Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on this and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
Killer psychology - greeding pallets to the max and repercussions
Hello everyone,
today I want to talk about a topic that I noticed while reflecting on my own BHVR. Usually I start going pretty chill into a match, determined to give everyone a tough, yet fun and fair time. I try not to kill anyone off before 2 gens are done, unless its up against a bully squad and they are all trying to tilt me to the max.
Usually I will let an unhooked survivor run to safety and go after the unhooker (unless the unhooked survivor bodyblocks, then they kindly proclaimed that they don't need protection but are ok with going back right into the game).
But last game I had one player, who was clearly the top of the pack. This survivor was extemely good at looping and running tiles, and they greeded pallets to the absolute max. Usually I see pallets as the ammunition of the survivors: they start the trial with a full mag, but as they need to fire their gun more and more, their means of defending themselves get scarcer and scarcer until things turn desperate by the time its down to the last gen.
The thing that killed DBD before 6.1 was this greeding. With their second chance perks survivors were so safe that a lot of them could run the killer for several gens on end, and you just couldn't effort not to stay on top of them, because the second you tried to go for someone else, their exhaustion timer would reset and they began self-healing.
Well, today I meet a survivor who clearly knew how to play this greeding game and I am no fan of it. Yes, good gameplay should be rewarded, but greeding pallets feels really aweful to go against. There are so many pallets on nearly every map that you don't need to do that, and its not they way I think the game was designed and balanced at. Getting some vallue out of a pallet is ok, but greeding them to the max will likewise lessen the killers option.
So after some frustrating greeded and never dropped pallets I left this Meg (of course it was a Meg :V) and went after someone else, downed and hooked them. Then the Meg was in my face again, I took the bait, but still couldn't get her, while she again greeded every pallet to the max. It was so frustrating, while gens started flying (of course), that I shifted gears and tunneled the recently hooked survivor. At two gens I got that Rebecca sacrificed and went after one of the other survivors.
This one was more fearful and FINALLY started dropping pallets, resulting in a dead zone were I could finally down the greedy Meg.
Where do I want to go with this? I think that getting value out of a pallet is ok, but greeding them to the absolute max will frustrate the killer. And a frustrated killer is more likely to resort to "unfair" and "unfun" tactics. I don't enjoy tunneling and I basically never camp, but if I am put in an unwinnable situation I will do so. With survivors having figured out how DH works, we are again at the point were pallet greeding moves into really unhealthy territory. Mind you, I am not asking for a DH nerf, even though I am facing 2-4 again in most matches, DH still is much fairer then old DH and I don't fall for the obvious DH baits and sometimes even call out the window DHs and don't swing. But pallets should never be an abundant ressource, they are meant to be depleted over the course of the game. If good survivors can routinely greed and preserve pallets in such a way, then that is extremely unhealthy for th game.
So Tl, dr: being extremely good at looping and not throwing me a bone/pallet caused a poor innocent Rebecca to be tunneled out of the game. Actions have consequences.
Comments
-
Question why not just go for someone else if the target proves to difficult to take down? Hell those others well probably not be as good as the runner and you can force the runner to commit to a save or something foolish to save a teammate
10 -
Being greedy at pallets is the hallmark of a good survivor player and if you are letting them get extra loops by respecting that is on you tbh
I miss old red ranks, where at least people expected to get tunneled and camped after 3 gens were popped for the first chase of the game. Now when it happens people still act surprised for some reason when it's been the optimal strategy for years
9 -
Survivors have limited resources, people trying to make the best usage out of that is not problematic, players do not need to "throw you a bone"; what can be problematic is how easily strong tiles can chain into one another, which on a decent amount of maps is not as problematic as it use to be, but maps can still have this issue.
I would not blame the players involved though.
11 -
I eat pallets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Throw it and stun me or greed and get hit.
