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The current meta of tunneling and camping the first survivor out is unhealthy for the game.
I know, I know, another camping/tunneling post.
This problem though, is apparent in at least half my games, where the first person to get hooked will be tunneled and or camped out of the game as quickly as possible to turn it into a 3v1.
This just perpetuates a cycle of survivors complaining about these problems, running meta perks to counter them, then playing killers who don’t do either of these things and punishing them for playing in a more fair manor, turning them into killers who camp and tunnel these survivors out.
This is a very unhealthy cycle for this game to be in, as it promotes “toxic” behavior and a stale meta. Survivors will run the same 4 perks every game, and killers will get a person out as soon as possible to counter this.
I understand that this has been a problem for a long, long time, but when it comes to game design, fun should be the first priority. The current state of the game does not promote “fun” interplay between the survivor and killer and 90% of the time, one side of the lobby will be left with a sour taste in their mouth.
Apologies for the rant, but just wanted to put my thoughts out there.
Comments
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I would like to blame bhvr for bad balance decisions.
51 -
There's a big problem where if you decide not to run DS, if the killer decides to risk it - you essentially become the weak link in the team by default. People wonder why everyone runs DS, it's for this reason
Nobody likes being the weak link because they made 1 mistake
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If you and your team decide not to run Decisive Strike, you and your team have decided to forfeit all matches where the killer is willing to pick up a recently hooked survivor.
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I don't know what perks my teammates have in solo Q
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And this is inherently the problem. Survivors shouldn’t be forced to run perks to avoid an outcome that can be fixed by better game design.
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I've seen BT a ton lately, but almost no DS at all.
Meh. It activates once per survivor per match, adds an extra 15 seconds before the next hook, and requires a difficult skill check to activate. It can be annoying when combined with BT, but BT is the one I'd rather not deal with if given a choice between the two.
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Yeah, its a never ending cycle of arma race. Good survivors can do a lot without perks just by looping, so if you give them 4 meta perks they generate immense pressure on the killers side.. mear insurmountable pressure. It doesn't help that a fair share of winners love to rub it in and BM like their life depends on it.
Experience this a few times too often and you will come to the conclusion that your only chance is to turn the game into a 3v1 asap.
How could BHVR change this? Make perks weaker the more people have them equipped ; show this in the lobby, so people can try for more unique builds in order to get the full power of their builds.
On the killer side, give them a reward for being 30m away from a hook when an unhooking happens, like Devour Hopes mechanic. I always thought that a gen speed debuff would be good, as the gen speed and gens popping in quick succession is one of the main reasons killers tunnel, but I proposed two survivor nerfs in a row, so maybe give killers a random short-lived buff when they stay away? Smol speed buff/successful hit recovery / vault speed for 30s or whatever. Enough that it's worthwhile for the killer, but also a bit random so that they don't know exactly whats coming.
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Well people are gonna play however they can get enjoyment it doesn't matter if we all think it's the most boring or dumb play style if they're having fun then that's all that counts, and survivors are finally understanding that to counter the new DMS & scourge meta they need to genrush to make chases count before the gen is blocked , unfortunately when you highlight the glaring gen speed issue the game has always had, it makes some less skilled killers feel like in order to compete they need to take someone out asap to make the scales tilt in their favor, not everyone is great at the game or likes to play top tier killers and unfortunately we have to accommodate for those people as well and make sure they have fun too because that's all anyone here is trying to do at the end of the day, even though admittedly I've been tired of all the crying in this game for quite some time.
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Not the point.
This is the point.
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I don't disagree, really
Just wish it didn't feel so required. Like no matter how well I play or how long I last in chase if I don't have DS then I'm the weak link if the killer decided to tunnel.
Not blaming killers for this either, I get why it's a tactic.
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It's baffling to me that the devs want to preserve camping and tunnelling so badly. They're basically measuring two different killer types in their balancing: The sweats and the 'for fun' folks, and it's making their job harder.
The whole game needs to be less sweaty. A lot of bully tactics on the survivor side could easily get scrapped without hindering regular play too much, too.
