Is tunneling killing the game?

245

Comments

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,360

    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.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,360

    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.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    That's why I am also talking about points and not game mechanics. So it provides an attraction to not tunnel but you still can do it.

    On the other hand if the survivors are stupid and they are just body blocking you, put themself in your way, don't hook them, let them on the ground, it's -1 person doing a gen, less progress.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    I am not providing a mechanic, you still can tunnel, but there is something encouraging to not play that way.

    Do you have any proof of official response about tunneling?

    I'd like to read it.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96
    edited February 1

    No offering, no add-ons, no duplicated perks.

    The killer could bring add-ons and offer mori, there was something about the mori, I think it was only 1 mori per team.

    Post edited by Frizouw on
  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,360

    Typically these tournaments come with perk restrictions so the whole team doesn't bring the same loadout. I AM interested in seeing the rules of this tournament in particular though... Removing the counter to flashlight saves and sabo plays (slugging) just screams it would be filled with that very thing. The built in unbreakable PTB kinda showed us this very thing. People aren't going to play the same way they always do when you give them a boost or hamper their opponent's possible choices.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    Ok hold on.

    You got 17k, 5 hooks, so it means someone got save and the others died on hook?

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,360

    Correct, there was a total of 1 unhook and the rest died on 1st hook.

  • Moonras2
    Moonras2 Member Posts: 364

    If that was a part of the game yes. I've used base kit bt to body block for someone else if they are on death hook and sometimes for no real reason at all. There is no reason a killer should be punished for that.

    As it stands I wish tunneling could be punished in some way but the more I think about it the more I realize how exploitable it could become.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    That's normal you got 17k then and it was not your fault. I think if you tunnel one by one, you will get more points than that, but the survivor you tunneled between 5-4 gens will have between 4-8k.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,360

    I'm well aware. The post I was replying to had said the game rewards more BPs to someone who got 4ks with 4-5 hooks than with 12 hooks... which is horribly wrong. They claimed 4-5 hooks would reward 30-40k.

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,191

    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.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    I forgot to ask you if it was NA or EU.

    but I don't remember that the rules were left out at 1 gen... ô_o

  • Reinami
    Reinami Member Posts: 5,442

    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.

  • Murgleïs
    Murgleïs Member Posts: 1,067
  • Brimp
    Brimp Member Posts: 2,914

    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.

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,775
    edited February 1

    Other than the 30 second time out after being hooked, I think all that is good. Not sure how we could improve that, as doing nothing for thirty seconds is a little unintuitive, but I understand why it's there for balancing purposes. Overall good stuff.

  • KateMain86
    KateMain86 Member Posts: 2,374

    Tunneling is definitely a very big deterrent for survivor mains. I know people who quit the game over it among other reasons. The unhook protection change did help the situation as I see less killers focusing on tunneling after it went live. Even still being focused down off the hook with protections or not is still very annoying. Its too easy for killers to do it. Most maps are so small that proxy camping basically gives you control over a quarter of the map while keeping eyes on the area of the hooked survivor.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    Mine was the Dead by Discord, it's the official community tournament from the discord server.

    I was team "roadkills" (NA)

  • Valuetown
    Valuetown Member Posts: 326

    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.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96
    • Revert the anti face camp feature, you won't need it with the following.

    I don't disagree but I don't agree neither, I think the anti face camp is like a "Attention, dangerous dog inside" even if there is no dog. It kinda work in sens that some of the killers don't stay by fear that you escape, I saw really less face camping since. It was something that was breaking the fun, but I understand your point with your whole solution, it would be useless.

    • 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.

    I think that's not a bad idea at all, for that you need to make the game last longer tho, the gens would need to take more than 90 seconds to be completed...(I think)

    Overall I think you have a good understanding of the core problem, it's just I don't think the devs will go that far to fix that issue. It's a huge amount of changes and that is also why I just propose points adjustment.

  • Reinami
    Reinami Member Posts: 5,442

    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.

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,775

    I am aware of the balancing implications as to why it's there.

    I just don't believe having a mandatory timeout corner timer is a good design. It's better than what we have now, I just think maybe it can be improved.

