Winning in DBD is outside the "fun zone"
Yes. Another face-camping discussion. It's all you see on this forum right now, but screw it. I'll give my opinion on it as someone who's played about 500 hours, with most of that time on killer. And hopefully be as unbiased as possible. The main problem is like the title says, the most effective way to win a match (for both sides) involves staying outside DBDs "fun zone".
The problem with face-camping is that it's often the most effective way to win games. And it's boring. It's boring for Killer, and it's boring for survivors. And to clarify, I'm leaving proxy camping out of this. Using a hooked survivor as bait is totally a valid play, and is fun. Sitting and waiting for a trade to come to you, is not. I hate doing it, but often as killer it's my best option at winning.
But here's the big issue, and the root cause of why killers camp hooks so much. Gens go fastest when they're done separately, with a -15% speed for survivors pushing the same Gen. But splitting up and doing gens separately is the safest way to do them as well as the most boring. Sitting on a Gen by yourself just hitting skill checks while the killer chases someone else across the map is boring. Many killers will even go as far as picking their 3-gen for the end of the match early on and hovering around them, forsaking the other gens. The killer can't really pressure gens that are across the map from them, especially not 3 seperate ones constantly being Gen tapped and rotated on and off of. Not impossible with the right perks and a killer with good mobility, but very very difficult to do so even then.
So why do killers camp? Because pressuring gens is nigh impossible when all the survivors are split up on different gens blasting through them as fast as possible. There's a really easy fix to this and I hope it's what BHVR ends up implementing. Survivors working together on the same Gen should always be the fastest way to do the gens, not the slowest. There should be a choice survivors have to make. Quick and risky by all pushing the same Gen, or slow and safe by splitting up and stretching the killers pressure thin.
Chases and eluding the killer are the fun zone for survivors in dbd. Hunting survivors and getting into chases is the fun zone for killer. But currently the fun zone is also the least efficient strategy for both sides. It's better for survivors to play safe, split up, and rush gens far away from the killer. It's better for Killer to tunnel, camp hook and wait for trades to come to them.
If you made it so survivors had to stick around the same general area together in order to rush gens as a team, it would fix this issue and provide more interesting strategic decisions to be made for both sides. Survivors can still Gen rush, but it would be easier for the killer to punish. Killers could still camp hooks, but it would be easier for survivors to punish.
The key isn't to punish players for being outside the fun zone, the key is to incentivize them stay in it.
I welcome any feedback on this, especially from anyone who has other ideas on how to incentivize either side to play inside the fun zone.
Comments
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While repairing the generators in order to escape and as fast as possible before they are killed is the Survivor's main objective, just like killing the Survivors as fast as possible before they can escape is the Killer's main objective, I think some implementations should be done to improve the core balance of the game first of all. Both Killers and Survivors should be doing everything they can in order to accomplish their objectives, just as the instructions of the game suggest, I think the issue is that the game has core imbalances where the generators are done too quickly with the Killer not having time to hunt around looking properly for Survivors and not being able to apply pressure across the map unless they play a fast-roamer like Spirit, Billy, Blight or Nurse.
Perhaps one mechanic that could be added to, as you say, keep both the Killers and the Survivors in the "fun zone" could be implementing the spawning of new types of chests or some sort of containers that are scattered throughout the map where Survivors can pick up pieces of parts (not the toolbox item) that will boost the repair progress of a generator by a good amount. These pieces would then NOT count as the Survivor's active item, but is a passive item they carry. The Survivor would need a couple or more of these pieces to then put together the part that they can then use on a generator to boost the repair progress (but not instant or super repairs like older versions of Brand New Part). A suggestion if nothing else.
With core imbalance issues:
- The Killer has to spend time to channel the damage of the generator in order to make it regress, while a Survivor can literally just tap LMB to stop the regression. This makes no sense, and creates a core imbalance in the game and this imbalance is multiplied by 4. Solution? Make it so the Survivors also need to channel in order to stop regression and start repairing.
- When a Survivor fails a skillcheck and runs off, the generator explodes, but still counts as being undamaged (not regressing). The Killer somehow still has to spend time channeling to damage the generator that in fact just exploded. This makes no sense and is another imbalance multiplied by 4. Solution? Make it so that when the generator explodes, it counts as being damaged (naturally) and goes into normal regression (same pace as a Killer damaging it).
- Survivor boons are Survivor's hexes against the Killers, but in a completely opposite and imbalanced way. Currently, the Survivors can completely destroy the Killer's Hex perk permanently for the trial by cleansing the hex totem, and can also cleanse any totem they see fit, apply and re-apply the boons indefinitely even to totems snuffed out by the Killer, so the Killer cannot manage the totems. Solution? Make the Killer able to destroy totems and implement restrictions to the amount the Survivors can apply boons in a trial.
