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Killers won't tunnel / camp if they were power role

Thankfully, this proved to be wrong second time.

First was gen kick meta which was strongest ant-gen ever. Killers were getting amazing slowdown, even without hooking survivors.

And did this stopped tunnelling? Heck, no. They tunnelled even more because DS nerfed to ground and OtR was not good enough to stop tunnelling. Even adding obsession to all matches did not change anything, why would you scare of DS anymore when nerfed version was barely doing anything.

And second, Lights Out. This mode is the most killerside thing ever i saw in DBD. And i am playing this game since 2018. It's really so easy and chill to play killer in this mode. Survivors have no perks, no items. The only downside killers have is no slowdown on gens but chases are pretty fast. So you really don't need gen regression perks anyway.

So everything should be good right? Killer is power role, they can chill and have fun. But no, ofcourse not. Even in this mode, it was tunnelling & proxy camping everywhere. Except some meme'ing killers, most of games was sweat-fest.

Now this argument is so popular, if killers had fair chance to stop survivors, they would not tunnel or proxy camp. But any time we get this, it's just proving to be wrong. People are always going to tunnel and proxy camp because it's easiest way to win. Why you would bother yourself for spreading hooks when you can make game 3 v 1 and get your easy win.

This is not Us vs Them. This is just the fact i saw from my exp. You can have different opinion ofcourse and that's totally fine. But i just don't think it's good idea to make killers power role without nerfing tunnelling and proxy camp to ground and making them non-viable. And that's ofcourse won't happen because BHVR is fine with both strategies. And this brings us to this: Killers should never be buffed in general, except some weak killers most of them are just fine.

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Comments

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,846

    But i just don't bite the "Killers won't tunnel if they were power role" thing.

    Both sides love to win and there are some ways to make winning easier. You are definitely right, that buffs alone will not make the problem disappear. But I fear that as long as there are cases in which tunneling is simply the only option to compete (rare but they do exist) even a 10 seconds DS wouldn't fix the issue. After all, there is no greater advantage than to eliminate 1 survivor.

    I'll say something that is a bit controversial here: If DS left the killer stunned for 20 seconds, then tunneling would become the go to strategy for absolutely everyone. Because survivors would force it on the killer (pre 6.1.0 style) and put them at a significant disadvantage that they could only balance out by doubling down and eliminating that survivor. This is of course very exaggerated but you get the point.

    This is why I think it needs both incentives not to tunnel and penalties for tunneling. If tunneling became less efficient and spreading hooks became more efficient at the same time, then killers would have a good reason to avoid tunneling.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621
    edited February 13

    Disagree, tunneling and camping have been in the game for 7 years, they have always been tweaked but never been outright removed because they are part of the game. Simply removing them would require too many changes that you are making a new game at that point and likely after that the question becomes ok with that gone whats the next version of it based on the changes the devs make that you want gone.

    Lets say you can't hook the same survivor twice in a row. Physically impossible to take a survivor out of the game before 5 hooks how much safer is it for that new unhooked person to just sit on a gen and ignore any kind of healing until someone else gets hooked and how much more progress does their team get off not having to care about taking hits just immediate stealth because they would be fine and unbreakable stocks soar or heck just give them free unbreakable while they are slugged like that since they are supposed to be invincible and just in case slugging becomes the problem here throw endurance on that too.

    Lets say you can't camp at all if you are within 32m of a survivor on the hook both survivors get bt and their hook doesn't progress and you build up a free escape and for good measure kindred aura reading that bypasses undetectable so everyone knows thats happening, in fact lets sweaten the pot, injured survivors get bt for being within 16m of the hook and no deep wound on the first bt hit so a freshly unhooked survivor takes 3 hits to down depending on perks which doesn't mean much when they can't be hooked and an injured unhooker gets a bt hit going to save and a bt hit after the save. How much more time does their team get not having to care about rescues being dangerous and having great knowledge on going for saves

    How would you balance all of it out, realistically with a mountain of changes to make all killers strong enough to get at least 5 hooks at a decent pace so they can start snowballing in a match at some point (because otherwise they can't counter survivor pressure and just lose) they need to have enough information without perks that they don't need to ever go back to hooks again, and the mobility on each killer reach chases without huge amounts of downtime. Maybe even longer gen times or even more changes to prevent. And probably huge buffs to most killers. The problem is the fact that its just a mountain of changes to overcome just to remove 2 mechanics that are intended and at the end of the day you don't even know if you are making a better product to remove 2 things you don't like.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    I just don't see this happens because let's say BHVR changed meta and added some basekit for killers. Now hooking different survivors gives you some slowdown. Good on paper but then they will be forced to make anti-tunnel strong too because killers won't stop tunnelling just because of that. So if they make anti-tunnel so strong, this will make survivors bodyblock killers.

