"Tunnelling Gens" Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

That first line is shockingly misleading, wow.

I don't remember when survivors were able to heal efficiently and there was outcry on the forums, no. I remember that for years self-healing was pretty overpowered, and people sort of had a sustained general irritation with that which reached a fever pitch when Circle of Healing pushed it into overdrive, is that what you're referring to? I also do not remember when healing got nerfed, but I do remember that medkits and Circle of Healing specifically were nerfed in a very specific way.

The rest of your post is kind of an exaggeration along those lines, though it's at least closer. Some people here do act like they should get to deny unhooks, and some people did complain about the concept of boons rather than just (rightfully) complaining about CoH, so I won't really call you out on those. I just wanted to correct that first part, because it's a doozy.

People definitely had problems with medkits prior to Circle of Healing, but that's why I refer to it as a sort of background irritation. Everyone generally knew medkits were busted, it's why killer players would brace whenever they saw a lobby with four medkits, but things only reached a fever pitch where the complaints were frequent after CoH exacerbated the issue.

The line I'm responding to is also still extremely misleading. Survivors couldn't just "heal efficiently", self-healing was too strong for years and got absurdly busted around CoH, and "healing got nerfed" is just flat out wrong. Healing didn't get nerfed, CoH and medkits got nerfed- and even those got better at altruism.

I will admit, my statement is more geared towards recent changes, specifically the 6.7.0 changes that nerfed Circle and medkits.

However, actually look at that list. Is that list "healing", or is it self healing? Most of it is self healing, and half of it is also indirect? Like, yeah, Sloppy/Haemorrhage (which you list twice for some reason) did make Resurgence, Reactive Healing, and also Solidarity weaker, but it would be an extreme stretch to say that's a nerf to healing. Similarly, Pharmacy wasn't ever a direct healing perk and only got super killed once the medkit you got from it was nerfed to not be OP anymore.

Hell, there's a BUFF on this list! Botany Knowledge is very strong right now, not being able to specifically use a medkit from a chest to heal yourself does not count as a nerf. Circle of Healing was also flat buffed if you play with comms, but I'll acknowledge is harder to use in solo queue.

So... yeah, healing hasn't been nerfed. Self healing was nerfed in a few ways, and all the direct nerfs were justified (indirect stuff like Resurgence and Solidarity less so). This doesn't prove the line I'm responding to here, if anything it further disproves it.

Regardless of whether I agree with any of this, you'll acknowledge that this isn't a defence of your original statement, right? Your original statement is still wrong. Self healing was absurdly powerful in the final stages of Circle because it worked with the already very powerful medkits, so it wasn't just "efficient". Then you said that "healing got nerfed", which is flat out wrong, that just didn't happen.

Having laid that out, I don't mind moving on to this new stuff.

So, obviously Circle hasn't "been effectively removed", setting down a boon to get a zone of We'll Make It is still pretty powerful. It was removed as an avenue for self healing, sure, but the perk is still absolutely worth running. Beyond that, even if we were to agree that killers are struggling because survivors just aren't healing... that doesn't mean it was okay before, when injuries just flat out didn't matter.

I do think there's a degree to which complaints about current survivor efficiency aren't valid, but that comes from the fact that survivor efficiency is something killer players are meant to dismantle with smart play and spread pressure, not that the state of things is actually bad for killers because they dared to complain about ridiculous self healing speed.

In order:

• Sure, I'll accept that amendment, that's fair. Trying to stay healed up did get nerfed, and you have to rely on your teammates a little more than before if you don't want to invest time or resources into a self heal. I object to this being framed as a healing nerf in general, but it is strictly true that self-healing being nerfed makes staying healed up harder. I'll state for the record that self-healing is still extremely viable, though.
• Outside of the meta is not at all the same thing as being effectively removed, but I'll partially agree with that rundown. Hard but not impossible for solo queue to use, very good for SWF. I only say partially because honestly... what is more effective? Botany has a lower number and We'll Make It is on a timer, and both only work for the survivor that brings it. Those are side grades at best, and they're the other best tools available.
• When survivors can self-heal every injury in eight to ten seconds, no, injuries do not matter. Framing it as "self-caring" is also extremely misleading because Self Care is not what was used. Medkits and Circle were used, and they were substantially stronger. Survivors staying injured is also not bad for the killer, but that's tangential to the overall point.

