Let's talk about: hooking vs. slugging
Alright, the game went into some really crazy directions for both sides throughout last year, but right there is one rising problem that is becoming rampant: slugging meta.
Yes, slugging has become the absolute meta, but let's address why this happened afterall.
Lately we had numerous changes to hooking that pushed into a position so risky that hooking itself it considered "not worth it" anymore.
- More and more perks with "get unhooked/hooked" conditions that give some huge benefits (Deli, Wicked, DS, Resurgence, OTR, Reassurance, Babysitter, new Blood Rush, BT, We'll Make It etc.);
- Buffing of sabo strategy (sabo related aspects of toolboxes) and existence of "unhookable" perks (Boil Over, Breakout, Saboteur, Power Struggle + Flip Flop, Tenacity);
- basekit buff of hook timer of +10s per hook stage;
- hook grabs removal;
- BBQ losing it's BP bonus long ago;
- kills being a win condition rather than hooks.
On the other hand, we have slugging with much fewer risks to worry about, bypassing the strongest survivor perks in the game.
First of all, NO, this is not a call for BHVR to further implement some basekit stuff to counter slugging, this would be the worst possible mistake they could make.
Instead, there should be some way to actually make hooking beneficial for the killer again, because hooking benefits survivors way more than killer, unless killer manages to get at least 2-3 men slug before hooking.
If sometimes doesn't get done soon enough, game will just be deep in the most unhealthy slugging meta, but the thing i'm afraid about the most is that BHVR could once more make a catastrophical decision and just put some basekit slugging counter as bandain solution that will further benefit one side rather than coming up with a solution that will make game much more healthy for both sides.
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Once upon a time I suggested giving a temporary speed bonus after the hook like as devouring hope, so the hook allows you to get to other survivors faster and at the same time the bonus is useless if you camp
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that could be one way to deal with it, but i think it doesn't solve core issue of why hooking is still much less beneficial, since "punishments" for hooking still heavily outweigh the benefits
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There are a lot of decent killer perks that trigger on hooks as well. As someone who plays for hooks over kills, they're incredibly useful. But there could always be more.
Personally I'd like to see a perk or perks that increase in power for each hook, but decrease in power for each sacrificed survivor. Make it strong enough to be meta and it could be one of the healthiest things for the game.
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That is of course true but the best hooking perks for killers have been nerfed while perks that don't require hooking have stayed the same. So the the strength of hooking has been reduced as a result.
There have been many small things that now add up to a point where slugging really is the better way to play in many situations. That is very unfortunate and it can't be fixed by only small tweaks. At least not in a healthy way.
A hooking perk that gets stronger for each hook sounds nice in theory but would suffer from the same issues as Dying Light. It would be a "win more" perk. So whenever you would actually struggle the perk would do very little and since you only have 3 other perks, the chances for you to struggle are increased. That makes such a perk incredibly hard to balance and it could also lead to awkward situations where it would be better for the survivors to let their teammate die on hook to weaken the effect of this perk.
I think they should revert the sabo buffs and design more killer perks around the idea of hooking. Some of them could definitely use anti tunneling restrictions like that they can't be triggered by the same survivor twice in a row.
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honestly, only PainRes is still a meta hooking related perk, other perks are basically not worth of the title "very good" (except maybe Pop on high mobility killers).
With that saying, the disadvantages of hooking still outweigh advantages even with PainRess still kicking in (tho it only has 4 tokens, i really think old PainRes was much better and it should've stayed that way, DMS was the perk that deserved nerf long ago)
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Slugging should be high risk high reward. The problem is that the risk isn’t high enough anymore.
Post edited by HerInfernalMajesty on8 -
That's essentially my take as well. In many ways, slugging is the same thing as a hook, but it generates more slowdown because of the recovery time. Plus you don't have BT or unhook-activated perks to gain some of that time back as a team. No Kindred or anti-camp on a slug either.
It's something that disproportionately affects solo players too, where it's extremely powerful unless solo players randomly decided to bring anti-slug builds. That alone is indicative that some adjustments to the mechanic should be made. You can't balance things that may or may not happen around perks. Gens, yes. Those are finite and the base charges don't vary from game to game. Slugging may or may not happen, so it can't be balanced around what perks 4 randoms with no comms may or may not bring.
