You Shouldn't Be Patrolling Generators (Or Kicking Them That Much Either)

What you and @jesterkind aren’t accepting is that a regression META and Skull Merchant immediately after taught us that gens are really the target. It makes sense though because survivors will eventually lose to attrition anyway if you whittle their limited resources down. You don’t even have to commit to them; just destroy their resources and continue surveilling gens.

If you start a chase with a survivor hit them, and they immediately run to a loop that contains killer shack into jungle gym into main building and its away from where someone is that you just hooked and away from generators, you are wasting your time and should go back to patrolling generators.

The reason most killers lose games is not because they are patrolling gens, but because they are wasting too much time in chases. The first thing you should be doing as soon as you load into the map is identifying where the strong loops are (usually near main buildings and killer shacks) and then trying to chase survivors away from those areas, and not to them.

I mostly agree about kicking gens. Generally you should really only kick gens if you have perks that are making that useful like Pop/Nowhere to Hide/Unforeseen etc.

"Patrolling" is probably a misnomer. The point is, you should be going from chase to chase. But those chases should ideally start at a generator, not near killer shack, or an area of the map where survivors have completed generators.

because of 400% regression speed. generator regression needs buffs because it is currently noob-trap kick gens unless you build entire build around kicking gens.

the newbie tip in game for patrolling gens is a tip for new player to find chases because a lot of new players don't know how to find any chases.

"Generators aren't the objective" - they're literally the main objective, and patrolling a 3 gen can be a huge win condition. But yes it's not good to generalize this

The tooltip itself has nothing wrong with it. It's logical to suggest patrolling gens when looking for survivors is a great way to locate them. Afterall, the gens are the only real way survivors will ever make it out.

The issue is more with those killers who decide that this is the only way - something this tooltip has never said. Finding survivors is key, but the best way to slow the gens I've found is aggressively injuring, downing and hooking multiple survivors. There have been many occasions where my killer games have lost because of being unable to put the pressure on survivors. In games where I have, I have pretty much won every one, because they get caught in a spiral of healing, hiding, and losing hope.

When killers solely patrol gens, the problem is that they change the role from an aggressor to a defender. Now that gens have a limited number of times they can be kicked before being blocked from further regression, survivors can afford to chip away. I've won a few games as survivor because the killer opted for a 3-gen, and all survivors knew what to do. There's always a place for regressing gens, but never do it to the point that it overtakes the aggression.

There ARE reasons to check gens but yes, especially on some Killers ( *coughLOWMOBILITYKILLERScough* ), it's better to disengage and use them solely to find Survivors, maybe kick if need be. Knowing when to disengage is very important. Why else do you think Killers use stuff like Pain Res and Grim Embrace?

This is kind of a weird post. The hint text doesn't say to kick gens and ignore survivors, it says patrolling gens can help you find survivors, which is true and useful. There are other ways to find survivors as well, and those are learned in time.

I think you're spending a lot of time arguing against a straw man you've created.

So where should I go to find survivors, if not generators?

I mean yeah, info perks are an alternative to patrolling generators. Understanding where survivors are is a thing without info perks anyway, and survivors will often go to generators. Patrolling generators is just part of gamesense and understanding how survivors move around the map, which is where you find the survivors when you're immediately trying to find a chase. And applying pressure isn't just about chase for every killer, it's often better to go toward a generator to stop it being done than it is to finish a chase and get hooks. That only really works entirely for killers like Spirit, Blight, Nurse, etc who can finish chases very quickly and apply pressure across the map just by existing. Use info perks to patrol gens less if you want, or just understand that survivors will use their downtime to do gens, and be there to stop them when they have it.

