Only killers should be punished for forcing their objectives?

Chases shouldn't last a couple of seconds, but like I said, bad maps and strong Killers change things lol.

You get Rotten Fields against Trickster, you just kinda die since the map is 90% open.

Conversely, Freddy on Asylum isn't particularly fair for him and that's quite the understatement.

I mean, 20 seconds is "a few/couple seconds" to me but ok. I can be more specific.

So just to reiterate and clarify, a chase lasting 20-30 seconds, or "short" chases on average what should be the norm. If the chase last any longer you're in a match where either the survivors are better/stronger than the killer or the RNG gave you the finger.

Chases longer than that in your average match mean you're not in the MMR you should be.

What exactly is the risk of the tunnelling failing, though?

Anti-tunnel tools aren't that strong, so it's solely down to map resources and the skill of the survivor you're chasing. The latter is a non-starter because if they're that good you wouldn't want to chase them to begin with, so that means that - meaningfully - it's random chance if tunnelling can be countered, rather than perks or skill. Not a good place for that tactic to be, in my opinion.

If the survivor could use perks to bridge the gap and better express their skill, because the killer has to invest time into actual hit-blocking and a proper DS stun which would give them time to get to resources, it being risk/reward would be the case. Currently, it's not, so tunnelling is just the easier option in a lot of matches.

Maybe its just me, but I sometimes actually do lose survivors, when they turn a corner in an unexpected way and hide behind something while I don't notice. Sticking to a survivor is not guranteed for me to catch them, but maybe thats just me being bad and everyone else has a 100% successful chase rate?

Non-the-less, I actually explained the risks of tunneling in my original reply to you pretty well: while tunneling you leave the other survivors freely at their gens, putting a hard 90s timer (or less) on the first 3 gens and another 90 (plus maybe 20 traversal/search time) on the last two. If you can't tunnel and kill the survivor in 200s, you lost, because you gave away all gen protection in favor of tunneling and no other survivor has any hooks.

If the tunnel fails and that survivor you were tunneling somehow gets away, you got nothing to show for your effort, but all the disadvantages, ie you lost 3-4 gens with the fifth probably already under way, and the escaped survivor resetting and helping the wash up, while staying low. Tunneling is an inherent risky proposition, as you hand the gens scott free to the survivors and if you can't translate the tunnel into a kill, you lose it all.

While I am a stoud opponent of basekit mechanics, as this dilutes the perk variety of the game and even more solidifies the meta, there is one basekit that I propose every time I get the chance for:

(old) BBQ. In the past every killer had BBQ equipped for the blood point bonus, and many survivors hated the aura reading part, but the vast majority didn't realize what good this did for the game. Killers had it equipped for the BP, but every hook showed them opportunities and thus peeled them away from the hook.

So, why not combine the two effects into a basekit incentive for the killer? They get the old +25% bonus BP for each survivor hooked, BUT only as long as all four survivors are still alive. If you tunnel the first survivor out you are stuck with +25% bonus BP etc. Also, upon hooking you see the aura of a single random survivor that hasn't been hooked yet. Once all 4 survivors have been hooked, no more basekit aura reading will be shown, but at that time the killer has chased and hooked every survivor and spread their hooks around. A mechanic like this would again put "hooking every survivor once" back again as a personal quest on many killers agenda, instead of just having kills as their only means of success.

Fair points. But if we make tunneling riskier and prone to failure, I also think that we should make splitting up on the three early gens less efficient. One of the main reason stated by killers why they tunnel is that they feel pressured and backed against the wall so early, ie they finish their first chase and 3 gens pop. If we could make splitting up on the first 3 gens less effective, I wouldn't mind if every tunneled survivor gets an auto 5s DS and free Unbreakable during that early game to incentivice the killer HARD to go for another target and not wasting time.

The way both sides have been forced to play most optimally has lead to the current situation and the breakneck speed we are experiencing.

I'm in favour of addressing the edge cases for early generator speeds, yes. I do think it's a bit of a false equivalence, but it's not as though the generator stuff doesn't need addressing too, so it's fair to mention it.

Personally, I'd just have every survivor spawn grouped up in groups of four or two, and nerf toolboxes. The only real problematic starts are when everyone spawns on a separate generator with a good toolbox, and those two things separately are too strong as well so they should just be addressed individually.

Now, again, I don't think those two things are linked. I think they should both happen but they don't both need to happen at the same time.