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Camping and tunneling is sadly the best Thing Killers can do to have a chance at high rank because of the awful Balancing
Im watching a German Streamer who is a very Good Killer at high rank and he has try to play Games whitout tunneling and Camping ans most Game was very stressful and he didnt had a Chance
If the Devs would Balance the Insane Gen Speed, Nerf Dead Hard and CoH or Networking the Maps so they are going to be smaller Killers would have a better Chance and less Killer would Camp or Tunneling
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The issue with camping/tunneling is that chases and splitting pressure is currently one of the single worst things killers can do.
Its also for 2 reasons:
Circle of Healing has more or less killed hit and run/split pressure.
Killer nerfs/regression perk nerfs to both Pop directly and Ruin indirectly:
Pop lost its duration giving killers less time to split pressure to get the regression off. This is along with indirect nerfs such as blast mine which can cause the killer's pop to run out before they can use it.
As remember pop's timer doesn't pause during kicks/stuns so its entirely possible for pop to run out even though the first kick should have activated it.
Ruin was indirectly nerfed by the introduction of boons which caused nearly every single totem to be booned in a game and thus getting rid of all hexes. Ruin was always a risk but has only gotten worse at it.
TLDR: New survivor perks/Killer nerfs(Both Killers and their perks) have made camping/tunneling the best option.
Edit: I didn't go over direct killer nerfs as this is too long as is and they are too numerous.
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It has gotten bad to worse. This is really a result of Decisive Strike being nerfed so much. It needs to be buffed so it is feared and not a small 1-time stun. It is normal for a Huntress, Nurse, Blight, or any of these killers to instantly down the person again after decisive strike. 5 second stun is so miniscule.
The game doesn't even need changed at all, just give survivor more powerful ways to deal with it.
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I definitely agree with this, and in no way am I blaming killers for either camping or tunneling. I understand why it's necessary if you want to play with a chance of getting a 4k against a team that knows what they are doing. This is entirely a development and game design issue, and it all comes down to the dev team not understanding what their community wants. There is literally years and years of feedback and suggestions on how to promote more healthy interplay between the survivors and killers, but they seem to disregard 99% of the feedback they receive, and do what they think is best for the game.
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COH is a big part why often you need to tunnel. I agree, Specially on bigger maps where you can't always find survivors all the time, and when you don't tunnel, then they heal up and you stand there like an idiot for being "nice".
Camping is another story, personally, i only do it if i played not good enough and only got 1 hook or w/e, then i can try to either see if they want to save them. Sometimes, when i go for Adept, i just let them go, no point in being sweaty if i only play for an achievement.
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A lot of people mention perks, gen speeds etc when they talk about why killers feel so compelled to tunnel and camp but honestly the problem wont be solved by any if that. It will only make the game less fun for survivors.
The real issue is the hook. As a game mechanic its very lazy and poorly implemented. It makes sense as a rough concept that there should be a core mechanic that temporarily puts a player on the survivor side in a state where they cant assist their team in order to balance the 4v1 but the hook is so lazy of a concept.
I was complaining about dbd to my brother who doesnt play it but hes tried a match or two with me before and decided its just nit a game for him. He pointed out right away that its a weird game. His exact words were "it seems like kind of a dumb game. Honestly if i was playing killer id just find one person and hook them and just sit there. If they got saved id just go for them again until they were dead."
I tried explaining to him that if youre playing against teams on comms or just good players they can finish most of their objectives before the person dies but mid sentence i realized what a weak argument that is.
Case in point i played a match yesterday with a friend against a myers who wasnt even running any good addons. I had kindred and could see the dude just camping the first downed person on hook. Our other rando got the hint and we all just hopped on gens. One gen was completed just as the first person got hooked but even then we each were only able to complete one gen before the person died. The other rando took the myers to the other side of the map while me and my friend double teamed the last gen. Myers popped tier 3 and took down the other rando. He hooked the rando and made it to us with tier 3 still active right as we popped the last gen. Me and my friend both went down even though i kept the myers in chase until he lost tier 3 and I was able to get my friend back up but then myers popped tier 3 again and downed us both. That myers got an easy 4k.
