Suggestion for an Easy to Implement Solution to Hatch Standoff

Troylus

1. Survivors who can get to an open hatch auto-escape. No more standoffs!
2. However, killers can close the hatch if they get there first. This permanently removes that hatch from play.
3. Closing the hatch reveals the aura of the survivor for a few seconds. Killer is now on the way!
4. Entity spawns a new open hatch somewhere on the map 20 seconds later. Survivor has a new chance at escape again.
5. Rinse and repeat until Survivor escapes or Killer downs and hooks survivor per usual.

Problem solved and end game play much improved.

deadwolfwalking

i like it so theres probably something wrong with it....

Master

Liking it too, but survivors would consider that unfair so its not gonna happen

Troylus

The gameplay economics of the current design encourage the standoff behavior whenever the killer gets to the hatch first

However, most people agree that this isn't fun or very interesting for either survivor or killer.

Hence, we should be looking for a design change that incentivizes both the killer and the survivor to be active for the duration of the hatch sequence of gameplay.

Hence, my proposed solution that ends the standoff while encouraging ongoing activity for both participants.

It's also very easy to implement using existing game mechanics (very little new code needs to be written and all assets already exist) so it could be tested within the matter of a few minutes to see how well it works.

Judgement

How about the original idea of gates becoming powered when the hatch is closed instead of all this complicated bullshit that doesn't need to be complicated?
It's really that simple, there are two easy solutions to the hatch thing, both involving the Killer closing the Hatch;
1. When the Killer closes the Hatch, gates are powered and opening times are halved, Remember Me is nullified. Killer can't see the gate auras and the fog becomes dense, dropping visibility massively so it makes it harder for the Killer to find the Survivor and for the Survivor to see the Killer. Killer Terror Radius is also reduced to 0 and the Stain vanishes, allowing the Killer to be stealthy and forcing the Survivor to stay alert.
2. When the Killer closes the Hatch, exit gates are opened automatically, and the Survivor suffers the Exposed status effect - they need to get out before they get got. Gate auras are permanently revealed to both Killer and Survivor. Being Exposed makes it fair for the Killer because closing the Hatch this way would still give the Survivor a guaranteed escape if they needed to take two hits.

Then they need to sort out how Adrenaline would work regarding either of these two ideas, and that's it. Nothing else would need to be done.
However I realise now that Survivors could camp the exit gates until the Killer closes the Hatch, and just slip right out on either scenario. That would need to be checked out and balanced, maybe teleporting the Survivor and Killer away from the gates so they need to find the gates from there.

I think the first one would be more fair than the second one, personally.

theArashi

@Judgement said:
How about the original idea of gates becoming powered when the hatch is closed instead of all this complicated bullshit that doesn't need to be complicated?
It's really that simple, there are two easy solutions to the hatch thing, both involving the Killer closing the Hatch;
1. When the Killer closes the Hatch, gates are powered and opening times are halved, Remember Me is nullified. Killer can't see the gate auras and the fog becomes dense, dropping visibility massively so it makes it harder for the Killer to find the Survivor and for the Survivor to see the Killer. Killer Terror Radius is also reduced to 0 and the Stain vanishes, allowing the Killer to be stealthy and forcing the Survivor to stay alert.
2. When the Killer closes the Hatch, exit gates are opened automatically, and the Survivor suffers the Exposed status effect - they need to get out before they get got. Gate auras are permanently revealed to both Killer and Survivor. Being Exposed makes it fair for the Killer because closing the Hatch this way would still give the Survivor a guaranteed escape if they needed to take two hits.

Then they need to sort out how Adrenaline would work regarding either of these two ideas, and that's it. Nothing else would need to be done.
However I realise now that Survivors could camp the exit gates until the Killer closes the Hatch, and just slip right out on either scenario. That would need to be checked out and balanced, maybe teleporting the Survivor and Killer away from the gates so they need to find the gates from there.

I think the first one would be more fair than the second one, personally.

Both sound like even more survivor favouring then the current hatch and make survivors being able to always escape.
You can very well just make it so survivors can always escape through the hatch and can't be grabbed.

White_Owl

So the survivor to survive is literally forced to pallet loop until he can escape? No thanks.

dbd900bach

I think they said something like this. The end game with only one survivor remaining, the end game should be a final standoff, intresting, intense and overall fun. But as the devs said "theres an easy way and right way".

facundoj

I think the hatch should be completely removed. Something more fair would be that when there's only one survivor left, some gens are powered until there's only one left. The three remaining gens would be far away from each other (this could be done unpowering already powering gens, or making special gens for this situation). Then the survivor have to repair one gen, and after that gates are opened automatically. This would be fair because the survivor would have to hide, and the killer would have to patrol gens and guess where is the survivor.

Envees

@Troylus said:
1. Survivors who can get to an open hatch auto-escape. No more standoffs!
2. However, killers can close the hatch if they get there first. This permanently removes that hatch from play.
3. Closing the hatch reveals the aura of the survivor for a few seconds. Killer is now on the way!
4. Entity spawns a new open hatch somewhere on the map 20 seconds later. Survivor has a new chance at escape again.
5. Rinse and repeat until Survivor escapes or Killer downs and hooks survivor per usual.

Problem solved and end game play much improved.

I have to say i like this. Neither has a true advantage. I am sick of the standoff. I have done a few and been stuborn cos they were little [really bad word].

This will still req both parties to know where the hatch is to start with. Then both parties have to get there. If surv gets there first its no change from the game as it is now.

If killer gets there he closes it and gets a mini BBQ aura. But not too long that it makes the surv not even be able to escape. Then both have to find the hatch. Killer has to make a choice then. Go for surv who might be there or go for hatch. Its no real automatic win for either.

One of the better hatch stand off solutions i have read. This would be acceptable to me.

Troylus

Thanks for the ongoing feedback in this thread!

Based on some responses, I think that maybe my original suggestion may not have given enough information to demonstrate how simple, fair, and easy to implement given current game mechanics it is.

It's simple to understand. Both killer and last survivor want to find the hatch first because it swings the game in their favor. For the survivor, its an instant win. For the killer, it briefly tells him where the survivor is and brings him or her one step closer to victory. It's also better for both because it ends the standoff that nearly everyone thinks is pretty lame gameplay.

Its fair because both killer and survivor have a hypothetical equal chance of finding the hatch first. Of course, in practice, one will always be closer or one may have noticed where the hatch had spawned previously before it opened - but that's just an outcome of gameplay not a design problem.

And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, this solution is very easy to implement and test using existing game mechanics. There are no new assets needed and no changes that need to be made to either the killer or survivor. Just the hatch spawning/closing subroutine needs to be slightly modified because the game already spawns the hatch via a call to that subroutine when certain conditions are met. All that needs to be done is make some small changes to those conditions - quite possibly amounting to just a few lines of code.

Which means, my proposed solution could be ready for feedback via a PTB within a matter of minutes.

To me, that's the real strength of this proposal - you can try it out very easily to see what the player base thinks.