Theory: Tunneling Will Go Down
So I've been paying attention to the PTB, and a lot of the posts here. And a common thread I am seeing (no pun intended) is that Dead Hard's deserved assassination will result in an increase in tunneling. But, looking at that in conjunction with the Healing time changes, and I have a feeling that won't be the case due to some factors changing in regards to "commitment times".
As the game is right now, you basically cannot drop a chase half the time. Because healing times are out of control, and Circle of Healing is everywhere. This means if I hit and go pressure gens or find someone else, you can be almost assured that Survivor is going to run off and heal - you can practically set your watch to it. It is grossly inefficient to commit to a 40 second chase that gets undone in half that, all while the other 3 Survivors do whatever they want. That's bad.
But with the new healing changes, and the rework of Circle of Healing, it's no longer a terrible idea to let a Survivor go to go pressure that gen, or swap targets. Leaving a survivor injured will no longer assure a reset in 30 seconds. You can swap targets and maintain pressure without blasting the same target out of the game. Yes, some people will do that anyway, but those types do it regardless of meta shakeups or gameplay changes.
Once killers catch on that "Hey, I don't have to stay on this guy nonstop for my chase to have value", they can mix and match chases with other survivors. That means more total chases, more opportunities for Altruism, and more value for perks that don't demand a solo-survivor vision.
If it is true that "tunneling has never been worse", I can only see things looking up from here with "hit and run" back on the table like a good steak.
Comments
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The thing with tunnelling and camping is that, at this point, they have solidified themselves into the playerbase’s mind as usable strats.
Tunnelling in particular is, quite simply, the easiest thing to do. You know where they are, they’re already injured, resources will already be spent in that general area… Players simply do not care that they can get value from chasing other survivors, when they have guaranteed value from the one they can pinpoint.
It needs to become significantly harder to do at all if we want to see tunnelling come to an end.
Post edited by GentlemanFridge on20 -
I tend to agree, except we all know the devs will cave to the pressure and reverse most, if not all of the healing changes (while still gutting gen defence).
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I've always thought this idea to be wishful thinking to be honest.
People tunnel and camp because they are safe ways to win.
People want safe ways to win because this community is very competitive and some players are very disrespectful to the other side when they lose. People do not want that.
BBQ was a great incentive to not tunnel because 100% bloodpoints is worth a lot more than a meaningless victory even if it means disrespect and DS existed which was a significant risk to tunnelling anyways. Honestly i find it hard to believe that both of these great things are no longer in the game.
I highly doubt this patch is going to make people change their approach.
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Tunneling will go up because it will be easier to force stages, as for a successful rescue the killer can force 2 hits and the reset takes too long vs the hook timer.
Assume hit'n'run will make a comeback and if the killer has spread even a little pressure before the first down, the person on that hook is as good as dead.
That and bodyblocking for the tunneled person is nerfed into the ground as well.
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Interesting theory, my issue with it is that with healing being less efficient, how are survs going to ensure a win? By rushing gens.
Without survs using any time to heal they are probably going to start running more dedicated stealth/genrush builds. If you're injured anyway? Might as well run resilience.
When I play killer, survs getting healed doesn't feel like pressure on me. In face it lets me know they weren't doing gens and are only just about to start. What pressures me as killer (and causes me to switch from normal tactics to perhaps tunnel someone) is gens popping.
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'Not tunnelling' will be more effective than it was before.
That's not really the same thing as 'tunnelling will go down'. I think on an individual basis, players who have started tunnelling regularly aren't likely to stop. That cat's out of the bag, pandora's box has been opened.
But maybe players who don't like tunnelling will play more, and newer players won't resort to it out of necessity. So it should have some impact, however small.
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12 hooks committing to chases is just dumb. Reducing it to 8 hooks like the old mori. And ppl were still able to win even though only 8 hooks were needed. So, yeh, it is possible.
In other hand, survivors should be able to get a real second chance at the game. Getting unhooked and healed. Getting invincible in a radius or giving killer debuffs if they stayed in the radius.
This game is a balance mess. They should color code the perks in order to balance them right.
Remove chases from this game and its no longer fun. Its been years and they didn't found a solution to the number one complain about this game. When its up to the players to measure who has fun and who hasen't... its kinda meh.
This a party game. Even tetris is a better game tournament wise. And instead of investing in the game that makes them money they rather prefer to invest in games no one asked for. DDO's attacks, the latest 2 dlc's where super lame. Even content creators are just abandoning the game. Its hitting rock bottom.
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See, I felt like it was putting pressure on me. Because during the 30 seconds I was chasing them (or however long the chase was), I got a hit that he now has to heal and while yes, he is not doing gens during that time - EVERYONE ELSE IS.
