4 Solutions for Survivors Giving Up on Hook

Hello everyone, as some may have noticed there has been a lot of discussion in the past several months surrounding survivors attempting on the hook and then missing skillchecks to go into their next game as soon as possible. It's generally not fun for either side when this happens. In an attempt to steer the discourse in a bit of a productive fashion, there are 4 main solutions I can think of to fix this issue:

1. Do not allow survivors to attempt on the hook. This will prevent the luck mechanic from being used entirely which has a positive impact on the game as it becomes increasingly competitive. It will also create a barrier to giving up which will stop some players from going next since it is harder now. These players may instead opt to disconnect, which will leave their teammates with a bot instead of no player.

One downside to this approach is that it doesn't prevent players who still want to go next without having a DC penalty to AFK or grief the match in other ways. To then suggest banning players who do this means we are willing to ban anyone who doesn't play in a way that helps the team. Does that also include those who stealth or play for hatch? It becomes difficult to figure out where to draw the line, and is quite an aggressive stance personally. Even if we did go full banning on this, wouldn't that mean that lots of survivor players get banned? Wouldn't that affect killer queue times? Of course it's possible survivors may not want to get banned but they may also just play less or leave if that is their choice, so it's unclear that this would truly be effective to me.

2. This is sort of like the opposite approach, and we allow for no DC penalty. This would guarantee the team is left with a bot instead of no player. It also allows players to leave in case they have some sort of phobia related to a particular killer without worry of punishment. It may even encourage some self-regulation in the community of playstyles or killers and this may serve as useful data for changes.

A possible downside here is that many players may feel less of a need to learn in a match if they could just leave instead. They may also have a greater number of things they are willing to leave over if they can leave faster. Games with bots are not preferable to games with other people, so this doesn't really solve the issue either, unless it does help the community regulate itself(much like the possibility above).

3. Find the Main Reasons Why Survivors Give Up and Address Them. This one is the hardest solution but IMO the best one. To be clear, some people will give up for any number of reasons such as not enjoying a particular map or killer or perk even if some of these things may benefit the survivor player. However, there used to not be a culture of giving up years ago and now that it is here there is good cause to consider this if nothing else I believe.

The upside of this solution is that you don't have to change the existing system, or if you did change things like attempting on hook it would mostly be done for balance reasons and not to punish people wishing to leave. You also would probably have a happier survivor playerbase, and some killers would probably appreciate having full games regularly too.

The downsides of this include it being the hardest solution by far. How does someone figure out the true reasons behind why people leave, or if certain feedback is representative of everyone or just a smaller group of players? Also it is probable that many solutions that may make survivors happier would make killers unhappier. Would killers AFK more then? It wasn't true in the past when survivors were much much stronger than today, but perhaps the culture of today is different.

While more can be said on this, it might be worth finding more feedback from players through the post-match screen and making it a more detailed survey players could fill out. It's likely that these forums and the occasional surveys that are posted bring more hardcore or dedicated players to respond, but finding a way to get more opinions would be in the game's best interest. I know this is something that is already going on seeing some recent changes and the announcement of the consultant program, but nonetheless it is worth mentioning this to see if further improvements can be made.

4. Do Nothing. Yep, this is a real solution I think. It's also the easiest one!

The upsides include focusing on whatever there seems to be more need for in the community, such as improving matchmaking or other changes which may affect giving up anyway. You also don't make any direct change that makes the situation worse or that seems to favor one side or the other. Perhaps the community will still regulate itself this way eventually anyway, with survivors that don't wish to play just leaving the game.

The downsides here possibly include more survivors just leaving the game. This could make killer queues much longer, and possibly make it harder to buff more killers if it means less survivors will play. It may also look like BHVR doesn't care about the issue, which may not be true at all.



So anyway those are my thoughts about the current situation and why it seems like no big solution has been found or used yet. I'm hoping this can be a bit useful to BHVR and perhaps some consideration for those who say there is a simple quick fix to this ongoing issue.