Q&A #4 Proposed Endgame

The idea that it comes down to your ability to hold off the killer for a minute until the exits open is quite appealing to me.

It's better than these goddamn hatch stand-off's. And finishing it with a blood-pumping chase at the end is really nice.

Horvath's proposed solution may make the endgame better and more interesting, but it will encourage survivors to camp the hatch if it continues to appear before the next to last survivor is sacrificed (like it does now). It could strongly hurt single player survivor games as the last couple of survivors will be even more interested in finding the hatch than in progressing the game via generators.

HOWEVER, make it so that the hatch doesn't spawn until the 60 seconds is up (now giving the lone survivor 3 potential escape routes: hatch or either opened gate) and this idea is stronger. It does seem like it will favor the survivor somewhat however as escaping via one of three routes - two of which are lit up and obvious - seems ridiculously easy in most cases.

Also, opening up the gates for free seems kinda lame to me. If the survivor wants those exits, seems like he or she should have to power up the gens to get them. I mean, what if the killer was rocking it and the survivors only got 2 gens before the killer sacc'ed off 3 survivors? That last survivor gets 3 escape routes as a reward for the killer's superior play? Doesn't this just encourage single-player survivors to hide and wait near an exit gate because they know the exit gates are going to open for them eventually anyway after all the other survivors are dead?

So, I think Horvath's solution will ultimately hurt solo player survivor games - probably slowing them down as soon as the killer starts to get an advantage as the remaining survivors will just go into stealth mode and blow off doing any more generators.

Never fear! I earlier proposed a SIMPLER hatch solution that has a similar (superior?) impact on the endgame:

Upon finding it, allow the killer to close the hatch in exchange for seeing the aura of the last survivor for a short period of time. After that period, spawn a new opened hatch somewhere in the level. No hatch standoff gameplay - just let the survivor out if they get to an opened hatch first.

Rinse and repeat until the survivor escapes via the ever-spawning hatches or the killer gets him or her.

The endgame is now very active as both killer and survivor are desperately hunting for the hatch as finding it first is an instant win for the survivor and finding it first is a huge advantage for the killer.

I don't see how opening the exit gates for free 60 seconds after the next to last survivor is sacrificed is a chase against time. The survivor doesn't die when the time expires - rather the survivor gets some big easy outs.

I think we need to think this proposal through in terms of how it incentivizes the killer and the survivors to play:

The next to last survivor will know that he or she is about to be rewarded with the free exit gates and so will move across the map away from his or her hooked and dying friend to find a relatively safe spot near the gates.

Sacrifice will happen. Timer will start. Killer will see the aura and begin crossing the map to get the last survivor.

30-45 seconds later, the killer will complete the map traversal and arrive in the vicinity of the lone survivor. There will be a chase lasting 10-20 seconds during which time the killer will MAYBE get a hit in.

Gates will open. Survivor will waltz out through them - teabagging along the way at the higher ranks.

So, killers will respond to the potential for Free Gates by slugging their last two survivors whenever they can.

Meanwhile, solo-player survivors will quickly realize that, when a game is going against them, they should quit working on gens at all and just find their safe space near an exit in preparation for the free escape to come.

End result: Gameplay likely gets worse, not better.

I suppose it is possible for the Devs to try and dial-in the delay before the Free Gates to try and make things more equitable between the killer and survivor - but this seem fraught with all kinds of new problems because whatever time amount they settle on will seem to favor either survivor or the killer.

Hence, I would bet that, before too long, players would be saying the liked the old Hatch gameplay better than the new Free Gates gameplay just because of how divided the community might become over how much time before the free escape is the right amount.

I think working to fix the existing Hatch gameplay to make it active for both players is a better solution than giving away Free Gates after a delay.

Thanks FrenziedRoach. That's good to know.

I think we're all on the same page here. We all agree that the Hatch standoff is pretty anti-climactic.

Horvath's suggestion gets at what we all think would be much better - some engagement and excitement at the end of the game for when there is only one survivor left but all the generators aren't done.

Unfortunately, to me it looks a bit to me like what we call a "rookie design mistake". Rather than addressing the core gameplay issue, it scrambles things up by introducing something new that sounds like it might work - but could also create a whole host of new issues. The endgame may not actually be better - it might just be different - and could wind up significantly worse.

The real issue - as I see it - is that the current Hatch design encourages killers that find it to just stop dead and wait for the survivor to come around. That is their best play in the situation. This is what results in the standoff. (There is NO issue if the survivor finds the Hatch first. They just exit.)

So solving the issue should focus on giving the killer something to do when he or she finds the Hatch that gets things going again. This is why I think closing it in exchange for the aura of the survivor is an easy and direct solution. It gets the killer back into gameplay right away and likely initiates a chase very shortly thereafter. But, perhaps more importantly, it doesn't introduce a bunch of new problems and balance issues - like what I think giving away Free Gates after a delay would probably do.

@Troylus said:

@Asssthetic said:

Another idea I had about this mechanic is to have gens being worked on (as if one survivor is on it) till the last 3 or however remaining gens are complete. This would mean that if a gen needed 60 charges to get complete and another needed all 80 charges, then the max time would be 80 seconds (1 charge per second for a gen being worked on). This would reflect the gameplay of the survivors and determine whether or not the time would be short or not.

This is interesting. I suppose the idea could be justified by something like "the Entity is infusing the remaining generators with it's power" and the Survivor Aura / Time till Free Gates would be based on how close the survivors were to actually powering up the gates. If they were a long ways off - the time would be long. If they were really close - the time would be short. This mechanic would be fairly self-balancing because it would always be in the survivors best interest - even if the game is going badly for them - to keep working on generators so as to shorten the final Endgame sequence towards the lone survivor's favor. Many of the problems I brought up would be mitigated by this self-balancing mechanic.

I think it's a good idea worth considering!

Yeah I definitely agree with you. The gens would slowly get powered one by one, maybe as your dead teammates trying to help you in the afterlife??? But I feel after the last gen is popped, both the killers aura and survivors aura are revealed to each other like object of obsession. They could implement this idea alongside the hatch closing change, so if the hatch is closed, the gens would begin to be worked on.This change would just reflect a teams overall gameplay and would probably offer some use to the left behind perk if the hatch is closed.