Buff decisive strike

1: As I went over, that's just bodyblocking as it is now. You down them and move on. That's kinda annoying, sure, but it's far from actually giving the survivors value and it's definitely not a reason to avoid buffing DS.

2: I was referring to your comments about there being many sources of anti-tunnel/"second chance". That's technically true, but they don't actually work together and often work against one another, so survivors don't actually have that many layers of protection if they're being tunnelled. They just have the basekit stuff, and then maybe one additional perk-- but OTR is easy to disable (the Endurance, anyway), and DS isn't good enough to do its job, so they don't really have much at all. Yes, there's the 10 seconds of Endurance and Haste, but tunnelling is observably still a problem. After all, it isn't always your fault if you got hooked in a deadzone. If you went down, chances are good those resources were used in that chase, right?

3: Of course it would deter killers from tunnelling? If survivors had genuinely strong anti-tunnel perks, and those perks were reasonably common (which they would be if they were worth running), that would make most killers think twice about tunnelling someone. This was technically the case prior to 6.1.0, though I do think some people have rose-tinted glasses about that. You'd avoid chasing someone because there's a very good chance you'd eat a huge stun even if you downed them again, that's a deterrent against tunnelling.

I'd be fine with more slugging, but I don't think that is what killers would do, because that wouldn't be as game-winning as picking them up + hooking them. There's a lot of perks that counter slugging, and teammates can also counter it by coming and picking them up while you're occupied. That's fine. Also, I never said OTR was better, I said it needed to be less easy to disable. That's me saying it's too weak.

4: Yes. That's what I'm saying. Good survivors and the good killers who face them wouldn't need to worry as much about buffed DS because tunnelling is already a losing strategy against very skilled loopers. Tunnelling is the problem that it is largely below that skill level, which is the entire point and is an issue well worth addressing.

5: I'm asking you how current DS would be weaponised. I definitely had it weaponised against me when that was a thing you could do, but after they introduced the Conspicuous Actions nerf (before it was called that, anyway), that became dramatically harder. It's not impossible to try and weaponise DS in its current form, but it kinda requires the killer to not pay attention and mess up for it to work. It's a healthy design now and can safely be buffed without worrying about it being used offensively.

6: I honestly didn't think I had to justify that first statement? A perk should obviously be stronger than not having a perk, that's the entire point of bringing them. As for giving lesser skilled players more breathing room, expecting them to get better when they're being tunnelled is kind of like throwing someone into the deep end so they'll learn to swim; some can do it, but it's not a fair expectation for everyone. Lesser skilled players would have more opportunity to improve if they had time to reset and begin chases from healthy again, instead of being immediately chased while injured in an area that probably doesn't have many resources if they went down there to begin with.

I'm doing my best to give my reasoning here.

I really feel like you're losing sight of the most important part of this conversation, which is that we're talking about people being tunnelled. We're not talking about general chases, we're not asking for the game or for any perk to cover up mistakes that people make in the course of normal gameplay, we are talking about someone specifically being targeted while they are much more vulnerable than the default.

That is relevant, because we're not talking about general chase perks, we're talking about anti-tunnel. We're talking about DS specifically, even, the hardest anti-tunnel to try and weaponise. You as the killer can completely invalidate and ignore these perks by not tunnelling people. If you choose to tunnel someone, there should be the risk that they have genuinely potent tools to make it not worth your time, otherwise why wouldn't every killer tunnel all the time? That won't lead to a reduction in tunnelling, obviously.

