If you regularly lose to camping killers, you are bad at the game.

Title.

I find it genuinely astounding that the playerbase at large fails to understand that camping is generally a very bad strategy. It relies entirely on survivors not doing gens, and instead clustering around the hook and committing mass suicide via killer. I only camp when I recognize that the survivors I am playing against are simply so terrible that camping is a guaranteed victory, or when it's endgame and I got trounced.

A killer that stands in front of the hook is completely and 100% predictable. They are not going to leave, and they're going to sit there and stare at the hook. You can do gens or gates and take a free three man out, or you can feed the killer a 4k for no good reason. If you really want the unhook, one guy gets the killer's attention and another sneaks in and gets the unhook. It's really not that difficult.

Oh, and don't come at me with "muh solo queue", because I play a lot of solo, and I unhook a lot against camping killers AND I make sure my teammate makes it out of there alive. Camping has been a thing for years and it's only become a worse and worse strategy over time. Git gud or die.

Comments

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    I largely agree. It isn't fun to do, or fun to play against.

    I'm more just annoyed at people that don't realize that camping is practically a game throw.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    I don't mind gen rush, I see it as a failure to apply pressure.

    I find stuff like Hold W or Boil Over strats boring tho, so I don't mind camping/tunneling/slugging people like that

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    I disagree. STBFL and many killer powers don't require the grab game to get a down at the hook.

    If you know what's cooking, and your teammates know what's cooking, you don't need to communicate to understand what you need to do. Just most players are bad at this game and refuse to learn how to counter strategies they dislike.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911
    edited March 2023

    I think we got off on the wrong foot, here.

    You're free to interpret things how you like. I don't think I'm being hateful, but I understand how you can get that impression. I'm just very, very, VERY frustrated with how survivors will call you trash when they line up one by one to get killed by you while you are literally standing still. I see it as I said. The killer makes a dumb decision, and the survivors tumble over themselves and turn it into a game-winning play.

    So yeah. It's not the camping killer that is bad, it's the survivors that die to the camping killer that are bad. It's like walking into a room with a sign outside that says: "DANGER: enter and you will die!" Maybe both are bad, and the survivors are just worse. I'm willing to accept that as the truth.

    I'm just in a bad mood lately. Sorry if I brought you down.

    Edit: If you have plenty to say, then say it. No one has learned anything from a closed mouth.

    Post edited by BenOfMilam on
  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    facecamping is pretty boring yeah. I'll do stuff like spin in place or search the same locker 20 times.

    Like I said, I camp when it's the only play available or when it's clear I'm vs'ing noobs and I just want the match to end.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,498

    Unless you are playing in a full 4 man, you either get teammates who swarm the hook and not doing gens or teammates who just instantly attempt to escape in order to die quicker to move on to the next game. Because honestly, there's very little value in playing out a game where the killer camps.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    so, the only players that lose to campers are the ones that are bad, yes? The ones that give up or make every mistake possible?

  • Gamedozer7
    Gamedozer7 Member Posts: 2,657

    "Gen rushing" generally means the survivors are maximizing gen efficiency and minimizing chase.

    My biggest issue with boring playstyles is pre-runing and super immersed players. I end up spending most the match walking around in circles. I get it's a playstyle but it makes the killer experience just as boring as standing next to a hook.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,498

    You can still get matched up with bad players and bad players can throw the game for you since it's a team game. Matchmaking isn't perfect.

    To say that people only lose to camping because they are bad is ignoring that sometimes you just get bad teammates. I've had games where my teammates understand how to play against a facecamping leatherface and we get a 3 man escape. I've also had games where people instantly give up, because the killer is still around the hook. You just learn to know when to cut your losses as solo survivor.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    Again, the survivors lose because the team is bad. Not because camping is overpowered.

    Not your own fault, but if you are playing a team game you have to accept that the mistakes of your teammates will be paid for by your entire team (including yourself).

    In any team game, solo queue will always do exponentially worse than pre-mades. It's just the nature of multiplayer games.

    That's more or less what I'm trying to say. Four bad players will lose to a dumb strategy, and four good players will beat it.

