Balance: Hooks vs Kills
We all know this game is getting balanced around kills which means if a killer gets 4 kills all the time it would mean he is too strong and has to be nerfed. But the thing with checking the kills is that it won’t show you what happened that game, the killer could’ve just been camping everyone or slugging and then he got a 4K out of it. Which all killers are capable of, but not all killers are capable of reaching a certain hook count of maybe 9 hooks. And it shows you more of what happened in that game when you ignore the kills and look at the hook counts. If a killer always gets 12 Hooks every game then he’s probably too strong. The balance team should take hook counts for balancing a killer, maybe 9 hooks at average, if he gets more he needs nerfs and if below then he needs buffs. It would be way more healthy for the game. If a killer only face camps he will get around 2 hooks and 2 kills. And that’s something all killers can do even the weakest, if they do that from the start of the match. If a weak killer like for example ghostface gets 2 kills and he was camping the balance team will think „he got 2 kills, that’s good and average“ but if you would look at the hooks of a ghostface game he would definitely not be good at all. From my knowing most killers only camp because they are scared that they can’t chase a survivor because their killer maybe got nerfed unreasonably through getting balanced around kills. So if the balance team would stop looking at kills for data it would get a lot of people away from camping. Something like Hex: No one escapes death will destroy the Kill Data of a killer aswell. It’s a perk which can give free kills and has nothing to do with a killer itself which can cause killers to get 3 kills instead of 2 and then the balance team thinks he’s overperforming. It will be more fun for both sides to get multiple hooks, survivors will have more fun since they don’t have to fear getting facecamped, slugged and 1 hooked anymore which is frustrating especially when it happens multiple games, and that’s often the case with high mmr.
So do you want the game to be balanced around getting multiple Hooks or rather Kills ?
Comments
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Paragraphs. Paragraphs help.
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Game should balance around hooks, not kills.
I can play as Bubba with NOED. And i can take min 2 kills every game. 2 kills are seem balanced but was it fun? No.
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Exactly 1. this game should be fun for both sides and 2. noed should not be needed to fit the balance
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Balanced = 2 Kills.
2 Kills: either 2 hooks or 10 hooks.
Then people think the game can be balanced in both 2 and 10 hooks...
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Thats the problem, 2 Kills don’t show you the story of the game. It could’ve been the most boring game ever with camping and slugging which resulted in 2 Kills. But with hooks you actually see that the killer went for many hooks and didn’t 1 hook everyone or camp
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Yeah, just for that I would prefer hooks. I wouldn't consider 6 balanced tho. I think 8 would be good... Either 0 kills with everyone on dead hook or two kills and 2 hooks.
Problem is that for this to happen they would have to adress camping / tunneling and for that they would have to either nerf survivors or buff something else to help killers.
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yeah thats what im trying to achieve with all my suggetions. But i think all of the playerbase can agree that Hooks will be way more healthy
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I would just track both...
Problem is that they just have quite small updates per three months, that is just too low for any real balance, when they also create new killers / perks to break it again.
They wait for super long and then create some overkill nerfs -> Deathslinger, Freddy, Billy...
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Theyd just have to prioritze the games health and focus on that each update. Just like when they were reworking all maps, during that time we didnt get any new maps. So they just need to rework 2 Killers per update which would contain the update of usual chapter release and the mid chapter. If they would do it like that we would have 4 killer reworks within 3 months. And some killer dont even need changes i.e nurse, blight and oni. And some killers only need some adjustments. So it wouldnt be that hard if they would actually focus on that
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When MMR is about 2K balanced, I knew its not about skill, its about "who tryhard will vs tryhard". As Otz with his test between ways of playing, the favor is on the side who tryhard.
Sadly, tryhard people will make game miserable for the other side, happens long enough would cause everyone tryhard. And makes the game no more fun.
Im sure there are ways to address tunneling / camping / gen rushing. They just not willing to address it. At least with the status coming, Camping will be weaken
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It would be very easy to address that, they just need to incentivize people not to camp by giving them rewards for doing certain things. Like BBQ and Chili incentivizes to hook multiple people. I mentioned it in my other Discussions
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I kinda think same thing. Right now camping / tunneling is just better way to win. It would be enough to nerf it slightly and maybe create some new mechanic where leaving that survivor for gens would be better for you. Nerfed version of pop might help...
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why would a nerfed pop help avoid a camp. If its nerfed the killer wont bother leaving for a gen which is far away with pop that lasts maybe 15 seconds when the gen is 20 seconds away. In my other discussions i said adding 200% regression speed when kicking a gen with overcharge would make the killer leave to get that 200% on a gen which he knows is almost done
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I wouldn't nerf duration, I would nerf %. Right now kicking is kinda useless without a perk for it.
It would avoid camping, because killers would be more likely to leave that survivor, if it was more effective strategy, which is not right now.
That would be nice overcharge buff, but I doubt it would be played anyway. I like an idea of buffing base regression and nerfing Ruin to same amount. Maybe like 150% to both (ruin is 200% now). You could make overcharge to 200% too.
Best outcome I can think of is to nerf face-camping, no idea how, most ideas I can think off would affect proxy camping too, which I think should stay, it's not always your fault...
Then if we buff base regression, or some mechanic that would reward players for leaving hooked survivors, killers will be stronger and games will be more fun.
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I mean, it should have been fun. You were clearly doing something wrong. Did you try hitting them on hook and nodding?
