Caution: Wall of text incoming. TL;DR at the bottom.

The recent changes meant to combat/discourage camping have been, at best, ineffective. At worst, they just further encourage toxic behavior, mindless gameplay and one-sided engagements. The Dead by Daylight team is currently trying to fix camping in the absolute worst way possible, which is to just stack more layers on top of the problem.

The Current Changes

Exhaustion Recovery and Invincibility Frames

Adding instant exhaustion recovery as well as frames of literal invincibility, while not necessarily a bad change, has just further encouraged people to hookrush and farm their teammates. By reducing the chance of there being any actual negative repercussions, people are going to think even less as they run up to a hooked teammate with the Killer breathing down their neck.

People who are actually camping probably don't care who is on the hook in the first place, they'll just sit at the hook and hit whoever comes to the rescue twice. Instead, yet again, as with all attempted changes to combat camping - this change only hurts Killers who aren't camping. You hit someone, they run up to the hook and start farming their teammate. You chase them and swing at the first person you can hit - and deal no damage. Because the person on the hook completely ate the hit, both people run away, and you're stuck there having to wipe the blood off your weapon. The Killer was just punished because they tried to capitalize on a bad play.

DbD is already a simple game with limited options. This just limits options even further and is able to very easily punish the wrong people. Any changes like this, where they're ineffective to solving the issue they're aiming for, while making the game experience worse and punishing people who aren't part of the problem, should never be accepted. This is an easily abusive mechanic. That could be easily changed by making the i-frames like Dead Hard, where you can't target the person being unhooked - that way you never get a gimped hit.

Chaser Emblem Penalty

The DbD team has done a good job of making this non-abusive. But it's a clear indicator of the mindset being used when drafting ideas to combat camping, which is essentially just to brute force the playstyle out of the window by stacking layers of penalties and difficulties.

This change isn't abusive so it's not a problem either way, but it just doesn't work. Campers do not care about their rank in the first place. Rank is already so easy to gain that this probably won't stop people from gaining rank anyway. This doesn't make camping more/less effective and it won't influence people to not want to camp. Simply, the change is harmless and ineffective.

Proposed Changes

The Proper Method

So the current changes don't really work. And as I have said, no changes of this nature will actually be effective without also being heavily abusive. Camping, and to a further extent tunneling - two of the biggest Survivor complaints regarding playstyle in DbD - will never be solved by stacking layers on top of the problem.

What I mean by this is that both camping and tunneling exist for a reason. There is a root to the problem which lies in the game's core structure. This is something which absolutely cannot be ignored or worked around - it will always pose a problem. It must be addressed directly. If it isn't, then people will always want to camp and tunnel. And if they want to, they will try. And even if you make it so they can't, they'll just end up feeling frustrated, and the other players will be annoyed by the attempt to play the game in an unfun way.

There simply is no better way to address these concepts. In fact I believe it is the only way worth dedicating any time to.

The Root of the Issue

So, where does the problem lie? Where's the first place people should be looking when they think about camping and tunneling? It's a simple question: Why do people camp/tunnel in the first place? The answer is even simpler: Why wouldn't they?

The game is setup at the core that hooks act as extra-lives for Survivors. You go down, you get hooked - you lose one life. If you are hooked thrice, it's game over. There are no penalties to being hooked outside of being closer to death, and there are no benefits to the Killer hooking you other than that you are closer to death. Once you are dead however, it's extremely pressuring to the team and very beneficial to the Killer.

Seeing the problem? The Killer hooks you once and then has you closer to death. Until you are finally dead however, they do not gain any major or long-term benefits. So, what's the logical conclusion people will come to? Someone gets unhooked - they are injured, you know their location, and they are closer to death than anyone else - Why not go back and hook them again? It's sort of like repairing a generator. Yeah, if you repair it to 50%, you've certainly made good progress. But that doesn't mean anything until the generator is fully completed.

In short, whoever is closest to death hook is the highest value target for a Killer. That means the first person who is hooked is immediately the highest value target for a Killer, who they'll want to focus down.

