The real problem with gens
Let's talk about genrushing. Even if you don't think "genrushing" is a real thing, the fact that gens get completed so quickly in a lot of matches is still a massive issue. I main both survivor and killer, and find that in most of my games as killers gens pop so quickly it's overwhelming.
But I'm not gonna sit here and say that it's because survivors are genrushing, because the real problem is not how much time it takes to do the gens, actually. And that's why increasing the time that it takes to do gens, in reality, does nothing.
Originally, a gen took 65 seconds to complete. Now it takes 90 seconds to complete, and if we do some math, we can see that this only improves gen times marginally with a competent team.
There are 5 gens survivors have to do, let's assume that you are currently chasing 1 survivor, and all the other 3 are on gens (realistically, there will always be some variance in a real world example because of the inherent randomness in the game).
So if we use the original gen times in our math:
65 * 5 (gens) / 3 (survivors) = 108. That's 1 Minute and 48 Seconds.
Now, if we use the 90 second generators today:
90 * 5 / 3 = 150. That's 2 Minutes and 30 Seconds.
So in reality, all we've done here is give the killer a marginal 42 extra seconds. But what we've also done is make the game way more boring for the survivors having to hold M1 for one and a half minutes to complete their objective, as well as making it harder for solo queue.
So what's the problem then? In my opinion, this mechanic is inherently flawed as long as several survivors can complete multiple generators at the same time.
No amount of slowdown will help the game as long as generators can be split across several survivors. I think that in order to "solve genrushing" there needs to be actual changes in the core mechanics of this game. Of course, the devs didn't anticipate that this party game would be optimized by people who like to win every match.
Thoughts?
Comments
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The problem is more on spawn logic than gen times themselves.
More often than not, survivors spawn in 2 clusters of 2, with a gen not even 2 feet away from either cluster, and the killer spawning on the opposite side of the map, facing the wall like a child on timeout.
This results in 2 gens that will be completed before you have a chance at starting a chase, and since you can only chase 1 survivor at a time, 3 others are allowed to progress the rest of the gens for pretty much free.
for the price of 1 chase, you're at 1 / 1.5 gens just because of faulty spawn logic.
They could fix this by forcing all survs to spawn together and in the furthest possible spawn from any gen in order to artificially increase the game time without touching the numbness of holding M1 on a gen.
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Gen rushing is 100% real since BNPs/strong toolboxes still exist (they need major nerfs/reworks like medkits) it's hard to mess with lowering gen times without buffing killer chase. The gens too fast and you buff killer chase too much? Survivor chases will be way shorter and there will be less skill expression. The gens too long and you nerf killer chase too much? Killers spend a long time just to get one down and survivors spend most of the game holding m1 on gen.
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I have said it often here: we need to implement systems and core mechanics that incentivices a killer to go for more hooks and not rush the first kill AND to discourage splitting up on gens.
Tunneling and 3gen on the killer side and splitting up on the survivors side have always been the strongest base tactics in the game, but in the past (like 2ys ago) both sides could do without resorting to this tactics every game.
After several meta shakeups and baseline changes to the game, most notable 6.1 and the big gen-kick-Eruption-Overbrine-meta, made big parts of the survivor community aware of this tactics, not just the top SWF groups, and now basically every survivor knows that splitting up is king. Even is you were to roll back the changes, the player base know uses this tactics and is aware of it, its a "you can't put the genie back into the bottle" type of situation.
Same with killers, 3 genning had always be a go-to defensive tactic that was discussed in killer circles even years back, most often as a secondary tactic, ie "when you see a couple of gens close together, try to defend those instead of going for the lonely gen in a corner", but killers would still roam the map freely. Now with the way survivors can and do push gens, the killers are basically forced to set out a 3-4 gen at the start and defend that at all costs, while also looking for opportunities to tunnel one survivor out of the game asap, because 4 survivors that can pump out gens means that you can't hold a 3-gen.
Both sides of the story are born from pressure of the meta changing. While its objectively true that "killers have it the easiest since forever", when you just look at the raw numbers, this doesn't take the quality of the matches into consideration. Now each game is a desperate race against time, and each single mistep is felt sorely. When I get a 30s down, thats only a slight breather, because it means that I can now go disrupt one other gen, but if the first chase takes SLIGHTLY longer, because I lost that one mind game or the survivor even managed to lose me, then shortly after 3 gens pop and I got nothing to show for.
