Revolutionizing Dead by Daylight's Endgame: A Bold Proposal to Remove the Hatch Mechanic

I think the pre-Mikaela Hatch was the best version of the Hatch we had (although the delayed Key usage post-Mikaela is better).

1. Hatch is a tie for matchmaking purposes, so even a 3 Hatch escape is a Killer win (K/T/T/T)
2. Hatch only punished boring playstyles with an anticlimactic end that still was a Killer win (tunneling someone out early, 3-genning), which we added the regression limit mechanic to address when we already had it solved. Also an anticlimactic end makes it less preferable to gate escapes, which encourages playing the game out through the normal gen+gate channel.
3. If the Survivors could have gotten a 4-out through the gates, they deliberately choose to give the Killer better results by going out through hatch. (S/S/S/S → T/T/T/T)

Hatch was great for the game, and it has only been nerfed to good. We shouldn't seek to make the game even worse by removing it entirely.

First off there was 2 'old Hatch' mechanics. The Hatch standoff (which is fair to complain about since it would extend match time), and the better pre-Mikaela Hatch (which was basically just the current hatch but allowed multiple people to escape with a Key+'Gens Remaining<=Dead Survs').

It wasn't great in and of itself, it was great because of what it prevented and discouraged.

Tie issue: It works best when the Survivor team basically knows it would be a lost match, and this allows for them to reasonably fight for a lesser loss instead of an impossible win. Keeping hope is important, and Kobes every other match are what happens when hope is snuffed out. Also both the Survivors and Killers can already 'spoof' MMR by hiding to die to EGC or dropping Survs out of the gates, so that isn't a Hatch unique issue.

Game worse by removing Hatch: Because again, hope is important. If the match is doomed, we get Nurse and SM Kobes from the start. That means the match never gets to be played. If the last Survivor at least has the hope of Hatch, then they won't play Metal Gear Solid for years. The only time currently that is an issue is when 2 Survivors are left with too many gens to complete. That means the Killer when too hard on them, and the Killer is annoyed as a consequence. It punishes Survivor annoyance with Killer annoyance, and ideally that means Killer plays more like a DM role, or is willing to take riskier chases or attempt riskier plays to give the Survivors more hope and the Killer an opportunity to learn a new skill to add to their repertoire.

With or without Hatch the final 2 Survs playing Metal Gear Solid will be an issue. They both are going to hide to hope the other person is dead first. The Killer bleeding out for the 4k is nothing but BM, and honestly should be reportable under the rules as intended (they literally call one of the subsections 'Unsportsmanlike Conduct').

The best way to end a clear win is by letting the Survivor take Hatch. It fits the theme of a 'final girl' escaping the Killer. It is RNG, thus not an earned win, so there is no lost face. It doesn't give the Survivor MMR (unlike closing Hatch and slipping up on gate patrols can). It gives Survivor 7k BP which is better for the player economy. It saves time rather than waiting out the 2m EGC timer. Like the only reason to go for a 4k is a tome/achievement, which can simply be fixed by counting Hatch+3k for those.

… In what universe does anyone survivive for two minutes on a very likely already completely dead map when the killer knows pretty much exactly where they are?

On the two survivors left scenario: this discourages slugging, which is good. - However, I can't see how it incentivizes survs to engage with gens. - Quite the contrary: if you know you'll get downed and hooked once you're found the hiding will get even more intense.

Maybe combine the two; repairing gens reduces the time you have to survive by one second per charge. - So if you manage to get an entire gen worth repaired when only you and someone else are left you just have to last for 30 seconds to get out. This would actively incentivise survs to get on gens even if only two are left. With maps shrinking I also don't really see a patrolling issue for killer. - Maybe even bump all gens' progress up to the point where for five of them to be completed a total of 180 charges are needed (so gens will get completed, further reducing the patrol radius for the killer, while also giving both survs the chance to collect enough charges to reasonably escape if they end up being the last one).

2vs1 mechanic you suggest is too powerful for survivors 300% recover speed is too much. But I would solve it with simple bleedout button.

Your 1vs1 is quaranteed 4K for killer unless he is bad. So hatch should stay and I would find it fine to spawn already in 2vs1 closed. Maybe just add new objective to get it open.

The old hatch was very unhealthy and made the game worse.

It didn't punish unfun play styles like tunnelling and slugging, it encouraged it. If the killer played for 12 hooks and then killed someone at 1 gen remaining, it was GG. All 3 are gone now because they brought a key. The counter play to that was to sweat your butt off and try to kill them all before you got down to 2 gens remaining to prevent the guaranteed 2-3 man escape. You had to tunnel the key user out earlier or slug everyone so that you don't spawn the hatch too early. And that was only if you knew they had a key. Some survivor animations made it ridiculously difficult to tell if they had a key in the lobby AND you could find it in a chest and suddenly it's a free win.