  • AGM
    AGM Member Posts: 806

    At least in this case it's because the killer is making the decision. And in general, this is what it boils down to; decisions that only the killer can make can vastly change how much fun everyone is having, and if the killer makes the choice to make the match miserable, why does their fun matter?

    To be perfectly clear, I'm not saying to never take the killer's fun into consideration, just that their fun matters less in the cases when they are explicitly choosing to make it less fun for everyone, and are (often) the only one that gets to decide that.

  • crogers271
    crogers271 Member Posts: 1,771

    Mostly covering what others have said already

    1: Even if the survivors wins, person on the hook just has to sit there

    2: Frequently the camped person just suicides which gives the killer a win (basically by annoying a player out of the game)

    3: You can say SWF/soloQ isn't an excuse, but SWFs have a much easier time not just with staying on gens, but timing the positioning to get the person off the hook

    4: Even for the other survivors its a boring game, just sit on gens for a couple minutes, leave

    -

    One other argument though is that it plays on, and encourages, a bad moral message/unsatisfying game. See that person over there? Leave them. As a survivor I want to play for the team, and really admire in soloQ how many other survivors do the same. I understand the nature of the game is for the killer to take advantage of that, and in EGC it is sometimes the killer's only option, but it shouldn't be to such an extend that the killer can easily and totally shut it down.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911


    Really doesn't change what I am trying to say. Everyone agrees that camping is annoying, but I say it is largely ineffective and borderline a game throw.

    The only reason camping works is because people just give up against it, or make every possible mistake. If people stop feeding kills to campers, you'll see less campers.

  • feffrey
    feffrey Member Posts: 886

    Listen to what you've just said and re-read it if you need to. I do not think you understand what you're trying to say so let me give you a thought process.

    Survivor loads into a match with the thought they'll get to enjoy the match win or lose

    Camping killer going into a match with the intention of losing and doesn't care that he is going to lose. He intentionally throws the match for everyone and ruins it cause he can. Nobody gains anything and wasted 30min trying to play.


    Not everyone have time to play and it is limited to a few matches and if those matches are all tunneling campers it makes it easy to not wabt to play at all

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    You're talking like we are disagreeing about something, but we have the same opinion here.

    Camping is boring. Most people don't want to play against it. We agree on this.

    I'm saying that camping is virtually a guaranteed loss for the killer. You have stated this as well.

    However, I also think that playing around camping is not really as hard as people make it out to be. Getting a four man out against a camping killer is a pretty regular occurrence in my experience, both as the survivor and as the killer.

    We all agree that it's boring, but I'm trying really fuckign hard to tell people that countering camping is not that difficult. Only reason a team would lose to a camper is because they are unbelievably bad.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,325

    Ah. I was wondering how you define "bad". Let me give you a different pov: The person on hook is making a rather utilitarian decision; they don't get bp either way and they depip either way. Might as well move on to the next match. Wouldn't call that bad. The people who were to hammer gens and get no bp either way and depip either way also have already nothing to gain regardless of the the match outcome. Might as well go next quicker.

    Plus, as others have pointed out, camping isn't "OP" because it's strong but because it is so boring people rather take the L and move on.

    On a slightly different note: if you manage to consistently solo unhook (/trade) against a camping killer then that is because they are impatient and/or don't know the grab timing. (Duo unhooks are a different Story - but also depend on the killer)

  • AmpersandUnderscore
    AmpersandUnderscore Member Posts: 1,731

    Camping falls into a category of things that take minimal effort and planning and is countered by coordination and information.

    Sure, not knowing what to do or how to coordinate in some cases can be the problem (i.e. bad players), but that's not the whole picture.

    Solo q basically relies on kindred for this information, and not knowing immediately that someone is being camped can cost quite a bit of time. Every survivor has to individually gain the information, and even then kindred may not tell if a stealth killer is still near the hook. I disagree that not having perfect information immediately makes all four survivors bad.

