Thoughts on de-incentivising tunneling and camping
I'm a 1k hour killer main, who occasionally plays survivor for challenges, change of pace, and to hang with buddies. I generally play the nice guy killer, going for 8 hooks and then letting one to all survivors escape depending on how the match went/how I'm feeling. I don't like tunneling and camping as a killer because it's just flat out boring, and I'd rather lose than play a style I don't find to be any fun. I do understand that there are times that they can and should be used tactically and i will employ them in the late game from time to time, but I don't like the meta of the 5 gen hard tunnel which often is the most efficient method for a killer to win.
So how do we deal with it? I'm not for just outright punishing it because there are times where it is a late game smart play, and a lot of suggestions of punishment for it are abusable. Bonus BP such as old BBQ really won't do much because it was a problem even with the old version because people will troll just for the sake of trolling and some people just want to win.
So the best way to deal with it in my humble opinion is to buff the multi hook playstyle to make it more efficient than hard tunneling. Have a stackable buff, let's call it "Fresh Blood" (I don't care what you call it), that the killer earns everytime they hook a survivor that hasn't been hooked. It does something along the lines of +5 to 8% to vaulting, pallet breaking, stun recovery speeds as well as +5 seconds to the time required to bless/cleanse a hex totem. The buff is permanent for the match and stacks every time you hook a fresh survivor up to four survivors.
Once you have hooked all survivors for the first time, you can start earning stacks of "Fresh Meat". Same buffs, but it's earned every time you hook a survivor that has only a single hook state. If you hook someone out of sequence or they go to second stage on thier first hook, you'll be locked out of getting a stack for that particular survivor.
Obviously what is buffed, how much it's buffed could be adjusted to whatever is needed to work without being overpowered. Along those same lines, there may need to be killer nerfs or survivor buffs for everything to balance.in the end. It would need a LOT of testing before going out.
All that said, if you can make it so it's generally more beneficial to the killer to spread the hooks than to tunnel, then the majority of tunneling goes away. On the surface at least, it seems to me to be the best solution.
Comments
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In this context.
Killers don't want hook buffs. They want survivors to die.
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I’d honestly prefer to see spreading Hooks reward basekit Moris.
Hook every Survivor once and you can Mori Deathhook Survivors once the Exit gates are Powered.
Hook every Survivor twice and you can Mori Deathhook Survivors by your own hand at any time.
This would make the Killer more threatening at the close of the Trial than just making the Killer snowball through the Trial, while also presenting milestones that have distinct game changing effects.
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I am fine with both of them (even having them at the same time).
For OP's suggestion I would stress his 2nd last paragraph - buff killers spreading pressure, but compensate-nerf them in reasonable way.
Killers "have to tunnel" after 6.1, because it's most rewarding tactics, because of DS nerf. Their killrate skyrocketed for a short time, so now they indeed have to do that or they loose. But the thing is, that if we fix this issue, killers will loose some for a limited time and then everything evens out. Suddenly 1K hour killer will no longer play against 16K hrs survivor lobby (and get 3+ kills).
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you forgot that in 6.1 the survivors got an improved version of bt( s tier perk ) and after hyperfocus which allows you to make a solo generator in 60 seconds, at this time the killers break the pallet 0.1 faster
so killers camp you not because all killers are evil, they just have to because unlike survivors they don't have 50 second chances
start rewarding hits and hooks, and make sure the game can't last less than 5 minutes and then the camp and tunnel will disappear
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At least devs can bake in BBQs stacks back as a passive.
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I'm playing more survivor than killer these days, probably at a 45/55 split. I prefer playing killer because I play solo and, admittedly, I enjoy it more because I find it way more challenging than survivor, especially after the HUD update. It way more tense to me because now gen rushing is a constant, not just something that happened with SWF, so trying to kill as many survivors means you're trying to be as efficient as possible with your play style... you have to be. Before the HUD update, it was more stressful being a survivor... now I play survivor to relax.