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i definetly agree with most of what youre saying, but i dont really do with the first part. You need to consider how fast the progression of 1 Survivor is compaired to regression. If the killer walks to the gen which he wants to use pop on, he will waster lets say 25 seconds. Then he finally kicks the gen, which also takes time for the animation. Then you get 25% instant regression which is around 15-20seconds for a SOLO survivor to negate. And while the killer went to that gen, the survivors can just start a new gen which will be almost done when you consider the 25seconds of the killer walking to that other gen + he doesnt know on which gen theyre gonna be next. Which wastes time having to walk to other gens to find where the survivors are working on. And when the killer arrives on the right gen it will be done anyway since he had to waste so much time only to stop a gen for different gen to get done. So i think a nerf to pop would render the perk not being used.
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That's why I said nerfed pop. What I meant was like 5%, just something to make kicking worth it, because it's just useless now.
I didn't mean change pop actually this way. I would make it based kit = 5% and nerf pop to 20%, so effectiveness of pop wouldn't change. This change would also not work with Ruin (you can't kick), so only perks that would make it better are opression, eruption and overcharge, which I don't think is an issue.
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so you mean 5% by default and using pop its the usual 25%
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Hooks. Always hooks
I would add individual hooks too (not second stage/1hooks) as every individual hook shows a chase and down. Each chase/down you must beat/outplay the other player.
If someone can outplay some multiple times it shows more skill than getting them once and camping.
I'd also add they should stop taking stats after the 5th gen is done, far to many hooks/kills are added after the 5th gen is done.
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Yeah that's what he means, although tbh 30% isnt that high. It encourages survivors to play better and not just trade hooks feeding the killer pop.
You also have to travel to a gen which is basically extra progress on a gen while you're walking to it.
Either would be okay but I dont see pop as 30% as an issue in my survivor games where mmr is actually working but I guess 20% pop and 5%base would be a good start then check after if its still worth using
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Why are kills after the 5th gen "too many"? There's a ton of perks that exist just for endgame scenarios. Why should those suddenly not count? It's not over until the Survivors get out.
And a lot of kills in endgame also happen because people get greedy and won't leave someone to die at the end.
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Yes i definetly agree. Gen Progression of Survivors is really fast and if theyre really good 30% pop wouldnt be much of a hinderance for them
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That's why I say, stop camping and tunneling, let the data fall where it will and buffs will come.
I just did 100 games as facecamping noed bubba and averaged over 2ks a game.
So as long as these tactics are used, it will be hard to balance for hooks.
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Actually literal facecamping doesn’t guarantee 2 kills unless a killer has a way to instant down people at the hook. If they can only injure at hook then in the two minutes it takes someone to die on hook plus the time it took to down that person initially 3-4 gens could be done if the killer just stood at the hook the entire time. Then one survivor does a hook trade, you get another two minute wait, and all the gens are done and the remaining healthy survivor rush the hook, get another trade, and everybody escapes (especially assuming Borrowed Time and DS are in play). A true facecamper can definitely end up with 0-1 kills.
Also keep in mind that slugging all the survivors is just as legitimate a way to win as hooking over and over. There are multiple perks for example specifically geared toward slugging, it’s an intentional part of the gameplay. If an Oni or Hag for example wins by slugging everybody it’s still a legitimate win despite the hook count being low (lower even than a face camper possibly). If the game were to be rebalanced around hook counts you’d also have to contend with figuring out what to do with perks and add-ons and killers that have slugging victories as something they’re intended to be good at.
Finally note that the devs have said a few times that they don’t just look at kills when tweaking things. For instance, Nurse’s overall average kill rate is the lowest in the game but they understand that’s because she’s also the hardest killer to learn to use really well; a really good Nurse is awesome but a so-so Nurse player is potentially terrible. Likewise they nerfed Deathslinger instant aim for example not because they felt Deathslinger’s kill rate was too high but because they didn’t like how it affected his chases. It was a quality of play change and not something specifically to reduce his kill rate.
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Individual hooks. Disincentivize early camping, reduce the blood point penalty for late camping. Late game, camping is sometimes the only non-give-up option.
Incentivize exceptionally non-toxic, non-boring play with the ability to “rescue” an offering from the Entity.
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The only way this will ever happen is if you break into their hq and do it yourself. Or buy them out and hire someone to do it.
You are talking about developers that have given survivors more ways to escape the killer and at the same time inexplicably nerfed 2 already weak killers. The same devs who only took 1 month to nerf pinhead because his kill stats were to high in a month that the dc penalty was turned off but "need to let it settle" when it comes to COH a universally disliked perk that even has decent survivor mains calling it op.
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Because half of those perks atm only gain power or use due to the survivors. While things like no way out are great perks the issue is perks like NOED will influx the results and I dont believe NOED is a good design, I dont mind versing the perk but iv often seen a killer do awful and they only get anything due to noed near the hook.
Its difficult as like you say there are perks for it, but at the end its pretty much a camp/trade situation which often results in alot more hooks/kills which doesnt take ot show skill and just depends on the survivors if they want to play as a team.
I often see killers get most of their hooks at the end of the match or even their kills.
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If you balance around hooks, you’ll see 3-4 kills every game
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Every camping Bubba would be getting 4ks and 4 hooks, because they would all be at the lowest levels of MMR. Never going up in MMR, terrorizing new players until the new players quit.
MMR based on hook is a TERRIBLE idea.
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Good point. What about hook states or blood points (pre-bonuses, of course)
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I think the devs, above all else, need to establish HOW they want each side to win/lose and then balance around that.
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100% This.
It's why the developers should do stuff to disincentivize face-camping and tunneling-till-dead. It increases kill-rates for low skill tactics and adversely affects killer buffs because the developers are seeing high kill rates from killers.
I really think a baked in watered-down Decisive Strike and Borrowed Time would help. Had a DS and BT in survivors kits that doesn't work for EGC. If you want one that does work for EGC, you use a perk slot. Face-Camping and Tunneling-till-dead are two very low-skill tactics that every killer has access to, why shouldn't all survivors also have access to a way to counter those tactics. The slow down gen speeds to compensate.
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