I'll briefly address the things in your brackets there, too, just to be clear:

• When I refer to people not slugging, I don't understand what the confusion is or why this counts as "mental gymnastics". You said killers would slug more, I said I don't think they would. That's a pretty straightforward claim and counter-claim situation, so if I'm missing something, absolutely let me know and I'll be happy to clarify.
• For the perk vs mechanics thing, you're the one who asked why the perk should be stronger and more forgiving than the basekit mechanic- and the answer is because it's a perk, it's something you're bringing to get a benefit above and beyond what's available to you in the basekit. It's fair for the basekit to be minor and heavily reliant on skill expression, but the tools you bring to do that job should be better than that, because you're giving up a perk slot for it. Otherwise why bother running the perk?
• Anti-tunnel should work together and stack so that you can actually make yourself an unviable chase. Right now the killer can either hit you straight away to clear your Endurance, or they can count to ten. Neither of those are enough of an investment that tunnelling that survivor isn't worth it, so if the multiple perks involved would work together, those killers would think twice before tunnelling that survivor, making the anti-tunnel actually effective.
• Why are you referring to Haste and Endurance before the survivor is hooked? Those aren't anti-tunnel and most of them (Endurance, anyway, less so Haste) need to be nerfed anyway, they're not relevant here.
• That's literally what "deterring" means, so maybe this is a language issue? When I say killers would be deterred from tunnelling, what I mean is that they would make the choice not to tunnel because they either suspect a survivor has anti-tunnel tools like DS, or because they're assuming everyone has it. That's exactly what "deterrent" means and it is in fact what I want, it is healthier for killers to avoid recently unhooked survivors and chase someone else.

It's fair to expect people in a PvP game to get the necessary skill and game sense to be good at it if they want to win. That should imply, then, that we're giving them the reasonable space to do so, right? Being tunnelled is not normal gameplay, it's explicitly starting a chase injured and in what is likely to be a bad area. That's not normal gameplay conditions to improve, because if you're unhooked and healed while the killer's chasing someone else, you should ideally be starting the next chase healthy and in a different part of the map that likely has more resources. That's breathing room that gives you more time to practice and improve, which is something most people are gonna require if they're going to get better. As you get better and better, you'll need that breathing room less and less, which is totally normal and how improvement works in every other game.

I feel like you're really dancing around the issue of tunnelling being a bad thing we should want to fix, honestly. You keep drifting out into talking about general concepts like people getting good or having their mistakes covered for, while completely avoiding that we aren't talking about normal gameplay, we're talking about tunnelling.

The bottom line here is that tunnelling is still an issue in this game, both in terms of balance and in terms of fun factor. That's something you seem reluctant to acknowledge here, so it bears repeating.

Also, DS does not "work fine". It's really weak and requires you to already be in a strong tile when you go down because you get very little distance.

To be honest you explained every single point you've made so far very clearly, thoroughly and unbiased. I don't think you can reiterate what you've said better than this. I can't see how anyone could misconstrue what you've said any further.

At this point the only reason someone would go back and forth with you would be because their only motivation is to "prove you wrong" and not to discuss the topic at hand or because they always make a firm objection to anything that would be in favor of survivors.

I think you can still generate a lot of pressure there even if you can't pick up and hook the person with DS, though. You could just slug them and go chase the unhooker, that's still generating a lot of pressure; one in chase, one incapacitated minimum, and if the slugged survivor doesn't have Unbreakable that's one coming to pick them up too. If they do have UB, great, you just got it out of the way and they won't have it again.

Encouragement not to tunnel isn't a bad idea, but considering that not tunnelling is already the stronger tactic in most cases, it's clearly not enough on its own. There needs to be push and pull, carrot and stick, for the problem to be fixed.

Improving those perks and maybe adding some kind of basekit bonus wouldn't be a bad idea at all and I'd definitely support something like that, but it has to come alongside making anti-tunnel tools strong enough that they actually matter in a killer's decisionmaking process.

Abridged version of your whole point:

• How many hand holding do survivors need before we can start saying "You have enough tools to extend chases and second chances to not going down easily if you are good enough"?
• Yes.

That's it. That is your whole premise, and you are trying to come up with whatever you can think of to try to make it a valid point (it is a mental gymnastic because of your reasoning for why they won't slug, specially when many people have said that's what would happen as that is what happened and the main reason to nerf it, killers slugging people because they assume they use it, an those people using it with Unbreakable).

