Bad gameplay to win (killers)

While it happens, both survivors hard hiding and forcing me to waste 5+ minutes finding them is rare in my experience. Most players are willing to engage.

If there was no hatch, you would see mass giving up whenever someone dies at 3 or earlier gens, whenever there's an afk survivor, whenever someone gets tunneled, etc. Which is extremely boring for both the other survivors and the killer. The possibility of hatch encourages survivors to keep competing when their objective is otherwise improbable instead of hurrying on to the next, potentially winnable game, or refusing to play out of spite. Yes, people already do these things… but you underestimate the potential of things to get worse.

The hatch is handholding because it rewards Survivors for failing at their objectives. Slugging is not handholding because the Killer had to play well by find the Survivors and out play them while hitting them twice in order to down them.

It’s fair because the Killer worked for the Slug and 4K while the Survivor failed and yet still get another hand out to keep playing.

It is hand-holding though. The hatch has been an objective for forever in DbD and is part of intended game design. Slugging for the 4K is circumventing that game design and giving the Killer more time to find the last survivor when the Killer may not have found the last survivor if the Killer had used a hook. If it were within the same time period as a hook there would have been more validity to your argument but it's not; it's deliberately drawing the match out to make it easier for the Killer. That's hand-holding.

Slugging is not handholding since the Killer has to work for it and play well in order to get any use out of it. There’s no handholding since the Killer is actively playing well to take advantage of the Slug. They also take a risk in losing the slug since the slug might have perks to crawl away faster and pick themselves up or get picked up by their teammate.

Whereas Hatch is a reward for the final Survivor for failing at all of their main objectives and all they need to do is get lucky to find it first or bring in an offering to tell them where it’s going to be. Slugging is not circumventing game design at all since the devs design Killers like Twins, Oni and Hillbilly with abilities that shine when Slugging. They also have perks like Knockdown and Third Seal to promote it.

Just because something is an intended mechanic and has been in the game for a long time doesn’t mean it’s not handholding.

If that one survivor outlasted all the others then they didn’t fail. They don’t deserve to die because their teammates did. If that survivor manages to loop the killer all game so the killer gives up on chases with them to go for the other teammates who may be weaker, how did that survivor fail? Hatch is not a reward for failing its a reward for surviving and outlasting.

Yes, there are plenty of double standards all over the game with both “sides.” People complain about certain tactics and playstyles because the imbalance of skill it creates. For example- tunneling. It is much easier to tunnel than it is to survive tunneling, which is why it is so strong. People complain because it doesn’t feel deserved when one “side” has to work much harder to counter something that isn’t as difficult on the other “side.” Like old MFT or flash bangs etc. Not to mention the counter to many tactics are perk dependent on paid characters while the tactics can be done perkless, but that’s a different discussion.

Outlasting the Killer and being unattractive to chase is only one part of the game. You still have to complete objectives in order to succeed. Youre still a part of a team whether we like it or not. It’s just part of the risk of playing as Survivor. Surviving as the final Survivor still means you failed at everything else and are still getting an extra chance at failing.

Killer tactics and playstyles will always seem unbalanced since they’re the power role and as such need to be stronger in the 1vs1 and have their skill floor lower since they’re dealing with 4 people. If people want to higher the skill floor then Survivors will have to be nerfed somehow, but no one wants to talk about that.

You don’t need to buy special perks or play perkless. You can play just fine with the perks you get with the base game or earn with Shards. Now that you have BT as base-kit, an anti-face camp mechanic, and hook grabs are a thing of the past, there’s not much holding back solo-queue other then them not wanting to improve. This isn’t to say they don’t need some love such as a chat wheel, better matchmaking that queues serial DCers/hook suiciders at 5 gens in their own pool, but at some point Solo Queue players need to put in some effort at improving.

Survivors don't like being slugged for the 4K because just like the survivors stalling (and "surviving" technically), the Killer in that case is "stalling" to get the satisfaction of more kills instead of moving the game along.

I definitely wouldn't mind the idle crow system being a little bit more oppressive if the survivors don't interact with objectives, but at the same time slugging for the 4K needs to go.

Okay, let’s break this down then. It sounds like your position is that survivors fail if they do not complete 2 objectives. A) To survive and B) complete the gens. Now following this logic, the killer also has 2 similar objectives. A) To kill the survivors  and B) to stop gens from completing 

If your argument is that the survivor does not deserve to survive unless they complete all the gens regardless of team status, and open the gate regardless if they are alone, but killers are deserving of a win regardless of gen status, and only if they kill,  that’s an example of the double standard you mentioned disliking. It’s hypocritical to say that the survivor doesn’t deserve the hatch just because they didn’t complete all the gens, while at the same time claiming that killers don’t need to stop gens as long as they get kills. If the survivor surviving without finishing the gens is seen as ‘undeserved,’ then by the same logic, a killer failing to defend gens but still securing kills should also be viewed as ‘undeserved.’ This creates a double standard where survivors are expected to achieve both objectives (gens and survival) to win, but killers are only expected to complete one (killing), even if they fail the other. I don’t agree with either being true, which is why hatch being a “Hand holding mechanic” is not accurate. But I’m explaining the hypocrisy following your logic.

