What is considered, “Holding the game hostage?”

Slugging is not considered holding the game hostage. Since the game will end once they bleed out. Trapping someone in the basement or in a corner would be considered holding a game hostage. Because there is no way v for the game to end . Now egc does change things a little bit. So to would have to trap all survivors in the basement .

Holding the game hostage means that the game in a situation where it will never end. For example, the last two survivors refusing to repair any generators and hiding until the killer disconnects.

@hagling Also, in response to the rest of your question -- yeah, if a killer just slugs everyone and waits out the timer, I agree he's being a jerk. It's not a great way to play. But this is not reportable, otherwise some poor CS people would have to spend hours upon hours sifting through really subjective reports of slugging that are "holding the game hostage." From that standpoint, it's better to just have a narrow actionable definition, and a mechanic that closes out the game with a minimum of everyone's time wasted.

so your scenario wouldn't be considered holding the game hostage either then, since assuming a killer trapped one survivor in the basement the others could finish the rest of the gens, open a gate, and eventually the EGC would claim the victim? unless you're specifically saying it's only holding the game hostage if the killer somehow traps all the remaining survivors, preventing them from completing the objective and triggering EGC, in which case.. I've never seen that happen, that feels very very specific.

It's because it IS very specific. Imagine you're the last survivor alive, and the killer traps you in some corner of a walled area or whatever, and you cannot physically move past them. They proceed to stand there for two hours and not let you leave. They are now holding you hostage, preventing you from playing the game in a normal way.

Survivors can do this to you as well, which I assume would be considered "working with the killer" or something, if the killer isn't stopping them.

And even if other survivors had free passage to go finish gens and leave, and you were just being blockaded in this way by the killer for the whole match, you would probably have a legitimate cause to report for griefing, because you are being prevented from playing the game in a normal way. I've never seen this happen, and the EGC is designed to end weird endgame standoffs like this once doors are open, but you would have had your game held hostage for sure.

It's exceedingly rare and most often performed by survivors (because it's very difficult for killers to do it).

any action that increases thelength of the game by a long amount of time without progressing it.

reportable actions would be:

• bodyblocking a survivor in a corner for long periodes of time
• hiding and not doing any generators for long periodes of time (only when every survivor remaining in the trial does it)
• defending a 3 gen without ever committing a chase, therefore not hooking anyone while also not allowing for the geerators to be progressed for long periodes of time EDIT: as this has been misunderstood a lot: i am referring to very excessive cases where a killer refuses to progress the game on their part (not chasing / hooking), while simultaneously not allowing the survivors to progress the game in any way. i am not saying at all that a 3 gen was reportable, hence the same situation being listed in the "not reportable actions" section of the comment.
• ...

not reportable actions would be:

• slugging
• bodyblocking a survvivor in a corner during the EGC
• camping
• defending a 3 gen (unless its excessive as mentioned above)
• ...

(those are just a few examples, there are more reportablele and non reportable actions ofc)

the difference between these two is, that the above mentioned actions are something one side can do that the other side cant counter, so they are forced to quit the game if nothing happens, while the below mentioned actions all have a set timer to them that ends the action after a while.

Slugging for the 4k as you brought up as an example is not considered "holding the game hostage", due to the bleed out bar a survivor in the dying state has. once that expires they die and hatch becomes available, forcefully progressing the game.

Is this list cited anywhere? Because I have DEFINITELY three-genned maps really hard and denied the heck out of them to the survivors. But when I do this, I'm also always actively trying to find, damage, and hook survivors, BUT always prioritizing my gen dominance over a risky chase that would take me too far away to keep them locked down.

I would think that if the intention isn't to maliciously hold the game hostage, but rather to press an advantage for a slightly protracted win, it's OK. One of my most exciting recent survivor matches was vs. a Deathslinger who did this to us, and everyone in the game was very committed to getting the win. We lost, but it was a great game of cat and mouse.

i am very sure i have read a Dev response on another post with this topic stating, that defending a 3 gen is not considered a "reportable offense", unless the killer does it very excessively without doing anything besides making it impossible to get gens, therefoe not progressing the game himself while also not allowing for any progress on the survivors part, hence holding the game hostage.

maybe @Peanits could give some clarification on this topic though, i might be mistaken.

as long as you are still aiming to kill them, that progresses the game.

im not saying that dropping a chase or two to defend your gen setup was reportable, i was referring to very excessive cases, such as killers refusing to chase survivors with the sole purpose of not letting them finish gens for very long amounts of time.

there is no "clear defined criteria" in any of these.

hiding from the killer is also not a reportable offense after all, unless its done for long amounts of time, which again is not clearly defined.

if you encounter a killer who will defend his 3 gen for like a whole hour without ever committing to chases, that would be reportable.

if you encounter a killer who defends his 3 gen and still downs and hooks survivors when he has the opportunity to, thats not.

i edited the main comment, this may anwer some questions.

regarding the definition of excessive: there is no clear definition.

but if you were to find a killer who would only care about defending his gens, not downing or hooking anyone for long amounts of time (again: no clear definition. but if you've not been able to get gens done for like 20 minutes while there were no hooks achieved during that time aswell, i would report that. whether it actually leads to a ban or not is up to the support team viewing the proof video you need to send in such cases) that would be a game held hostage.

@Bovinity @Mister_xD I'd think the difference would boil down to:

• Killer is carefully guarding the three generators, regressing them, and actively attacking and chasing off survivors who are in his "sphere of influence" (which is what I do in these situations).
• Killer is guarding the three generators, keeping them regressed to an untouched state, and making no attempt whatsoever to attack or otherwise pressure survivors (which would stall the game out indefinitely).

Thing is, if I'm playing killer and I know the survivors are good at chases it's not practical to chase them, it's basically forfeiting the match. So waiting for your prey to come to you is the best option. Honestly there's no right or wrong answer to 3 gens, but I would think they swing more in the killers favor. Simply because if it wasn't intended or if it was such a huge problem, the devs would have done something about it by now.

let me try to be more precise:

the goal of each side is to deny the opposing side to progress their objective, while progressing their own. that is optimal gameplay, this is how 3 gen scenarios happen and thats how they should be used.

however, it gets a reportable offense when one side focusses on denying the progress of the other sides objective, without progressing their own. with this you stall out games indefinitely and make the whole experience extremely unfun for everyone else. this is how 3 gen scenarios CAN be used (but tbh in order to do that you must be playing very specific killers with very specific loadouts (e.g. impossible skillcheck doc), otherwise you are going to lose a gen sooner or later), but should not be. in this case you would do the equivalent to survivors hiding all game, not touching any gens - which we all agree is considered a game taken hostage.

the big difference here is, that the killer is reliant on the survivors to be able to progress his objective, therefore its a lot easier for them to abuse this situation and take the game hostage. but as soon as the survivors become reliant on the killer to be able to progress theirs any further (a scenario a 3 gen can definitely offer), this can lead to abuse of said scenario by the killer.

it is not likely to happen, it has to be a thing for long amounts of time and it has to be clear that the killer has no intention of killing anyone anymore at this point, but only cares about keeping the gens under lockdown (=> not allowing one side to progress their objective while not progressing their own).