Punishing the killer for "going too hard" on the survivors is also not fair at all. 2 survivors at 2 gens isn't uncommon and isn't going too hard at all. It would like if the killer only has 4 hooks at the end game, 2 survivors suddenly die as punishment for being too good. That's not fair. You shouldn't have to purposefully play bad to avoid losing.

Old hatch was awful for the game. It just made the game sweatier and less enjoyable. If the main reason you want it is to avoid Nurse and Skull Merchant games, then I think the better solution is to change those killers rather than make a mechanic that punishes the other killers harder (because games against those 2 are more likely to never 1-2 gens, it's much less likely the hatch mechanic will come into play against them but against Trapper it would be too common and game changing).

I’m talking about the same hatch as you. Any time the hatch could be opened before every gen was completed/being the last survivor alive was unhealthy and unfun to deal with.

You couldn’t make sure the key holder was the one who died first because:

1. It was pretty difficult to even see if someone had a key
2. They often went into hiding towards the end so you couldn’t find them.
3. The rest of the team played aggressively to guard and you couldn’t even do anything about it because as soon as they die it’s over

You couldn’t guard the key because the survivors could just instantly pick it up. They don’t need to do gens at all because as soon as you leave the key spot it’s over and they win. You couldn’t close the hatch because that triggered EGC and instantly repaired all the remaining gens. You had to wait for it to close itself and that just gave the survivors time to work on gens unpressured and it STILL felt awful because the survivor just escaped in your face for free.

It was also incredibly unfun to experience it as a solo queue survivor because your teammate would be getting tunnelled and you just have to sit on a gen all game. And then they would just dip and leave you to die anyway. And it made survivor queue times really long since killers would dodge lobbies with keys. And then survivors started last seconds switching so killers started leaving during the loading screen. So it just took forever.

I’m all for giving survivors more BP but I really don’t see how that is anyway comparable. 25k BP is not the same as an instant loss. Besides killers don’t even get bonus BP when survivors give up on hook anyway so I fail to see how that is comparable.

There’s nothing wrong with going easy on people when it is clearly in your favour, I do the same often, however the game should not balanced around that.

I really don’t think there was anything good about the previous hatch design. Unless you were playing in a SWF, it was just a miserable time to play a game with a key. It was way too stressful as killer to deal with it and as a solo survivor it was boring. The current version we have isn’t perfect and I wouldn’t mind some changes to it, but the hatch should never be anything more than a last chance escape.

I don't think something is healthy if it is unfun for the majority of the player base.

As I said multiple times, it didn't discourage anything. You had to tunnel and slug to counter it. Camping the key user out was also very common. The only I guess it did help was 3 gens, but as you said the regression limit takes care of that and is much healthier for the game.

Yes you still get teammates give up when it's hopeless, you still had those back then but you also had survivors abandon you even when you could have still won. 3 survivors left at 1 gen is very possible to win. Have one of them leave and suddenly those other 2 are screwed.

Yes dodging is a problem but it was WAY worse back then. If we just go by the logic of "it's still an issue so why not make it worse?" then the game would have died years ago. I do think lobby dodging should have some fix, but unfortunately they can't do anything about that until they fix OCE getting stuck in 150+ ping lobbies every second game. Which I doubt will happen anytime soon sadly.

From an MMR point of view, yes you technically gained MMR, but I wouldn't call it a win from a players POV. If anything it was worse to gain MMR because then you were more likely to play against the teams that keys. It felt awful either way and I really don't think it was good for the game simply because it kinda discouraged one playstyle.

As for the BP gains, sure increase them, who cares? But that scenario still isn't comparable. The killer isn't playing whereas the survivors with the key were. Your aren't being punished for outplaying on the killer, you are being punished because the BP gains are already low and the killer just isn't playing. An actual comparable thing would be if the killer plays bad they can bring an item that instantly kills you. Like the original moris.

It's clear that we disagree and I'm not going to try and convince you when we both won't change our minds, so let's just agree to disagree.

Against Trapper who doesn't have traps on game - maybe. Remember he knows where you are every 10 seconds and is able to path more efficiently to your location. And even then I doubt it's gonna be 2 minutes until down. — But even if it is. That 1v1 mechanic at the end is a killer win on anyone except no-mobility M1 killers, which also don't have stealth or a way to intercept you/block your pathing. So that would be … Freddy? Even Trapper usually has traps he can place in strategic places during the 2v1.

This could work as a new game mode. Idk if the community want this change for the main game.

Remove the killer instinct, it's too OP.

I understand you want to end slugging. And survivors have more than enough perks against slugging. Even I usually run slugging perks to maybe survive, or help my team.

I know this might sound boring, but slugging is a part of the game, the same as tunneling. It's not against the game rules.

The only mechaninc most of the community is asking for. Is a way to faster bleed out. People want to go in for the next round.