When discussing killer tactics, I prefer using specific examples due to their complexity. If you feel that base kit BT and anti-face camping measures have solved issues like tunneling and proxy camping, you’re entitled to that opinion. However, I disagree. I believe those tactics are still very strong, and the existence of perks designed to counter them suggests that they remain difficult to overcome. But again, that’s a different discussion. 

Hmm, maybe because the server timeout is too long. Perhaps it should be shortened to something like 15min. Then it would be a more comparable timer: The Survivors managed to "hideout" the Killer. Hmm, then Survivors would have the option of "Gens or Hideout" and the Killer has the option of "Hooks or Bleedout". That might be more balanced. Maybe not fun, but balanced.

And when survivors hide from the Killer until server timeout they're working for it too. The killer has all the agency they need to try and find the survivors. Maybe not the tools though. But would it really be fair to deprive the survivors of that hard work with something base-kit?

No, they wouldn't' be sacrificed, they'd have "escaped" the Killer/Killer couldn't find them and kill them.

The argument that a survivor who reaches the endgame is still a failure because gens weren’t completed completely dismisses survivor skill. You’re suggesting killers deserve their kills because they outplayed survivors, but when a survivor makes it to the endgame, they didn’t outplay the killer—they just got lucky with hatch.

This view doesn’t hold up because to survive, a player has to consistently loop, outsmart the killer in mind games, and evade capture—this is the core of survivor skill. The survivors who make it to the endgame or hatch aren’t lucky, they’re the ones who successfully outlast others who couldn’t.

The hypocrisy here is clear: killers are considered successful if they kill, regardless of whether gens were done, but a survivor who survives via hatch is considered undeserving because they didn’t complete the gens. If hatch is "handholding" then by that logic, endgame perks or tactics that activate after gens are completed should also be considered "handholding" because they compensate for the killer's failure to stop gens from being done.

(Also, just to clarify, I’m not discussing slugging. that was another point brought up by someone else. My focus here is solely on the claim that hatch is a ‘handholding’ mechanic.)

To downplay a survivor’s achievement in making it to hatch is to ignore the skill that got them there in the first place.

Survivors don’t have to consistently loop and play well to make it to endgame. They can just hide while watching their teammates die, which isn’t very skillful and I say this as someone who prefers stealth. Yes, Survivors who out-looped, out-mindgamed and made themselves at unattractive as possible to chase are skilled, but being a Survivor isn’t all about the chase. Sure, it’s the most fun aspect for a lot of people but it’s not the only thing that makes a Survivor good and deserving of an escape. Being a good teammate and helping your teammates live by body blocking, flashlight saving and knowing when to finish a gen or unhook a teammate is also part of being a good Survivor. Why do you think that good loopers deserve the added bonus of the hatch during endgame when the Killer outplayed their team as a whole?

There is no hypocrisy because Killers have to outplay their opponents and the game doesn’t change or do anything different at its core when they fail, whereas Survivors get the option for the hatch to spawn regardless of them being deserving of it or not. Or are you saying it’s okay to give the Killers something else to worry about when they’ve performed well during the trial just because a Survivor succeeded at only a part of the game?

As for endgame perks being hand holders, I’m not arguing against that. Perks in general are handholding both roles in areas that their user wants to be he supported in. As for endgame strategies, if Survivors lose because of them, then that’s on them because they failed to notice how the Killer is playing and take note of what perks they may be using during the trial and expect something to happen during endgame. Just like Killers need to account for Survivors coming into a match with a gen rush build, sabo build, Bully Squad Head-on & No Mither Build, stealth build or whatever else they want, Survivors need to expect that the Killer may be playing for an endgame build.

To prevent standoffs, the hatch should spawn with two survivors and it can be opened if found.

But it'll never happen because the game for whatever fosters this mentality that killers are entitled to a 4K and BHVR supports it. Survivors are not supposed to have a way out.

I’m sorry but there have been plenty of games where I have taken zero hooks, and ran the killer while my SoloQ teammates did MAYBE two gens. Usually one … but I’m being generous. So he gives up chase and goes after them. Now while I do gens … by myself, while they play flashlights and flash bangs terribly… and take hooks every 20 seconds, I don’t think my hand is being held for anything. The killer couldn’t catch me and does not deserve a 4K that they didn’t earn, despite my teammates being horrible.

And sometimes it’s not even that they’re horrible. It’s that they’d rather play the flashlight game than ever do generators, so it leaves it down to one person. Regardless, in my experience, the most time that a killer slugs to go look for last survivor is because they don’t have a hook on that survivor. So no they do not “deserve” a 4k. If you couldn’t catch me during the game, why do you think you suddenly deserve it at the end?

And while I do understand the other side of when a game goes very poorly for survivors, this is where, especially in SoloQ it becomes 1v1v1v1v1 and it’s still not a “hand-hold” it’s just not punishing all for the actions of some. Again, when you have two people disconnect, or kill themselves on first hook that’s not the killer playing well that your teammates being #########. Why should I be punished for that? Hatch doesn’t guarantee me anything but at least I have a chance after getting stuck with garbage teammates.

And on the occasions where everyone is playing and doing what they’re supposed to, if the killer plays well, and we still have three or two generators to do. We’ve all taken hooks. Then, I really don’t complain if they slug to prevent hatch. Because in those instances they do in fact deserve it.