    So just problems will be replaced with new problems. BHVR really can't change too much.

    Just look, they buffed Grim Embrace and now people are using it with other slowdown perks. It's good for some killers but do we really need 3 - 4 slowdowns on killers like Nurse, Blight, Wesker, Spirit etc. DbD have so much different mechanics, killers and changing one of them can effect others as well, even if it was not your plan.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,336

    This is why I think it needs both incentives not to tunnel and penalties for tunneling.

    Well, we did have that with BBQ and DS. To an extent, it works.

    It doesn't delete tunneling from the game, I think nothing ever will, but back then tunneling wasn't the norm. And that is huge.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    And where i said we should remove tunnelling from game? I just said we should not buff killers because of tunnelling. We can't buff killers because of those strategies can not be actually nerfed. And if we can't actually make them unviable, then what will stop killers to not tunnel when they are too strong? Nothing.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621
    edited February 13

    "we shouldn't remove them" also we should nerf them into the ground and make them unviable aka all but remove them just say the change you actually want instead of dancing around it then making it anyway

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
    edited February 13

    I am not sure if you understood my point. If we really wanna make killers power role, like some people keep asking, those strategies can't stay in game. Because if we buff all killers to this level, tunnelling and proxy camping will be even bigger problems.

    Nurse is strongest killer in game and good Nurse player can destroy most of teams but yet, they are tunnelling. And we all know how anti-tunnel barely doing anything against her. Or Blight. Or any of high tier killers.

    If we buff all killers to this level, what will stop them to not tunnel. Nothing. Unless we actually nerf tunnelling to ground and punish killers really hard for it, tunnelling always will be popular choice for killers. Because it's easy to do.

    And as you pointed, it's not easy to do. BHVR will need to a lot work to make things work. So i just don't see this gonna happen and it should not anyway. Killers should not be buffed ( except really weak ones ) and tunnelling & proxy camp should not be nerfed. One should not come without other. Buffing DS a bit will be good enogh.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621

    Killers still need buffs over time since generally they get weaker the longer they are out and as general skill increases depending on how much of the game that killer has to interact with, they just need to get stronger as people get smarter, not just the scum at the bottom of the barrel which people still won't play because theres no point in buffing it to go no where but the median needs to raise over time. Using tunneling and camping as examples of why almost no killers should get buffs is using one aspect of the game to say a more important aspect shouldn't get changed which is just wrong.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    Nah, it's not wrong.

    I am not against buffs for weak killers but i am against another 6.1.0 , we don't need another general killer buffs. But we should buff Pig, Myers, Freddy, Trapper etc. Weak killers should be viable, that's not wrong thing to do.

    But what would be wrong is giving buffs to all killers.

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,846

    Yeah but bringing back the BBQ stacks wouldn't really do much, would it? As nice as the extra BP are, they aren't worth as much as they were back then. The grind was reduced significantly, so it's way more achievable to unlock all perks on all characters. On the other hand, BBQ doesn't really stop you from tunneling either. You can still get stacks even after the first survivor died.

    DS definitely should be stronger but there needs to be something besides BP as a reward for the killer not to tunnel. Most people care more about the win than the BP and that's where it becomes to fix the issue. You could try to reward the killer with a bit of information or slowdown, so that they benefit from spreading hooks. However, this would become almost impossible to balance.

