http://dbd.game/killswitch
Otz's Tunneling Experiment
This is EXTREMELY telling in regards to the community's perception on tunneling on BOTH sides.
While Otz obviously isn't an "average" DBD player, I think he is still comparable enough to be an efficient look at the player base.
Also, for further reading, Otz says he played around 60 games, with different killers, mostly using non-meta perks/addons. He also set a rule that prevented him from hooking a survivor twice in a row, which fully prevents him from tunneling.
- His 80% win rate is mostly indicative of his own skill, but this does have some weight when it comes to showing how killers do not have to tunnel EVERY game, specifically right off the bat at 5/4 gens. It's not like killers get sh*t-stomped if they don't tunnel for every game. Sometimes, it is a skill issue, and not the fault of the survivors if a killer is put into a position where they must tunnel to get ahead. There is a time and a place for tunneling, but its not like you'll 100% loose a 4k if you don't (at least in scenarios where a killer isn't at extreme risk like at 5 gens remaining and such).
- The fact that survivors still told him he "tunneled" after he specifically did not hook the same person two hooks in a row is absurd, and is something a chunk survivor player base needs to wake up to. If a killer does not go for, down, and hook a survivor who just got unhooked immediately, they did NOT tunnel. That is not what tunneling is, and it's insane that people think that what Otz did in a lot of scenarios is tunneling. I see the accusations of tunneling as sheer copium.
- As for people who want to be tunneled, that's fine, as some people just want chase interaction. Considering how boring gens are, I think that's understandable. I also don't think there's anything wrong with a killer giving what that survivor wants, or not. When a survivor begs to be tunneled and enter chase, its up to the killer to say yes or no, but the survivor can't turn around an sh*t on the killer for "tunneling" if they then go down. It's their fault they were the killer's next target.
- I have no thoughts on a team trying to prevent a killer from tunneling. Makes sense. 👍️
I mainly take issue with the first two points, as they poke holes in very prevalent opinions the community has. By "take issue" I don't mean I take issue with Otz's conclusions, I think they are apt based on his experiences, I mean I take issue with the opinions of the community.
Comments
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There’s an easy fix to both tunneling and doing gens being boring. Add another objective. It would massively reduce the amount of tunneling
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I don't know how that would reduce tunneling, but I do think that DBD needs SOMETHING else in terms of an objective. Like jeez, the game is 5 years old and there have been NO changes to core gameplay.
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I always use perks that require me to hook everyone in the match: no way out, grim embrace, BBQ (even if it doesn't give stacks, I still like using it) and the latest perk Leverage (it slows down heals for each hook for 30 seconds).
I can say that most times I can't even get to 4 stacks of grim embrace or no way out because it's really damn difficult to hook everyone twice.
But I prefer an actual challenge instead of camping, tunneling and slugging. Boring af. It's not the end of the world if I lose some matches of dead by daylight.
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The game will be 7 years old in June and I 100 percent agree with you they promised new game modes years ago and then swept them under the rug and pretended like they never said they would do it, if they would add new ways to survive and kill while adding new modes to play the game without having to hold m1 and run in circles the whole game would get a giant breath of fresh air and bring a lot of people back to the game that have left, this game is on course to die currently I predict this is the last year for DBD before they stop updating and just leave the servers on to play, whenever they finally add bots for both sides and then bots for when people disconnect you'll know the game is finished because they were against doing that before but when the game is over and no more updates that is the only option to keep it going a little longer
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Huh so you can be called a tunneler even though you hooked 2 other people before chasing the person again. Never thought of that before. Because if you have big enough pressure you'll start to have that happen and if the survivors just take their time. Because while i guess they were hang timing you had a adventure with their teammates lol.
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Okay, now how about someone do this after him WITHOUT the preferential matchmaking?
Don't get me wrong, I'm in absolute awe at the raw skill displayed at clubbing baby seals with barely 4-500 hours that run into walls because they don't look ahead of themselves and don't work on gens because they are too busy being the next JRM/Ayrun/etc and can't even run in a straight line to efficiently chain strong loops and abuse infinites, etc.
