What's wrong with camping and tunneling?
This community has a huge problem with camping and tunneling, so much so that there's a lot of insistence that already abusable perks like DS should be buffed (or made base kit) because people seem to think the survivors should be able to "punish" killers who don't play how they want them to play.
But this is ridiculous. Camping is normally a terrible strategy, and usually results in the killer losing. (Also, normally when I see a killer camping it's almost always in response to a particularly toxic survivor.)
Tunneling is basically the opposite problem: it's a wise move that helps the killer win. Tunneling is the killer's version of gen rushing. (Hooking survivors is the killer's objective -- why is there a reason not to do that?) Punishing a killer for playing smart and effectively -- rather than as hosting an entertaining game of tag for the neighborhood kids -- doesn't make much sense. (Sure, I get that it's not fun for the survivor, but being slugged isn't fun, either, and that's what happens when the killer suspects DS might be in play.)
I'd much rather see the game's fun factor get upped in other ways to encourage the more fun parts of the game, rather than facilitate any kind of punishment. Maybe to handle tunneling the killer should be incentivized to chase different survivors, e.g., maybe bloodlust triggers more quickly when chasing survivors who have full health. (Honestly, I don't really mind the concept of DS as base kit, but maybe it should be made more high risk -- the killer is the one who gets a haste effect for a moment -- that would make chases more fun than the current repetitive game of ring-around-the-rosie that they are now.)
Similarly, rather than buff Ruin, which at best just leads to long games with more time spent holding M1, maybe Tinkerer should be base kit for all killers in order to set up more action as the survivors get close to finishing their objective.
Finally, I like where NOED is at -- it makes the EGC actually stressful for me as a survivor, and perks like Inner Strength help make totems a worthwhile secondary objective that resolves the issue.
Comments
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Tunneling is not a wise or strong strategy because constant BT saves and DS make it hard to do. That being said you sure as hell can't afford to attempt a 12 hook strategy against good survivors, the gens will be done by the time you reach 6. So most of the time you have to hook one person, hook another, then look for that first person again. It's not anyone's fault other than the devs for forcing Killers to be constantly pressured into making perfect plays or risk losing everything.
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There isn't anything wrong with camping or tunneling. These strategies may or may not be optimal at any given moment, but they are strategies in your toolbox you should be willing to bust out if it looks like they will be optimal. The main reason survivors complain a lot about them is that these are strategies based around hooking dynamics, and the hook is by design a negative experience for survivors, so strategies to optimize the usage of the hook tend to make survivors feel bad. But tough cookies, a hook state is MEANT to make you feel bad and not want it to happen buds!
However, the power level of these strategies can be worth looking at. Even though we should always take complaints about a mechanic that by its nature MUST disempower the survivor team to function with a grain of salt, we should look at how the mechanic works to understand it for potential future designs.
Camping is about as weak as it can be before the game breaks. The devs have experimented a lot with trying to nerf it further and it just results in killer gameplay falling through because they suddenly can't play 'correctly' in response to survivor actions anymore: the killer needs to be empowered to notice that the survivors are behaving overly-altruistically (ex: Having two people both constantly trying to decoy the killer at the same time on opposite ends of the hook like some rookie survivors do) and punish that behavior. It results in a lot of slugging as a BEST case scenario. So nerfing camping is right out, if we want to discourage camping, the stick won't work anymore and the carrot for giving up a survivor without immediately starting another chase has to be better. This is especially rough because killers low key don't care as much as securing the kill on the hook as using the hook event to try to start something with ANOTHER survivor, so nerfs that prevent the hook kill are misaligned because they don't understand the motivation of camping anyway. Maybe, for example, a non-totem variant of Devour Hope with a less intense final reward makes sense. Maybe making the 'tier 1' effect of the speed boost on devour hope base kit makes sense: strongly encourage the killer to try to find an immediate extra chase to snowball if they think they can. Maybe the base effect of being hooked without being sacrificed could be made worse, like a permanent gen repair speed reduction that makes each hook state almost like killing a 'piece' of a survivor? Does Dying Light need to be buffed and reworked to tier up on unhooks? There is a lot of room to play with how a killer relates to hooks without making camping worse, and encourage more dynamic play, but there isn't a lot of room to make the killer view being near the hook as bad. So any future camping fixes need to come at this from a 'how do we make killers want to do something other than punish survivors going for a rescue' angle, rather than a 'how do we make killers not feel good about punishing survivors going for a rescue' angle.
