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Is tunneling a weak strategy?

Meepy13
Meepy13 Member Posts: 109

So, I won against a twitch streamer today (as killer). Went into their chat, they asked my why I tunneled, I said "if I see a potential kill or a potential hook, I'm gonna go for the kill". They responded "you must not play this game very often"

I really can't think of a reason why I wouldn't go for the kill here if anyone has advice it would be appreciated

Comments

  • Gorgonia
    Gorgonia Member Posts: 1,607

    removing someone from the match before the first gen even pops most likely guarantees that survivors will lose. That already kills the game. If you're looking for fun as a killer, you will want to engage in chases and blah blah, camping the first survivor you hook and chasing them if they get unhooked to get them killed right away is efficient, but not fun for anyone.

  • Xendritch
    Xendritch Member Posts: 1,842

    They were just salty, streamers will literally say anything when they lose. Last week I played against this SWF that was streaming and they were complaining about how singularity has no counters lol.

    Getting one person out ASAP is very common in comp because 3v1 is so much weaker than 4v1 it's only a bad strat if you're not managing gens simultaneously and the rest of the team is acknowledging the person is probably dying and they just rush gens over saving them cuz that can often result in a 1k but most pub teams arn't smart enough to do that even SWFs.

  • Sadako_Best_Girl
    Sadako_Best_Girl Member Posts: 662

    It depends.

    If you know that survivor won't last very long in chase it's probably the best thing you can do from an optimal gameplay point of view. But you must know when to do it and how to do it, otherwise you will have gens flying left and right, remember that there may be 2 or even 3 survivors working on generators while you are focusing on a single survivor.

  • JawsIsTheNextKiller
    JawsIsTheNextKiller Member Posts: 3,367

    Survivors should be punished for making mistakes. The rescuer should have forced the chases. If you feel bad about hooking the same person who was unfortunate to get spotted three times in a row, slug them for pressure instead of hooking them.

  • HoodedWildKard
    HoodedWildKard Member Posts: 2,013


    Lol tunneling works. People just get salty about it which I do understand, particularly streamers, makes for good content which gets them engagement.

    Had a streamer cussing me out on stream for tunneling a yui, after they uhooked her in my terror radius and then yui proceeded to crouch in a very sparse bush right next to hook 🤣

    I have mixed feelings about tunneling. It's very effective if you can kill a surv before they've finished 2-3 gens, it can blow up in your face though if you try to tunnel a good chase runner.

    On the survivor side it is mad frustrating when you get hard tunneled, particularly early game because you don't get chance to do anything. I hate it as survivor because I'm not great at chase.

    Personally when I play killer I tend to gear my approach towards how the survivors are doing. If I'm clearly winning I dial back a notch and play around a bit more, everyone gets more bp. If survs are gen rushing and i struggle to catch one or two of them I will defo tunnel them out.

    No one is saying you should lose, but tunneling out early is kinda harsh and a bit of a lazy tactic, tunneling is boring and kind of too easy. I will often deliberately chase an unhooker or initiate a new chase with someone who has no hook states rather than one who is injured and freshly unhooked. Hell sometimes I'll down someone with 2 hook states and just leave em slugged, not to be toxic and camp but to give them a bit more game time and it forces someone to heal them, bit more pressure.

  • altruistic
    altruistic Member Posts: 1,141

    It’s a very common strategy. I don’t use the term “tunnel” lightly because it’s overused and exaggerated in this game.

    That being said, coming back to the game I’ve noticed it happens very often. Therefore I run second chance perks to delay as long as possible.

    The nerf to DS really engrained the “tunnel one person out ASAP” strategy into many gamers brains.

  • Maki_nCheese
    Maki_nCheese Member Posts: 6

    It's not a weak strategy it's just unfun to play against but if survivor fun doesn't matter to you do whatever you want.

  • katoptris
    katoptris Member Posts: 3,173

    Don't go into stream after beating a person. You're looking for trouble and salts.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,334

    Well, that interaction isn't a lot to go on - but I don't really think that remark was meant to say tunneling is a weak strategy. If done right it's - for now - the most efficient one there is. (Wil have to see if the self unhooking mechanic will change something about securing second stage / kill)


    People who've been around for a long time/accumulated a lot of hours and experience tend to agree though that the most efficient DBD is also the most boring DBD. There's also that phrase "the dbd community has a knack for optimising the fun out of the game" --- which holds true for at least a good chunk of the playerbase.

    Giving the benefit of the doubt I suppose that was what they were getting at. Especially if there was no salt being openly thrown around.

  • Pluto_1
    Pluto_1 Member Posts: 337

    That's like Rule #2 of the imaginary survivor rule book. Since you're the killer then you follow the killer rule book. Since there's no killer rule book, you play however you want.

    Like someone said above though, if you tunnel wrong then you'll be down 4 gens by the time you're finished.

  • CatnipLove
    CatnipLove Member Posts: 1,006

    I look at DBD like a game of four player Smash. I could target the dude who has one stock whilst everyone else still has three, but that would put the guy out of the match whilst everyone else gets to keep playing. Doing that just feels... anti-social to me. There are times where it may be necessary to tunnel to get a win, but I personally don't care enough about winning to do it. Fun is always more important.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,824

    Well put.