Anyone can clearly look at the core mechanics of this game and instantly realize how busted they are but at this point theres no way they can be reworked. Thats why the devs say camping and tunneling are legit strategies is because they know the hook is a busted mechanic but to fix it theyd have to rewrite the entire game at this point so the remedy is to apply band aids in the form of perks.
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DS still has the same function as before. It's just that now survivors are encouraged to heal instead of playing gen-jockeys.
Curiously, now that it's not busted, its rarely being used.
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As for the original post : as long as killers will only have a chance to win or even get a kill if they tunnel and camp, the situation will not change.
Deciding that kills were what counts instead of hooks may not have been the wisest idea.
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This is a problem that both sides have and i agree
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"Curiously, now that it's not busted, its rarely being used."
Looks at boil over lmao
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I wouldnt blame the perks too much of the survivors, its more (also not the players themselves fault) about the survivors that dont have anything else to do then gens really. So the time you chase and down one survivor (who has obviously the entire map for him full of pallets) 3 gens will pop. The games isnt necesarrely over but it is very hard to keep a game going like that.
You are basicly forced to play like this, even more if you play a weaker Killer. Perks like Deadlock etc are just bandaid fix because the gens will STILL pop soon enough.
BHVR needs to come up with a new way to deal or pogress the game otherwise. Either give survivors a side objective that they need to do in order to keep going with the game OR give the killer a side objective to gain pressure somehow. I always loved the idea of somehow pleasing the entity with some kind of blood ritual to trigger a "mid game collapse" where the gens are blocked and survivors are forced to interact with the killer for 1 min somehow.
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According to BHVR, kills are a testament of skill. If you were camped/tunneled out of the game, that's a skill issue.
My point in this is that so long as this is the devs mindset, any real change will be unlikely to happen.
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I mean, you can't really blame the killers. This game is so unbalanced and if you play a low or mid tier killer you have no chance of winning.
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The problem is, that once I've hooked someone, and can't find any other survivor, I might as well walk back to the hook when the unhook happens. If I find the injured person I purposely ignore them and look for the person who unhooked, if I can't find them then the first person I tend to run into after is the injured unhooked person again. Am I just supposed to let them do whatever? There's always a weakest link on the team, and unless the team takes measures to protect that person (either by taking the killer away from the unhooked person, purposely distracting, etc.) then that weak link is the first person out of the match, without any ill intent whatsoever.
Sometimes I get solid teams who understand how to properly manage hook states, people who have been hooked or are on death-hook stay out of sight, trade hooks when needed, etc. But that's not how my normal solo queue games go. The first person I run into is usually the first person that also dies, without any purposeful camping or tunneling. If you're dead on hook, maybe don't repair the gen in the middle of the map, or unhook when injured.
Every team has a weak link, and unless the team is proactive about it, that person is going to be out of the game so fast.
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Some people will defend tunneling and camping with their claws and teeth without realizing that tunneling and camping are the band-aid solutions that the devs leave untouched due to the current state of the game being absolutely awful. With CoH, hit & run and spreading damage strategies have been completely obliterated, and killers often find themselves with no other choice but to follow the one injured person unless they want to spread damage, give them all a chance to go to the boon and heal themselves, and end up with all the gens being done and a 0K, 1K at most. I've always been the kind of killer player who avoids tunneling and camping as much as possible, but lately I've found myself with no other options way more often than before boons were created. I am not the best killer out there, of course. I wasn't the best killer back then, either. So something has certainly changed, since I still play the same killer as I did back then and who has remained untouched by the devs for 2 years already (Doctor).
In my opinion, devs leave camping and tunneling as viable options because they know that, in order to make them less viable, a lot of work would be needed to balance the game. And the people who defend this choice fail to realize that, if camping and tunneling were disencouraged or made weaker, that wouldn't mean that killers would be left with no effective strategies (if done correctly...), but that a lot of work & balancing would be implemented in order to make other strategies stronger. I know that change can be scary... but if the devs wanted, it would be do-able. But they don't, it seems to me.
And I refuse to believe that anyone has actual fun when camping and tunneling, unless they are a very, very sad person. Getting tilted at a survivor BMing and being satisfied when you catch them and camp him is one thing I can understand, sort of. But actually having fun in doing that? Or doing it unprovoked? I'll take a regular match where I can actually chase people and use my power over having to stare at a survivor sitting on a hook any time, thank you very much.
