How to stop tactical camping

Orion

For the purposes of this thread, "tactical camping" is intended to mean "camping intended as a strategy", which does not encompass griefing.

Tactical camping, at its core, stems from one core issue: unhooking a Survivor is extremely punishing for Killers and extremely rewarding for Survivors.

Here's a typical scenario:

• Assume a Killer takes 15 seconds to find a Survivor. During this time, four generators have been repaired to 15%, taking into account skill checks, base generator repair time, and the time it takes to find a generator.
• Assume a Survivor can keep a Killer busy for 30 seconds before getting hit for the first time. During this time, three generators were repaired to 55%, while one generator remains at 15%.
• Assume another 30 seconds until the second hit. Three generators have been repaired to 95%, and one remains at 15%.
• Assume 5 seconds to reach the hook. Three generators were fully repaired, meaning that the Survivors are 60% of the way to being able to open the gates. Given the time it takes to open the gates, I'd hazard a guess they're 50% of the way to winning, while the Killer has yet to kill a single Survivor.
• The other Survivors immediately stop generator progression and approach the hook while trying to remain unseen by the Killer.

At this point, the Killer has two options:
1. Camp the Survivor he already has, knowing full well that the rest will come for the rescue.
2. Leave the hook, knowing full well he will lose his prey.

Let's follow both paths, one at a time.

First path:

• The other Survivors crouch around the hook, trying to find an opening they know won't come, until the hooked Survivor dies. Three Survivors remain.
• The Killer had already spotted the three Survivors around the hook and finds a new target.
• Assume 20 seconds until the first hit, due to the Survivor not realizing the Killer had seen him long ago. During this time, the other Survivors are scrambling to find new generators. One of them finds the generator that was left at 15%, while the other finds a generator at 0%.
• Assume 30 seconds until the second hit. First generator is at 55%, the other is at 40%.
• Assume 5 seconds to reach the hook. First generator is at 60%, the other is at 45%.
• The Killer still camps, but the Survivors have now decided to focus on generators.
• It takes 60 seconds for the second Survivor to be sacrificed, because they give up mashing the space bar after a while due to being camped. First generator is fully repaired, while the second sits at 85%.
• The Killer finds the Survivor that was repairing the first generator. The last one keeps working on the second generator.
• After 10 seconds, the second generator is repaired. The last Survivor moves toward the nearest gate, to open it.
• Assume 20 seconds from the time the second generator was repaired until the third Survivor is hit. One of the gates is now open, but the third Survivor doesn't know which one.
• After 30 seconds, the third Survivor has led the Killer toward the wrong gate, thinking it was the one their teammate had opened. The third Survivor is hit again and taken to a hook in 5 seconds.
• The last Survivor escapes through the gate.

Result: Killer has 3 kills.

Second path:

• The Killer finds one of the three Survivors approaching the hook and initiates a chase.
• The hooked Survivor is rescued and healed in 10 seconds. All three Survivors disperse and resume generator repair after 5 seconds.
• The second Survivor the Killer is chasing is hit 20 seconds after the hooked Survivor is healed. During this time, three generators were repaired to 30%.
• Another 30 seconds until the second hit. During this time, three generators were repaired to 70%.
• 5 seconds until the second Survivor is hooked. The other three are already approaching the hook's area.
• The Killer manages to find the first hooked Survivor and decides to chase them. The second hooked Survivor is rescued by the time the Killer initiates the chase.
• 30 seconds until the first hit. The second hooked Survivor was fully healed after 10 and all three Survivors resumed generator repair 5 seconds after that. Three generators are now at 90%.
• 30 seconds until the second hit. All generators were repaired after 5, and both gates were opened at the same time as the second hit.
• The Killer finds the second hooked Survivor and initiates a chase. The first hooked Survivor is rescued by the time the chase is initiated.
• The second hooked Survivor makes a beeline for one of the open gates, getting hit once along the way and escaping in the nick of time.
• The Killer checks the area around the gate and decides to go toward the other gate. There, the Killer finds three Survivors spamming Ctrl, who run before the Killer has the chance to approach.

Result: Killer has 0 kills.

TL;DR: Survivors have the ability to essentially reset the Killer's progress in 10 seconds, while keeping their own intact. Killers know that if they attempt to stop the Survivors' progress, they have to sacrifice their own as well. Often, this results in "one step forward, two steps back" for the Killer.

With all that in mind, a combination of these changes to the game could help reduce tactical camping. I want to emphasize that these changes are not perfect and have room for improvement, as well as the fact that I'm not suggesting they should all be implemented:

