Tunneling/Camping question from a new player

I do not think someone is going to read this.

For starters, there are no downvotes on this forum, so everyone's opinion gets heard equally (as long as they can express it civilly) 😊 Also, this is going to be long, but judging by your OP I'm guessing you don't mind long posts!

Tunnelling

First, definitions. Tunnelling does come from the expression "tunnel-vision". You will find people with many different definitions of it, but as far as I'm concerned, tunnelling is going after the survivor who has just been unhooked, period. In my experience, most people who say that X is tunnelling but Y isn't because of the circumstances say that because they associate the word with unsportsmanlike behaviour, and wish to distance themselves from that connotation by using "tunnelling" as a term to distinguish between behaviour they consider acceptable and behaviour they don't. (For example, "it's only tunnelling if there are other survivors around and you choose to do it anyway" or "it's not tunnelling if it's the end of the game", or even "tunnelling is a word survivors made up to shame killers".) The conclusion I have come to is that definitionally, chasing a survivor off hook is always tunnelling regardless of circumstances, some forms of tunnelling are simply more widely acceptable than others.

Which brings me to the next point, "where is the line"? The answer is everyone has a different line, so practically speaking, there isn't one. Dead by Daylight doesn't really have anything which is universally agreed-upon enough to be considered an honour code. Some survivors won't have a problem with you tunnelling regardless of circumstances (though they will likely appreciate a bit of mercy if you care to offer it), some will only be okay with it if it's during endgame or if there was no one else around (as in your case), and some will genuinely expect you to pretend they're not there if they've just been unhooked, no matter what.

My advice to you is this: you can't please everyone, so play how you want to play. Tunnelling is a valid and usually quite effective strategy, but it can feel pretty crappy for the survivor on the receiving end. If you want to employ it for strategic reasons regardless, go for it. If you would rather avoid it out of kindness, that's okay as well. The important thing to remember, in either case, is that it's completely up to you. If you sacrifice a strategic advantage to be nice, that's your decision, and if you choose to capitalise on that advantage instead, no one should make you feel bad about it because there's nothing wrong with playing optimally as long as you stay within the official rules. If someone does cross the line into outright verbal abuse, as happened in your example above, feel free to report them for it. This is not only my perspective, but the official one held by the developers from everything I've seen and heard (as you yourself will have seen in the most recent stream when they discussed camping).

Exploits

What you're describing certainly sounds like an illegal exploit, but there are some things in the game that are technically "exploits", in the sense that they work by taking full advantage of a particular mechanic, but aren't against the rules because they have been officially endorsed. Looping, which exploits the survivors' smaller collision box to maximise chase length, is one such example. 'Window tech', which exploits the killer's limited FOV and collision mechanics while vaulting, is another. In order to determine which one this is, you might need to give us a bit more information. When your team asked you to crouch in front of the killer, was this while he was carrying or hooking the survivor, or while she was still on the ground? If the latter, were you asked to crouch on top of her? What position was she and/or the killer in (e.g. in a corner, on a hill)?

Annnoying Tactics

You are completely right about annoying tactics existing on both sides, and in general the ire around them is due to a lack of empathy. This is true both in the sense that people who only main one side sometimes don't understand why things like camping, tunnelling, looping, blinding etc. can often be necessary for strategic reasons, and also in the sense that often something looks or feels very different from your opponent's perspective than it does from yours. For example, as you pointed out earlier, a survivor may feel like they're being singled out when in reality, the killer simply couldn't find anyone else to chase.

In my experience, the idea that killers get more stones thrown at them boils down to two things: firstly, it's not very true in general, especially on the forums, but it may feel that way to someone who identifies more with the killer side due to cognitive bias; and second, to the extent that it is true, the reason would be that overall there are more survivor mains in the community at large than killer mains, given the game's 4:1 ratio and the fact that survivor is the only role you can play with friends in a public match.

As far as I'm personally concerned, as I've said, everything is acceptable as long as it's not against the rules. However, there are a couple of reasons why people who do believe that camping and tunnelling are less justified than looping feel that way, outside of simple entitlement.

Firstly, scoring: a survivor who gets camped or tunnelled to death will likely depip with very few bloodpoints earned, while a killer who gets looped all match will probably come out not well, but better, particularly since killers tend to earn more bloodpoints than survivors overall.

Secondly, responsibility: if a killer is so determined to get a particular survivor out of the match that they will camp and tunnel them to death, there's not a whole lot that survivor can do about it beyond delaying the inevitable, unless they're unusually skillful. Chases as killer tend to be a lot more about outplaying your opponent, so if a killer gets looped all game, it has a lot more to do with their relative lack of skill than being facecamped does for a survivor.

Thirdly, necessity. A good killer can win games consistently without needing to use tactics like camping and tunnelling to do it. Looping, on the other hand, is an absolute necessity for survivors, because survivor gameplay at its essence is about wasting enough of the killer's time that the generators can get repaired and the gates opened before everyone dies, and looping is not only the most effective, but close to the only way to do that.

I hope I covered everything - let me know if you have any more questions, and good luck in your future games!

Tunneling is basically as you described it. Going after nobody else the whole game. Anyone who says otherwise is either salty or misinformed. Slugging (leaving them in dying after they got off the hook) isn't tunneling. Trying to secure a last kill by attacking the injured person isn't tunneling. Getting DS'ed does not necessarily mean you tunneled. Seeing someone who was just unhooked, nobody else. and attacking, is not tunneling.

Camping comes in 2 forms in this game because everyone has to complain about something. Face camping (standing in the hooked person's LOS and not going anywhere else purely to tunnel/ get someone else on hook) and proxycamping (patrolling nearby objectives and a hook when someone's hooked). In some situations it's ok to do these (I mean, it's ok to do them whenever, there's always gonna be someone angry they couldn't have escaped), mostly when you just want one last kill in the endgame or there's definitely someone nearby. Ignore any comments that come your way about you tunneling or camping because it's probably not true

Yeah, hook tech is an exploit - I'm not sure you can get banned for it, but it certainly wasn't intended by the developers. I'm surprised though, because I was pretty sure it got patched out recently. I wasn't sure if you were talking about bodyblocking, which is a perfectly legitimate strategy that the killer can play around, similar to things like looping or camping.