Camping is unfair and here's why:
So, obviously I'm a Survivor main. Before you read this and go "BUH BUH BUH KILLERS HAVE IT SO BAD BUH", just read and let it sink in first.
Camping is unfair. That, for me, is not debatable. What really throws me for a loop though, is that Devs keep saying 'it's a legit tactic'. Fair enough, killers get in a pickle if they camp and all the other survivors just straight push generators. They rarely do though, and here's why: It ######### SUCKS hanging on the hook being camped. Many many players play solo, so if they're being camped, it's ######### only for them. The other survivors get out? Well, woopdeedoo, good for them. I don't care! They're not my friends, I have no connection to them! What do I care that they can just ez genrush and get out while I die and cannot be saved?
The thing though is, nearly every Survivor knows this pain. So they will try to save, and then the killer has easy pickings. This. Is. Unfair. It's not only unfair because it's a very near guaranteed kill with one survivor being shat on, getting no Bloodpoints, getting pips revoked, all that jazz, no. It's also unfair because the survivor can't even kill themself because then they're letting the killer loose to camp another survivor immediately afterwards. And while lone survivors often look out mostly for themselves (because really, if I have the choice of me surviving or some rando, I'm gonna choose me), we ALSO know the feeling and will try to save others, even if only for them to help with generators or serve as cannonfodder later.
Killers have no such obligations. And the kicker? Even if a killer just hunts down one survivor and camps them to death, they get more bloodpoints than the survivors no matter what they do. Survivors have to do everything at once while being hunted down, the killer just does everything all at once.
Camping is unfair, and here's why:
- Best case in camping is: The one being camped is the only one suffering. Which in itself is already absolutely unfair.
- The camping party has little to nothing to lose because they can basically count on someone soft to try a save and waste time.
- Even if noone comes, the time it takes for someone to die on the hook is too short to pump more than 3 gens, which often isn't enough and allows the killer to catch and camp a second Survivor, granting 2 near guaranteed kills with only average amounts of skill at chasing and zero at gen control.
- A killer gets less emblem points if they camp. BOOHOO they're all SO SAD about it. This is not appropriate punishment.
- There's literally killers who can camp extremely efficiently, like Nurse or Hag, or Pyramid Head and Cannibal. The only counter against that might be Decisive Strike or Borrowed Time (which only works on the unhooked one, so Cannibal ######### over the savior) and there's only one single survivor tool to make camping less rewarding by extending the bleedout timer.
- The basement is basically designed to camp, which gives the killer yet another unfair advantage. Meanwhile survivors at any possible front are getting loop and escape potential clipped. (Maybe give the basement a second entrance? Just a thought. Might help.)
Conclusion:
- Killers shouldn't have perks that 'reward' not camping, but have more mechanics that punish camping. That way less people will camp.
- Maybe add more abilities for survivors to counter camping? That way it's not a requirement and takes a perk slot away for a better teamplay.
- Especially weaken some killers' ability to camp hooks that are being used. Maybe Hag traps aren't allowed in a larger area around hooks? Cannibal takes more time to charge while next to a hanged survivor? I'm sure there's a way.
- Work over map layouts and the basement as a whole to remove strong camping positions, just as much as infinite loops are (and should be) being removed one by one.
I'm all for killers and survivors being equally strong (As in, 4 survivors working together vs a skiller killer). But in my opinion, a 'balanced' outcome of a game where both parties are equally strong should be a 2-3 dead survivor game, not either 4 survive or 4 are dead, which seems to be most games I'm in right now, with few exceptions.
The reason this game design is fair should be because a killer with a monopoly of POWER is fighting against Survivors with a monopoly of TACTICAL TEAMWORK, but also INDIVIDUAL INTELLIGENCE. In the moment where you let a killer camp and get away with it because it's 'a legit tactic', you take away one survivor's fun, control and give the control all to the killer. And while the survivor has every reason to be salty, the killer can laugh and joke about it because they're the one who came out on top.