    In any camping situation, throwing those same 4 survivors in a discord call doesn't make them instantly better players, they're just better informed and better coordinated. They could make mistakes in execution, sure, which is where some level of skill comes in, but not being psychic isn't a skill issue.

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,442

    Of all the ways you could unnecessarily transform this into yet another annoying us-vs-them post this is among the most ridiculous; there's a whole buffet of reasons why this is a terrible comparison and just a terrible post to make.

    First of all, "gen rushing" is so subjective compared to camping. How do you tell if someone's camping? the killer is hanging out near the hook blocking any potential unhooks. I defy you to come up with a definition for "gen rushing" that everyone will immediately and intuitively know, that can be used to classify every single instance of gameplay fairly and accurately.

    Second, "camping" is neither necessary, nor conducive to advancing the killer's win condition (unless the survivors are bad or it's endgame and the killer has nothing else they can do). any reasonable definition of gen rushing requires survivors to do their one objective, the one and only thing that can give them more than a 1 out; work on gens.

    Third, the idea that killer complaints are fewer or under-noticed or whatever is so wrong. Looking at the top page of general discussions, we have a bunch of threads that you could potentially interpret as being complaints. I'll give a rundown of the ones I saw when I loaded up the frontpage along with my summary of the complaint. i've been fairly judicious in defining what a complaint is, and classified this one as complaining even though it's more of an explanation. also, there's no value judgement on any of these complaints, many are quite valid.

    5 threads complaining from survivor perspective only:

    [this thread], "some killer players seem to want to torture others", "my teammates are idiots who don't understand their perks sometimes", "dead hard isn't that bad", "so there's this bug"

    4 complaints from both roles:

    "overall state of the game is miserable for both sides", "recent killer designs have been uninteresting", "more BP codes please", "bloodwebs still too slow"

    12 complaints from killer perspective only:

    "blight and nurse are the only viable killers", "why have only survivors gotten QoL updates", "i hate indoor maps as killer", "list of desired changes to make killers stronger", "i have no reason not to tunnel", "there are infinite looping spots in some maps", "quit hiding your prestige 100 survivor", "no longer enjoy the game, quitting", "so there's this bug", "starstruck should be base kit", "spine chill is overpowered", "dying light is too weak"

    as you can see, there are more than twice as many killer-exclusive complaints as survivor-exclusive ones, and judging by the comments they're largely getting the same amount of attention. the idea that you don't hear killer complaints is silly.

  • EvilSerje
    EvilSerje Member Posts: 1,070

    On one hand I completely support and agree two things OP mentioned:

    • camping is bad and loosing strategy with decent survivors and up.
    • if you can't deal with camper, you are bad

    Also another very true thing that was mentioned:

    • camping is extremely boring for everybody


    But there are Problem is, to not to be bad, you need to be close to Ayrun level. How many people are that good? And how many people are ready to invest their free time to get to that level, not just play couple hours in the evening?

    I personally have 1.5K hours and when camping/tunneling happens (30% of games), it's 9 times out of 10 immediate lose. Just like that. Yes, I'm bad, hundreds and hundreds of people are bad, but fact is a fact.

    Yes, I'm not that god that can singlehandedly save survivor from camper, it will end in me being downed and the unhooked one get tunneled in the next 10-20 seconds, which stall the game even more. And I cannot coordinate other survivors. How? Wave a hand?

    I already take Kindred in 100% of cases, but people rarely pay attention. Even if they do, and two come for the rescue, one make a mistake and again everything fall apart.

    Let's pretend that I'm not bad, but I will continuously lose until I get in a skilled group. Ok, 1 game, 2nd, 3rd, 5th.... Nope, haven't rolled the dice, dumped another 10 minutes of my life. Next match?

    But to hell with winning/loosing, problem is: no one is playing! Everyone either sit hold M1 and go out, camped one just hang on a hook, killer slaps hook and nods like #########. That's the gameplay? That's what we all want to spend our free time for? Well, I doubt it.


    So, in my opinion, camping should be technically removed by devs (how - that is still a question). I know that trash killers immediately starts wailing how "it is proper strategy" and "you cannot win without it", but for the health of the game, I belive it should be removed. Just as a convention of the game. Like, why can't you mori survivor after first down? You have f-ing chainsaw, saw that goober in half! No, you can't, convention of the game. So should be with camping.