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I feel like people would still camp and tunnel because it would be much easier. And slower gens speeds is just playing into a basement bubbas hands
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I was going to say exactly this. BHVR’s game balance decisions are the sole reason for killers having to resort to these unfun tactics to secure kills at high ranks. Play killer against good survivors and you will understand
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Healing actually disables DS so they are discouraged from doing anything. I believe your definition of busted means being useful and effective. It doesn't function the same as before because now it deactivates for scratching your nose.
Since it is obvious in how it is designed now that it is supposed to be anti-tunnel but it does a very bad job about that. 5 sec stun is absolutely nothing to meta killers. When a Blight can down someone in only a few seconds after DS, only a 1-time use perk btw, then that is extremely weak perk. Killers don't even respect DS. Since it is only 1-time use, then they make sure to tunnel again to get them out of the game.
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Tbh I think it should stun for 6 seconds, give a small speed boost and hide blood marks and scratches for 10 seconds.
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Any buff like that would be nice. One more thing: distort the killer's hearing. If he is stunned, he shouldn't be benefiting from directional audio.
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Second chance perks aren't necessary. If I end up dead from a mistake, oh well I'll take the loss as it was my own fault. Always expect the killer to claim an advantage when it presents itself.
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I mean you're not wrong but that's the fault of the devs not the players the players are just using the tools available to them and trying to play optimally.
Going by the last QnA they're aware of the problem though and seem to experimenting internally some solutions. That being said if they do kill that strat (which they should) killers either need a buff or a lot of 2nd chance perks or survs probably need the nerf bat and I have a feeling they're gonna do their "wait and see tweak the game as needed" thing rather than actually using some foresight for once so killer might become even more unbearable before it gets better.
I think making some form of BT basekit like they've hinted at is the wrong way to go personally and I'd rather they encourage killers to play in a way that's more fun while not destroying their chances at winning. I don't know if a basekit BBQ is the way to go but it's an idea, BP multiplier for hooks in a row before anyone dies.
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Hate the game not the player
I could say that for 99% of the posts on the forums
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Still too weak.
Could use a few more effects from other perks added in.
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3 gens done in 2 minutes. That's all you gotta say, really.
If the survivors actually do gens instead of crouch walking around the map being scared that's how fast they can get done. Camping and tunneling is a necessity.
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The problem is 2 fold. Killers shouldn't have to stack Gen slow down perks to stand a chance either. Hooking 1 person by the time 3 gens pop is not balanced. There needs to be reasons to spread out the dmg. Since coh was introduced there is no reason to hit someone and not commit to hooking them.
And I know someone is saying "play a killer whose power helps in a chase". That is literally as if a killer said "if you don't want to be tunneled bring ds". Perks or characters don't fix bad game design.
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It's a vicious cycle that we are riding on...
Survivors do their Objectives
Killers will do their Objectives
In mid/ high MMR that seems to be the issue
It's impossible to get 12 hooks in a match... Just like a single Survivor can't do all 5 Gens (think about it that way)
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Sad but true! Survivors should run DS/BT, same as killers should run gen defense perks.
I'm playing at low MMR (and I worked hard for this ;) ) without any gen defense perks. Unless you get real real potatoes but let's say a team with a hundred hours, gens are still flying. These people don't know how to loop, don't look behind them, dead hard into walls (because youtube taught them DH is THE perk) and if they don't insta drop safe pallets fall for simple mindgames.
But... they already know to ignore the terror radius, work on gens injured (even if it gets them killed) and are just glued to gens, gens, gens. They know nothing but holding M1 on gens. Chase time is kept to a minimum, you often spend more time carrying them to hooks but once (if) unhooked, right back to the gen.
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Players don't want to do it either, but they've adapted.
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I say this as a killer main who believes 95% of the time survivors complain about “tunneling” in after game chat they’re just sore they got downed two times in a row - I would have no problem with Borrowed Time being base kit, assuming they maybe slowed gens down a small amount to keep overall balance about the same. That’s because enough people run Borrowed Time anyway that, at least for me, I kind of just assume everybody doing an unhook has it and play accordingly. And I know I’m not alone, I suspect a lot of killers simply assume that when someone is unhooked in their sight that the rescued person is protected by Borrowed Time and they instead hit the rescuer.
