Quick Fix: Looping

Hello. In this post I'd like to address the common issue of looping, that is survivors running in circles using windows, pallets, or even just terrain to prevent the killer from being able to touch them. Below I will list two potential fixes to this problem.

Window Looping

Currently there is a 3 vault limit within a single chase. While this is reasonable for low level players it ends up being rather exploitable for high level players. There are potentially two solutions to this issue; A) Limit it to a two vault limit so that it cuts down on the time survivors are able to exploit this or Limit it to a one vault limit. The benefit of A is that it allows survivors to do a fake out, that is going over and then jumping back through, but high level players do not utilize this tactic for a multitude of reasons (simply it being more worthwhile to use it in a loop format and that by doing a fake out you create a sound that lets the killer know what you're doing anyhow).

This is why my suggestion would be option B. At first this seems unreasonable and that it would restrict survivors unnecessarily, but I assure you that is not the case and it actually makes a lot of sense. First we can look from a lore perspective, the survivors and killer are playing this game to appease the Entity. During the game, when the killer hooks a survivor the Entity will assist them/take the offering it is presented with. It then makes sense that the Entity would be willing to assist the killer in its chase by cutting off routes that would trouble it, ie windows. Looking at it from a horror perspective it also makes sense as in the horror genre hope is often taken away from characters in many various ways, having an escape route cut off by the creeping Entity aligns well with this.

Finally, from a gameplay perspective it makes a lot of sense due to the current meta of looping. It would prevent players from using windows to hard loop a killer and buy the team a great deal of time. However, to allow for this change to not be as harsh as it could be for the survivors I would suggest another mechanic change alongside the Entity blocking it after one vault, and that is a quick burst of speed after vaulting for the survivor. This as well makes sense from all perspectives, in a lore sense the survivor would fear the Entity blocking the window and give them a burst of fear and adrenaline, and from a gameplay perspective this would allow them to be rewarded for using the window and giving them a good chance to outpace the killer into an open field during their chase. A 1s burst of 150% speed should do fine.

Terrain Looping

An alternative form of looping is via the terrain. This kind of looping is believed due to the killer's hitbox being slightly larger than the survivors which allows for survivors to skim the terrain with more ease than the killer. Even with a higher movement speed the survivor's smaller hitbox makes up for this and leads to a slower chase where the killer struggles to reach proper striking distance. Additionally, doing this with terrain that has a pallet attached can lead to a very long and painful chase if the killer is to commit, and if they don't commit it means they will potentially never catch that survivor in particular. Another rather nuanced issue from the horror perspective is that it doesn't make much sense for the survivors who should be in complete fear of the killer to be playing a cheeky roundabout game with them. It shows just how powerless the killer actually is, and during the long while that they're being looped the other three teammates can be doing generators or cleansing totems.

There are a couple solutions to this ranging from super easy to super complex. Starting with the easy, decreasing the killer's hitbox should resolve this issue and cause the chase to proceed as per normal, the killer would gain on the survivor at normal pace and strike them. This however wouldn't prevent looping from being a strategy, it would simply lesson the time it would be viable. The real solution is then slightly more complex but still doable. Similar to the Clown's "Afterpiece Tonic" there would need to be an effect in the game called dizzy that adds together a visual impairment effect as well as the Hindered effect. The following is an example of how this could work, but as with all gameplay values it would need to be tested and balanced to be accurate in number.

If the survivor rotates their character (not their camera) 1080° in a matter of 6 to 8 seconds they would suffer from the Dizzy effect for 3 seconds, impairing their vision and slowing their movement speed by 5%. While dizzy the effects of Dizzy will persist by 1 second for every additional 180° rotation the survivor makes. Once Dizzy has subsided the cooldown and requirements will return to normal.

Summary

Ultimately whether the Game Developers implement these or other ideas the community has come up with is up to them, but these are the simplest methods using current systems and coding that I could think of. As a Game Dev myself I quite enjoy DbD and hope its various flaws are ironed out in time. Thank you for reading.