    And as a bonus, bad killers will have to learn how to be good, apply pressure and macroplay, and it will stop millions of band-aids from devs that doesn't help the majority of playerbase, but get abused by top-tier players.

  • DBDVulture
    DBDVulture Member Posts: 2,437

    I realize you're probably one of those people that think a player that face camps is bad at the game. Well sometimes facecamping a player to stage II means you already have won.

    Let's take a look at how that happens. Say I chase someone and down them in the middle of the strongest 3 gen on the map. And I put them in basement. Ok I just walk 5-6 steps in any direction and prevent you from making an unhook without trading.

    Let's also imagine that one of the generators is sitting on 80% completion and I have kick perks. So I stand closer to that gen so it keeps going back to 0% progress.


    If I get your friend to stage II then I will tunnel them off the hook. And then I will do this all over again with only 3 people alive. If you could not save them with 3 people how are you going to do it with 2 people?

  • dollidahlia
    dollidahlia Member Posts: 343

    So you thought you ate with that huh? Let me go ahead and shut this one down.

    did you even read the links you sent. Well maybe you didn’t but I did. Let’s go read the survivor perspective complains such as “dead hard isn’t that bad”. If you ACTUALLY read it, people agree with OP, there are more people that agree with him and therefore justifies survivors.

    let’s go to killer perspective. “Blight and nurse are the only viable killers” and what do you see? The next comment with more likes that disagrees. Do you not get it? We tend to agree with survivors more than killers. I keep going through the survivor perspective and killer perspective and see the same thing over and over.

    and let’s not put words in my mouth. I never once made the “us vs them” argument. All I said was that why don’t people ever care about the killers fun. Yet you found a way to twist my words and make it sound like I said “only the killers fun should matter” plus I even agreed that camping and tunneling are boring to survivors. Read the reply again and it’s the FIRST thing.and I never said that killer complaints are fewer than survivors. I said people don’t care about the killers fun.

    30 minute games are not fun with SM. But 2 minute games of gen rush aren’t fun either. Don’t try to sit here and justify that gen rushing is fun for killers because you have yet to say anything about how killers feel, yet I talked about how survivors find tunneling and camping boring. So you sound like a one trick pony. NEXT

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,442

    why are you lying about the response to the "DH isn't that bad" thread? Yes, the first two responses agree with the original thread, but after that the vast majority was either outright calling it overpowered (to the tune of more upvotes than any pro-DH commenters) or saying that it's not always OP but is still too strong in too many situations (maybe you can go through the thread and find what my opinion is on the matter, since you're so concerned about what I think about killers feelings).

    later, you seemed to understand the idea that upvotes = support so i don't know why that doesn't apply in the first thread. since you only seemed to be citing first-responses and not everything else, maybe you just forgot to scroll down and that's why you missed the vast majority of people saying there are problems with DH in that thread.

    absolutely adore how you managed, in one paragraph, to accuse me of "putting words in your mouth" for looking at the phrase

    it’s always “it’s boring to survivors” but it’s never “it’s boring to killers”

    and accurately summarizing it as US [killers being bored] vs THEM [survivors being bored], and then also to accuse me of summarizing your argument as "only the killer's fun should matter." After I had specifically framed my argument around discussing both sides' experience (that's what "us vs them" means)

    "2 minutes of gen rush" sucks, i'll give you that, but do we really need to pretend that there aren't plenty of people already voicing that opinion to great support?

  • Zyie
    Zyie Member Posts: 90

    This post feels like you trying to justify why you're a face camper, and you want people to tell you that you're good, and survivors that dies when you face camp are bad. It's just not that simple.

    First of all, I would argue that a SWF where all 4 maybe average say 1000 MMR, has a much higher chance of having 3 or 4 people escaping vs a face camping killer, than a full group of Solo Q players with an average of say 1500 MMR does.

