 players vs. a killer, removing one player would losing a 1/3 of the teams strength, leaving 66% only of it's strength... so tunneling could be expected to be more prevalent with fewer survivors based on this rudimentary model, and by the same token, 5 players for Survivor would diminish the value of removing a player from the equation.

    Obviously this oversimplifies the problem, as the game of DBD is really all about action economy not some abiguous "strength". What makes 4 survivors stronger is more hands to divide tasks, and this would be true regardless of the number of survivors. So in regard to the question of tunneling a player out, we have effectively 2 scenarios/ideas to weigh up: -

    • You focus 1 survivor of the 4 survivors for the tunnel, only regularly occupying 1 survivor, while at least 2, and usually 3 survivors have completely unimpeded action economy, for the potential gain of making that 1 player permanently "occupied" by removing them from the game. If you do it fast enough then there are only 2 other hands available to survivor is at any one time you are in chase. By doing this you are allowing a temporary increased action economy to attempt to permanently reduce the survivor action economy from the point the first player dies. Hopefully you do it fast enough that you can pressure the remaining 3 consistently enough to win.
    • You focus multiple of survivors the 4 survivors, using the time they are on hook to consider them "occupied", and assuming you are effective at getting into and completing chase, you can now occupy 2 survivors at once, and occassionally 3 while one player is going for unhooks and completing heals. This is effectively the value that Pig's RBTs, Pinhead's Chains and Sadako's Condemn, and Hex perk's provide in a nutshell, they reduce survivor action economy so there are fewer hands available to progress the survivor objective.

    Now obviously if presented the chance to permanently remove 1 survivor from the equation efficiently, any killer would be throwing the game not to take it... however the question fundamentally is, if you are focusing one player and not removing the action economy of others, can you remove that player fast enough to stillbbe able to capitalise on the reduced action economy against the remaining 3 before the game runs away from you?

    More traditional m1 killers, the answer to me generally looks to be "no". This I believe is another fundamental problem with the more modern shift to generally more mobile and effective anti-loop killers who can brute force hits at tiles. Not only are they more effective at making a player dead, they are also more effective at capitalising on the fact that player is dead.

    The theory is these killers have the strength to not need to play these more sweaty and meaner strategies... but the reality is it tends to mean they are just better at it. It seems to me this creates a feedback loop where as more killers lean to becoming more map mobile and loop lethal (and not having those things leaves the killer dead in the water), the more effective strategies like tunneling and slugging become, and in turn stronger and stronger survivors defences need to become (hence the more recrnt initiativesto address those things coming up)

    And of course these things tend to disproportionately hit the killers that already can't do it more… (such as the 70 second unhook timer increase hits lower tier killers harder than higher tier ones).

  • RpTheHotrod
    RpTheHotrod Member Posts: 2,826
    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3926408#Comment_3926408

    Fair thoughts, but generally what I meant was atm, with one survivor being in chase, you have up to 3 survivors slamming away at objectives. It's not uncommon to see 3 gens lost by the time the killer gets their first down. If they don't tunnel them out of the game and instead spread hooks out, thats generally always having 2-3 survivors continuing to slam out gens (2 if someone goes for an unhook). Still pretty rough on some killers such as m1 no mobility killers. If instead there were 3 survivors max in a game, then there really would be no need to tunnel one out, as once they are hooked, you only have 1-2 survivors slamming out gens (1 if one goes for unhook). Thats a lot more manageable, so tunneling at that point doesnt really have any big way to eliminate a big disadvantage. If anything, survivors would be at the big disadvantage with 3 survivors max, hence my comment that survivors would need to inherently be stronger in some way individually (unless you meant that the number of gens would be reduced to complete which then yes, I'd agree the problem would persist ratio-wise).

  • danielmaster87
    danielmaster87 Member Posts: 10,719

    Tunneling didn't get called the strongest only after camping and tunneling were nerfed. Most have been saying it's the strongest since the very beginning. Because it is.

    And just based on how the game plays, I can't imagine it ever not being the best strategy. The devs will never reward the killer enough for them to play otherwise. All they do is punish, ironically affecting the more skillful/strategy-based players more (i.e. those who tunnel well).

    Can you win through random chases? Sure, sure. But that's a dice roll if ever there was one. The moment a decent survivor team capitalizes on that, you're done. And I guarantee you the people always saying "I don't ever tunnel, and constantly get 4ks" definitely do count hooks, most likely alternating between 2 survivors until death, like I do. They don't just go for random chases, because the best players in the world can't even do that and still win consistently.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 4,971
    edited May 14
    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3927067#Comment_3927067

    Absolutely fair assessment, good read.