Tunneling is a bit different and varies heavily both with perks and the nature of the survivor team. Often its ideal NOT to kill a weak survivor player too quickly if you think the other survivors will waste time on them. As a pig main, if I quickly down someone with a hat on already after getting a quick first down, I start slugging them instead of hooking them because I want them in the game, knowing they are unlikely to do gens but demand attention from other survivors to heal them. But if I am say... a Trapper or a Myers, I want someone out of the game ASAP to make my chase pressure better. In regards to tunneling, the survivor tools to counter it I would say are 'strong but fair' at this point, with DS and BT both being extremely strong ways to force killers to not instantly finish you, but at the same time having very obvious counter-play and still having 'costs' to the survivor team. There might be room to make tunneling worse, but because securing kills efficiently is a huge part of killer gameplay this is also a dangerous area to play with, and it may be we more should look at rewards for not tunneling (Pyramid Head is a great example of this), or more tools to allow survivors to stop their own tunnel (without making them stack so efficiently that the killer, again, can't eliminate a survivor they are consistently outplaying or dedicating a lot of resources towards removing).
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Not just that but some bold survivors sometimes stalk you to the hook for a fast save when you are out of sight/ terror radius so a quick run through of the immediate area is smart yet called "camping" to demean the preventative measure.
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I don't mind getting camped or tunneled. It just gives my teammates more time to do generators
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I try not to do it as killer if I can help it. The problem in my opinion only is that makes games really short. and It's not really the killers that are the problem, it's both sides. As a survivor it's annoying to have the killer just stand there and look at you let alone keep hitting you because they want you to just die already. But the other side is, If you know a killer is camping you're team should be getting stuff done. Not trying to save you. Make the killer pay for doing it; don't just run in for the save. I've made that mistake too don't get me wrong but the amount of times I've played solo on teams that just run in and save right in front of the killer it's disgusting.
Kills also lose points for camping that's why I try not to do it. However If I put someone on a hook and I know there's someone around just waiting until I leave I will hang around. It doesn't help much though since so many people bring in borrowed time and just rush in anyway. also grabs are broken so pulling them off the save is hard to do.
Tunneling is done because it's easy, simple as that. one hit downs verses 2 hits. As a survivor I get it; it's annoying to get downed right away as soon as you come off a hook. I try not to do it as a killer as well, but I don't consider it tunneling if I didn't see them come off the hook, I knew they did but not right in front of me, if they happen to run by me I'm going to hit them. That is why DS gets so much dislike because at level 3 it lasts about a minute so even if you're not technically tunneling you're going to get hit with it.
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I don't entirely buy your point that tunneling is done just because it's easy. Sure, that doesn't dissuade anyone from doing it, but even if a survivor came of the hook in a healthy state, it's still a better move to get a survivor out of the game early on to take some of the pressure off.
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What's the problem with genrushing? With holding W? All they are are completely uninteractive experiences that nullify the entire point of playing the game and make your opponent miserable, what's the problem with that?
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Tunneling is effective on one Killer, Pyramid Head. Because of the way torment works you can cage/mori people right off hook or track them down after they’re uncaged. Survivors might complain, but its extremely effective and rushing through hook state to get a quick kill will get you easy wins even against the sweatiest SWFs.
Camping is pretty dang good on Hag, Demo, Spirit, Blight, Freddy and Nurse. Because they don’t technically have to “camp.” They can do other stuff and then come right back to the unhook when it happens and usually avoid BT in the process. It creates tons of map pressure and free hits.