  • KingLich98
    KingLich98 Unconfirmed, Member Posts: 2

    As a killer main honestly tunneling genuinely does need to be punished, power role or not. In fact it needs to be visibly punished so everyone in the game can see it. You know why? Because I'm tired of people calling me a bad killer who can't win without tunneling when I have multiple people on death hook before I commit to a kill lol. I would really love for tunneling to actually be punished simply because I'm tired of people throwing the word around without knowing what it actually means. Sure, people are still going to complain and make excuses, but it would still help. I can't count how many times I've went to a stream to say gg and I get slammed with tunnel accusations and insults, it's just getting sad at this point.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621

    If we need another 6.1.0 we will get another 6.1.0 there was tunneling then and there is tunneling now, it wouldn't be any different since its changes for the sake of progress not gridlock because you don't like one current aspect.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    How it would not make any different lol?

    Is tunnelling same on Nurse and Trapper? No. Strong killers can tunnel easier. And anti-tunnel perks are barely doing anything against them.

    If you buff all killers to this level, it will be same on all killers which is not healthy for the game.

    And by stats, i doubt we need another 6.1.0. Since we know DS will be changed, most likely BHVR is also seeing problem here because how easy and free tunnelling is right now.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,336

    I think it would work, actually. Double BPs is a far too generous offer to pass up, regardless of the changes made to the grind. Besides, it would help those who want to go for their P100 journeys.

    And DS cannot be replaced, it needs to be here.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621

    Its gonna be pretty funny when ds is only buffed to 4s but requires the survivor to actually do something to earn it

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564
  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621
    edited February 13

    I mean we saw what they did with save the best for last, just slapped the copy and pasted code from PWYF and called it a day instead of just giving it more time, I don't really trust them with perk changes at the moment.

    also 4s ds makes the most sense since 5s was to counter enduring

  • MrPenguin
    MrPenguin Member Posts: 2,426
    edited February 13

    "But i just don't think it's good idea to make killers power role without nerfing tunnelling and proxy camp to ground"

    I really wish they would. It'd be better for both sides. Killers are still as strong or stronger and survivors get a more fun gameplay experience (hopefully).


    Maybe a little less killers would tunnel if killer was the "power role", but definitely not he majority, and it'd probably end up making tunnel/camp stronger as a byproduct as well. So I agree it's not the best idea until we address the tunnel issue.

    The main reason people tunnel and camp (imo) is because it's considered the strongest strat(s). Without addressing that I don't see it changing in a significant way. As a bonus, it's also the easiest to pull off. Other playstyles require a lot more work/skill and will probably end up with a weaker effect.

  • Kaitsja
    Kaitsja Member Posts: 1,833

    Part of why tunneling wasn't the norm back then also has to do with self-care helping to prevent gens from going too fast, and also because of the lack of conspicuous actions. Someone with DS could repair a gen, heal someone, or unhook. When you think about it, there's a lot of factors that kept tunneling down.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,336

    It is probably going back to 5s, as it should. 4s isn't enough, and we no longer have to take Enduring into consideration.

    You can also make an argument for survivors having more resources to work with if the killer wanted them out of the game ASAP.

    There is plenty of food for thought here, yes. But in terms of perks, I don't think any of them had a bigger impact on tunneling than DS and BBQ.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621

    4s is probably enough, since 5s ds was made for enduring (which made it 4s) and chewed through the 3s stun better than today

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    Completely agree. The loss / nerfs with DS and BBQ were definitely huge factors in the viability and prevalence of tunneling. Two perks that should both be reverted to previous versions.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621

    its not it would just be funny if they made it like that based on fumbling the stbfl changes, 4s stun is fine though

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,846

    I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Prestige is just a number, after all.

    DS is irreplaceable indeed and the current version is not good enough. Though it does work against M1 killers pretty well, a Nurse, Huntress, Blight or Deathslinger for example would immediately down you again.

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    Lol I get you, 4s would definitely be a welcome change, but I still do think that it should be 5 especially with how many mobility and ranged killers there are now. Any change to DS would be an improvement though. The game needs a hard anti-tunnel perk back in prevalence right now.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,336

    But then we are just going to have the exact same situation with Enduring making the stun too short, but this time without Enduring.

    Which is why we need 5s.

    Yes, they should both be reverted. It would help a lot.

  • WolfyWood
    WolfyWood Member Posts: 474

    A perk to counter tunneling really won't accomplish anything. But if we have to buff the perk a duration increase won't do anything either.

