Got An Idea To Nerf Killer Camping

Woof, my first contribution to this website after hours of discussion with other players who play both survivor and Killer, and this is what I get: a couple of constructive posts and a slog of useless comments that think that balancing is impossible just because it hasn't been done properly before. I'm honestly a bit surprised at this reaction, seeing as camping is clearly a big issue in this game and sucks the fun out of it for everyone.

@Bravo0413 said:
Cuz the entity would punish the killer for doing their job.... yup this sounds like it goes with the lore :chuffed: ... since the update theres frames on the person being unhooked, BT is still a great perk to use, SWF...... oh SWF..... and SWF "shrugs" survivors have all the tools to combat any situation that comes infront of them... if its solo play... do gens dont give the killer the time of day...

So actually, I disagree with this: The Entity wants people to be sacrificed, right? So if the Killer is standing there waiting for the Entity to slowly tease it's prey before taking them away, what is the Killer not doing? Sacrificing survivors...which is his job. The idea we came up with is that The Entity is actually upset with the Killer for essentially standing around and doing nothing when they are supposed to be getting them sacrifices. Also, perhaps the Entity likes to dine/play alone? Dinner for one, please!

Also, I'm hearing that camping is part of the game...newflash, it's not: it's abusing the game's mechanics. Trapper can leave traps so he can leave the hooked survivor and come back if someone gets trapped, Hag can do the same, and taking a look at all the Killer Perks not a single one rewards you for standing there but in fact most of them give encouragement for you to go off and hunt down the other survivors now that you have some sort of bonus from hooking one of them...but having one survivor dead is worth more than anything a perk can give you.

Let me give you a personal example: I currently play mainly the Doctor as I perform best with him. Before I got as good as I am now, I was losing games because I play this game as a Horror Film Simulator...you know, playing the game for what it is, so I played to have fun and would hook someone and run off to find others. Low and behold, people REALLY want to win in this game despite the game not really rewarding you for doing so, so I had a rut in which all four survivors were getting away and I was getting mad because I couldn't enjoy myself as I had hit that rank where survivors are armed to the teeth and ready to win. So I did that horrible act: in the next game, I focused on one person and hooked them and stood there until they died. That person lasted as long as they could, and their team managed to get three generators done in that time. Guess what happened after that? I slaughtered them all, and now that I have gotten better I can do that without fully camping them and actually leave for a moment to kick a gen and come back and find them after they have been saved.

My argument here is that when everyone says 'Just ignore them and do gens' you are not only saying 'just accept this abuse of gameplay mechanics and do nothing about it' but you are also saying 'forget about ever rescuing a fellow survivor'...when that is a huge gameplay mechanic...AND your line of thought doesn't even net you a big enough advantage. When a Killer camps one survivor and forces them to die, on average the survivors seem to get between 2-3 gens done in that time (for the sake of the argument let's say they get three done). Now that you are down an ally, everything points to the Killer's advantage:

-The have one less survivor to worry about tracking, hooking, doing gens, finding hexs, and helping out their allies.
-They now have less gens to patrol, making it easier to come up with a strong gen pathing and constantly punish the remaining survivors.
-They get rewarded with Bloodpoints at the end for sacrificing that survivor, regardless of how the rest of the game goes. In fact, this one kill often nets them as much (sometimes more) as the survivors end-game when the other three successfully escaped, and that is without using a BP booster.

See, you working gens actually doesn't reward you enough as a survivor in this situation because you lose out on literally everything that fourth survivor could have offered you AND it's easier for the Killer to find you and halt your progress. Add on perks that have anything to do with gens and the Killer is making it a nightmare to get anything done that you might as well resort to just one of you getting away...which happens to me a lot. Seriously, with Doctor and Overcharge, I've had matches go on so long because I'll focus on keeping gens as low as possible and go after survivors only when they are really close to easily punish that games go on 20-45 mins and the survivors give up and either I kill them all or one found the hatch and the other distracts me so they can use it after they die. Anyone I chat with when I play Killer can tell you that when I play Doctor and the game loads, the first thing I say is 'Okay, no matter how many gens get done, I need to focus down and kill one of them.'

@Mister_xD said:
or (as i say in every single one of these posts) YOU REWARD KILLERS FOR NOT CAMPING instead of punishing them for camping. there. problem solved, everyone is happy.

im legit so annoyed by all these posts .-.