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....you're being serious?
You're actually being serious?
My Lord. Help me.
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People play this game to have fun.
It's not fun to stay hooked all game. It's fine once or twice, but there are times where it is constant. This game relies too much on the opposing side for it to be fun, and usually involves said side to be sub-optimal.
No Bloodlust weekend has made very mediocre killers aggressively use these tactics as of recently.
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Nothing.
It's generally not the best strategy but there's nothing wrong with doing it. Entitled survs getting mad over a game 🤷♂️
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It ruins the fun of others. If you camp and tunnel I dont ever wanna hear you complain about people ruining your fun, cause that's exactly what camping and tunneling does.
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Tunnleing and camping are like this game's zergling rush: Its gonna be effective at lower ranks, and it will likely get you kills and let you rank up... Until you find you're against better survivors who know how to deal with it, and you can't catch because you didn't practice all the skills you were meant to have practiced. You'll find yourself in over your head when that floaty finally pops.
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You for real just said bloodlust?
Wow.
That would sure give the survivors incentive to not play this game.
Long story short, BHVR doesn't punish these play styles because ruining the fun is what dbd is meant for.
Either survivors ruin killers fun, or visa versa.
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I say "go ahead, camp and tunnel," but don't get all pissed off when you get hit with 4 D-Strikes, and have to eat several BT hits or other survs blocking you.
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Tunneling is meh sometimes surv just run at u without BT and cry after u down them. They expect u to not hit them and move to the corner of the map and wait few seconds before hitting them. Camping is a trash tactics used by unskilled players that rather than learn how to get better would rather camp. It shows how ######### they are at the game
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Sometimes it makes the game stale and not interesting, specially camping joined with tunneling. If you played on the other side a little more you would probably notice this, it's not very fun when you go to hook and wait most of the match looking around.
It still a valid strategy, but I try to not rely on it for personal reasons when playing Killer. It surely makes the game much harder in some instances, but I prefer doing it that way.
I still camp, but not always, if the gates are open, since you don't actually have generators to patrol your only objective is to catch other players trying to save and so on. Some times not even then.
If you want to camp and tunnel always it's your prerrogative, it is part of the game, but don't waste your time trying to convince people to like it, they won't.
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I don't feel like something is wrong with either per say but it is kind of douche to do it when 5 to 3 gens are still up. If you need someone eliminated I understand it though.
The only time camping annoys me is when I see all 3 of my teammates around me with no one on a gen.
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It ruins the fun of other people. I can understand if you need to camp or tunnel in order to win the match or if someone was being toxic to you, but if your doing it for no reason at all then that's where the problem lies, atleast for me.
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It's not fun for anyone because your either sitting there watching the person die or your sitting there watching the killer watch you die. And you it hurts both too you'll get less points if you camp then if you go after other people. I dont really care about tunneling becaue there sometimes isn't much you can do about it. I dont care if ther survivor is being toxic I'll come camp with you. But dont do it every game to "win" when really your cheating yourself.
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Oh and survivors that watch you die and arent doing gens or your not saving the person that's dying I hope your the one that gets camped next.
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When it comes to camping I would have to say I'm a bot mixed I'm not a bog fan of face camping as I see it as a waste of time and fun on both sides honestly I believe if your gonna camp you should at least be far enough away that there is at least a chance for someone else to get the hooked person off cause in my experience this usually allows you to get two people injured if they do happen to get them off.
And as for tunneling I personally dont think its a really great idea. Dont get me wrong it can be a easy way for the killer to get a easy kill but they could be usong that time to down others or keep them off a gen. Like for instance I had a ghost face tge other day who was so insistent on tunneling me that the other people had time to get thw gens done and open the door before ge actually got a kill on me. Now mind you this will vary based on skill level but it just doesbt seem like a great idea.