If this was a relationship, it would be an abusive one and should be reported to the authorities.
Comments
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Oh, and: Maybe add some of those perks as base perks so you don't have to wait ages or pay 7 bucks to be able to counter camping 'cuz you need to level that one survivor or pray for the perk to appear in the shrine.
(By the way, another unfair Killer Main bias: With a new addon, Survivors essentially get 4 perks, that's it. A new face maybe, if you like it, but it has no substance beyond that. Level to 40, back to main Survivor to get those perks on there, done. Killers get a fully new killer with a cool, shiny, new ability, new addons, new tactics. And Survivors cost just as much as killers with Blood Shards.)
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So... You're a survivor main. I see your points and they are valid but your conclusions are only half the picture.
Killer goes against 4 survivors and has to control the entire map alone. Does it feel bad that you got downed and put on a hook? Yeah. Depending on the state of the game when you get hooked proxy camping is a completely legitimate strategy.
Here's a perfect example. Say I choose to play trapper. Map is... McMillan or Autohaven. Open map, good loops, wide berths. My instinct is to set up a 3 gen using my traps and watch as the game dips down to 4 gens done while soft covering my pre-set 3 gen. I down you. Im going to hook you in clear sight of at least 2 of the generators. If I see a single crow fly away or grass rustle near you I am bee lining it back. Now the question is why would I do that?
Because as a killer I am forced to. If I let you unhook safely 100% of the time then getting a 1k would be amazing results or you and your team would have to be potatoes running at me.
You mentioned 2nd chance perks if your reply. What you didn't mention is the objective point of camping in a sense. As the killer I am slowing the game down (just a little bit [<3 monto]) by keeping pressure not only on you but anyone who comes to save you. The longer they take and the more risk they take the less likely they are crouched at a gen holding M1.
Its frustrating but I suggest playing more killer so you can understand why camping is a legit tactic. And no I'm not defending the salty killers that face camp spamming hits and/or their power.
If you want an example of what your asking for from a killer mains perspective. Then I suggest generators have a max of 2 people on them. No more 3-4 spot gens anymore. It lets survivors who put the effort to find others in finish generators faster than any non-dash killer can traverse a map from wall-wall. Restrict generators to 2 survivors max by using tiles and terrain and also increase the radius at which you can hear them working on it unless they run the perk Technician.
Do you see how unreasonable that sounds?
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The devs have said in the past they only want camping to be a viable strategy to a point. I think there only needs to be minor tweaks to get the game all the way there.
Basically they're okay with people camping but they don't want it to be a primary strategy because of how unfun it is for both sides.
If they want to kill camping without reason for good they should add a cummulative slowdown to hook progress if the killer is nearby AND there are no survivors nearby, basically the same system that is already in the game as an emblem penalty for camping, but as a mechanical penalty as well.
For every 6 or so seconds that killer spends close to the hook while there are no survivors nearby, the survivors on the hook should get 1 stack of this "cummulative slowdown" effect, with a grace period of no stacks appearing right after you hook them. From that point onward they will die slightly slower, even if the killer leaves. 1 stack of this effect will do very little, but if the killer stays near the hook for extrodinary amounts of time for no reason (ie. there is no survivors swarming the hook) then the slowdown stacks will start to accumulate and the hooked person will take a very long time to die.
This can't be abused because it's a system that ALREADY EXISTS but currently only gives point penalty's to the chaser emblem. Once again, the condition that a survivor cannot be near the hook for these stacks prevents abuse since looping the killer near the hook will not result in stack accumulation
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I do play killer, and I don't camp. Works fine for me most of the time. I agree that genrushing hurts killers, but the reason I say camping is unfair is because of the following:
Consider this: One killer, four survivors. The killer's winning objective is a spectrum. Ideally, you get all 4. Losing would be having all 4 escape. Anything in-between is sort of a medium thing, depending on how ambitious you are.