  • Rivyn
    Rivyn Member Posts: 3,022

    Stop tunneling gens and we'll see.

  • Pirscher
    Pirscher Member Posts: 604

    The tunnelling got so much worse after the anti facecamp mechanic got implemented..

    It's like people thought to themselves "well, only facecamping got adressed, so tunnelling is therefore totally acceptable". And now here we are in tunnel hell.

    I've barely played over the past couple of weeks because it's so bad. And it is regardless if youre playing solo queue or in a group, it just happens again and again. I'm slowly feeling compelled to just play killer and tunnel too because I'm so often exposed to this!

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    I can understand you can encounter 1 clown sometimes that think it's funny, but it's like mostly every games now... Friends or without friends like you said, someone will be tunneled... Let me tell you if it's YOU, and it happens every game, you just want to stop playing, cause it's not fun to be the sacrificial goat every game lmao xD

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    What do you mean? you want people to stop... doing gens? it's like worst than asking to nerf distortion, you want to win and do 0 effort? That cause another problem, no one will get points.

  • xEmoGirlxAlexisx
    xEmoGirlxAlexisx Member Posts: 598

    No the Goal of the Killer is to Kill Survivors fast as possible and tunneling is a legit strategy to do it u cant punish Killer for doing there Job making Kills is the Killers only Objective


    if u want to see tunneling be removed then Gen Rushing should also be removed 🤷🏻‍♀️


    when u Play a weak Killer on high Rank against a good SwF u will know how important tunneling is

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    But I was not talking about not tunneling at all, my subject is more about the tunneling at 5 gens...

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    I don't think you understand my points.

    You saw tunneling and u got on your high horse without understanding the point. I invite you to read the whole topic with all answers to have a better comprehension of the issue. I am not saying, to not tunnel but to find an incentive to not tunnel at 5 gens or the whole game. So it's not completely removing the ability to tunnel, just to encourage not playing that way because it's not fun and it's chasing players from the game.

  • KatsuhxP
    KatsuhxP Member Posts: 720

    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.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    IF they re-did BP we wouldn't see that much hange...

    Tunneling has only increased since they removed the bonus BP from BBQ, nerfed DS and made MMR a thing

    And now I'm wondering if I should change my playstyle...

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 10,639
    edited February 2

    Tunneling has only increased since they removed the bonus BP from BBQ, nerfed DS and made MMR a thing

    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.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    They really do need to start reverting things....

    Also they need to start thinking of ways to patch the game without needing 2-3 weeks of people not caring

    We also need to have every progression and regression timed out to see if there's anything there that needs to be changed

    Oh and just an idea but giving Corrupt 10-15 seconds of extra Gen blocking

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    Yeah cause there was an incentive to not tunnel, there was a better reward for not play like that :/

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 10,639

    They really do need to start reverting things....

    They do, yes. There are many things in the game that could use a reversion.

    Exactly.

    It won't stop every tunneler out there, but it would stop most of them. BBQ and DS are good solutions for this problem.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    Tunneling always been in the game, it's just worst than before now. You get consecutive tunneling now, it's not just a sometimes thing anymore. it's not fun.

  • cipherbay_
    cipherbay_ Member Posts: 379

    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.

  • satx3241
    satx3241 Member Posts: 102

    Yes. This.

    As a survivor main I won't try to analyze points on the killer side. But as a survivor I can do a totem, or pull someone off the hook in a fraction of time that it takes to complete a generator. Yet I'll get roughly the same amount of points for any of those actions.

    I firmly believe that's why you see so many survivors in solo queue that will grief their teammates and ignore gens. As a survivor you can intentionally sandbag a teammate and be rewarded for it by pulling that same teammate off the hook. Whereas doing a gen will give the same reward for something that is less exciting and takes way more time.

    In other words the way points are awarded on the survivor side makes selfish survivor play rewarding. So I'm not surprised to hear that the way killer points are awarded rewards tunneling and camping.

  • Frizouw
    Frizouw Member Posts: 96

    They could change that, I don't think it's that hard to give more points if you don't tunnel early game :/