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There Is No Solution To Facecamping
Practically every other discussion I see is people complaining about camping. People are constantly crying "why did the devs put this in the game" and "why do the devs allow this to continue". In this post I hope to explain how these likely were not explicit design decisions, and are more side effects of the game's design. I also hope to show why stopping people from doing these things, like people seem to want a lot, is either not possible, or more unhealthy than the actual behaviors themselves.
I would like to start this off with some comparables. When people complain about camping, it reminds me about people complaining about spawn camping or spawn peeking in other online games. These are definitely frustrating things to deal with that's for sure. Not being able to leave spawn without dying is not fun at all at often makes me want to stop playing. That being said, whenever I see people complaining about these things in other online games, like R6S and Team Fortress 2, this anger is always directed at the players, and rightfully so. This is because the players understand that the Devs did not make the spawn mechanics the way they did because they want people to get spawncamped. It is just a side effect of how the systems work, and while it's frustrating, the system can't be changed because it would in turn give the people spawning in an unfair advantage. If the TF2 devs made it so people in spawn couldn't be damaged, people would just stay in spawn and attack from a distance because they know they're safe there. In R6S, if defenders couldn't shoot outside or if attackers had an invincibility period, it would give the attackers a gross advantage, being able to attack quickly without any risk of return fire. Getting spawncamped sucks, but it's better than giving either side an unfair advantage over the other.
I believe the same applies to DBD. The hook system was not made to enable facecamping, it is a side effect of it. The hook timer is a very important part of the hook system. It keeps the match moving, and prevents survivors from leaving their teammates on the hook for indefinite periods of time. It is very important for creating tension in a match as well. If survivors had infinite time to go for unhooks, they would never feel any immediate need to go rescue someone. The decisions of how hooks function were made deliberately and serve a very important function. And unfortunately, this does allow facecamping to happen. Killer's can just stand in front of the hook to make sure the timer goes down uninterrupted. However, if you were to mess with any part of how hooks function, it would cause a major issue in the power dynamics of the game. A common suggestion I hear is that the hook timer shouldn't go down while the killer is near the hook. This would disturb the power dynamics of the game, and removes player agency which is very important. In a game where players compete against each other, no player should ever be forced to allow something to happen because the game straight up will not allow you to prevent it. This is just flat out bad design. Face camping isnt particularly fun for either party, but if you attempted to mess with any part of the hook's basic functionality, the system would break. Because of this, the devs really can't take any explicit actions to prevent face camping from happening. They have however, implemented the most healthy possible option, which is by discouraging this behavior as well as incentivizing players not to camp. While not outright preventing players from doing so, the point deduction punishes players for doing so in a way that doesn't mess with the hook's functionality or the power dynamic in the game. Perks such as Make Your Choice and Devour Hope reward the player for not camping. BBQ & Chili and Thrilling Tremors give intel on things away from the hook, nudging players somewhere else. This is the healthiest possible way to address this and the closest to a solution you can reasonably expect to get.
To close this off, stop whining to the devs about facecamping as if this is something that is their fault specifically. It sucks, I get it, but this is not the dev's fault, it's the player's. This is a choice made by the players, as a result of a side effect of the game's design that unfortunately must stay the way it is. The devs have already taken the best possible approach to deal with this side effect.
Comments
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There is a solution to facecamping. Give 10% buff to all progress of generators while the killer is within some distance of a hooked survivor. Put a big fat debuff icon on the killers screen showing why he is losing time on generators and let the killers learn it doesn't profit anymore.
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Tldr. Basically if killer is not using instant down while he is camping then survivors can totally safely save the hooked one with bt Dh DS combo .
And with a flashlight blind after pallet stun, even if u r using bubba and being really good at him won't help u successfully kill the unhooked survivor.
The only real impossiblish face camp is bubba with a light born and I seldom see people runs it
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There's a part that people overlook in regard to the fix that keeps getting suggested.
People like to say "Make the hook progression stop if the killer is near" and then leave it at that. No. That would obviously be abusable.
BUT, if they add on that the killer would have to not be in a chase as well, the system could work. We've seen the devs try to implement the often suggested fix before and it was abused by survivors just running around the hook. But if the hook progression continues if the killer is in a chase, this problem wouldn't exist AND it would solve facecamping.
And people can say to blame the players and not the devs all they want. I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that the devs straight up promote camping of all kinds after failing to fix it. So yes, I do blame the devs.
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I think there's a lot more to it than just "if they are in chase it doesn't progress." How close do they have to be? For how long do they have to stand there? What if the killer is doing another action, such as breaking a pallet or generator, or what if the killer knows there is a survivor nearby? Are they just supposed to leave, and let them get a free unhook? I fully believe something needs to be done about camping, and the "progression stop" is a good idea, but I also think it needs to be much more defined.
And, at the topic of blaming the devs, I think they value "player agency" a little too much. That has always been their excuse for not dealing with camping and tunneling, and part of me think it's just because they have no idea how to deal with it.
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How close do they have to be? I say 16m (same as comradery) is fine.
For how long do they have to stand there? Give them 3 to 5 seconds. More than enough to walk away.
What if the killer is doing another action, such as breaking a pallet or generator? Doing both of those things doesn't take enough time to mean anything in regards to this.
Or what if the killer knows there is a survivor nearby? As long as they start a chase with them, then entity progression of the hook will go as normal. Hence the whole point of the fix. It cannot be abused.
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You say
"This is a choice made by the players, as a result of a side effect of the game's design that unfortunately must stay the way it is"
but that's untrue on both fronts. Firstly, it isn't a choice made by the players, plural, it's a choice made by one player, to bully and abuse the other players. Secondly, the game's design doesn't have to stay static.