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I'm usually the first to hop on a gen and by proxy first to get found, downed, and then about 25% of the time camped/tunneled or proxy-camped.
Wouldn't be as bad if I weren't seeing 3 teammate auras camped out around me not doing gens.
Last week I had 5 games in a row where I got discovered within 15 seconds of the match start, then camped or tunneled. It's lame and just makes me hide out at the start like everyone else
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tunneling isn't a player playing smart tho, its easy to tunnel and requires little thought most of the time
being able to juggle an entire team and manage 8 hooks before killing anyone and still 4k now that requires playing smart
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Here's a little anecdote for you, maybe entice you to stop tunneling and just play the game. It's just my experience today but it's pretty much the same in all my games, unless we totally bomb.
I've played about 15-20 games today. Of those, about 5 had tunneling killers. Those killers either got one kill or none at all. When you start tunneling players, the rest of the group picks up speed and gets out. No one wants to play with you.
Now you might not care if no one wants to play with you, it's an anonymous matchmaking system, no one knows who you are until the end of the game. But I can guarantee that you won't have great matches. Maybe you'll win, maybe you'll get a 4k, maybe you'll get a perfect match. But it won't be because you're an amazing player who's found the secret to success in Dead by Daylight. No one's going to like the way you play, no one's going to put up with the way you play.
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I usually don't tunnel or camp. If you teabag me though, I'm face camping you. Will I lose because of it? Yes. Do I care? No. But normally, I try not to tunnel or camp because it ruins the fun for the survivors. Part of the game is fun, and ruining the game is not fun at all.
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The problem is for solo player it is an advantage to the killers because they have no communication most killer assume its alway a swf and camp like everyone just magically has communication. This could result in multiple people going to the hook because nobody is communication not everyone is a swf. You have to realize that.
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The only issue I have with camping is if it's a cannibal cause he can down multiple people in one hit and since most people are solo they can't warn other survivors not to rescue them etc.
Meaning the survivor either has to act as bate for other survivors or has to suicide which demoralises other survivors and frees up the killer to chase someone else.
Outside of cannibal camping I don't have a problem with it.
Also just saying cause someone will bring it up no I don't use DS and never have.
As killer though I never camp unless of course I can see a survivor right next to the hook I'm using. Otherwise since I use Devour Hope on every killer I am incentivised to leave a hook almost immediately to get tokens.
Honestly best way to stop camping is to have another perk similar to DV go encourage killers away from the hook rather than punish them for guarding a hook.
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If nobody is the obsession it works quite well.
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What's wrong with it? Nothing really.
Why do people have a problem with it? It's very unfun for a lot of people. I don't personally care if I'm camped or tunneled but the same is clearly not true for everyone. The only thing that bothers me about being camped is having to mash during struggle to buy my teammates time, and because I'm camped I might have to mash for the whole struggle phase. Make struggle automatic please.
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So if there's nothing wrong with tunneling, which helps the killer win ASAP at the cost of the survivor having no fun, then there's nothing wrong with this?
Me, @BigBrainMegMain, @hahadrillgobrrr, and @ClaudioFrosty teaming up to do gens as fast as we can. We could've been faster.
Nothing wrong here, right? Just helping the survivors win with no consideration to the killer.
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If you are tunneling and camping piece of ######### you deserve being dsed, easy asy that
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Nothing is wrong with camping and tunneling its just not fun to go against
like sweaty SWF, meta perks or gen rushing while injured.
play how you want but dont complain if survivor also start doing things what you maybe dont like.
DBD is not a competetive game or a tournament final.
people need to stop acting like that seriously. but as i said play how you want.. but dont be mad when the friend of the guy who you tunneled starts tbagging or something.
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This whole post sounds like entitled killers mad over a game.