- The generator speed for multiple Survivors working on the same generator is extremely fast even with the co-repair penalty (easily observable with the Legion's Discord perk). Single generator work should be slow with the normal amount of skillchecks, basically as it is, while multiple Survivors working on the same generator should be a bit less speedy than it is now and invoke more skillchecks, making the higher reward gameplay for Survivors more risky and a bit more balanced against the Killer (also considering the pieces-to-part-assembling mechanic).
I heard in a Q&A video of the devs from October this year that they have plans of implementing counters to facecamping. Hopefully we will see soon what this might be.
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If you think face camping is a valid play and fun then you're literally part of the problem as to why many people complain about this game. Its not a valid play and it is not fun. It literally ruins the game for survivors and no the rest of the team should not be expected to finish the rest of the gens while the camped survivor takes one for the team. The killer should be severely punished for doing this. Face camping should screw the killer over so much that it discourages them from doing it. If that doesn't stop people from doing it, then recognize it as disrupting normal game play and start giving account penalties for it. I think if toxic killers had a nice 24 hour and stacking penalty for face camping you'd probably see a lot less of it.
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You're totally just gonna write off all proxy camping? There are plenty of perks and killers that work around hooks. It's a strategy and even the devs have expressed this.
I'm sorry but you're tripping if you think I'm not gonna leave a portal, or Victor, or traps near my hooked survivor. You think I'm not gonna hover around the survivor hooked in the middle of 3 gens while they're nearly at the next hook state? Or when I hear the unhook, I should just let them heal at hook and not Oni rush back over to the hook and punish the unhook.
Killers hooks are a part of the game that let's them play strategically around the fact that this survivor can't do anything until someone comes for them. Removing their ability to use that or give them some penalty for doing so would suck. Hard-core facecamping the first hook just to troll or BM is #########, but camping hooks in general is a valid strategy. The problem is that currently it's also the only strategy that reliably wins games because other playstyles like going after multiple hooks and chases costs too much time and is an easy way to 1-0k.
Punishing an entire stratagem and removing killer agency to capitalize on their hooks seems like overkill to a problem that could likely be fixed through incentivizing better more enjoyable play instead.
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Oh! oh! We can just declare something is not valid? Then I declare doing gens too fast is not valid and not fun!
As per Survivors complaining; I said it, so it's now the rules! You have to switch to a new gen every 15% or you're gen-camping and the match ends too fast and I don't have fun! Oh, and it's 'not valid', because that's apparently a legitimate argument!
So stop gen camping! 🤡
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That won't solve much, all 4 will do 1 gen, you get to them, you chase 1, 3 more still do the gen.
There's only 1 way of solving this, if more people are required to do gens faster then gens who are worked on for more than 3 seconds by 2 people at the same time will have some visual indicator on it (black tar at the bottom), kicking such a generator summons the entity to lock it for a while (maybe 20 seconds) on top of the usual effects. That way 1 person MIGHT hide to keep doing it afterwards, or they'll converge onto another generator while you chase 1 of them.
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So you have fun sitting on a Gen and hitting skillchecks all match? I think you might be the first person I've heard say that.
Not sure why you latched onto "valid" I was literally quoting the devs and proxy camping is literally encouraged by the devs and the perks and killers they've made.
I get that survivors strat to win is to rush gens, obviously. But idk, don't you think it'd be more fun to have killers camp less and try to go stop gens more? The reason that doesn't happen is because killers know protecting gens is often pointless with how fast they can be done. Especially the first 3. Since all survivors split up and just blast through em when you take the first chase. So you might as well just tunnel and camp hooks, it's what works for Killer. It's boring as ######### but that's how you deal with Gen rushing SWFs.
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Getting all the survivors to converge on one gen is a huge benefit to the killer. You can go to that area and injure a few people, chase em off, kick the gen. And know they're gonna want to come back to it.
Also, you literally just described a worse version of discordance. Plus there already exists a couple perks to block gens, giving killers a way to just block gens by kicking it sounds like a strong perk not a base-kit ability.
Getting survivors to play within the same general area of eachother is beneficial to the killer and makes good teamplay more important for survivors. While also leaving the option open to break off and go do a safer gen by yourself, albeit more slowly.
The problem is that right now, breaking off from the group and doing a safe gen is the fastest way to rush gens as well. Fast, and safe.
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If you get to injure several in such a situation then those are just very bad survivors, maybe if you're huntress you'll get a surprise injure but any other killer needs to chase them first and THEN might injure one. No way you're getting several injuries in such a situation.
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