• Base Killer movement speed adjusted so it matches tier 1 of Bloodlust. This will make chases slightly shorter.
• Hooked Survivors are capped at the "injured" state. This will make hooking more relevant.
• Survivors no longer get a Sprint Burst upon being hit. This will make chases slightly shorter.
• Walking speed of injured Survivors is reduced to between crouch-walking and regular walking, with the appropriate change to sprinting speed. This will make injuries relevant in the short term and shorten chases.
• Unhooking a Survivor requires two Survivors to be near-instant (the speed it is now), but will not trigger Borrowed Time or other unhooking-related perks. With only one Survivor, it takes 15 seconds to unhook. This will make hook saves actually dangerous.
• The further away the Killer is from the hook, the faster the hooked Survivor is sacrificed, with the speed increasing 5%/m after a radius of 4m, without limit. Within the 4m radius, the sacrifice speed is normal. If the Killer is engaged in a chase, the sacrifice speed is immediately doubled, as is the bonus 5%/m. This will make Killers want to leave the hook and chase other survivors.
• Borrowed Time injures the rescuer if the unhooked Survivor is hit while it's in effect. This will make hook saves with Borrowed Time actually dangerous.
• Survivors only take 60 seconds to be sacrificed. This will put less pressure on Killers to defend the Survivor they caught and more pressure on Survivors to rescue their teammate.
• Survivors who are rehooked are immediately sacrificed. This will make Killers want to allow a rescue, since it will greatly benefit them if they can catch the same Survivor again.
• Killers are no longer slowed after attacking, no matter if they hit a Survivor or terrain, or if they miss altogether. They will still get the usual animations. This will make chases slightly shorter.

Runiver

TL;DR : camping is usually worth it because survivors do recover too quickly if you let them unchecked, and leaving the hook to POSSIBLY pressure a single (or, with some luck, 2 of them, for a few seconds) will not provide enough of a benefit to make camping not to be the most viable strategy.

Not to mention catching the rescuer before he can unhook is the best way to snowball and end a game, as it forces everyone to commit to the saves.

That being said, Dbd is a casual game, meant to be ezpz with low efforts for survivors while providing a few bandaids on an open wound to try to make it feel better.
Spoiler alert : it doesn't. But since survivors do not have to truly get good to pip, they "adapted" their style of play, and are usually pretty bad at the game, which allows killers to get consistent kills even tho they shouldn't.

If, some day, they actually force survivors to step up their game and become decent, it would be a nightmare to play killer. Tho, they don't seem to go that way, since any complaint about things being "too hard" (aka the emblem system rework for survivors) is just being made easier in a matter of days/weeks.

Orion

Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Master

@Orion said:
Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Yes but in DBD the "weak" side is actually not weak, thats what causes all this problems. This is not gonna be changed however, dev have showed no intention at all to change that

Orion

@Master said:

@Orion said:
Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Yes but in DBD the "weak" side is actually not weak, thats what causes all this problems. This is not gonna be changed however, dev have showed no intention at all to change that

I know. It's in the massive OP I wrote. However, the devs are clearly trying to change that.

Master

@Orion said:

@Master said:

@Orion said:
Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Yes but in DBD the "weak" side is actually not weak, thats what causes all this problems. This is not gonna be changed however, dev have showed no intention at all to change that

I know. It's in the massive OP I wrote. However, the devs are clearly trying to change that.

Not really tbh, I thought looping would radically change when they promised mindgame pallets for 2.0, but look what we got..... nothing changed besides from teh vacuum

Orion

@Master said:

@Orion said:

@Master said:

@Orion said:
Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Yes but in DBD the "weak" side is actually not weak, thats what causes all this problems. This is not gonna be changed however, dev have showed no intention at all to change that

I know. It's in the massive OP I wrote. However, the devs are clearly trying to change that.

Not really tbh, I thought looping would radically change when they promised mindgame pallets for 2.0, but look what we got..... nothing changed besides from teh vacuum

The change they made was believed by everyone to change looping. It didn't work out that way. It happens. However, it's exactly what everyone believed would be sufficient to change looping.

Like I said in another thread, the problem, in the end, will always be the Survivors. Remove pallet vacuum, they just make fewer loops before dropping the pallet.
Radical changes are necessary, to massively shift the game in the Killers' favor and force Survivors to play better. As proven by the so-called "Depip squad", if Survivors play optimally, Killers cannot succeed. The only way this will change is through a massive shift in the Killers' favor.

Master

@Orion said:

@Master said:

@Orion said:

@Master said:

@Orion said:
Exactly, Runiver. Survivors simply recover too quickly, in a manner completely disproportionate to the time Killers spend to injure them in the first place. It's baffling that in a 4v1 asymmetrical game, the (supposed) strong side wastes 60 seconds achieving something that one member of the (supposed) weak side can undo in 10 seconds.

Yes but in DBD the "weak" side is actually not weak, thats what causes all this problems. This is not gonna be changed however, dev have showed no intention at all to change that

I know. It's in the massive OP I wrote. However, the devs are clearly trying to change that.

Not really tbh, I thought looping would radically change when they promised mindgame pallets for 2.0, but look what we got..... nothing changed besides from teh vacuum

The change they made was believed by everyone to change looping. It didn't work out that way. It happens. However, it's exactly what everyone believed would be sufficient to change looping.

Like I said in another thread, the problem, in the end, will always be the Survivors. Remove pallet vacuum, they just make fewer loops before dropping the pallet.
Radical changes are necessary, to massively shift the game in the Killers' favor and force Survivors to play better. As proven by the so-called "Depip squad", if Survivors play optimally, Killers cannot succeed. The only way this will change is through a massive shift in the Killers' favor.

They were explaining that they plan to introduce more obstacles at the loops such that the survivor cant see the killer that easy anymore which gives the possibility to mindgame.
But FACT is that they did not even try it, nothing has changed at all, survivors has clear sight everywhere

A massive shift towards the killers favor is not gonna happen, survivors represent 80% of the wallets and apparently devs are too scared to risk their wallets^^