Oh, but we are. Before you can even be tunneled, you had to first go down at least one time already. And before you even go down that first time, you have a lot of tools already to make it so by the time the killer get you, 2-3 gens would get done. That's the thing. What you are asking is, again, having more safe nets on top of all that.

Yes, you are. At this point, with all the second chances perks there is and the base mechanics already implemented in the game, you are. Simple as that. Also, "normal gameplay"?...

Now, you mean, because it was precisely for that reason that it was nerfed. And even now, they do weaponise it in a more effective way that you are trying to make everyone believe and you know it. So, by that logic, making it stronger would only mean that they would weaponize it even more.

Except when the survivors force you to not ignore those perks and start to block you on loops when you are chasing somebody else, for example. We already talked about that.

Again, why? Why there should be that risk? Also, again, you are assuming that perks like DS or OTR are not doing their job of granting yet another second chance in case of being tunneled and making you not worth the time to keep chasing if you use well the chance they grant you.

Good question, why every killer isn't tunneling in all their matches right now if it is easy and beneficial as you claim to be? Even it being the most reasonable thing to do and the most effective strategy to follow in this game, why not every killer does it? Can it be that right now, with all the tools survivors have, including in game mechanics implemented for that sole purpose, it is not as easy and convenient as you are claiming it to be unless the survivor make it be? Because you said it yourself: "Good survivors are not tunneled as much".

Then problem solved! Good survivors make it not convenient and effective for killers to tunnel them according to you, so if you don't want to get tunneled just get good at the game, that's it. Nothing more to debate.

Oh, there's more? But there is nothing more to discuss, we already come to the logical and factual conclusion of this topic...

No... unless you are meaning a separate practice mode, if not it would mean that you are exactly asking for the game to adapt to the unskilled population of the game, instead of expecting them getting good as in any other PvP game.

That is like saying "Gen rushing is not normal gameplay". Tunneling for a killer is doing your objective as fast as you can, because it is the most effective thing to do. By design, in this game, tunneling is the most normal and effective way to play, and even devs recognize that. That's your main problem, you are treating tunneling as a "problem to fix" when it is not something that need a fix in the first place unless you are talking about the extreme cases (known as "hard tunneling), and that has already being addressed.

And that is not normal gameplay because...? Are you implying that survivors need to be in perfect conditions and not in any disadvantage in any point of the match, or how in the hell that is something that don't fit inside "normal gameplay"?

So, you are saying that survivors should start every chase in the best conditions possible, or the game is punishing unskilled people, and that's why the game should guarantee that every single survivor can't be in any disadvantage ever.

Again, that's like saying that you should not be able to get killed in a FPS if you don't have any ammo left. That someone should not be able to do combos in a fighting game if you are not able to also do them. That someone should not be able to buy the orange and red streets on Monopoly as those are the most profitable streets and would put the rest of the player in a disadvantage. It's absurd, and it blows my mind that you even thought that is a valid and legit point to made about a PvP game.

Improvement comes from practice and experience. The guy that makes 25 kills in a row in CoD are not able to do it because he was always in the perfect conditions and in an advantageous point, but because he gained enough experience from suffering the consequences of not being skilled enough and developed the required game sense to overcome those odds against him.

Your logic is flawed, and you are not in the right here. You are just using that argument to try to have the reason after we already established that with the enough skill and game sense right now a survivor have enough tools to make downing him not an easy task already. In other words, you are moving the goalpost.

Even if you were right (which you are not, as we already established... can't wait for you to ignore it and keep it with your bogus arguments), how we control the "breathing room" we give everybody? How we control that the more experienced survivors don't abuse having that breathing room to get an unfair advantage? How we take away that "breathing room" when a survivor don't need it anymore?

The answer is simple: We don't, because we can't. And that's why you can't balance the game in any aspect thinking about the less skilled players.