Why do I feel like playing Pig on Red Forest against Hens333 and his squad would yield vastly different results?
Nothing personal against Otz by the way, he is a really cool guy and a pillar of the community we should all aspire to be, but this should not be used to gleam some sort of significant insight. The only thing it actually shows is that SBMM doesn't work and the tippity top MMR killers are regularly fed baby survivors who have absolutely zero business in being the same lobby as them.
If you think Wraith is a perfectly viable Killer show me a single tournament where he 4k-ed, I'll be waiting.
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I love the optimism, but that would most definitely not reduce tunneling. Folks who find tunneling an effective way to win will still tunnel, only they'll be even more successful since the Survivors now have to worry about another objective on top of trying to save their friend. Those two things are ultimately completely unrelated. It's like trying to fix a leak in your roof by oiling a creaky door hinge.
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Dbd needs 2 killer mode then you can both tunnel together one survivor out... That would be fun though.
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Are you his media-assistent or why do you work like a trainee for him?
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This isn't that telling nor is it necessarily particularly useful either.
It's a known and well understood fact that you don't absolutely have to tunnel in every game to do well.
Reproving that fact doesn't require Otz to test anything. The issue is player perception at skill levels below that of someone like Otz and player perceptions of people who are in opposition to your role.
Otz playing 60 games isn't the most representative sample of the majority of dbd play. Just like a 4man rush team going for 4 man escapes for 60 games isn't really representative of most dbd play. It's a nice anecdotal example that goes to show proof of concept that it can be done if you are that good. Most players aren't that good and aren't going to get that good because they aren't going to put the amount of hours in. It's not even guaranteed that someone will develop that level of skill even if they play long.
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Honest question, can you really prove preferential matchmaking? Obviously a content creator won't put up games that go down the shitter as half the time those aren't fun to watch. It happens though, even to streamers and other content creators. Half of the time, we only see their best games.
Pig vs Hens33 and his squad would probably go sour because Hens is a great player, and Pig is a mostly ######### killer. Saying "I bet it'd go different if my Trapper with moderate addons went against 4 P-100 survivors with 8k hours or Eyre of Crows" isn't saying much, and that mostly highlights a problem with the killer's strength, map imbalance, etc. Those matches don't happen all the time, and hey, a match can start with the odds against anyone on both sides.
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I disagree...
"It's a known and well understood fact that you don't absolutely have to tunnel in every game to do well."
A majority of the killer discourse in these forums does say otherwise. The idea that killers need to tunnel is a widespread and incorrect mentality as of right now.
"Otz playing 60 games isn't the most representative sample of the majority of dbd play. Just like a 4man rush team going for 4 man escapes for 60 games isn't really representative of most dbd play. It's a nice anecdotal example that goes to show proof of concept that it can be done if you are that good. Most players aren't that good and aren't going to get that good because they aren't going to put the amount of hours in. It's not even guaranteed that someone will develop that level of skill even if they play long."
I generally agree with this, but this is why he made sure to not bring any hardcore meta perks or addons. This brings him down a little bit in terms of chances for success. Otz may not be the average DBD player, trust me we all know he isn't, but if you look at most of his games, he doesn't do much different than your average killer unless he has a specific goal in mind. The crazy plays you can find on youtube make up a minority of his plays overall. The idea that people won't develop enough skill to do something like what Otz just did is valid, but would that not be specifically on the killer? If they lack skill and are required to tunnel, then are not being oppressed by survivors, and they just could not make good use of the opportunities they were probably given. Obviously maps and such factor into this, but if a player is unskilled, then they probably won't make skilled plays very often. Unironically, I am saying that there is a "skill issue" here instead of a sheer lack of choices that are different to tunneling.
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What do you disagree with?
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Add another objective for survivor but also nerf tunneling considerably for example basekit ds which activates twice or remove collision from unhooked survivor until he does conspicious action.
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With the Otz-Propaganda. New Video = here is a post about Otz did this and that. Commercial at its best. I dont say he is right or wrong but I will say I absolutely dont like the commercial for players "God of the game".
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So do you disagree with Otz's conclusions?