3 -
Im honestly having a hard time understanding what you're talking about? Are you complaining about being punished because you respected a pallet and a survivor correctly read you? Are you actually implying that you started to camp and tunnel someone because you kept getting on your hands and knees and prayed to a pallet while they just ran pass?
12 -
When you run bond and see your teammate drop the shack pallet at 5 gens without a single person even injured, you know you will not go out alive.
3 -
..how many times did you respect the pallet for the Meg to manage to greed the pallets to such an absurd degree? At that point, she just knows you won't take the risk of getting stunned and is making the right play.
You can't fear the pallet, man. Oddly enough, just unga bunga-ing it and running straight through it is often the smartest play, since very good survivors will usually try to greed it. Or they get the stun, but that loop is done for.
And besides that, i'm not really sure about the mentality of "punishing" people for playing good. Yes, I understand getting frustrated and playing meaner as a result. But what's the message here? If you're just gonna keep giving her the loop, she's gonna keep taking it. Considering yourself to be "punishing" the team for her not being dumb is a weirder thought process than you just deciding you need to put a little more gas on the pedal to win the game.
7 -
Not once. I know not to respect pallets, but she was unreal. She juked me a couple of times and ran to other tiles or used DH. When you respect a pallet and get burned, thats one thing, but running for 2 gens and not using a single one is just messed up.
0 -
And the reason they're able to greed the pallets is because their hitbox is smaller so they can hug the loop closer than the killer, and also because of the new age pallet vacuum where they just snap back to the pallet stun animation when they were clearly running the opposite direction or were crouched 3 feet away. But yes, it is absolutely infuriating for them to greed the pallet and not get punished ever, like you have to take the pallet stun and that's the only way you're getting that pallet out of the way, especially because of how ridiculous the stun hitbox is. I can take a step back and still be in stun range. And to the untrained eye, it looks like we just can't chase and get pallet stunned tons.
0 -
No such luck. Most of the time, the other players will either be hiding or will barely be weaker than the guy you just dropped chase with.
0 -
Then you went up against either an extremely good player, an extremely lucky player who made all the right reads, or both. And getting frustrated at that is understandable.
But again, I don't get the thought process with this post. Play dumb or face the consequences?
It'd be like.. if a killer was hooking a survivor, but he saw two of their teammates hanging around the hook. So naturally, he sticks around to defend the hook, because he knows people are around and that makes sense. The survivors see this, and instead of thinking "we need to make a trade or smash through gens before they die on hook", because that also makes sense, they instead think "well, if you're not gonna throw us a bone, we're just going to smash gens as fast as possible and leave. Actions have consequences."
It's a strange way of thinking about the situation. If you keep giving someone a lead, they're going to keep taking it, and you can't really blame anyone but yourself for that.
12 -
how did she counter bloodlust? bloodlust always makes me fail.
0 -
Well, maybe I am the outlier here. Its the same with unhooking: I sometimes got this situation were someone unhooks a survivor semi safe and they then split up. The unhooker runs to an extremely safe loop and I can either take that bait and be stuck in a very unfavorable situation or go after the unhooked survivor who ran into the open and be accused of tunneling. I won't go to the super safe loop unless that survivor baited me out with tanking a hit. Thats what I mean with "throwing a bone" or "taking one for the team".
In this case that survivor was so good that I would not waste any more time with them. You can be so good that you are driving the killer to your weaker team mates. And as @danielmaster87 explained, it seems to becoming more and more prevalent that survivors can greed to the max and not pay anything for it.
I am not on my hands and knees praying for morsels, but some stuff shouldn`t be possible. Maybe I just got a bad batch of games tonight, but it felt like all pre-6.1 again.
0 -
Just walk through the pallets good survivors can be really greedy sometimes they won't just predrop and hold W if they see you respecting safe pallets they'll just play greedy and you won't be able to create any dead zones.
they'll take you for a new killer player when you're clearly not,it can be frustrating true but that's the best way to create deadzones and remove really safe pallets early at 5 gens.
