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We need changes to help with 'Holding the Game hostage' Body blocking scenarios

Emeal
Emeal Member Posts: 5,167
edited August 15 in Feedback and Suggestions

Hey DBD Team,

I wanted to bring up an issue that’s been bothering the community yet again, even though it might not be a widespread problem. It’s about killers holding survivors hostage by body blocking in a corner or hiding spot. This tactic leads to unfair situations that, right now, can’t be automatically resolved by players and end up needing customer support to step in and punish the offender later. While you could keep banning people for doing it, one of the reasons it keeps happening is because players sometimes act on their human emotions—getting vengeful or spiteful in the heat of the moment. It’s only a matter of time before someone else does the same. I think there’s a better way to handle this that would take the load off your support team and improve gameplay for the victims of such a scenario.

Proposal for Automatic Detection and Resolution of Hostage Situations:

Hitbox Interaction Timer: If two hitboxes (Survivor and Killer) stay in close proximity without significant movement for more than 5 seconds, the game should automatically reduce the Survivor’s hitbox collision. This adjustment would let Survivors escape from a Killer trying to hold them hostage, without removing the tactical aspect of body blocking during brief melee encounters.

Survivor Hitbox Adjustment: To enhance fluidity during gameplay, I suggest introducing a smaller internal hitbox for Survivors, specifically for collision detection. This would make it easier for Survivors to slide past each other and avoid getting stuck in tight spots or when three other survivors block you in, all while preserving the integrity of the game’s mechanics.

This issue has come up many times in the community, and this is my latest take on a solution. The goal is to keep the strategic element of body blocking while preventing its abuse, which goes against the game’s rules. By automating the detection and resolution of these scenarios, you could reduce the need for manual intervention and make the game better for everyone—both those getting trapped and those trying to break the rules.

Thanks for considering this suggestion. I know this problem probably seems tiresome right now, but I do think it’s worth discussing this idea again for the sake of improving the game we all enjoy to be a little more immune to spite and vengeance.

Comments

  • Ohyakno
    Ohyakno Member Posts: 1,206

    "The community"? I've seen this like..... Maybe twice since I started playing around the release of blight.

    It's already reportable. It's already bannable. It's not with the suite of bugs that would surely accompany bespoke code required to tackle this thing that happens once every few hundred games.

  • epi
    epi Member Posts: 55

    just cause you don’t see it or it’s not prevelant in the DBD forum threads, doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing. A lot of people complain about this. It’s a known thing.

  • Ohyakno
    Ohyakno Member Posts: 1,206

    A lot of people complain about a lot of stuff that basically never happens. For a minute there were constant threads about people using bond and empathy to lead killers to survivors maliciously. That's not really a thing and not worth the resources it'd take to address it. Just like writing and implementing the code required to do this on top of debugging if simply isn't worth the effort.

    And it's not merely my experience, it's my experience multiplied by four. I don't see it happen to my teammates. I don't see killers doing it. It's just one of those things that happens every few hundred games, somebody gets upset and kneejerk posts about it instead of just reporting and requeing and treating it like the non issue it is.

  • Emeal
    Emeal Member Posts: 5,167

    Seemingly correct.
    I have also not seen this problem in like forever, however here we are back again, singing the same song again.
    You could even argue the problem is so small the players who still do it deserve their punishment. I might agree.

    I just want bHVR to build a solution that will plug that little hole in the Game Design, so we don't have to hear about it again.
    And I think the humanity angle is probably the best motivation bHVR is ever going to get this side of the next controversy.

  • epi
    epi Member Posts: 55

    what do you even mean "happenens few hundred games". being blocked by someones box is so common and not a pasing thing. When you go to heal, when youre trying to go around surv/killer, when youre just walking, when youre trying to crouch walk cause the killer is in the vicinity etc, its in the game.

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 8,818

    just do the twins change on every killer. if your near the same survivor for 60 seconds, you lose collision until you hit someone.

  • Nightram
    Nightram Member Posts: 144

    I really like this. This can prevent people from getting temporary to permament ban.

    Will the same 5 seconds include if 2 or 1 survivor bodyblock you as well?

    In endgame or in the exit gates, survivors shouldn't have collision. Some survivors bodyblock a survivor at the end of the endgame collapse.

    Some survivors run a marathon from across the map to find a exit gate. Sometimes the timer gets slim. And that one survivor standing there to block you. I believe this case dosen't happen much. But the adrenaline to run to make it in time is a good drive. Until someone crashes it.

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,420

    Good idea that shouldn't have any problems implementing.

    I do have an alternative preference though, probably more difficult to implement and would need testing, and could change up gameplay a bit. I think that players should be able to be 'pushed' out of the way, with a bit of resistance of course.

    Let's say a killer is standing still, and a survivor is running 'into' them. This would result in the survivor pushing the killer backwards at say... 0.5m/s.

    This would prevent bodyblocking from being a passive action. If you wanted to bodyblock someone you would have to continuously push in the opposite direction, with the likely chance of getting the direction slightly off and ultimately sliding past them once they've moved a little.

    This could also alter player-player interactions in genera and could lead to more nuanced interactions. In this sense it would also be a slight nerf to survivors bodyblocking a hook, particularly if the relative 'weight' of a killer increases while carrying a survivor, tipping the scales so that the killer has more 'force' than a bodyblocking survivor and that survivor is 'only' slowing the killer down rather than outright blocking them.