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I don't have the game's sour code sadly, but I'm fairly sure one of the main streamers said in a Twitter thread that content creators got preferential matchmaking when they all dropped their "can't play because too many hackers" videos in quick succesion. So BHVR added some rules like X hours of game time so brand new hacking accounts can't be matched with them. This solved the problem in the sense that now the average players get them exclusively. That being said, I have no proof that their MMR is also lowered, but people like Otz, Scott Jund and OhTofu have thousands upon thousands of hours where they played killer. You could theoretically go watch everything and see how often did they play against 4 BNPs, had survivors that had not the faintest clue of how to loop etc. If I had the time, I'd definitely do it and see how they hold up, I bet we could learn all sorts of useful things from that.
As to the second part of your post, you are just proving my point. My original contention was that drawing vast conclusion from someone incredibly good at the game, playing against weak teams was a mistake because there are too many variables. Now if Otz and Hens&Co got together and Otz went through all killers without tunneling (map RNG, no fixed balanced maps) that would be incredible to watch and we could actually learn a lot.
I brought up Hens because he does tournament stuff which is actually fairly balanced, but Otz played against some random SWF on Ormond a couple of weeks/months ago and got like 1 kill? There are plenty of strong SWFs that should be matched up against the best of the best, because giving them 400 hour Megheads is not very balanced.
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Stop suggesting basekit DS, it's the worst idea since basekit Unbreakable.
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Thats actually really interesting. But I've gotta ask, if we could go through and check how many times content creators went against bad survivors, wouldn't that give more credence to the idea that MMR just doesn't work period? Like for anyone?
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Thats NOT the point.
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Just something to point out. I wish we'd stop strawmanning that killers think they need to tunnel "every game" to win. 99% of killer only players even on these forums do not think that. This misrepresentation happens a lot as it's very easy to argue against and mock them. Most players in general say there are many games where you need to tunnel to win, full stop, that's it. Not even most games, just many games. Rant over.
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[A wild Peanits appears. - Am I imagining things or is this happening more often the past weeks/months?]
Anyway.
The necessity or not-necessity of tunneling (or bringing full meta builds for that matter) aside - the thing that caught my attention was the part about Dwight being hooked, then two other teamies being hooked and it still being called tunneling when going after Dwight once unhooked. - But contrary to Otz I don't find it particularily paradoxical. There are plenty definitions that have alternatives. Something is X if a or b occurs. In the case of tunneling it's if someone is either deliberately hooked twice in a row, or chased to be downed and hooked immediately after having been unhooked. - Though, I actually think tunneling is all about the latter component.
But yes, terminology and definitions vary a lot between people and there isn't a consensus - let alone a codex people could refer if in doubt. Which makes it all the harder to fix "the issue" (you know, since people don't even agree on what "the issue" is).
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is a flowery answer to a serious problem all the community manager has to offer? disappointing and almost insulting to those who wondered.
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Tunneling needs to be an option, because sometimes when a survivor is hooked, everyone else hides and waits for the killer to leave the hook. And if a survivor is far from the hook, they might work on a generator, but they will pre leave the generator and hide if the killer gets anywhere near them. In these scenarios, it’s not worth it to leave a hooked survivor.
And therefore, tunneling needs to be an option to counter immersed survivors, and if tunneling is heavily nerfed, then killers need some mechanic to make it much much easier to start a chase with a different survivor. Even though tunneling might be boring for survivors, it’s boring for killers when the survivors are overly immersed, and both problems need to be fixed at the same time.
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Do not extrapolate a single group of competitive level players with cherry picked conditions to prove your point to the everyday match you can play on DBD. The point is that matchmaking works the way it works, and yet people scream on the daily that if they so much as play with one less than optimal perk or without unsavory tactics their win rate will plummet to 0%.
If the matchmaking paired you against the sweatiests of the sweatiests players one match, chances are you're gonna have a way more lax match at least the two next ones.