So making Borrowed Time base kit would actually not change how I personally currently play as a killer at all. I’m already “working around it”, so it being actually in play doesn’t matter that much, aside from maybe rescued people doing body blocks on occasion?
Essentially while “tunneling” is usually a bogus complaint, I do think Borrowed Time does have a useful purpose in incentivizing spreading the damage a bit on hook trades because steering killers toward trades instead of rehooks in those instances makes for games where the killer is directly interacting with more survivors more of the time.
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If you have to time to do something, then you are not being tunneled.
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I don't know, it's not like they can buff killers while removing the capability of tunneling.
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Tunneling and camping (especially camping) isn't fun for anybody.
These moves obviously exist only because the game makes alternatives simply worse.
When a killer camps, most of the time he has simply given up on the match.
e.g. Huge map, low mobility, survivors spread doing 3 gens in parallel about to pop (seen though BBQ) : why bother?
e.g. Pallet city, low visibility, couldn't catch a survivor thanks to good coordination, protection hits, blurred tracks and COH, gens still popping : why bother? (Sometimes the killer DCs instead. After all he'll only wait for 5 minutes while we will wait for about 10.)
There are many other lost-causes.
The only way to fix this is to either reduce the speed at which gens are flying. That would be done not by increasing the time but by doing something like preventing to work on more than a couple at a time, or adding some conditions. One thing that VHS has right is that every player has to interact with each-other so nobody gets bored (but the game has its flaws too, at the moment)
Completely removing busted mechanics (instantaneous turn rates, hiding inside the killer, vault "tech", ...) would go a long way.
And of course, putting server-side measures to detect and ban all cheaters (subtle or not) is a must before they even try to balance.
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it's basically the strategy everyone in comp tournaments does, it just shows that it is the most effective one. Playing against 4 survivors until the endgame is unwinnable if the survivors are decent at least.
To get rid of it, drastic balance changes are needed, tunneling and camping must get punished harder and going for everyone must get rewarded more.
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doesnt matter where you start to balance as long as it leads to a more balanced game. But just changing maps will not stop hardcore campers and tunnelers, i would say it's the opposite, if it's even more efficient now, why stop doing it? Do you really think killer mains are that empathetic and compassionate? From my experience, you need to actively punish people or they will take advantage of things that are in their favour. I see survivors bringing OP items nearly every game, as long as they have them they will use them too.
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And what is camping exactly? Setting up a tent and stay by the hook in my books.
But survivors always complaint about camping when it isnt even camping to begin with.
When you kick a gen nearby and leave: Camping
When you have two survivors hooked and you really dont need to go anywhere: camping
Protecting a 3 gen: Camping
Chasing a survivor near the hook: Camping
Just existing on the map: camping
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wait, how does it not exist? It's legitimately called like that by everyone. I do it myself when i need to so why trying to deny it like that? Every fog whisperer or comp player with 10k hours calls it like that and there are definitions when something is "camping" and "tunneling".
I've never said i want to nerf the killer role, i already said drastic balance changes are needed, which ones those are is a topic for the devs, being it maps or perks or gen speeds or whatever. But in return you have to make sure the unwanted and unfun strategies get punished and are not worthwile anymore. I don't know any killer main who actually likes to camp or mindlessly tunnel, they just do it because they feel like they have to do in order to win. Most, like me, like to chase people but it is not rewarding against a good team.
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I have the perfect fix for tunneling, but nobody wants to hear it.
3 words.
Single Hook State.
Boom! Camping and tunneling solved in 1 go.
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I partially blame the "Skill" based matchmaking. It only really cares about kills/escapes which incentivizes camping and tunneling.
I personally think the Emblem system is better, since it at least measures how "Good" you did. (Chases, hooks, gen repair, heals, etc. So overall participation.)
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Not necessarily true.
Besides, if it is an anti-tunnel perk, then it needs to do a better job at doing that. If a Blight or Huntress can instantly down someone again and tunnel them out of the match, then that is not anti-tunnel.
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