    Tunneling is the most efficient play style for the killer. You win matches you would otherwise lose decisively.

    However, when the first survivor is dead and there are still gens to do the game is pretty much over. You basically sacrifice fun for victory.

  • socalfusions
    socalfusions Member Posts: 123
    edited August 2023

    It all depends on the context, while it's true that removing a survivor from the match asap is always ideal it really depends on the time invested on that survivor, if they are good and capable of looping you for extended periods of time between each tunnel attempt and the rest of the team is splitting gens efficiently then it's a poor strategy, if you're tunneling some shitter that can't loop at all then they're probably going back to the lobby.


    That being said being tunneled as a survivor is probably one of the worst experiences in the game as it is frequently abused in toxic manners, one of the most common occurrences of this is in solo que lobbies simply due to the ease of tunneling players not on comms together and of course for the fact that solo que players are simply less skilled most of the time. Tunneling bad survivors is simply too effective so why wouldn't most killers do it? The problem then becomes a poor experience for those survivors who often don't continue playing the game as the time required to learn how to run every loop to gain the most minimal advantage to make it to the next loop without getting a hook state.


    Even in high level play tunneling is a popular strategy and this makes it a common enough strategy to make it sometimes difficult to tell where you cross the line, I would say that in many solo que matches and just random ranked play it's more often to see it being abused as there's simply less the survivors can do to counter it, in SWF's at higher ranks they have many more opportunities to fight back but even then tunneling is still used in tournaments despite the best teams going against each other. Suffice to say it's never going to be regularly "enjoyed," by people on the receiving end of it so getting lash back from survivors should always be "expected."

  • Blueberry
    Blueberry Member Posts: 13,590
    edited August 2023

    It’s tough. It sucks being tunneled out and tilts us in the moment, but at the same time I play killer too so I get it. It’s always the smarter move to get someone out. So we tend to get angry at them in the moment but realistically we’re more upset at the development choices that make it so optimal than we are the players utilizing it. You’re not going to win in high mmr matches against swf groups without some variation of tunneling unless they’re either playing very badly that game or you’re literally just way more skilled than them. If it’s even skilled your hand is forced. You aren’t winning an equally skilled match going for a 12 hook game without those aforementioned scenarios.

  • 00berdisc
    00berdisc Member Posts: 96

    Weak? Lol is the most broken strategy a killer can take , GGEZ

  • BareChestedDavid
    BareChestedDavid Member Posts: 13

    I try not to do it. TBH I think it makes the game repetitive, both for survivors and for me. Yeah, I want to win, but the point is to have a fun game. Obviously if there are two, or three, or four survivors all dressed exactly the same, then I'm not going to be able to keep track of who I've already hooked. I try very hard to at least have one different survivor hooked each time.

    If there's one player that repeatedly plays badly, after I've let them go multiple times I will slug them. 3 slugs and they're being hooked.

    If I notice 3 players bullying the other player (pointing them out to me, pushing them off gens etc) I am going to try my hardest to kill the others and give that player hatch.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,516

    If tunneling was weak, people wouldn't be complaining about killers tunneling them out of the game.

  • OrangeBear
    OrangeBear Member Posts: 2,761

    They probably are saying tunnelling shows you are weak as a player.

    It's obviously not a weak strategy for winning the game it is incredibly effective and game changing.

    As for why they said "you must not play this game very often".

    Well, let's be real, killer players that use these strategies get verbally abused online regularly. It's to be expected that a lot of people are going to change their behaviour to be more socially accepted in the community.

    It is social manipulation.

    You play to win - you get cyberbullied

    You play for other people's fun - you get respect

    This is my theory, anyways.

  • pseudechis
    pseudechis Member Posts: 3,904

    Nothing wrong with eliminating someone if you have the chance.

    The problem isn't "tunneling" its the perception, as has been stated here by a number of posters, that its "un fun"

    Being eliminated early is part of your risk as survivor, that risk is essential to the game, its the motivation for avoiding and escaping the killer.

    Basically anyone who thinks getting eliminated early is un-fun and problematic doesn't really get DBD.

  • Exarion
    Exarion Member Posts: 69
    edited August 2023

    What?

    When all survivors are alive, 2-3 of them will be on gens while you chase, you're losing the game. The faster you get rid of that 1 survivor, the better, since 1-2 on gens is a winnable scenario. I'm not a killer who ignores gens and runs after 1 guy until he is dead, but it depends really, if all survivors start to run after me, then why not, when your enemy makes a mistake don't stop him.

    You literally are the killer, you goal is to kill. Either way you kill 1 by 1, the only difference is how effective you are at it, if you spread focus you're just an ineffective killer, in dbd you often have to spread hooks to use your time effectively, but if you have the opportunity you better not ignore it. Focusing on 1 enemy at the time is the way everyone does it in our world because it's smart. In a way, an animal is technically smarter than a person who doesn't focus on one enemy at the time.

    The biggest mistake you can make as killer is to let all 4 survivors live for too long. Unless your goal is to lose of course, in that case yeah, you're achieving your goal loser.

    Post edited by Exarion on