I honestly do not believe you play with competitive level players every single match you play, but if that were to be the case, then yes, not tunneling will probably net you a substantially lower amount of 4k, if that's what you want to prove 🤷♂️
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Thank you for explaining the problem unnecessarily. i have criticized the community manager as a person and his handling of problems and said nothing about tunneling except that it is a serious problem.
in the feedback forum are countless approaches to tunneling. one would be to give the killer positive incentives to spread over multiple targets. neither does the game mechanics have to be changed, nor is the killer denied the opportunity to choose his own targets. as an example I would like to list the old BBQ here, which many killers had as a perk so that they could get additional bloodpoints.
this subliminal control via positive incentives is implemented quickly and whether it is effective can be determined using statistics.
now my question comes again, why is it not done although the people in the forum have been complaining for years?
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Because it doesn’t matter how many incentives you give me, if the survivors are super immersed whenever someone is hooked, and I’m not likely to find anyone if I leave the hooked survivor, then it’s still not worth it for me to leave the hooked survivor. And this is double true when the survivors are using voice comms and are relaying my location to each other.
Many people like to pretend that a killer can leave a hooked survivor, patrol the map, and they will 100% find a different survivor to chase. This is not a realistic expectation, so if camping is going to be heavily nerfed, then there needs to be some mechanic that allows the killer to reliably get in a chase with a different survivor.
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There are a wide range of info/detection perks with which to locate survivors. Unfortunately it requires losing one of your four slowdown perks.
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As you say, that's your personal choice. other people make different decisions for themselves. the additional incentives mean that nothing is taken away from you if you decide to only choose one target.
how do you get from tunneling to camping? These are two different things and problems that each have different approaches to solving them.
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As always, a copout answer. People have been asking for my objectives/game modes for years and this is your response.
At the end of the day, it's up to you Devs to find a better solution to the current state of this game. Maybe add a new objective and then add Incentives to not tunnel. Really isn't that difficult.
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How many of those function after hooking a survivor and needing to find a new one to chase? BBQ & Chili, maybe Discordance, what else?
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If I feel like I’m being forced to camp, then I’ve wasted so much time that I’ll also feel like I’m being force to tunnel. And equipping info perks won’t help, because it’s just too difficult to find survivors that purposely hide whenever a survivor is hooked.
This problem involves both sides. We can’t just punish the killer for camping or tunneling, but not give killers the means to keep the game tempo moving if the survivors purposely hide when a survivor is hooked.
Td;lr BOTH sides should be required to interact with the other side. If you want to punish killers for not interacting with all 4 survivors, then survivors shouldn’t be allowed to so easily avoid interacting with the killer.
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Why? The last time killers claimed that tunneling would go down if gen times would go up. Gen times did go up, and killers tunneled even more, because they simply have more time to gain now. What would be different with another objective, unless its a killer objective?
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mmr does work, go watch spookyloopz vod on twich after he merged his steam account with epic it reset his mmr. Every game he was against complete and total baby survivors.
I used to think MMR wasn't real, but his last two streams prove without a shadow of a doubt it is.
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Otz isn't talking tournaments though; he's discussing general gameplay. I've argued you don't need to tunnel in general gameplay because, well, you don't need to in order to have a good winrate. The matching system is neither good enough nor are there enough players at super high levels of skill that somebody will run into tournament level teams that would necessitate playing super sweaty.
If somebody feels they have to tunnel they're either new, not satisfied with a 60% win rate (which is the rate the devs shoot for) or just hit the softcap. There are not enough tournament level players for Killers to regularly encounter them.
The survivors in my argument were criticized for making mistakes as well but, as I pointed out, that overlooks the main point. Those are the survivors people get matched with. The matchmaking system is not strict enough that it would put Killers into conditions where tunneling is necessary (nor should it be in my opinion).
Tunneling is an option (and I don't criticize anyone for using the tools the devs put into the game) but not a necessity.
The other point at the end, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that people should bring up frustrations with being tunneled to the devs; not the Killer player. I know you didn't touch on this point but I'm just mentioning it as I think it really should be reinforced in the DbD community; if people want change talk to the devs and don't blame people for using the tools the devs provided.
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I've watched Otz on and off for years. I've watched his streams not just his youtube highlights at that.
