Is tunneling killing the game?

So... they could take a moment to look around, nod at the guy with a flashlight and he was limited to chasing that guy away 1 time? That doesn't change anything really. I fail to see how restricting any kind of counterplay would make it more fun for the killer.

Currently when it comes to BPs, you DO get rewarded for more hooks. I had a game earlier with a 4k at 4 gens left. 5 hooks total... I got 17k BPs for that. The game did NOT reward me with 30-40k.

The singularity match.

I'm unsure how they can deal with this, other than dramatically change unhooking in-game. A lot of the ideas have flaws others will point out.

Literally, my only thinking is to have the recently inhooked have no collision with the Killer until they do any type of conspicuous action (including using an item) or another Survivor loses a health state after 10 seconds from unhooking, with this effect being cancelled once the Exit Gates are powered. Even then, I am certain there will be something wrong with this. However, it is going to have to be drastic to change tunnelling.

Not exactly. The problem is not that "people tunnel" the problem is that tunneling is the most effective way to win the game. You are putting the blame on the wrong people. You need to blame the developers, not the players using the strategy. The problem is the game is balanced around kills. So, the best way to win is to kill a survivor as fast as possible because the best slowdown is having less survivors in the game.

The reason for this is simple, the game with 4 survivors is simply too fast. If 4 survivors are alive it is impossible for a killer to keep up on gens when against a decent team. Watch any comp matches and you'll see that the strategy is to pick a survivor and hard tunnel them out, and hope they aren't the one with DS.

If the game incentivized chases and hooks, and actually rewarded killers for hooking more survivors and spreading pressure, you'd see far less tunneling happen.

My proposal to "fix" tunneling and camping has always been and remains the same:

• Revert the anti face camp feature, you won't need it with the following.
• Remove the ability to 4% off the hook, its a dumb mechanic that lets survivors get out of the game without a DC penalty at worst, and at its best, it rewards survivors with pure luck that allows them to turn a match around with no skill involved.
• All survivors now share the 1st hook state. The struggle phase only happens once those hook states have been burned through.
  • This means that if you hard tunnel someone out, you have to hook them 6 times to kill them and the earliest a survivor can be removed is after 6 hooks. If you can't win a game in 6 hooks from someone ignoring other survivors, you are just bad at the game.
• Replace AFC with something similar to the pyramid head mechanic. If a killer is within 16 meters of a hook for more than 10 total seconds, with a 5 second grace period, even if another survivor is nearby then do the following:
  • The survivor on the hook i teleported to the hook that is CLOSEST the survivor who is FURTHEST from the killer.
  • This means that if the killer camps you are guaranteed to get the save within 15 seconds.
  • Proxy camping is already heavily nerfed with the 6 hook state thing, because if someone proxy camps, just ignore it and slam gens and you'll finish 5 gens before you burn through 6 minutes of hook states.
• Remove basekit BT and replace with the following mechanic:
  • After being unhooked, a survivor gains the Ethereal status effect for 30 seconds. The Ethereal status effect does the following:
    • The survivor has no collision with the killer or other survivors
    • The survivor is invisible to the killer
    • The survivor makes no noise to the killer
    • The survivor makes no scratch marks
    • The survivor moves at 200% movement speed
    • The survivor can see the aura of all other survivors
    • The survivor is unable to do any conspicuous action
    • The survivor is unaffected by all killer or survivor perks
    • After the ethereal status effect ends, the survivor is fully healed.
  • This will do many different things:
    • first it makes tunneling literally impossible, you can't tunnel what you can't see, hear, or collide with.
    • Secondly, it gives the survivor a "time out" so now the killer KNOWS that the survivor that was hooked, can't do anything while they are hooked, and after they are unhooked they know they have a full 30 seconds of timeout where they know that survivor can't do anything, so they KNOW they aren't doing anything productive for a while.
    • Thirdly, it gives the survivor a chance to get to safety and avoid the killer. If they can't get somewhere safe within 30 seconds, they are doing something wrong.
    • Fourthly, it can't be abused by survivors who want to use the mechanic to body block the person who unhooked them, because they have 0 collision.
• Rework the concept of a win/draw.
  • Survivors now win/lose/draw as a team, and not as individuals (right now an escape is a win for the individual even if the other 3 died, and hatch is always a draw, even if they all died at 5 gens.)
  • A draw is 6 hooks
  • A slight loss for the killer is 4-5 hooks
  • A big loss for the killer is <4 hooks
  • A slight win for the killer is 7-8 hooks
  • A big win for the killer is 9+ hooks

If they did this, and then monitored gen times, and win rates for a little while and then start making tweaks to the base gen times, or base regression and so on, you'd see a much better much healthier and much more fun game for everyone, where hooks are incentivized instead of chases.