So in order to make things fun again, and don't back both sides against the wall from the start of the match, we need something like this
1) give killers back the old BBQ BP bonus as basekit, but only increase the counter as long as all 4 survivors are alive, ie when you tunnel the first one out, you are stuck at +25% bonus.
2) deal out some kind of debuff to all survivors for like 30s after each hook, but this debuffs are only in effect as long as all survivors are still alive. IE give the killer a reason not to tunnel someone out asap, but also don't punish them for that, but instead even reward them.
2.5) maybe make something like Grim Embrace basekit, ie upon hooking the 4th survivor lock down all gens for a time, and rework Grim Embrace into something different.
3) old BBQ was the best for the game: nearly all killers had it equipped for the BP bonus, but each hook showed opportunities and peeled many away from the hooks. So upon a hooking event, show the killer the auras of survivors that havnt been hooked yet, so that they can go for their secondary objective without tunneling.
4) give survivors a debuff for splitting up on gens and incentivice them to team up. Proof Thyself needs to be looked at under this system, but it should be night impossible to have 3 gens pop at the same time within the first min of the game.
5) give all survivors a permanent action speed buff for each dead team mate, something like sole survivor basekit.
This way the killer needs to juggle keeping everyone alive and spreading hooks, while finding the right time to go for the kill. And matches should be much more close and fun more often, then once in a blue moon.
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survivor can still split up. the difference in time is marginal at best regardless of spawn logic. a perk that helps you against that is corrupt intervention but it does little against efficiency gen teams.
OP post is correct how gen times work. the increase of gen times simply means that survivor needs to loop longer while 3 other survivors m1 gens. difference between 1:48 seconds and 2:30 is not that big however the more time you increase, the more survivor needs more pallet resources because killer can potentially break all pallets on the map resulting less fun chase survivor gameplay.
that is kinda what gen slowdown meta more or less is. killer stack gen defence to break pallets so that they have a greater chance to catch survivors in dead zones because loops are generally favourable for survivors in most instances. survivors stack chase perks/second chance perks so that they can slow the killer momentum as much as possible to use said window and pallet resources. you can see this by large pick-rate of window of opportunity that highlights all pallets so that survivor can use the pallets in the most efficient way possible. the perks selected are the product of each others gameplay.
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Killer still have +60%; so you want to aim to 75% i see
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The gen math is flawed from the start. There shouldn't be 3 Survs pumping gens, but 1 with proper application of pressure. The start of the match has the concept you are using, but as soon as someone is downed, you get a new equation. Now that someone is downed, they are going on hook. Now you have Surv A on hook, Surv B attempting a rescue (which you then chase), Surv C forced to attempt a rescue due to Surv B getting harried, and Surv D on gens. Even after the unhook, they likely will heal up, burning another 16s (real-time) where you still have the 1 surv on gens equation. Some major changes to the equation are Adrenaline (encouraging popping a final gen instead of healing), and bad starts. If you get a quick down, that changes your estimated 2m30s timer to 7m30s, or anywhere in between based on the Killer's efficiency, and that can be extended further with slowdown perks.
Now I do agree that splitting on gens is more effective for the Survivors, and the mechanics currently encourage that. Why would I spend 106s (53s*2) to duo 2 gens, when we could each solo gens in 90s? Similarly, grouping on gens risks multiple Survivors being displaced from a single action by the Killer, and thus unable to work on gens. Grouping on gens needs to be more effective than solo-ing in order to incentivize inferior actions. Nerfing Prove Thyself further encourages efficient sologen gameplay, so I don't understand the complaints about that perk.
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your problem is not getting 4k in every match?
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Absolutely not. Where did I state that?
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People love to throw around the notion that killers would want for survivors to start on hooks or that they deserve a 4k 75% of the time. I guess you need to be a killer main to see the problems this game has our way. When I started out I would get loads of 4ks, but once I got some experience with all the different killers and my MMR stabilized, it was an entire different story and things have become way, way harder each and every game since.
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sounds perfectly healthy. You shouldn't get more then 50% wins on any multiplayer game where you play against people (draws excluded for obvious reasons)
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I'm not really advocating for higher kill rates, I'm advocating for games lasting longer and feeling less stressful for both sides. And one way to do that is to look at gens. They are the primary reason either side is constantly fighting a battle trying to rush their objective. When survivors do gens too quickly, killers have to tunnel. When killers tunnel, survivors have to do gens quicker. There are no incentives to slow the game down, and I think there should be. But it's hard to make such incentives when gens work the way they currently do.
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