Survivors' winning objective is binary. It's survive, or die. Especially when you're not Surviving with Friends, where you can properly root for your allies' survival on an emotional level, or feel good that you made someone escape at the cost of your own virtual life.
Here comes camping. Camping takes the full control one survivor has over the game, and stuffs it deep, deep inside the trash. It's exceedingly rare that a skilled killer loses this scenario somehow. The killer, during camping, is in full control, while the hanged survivor has only two choices: Live or kill themselves. Killing themselves sounds fair enough because well. You can just get to the next game, right? Wrong. It gives the killer points that they didn't work for and makes you an ass for not giving your allies time to escape while you suffer the worst.
This is why it's unfair. It's 4 vs 1, yes. But as a survivor, you wanna escape. And any option of fighting for it is taken away from you.
Now don't get me wrong, I know that killers don't have it easy, that survivors have the edge when they play as a team and tactically sound. But that does not change the fact that camping is trash. Find other ways to balance the game, don't be lazy and say camping is legit.
You get what I mean?
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PS: I find camping less ######### when it happens in endgame and you're scrambling to get the one kill (or two) at the end. That's fair enough. Gives survivors an opportunity to fight for their allies' life with a fairer power balance.
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Okay, that's fair.
BUT
most people will have BT at higher ranks, so they will go for the save. That way you'll live.
Sure, they'll die, but as you said, if you had to choose between yourself and a random, you'll choose yourself.
Also us killers also think campers are scum.
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They DID work for those points. They downed and hooked you. Jerks that do it to be jerks are jerks. But at a point, the killer realizes he isn't going to get a kill and must camp.
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just don't get caught
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Wow, so insightful.
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I'm not going to read such a big wall of text but I'll answer the title.
Camping the whole game 1 survivor is indeed unfair for that person, but leaves the other 3 survivors 99% chances of escaping.
Using camping or proxy camping in certain situations as a strategy is fair.
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Sort of agree, but I don't care about the other 3 survivors, the 1 survivor that's being camped is derived of all fun because they can't do anything all game once they hang.
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I almost never play survivor, but when I do, if I get facecamped, I just suicide.
There's no reason to play a game against a facecamper.
And now that crossplay is active, queue times are short, so waiting for a game is no longer a problem.
Also, given the scenario that let's say the killer camped the 4 survivors and they all died in 1 hook, that killer can depip.
So if you do that against a killer like that, they'll end up deranking.
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I don't really care about the deranking. It still means all four survivors got shat on in a really unfair way? Why would I reward a killer with a free 4-man kill when they're being a jerk?
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Playing killer is all about scoring and performance. Getting a 4k doesn't mean you won.
Just if you got a ruthless/merciless killer, your performance was decent. Anything below that, is considered as "losing": brutal killer or entity displeased. Because with a "brutal killer" you don't earn pips, and with an "Entity displeased" you lose 1 pip.
Making a killer get a safety pip or depip, is actually punishing them.
If the killer is a newbie, they won't care about scoring, but if they are at least decent, they'll care about it.
There was a time in my "killer career" (just to give that a name), that I stopped caring about people escaping. As long as I get a ruthless killer or merciless, I know I played well, so no reason for getting mad. I have achieved a ruthless scoring even with 2 survivors escaping.
Killing or escaping, doesn't mean winning or losing.
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I agree with you I play both killer and survivor but I lean towards killer more many people use it as a strategy and they need it I play survivor and killer and ik what you mean but if I were you id just use the hatch perk from bill and try to work on gens while the killer is camping stay stealthy and if he kills everyone else find hatch that's all I can suggest because lately killers have been only winning the game tbh. Sorry.
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Make repairing gen speed faster if killer is at X meters from the hook and not in chase during a certain period of time (a facecamping killer shouldn't get more than one kill at most). And reward survivors, after the game, for not kill themselves on hook (safety pip, bonus blood points...).
I also think people who suicide on first hook ruin the game for the rest of the players (almost no difference to DCing) and should be punished somehow after game.
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