He does a lot of things that the average dbd player doesn't do even in casual play. The devil is in the details and those details happen to be that he's devoted a lot of time to developing his ability to visualize the game from top down. Which arguably is the most important skill to develop if you want to play dbd long term and not rip your hair out. He doesn't need meta perks and addons which is something else he's went out of his way to prove. He can do the same with most killers' basekit powers in terms of having good games.
People not developing skill is chiefly on them as skill development takes time. What isn't on the killer player is pressure from not having enough per trial game time to work on developing the skill. That comes from a fundamental flaw of the core gameplay loop, but it cuts both ways. To get the time needed per game the easiest and most consistent strat is to tunnel someone out early which forces survivors to slow down. It's important to understand what people actually mean by "Tunneling is necessary", people aren't great at articulating what they are actually thinking in the most vocal folks even less so. Survivors for the most part are just playing the game which isn't the problem, but due to things that just generally favor survivors getting to push their winning condition much earlier than an average killer can deal with you get to see the blame placed on survivors.
Spawn rules in dbd are weirdly lax and put survivors in close proximity to gens early on. Gens aren't complex objects with strict time gate mechanics so that the game has a set minimum amount of time it takes. They have a soft time gate if the killer has no perks or takes no actions that forcibly act as a limiter to how fast they can be done. These aren't things survivors or killers can really change so a lot of average killer andies get in the habit of relying on the proven strats that decrease the amount of inherent pressure so they can focus on trying to build up that skill they lack.
When you're wanting more time to play and the gameplay isn't being changed to give you more time naturally. You're gonna force the issue with whatever means you have available to you. Tunneling has been that mean pretty forever so just because Otz can do something doesn't necessarily poke holes in the concept that "Tunneling is necessary" considering as others have pointed on in this thread that isn't a position that is even widely held, but just something that the more vocal folks say.
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You're right because that's exactly what I'll do. I hate to be that guy, but I see no reason to go after a new guy since BBQ died.
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Gen times went up yet there's still matches where three or even four generators all get completed in the first four minutes, so you're right in the sense it didn't change anything at all.
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While I haven't kept up with the tournament scene in a year, I can say with confidence that your argument is fundamentally wrong in your tournament example. Tournaments have different formats and aim to make every killer A-tier by imposing restrictions on teams. Additionally, if Wraith is a pick on a tournament, BOTH teams must use Wraith as their killer for that round, and the one with the most hook stages will win. I have no doubt that in one instance there's been a 4k.
Now what you're likely referring to is tournament level teams with no restrictions facing an equally skilled Wraith. Obviously that isn't fair and won't work. This won't work on the majority of killers unless they get very lucky. However you can still make a tournament off this and the Wraith wouldn't aim to 4K but instead secure enough hook stages to make their team win. Definitely possible.
Anyway, as for clips, I can't find many clips of tournaments in general but here is a scrim of Team Shrouded practicing with their killer using Wraith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSlpmIP1_H8 he got a 4K. I have no doubt you can 4k with any killer when a tournament is balanced with the right rules.
You don't face people like Hens' team very often. If you feel that way, it might be because there is a wide gap between your skill level and Otz's. That's not to say he doesn't get babies too. He does. But so do you. It's impossible that you don't unless you're the unluckiest person out there. MMR is a joke, sure, but it's a joke to everyone. Killers that think they need to tunnel constantly are just nowhere near, and probably won't ever be given they're not actually improving, Otz's level, so it makes sense that they feel that way.
Although when you do face teams like you've mentioned, yeah you may need to tunnel and camp. But let's not act like it's common. Most of the time the killer's skill is just inferior to the survivors' and ends up just /feeling/ that way.
Nevermind, I forgot DBDLeague finals had a wraith game. Singularity 4k'd, Eternal 2K'd. You didn't have to wait long.
Wraith game is at about 1:50. Yeah. People need to stop using "not tournament viable" when they have no idea what they're talking about.
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Ah, so you have nothing constructive and are moaning because I highlighted his video? Thanks.