    If the Solo Q group has higher MMR, they should be better players on average. However, no one can deny that a SWF being able to communicate can MUCH more easily disarm a face camping situation, as they can co-ordinate distracting the killer and unhooking the person being face camped. The fact that they can communicate is a huge boost. I suspect that you're either just ignoring this fact completely, or you've never really played in a decent SWF before and so you have no reference point to compare to. Solo Q is by far the weakest group of players in this game. The list goes SWF along with Nurse and Blight is the strongest, then comes the rest of the killers, and then quite a bit below that comes Solo Q. No one would really argue against that being true. Solo Q is at a huge disadvantage compared to a SWF, and therefore something like a camping situation is far less likely to end well for Solo Q compared to a SWF, unless everyone in the Solo Q is very high MMR themselves, with thousands of hours in the game, then they are all knowledgeable enough that they know how to co-ordinate unhooking vs a camping killer even without communications. There's very few who sticks around the game long enough to get to that point however.


    A second huge glaring issue with your argument, is that no one that's played this game more than like 10h just wants to do gens and then escape, hundreds or thousands of games in a row. Pretty quickly, the fun part on either side is chasing someone, or being chased. Is doing gens fun? No. Is healing fun? No. Is unhooking fun? No. It's fun to be chased, to get better at looping the killer, to get stuns and blinds etc. On the killer side, it's fun to outsmart the survivors, to win mindgames, it's fun when you learn to keep a fairly accurate image in your head of a map and where all survivors are at all times, even without having to use aura-perks etc.

    Standing still at a hook, isn't fun, for anyone. Doing gens and escaping with zero interactions with the killer isn't fun for anyone. If I just wanted to gens and escape, I could just play the tutorial games all day long instead with 0 risk of being face camped.

    I, and pretty much everyone else, play for the chases. That's the fun part. The interaction between survivor and killer.

    If you face camp, I will be bored. If I'm the person on the hook, that's x amount of minutes of my life just wasted where I could've played a fun game instead. If some random person is on the hook, I'm bored too. If I just wanted to do gens and escape, I might as well play with bots. I will run to you, try to get your attention, try to get you to chase me instead, because that's why I play the game. I want that interaction.

    You call me a bad player for doing that. You're saying that you're bad if you're not okay with just being bored for a few minutes and then escape with no interaction with the killer. You're bad if you want interaction with the killer. What are you smoking?

    No, you're bad for face camping. You should be the one playing vs bots. It'll be as stimulating for you either way. Or you know, just stare into a blank wall all day. That's about as interactive as your game-play style is.

    What's the fun in it for you? What enjoyment do you get from it, that you can't get from playing vs bots just as well? You're clearing not interested in interaction with other players. Please, tell me how staring into a blank wall 16h a day wouldn't be as rewarding or exciting as it is for you to just stand still in a video game for 5 minutes and then repeat that experience again and again and again?

    People are playing the game to have fun. The fun part in this game is chases, on both sides. You're just wasting peoples time. You say yourself that camping is boring. So why bother? Why not just play some other game? Or watch Netflix/YouTube/Twitch/Whatever? What part of you is getting enjoyment from ensuring that others can't have fun?

  • Veinslay
    Veinslay Member Posts: 1,959
    edited March 2023

    You're way overthinking this. A lot of people think it's funny to facecamp with Leatherface and make the survivor rage. It doesn't go much deeper than that. Same reason why survivors love to teabag killers and click flashlights or emote at pallets

  • wydyadoit
    wydyadoit Member Posts: 1,145
    edited March 2023

    edit

    in regards to the killer's fun

    the concept of "it's not about the match length" is erroneous.

    match length is just as important to the fun equation as it is for survivors.

    match length, difficulty, atmosphere, progression, and engagement are all important factors.

  • Veinslay
    Veinslay Member Posts: 1,959

    Survivors have plenty of impact on how fun the match is for the killer. It's not fun to play against some team that burns Garden of Joy and then immediately bee lines to the boon at the busted main building during every chase. It's not fun to play against survivors that think it's funny to run the killer into multiple Head On stuns over and over. "But the killer still gets to play the game!!!"