1: Correct. Are you going to argue that I was wrong to do this? When we're talking about base gameplay problems - and to pick one that has since been mostly fixed, let's say we're talking about facecamping with Bubba in the basement - we would be very well served by having some way of conceptualising a "normal" match of DBD played mostly as intended so we can contrast it against the problem. In other words, we know what we want the player not to do - Basement Bubba - so what is that we do want the player to do? What is a "standard" match of DBD that doesn't contain this problematic behaviour?

Do you contest that concept, or my suggestion for what that normal match should look like?

2: This is wrong, you haven't actually countered anything I said. You are being inefficient by leaving two to three survivors to do generators as they please, but the payoff is that you get more efficient afterwards. The actual act of attempting tunnelling is inefficient. To counter that second part, if survivors feel no urgency to save, they are in deep trouble if you start snowballing before they feel inclined to go rescue.

3: I laid out the avenues of skill expression being circumvented, and bringing up SWF is whataboutism. Do you have anything more concrete on this point? I'm not against a discussion, there's just nothing to say here.

4: You've agreed that survivors bringing stacked toolboxes with complimentary perks to do generators as quickly as possible is a problem, so why is it not appropriate to have language to describe that problem? You're also veering into whataboutism again by talking about how other people apply the terms. I could just as easily point out those on the other side claiming "genrushing" is just when survivors do generators at all, but that wouldn't be helpful or constructive. If the problems exist - and you've agreed they do on at least one side of the game - why shouldn't there be language used to refer to them? Isn't denying those terms just making the problem arbitrarily harder to talk about?

1: What rules? That's not a rhetorical question. What rules are you referring to? I've mentioned what I think would be relevant to a standard, down-the-middle game of DBD for killer, sure, but those aren't rules. It's just the established norm that you can deviate from with specific tactics.

Oh, I should probably clarify this here, there's not really a better place for it: I don't expect players to change anything about their behaviour when it comes to problematic elements of the game. I expect the devs to make changes accordingly - like, for instance, ultra-fast self healing for the survivor side. I didn't expect survivor players not to use those busted tools, I expected the devs to change them, which is what ended up happening. Same for things on the killer side; I wouldn't have expected any Bubba player not to facecamp in the basement, I expected the devs to do something about it.

2: If efficiency is measured by anything, it is how much progress you're making towards your objective, right? The most progress you can achieve with minimal risk and minimal waste, that's efficiency in this game. Since tunnelling involves flat out ignoring three quarters of your objective, it is by its nature inefficient... until one survivor is dead, because then when you go chase + hook someone else, you can drag a larger percentage of the team off generators - 100% instead of 75%. You trade short term inefficiency for long term efficiency, that's tunnelling. That's why people do it, I'm not coming up with some off-the-wall alternate explanation here.

3: There is no force here. You'll note that I've not even implied I think tunnelling should be made impossible, I've only said I think it should have risk. When I talk about taking a shortcut on skill expression, that in itself is a value neutral statement. You don't have to do things the most skilful and difficult way every time, I advocate taking shortcuts in other areas; for example, information perks instead of tracking everyone through pure game sense and basekit tracking.

So, tunnelling obviously bypasses some skill expression. Obviously. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just what it is. I also think it's strong enough that it deserves balancing, but that's a separate statement.

4: Is this your position, then? Because it's a different one to what you were saying a moment ago. But sure, here goes: Tunnelling is when a survivor is chased immediately after they are unhooked, typically but not exclusively repeated to make sure they die ASAP. That's tunnelling. Genrushing is when survivors bring stacked toolboxes and accompanying perk builds (or whatever the strongest tools would be, if those current options ever get nerfed) to get the gens done ASAP. That's genrushing.