On the contrary I think that they are very linked. Killer being so strong and gens taking longer after 6.1 forced survivors to stop dillydallying and play efficiently, meaning that they no longer do gens casually together but split up with everyone doing their own gen. They leads to 3 gens popping first chase and killers feeling that they have to tunnel at 4 gens, to even have a chance of winning.

Everything is connected in a complicated web of conditions and influences.

This falls into the trap of assuming that tunnelling happens when the killer loses gens too quickly, but it doesn't, it just happens. I've personally had matches where the killer goes hard into tunnelling someone out before a single gen is even done, and that happens much, much more frequently than any game of mine for either side where the killer has a true genrushing "everyone's split up immediately with a toolbox" start.

Addressing genrushing is reigning in uncommon but unbalanced edge cases, but addressing tunnelling would be addressing a problem the game's been struggling with pretty consistently for a long while. It's part of why my initial post here objected to the framing- the two problems just aren't comparable on nearly any level.

I'm not saying tunnelling should be addressed and then it's okay to wait years before toolboxes get nerfed, but that doesn't mean the two must necessarily happen together.

The thing is, the killer can't just shift gears when things turn sour and start tunneling, most games are just at a too high breakneck speed. Its part of the meta: the meta tought killers to tunnel early, to then have maybe a breather during the last section of the match, just as the meta tought survivors to split up and pressure the killer from all fronts. Heck, if so regularly 3 gens pop during the first chase, then there isn't any breathing room for the killer to decide that its now time to tunnel, they either decide early or perish (or play potatoes, in which case it doesn't matter).

Somewhere earlier I proposed an old BBQ like basekit mechanic, to give killers a sort of secondary victory condition, again. I think that this would do wonders to the game. Besides that, I think that gen speeds and tunneling need to be tackled as a whole, if you fix one part without the other, you will severely imbalance the game.

That makes sense to me but others don't see it that way apparently.

If you need to tunnel to stand a chance you don't deserve that MMR and you're boosted. The game is balanced to the point you can go for 10-12 hooks every match with players on your skill level.

Incentives don't work, only punishments.

Not my words, just what has been expressed to me in the thread.

It's because not everyone's experience is the same. However, just because our experiences are different, that doesn't mean either one of them should be invalid. In my experience, the day I stopped camping or tunneling was when I started finding it less and less necessary. I very rarely do either one now and never feel like it's needed. For others, they may have the opposite effect. Maybe they like playing different killers than I do or enjoy different play styles.

All that aside, and this is my opinion, there can be no "true" balancing of this game. MMR would have to be so incredibly tight that everyone is matched against, and with, people of similar skill only. Regardless of queue time. The only outliers being people who are partied up, when one is lower MMR than another.

Then after that and several months of play, they might have an idea of what/who is stronger at every MMR range. They could make basekit changes to either side to try and balance it out. Killers would have to be done on a case by case basis most of the time, which could take a long while.

There was a time when I thought incentives could work in this game. They always just end up with a loophole though.

I think @Ryuhi might have mentioned comeback mechanics before. As it stands tunneling/camping can be used at the start of the game or as a comeback mechanic. I think it should be hard punished as is. Then both sides given some sort of basekit mechanic that might help turn the match around. Gen speeds based on hook count, maybe a moment of slower movement speed if a chase takes a certain time, quicker hook timers, etc... Those aren't great ideas just throwing something out there.

I know it might sometimes feel punishing to the player/s doing well but at least it would provide hope to the losing side. Might help prevent some DC's, and make it a little more fun, if the match doesn't feel like a loss at the start. Then again, without a lot of trial it would also have some loopholes

You are also, presumably, applying pressure on other Survivors. You are using Pop, PR, etc etc since you're not tunneling one person out.

Your mere existence as a Killer allows you to buy time. By not tunneling someone out, you make it clear you're a threat to everyone and they cannot just sit on gens while you kill their friend. This, once again, allows you to proc PR and Pop.

When tunnelling, only the first three chases need to be fast. After that, you can be very slow in your chases and still win, because survivors get way less progress. Also, when tunnelling, if you're aggressive enough, you're going to be getting half-chases for the second and third chase, since the survivor will still be injured when you pick up their trail. And if you chase them in the area where they were hooked, then they've likely already used some resources in the initial chase.

And once that survivor is dead, you can take way longer on your chases.

