Noticing a Trend...

But if we’re going balance the game on the merits of fun while taking away agency, when are killers going to get base-kit Pop since it’s not fun for them to have two to three gens get completed by the time they get their first hook? How about a Bamboozle become base-kit to help with strong loops like the house in Garden of Joy?

There's a few broken loops/maps, those should be fixed.

I'm not sure what base kit pop would do to stop gens from flying too fast at the start. I'm open to the idea that overall balance changes need to be made, but given how hard getting the last gen finished can be I think if they were going slower it would be a huge problem.

I fail to see how it’s a complete crapshoot for survivor perk selection. Please explain.

There are perks to counter killer strategies, but the survivors have no idea what the killer is going to run.

Lethal pursuer and other aura reading perks - distortion

Ultimate Weapon - Calm spirit

Camping - Kindred (if camped) or reassurance (if rescuing)

3 Gen - Potential Energy/Prove Thyself

Tunneling - Off the Record/Deadly Strike

etc.

Unless its a 4 man SWF, who could hypothetically meet all of the circumstances, there's no way for the survivors to cover all of that ground. And if you bring anti-camping perks and the killer doesn't camp, they are just wasted slots. That's were the crapshoot comes from.

Killer perks pretty much always get value. If you bring aura reading perks its highly unlikely ever survivor is running distortion.

How is gen speed a pure balance issue and camping isn’t?

Because camping is one of multiple things a killer can do, especially if we limit it to just face camping. Its a playstyle, an approach to the game. Survivors have to do gens, there is no secondary strategy that they can pursue.

If it wasn’t part of the games balance, why is there a hook timer? Why not just let survivors respawn across the map after getting hooked? Because the devs balanced the game around killers of having the option to try and secure a kill with camping.

I mean on the third sentence there they've said that the way camping gets used was never their intention.

Lots of things in the game were never their intention, some have worked out, some they've decided haven't.

The hook timer puts pressure on survivors to go for a rescue. The killer still has the ability to defend the hook, they are just losing the ability to do it in the most obvious way possible.

All you need to do to fix camping and tunneling is make it so the Killer can't hook the same person twice in a row unless there is only a single person left. This is what should be done to force Killers to go find other people. (Upon trying to hook the same person twice, the Killer gets a message saying the following: "THE ENTITY REQUIRES A FRESH SACRIFICE" or whatever). As long as your game continues to let Killer abuse a single person this problem will never be fixed. Don't ask them to play differently or even tempt them.... FORCE THEM to play differently. Simple.

Actually no they did not. I played after our posts and in 2/3 of the matches the survivors blatantly exploited the new loop holes against both my son and myself. You can even be up on the 2nd floor of the ship chasing a survivor or kicking a gen and the player on the hook which is on the ground unhooks and it's also quick. Face camping is a losing strategy and that is why it was only common with players who were poor killers. The players already made face camping a losing strategy and most killers learn that quickly. Just like flashlight teams were really awful to play against at first. Now killers laugh when a flashlight team appears, because I know it's a quick 2 hook or a 4k. Everyone wants to win but if you beat me it's actually more of a respect thing like good job and maybe you teach me something. What everyone hates is when you lose by cheating which is way too common and doesn't appear to be a focus of the dev team. Or when in this case the devs create a solution to a problem that was already a losing strategy and opens several ways for players to exploit the new rules. The new rules also create free safe gen zones. If the killer doesn't want to give the free unhook, they leave with haste. The survivors all go the gens in proximity of the hooked survivor so that the killer either gives a free deliverance or cannot patrol the gens in that area. So most killers play normal and tunnel out much more often.

Okay, I understand what you mean by crapshoot. But by the very nature of the games balance, shouldn’t killers get more value out of perks than survivors?

Yes, generally true, but let me back up a step.

The issue here is not perk strength per se. I'll use distortion as an example of a perk that's random chance but still healthy. As survivor I could get a lot of value, or none, depending on killer build, but the game still plays out. It may or may not give me an edge, which if fine, and DbD thrives off that random chance mechanic.

The game goes too far though when the perk setup completely override strategy. If the answer to 'how do I counter X" is that you should have been running such and such perk, that's bad game design. Perks should bolster certain strategies, not be necessary requirements.

Additionally, distortion entirely impacts how I play the game. If I want to run a stealth focused build, I control that completely. While given your posts I think you disagree, I think DbD is more enjoyable when the survivors are viewed as four people randomly thrown together with a common goal to work towards, but not necessarily a team.