Gen tunnelling would be a different thing if it existed (which is the entire point of this thread), as would "killrushing" (I guess would be the term) if it existed, but this definition of tunnelling and genrushing encompasses only the most extreme examples on both sides. You might notice this is also the definition for both I've been using this whole time, lol.

Okay I'm gonna tackle these in the order you posted them, not by the associated number, just so you don't get confused by my answers here.

1: We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, from my perspective it's pretty clear you can win while playing inefficiently. It doesn't become efficient just because you got the desired result, that's not what efficiency means. You don't actually have to care about playing efficiently, it's totally okay to just care about the end screen and not how efficiently you got there.

2: Nope, no double standard. I am expecting nothing of either side, as I've said. I'm honestly not sure where you're getting this from at this point, I've already point blank told you that's not what I expect. I acknowledge that skill expression exists, but can be circumvented, and that's... somehow a double standard where I expect killers to "make poor game decisions in the name of skill expression" (??? it's better game decisions if it's skill expression, my friend, this is a very strange thing to say), even though I say I straight up advocate taking shortcuts instead of doing the most difficult thing all the time?

This is the exact opposite of what I'm saying, at this point I genuinely don't know how to read this in good faith.

3: Alright, so now we're back to: When there is a clear problem, why is a bad thing to have a term that describes it? Forget how others use it, people misuse words all the time. IF the term "genrushing" describes ONLY the most extreme example, as I've said is my definition multiple times, is that not a term with both meaning and a reason to exist? Similarly, IF the definition of "tunnelling" describes ONLY the extreme example I laid out in my previous post, what's the issue with using it?

I think you're really very confused on what skill expression means. If it's a show of better skill, it is inherently better at winning the game, because that's the only kind of skill being measured here.

The only real exception to this that exists is tunnelling, because it requires less skill than spreading pressure but is exponentially harder to counter than it is to perform. For every other relevant avenue of skill expression in the game, doing it well increases your chances of winning, no matter which role you're playing. If it doesn't, it's an irrelevant skill to this conversation, obviously.

As for the list of skill expression that survivors are supposed to show, why would I need that? I don't have a list of skill expressions that I expect killers to show, so why would I need one for survivors? That's not a rhetorical question, I am asking you because I do want an answer.

Regarding what you think tunnelling gens is - sure, but that's not what killer tunnelling looks like. Tunnelling for the killer is when you hard focus one of your four objectives. As I've laid out elsewhere in the thread, it's also playing very inefficiently so that you can put yourself in an advantageous spot after you've finished doing it, which is only as strong as it is because that inefficiency is very difficult to punish.

So, in order for survivors to "tunnel" generators, they would need to hard focus one of their seven objectives and play very inefficiently in the short term to gain an advantage later on. As you might be able to tell, that's not reeeeaaally a thing? It's somewhat doable, but if any survivors did it, it'd work out pretty well for the killer compared to the alternatives.

I can sorta-kinda get behind the framing of "brute force" gameplay, I think that's a little more on the money... but brute force gameplay for survivors would still just be genrushing, IE, bringing the fastest tools and being extremely aggressive in completing all the gens. As I've also laid out, the equivalent to that on the killer side isn't tunnelling - it doesn't even really exist. You could maybe say that bringing the best tools and being extremely aggressive in completing all your objectives was possible in a way that's comparable to genrushing back when, say, Nurse could equip Exposed and speedrun a victory, but even that wasn't as reliable as genrushing and isn't even possible anymore.

I think one of the big reasons for this comparison gaining traction is that a lot of people seem to honestly think that tunnelling is "just doing your objective very efficiently", when the entire point of tunnelling is that it's not even efficient to begin with at all, it's a shortcut trading on short-term inefficiency to gain strength later. IF tunnelling were just being very efficient, there'd be a direct comparison to survivors being very efficient, at least as far as survivor and killer gameplay can be compared directly. Since it's not, though, that comparison doesn't hold any water.