Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
Afk crows should not spawn in terror radius
Its something i found odd for a very long time and i just had a match where it was clear as day, that its kind of stupid the way it is right now.
The scenario was as follows: i played solo survivor, killer was the Artist, the last gen got completed and we were 3 survivors left: David, Mikaela and me. Killer in chase with Mikaela, David and i got the exit gate to 99 and went back in there to save Mikaela who just got hooked in the basement at the Killer Shack.
David rushed blindly in the basement and got pulled away from the hook and hooked beside Mikaela, i was in the Killer Shack at that moment so i went in the closest locker to the stairs just at the moment when the Artist went upstairs and she did not see me.
It happened to be the case that she camped right next to my locker like 1 meter from it and spam the crows to see if i would try to open one of the exit gates, not knowing that i was right beside her. I was unable to exit the locker since she would see and kill me immediately so i waited until she would go away. But she stayed until both survivors died in the basement and just at that moment the first afk crow appeared on top of my locker, she saw it and instantly pulled me out of it.
Because it was such a unfortunate situation she carried me to the exit gate and let me escape.
I dont think a survivor should be punished for doing the right play in this situation. It was the right play from the killer to stay there and i get that, it was also the right play for me to stay in the locker, its just the crow, that punished me in this situation.
Sure maybe its a rare situation but something similar can happen more often, i don't think the afk time should increase when the killer is as close to the locker you are in as this.
Comments
-
Counterpoint:
Once she was sitting next to your locker, she had you, crows or not. All you were doing was delaying the end of the game and keeping both of you from moving on to the next match. That's exactly what the afk crows were designed for.
14 -
I dont think she had me since she had no idea i was there. If the afk crow would have appeared 5 seconds later i would have escaped. The gate was 99 and if i had a running start i would have made it to it, even if she would have hit me a few seconds after i started running, but not if she would have hit me right in front of the locker. It was a close call.
0 -
@AsherFrost Also, the Hatch spawned right next to the Shack so even if the gate wasnt there, as soon as the second survivor would have died i would have been able to exit the locker and leave through it.
0 -
She had no reason to leave. She was perfectly positioned to send crows at both gates, so she knew when you were going to make a break for it. Just the way it is, sometimes you're just stuck in a bad spot.
6 -
I doesnt matter, she could have stayed right next to me and i would have escaped through the hatch. It was a matter of seconds. And i dont complain because of the situation, its about the afk mechanic, this situation would have never happened if the mechanic would be different.
0 -
Also she had no reason to stay there either, she wasnt "perfectly positioned" like you said, one gate was closer and she just stayed because of the 2 survivors that she wanted to secure in the basement. But like i said that doesn't matter.
0 -
Why do you keep replying twice to each one of mine?
She had you, that's the game. Tough luck.
5 -
@AsherFrost Because i still had more to say about it, it just happened to be after i sent the first message, why do you care ?
Yeah i know, that's the game right now, and that's totally fine. But that's also the reason why i post in feedback, because i think this can be improved. You haven't once said anything about the afk mechanic itself, you just kept talking about my example game.
If you want to bring something productive to the table talk about what you think of the gameplay mechanic and not of a unrelated topic.
0 -
Ok. Afk should always spawn crows. The afk timer in DbD is already quite generous, and nothing is gained by overly immersive survivors who refuse to move. I played before the afk crows worked as they did, and the experience on both sides is better for them being added.
6 -
Nice, thanks that's constructive feedback.
I see your point, i agree that they have their upside and can partly fix the issue of overly passive players.
But i believe most overly immersive survivors will just crouch walk and crows do not trigger in that situation. You are able to bypass the crows entirely just by moving a bit, but you can not move in a locker so its kind of a weird spot to be in, in my opinion.
Especially since overly immersive survivors will just leave the locker move a bit and than re-enter when they have the option to do so.
0 -
If you are moving outside of a locker it is a lot easier for killer to find you in the map through normal gameplay then if you're hiding in a locker. So the visual indication of the crows is less necessary. Even if you're exiting and entering a locker the killer at least has the chance of seeing the doors open and close.
2 -
If a killer has Whispers and is looking for a survivor they know is around, the survivor is going to remain in the killer's TR. The survivor shouldn't be able to just hide in a locker indefinitely, and the killer shouldn't have to check every locker in the area to find someone.