Your idea is cool. But I don't think this is a good change for the game. Maybe try it out as a game mode and get peoples opinion about it.

Could there be another way to get less slugging in game? I guess having a basekit unbreakable for one use would hinder slugging. Or buff unbreakable to infinite recover with a faster speed increase recovering.

There was a PTB with basekit UB and it was never mentioned again after that PTB. Basekit UB on all occasions isn't it. - Having it be limited to the 2v1 situation seems, honestly, fine to me; bleed out is one thing but the killer is the "offending" party by bending over backwards and deliberately ignoring their objective. At that point there isn't really any way to abuse UB anymore; any killer who wants to avoid UB getting abused simply has to hook the survivor they downed. That's the fastest way for everyone to move on to next match.

That's part of what I think is inaccurate, it isn't unfun for the majority of the playerbase, because the majority of the playerbase isn't playing into making the worst aspects of it happen. It is a mirror shield of unfun, where you only get blinded if you tried to blind someone else. Not enough of the game gives empathy for the other side, and this gave a needed empathy reflection for many Killer players.

Camping/tunneling the Key user out doesn't delete the key from the match, it stays on hook or where they last dropped it. So this is a petulant child's reaction, that is ill served by taking this route. The best countermeasure is to keep track of Survivors, and kill the key user first after a long enough match that the Survivors no longer had a Key escape in their mind.

I mean I get Survivors abandoning SM and Nurse matches when we can still win, so again, not a Key/Hatch issue. People using Sole Survivor are doing this 'abandon the team at the slightest bit of resistance' playstyle to this day, and they are rewarded with Gate Escapes.

Dodging worse then, I suppose we have to agree to disagree. I think dodging is far worse since P100's being visible in the lobby were seen. Maybe that's just my experience vs yours. Also I'm West Coast america(s) and get VPN Killers from across the Pacific ALL THE TIME. I check their steam profile and see a certain nation show up far more often than any other, and I know they have a server far closer than mine (and even EU servers are closer than mine). I don't know OCE server situation, so I can't speak to that issue.

The MMR issue makes my point for me, a win where you made someone feel bad should feel bad in return. That's what old Hatch did. I can win consistently attempting 8 hooks before my first kill (9th hook being first kill), and when I had that playstyle back in Rank based matchmaking, old Keys/Hatch were never an issue for me.

My whole point with BP was addressing your issue of 'punishment'. Survivors are still 'punished' to this day for playing the game in a manner that isn't annoying to the other side, yet we changed this issue 'punishing' undesired Killer behaviors back to encouraging them.

On your final point, that's fine with me if you choose to respond or not. These are asynchronous conversations that aren't only for us two, but also all other readers.

Just because I have to do a great deal of math to prove my point, doesn't mean I'm fixated on it. It truly is a 1-2 sentence issue should you choose to read the 2nd to last paragraph in my reply to the other person. When I post 4 paragraphs and you think 1 paragraph is a 'fixation', that tells me there is either an issue with my communication, or your interpretation.

3 Survs escaping through Hatch wasn't happening at nearly the rate people are reporting, and it was rarely an issue even when they brought a key. Plus it provides a great deal of comfort to me that I now know that they don't have Toolboxes or Medkits, things that can actually affect normal matches to a meaningful degree (especially with old Medkits).

So I generally try to think of how people can abuse things when I'm not the one suggesting the idea, and I just had a 'work with Killer' Survivor recently, so what would a 'work with Killer' Survivor do here?

The honest Survivor would attempt a gen, but the other Survivor is just going to search lockers and whatnot, and abuse the HUD to seek them out. The honest Surv doesn't have enough time to search for a gen and tap it to prevent this. We can't prevent people from working with Killer, but we can give the honest players enough info for a report.

1. Make the Killer Instinct delay a little bit longer, and recover up to say 30s from continuous gen work. So a gen tap sets it to 10s (must prevent regression if it is applied though), then 20s of pumping gens raises it to 30s.
2. Make the Killer Instinct a per-player timer, that way the rat/Working With Killer player gets revealed, and also reveal them to the other player when this happens.
3. Make the Killer Instinct timer reset to 30s when revealed, that way if someone is ratting the entire time, they don't get off scott-free if the Killer can't find them within the 3s initial Killer Instinct.
4. Maybe pause the Killer Instinct timer (at a max of 10s left on the timer) if the Survivor is within the greater of Terror Radius/16m or in chase. Stealth shouldn't be entirely removed as an option, especially if someone is actually pumping a gen to save the timer then slipping out safely. Also a chased player doesn't need Killer Instinct as the Killer should down them eventually.

With those, it would give an honest Survivor enough time to record evidence of Working With Killer for a report, not delete stealth entirely, and also eliminate the edge case of not finding someone within 3s of Killer Instinct.