I want to make it clear up front that I was a killer main the first couple of weeks I played this game, but now it's much more balanced lest anyone think I'm speaking from a pure killer perspective. It is easy to beat tunneling and camping killers... bottom line. I have no idea why people complain about it so much. As a survivor, when I see a tunneling or camping killer, I automatically know at least 3 of us are going to escape the trial, and if you have a good set of solo survivors, all 4. Only if you suck can you not counter this. I used to tunnel and camp when I was a noob killer because I was desperate to get at least ONE sacrifice... but once you've played killer for a while you realize that it's simply NOT a winning strategy so long as your win condition is more than one sacrifice.
Basically, if you complain about tunneling and camping killers, it's probably because you suck at the game.
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BBQ wasn't an effective way of stopping tunneling since you could still tunnel and get your 4 stacks.
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Can you define "tunneling" in the context of your comment? Because to me, tunneling is chasing after only one survivor the whole game. If you define it as continuing a chase with one survivor for a lengthy period of time to get them on a hook... but then moving on once they're on the hook, I don't consider that tunneling. I will do this sometimes if I encounter a survivor that is really good at a chase. They wind me through the map dropping pallets which I smash early game so there are no pallets left mid to late game for anyone else. I'll let them do this for a few minutes and if I don't hook em before two gens pop, then I'll call off the chase at the point. Sometimes the strategy works based on the killer and perks I'm using, sometimes it doesn't. But, as a survivor who is slowly getting better at chases myself, I actually enjoy it for a couple of reasons. I'm frustrating the killer and my team is popping gens. Win-win. It's also one of the last exciting things to do as a survivor after the HUD update.
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6.1.0 cut on-hit speed boost by 10%, increased gen times by 10 seconds, and decreased action cooldowns for killer on both pallet breaking and successful hits by 10%.
Seriously, I have not seen a single killer player actually take ALL these compounding buffs into account, they always forget half of them.
But this also plays into a fundamental disagreement I have over how to handle camping and tunnelling: Incentivising 12-hooking won't do the trick, for multiple reasons. For one, as seen above, players don't have a proper grasp on the game's balance or their own position in it. Feels like roughly 30% of the playerbase is in the 'top 5% MMR' if we're going by how many of those posts crop up.
The moment they are losing, it is the game's fault, it's unfair and unreasonable, and they resort to camping/tunnelling. You can try and shift the comparative quality of 12-hooking, but you have to take into account that the bar for what the players consider 'fair' can easily drop through the floor, putting 12-hooking squarely back in the 'I'd rather tunnel' category.
The other thing is that camping/tunnelling are also used as intentionally malicious acts. There are killers out there that are not playing specifically to win, but to make the game miserable. Any buffs to non-camping/tunnelling tactics won't fix this, as long as these tactics still feel powerful and effective.
So I strongly disagree with using the carrot. These tactics need the stick. And I think it's achievable. DS was super healthy for the game back when it was a 5 second stun, with the one problem being its activation under non-tunnelling conditions, but those were pruned off all the way through to 6.1. And Reassurance certainly has the potential to work, just not with its usage restricted specifically against campers to be only once per trial.
For anti-tunnelling, I'd want there to be a Desperation mechanism. Activates upon unhook, lasts 80 seconds, or until a conspic action, and the survivor has no collision with the killer while under the effect of Desperation. Additionally, if the survivor is picked up by the killer while under the effect of Desperation, they get to make a skillcheck to stun them for 3 seconds, which ends Desperation.
DS can be changed to 'desperate strike now stuns for 5 seconds'.
OTR can then be changed to complete info black-out while under the effect of Desperation.
And for anti-camp, make the hook timer slow down while the killer is near the hook, based on the number of survivors working on gens. One surv on gen = 5% slowdown, 2 survs = 20% slowdown, 3 survs = 45% slowdown. That way it only hinders the killer if they're actually camping and letting other survivors do gens.
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Thats such a good idea, way better than mine. I would just scratch the part that you would get even more stacks if all survivors have been hooked once because thas too difficult to achieve and most games have ended by then. So only "fresh meat"-bp bonus with the gen slowdown on every first hook.
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Yes, we want survivors to die. You have method A and method B. Method A is more fun for most on both sides, but is less effective, method B is less fun but more effective. Let's make it so the more fun method is also the more effective method.
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Effective for one side will always be less fun for the other.