Yeah but mmr just doesn't have a place in this game. And its boring to lower my MMR just so i can let 2 survivors go by basically AFK'ing because any good clips I could get in lower mmrs will drastically decrease.

Tunneling is a symptom of a much deeper problem, but much like in real life, symptoms can kill what they are affecting.

The core of the problem is outdated mechanics and either a direct or indirect refusal from the devs to implement anything that would provide a fun experience that has depth. Now, I'm not saying that chases and macro strategy aren't fun, because they are, but like what other posters are saying, it's not fun for the person being tunneled at all. At the end of the day, dbd is a game, and it's purpose by definition is to provide entertainment value and fun for those that play it. A survivor's fun shouldn't be at the complete mercy of the killer, and vice versa is true also. You should be able to have fun on both sides regardless of if you win or lose because you were actually able to participate in the game. There is no reality in which you'll be able to convince me that being tunneled by a lethal pursuer blight with an ego the size of Jupiter, who proxy camps and tunnels off hook to secure the +1 to his win streak is fun for that first survivor. They threw what? 3 pallets tops before dying, getting hooked, having nowhere to run to because they got hooked in the dead zone they were looping at, and now they just are out of the match. Likewise, having 4 survivors running op toolboxes or medkits against an m1 killer makes it feel like you're powerless from the get go.

Most killers that tunnel feel that it's the only way they can secure a win with the current mechanics of the game. Same with survivors that run op toolboxes to do gens extremely quickly. Think of this issue like a chess board, except the chess board is only one column, and both the survivor and killer are opposing kings. Winning a chase as either side will allow you to move your piece, until eventually one of the players cannot move, since they are blocked by the opponent, and will "lose" the game. I say lose in quotes because in chess, if you have no valid moves, it's a stalemate, meaning it's a draw. That's how it feels when neither side runs a strong build. The killer gets around 2 kills, and survivors get 2 out, the community defined version of a draw. Running an op build essentially "upgrades" your piece to a stronger one, like a queen, where now you actually can checkmate the king. Running 4 slowdown on blight essentially auto-wins you the game if you know what you're doing (see 1500 win streak blight as proof).

Keeping with the chess analogy, the devs need to add more columns to the chess board, which will allow for more pieces in play. Players have thought of many things over the years for this. An afterlife for survivors which can allow them to help their team in various ways even after they have died. A convoluted yet completely manageable side objective to resurrect a survivor. Each killer having their own unique win condition and lose condition. For example, spirit could have a side objective where she must go around collecting a certain number of Yamaoka relics before having her power upgraded into something even more powerful than it already is. Meanwhile, the survivors can collect ofuda at mini shrines that spawn on the map, and seal off the relics, preventing the spirit from picking them up, and with enough sealed, actually weaken the spirit. Give every map unique interactable elements, like how powering the main generator of Lery's opens up more window vaults on the higher level, or Nostromo has the steam exhaust pipes. Make the elements actually impactful to the overall game and fun to do.

It's this depth of gameplay which provides an avenue for tunneling to be an afterthought, if not a losing strategy. As long as tunneling remains possible in the game, it will happen. However, providing a deeper gameplay experience, and providing things for a survivor to do even if they've been tunneled in an afterlife, will be more fun in the long run for everybody. I know this will take a lot of dev time and commitment, but I do believe it is 100% needed for the enjoyment and longevity of this game.

tl;dr Treating the symptom of tunneling won't do anything in the long run. Treating the root of the issue by adding depth to gameplay should be where the devs start to focus.

The point is to make sure the killer KNOWS the survivor is on time out. If they didn't have a timeout, then they could just immediately hop back on a gen. And the game is flat out simply not balanced right now for 4 survivors being in the match. That is why tunneling is so strong and also necessary.

Stop tunneling gens and we'll see.

So i play mostly killer and warry between matches where i decide to tunnel and camp and don't decide to do that:

for me it wouldn't make any difference if i get no points or even points taken for tunneling.

I can just use it kind of as an ace:

"I want to win this game at any price so i tunnel now and get nothing out of it"

or

"i don't care to win this game so why would i tunnel and loose my points?"

So for me it wouldn't really stop me from doing it, i'd even play 5 matches without getting anything out of it if I want to win this 5 matches.

Well i'm probably very weird anyways because I like being tunneled as survivor personaly.

Three horrible changes, three things in need of reversions.

Giving BP its bloodpoint gains back and reverting DS back to 5 seconds would help a lot. Perhaps it won't change the playstyle of every single player out there, but it would put an end to the sheer wave of tunneling we're currently seeing.

And MMR just needs to go, period. It has always caused far more harm than good.

Its simply the optimal way of hunting. You are barely rewarded off hooks alone so why bother "playing fair" when eliminating a player ASAP brings more benefits late game? One is the sacrificial lamb, 2 are gen jockies and the other is the rescuer or second sacrificial lamb when the gates are opened.