Is tunneling killing the game?

For every survivor that wants a horrible abusable mechanic to alleviate tunneling, there's a killer who wants an equally horrible and abusable mechanic to deal with those pesky SWFs.

It is an objective of the killer. As much as preventing hook states is an objective of the survivors. I've played many a game where the killer has ignored the other three survivors sitting on gens while they've just been looped around shack for the last minute. They lost because they didn't defend their generators.

My point is that neither will ever get what they want. No matter how loudly they demand it, there is just no way to implement mechanics to counter tunneling and swf without punishing those players for it. Bhvr have already said in the past that they don't want to punish playstyles.

Look at the anti-camping mechanic. The primary purpose of it is to prevent face-camping, and ensure that the person hooked gets to play the game. Camping, as a tactic, is still possible and has come out relatively unaffected.

Basekit BT didn't even arise to alleviate tunneling. It was introduced to prevent hook farming. Survivors using it to bodyblock just end up back on hook anyway, since they've just made it clear that they aren't interested in getting away from the killer.

It's not killing the game, but I think it does affected an important part of the playerbase - the newer players.

People who have been playing this game for time may or may not be bothered, because they know it's not always the case. Doesn't make it any less frustrating, but it's something they've grown accustomed to.

New players wanting to try the game out, only to be tunnelled because a Killer identified them as the weakest player, is going to become rather frustrated if their first experiences revolve around this.

I feel that excessive tunnelling at the lower end where newer players are just wanting to learn the game is the most harmful, because it actively reduces those coming in. If some solution was made for tunnelling which drastically reduces it, I believe way more players would stay.

I think it'd have to be the full list of Conspicuous Actions, it wouldn't be fair for a survivor to - for example - be able to cleanse a hex totem without the killer being able to stop them. It'd also need to disable in endgame like other anti-tunnel protections.

Other than that, it's an extreme measure but I don't think it'd harm the game in any meaningful way. The only real potential abuse is a SWF using them as an info-reporter, but there's not actually anything stopping them from doing that right now and that's one survivor off gens basically permanently. A good trade, in my opinion.

What do gen perks have to do with tunneling? If a killer is utilizing numerous gen perks, they probably aren't tunneling. Also, gens still don't take long to complete. A decent runner should be able to run a killer long enough for a couple of gens to pop. As for the things they have added to combat tunneling, you have perks like Borrowed Time, D strike, Second Wind, Dead Hard, Windows, Sprint Burst, Off the Record, among others. They've also added in a built in Borrowed Time type mechanic, hook camping gauge, among others.

Now, this is a game full of RNG, so sometimes the killer you are facing or the map you are on or the layout of the map makes it hard or impossible to run the killer as long as you'd like. But that goes both ways, the killer can be equally handcuffed by the map or the layout randomly generated on a map.

Any system where a survivor is immune until another survivor is hooked is not going to work because they will abuse it. You can add qualifiers to it or gameplay elements that disable it but again, just look at what they already do. You can have a survivor run to a hook and unhook someone and that rescued survivor will body block you because they know they are invincible. And then if you down them they'll complain that you tunneled.

It all comes back to survivors playing the game well. It's incredibly easy to punish a camping tunneling killer. But too many survivors would rather swarm the hook and try to entice the killer to chase. You aren't going to be able to prevent a killer from tunneling if the killer is set on doing it. All you can do is punish by rushing through gens.

and what would that system be? Because the one presented is not any good. Obviously survivors who body block off the hook and then complain about tunneling are in the wrong but the point is lots of survivors have that mentality.

those perks help against tunneling because they provide distance and lots of information. Also how is knocking out gens not an ideal solution to tunneling? A tunneling killer getting 15k points max and at most two kills is a great way to make them pay for camping and tunneling.

survivors need to play better.

Tunneling has never been a rare occurrence, I've seen others get tunneled, I've been tunneled, but I usually get some sort of respite in between those matches and its easy to shake off the bad experience and move on. The good and neutral matches outweigh the bad.... usually.

A few days ago, I had probably THE funnest day in solo-q I will ever have, and I didn't escape a single match. I was farming "Scenic Moris". I sported a couple different Mori themed names and let killers Mori me. Out of like 16 matches only 2 killers didn't bring me a Mori, the 14 who did made it really fun. None of them tunneled me out for the mori, they all played normally, and when they went to mori me they walked around the map to look for a cool location, checked out all the angles and the lighting and I got some really cool screenshots from it.

The next day, after I had my fun and changed my name back, was the WORST solo-q experience I've ever had. Over the course of the day I played about 27+ matches. I was hard tunneled, from the start of the match mind you, for 23 matches in a row. I died every game as the only survivor with hooks. After the second match where I was farmed off hook by a Nea, I decided to put on an Anti-Tunnel build, and it became NECESSARY for me to stay in the game long enough to see any gens get completed. OTR, DS, Boil Over, Flip Flop, was my go to.