Now there are reasons not to do so, but they're not explicit mechanics within the game. Strategies like "Spreading pressure" are more abstract concepts than well-defined mechanics. My point is that the game itself is setup so that camping/tunneling is an appealing strategy to those looking to play effectively and win. Which, even in a casual game, is something people will want to do - win.

How to Fix It

So, the issue has been pretty well defined now. People are playing in a particular way that isn't fun. They are drawn to this playstyle because it's a defined strategy within the game's own core mechanics. The community doesn't enjoy this playstyle and the developers want to make changes so people don't use it anymore. So, how should they do it?

It's a simple idea with many possible solutions: Make Survivors who have been recently hooked less valuable targets than people who have not yet been hooked.

That's basically it. Give the Killer a reason to chase new people. Add a genuine mechanic which gives them an incentive to leave people alone if you already hooked them recently. Lots of ways to do this (and I'll provide my own suggestion later), no way is necessarily right, but following this line of thought is definitely the best way to do it.

Why? Because this way you're encouraging Killers to play in a way that is more fun for them AND the Survivors they face, not by punishing them for playing the "wrong" way - but by making the fun playstyle the most effective one. This positive encouragement is far more effective than just negative reinforcement that camping/tunneling is bad.

My Suggestion

New Affliction: Crippled

• Applies to a Survivor after they are unhooked by another Survivor.
• Reduces the action speed of the affected Survivor by 25% until the effect wears off (similar to Dying Light).
• Dynamic debuff duration. Depending on the current state of the match, Crippled may have a longer or shorter duration.
• For example, if 3 generators have been completed by the time a Survivor was first hooked, and they are unhooked before the 2nd phase, Crippled may be applied for up to 180 seconds. In contrast, if a Survivor is hooked within the first 30 seconds of the game, Crippled will only last up to 60 seconds, or may not apply at all.
• The dynamic duration of Crippled will help close the gap between low-tier Killers and high-tier Killers, giving under-performing Killers a better chance at securing the match without having to resort to camping/tunneling, while preventing Killers who are already performing incredibly well from snowballing and stomping the match.

The design of the Crippled status effect is to make spreading pressure by targeting different Survivors a defined mechanic. This gives Killers clear purpose to target different Survivors each chase, even if they have the opportunity to re-engage someone who is close to death. This adds weight to the action of being hooked and would hopefully instill fear in Survivors over the idea of being hooked for the penalty, rather than for the frustrating idea of "Oh boy, I guess I'm gonna die first". This will help prevent matches that end too quickly, both for the Killer and Survivors who end up getting focused down early.

This mechanic is also a good opportunity to rework some perks, and give more use to already existing ones. For instance:

Dying Light
When the Obsession is unhooked, killed, or sacrificed, all Survivors suffer from the Crippled status effect for 60/90/120 seconds. This effect cannot be re-applied while the effect is still active, or for 30 seconds after the effects expire. Altruistic actions performed to the Obsession are 35/50/75% faster.

This stays in theme with the Obsession being a high value target for the Killer by offering them immense pressure, but clearly discourages the Killer from focusing the Obsession down. Instead they want to keep the Obsession around as long as possible so they can proc Dying Light multiple times during the match. The reversal of the altruistic action speed buff is to further discourage tunneling the Obsession by making it easier for Survivors to heal them, and just because I think it makes more sense to the name of the perk. Survivors should be drawn to the Obsession, trying to keep them alive - trying to prevent their beacon of light from being snuffed out.

Thanatophobia could be reworked to increase the duration of Crippled (40/50/60 seconds?) or the effects. Vigil would also increase the recovery speed from Crippled giving it a much better purpose all around. There's plenty to work with.

TL;DR

Camping and tunneling happen for a reason. That reason is that Survivors who are closer to death are high value targets by Dead by Daylight's design. Unless the devs change things so that recently hooked Survivors are less valuable targets, they will never solve this. Camping and Tunneling will remain, no matter how difficult they try to make it as a playstyle - and if they try to make changes like that, they will always be making meaningless changes or otherwise adding in mechanics that are detrimental to the game experience by being abusive.