    If anything the buff it needs is 4 seconds + removal of conspicuous action modifier but make conspicuous actions a lot slower while the perk is active and reduce duration to like 20 seconds.


    Now the perk won't be free gen progress like it was pre-nerfs but now it also won't force you to do nothing for the entire timer and will have value regardless if you get tunneled or not.

  • Ariel_Starshine
    Ariel_Starshine Member Posts: 937
    edited February 13

    Tunneling is so boring. It literally makes me fall asleep. One time I woke up with a server timed out message. I have never fallen asleep playing a game before.

    It also frustrates a lot of people, which is poor game design. People shouldn't mind winning or losing, but how they get there is what's important.

    However I don't think there will be any change unless a loooot of people stop playing. I see this issue come up constantly on here, reddit, fb, etc. Yet nothing is done.

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400
    edited February 13

    I honestly completely disagree with your points.

    • Buffing the duration will absolutely do something. 3 seconds of stun which in reality is only 1.7 seconds due to the time it takes to get off the shoulder is absolutely meaningless, and unless you're right next to a pallet or window when you went down, a complete waste of a perk slot with no meaningful distance to be made. Buffing the duration of the stun to at the very least 4 seconds (I think it should be 5) would allow you to at the very least make it to the next closest loop.
    • The removal of the conspicuous action modifier makes no sense. DS is an anti-tunnel perk. If you have the time to stop and do generators or heal somebody else, you're not being tunneled (a vast majority of the time at the very least).
    • Removing the conspicuous action modifier takes away a component of DS that gives survivors autonomy over how to use it and use their time. If you want to hold it for the full 60 seconds to try to get value or are scared of going down again quickly, either get healed by a teammate or position yourself in a strong spot to give yourself a better chance. If you feel safe, then hop on a gen or heal somebody else, etc. There's no need to remove something that promotes strategic decision making.

    Edit: Wanted to throw in that DS was 100% a viable deterrent to tunneling in it's previous states. It was a perk that was feared by many killers and many people just decided to go after somebody else rather than risk getting DS'd and wasting 30 seconds of their time.

  • Deathstroke
    Deathstroke Member Posts: 3,521

    There was counters for survivors abusing ds like slugging so that was not really problem expect when you could still fix gens ds activate whenever that was case...

  • WolfyWood
    WolfyWood Member Posts: 474

    It was feared because it was overpowered.


    Buffing it to four seconds won't make it feared again and it's too restrictive to see common use.

    It suffers the same problem that OTR suffers in that you only get organic use 10% of the time and the other 90% of the time you have to make stupid plays to try and force value. Perks should not be this conditional and that's why Dead Hard will continue to be a superior anti-tunnel perk than both of them.

    Perks should give the player agency.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,621
    edited February 13

    I think 4s stun and 4s with no power (doesn't drain power) would be a reasonable fix, it doesn't punish m1 killers too much and gives a ranged and mobile characters a bit more wait time but not too bad, I just don't like 5s because more time spent with no input against it just feels bad

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400
  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,400

    Dead Hard is extremely conditional now though, no? Only activating twice, requiring you to be hooked, and incompatible with OtR or when you are in deep wound sounds pretty conditional to me.

    And I really do think that buffing DS to the point where you can actually extend chases again with it would be rather feared by a lot of players. I see people on here all the time talking about how 30 seconds can be the make or break difference between a win and a loss. Extending DS's stun timer and extending chases with it would absolutely waste at the very least 30 seconds to a minute and can very well be that difference in the game.

  • GroßusSchmiedus
    GroßusSchmiedus Member Posts: 555
    edited February 13

    of course it doesn't, many people just care to win. I'm a Warhammer player and you'd be surprised that meta chasers found a way to regrow the kidneys they sold so they can spend hundreds on the next army every edition over and over again. They often end up with a faction and playstyle they literally do not even like, and getting an army that has a high comp winrate is a pain in the ass for those who actually like them cause getting the required minis will be a hassle by itself, out of stock, getting scalped.

    If people go so far as to do spend their time and money doing things they do not even like to win, then you can't really tell me that tunneling can be dissuaded unless you make it objectively one of the worst ways to play.