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Hey Peanits wouldn't making hooks count for something like a buff/debuff for each hook the Killer gets with the stipulation that each hook has to be a different survivor. That would help incentive towards hooks and away from tunneling a bit
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"SBMM doesn't work"
Exactly and it never will. Which is why they should never balance around comp BS. The dreaded four man death squad is incredibly rare in public matches. Even Hens himself has said that teams like his are not common and that high level play doesn't happen in public matches. Why even bring up hens as if facing a team like his is a common scenario?
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And there is a very simple way to do this:
- Give killers a 5th perk slot that can only be used for a hex or a hex clearing related perk.
- Let killers rekindle hexes as long as totems exist.
What would happen? Every killer now runs Blood favor until all 5 bones have been broken. Chases are shorter and the survivor objectives are massively longer. Boons become nerfed because their team members keep breaking the bones to prevent the killer from having their hex of choice.
So if you watch Otz's stream you will hear him say :" I have to tunnel this person if I want to win" when he is trying for an all perk challenge or if he is trying for a 50 winstreak.
When Otz absolutely positively feels he must win - he tunnels. That is all the proof you need.
Sadly this will never happen. DBD is optimized for 5 mobile objects and having 3 bots is "too much" for the system.
Not to worry in August we will get the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre game. It will feature 3 killers on voice coms vs 4 survivors on voice coms. This is the same company that made F13 and so they already had an attempt at the "4v1" years ago so they had time to make a new game that will "work".
Here's the issue:
Tunneling a generator out of the game makes it so that it can never be "unrepaired". Survivors can trade 5 generators for 5 hooks spread evenly across the team and everyone escapes. This is called "efficient" play and is celebrated by survivors - at the expense of the killer.
The "counterplay" to this as killer is to hook one survivor three times. This is the most efficient way to play as killer. You literally get nothing for hooking three different players one time with the base kit rules. Hook one player three times and you get a death that results in a permanent 25% reduction of the enemy team efficiency.
I would stop tunneling tomorrow if I got a 9% debuff to all survivors for generators, healing, chests, totems, sabotage, doors, etc., every time I hooked a new survivor as long as 4 players were alive. Note that an 8% debuff would only be 24% by the 3rd hook making it less effective than tunneling so the debuff needs to be a 9% penalty. After hooking 3 or 4 players once I would go back to tunneling like normal however so the debuff needs to last the entire game once earned - otherwise you just tunnel as normal.
How would this change the game?
- Everyone is alive in the game longer
- Generator defense would actually mean something if killers are averaging 27-36% built in slowdown every game. (note this would likely mean the last two generators would be taking ~118 seconds.
- Three gen scenarios would get more common.
- Dying Light would become an overnight sensation and we could in theory be getting something like a 45-50% penalty for generator completion times.
- It might possibly lead to a game state that everyone hates less than what we have right now.
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What if you did what that person suggested, and then made tunneling impossible from a game mechanics perspective?
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Doing so would probably break the game as survivors would inevitably find a way to exploit it.
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There were some games where he did tunnel, I watched some of his streams when he was recording all that. It doesn't matter though when people see tunneling as the most viable option.
Hahahha! YES, we need to have this. I'd love a GF and Myers collab!
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The point is that you balance the game around it literally not being possible. You are thinking about the current game state, and just "remove tunneling" but i'm saying you completely make it impossible from a game mechanic perspective, then balance the game around that idea. I'd argue do the same with camping too.
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That's putting a lot of trust in BHVR to do an extreme rework of their game and rebalance it without breaking something/everything.
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Notice that game though, why did that happen? The first 3 gens were done damn quick the the game came to a screeching halt. Yet here we have threads every day complaining about the dreaded "3 gen".
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Simple question.
Do you think the game would be healthier and more fun for both sides if:
- The game wasn't a massive snowball for either side
- Tunneling wasn't possible.
- Camping wasn't possible.
- Killers didn't feel like "gen rushing" existed.
- Both sides have fun when they win OR lose.
- The game didn't actively encourage you to play in unfun ways in order to win.
- The killer didn't always lose 3 gens in the first chase
- We deal with problematic and unfun killer addons/killers/strategies (tombstone myers?, forever pig?)
Because if the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter if you believe BHVR can do it, its a matter of if it SHOULD be done. And if so, then i think it is worth pursuing.
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