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My fundamental disagreement with this approach is says using these tactics is illegitimate or unfair, which I disagree with. I think they are unfun, but not unfair. I'm not looking to raise the overall power level of killers, just make it so the most effective way to play is the most fun for all involved. As I had said, that will probably mean nerfing killers baseline (reverting at least some of the 6.1 buffs as a start) and/or buffing survivors, but ending up at about the overall power dynamic we have now.
If a player wants to make another player miserable, they will find a way to do it. With this, when the power balance all is on the table, if they want to try and tunnel at 5 gens, that's fine, but they'll get destroyed. Most people do it because it's the easiest way to win, not because they are trolling. Make the easiest way to win something else and they will do that. Most Effective Tactics Available.
Both sides can sit here and point at each other screaming "skill issue" all day long (and they do). Hasn't gotten us very far as both sides are right and wrong at the same time.
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Ok. Let me give you two scenarios.
Scenario A: You spawn in head to a gen and are found by the killer within 30-40 seconds. Short chase, you are hooked. After about 45 seconds your team saves you but the killer immediately tunnels you and slaps you right back on the hook. Same thing happens again and you are out of the game.
Scenario B: You spawn in head to a gen and are found by the killer within 30-40 seconds. Chase, hooked, blah blah blah, but this time the killer goes for someone else when you are unhooked. You get away, heal, get a rescue, maybe get a gen. Killer eventually finds you again, chases, hooks. Again you are saved and the killer leaves you be for now. You get a gen, do some healing, etc. Killer finds you a third time, chases and hooks you and you are now out of the game.
Which scenario do you think most people will find more fun?
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They do need to focus more on incentivizing and rewarding the killer for playing “fair” rather than punishments for not. Currently we are seeing a lot more tunneling as the killers feel way more stressed with gen speeds.
I think one of the big reasons we see gens flying faster that no one seems to be mentioning is CoH entering the game(combined with medkits and increased gen efficiency from the HUD as well). With CoH they can counter the killers pressure so much faster and more importantly alone since they don’t need to get a teammate off a gen to heal them. Injures being spread around used to slow gens a lot more as it used to get survivors off the gens for much longer than it does now. CoH and medkits being tuned down to be more balanced would actually lesson tunneling and slow gens down a lot more.
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For anti-tunnel:
too much anti-tunnel starts to remove agency from the Killer and can be used by crafty Survivors to troll.
Honestly I just think there should be a way to absorb Sacrifice states from one survivor to another.
Say interacting with The Basement Shrine of Sacrifice will allow you to remove a sacrifice state from the Survivor with the most sacrifice states, but increases your count by one.
If the survivor is on hook when this happens, it acts like reassurance.
For anti-camp:
Why not just remove Healthy Grabs and make starting the Unhook animation uninterruptible?
This would make it a lot easier to trade hooks even when the Killer is facecamping, also allowing players to cycle their Hook states themselves instead of artificially elongating the Hook state of a single Survivor.
But you’d still want to add a carrot because the Killer gameplay is honestly quite monotonous given it doesn’t really have milestones or events that impact how they interact with the Trial. It’s just a constant loop of chase, down, hook.
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Well I think a lot of that comes from too much stacking of effects from both sides. I wouldn't mind seeing something where only the single best effect is allowed on pretty much everything.
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It’s a tough one to fix. On one side I like that, but it also sucks having so much build synergies lost. Makes people take the best one and ignore anything else. Maybe keep the synergies but just lower each of their numbers in general?
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The other option is to provide a cap on total amount allowed. That way you can get some extra benefit, but it's diminishing returns.
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too much anti-tunnel starts to remove agency from the Killer and can be used by crafty Survivors to troll.
I mean, we're talking about getting these playstyles out of the game, that kind of requires a reduction in killer agency.
As for how survivors use it to troll, we've had DS for a very long time, and for a very long time, it wasn't efficient as a troll tactic. I've pruned it back a little further from what we have now by removing collision so you can't bodyblock with it, so I don't really know what else you can pull off with this anti-tunnel idea that could make it a problem.
Why not just remove Healthy Grabs and make starting the Unhook animation uninterruptible?