But that hasn't worked so far: there are plenty of perks that encourage them to not camp and go after other survivors, but it doesn't matter because guaranteeing that one survivor death rewards them much more and hurts survivors much more than any perk can possibly accomplish. I'm seeing a lot of this where you guys are saying that camping isn't good enough to nerf, but it is: the killer gets rewarded more than the surivivors, and I listed the reasons why.

@George_Soros said:
@ForsakenM Nonsense. Camping is part of the game. As it's been said a million times by a million players. 99% of the time camping first hook is a bad strategy anyway. Also, your proposition mostly ignores the not-so-rare event when the other three survivors just swarm the hooked guy instead of doing gens. I know you addressed this partially by pausing timer while in a chase, but that does not necessarily happen every time when other survs hookrush.
Do the math: ok, being camped is not fun, I agree there. But. That's one person not having fun, and three others who can actually do something productive, pop 3-4 gens, and completely screw the killer who is facecamping: in short, possibly having a good game. The other issue is that often when exit gates are powered or already opened, and there's still four survs, one of them hooked, then the prudent course of action is usually to camp the one who is hooked.

If the game were designed in a way that rewards camping, then it would be boring for killer and frustrating for survivors. But it is not the case. There are PLENTY of mechanics built in to prevent camping from becoming a winning strategy, also there's a significant difference in BP gains, in favor of less camping. Same goes for tunneling btw (just think of BBQ, that's clearly designed against tunneling). Do you think adding more elements that discourage camping would keep that small number of hard camping killers from playing their way? I doubt it. Your suggestion would punish good players too whenever they camp, and that would be unfair. Because as a killer, sometimes camping is necessary.

Waited to post my comment because I saw this post. Now I will admit, I'm not as experienced at this game as some other people, but a lot of the people I play with have been playing this game before it was free on PSPlus, so I'm learning a bit quicker than I may have otherwise. More importantly, let me address your arguments.

1. As I said before, camping is not 'part of the game': it is an abuse of gameplay features, but nowhere in this game is it said that you have to camp, and many parts of the game encourage you to not camp. People camp because they want to win as the Killer and camping nigh-guarantees you a dead survivor, making it easier for the Killer, harder for the survivors, and getting your hands on BP no matter how the game goes from there.
2. Camping is not fun for anyone. The Killer has to do it to significantly increase his chances of winning, but the act of camping itself is boring because you just sit there and stop playing the game until they die or someone tries to save them. It's not fun for the other survivors because there is honestly little they can do to prevent it without taking major risks that are ultimately not worth it, and losing that survivor puts them at a huge disadvantage regardless of how much progress they make in the meantime. I can't tell you how many times I've heard other survivors complain about camping when they are not the ones on the hook. Clearly, it's not fun for the camped survivor either.
3. I am a bit familiar with the hookrush strategy, and I agree that it can potentially save a survivor and minimize negatives to the other survivors, but there are many things in the Killer's favor if they try this: perks, add-ons, Exposed or anything that works like Exposed (Hillbilly and Cannibal say hi), Trapper and Hag traps, Clown AoE...I'm sure there is more that I don't know about. Also, while there is no specific perk that rewards camping itself Dying Light does heavily reward a Killer for guaranteeing the death of the Obsession as soon as possible and could be stacked with other perks to make a 'Camping Perk Set' that helps you successfully kill that one survivor. Decreased attack recovery, maybe even Fire Up, and now you have a kit that can potentially punish the survivors no matter how the decide to react to your camping. Best case scenario for a hookrush: Two survivors get injured, hooked survivor gets unhooked, and you all somehow lose the killer without any other repercussions. I'm sure we all know how unlikely that is, as it's much more likely that someone else will get downed during the rescue, and that could easily be the previously hooked survivor which would practically damn them to their fate.
4. You brought up a good point about the Exit Gates. With my idea, I think that once all the generators are done, the timer would no longer activate if a Killer camps someone mainly because, as you said, it's the only way to get a kill at this point due to a lack of survivor objectives.
5. Look at my previous arguments for why the Killer gains more than the survivors do when they camp, and that the previous attempts to fix camping or encourage doing non-camping activities hasn't worked. Also, more people camp than you give credit to, as player run into them regularly.