  • GroßusSchmiedus
    GroßusSchmiedus Member Posts: 555
    edited February 14

    What do you mean "you have to make stupid plays to try and force value"?

    If you have to go out of your way to activate the endurance, then you are obviously not getting tunneled.

    If you complain about the Killer downing you after you intentionally tried to get your OTR "value" , then its obviously your own fault.

    You are literally complaining about not getting tunneled.

    Post edited by GroßusSchmiedus on
  • Trollinmon
    Trollinmon Member Posts: 691

    Killers tunnel because it is the best way to win. Even if you nerf tunneling, it will still be prominent if it continues to be the best way to win. SBMM made the game more sweaty, and players are going for wins rather than having fun like back in the day.

    This is also why buffing DS is such a bad idea. It causes its own problems and if it doesn't make tunneling worse than the alternatives then killers will still be doing it.

  • MikaelaWantsYourBoon
    MikaelaWantsYourBoon Member Posts: 6,564

    How buffing DS is bad idea? Ofcourse it won't stop the tunneller killers but it will give chance to survivor to waste more of their times which is good value.

  • Carth
    Carth Member Posts: 1,182

    When you say getting value out of OTR do you mean not getting tunneled or do you mean forcing the killer to hit you to eat up a health state that would be lost anyways? Min/Maxing endurance status to force the killer to waste n seconds on wipe animations over a game is not the intent of the value of OTR/other endurance perks I'd argue .

  • SOULWARRIOR71K
    SOULWARRIOR71K Member Posts: 459

    The only way to effectively stop tunneling/camping is for it to be harshly punished ie it has to cost them the game the overwhelming majority of the time if they try to do it. The devs have already said that these are strategies that they approve of. Which means, nothing will be done to completely stop it.

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,328

    I feel no matter what incentives or penalties are presented to Killers, tunnelling will always be there.

    The only way to remove it entirely is by making it impossible. Remove collision until either another Survivor is downed, the Survivor in question performs a conspicuous action, the Survivor in question presses an active button so they lose the non-collision (so they can choose where to get healed, instead of an over-eager fellow Survivor insisted on healing there and then, or once the Exit Gates are powered.

    Even then, this will probably not be right and will have detractors. However, this is the only way tunnelling will end. Anything else will not stop players who want to do so.

  • Nathan13
    Nathan13 Member Posts: 6,713

    I think BHVR has done everything they can to reduce camping/tunneling/slugging. There comes a time where we need to accept the fact that players are gonna play however they want to play no matter how we feel about it.

  • KazRen
    KazRen Member Posts: 187

    I didn't play during the majority of the gen kick meta days so I can only say from what I saw and gens were definitely still going pretty fast. Obviously against soloq it was a problem but soloq has survivors who struggle against freddy.

    Lights out I'm kinda iffy on cause while it definitely was easier for killer, my god was it annoying to find the survivors sometimes. It took so long to find someone sometimes and I felt I was better off sitting near the hook. I don't really see why people would tunnel though given that they can just sit near the hook and go after the rescuer unless they weren't close enough. I'm also gonna assume that some killers aren't really good and can't tell how many gens are left so they could feel pressured to get someone out quick.

    While I say all this, I agree that killer being the power role is definitely not a great idea and obviously neither side should be the power role. I think for camping they can fix it by simply making it so it takes longer to sacrifice the closer the killer is to the hook. While for tunneling I don't really know how to fix it but I'm fairly confident that punishing the killer for tunneling is gonna be worse then rewarding them not to tunnel.

  • aerie
    aerie Member Posts: 68
    edited February 13

    i mean to be fair if you're eating dses i don't see what 1 second changes lol like if you're eating a ds either you're tunneling or they're forcing ds, either which you can counter by simply just playing differently. ignore them if you don't want to eat their stun, or just don't tunnel...

  • KazRen
    KazRen Member Posts: 187

    Some killers already throw games to tunnel someone out, so this won't change anything for them. It would change the people who tunnel more so out of necessity cause some killers like Freddy suck so all that would accomplish is just reduce the amount of killers.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,336

    To be fair, you don't necessarily have to tunnel someone out in order to win with Freddy.

    It will be easier if you do, but that goes for every killer.