Any form of instadown would get the unhooker downed anyway, and it would free up the killer to tunnel the camped person back onto the hook. Healthy-grabs aren't the problem. Survivors can cycle that out, but there's nothing they can do to prevent the killer just using their unhook to speed up the sacrifice process.
This slowdown specifically teaches the killer that the tactic is unrewarding, and it risks costing them the kill with a good EGC save.
But you’d still want to add a carrot because the Killer gameplay is honestly quite monotonous given it doesn’t really have milestones or events that impact how they interact with the Trial. It’s just a constant loop of chase, down, hook.
Killer gameplay is definitely comparatively more stale than survivor gameplay, but that's not something that should be fixed with net-buffs to killers. I'm all for diversifying gameplay in a way that is mutually fair, but killer gameplay being stale is a separate issue from camping and tunnelling.
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Let me put on my rose color glasses and read it again.
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Kill rate right after patch went thru the roof. Official kill rates after everything settled got from 49% to 61%. So sure. Survivors got extremely S-tier buffs and killers got invisible unnoticeable buffs. In this stats things is just pure fluke. And you are totally not biased at all.
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Honestly, just make chasing survivors easier. Then there would be no reason for killers to tunnel and then survivors can use or have strong perks.
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And you need to make sure that if the killer hangs the survivor out of order, then all survivors receive 5%-10% to the speed of repairing generators. Or if he hangs the same survivor who just got taken down
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I mean, we're talking about getting these playstyles out of the game, that kind of requires a reduction in killer agency.
I'm of the opinion that people generally don't mind tunneling, but they do mind being removed from the match early. However, I understand addressing that likely will take too much of an overhaul.
As for how survivors use it to troll, we've had DS for a very long time, and for a very long time, it wasn't efficient as a troll tactic. I've pruned it back a little further from what we have now by removing collision so you can't bodyblock with it, so I don't really know what else you can pull off with this anti-tunnel idea that could make it a problem.
Same way OTR can be used to bait the Killer nowadays: It's hard to tell if a Survivor has it active, and if you're being a nice Killer and you're away from Hook and then the Survivor comes across your path and you chase them, only to realize that "hey, the intentionally came over here to distract me".
Any form of instadown would get the unhooker downed anyway, and it would free up the killer to tunnel the camped person back onto the hook. Healthy-grabs aren't the problem. Survivors can cycle that out, but there's nothing they can do to prevent the killer just using their unhook to speed up the sacrifice process.
This slowdown specifically teaches the killer that the tactic is unrewarding, and it risks costing them the kill with a good EGC save.
Proximity-based anti-camp measures will be circumvented with proximity camping, or proxy camping (which is more effective than facecamping anyway), and these distances would either be too short or too punishing.
Proxy camping allows for the use of STBFL to effectively make M1 Killers insta-down Killers given the unhook interrupt of becoming Injured stopping the action coupled with the attack speed reduction, as do Healthy grabs.
Your anti-tunnel mechanic would be the thing that prevents the Killer from tunneling the Survivor after insta-downing the unhooker.
Killer gameplay is definitely comparatively more stale than survivor gameplay, but that's not something that should be fixed with net-buffs to killers. I'm all for diversifying gameplay in a way that is mutually fair, but killer gameplay being stale is a separate issue from camping and tunnelling.
Certainly, doesn't mean that it can't be tied into whatever anti-camp/tunneling mechanics are introduced. And probably would be best for player retention if it's not just a massive nerf bat to Hooks, but also positive change in the way that Killers approach how they want to Hook Survivors gameplay diversity.
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Same way OTR can be used to bait...
OTR is one of the worst-designed perk for it's intended use. It's anti-tunneling perk that only works, if killer is tunneling a little and not actually hard tunneling (and camping). On the other hand if killer does not tunnel, it's perfectly possible for survivor to let himself be healed and then force-take aggro, because he knows he have 3 health states. So it's bad anti-tunneling perk that is easy to abuse. Horrible perk design.
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Killer is boring? At least there are changing sights. Survivor gameplay is gens, gens, geNS, GENS ALL THE GODDAMN TIME! Just hold 1 button and push the other one occasionally. Yes, there are chases, but they're rarely more than 30 sec - 1.5 min on average. What a variety.
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