Also, letting a survivor in a locker get AFK crows is the only sure-fire counter to Head On. I need those AFK crows to show up while I'm staring at that locker so I can pull the survivor out rather than having to eat a stun and start a new chase.
The instances in which AFK crows screw over someone doing the only play available to them is very small, whereas the moment the AFK crows are made more lenient that will be abused. Survivors found ways in the past to prevent the crows from spawning and that was awful. On a two-story map, the killer's TR may cover so much area that a survivor can keep those crows from spawning for eternity.
7 -
@AsherFrost True but its only a short time frame where you are visible and a long timeframe where you are hidden.
You can stay 60seconds in the locker until the first crow spawnes and you will probably have a short window in that time where you can leave the locker, move a bit and re-enter the locker in most situations and i believe the situations where the time does matter are the ones where you can not leave the locker to reset your timer.
0 -
Hmm yeah i haven't thought about Head-on yet, but isn't that situation also kind of niece ? If you wait 60 seconds out you will in most cases loose the game as killer.
About the Terror Radius, how about this : the afk timer ticks half as fast if a killer is within 5 meters of the survivor and gradually goes back to the normal speed until the killer is within 20 meters of the locker. A linear gradient.
1 -
I dunno, maybe. I just know getting rid of the timer completely would be bad. Slowing it down would have to be tested.
I've actually been a supporter of the suggestion that AFK crows be more aggressive, because in a lot of matches I see it get down to two survivors and then both stop working on gens and start stealthing around the map. I used to equip Whispers all the time specifically to avoid being held hostage in those types of matches. That's a completely different topic, and I'm not trying to bring that into the conversation. I just wanted to make it clear that I have a bias in this instance. Slowing down the AFK timer in certain instances might be viable, but it's not something that I personally would support.
4 -
Yeah you are right, the headline went maybe a bit overboard, i mean afk crows are named because they are ment to trigger when you are afk, but sure they also have a different use. There certainly also are issues like you said where the game gets dragged on unnecessarily long. Sometimes by killers that want to get those extra points for closing the hatch and get endgame hook points and slug the survivors but most of the time by survivors that hide unnecessarily. They added the endgame collapse for that but its also a big risk to open the exit gate as killer just so that the game will end in 2 minutes.
Also the survivors get such a boost when they get hit, that the save zone to escape an open gate is quite big.
0 -
There are so many things to take into consideration in this game. In general, I think the devs would rather prevent matches prolonged by inaction rather than risk enabling them. And if the timer is slowed down, in this instance it would've given you enough time, but the next person this happens to might fall just a second or two short and get a crow while the killer is still around. Will they then come on the forum and advocate for an increased slowdown?
Not that I expect to see this come up a lot. What happened to you is crazy rare. As survivor, I can't remember ever having a killer accidentally hang out in front of my locker until I got crows, and I have a stupid number of hours in this game. (As killer, I have purposefully stood around when I knew a survivor was in a nearby locker and waited until they got crows. I've done that a bunch of times. It's not the same thing.) Sometimes you're just unlucky. No amount of tinkering with the numbers can prevent every unlucky situation. The match you had is more like something where you give it a little time and it later becomes something you laugh about. (The Artist was probably laughing as she carried you to the gate.) You try to do everything right and something still goes wrong and that's just Dead by Daylight in a nutshell.
2 -
This is literally your own fault.
1 -
I think slowing down the timer would be fine just to avoid abuse.
1 -
I'm not sure how afk crows not spawning was going to help you here. It takes 45 seconds for the first crow to spawn so if the Killer is already sitting in front of your locker for over 45 seconds, you didn't really have an out.
5 -
??? What abuse
4 -
Well solo survivors shouldn't have a chance to survive from the beginning, at that point you are lost and wouldn't matter if you escaped or not.
2 -
The instances described in other comments that warrant having a timer if within X range of the killer.
1 -
Because hiding that long is boring. Interact with the killer. You're not always meant to win in a 1v1.
Survivors always forget that they are a team of 4 versus 1 player, and they want to be able to win every situation against that team of 1.
Most of your team was hooked in the basement and killer chooses to camp them.
So you're entitled to never be caught in the locker you're hiding in? It's a lost scenario.
2 -
??? The AFK timer speed is fine as is. That’s not abuse, that’s called working as intended.
2 -
??? I didn't say the timer speed was abuse....?
0 -
There is no situation that is abuse.
1 -
That's something you'll have to argue with the other people posting then.
0