And no, not every other game works that way. There is not any PvP game that give you any kind of training wheels, apart of what I already said: Ranked matchmaking, and an offline practice mode. So, again, if you want people to have a "safe space" to improve, ask for BHVR to add killer bots so they can practice offline, not for the game to be balanced and adapted to those that doesn't want to gain the experience and develop a good game sense and want the game to do the heavy lifting for them.

Maybe because first, it was never the point of the post, it was about buffing DS so you have yet another thing covering even more for your mistakes. Second, I see what you are doing, but I already said it so I would say it again: Tunneling is not something that should be "fixed" and there is already mechanics implemented to discourage it (specially the more extreme form of it) without taking away the possibility of doing it if the survivors mess up and make it convenient for the killer, as it should be.

Now, you can already throw a fallacy and make the point that I'm just against buffing DS because I want to tunnel in peace, even if I suggested a more logical way of buffing the perk so is more useful without it being yet another abusable hand holding tool for survivors.

You are the one that keep drifting away from the main points of the argument, that keep insisting to ignore the fact that before tunneling can even happen other "normal gameplay" things had being in place, that there is already enough tools to discourage and make tunneling someone not easy or convenient, and keep saying that tunneling isn't "normal gameplay" when by design it is the most logical and effective strategy to follow in this game as a killer specially in this haste + endurance meta with gens times as low as they are: Take out a survivor as soon as possible.

Also, you are ignoring the fact that someone used as an argument for buffing the perk a gif showing an Ada not making the right call as an example of the perk not being useful, when it obviously did it's job as a second chance perk that you can use on top of your other second chances and chasing perks in case you are tunneled, but that never was designed to deter anyone from tunneling or guarantee you a free escape from getting hooked.

You want to make the perk more useful? Again, make it so it doesn't permanently deactivate unless you used it or until the EGC. That way, if you are not tunneled in your first unhook, you can have that second-second chance in your second still. That's a buff that isn't meant so the perk keep covering up for your mistake even after you have used up all the other safety nets you have available. But that's not what people are asking for in this post, including you.

No, it is not. Even less with the current Haste + Endurance meta, the addition of the AFC mechanic, and gen times being as low as before. Hard tunneling was a problem, but it was addressed with the basekit BT, and even more now with the AFC. And again, the devs themselves recognize that tunneling is the best strategy to follow for a killer, and that's why they implemented things to make it inconvenient without removing it completely from the game.

In other words, again, "hard tunneling" has already being addressed and doesn't need any more "fixes".

Because it was never the point of the argument until you make it to be. And the only thing you are repeating are your fallacies. In this case and about all the "tunneling is a problem", a try to make a loaded question fallacy.

Well, I don't have any problem to say that tunneling is not a problem, as I already did. "Hard tunneling" was a problem, solved already, and there is already gameplay solutions the survivors can do to deal with a killer trying to do the best strategy to follow and take them out of the game ASAP. That, and like I said, I play survivor 50/50 right now, and I have not seeing so much tunneling done to anyone as many of you claim.

And even with this, my point of the real argument here still stands: DS is a second-second chance tool that does it job of giving you the chance to get away from an otherwise totally lost situation. What you do with that chance, it's on you. And pretending it to be buffed it's you wanting for it to cover up your mistakes, and you even recognized that when you said it would make sense "it'll cover for some degree of poor play".

There is already enough things covering for poor play in the game that survivors can use before they even have the need to use DS. So, again, at that point, if you mess up and waste your second-second chance, it's on you.

Yes, it works fine. And you have 10 seconds of haste and a free endurance on unhook to get to that strong tile where you would be able to waste more time of the killer and make use of your DS effectively. See how is you who doesn't want to acknowledge that even before you have the chance to use DS, there is other "normal gameplay" things that happens?

And after all this, keep on with your cherry picking, your ignoring of facts and probably a couple of ad hominems of how I'm someone that defend tunneling and that's why I don't want DS buffed added to the list of fallacies you used, even when I already explained everything in detail on why DS doesn't need a buff or tunneling is not the problem you and others are claiming it to be, even less now. I'm done, say what you want.

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