I'm no expert game designer. Plenty of people have made suggestions about how to combat face camping. I don't know what the solution to face-camping is. What I do know, is that face camping is a deeply frustrating, unfun, and unfair part of the game. Getting facecamped can essentially end an entire game for you, with no real input on your part. I would really like to see some more action from the devs on combating this issue, either experimenting with community suggestions or trying their own solutions. I don't expect them to get it right on the first try, but ANYTHING would be better than the current state of suffering.
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ATM the Devout Emblem award 2 points for kill/sacrifice/DC, it doesn't matter if someone died in 1 hook or 3. It also doesn't reward killers that alternate hooks between survivors. <== this is the point the devs can easily improve to destimulate camping and tunneling.
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Fair enough. If this idea ever went through, which it likely won't unfortunately, I could see all these ideas's being incorporated in some way. Likely fine-tuned, and I'm pretty sure even if BHVR did incorporate something like this they wouldn't have it completely stop the timer. Probably just slow it by a large percentage.
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Honestly, I have yet to hear one suggestion that "punishes" killers who camp that wouldn't be easily abused by survivors.
My personal preference would be that the person getting camped gets something. Right now as solo, it absolutely sucks to have teammates getting facecamped because 9/10 end the same way; that person kills themselves on the hook. If they're not with people they know, very few solos will sit there and waste four minutes of their life to help a bunch of strangers possibly escape when they get nothing out of it.
I would love for there to be something for the camped person to at least incentivize them to help the team by sticking around and forcing the killer to sit there and actively camp if that's the game they want to play (letting everyone else hammer gens and hopefully get out of Dodge).
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LOL they should make kobe into 1 shot and only allowed to use when it's about to be P2, and remove the kobe punishment. Then ppl can't kill themselves in P1, maybe make struggle in P2 automatically and ppl can't give up on P2
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Also acceptable but BHVR seems Hell Bent on making sure The Struggle Mechanic stays in the game even though I'm pretty sure literally no one likes it...
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The amount of stuff that they did try to solve this was a lot. Problem was, Survivors ALWAYS abused it. We had the timer stop when the killer was nearby but a survivor would loop around it on purpose to keep the killer nearby. They gave swivel hooks, invincibility frames and prevented traps from being too close to the hook. They even increased the hook timer from 80 seconds for both hook states to 120 seconds for both hook states (60 seconds per hook state from 40 seconds) and that didn't do much. If someone wants to face camp you, they will face camp you. You can ALWAYS get someone but if they really want that person dead, they will get that person. DS, BT, bloodpoint loss, hook timer increase and swivel hooks never stopped it and nothing ever will. Risk the unhook with BT and hope they last.
Both sides want to win and denying someone the best course of action in a game where its 4 vs 1 really would be the downfall of this game. I hate to say it like that but the moment you take away the ability to secure a kill to a killer is the day that killers' won't bother playing. At that point, you're just a killer simulator with a rule set of how to lose to the greater majority of players.
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While this post isnt me lamenting the fact that there is no solution, rather simply detailing why there isn't, this is a pretty accurate statement. The only time I see to much camping at high ranks is when they're had a really bad early game and just want to secure 1 kill at the very least.
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The solution/counter is in the hands of your teammates. Someone has to be willing to take the risk and at worst take your place to keep the time advantage in the team's favor.
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Whenever the removal of the current "facecamping" is discussed, i remember the old real facecamping and how it went down with Deathgarden.
Deathgarden removed the "hook", was one of the nails in its coffin.
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Yeah I 8 hook all survivors and that emblem is brown lol. Entity only accept real kill
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That's completely unnecessary when you could easily complete 3 gens in the time it takes one survivor to die on hook.
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I remember those second chances and never reduced the amount of blood needed to finish the trial afterwards so you could just steamroll the Hunter with no issue lol. They just kept giving more and more to the Runners without really doing much for the Hunter. After awhile, NO ONE wanted to be bullied by others.
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Sure, face camping is not the devs fault, nor the Killers. Probably is the survs fault
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That won't give any solution to it. People are still going to camp. Whether or not.
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I agree that an intrinsic deterrent would be good, but knowing BVHR this would be a perk that works one-time, makes you the Obsession and Exposed, and reveals your Aura to The Killer.
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very well the moment a survivor comes infront of the killer he goes into chase even if neither is moving towards the other. you can not make it like you want it because that means the killer can't patrol. if that's the case then survivors can't do gens while someone is on the hook, they have to find something else to do. how does that sound? doesn't sound good to me so I'm not going to push for a 16m dead zone around a hook where the killer can't even move, plus you have to realize that that is a 16 meter sphere radius, so any multi-level map would be affected and puts the survivors in a perfect place to do a gen that the hook is near without a chase going on as the killer couldn't approach from 16 meters without penalty. it would ALSO nullify the terror radius and give SWF's even MORE information! I get it, being camped sucks... but just suck it up buttercup! you are there to work as a team, and if you are being camped and your TEAM decides to work gens and let your sacrifice be that's THEIR decision. if you penalize killers any more than already done you must make survivors feel the need to rescue the one(s) on hook. and not be so much a potato. right now even when you are put on the hook survivors stay on gens till the last minute this player agency doesn't really exist I've been left on the hook through first stage while I watched three people do TWO GENS! came and got me just in time before I died, they brought the killer who then downed me, and rehooked me and I died all so the TEAM could get two gens. great way to treat your teammate, so what will the survivors get if the killer gets punished further, in order to make it worth their while to keep plating?
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