Honestly, just move Tenacity to base and make the perk do something else. Makes extended slugging much higher risk but doesn't give everyone base UB. Could even scale the crawl speed with recovery %, so survivors don't immediately get full Tenacity crawl speed until they recover a bit. I say that because a Background Player+full base Tenacity meta would be miserable to play against.
Post edited by edgarpoop on7 -
the risk has basically been shifted to hooking, while at the same time reward aspect of hooking has been lowered due to so many ways to actually pressure the hook and generally waste killer's time after being unhooked
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The only reason I need to prefer hooking over slugging is that hooking gives me more points, and I have characters I like playing to get to P100
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Yes, I do believe that hook risk vs reward does play into slugging risk vs reward.
However if we are to take slugging on its own merits regardless of the risk/reward of hooks, I still believe the risk is too low. If you slug four people who have no 2nd chance perks then the game is pretty much over unless they get the 4% which I’ll concede is not a super super rare thing to happen.
The risk should be that slugging while time consuming for the Survivors is in itself a type of “lended time”. If a Killer slugs one person, chases a 2nd while the 3rd helps the 1st then it can be considered that the “wick” on the Survivor end is their bleedout timers which offers more time to the Survivors than hooks. If the Survivors can pick up at a faster rate than the Killer downs then it’s over for the Killer. It will all be wasted time because the Survivors will render the time it took to down the dying Survivor as useless. Sure the Survivor also couldn’t act but they can get back up with no hook states, kind of like a reset. If the Survivors can use three people to juggle the Killer in this way then the 4th is completely open to make free time against the Killer.
One issue is that Killers can down Survivors too quickly. And since Survivors can be downed quickly they need adequate counter-perks. The counter-perks as they exist today are outdated and behind where they need to be. Unbreakable (one time use) would need to be basekit at the very least. Which means that if you bring the perk Unbreakable then you will get two chances to pick yourself up as well as the benefit of the faster recovery time.
And because mischief gets the better of me; this is all ultimately concluding that No Mither would need a buff… but maybe this was my evil plan all along from the start. (This last paragraph is a joke. Or is it?)
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Also, in the upcoming 2v8 we are going to see how a catch up mechanic will work. I forgot the details but didn't Bhvr mention that gen speed will change depending on how many Survivors are alive or something?
I think depending on how that system feels spreading hooks and hooking in general could become worth the risk.
Edit: I don’t think it is talked about enough but there is a benefit to hooking in that you create a flash objective for the Survivors. One of which you can always see AND are notified when the unhook happens.
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yeah i see why slugging has become a better choice then hooking, OP post is spot on and when you look at killer hook related perks they dont really compare. The only decent hook related perks for killer is Pain res and even then it can only be used 4 times on specfic RNG hooks which is not great when you think about
OP has covered alot of what i would say on the matter but where do we go from this Obvisouly the default reaction is to give killers the stick and move on, but lets be honest that is not a healthy soultion and is putting a blindfold on to the reason why killers are moving towards slugging which is hooking is less beneficial for killers and more rewarding to survivors.
If i was in charge of balancing and my task was this i would do the following
- When killers hook a survivor a 10% total regression hits all gens and will not count to a regression event
- While a survivor on a hook all survivors suffer a 5.5% action debuff which stacks on the number of survivors on the hook
- When killer moves 16 Meters away from the hook they gain a 5% movement speed buff for 10 Secs the bonus is lost and not returned if you return to the hook then leave again.
i would start with these and then observe and make few tweaks depending on how it goes in gameplay hopefully it should give killers more of a reason to hook survivors then just slug them
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Absolutelly, Just quited of a match were a decent Twins player decided since the first second of the trial to slug everyone for 4 minutes. The moment it was obvious what he was doing I knew the match would piss me off and instead of waiting for 4 minutes on the floor I left the game. Rarely I leave but players slugging for the get go are a no for me. The snowball of slugging, especially with a decent Twins player is unberable and certain killers can win really fast if the play to slug instead of playing a normal match.
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