In those 23 matches I saw every single reaction you could possible see from my teammates.

• I had teammates farm me off hook while they were mid chase with the killer
• I had teams ignore me completely and just do gens
• I had teams drop everything to hinder the killer at every chance possible
• I had teams just stand there and watch me get tunneled, 0 gen progress, just watched like it was their favorite prime time tv show.

At one point on Lery's I even had a Yui 3-man SWF go "Seal Team 6" on a Death Slinger to help me. And I mean it when I say they were FLAWLESS with it. As soon as they realized what was going on, they methodically cycled out to take hits for me in places where I would have gone down or gave me the opportunity to make great distance. Got 2 flashlight saves, and between Boil Over and body blocking I even wiggled free. Even with them constantly having my back they still managed to get 4 gens done before I was finally sacrificed. Unfortunately I never got to thank them as by that point I was so drained I just went next and didn't even think to stick around until I had already left.

I frankly don't care if it's "The Meta", it is the most soul sucking experience ever and I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone. I have never wanted to hold left click in front of a gen more than that moment. My idea of fun in dbd isn't winning, its simply having a match where I actually get to play and leave feeling like I contributed to something. That is the minimum I want, and I don't think that's unreasonable. That being said, someones fun being entirely dependent on the opposing role allowing them to play the game is not a good principal to build the game on. I won't even pretent to know how to fix this, because I have no clue. But having other players and even devs chop up the entire conversation to "Get good" or "Theres no problem here" is insulting.

How do you propose the survivors prevent it?

The only real variable is how long the first chase lasts. The entire point of tunnelling is that every subsequent chase is significantly easier due to the survivor being injured, close to you, and more than likely in an area where resources have already been used. Dedicated anti-tunnel perks tend to be too weak to do their job or otherwise have some quirk preventing them from working properly, and even perks that aren't anti-tunnel tend to be fairly inconsistent in this context. Sure, sometimes you can give a tunnelling killer the slip if you get lucky, but that's luck, not repeatable skill.

Plus, I do have to ask the question again: Why should one player have to put in massive effort and tons of thought/preparation to counter something that requires extremely little effort and zero preparation from their opponent? Isn't that inherently unbalanced?

Again. How.

How does the survivor being tunnelled punish the killer for it? Their tools for doing so are very weak, if those tools were strong enough to reliably punish killers we wouldn't see nearly as much tunnelling.

How do the other survivors punish the killer for tunnelling? By rushing the gens and getting out? I think we have to acknowledge that nobody really enjoys games where one player is targeted out ASAP and the others have nothing to do but hold M1. That's even assuming they can rush the gens, considering the survivor being tunnelled needs outside help to stand much of a chance unless they get very lucky or they're exceptionally skilled.

And after those two questions, I once again bring you to the core question, and I do want an answer: Is it fair and balanced for one side to put in very little effort or thought, and force the other side to put in ten times as much effort and thought to maybe counter them? Is that an acceptable level of balance?

I know this is a month old, but an incentive will not lesson tunneling. It will just help the killer mains that are arelady good without it, and do nothing towards killers that actually tunnel.

The survivor being tunneled runs the killer as long as they can. The punishment comes from the other survivors doing gens and getting out. I don’t care about what survivors find fun or what killers find fun. I could just as easily say is it fun for a Trapper to have gens fly by while they try to play nice and 12 hook.

The amount of effort required is equally pointless. Survivor is a much easier role requiring not much effort. Some killers are so strong they require much less effort than others.

Im not sure why you’re expecting balance in a strategy that can easily throw the game for the killer. And it’s also a strategy that is present in virtually every 4v1 type game.

Again, it’s on the survivors to play well.

Forced Penance makes you broken when taking a protection hit.

Why can't the same code/script be used for DS so you get punished/broken when trying to use it offensively?

Then back to 5s stun and deactivate end game.

The. End.

If they got downed in a dead zone then that’s on them. If they used a ton of resources in the chase and the gens aren’t flying then that’s on the survivors.

You can go to effort all you want, the killer is still exuding more effort than the survivors. There is no fair or unfair in the build you decide to use. Survivors have options, just like killers have options. A killer can run an entire gen defense build. Buying your teammates time to do gens doesn’t require a full build. You can run one or two perks for it and do whatever you want with the rest. Or run a full variety of perks and don’t worry about whether you’re going to get tunneled or not. It rarely happens to me.

This will be my last reply on the issue, we’re just going to keep going back and forth. Per usual, the issue just boils down to survivors needing to play better.