It is not worth the time efficiency to ignore three people just to allow one to run off and heal. Which is what the gameplay is right now. I hunt you down, or you heal and my time was wasted because I got no net gain out of it while everyone else was doing gens.
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SB+OTR feels like it punishes tunneling very hard. The only thing the killer can do to counter it is let the survivor farm you off hook rather than play the grab gam. Split pressure buffs continue to encourage players away from those unhealthy tactics. Maybe I'm full of hopium but it looks like tunneling won't be seen much.
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So them you have 3 people instead of 1 or 2 working gens at any given time while you're in chase. Gens will pop faster and tunneling is definitely still going to happen.
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The two main reasons people give for tunneling are that it's efficient and because gen speeds are 'too fast' to play for hooks.
Literally nothing about the patch is making tunneling less efficient. It's still the best play to remove a survivor from the match as fast as possible. If anything, whenever survivor speeds get nerfed camping gets inherently buffed.
I'm expecting face camping to become the norm, where the 'perfect rescue' play for survivors is to trade two health states for the rescue, which takes literally zero effort from the killer aside from staring at the hook. After the rescue, they will take 60 seconds with mangled to reset while the killer tunnels the survivor off hook. It's free slow down, minimal effort for the killer, and gets even more efficient if the survivors aren't coordinated or don't execute it perfectly.
And the biggest reason people use for tunneling is gen speeds. Nerfing slowdown means, at the most efficient level of play, that survivors bang out gens faster than the killer can react. Good survivors will work injured with resilience or just pre drop everything to avoid the first hit at all. Everyone loves to point to competitive DBD to show why tunneling is 'necessary'. That isn't changing and will absolutely get worse.
Removing boons, nerfing flashlights, and making heals significantly slower just sends a message to survivors to do nothing but gens, do them lightning fast, and then leave. Exactly the reason people give for tunneling now.
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There are direct and indirect changes. Tunneling is indirectly getting changed.
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Tunneling is going to be harder but it's not cause of the healing changes.
But the nerf to pain res.
I generaly don't really cling to the meta and i'm not the biggest fan of gen regression perks so i didn't play much with the perk. But i picked it up a couple of times after the anouncement it's getting changed and holy heck is that perk a tunnel enabler.
Being able to harras the rest of the team with 45% gen damage while focussing on one person is really strong and i'm surprised so many people are confused that it's getting chased
It also will be harder to keep the last gen without Overcharge and CoB so sacrificing 3-4 gens to turn the game into a 3v1 isn't as much of a payoff as it was before.
Do i believe tunneling will be gone? No, not by a long shot. It's still the easy way out. I do think it's going to be harder to pull of then before
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I've been running SB+OTR because killers see a p100 and think " hehe me gunna tunnel da p100 dwight" and there has only been one player that actually got rewarded by doing so. The only person was a legion that, like most killers, proxy+ tunnel off hook. The healing changes with SB+OTR should basically make tunneling players a dumb play.
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There is no way that tunneling will decrease, when after the update it will be even more beneficial to down the unhooked survivor who can't have Dead Hard activated and stop them from activating the unhooker's Dead Hard with a safe unhook.
It is going to be the worst it has ever been, and Killers will have more justifiable reasons than ever before to do it. Especially when, in solo queue, the change to Dead Hard is going to cause the survivors to line up at the hook so they can activate their Dead Hard like they used to do for We're Gonna Farm Forever.
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Some people might stop tunneling for a bit, but the healing changes still don't change the fact that killing a survivor is better than having multiple survivor hooked. Ultimately I don't think much will really change to a degree that it's noticeable.
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I think it’s going to make tunneling easier to do.
With the slower altruistic healing time it means that unhooked survivor is not going to be healed as quickly and subsequently increases the effectiveness of proxy-camping’s ability to feed into tunneling if returning to hook after the unhook notification meaning that the unhooked survivor is likely going to still be Injured.
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If you assume the vast majority of killers don't play to be efficient, then yes. People would likely tunnel less if they're not concerned with efficiency whatsoever.
Thing is. Most people I've seen around are very concerned with efficiency.
Tunneling (if done correctly) is the most efficient and most reliable way to get a high killrate. And from what I gather the vast majority of players plays to win and to that ends loves being efficient - and consistently so. With the new patch tunneling as a strategy from the get go will become even more efficient and consistent (the window for saves gets smaller and taking hits to extend the tunneled survs lifespan is now punishing the survivors exclusively).
So no, I don't think it will go down. Best case it stays the same, worst case it goes up.
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We’re not even sure yet if healing will be less efficient in every game. Many people want the altruistic healing speed nerfs to be reverted, and some games are 100% altruistic healing.
And if the altruistic healing nerfs are reverted, then chasing multiple survivors still won’t matter, so killers would still be heavily encouraged to tunnel one person at a time.
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