Devs just rip the bandaid off
the whole community is going to be upset regardless of what you do, just make the changes that actually need to be made:
tunneling/slugging have been communicated to be the main issues plaguing the game. To truly fix these, gen speeds need to be addressed, while also finally addressing the S tier killer issue. The majority of the killer roster simply cannot compete with a halfway competent team that really wants to push gens. But if you just increase gen times/nerf gen perks and toolboxes, blights and nurses will steamroll even harder. If you’re afraid to nerf them due to killers leaving then at the very least you’re going to need to explore one of the interesting features from the first anti-tunnel disaster and give different rewards for unique hooks based on killer. Give incentives for spreading hooks that are actually beneficial and either base it on each killer individually or divide killers into groups and reward based on that.
As far as punishments go I think some sort of punishment would be good to discourage those killer who solely tunnel to cause pain to other players. But they need to be tuned to not be easily abusable or too far reaching as to affect normal gameplay. Also, if you’re going to punish killers for playing in an undesirable way, I think a way to get more killer players onboard would be to also punish survivors who solely play to bully killers. I don’t know what that would potentially look like but im sure some good ideas could be offered by your affiliates if you ever start listening to them. any changes that only punish one side will always cause outcry, punish both sides and make it seem more fair.
Also I know it was announced but fix the MMR already, I think a lot of people are just getting outplayed by more skilled opponents/sandbagged by incompetent teammates and blaming it on the game mechanics.