Because doing so makes your objective go a lot slower and that's the chase time given for tunneling to be even, not ahead. I already pointed that out. That's not the time for 1 survivor dead at 4-5 gens. 50 seconds per chase is too long for that. So if the time for non-tunnel to be even is the same, that would me there's no time difference between the two in terms of objective completion. But that goes against what you were saying before.

It's not that tunneling takes extra time. Its that tunneling allows you to spend more time in chases since after 3 you get your slowdown from killing one survivor. Which as you said, is stronger than anything the killer has at their disposal. If you don't then you don't have that until around your 8th or 9th hook, which is late game and doesn't really matter anyway since that's maybe 1 gen.

What would insinuate that MMR is working most of the time, which he have established time and again, it is not. I like winning, so I sweat a lot; when MMR is working this puts me up against a lot very, very good survivors, and against those I doubt that anyone could go for 10-12 hooks, in this cases you NEED to play dirty or to perish and get rediculed "OMG. 2500h and you still lost and got not one kill. Baby killer.", stuff like this always makes me wonder whats wrong with this people, do they always perform at top level without ever having a bad game? But I digress ... when MMR is not working, well then everything goes and the strangest stuff can happen. I usually let one survivor go in that case, if I can idenfity a newby usually them, but until one is dead, even a newby can pressure gens just like everyone else.

I get the feeling that punishments never work, they only harden the sentiments on both sides and make some people extra stubborn. I really think that old school BBQ BP bonus as basekit would help a lot, with the added twist that the multiplier only increases as long as all 4 survivors live, ie once the killer kills off one survivor they are stuck with whatever bonus they got at that point. Just try that out BHVR, its not like you would be losing much, but could gain a lot.

My biggest complaint with this game is matches being so fast I can't even enjoy it, it's either gen rush, survivors giving up, or get stomped, no middle ground.

Yeah afaik no one really disagrees that MMR and matchmaking are a mess frequently. The divide there seems more to be "improve it or erase it?" But that's a different conversation as far as I can see.

That's why I specified that it was evenly skilled matches being discussed as well. I'm not sure how much of the thread you read so apologies if I'm going over what you already did. Supposedly the level where you can go for those 10-12 hook games is where you skill level is. If you need to tunnel to win it's because the survivors are better than you so you needed to resort to the "nigh impossible to counter" playstyle of tunneling. Which for context, "counter" was getting at least 2 out.

As for the incentive vs punishment thing, yeah I would also like an incentive. But the opposition on that was essentially that without an incentive stronger than tunneling there's basically no point since if you want to win you'll still tunnel. We can't do that because tunneling is already way too strong. If it doesn't stop basically all tunneling why even consider it? Also that BBQ had little if not no effect on dissuading people and it was really the fear of DS that did that.

Because you're spreading hooks? If you're intentionally not tunneling anybody, ping ponging between survivors, and going for 10-12 hook games you'll end up with a hook spread such as 2-2-2-2, 2-2-2-1, or 2-2-1-1.

That's around your 8th hook before someone dies.

I think part of the problem here is that the conversation has become a hard binary between "Tunnelling" and "Not Tunnelling", as though the latter is a single strategy the same way that the former is. It does also seem, and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, like you're expecting "not tunnelling" to involve the same gameplay, effort, and type of value as tunnelling, which it does not.

Tunnelling is, boiling it down as bluntly as possible, taking a shortcut on overall skill expression to put all of your eggs in the "short chase times" basket. It's making a play that allows you to focus on that one skill, that one aspect of good killer gameplay, and have that be the thing that wins you games over everything else.

If you aren't making that play, though, you're going to be using all of the other skills, so expecting that the chase times must necessarily be shorter is somewhat missing the point. You don't need them to be shorter because you're using everything else at your disposal.

Well, and of course, there is tunneling and there is tunneling. You can do some suplemental or tactical tunneling, that will ferret SWFs out and cause them to take protection hits, thus opening themselves up, when they would otherwise have been sticking to their gens, even if your intention never was to tunnel that player out, yet. Is this also taking a shortcut? Many players, myself included, are under the impression, that a team, that sticks to gens before friends and only goes to safes in the last second and maybe even letting someone slip into hook stage 2, are next to impossible to beat. You just can't generate enough pressure and the second you turn your back, they jump on their gen again. It feels mercilessly from the killers POV, just like tunneling feels for many survivors.

The best natural games are around killers with natural slowdown, like Pinhead, Pig or Sadako, as these games give the survivors a solid, tangible side objective besides slamming gens. Maybe every killer needs their very own objects and side objective? This would be a massive undertaking, but could be a way to go.