That's what's wrong here but nothing will change about it. Both sides want to have fun and streamers make killers believe if you don't get a 4k you "lost." That's ridiculous and it makes them try hard and fully realize that killer is the power role when tactics are used that make it in unfun for survivors. And those same survivors love to taunt killers who are new or struggling. Both sides are guilty of trying to fun snipe the other side. The problem is it only takes one killer to ruin the survivors day but survivors need to be a 4 man depip squad to stand a real chance against solid top rank killers like otz or tru or your steamer of choice.
If a killer loses on less than a 4k does that mean all survivors have to live to "win" for them? That's equally stupid. Both sides love complaining about the other and that's how behavior likes it. Divide and take your money while only offering skins instead of balance.
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Only wrong thing about camping is that the survivors are usually too stupid to continue to press on the generators.
Tunneling .. I dont see a problem with doing objectives tbh.
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Alot of interesting views here.
I see dirty tactics (camp, tunnel, slug) in a different way.
If the killer does these things, it means the killer is more afraid of survivors than visa versa.
It's flattering to me, not fun, but still flattering.
It means I scared the killer, even tho he has the weapons.
Also, the killer ain't here to make friends, so there is no "fair play"
He's literally trying to kill you, how he does it is irrelevant.
You're trying to survive, ds,bt, meta, non-meta... irrelevant. How you try to survive is up to you.
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Why are you complaining about camping? Are you a camper? If the campers lose the game, what's your point?
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I've been camped, tunneled, and slugged so much these past few days... for the first time ever, I DC'd.
Sure, it is flattering that the killer has played against me 3x prior that day and knew I could out play them... so they did their job and got me out. Problem is, you can't counter a killer who can see who you are, but you can't see who they are. If a killer wants you dead, you're dead. They will camp, tunnel, and slug.
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Camper and tunneling are terrible strategies against SWF, but against solos is 4k 99% of times
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Getting pro at looping avoids both being facecamped + tunneled
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It makes you a peice of crap because it just ruins the game for survivors.
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These are also the people who say DS/UB need to be nerfed. People wouldn’t feel the need to use them so much if people went out of their way to camp and tunnel.
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Part of the reason why I run Devour Hope in most of my builds as a newbie killer that got lucky with the Shrine is so that I remind myself not to camp people, because I always feel as if a survivor is right there, waiting for the unhook, and I just can't see them. Most of the times an unhook happens just after I hold W in some direction for 7 to 8 seconds, which is about the size of the standard Terror Radius IIRC, and also that someone was close enough for Whispers (another one of my favorite perks) to trigger.
That sort of distance also makes it so that I don't really intentionally tunnel, since among the free killers, only Billy (or Nurse if we stretch a bit) can rush back to a hook fast enough. The others have to find that survivor again, and chances are that won't happen.
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This doesn't have to be a "one extreme against the other" debate. Most of us Killer Mains don't actually have to camp or hard tunnel to win. Aiming to proximity camp a hook so you can go for the immediate down and rehook isn't fun for the survivor and its not actually a good winning strategy as the killer.
BUT
The way the game is balanced right now (shoutout to the survivor player who put a video of what a toolbox does to my poor, helpless generators) many games end up with a 'soft' tunnel in them. I find myself (and often see other Red Rank killers) going for an injured survivor when coming across several on a generator or choosing to chase someone you know is on death hook over someone who is on second hook. I don't view this behavior as tunneling, but I got called out two days ago in a message saying "Dwight was on first hook, you shouldn't have death hooked me! TUNNELER". I don't think its tunneling when I find you heading to or on the same generator three times. That's your fault. You have to know we killers are aware of the gens you are trying to do and will rotate to protect those. I'm not going to count hooks and leave you on the generator to go find Dwight across the map so you guys can both have two hooks each.
Additionally, after hooking someone, if the survivor I JUST hooked was saved quickly AND I'm not able to immediately apply pressure where I'm currently heading, you bet I'll spin around and go to that unhooking. This ALWAYS gets me called out for tunneling but its simple strategy. I know that for sure, I can apply pressure on two people, since the unhooking just told me where two survivors definitely are. Now, my aim because again, strategy, is to hit and chase the person who unhooked my previous victim. I have no interest in hitting the unhooked person who'll have Borrowed Time and Decisive Strike. Instead, I'll let that first survivor go off and try to heal somewhere while I chase down their savior, get them hooked, and then look for another opportunity.