  • pseudechis
    pseudechis Member Posts: 3,904
    edited March 2023

    Yeah this is the part I agree with, there are pretty effective ways to win against camping, unless you're the one on the hook.

    But its a team game your job as the person on hook is to hang there long enough for your team to progress the objective. But if someone doesn't like playing that role and they quit, then they are why camping seems much stronger than it actually is.

    ooh careful with what you are doing here.

    "Survivor loads into match they thought they would enjoy" err... survivor loads into a game where non-participating is a genuine threat, if they aren't going to accept that then they are setting themselves up for no fun if it happens. You can't just crave the one aspect you like from a PVP experience and nor can you be upset if you don't get it.

    "Camping killer goes into match intending to lose" hmm... Camping plays a role in a number of scenarios, just assuming that anyone who camps has the intention to lose... ugh never assume another player's motivation its a poor premise to base a point on.

    People's time is limited but the design and variable outcomes from a PVP game like DBD are well known, so if you have limited time and are expecting to get the gameplay you want within that window, you may be disappointed because not everyone wants the same game experience as you do.

    If you feel you only really get the game you want form say 1 game in 5, then I wouldn't play DBD unless I had enough time to play at least 5 games. Personal time management and expected outcomes are your responsibility not the game or opponents responsibility.

    Also I tend to find players with a hyperfocus and heightened response to things they don't like (i.e camping, tunneling, SWF) tend to see it everywhere whether its present or not, and blame it for everything whether its present or not, these kinds of players ruin their own game experience long before the opponent has the chance to.

  • Hunkulese
    Hunkulese Member Posts: 423

    Yes and no. Standing at the hook every time you hook someone isn't a great strategy and should lead to a loss. But at high-level play, camping is pretty much required to win and is the optimal way to play. There are very few scenarios where protecting the first hook until struggle isn't your best course of action. After that, it depends on the game state.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 6,604

    I appreciate the response, venting out on a post is something many have done including myself so no worries there. I'll also apologize since I feel like I came off as a tad bit aggressive as well.

    As for the actual subject, there's not much I can say now that others haven't already covered in this post. Camping is situational and shouldn't be used as a strategy. Killers going in and immediately sticking near the hook on their first down at 3 or more gens are basically throwing the game there's no doubt about that. Unless the Survivors decide to go for the save, in which case they're throwing the game as there is quite literally nothing stopping them from doing gens. So from a balance standpoint, its fine

    The problem now, is that the Survivor who is getting camped is just having their time wasted with basically no options other than to hang around. There's nothing fun about sitting on a hook for 2 minutes while a killer is just staring at you. Being that Survivor you do feel as if you're in an unwinnable situation and it just doesn't feel good whatsoever. Survivors aren't just 1 mass, they're 4 individuals attempting to work together to achieve their goal. As a killer its easy to forget that.

    Now that's not to say this is the only scenario where some one can feel that way. Things such as a Survivors bringing Boil Over on a favorable map where they can wiggle 100% of the time and just don't budge isn't necessarily oppressive, but it sure feels like it since as a killer your options are very limited. In my opinion the devs should try to minimize if not remove all these situations al together. This would require a heavy overhaul to the games mechanics but it would definitely be in everyone's best interests. Ridding the game of all of these would just make the game just more enjoyable and possibly even reduce toxicity which is always a plus.

  • BenOfMilam
    BenOfMilam Member Posts: 911

    Indeed, thanks for taking the time to respond. We're all largely in agreement here, I was just too drunk and tired to be civil.

    Personally, probably the biggest issue with camping that no one has mention are the unrescuable hooks where you can bodyblock and make the hook inaccessable. Like outdoors on RPD, upstairs Garden of Joy, and upstairs Tommy House. That's more of a map issue tho.

    Although being on the hook is dull, unhooking vs a facecamper is pretty exhilerating imo. Probably why everyone tries to do it lol

  • Dogma_loki
    Dogma_loki Member Posts: 436

    It was funny the first 10 million times. Now its just boring, mundane and an incredible waste of time.