    I believe another issue is there is no concrete definition of "tunneling" in the DBD community (or there is, but people are happy to substitute their own definition and call any instance of hooking a survivor twice "tunneling" regardless of context). To my mind there is a big difference between hardcore tunneling and opportunistic tunneling... there's quite a bit of nuance to tunneling in my opinion.

    In the scenario you describe of bouncing between survivors, this is a solid strategy, but of course the question is, does the timings surrounding unhooks, heals and downs allow it? Can you effectively find your previous mark? This was always my doubt on the true effectiveness of "tunneling", because sensibly if you get hooked first, you should be being more careful than your soloQ teammates. Do things like work on far generators, jump in lockers to avoid BBQ, generally pre-walk, etc, etc.

    I would argue a lot of the survivors who complain about tunneling often are complaining about opportunistic tunneling (hardcore tunneling is rare), and if Survivors do give the killer the opportunity to tunnel, and that's typically on the survivors... and to my mind ceitocisng the killer for doing it is silly. With the notable exception that of course... creating that tunnel opportunity is a much, much easier task for highly mobile killers 😏

    However I do believe hardcore tunneling is more often than not, a poor strategy... IF the Survivors don't all come of gens and play into it. 😁

  • PetTheDoggo
    PetTheDoggo Member Posts: 1,935
    edited May 14

    If you want to win regularly as killer, you always had kinda four ways around it:

    • play best perks in current meta
    • play strongest addons killer has
    • play strongest killers
    • tunnel / camp / slug whenever you get chance

    Issue is you have many players who pick all of them.

    I don't think three hook tunneling is really good way to win (should be definetly removed tho), because it's simply random. Those killers often over commit, lose game for it and it makes them feel like they need to do it more…

    I personally don't see that many players three hook tunneling, I would say most killers are opportunistic about it. Like if survivors gave me that option for free, I see no reason to not take it.

    Thing about mobility killers is they are free to choose their chases, they lose almost nothing by dropping a chase. Compare to regular killers who often waste like 20 +/- seconds just to even start another chase.
    Also easier time defending gens…

    Mobility killers were, are and will be top tier killers, because almost every aspect of the game is easier with mobility. You also get punished way less for incorrect macro choices. M1 killer guessing wrong on location of survivors just gave them free reset/unhook/time on gens.

    Also hold W, the most popular strategy of survivors simply is not effective against mobility killers…

    Post edited by PetTheDoggo on
  • jajay119
    jajay119 Member Posts: 1,232
    edited May 14

    Your point is valid and I think that's why tunnelling has become more consistent and problematic over recent years - BHVR had veered more towards killers that have an increased level of map mobility in their kit quite consistently now. As such, they're the most effective killers, if not strictly 'the best'. Look at the high pick rate for Wesker, for example. There have been jokes that the game, at one point, should have been called 'Resident Evil by Daylight' due the high numbers of Wesker players you did and continue to see on a daily basis. Add that to the fact that maps are now routinely being made much smaller than they used to be, which is great for standard mobility and M1 killers, but gives high mobility killers a massive boost by nature and it's not hard to see why many feel tunneling is much more a problem now than it was a few years ago.

    Post edited by jajay119 on
  • LockerLurk
    LockerLurk Member Posts: 1,683
    edited May 14
    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3927067#Comment_3927067

    I couldn't have said it better myself, and I want to add - the fundamental issue is, we still have Killers in this game that can't keep up with mobility options now. They have to play super tactical like this and have to try and force someone out as soon as they can a lot of the time OR run heavier gen slowdown.

    Killers built for an older style of DBD would never be designed this way today. If the Pig were released in 2025, she would have a mobility option. If Ghostface were released in 2025, he'd have a mobility option - and my hope is 2v8 featuring him is a test drive for seeing if Haste in Night Shroud, similar to what Wraith gets, is a good idea for mobility (it is). If Trapper were made in 2025, he'd have all of his traps and have a mobility option besides just haste from setting a trap.

    The game does not account for this in modern DBD, and that just is not sustainable or fair for people who like, genuinely like and wish to main, these Killers. We are at a point now something HAS to be done with them. You can't keep shrinking maps, making mobility Killers, and nerfing perks to compensate forever, you have to do something to change Killers like these on a fundamental level.