75% of the time, however, the person with BT REALLY wants to use it and ends up forcing me to hit them because they'll be body blocking for their savior. That changes my plan a little, as now I have to look at where they are going to decide whom to chase. If the savior is still healthy and heading for say, Killer Shack or other strong loop, and if I know I'll have a quicker chase on the recently unhooked body blocker, then yeah, I'm going to tunnel a little there based on length of chase (a scored Killer metric).
I think some of the arguments in here are being made with false assumptions. Let me help:
- If you save a survivor right in the face of a killer or while he's steps away, perhaps kicking the gen he found someone on or moving away to pressure elsewhere, then when that killer returns to the hook, its not tunneling.
- If you've recently been unhooked and you go straight back to the gen you were found on without healing and the killer finds you there, the killer is not tunneling.
- If your teammates are being sneaky and immersed and you are running around leaving scratch marks all over the place, then the killer isn't tunneling you, he's just FINDING you.
For my fellow killers out there, yes you are tunneling if:
- You remain in the proximity of a hook instead of trying to apply pressure across the map. As mentioned above, if you get a notification bubble blowing up from a hook you just did as you are walking away, feel free to return. But if you are just kind floating around nearby, staying close, waiting for a savior to appear to save your victim then you are camping and setting up to tunnel. This is poor play, IMO.
- You ignore other survivors or avoid hitting them so that you can chase the same person over and over. Yes. This is tunneling guys. I know what you're thinking: "Let me get this one out of the game so its 1 v 3". Honestly, those three are gonna catch on quick and they'll just sit on gens and you will get an Entity Displeased because you didn't have enough chases, gen pressures, and hooks.
TL:DR - Tunneling is a very specific toxic trait of some killer players who haven't learned how to map pressure. Stop assuming that your bad play means all killers are tunneling.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
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Did you really just try to justify camping and tunneling :|
Oh it also hurts the killer to do these things? Thats why you shouldn't do it, they made it to where it punishes campers and encourages fair play. When you camp your pretty much just playing the game in the only way that's actually the wrong way, you get little points showing you did badly and you pretty much just sat there doing nothing for the most part. Have you ever seen a horror movie where the killer attacks someone then sits there ominously waiting for that person to die? I mean if so then by all means camp till your hearts content, but if not then it should only ever be used as a last resort if at all.
The game has enough problems to deal with without players being toxic or just plain stupid. Maybe it's my bias and the fact that I hate campers with a passion but I don't believe either side can really have fun in a game with a killer that camps. As for tunneling I don't have much to say, it kills survivors faster which is kind of unfair and it's just as much of a problem as camping but its easier to avoid and unlike camping it doesn't really punish the killer too much, keywords being too much. I mean survivor perks can stop or punish the killer for doing it but it's an easy mistake to make, I mean I've done it not realizing I just hooked this person not long ago, but camping is unacceptable, you don't get to do much while camping, you don't receive many bloodppints, it can mess with devour and some other killer perks, and it doesn't often help the killer win, just don't camp, it's not hard. I'm only typing this long ass stuff because your gonna try to justify doing one of the most irritating and disliked things in the whole damn game and it's making it seem like doing it isn't all that bad which makes it even worse.
If I missed out on other ways camping or tunneling isn't beneficial then please tell me and if you have a problem with how long this is then go ahead and say something, that's acceptable. I was just feeling bitchy :P
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Classic camper, tunneler, bloodlusting killer. Nothing new.
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It ruins the game for survivors. The most fun aspect of the game are the chases, and both tunneling and camping completely prevent that. It stops a survivor from playing the game they payed for, and instead forces them to play "sit on hook with occasional button mashing simulator".
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