1 -
You just played the game how it's supposed to be played. I dunno why you're bad at it. Like if they had DC and you just ended up sweating it I could understand maybe feeling guilty, but the problem isn't the Meg. This is how the game is designed. Playing in a way you might enjoy most is currently sub-optimal.
I mean you made a good choice. It also happens to me when I'm playing survivor. Usually against Nurses. I'm not that good but sometimes I do decently against them and then they abandon me and go for a different teammate and you know what? It works out pretty well for them. The only thing I can think of is getting injured to bait the killer into a chase. I feel killers are more likely to abandon the chase if they cannot seem to get the first hit fast enough.
2 -
Killers complain when survivors pre-drop, killers complain when survivors never drop. 😭
No but on a serious note, just find the survivor who sucks at looping and make them waste all the pallets. I used to dread playing customs with my friends because of that 1 guy who was incredible at looping. He'd waste time buzzing around me while I chased literally everyone else and by the time I went for him he had no pallets left.
At the end of the day you can't expect a skilled player to go easy on you just because you're struggling.
4 -
Genuine question, because I'm a bit confused : if you know they won't pull down the pallet, why not force them to ? Lunging through pallets (once when they're at DH range and times after) tends to force them to be dropped, and then you can break em.
I don't agree to the rest of your point, re: the bone and tunnel, but others are already debating this and I'm not gonna add on that. =)
1 -
I ain't dropping a pallet unless I'm about to actually get hit,, if someone drops shack at 5 _4 gens im lettin them go struggle,, im that greedy with pallets specially on maps like shelter woods
1 -
Don't overrate 6.1.0. It did nothing in the grand scheme of things. If killer got updates like that often, then sure. But as it stands, the buffs given to killer in that patch are barely noticeable. As you see, it didn't even touch up on looping. Don't let those people fool you who say, "If you struggle AT ALL after the 'mega patch' then you're the problem."
0 -
A lot of killers can counter this. Oni, demo, blight, ranged killers nurse pf course. And for M1 Killers you can run perks like enduring and brutal strength to counterplay by forcing them to pallet stun you and minimising their gain for doing so.
0 -
I agree that Dead Hard, especially multiple in one game can force the killer to swing at pallets and they can greed it. Times where you're barely in lunge distance and you basically have to swing or get stunned, that's where new DH is nasty because not only do you conserve the pallet, you also reset the chase.
Other than that, greeding is perfectly fine. It's just what good survivors do. If you dislike it, put on Enduring and practice disrespecting. Pro tip, the stronger the pallet, the better it is to disrespect. Sometimes you just gotta take the L and say: "This player at this pallet is too good to get a hit, I'll have to just disrespect and break the pallet." Enduring makes this less painful.
0 -
Simple rule : Never ever respect a god pallet ,,if they use it it's gone if they don't u probably get a hit,,it's the unsafe ones you kinda have to be aware of cuz most of them are hindrance once thrown so you don't wanna give them a stun there
0 -
No offence man but you said that you took the bait of the Meg, thus misplaying, and so recovered it by playing harsher on the obvious weaker links.
This is the time to learn from your mistake- taking the bait- and next time you're in this situation don't rise to the challenge and instead play in a way more likely to secure victory that will leave you feeling fulfilled, happy, and not like you'll make a forums post complaining that someone... Played well.
3 -
Really? Kill rates went up 5% overall. I'm not saying it's impossible to struggle against a good SWF, but the game is definitely easier to play as a killer now. Old Dead Hard for distance is gone, making loops much shorter. And the speed burst after being hit is 10% shorter, too. It's very noticeable.
2 -
Found the reason why solo queue sucks!
No but in all seriousness, shack pallet isn’t good as people make it out to be and isn’t that good for you to let your teammates go to struggle for using it early, especially if they had to in order to keep the game in YOUR teams favor.
Good survivors know how to loop shack effectively without a pallet and that there are other tiles that have the same effectiveness as shack pallet.
2 -
That's why you find the pallet slammer early on
3 -
Greeding single pallets or just greeding in general isn't bad. What bothers me is the quantity and distribution of pallets and loops, which I think a lot of people can agree on - sometimes they're everywhere and other times nowhere.
Because of the crashing I haven't been playing, but over the halloween event I started to feel like 6.1.0 wasn't enough - but that could just be me. I'm glad dead hard and spine chill were changed, and that killer got some buffs. But, the thing I find myself continually getting frustrated by is greeding pallets while playing m1 killers.
It would be cool to have a weekend where m1 killers without movement/teleportation powers had their bloodlust removed and were instead given 120% movement speed - just to see how it pans out.
0 -
This can be an optimal approach if the chase has already gone on long enough to generate bloodlust. Sometimes I will abandon chases after getting an M1 or breaking a pallet, if there are strong loops nearby. Keeping survivors injured used to be a reliable tactic, and an M1 could buy you a reasonable amount of time, but healing happens way faster now and it doesn't work as well.
0 -
Zero respect for pallets; I'm coming for that hit. Feed me more, and enjoy a late game with no resources.
Except on The Game, since there are no end to them.
If the surv is a really strong looper, I'll switch off. The pallets are an incidental part of that decision for me.
- Unless you actually witnessed a teammate drop a strong pallet for no reason, don't assume it was unwarranted
- Letting a teammate go to struggle to punish a bad play is only hurting yourself further; no teammate is so bad you're better off with them out of the game. Hook states are a team resource, burning one like that is stupid compounding stupid.
1 -
Solo q sucks why people throw pallers like it's they are hot and when it"s your time to get chased you are only left with windows and weak filler pallets,,, the things you xan see with windows of opportunity
0 -
When I say inlet them hit struggle i mean i donthat in case im committing on a Gen,,, like if you wanna use pallets like we got 30 of those each map I'll make sure when i get chased gens will be closer to be done,, i do play with windows of opportunity and the when i see those pallets goin fast i know i got a pallet camper potato
0 -
....but as they need to fire their gun more and more,....
Emphasis here is on Need. Doesn't sound like Meg was ever in a position where the player felt they had to drop a pallet to prevent a hit or down. That's just good game play and game sense and/or there were a series a really strong tiles together that Meg ran incredibly well (assuming you played them optimally as well). Even half way decent survs won't drop pallets willy nilly. They're going to do it to prevent a hit that's otherwise assured, to stun the Killer to prevent a hit/make distance, or because it a situation where 'pre-drop and hold W' for similar reasons.
If Meg was never in those situations, it might have been just as deterimental to her team to waste all those pallets early on because it might have made end game deadlier for all them. Sure, you might have tunneled another player out, but the same thing could have happened regardless if those pallets that could have prevented a down were gone.
Sounds like she played smart or read you really well. Maybe both.
0 -
TLDR
Another player was better than me so of course I'll use every excuse EXCEPT my own poor play to take it out on someone else.
That's beyond pathetic.
0 -
I often try not to completely greed pallets for the killers sake. But if the killer is respecting them then I will greed until I feel like I can get the stun. Stunning with a pallet is a lot of blood points.
0 -
No. And I can already tell what kind of argument you'll make since you're bringing up the kill rate. Freddy and Ghost Face are the same as they were before. The sprint burst after getting hit and the increased pallet break speed still allow them to get to the next loop with time to spare. There's too many safe loops in the game that the killer can't do anything at, at least not without the survivor giving them the leeway. It's very non-interactive and choreographed, what the killer can do.
0 -
IMO the issue isn't about how to play pallets -- it's about overkill. If you can see that you would win the match by playing normally, it's weird to get super sweaty and scrape your face against the wall so you can squeeze 600 loops out of a pallet.
0