The purpose of the tip is to let newer players know that since the generators are the main objective of the survivors, it makes sense to go to their objectives to start a chase and all that. Obviously everyone at some point knows not to go in a huge circle around the map to find survivors and if you genuinely think killers are just that stupid and you're that upset over a tip in the game that literally no one is gonna read anyway, then you need to hop off the game and play something else. Sure obviously the main objective of the killer is to kill the survivors, but how do you expect them to find survivors? Around generators and random tiles they happen to pass by. So while it may not be the best tip in your opinion, it's still a good tip for beginner players to have an idea on how to find survivors. No one ever said that patrolling generators is their main objective and you don't gotta act like everyone ever did say that. And killers should be kicking generators because it slows the game down which gives the killer an easier time and also more time to kill the survivors. I highly doubt you've ever touched killer a day in your life if you genuinely think a killer has that mindset and they should just never go near generators or kick them. Like what do you expect killers to do? Give you a free escape? Obviously not. They're gonna kill you whether you like it or not and you will accept it

While generally true that killers gain more from concentrating on survivors than generators (a concept I've often brought up with friends when they got so distracted with trying to get value from their builds/powers that they seemingly forgot their actual objective over it and that the "value" these things bring is always merely contributing to the completion of said objective and that therefore if there are other things they can do in certain moments that bring them closer to that completion they should do those things even if they are completely removed from whatever perks etc. they are running), I do think generator-based game strategies are among the most viable.

Of course you don't want to patrol generators across the map merely in the hopes of finding survivors on them instead of employing other means of more quickly and reliably finding survivors, let alone prioritize kicking those gens over being engaged in chases when you have found a survivor, or give up on chases to go back to patrolling gens willy-nilly. In those cases you will indeed lose a lot of time and at most delay your inevitable defeat as you aren't really making progress, survivors simply outpacing you gradually but guaranteededly. But there are various ways that change this equation and make it really attractive and effective to play around generators.

The most obvious one is concentrating on a close-together cluster of at least 3 generators that survivors simply have to contest and that you can defend very effectively. While this strategy has been weakened with the introduction of the regression limit and is much more potent if there are only 3 survivors left, it is still something that can reliably lead to wins. For one thing, you will always find survivors on and around those gens because they have to get at least one of them done. And leaving chases after having gotten a hit or a perk or pallet out of the way and going back to defending those generators will regularly turn the tides in your favour as rather than gradually but surely losing, you are winning the war of attrition as survivor resources dwindle and the area around your gens becomes a deadzone, making it much more likely you will eventually actually be able to down and hook survivors quickly and frequently, as well as snowball those downs and hooks into more and more pressure as they are also happening in your cluster. Certain killers are downright oppressive at employing this strategy and will win most of every time doing so against uncoordinated survivor groups (i. e. non-SWF groups/groups without voice communication). Various gen-targeted perks obviously also help with this strategy, such as Eruption, Pop, Oppression, Surge, Dead Man's Switch.

Hit-and-run strategies also revolve around patrolling gens and are similarly difficult (or downright impossible) for any but the most coordinated survivor groups to deal with if done properly. The idea with these strategies is that you can often get more or less "free" hits on survivors if you catch them off-guard (either getting the hit immediately or at least only having to chase after them for a short time before doing so), and gens are the places where you will most frequently do so. And if those survivors are already injured from previous interactions, "hits" of course become downs and hooks. These strategies do require some sort of means that allow you to get the jump on survivors. Most commonly that will be stealth mechanics (powers, add-ons or perks), but killers with teleportation or transportation abilities can also keep bouncing around and make it increasingly difficult for survivors to be able to leave in time so as to not get hit when interrupted at their gens, as pallets around those gens get depleted and Exhaustion perks put on cooldown and survivors more unsure of whether the killer is chasing around their gen or headed for it, and so on. Of course, here again you don't want to be blindly patrolling any and all gens, you will have to keep track of which gens survivors are or could be doing, and there's also perks and add-ons that will help with this (such as Surveillance or Discordance or Gearhead, or Wraith's "All Seeing" - Spirit/Legion's Fuming Mix Tape). Trail Of Torment and Unforeseen are two more "gen" perks that support these strategies on killers that don't have innate stealth mechanics, but even if you use things like Plaything or Monitor & Abuse and Nurse's Calling or the like, your gameplay loop will revolve around patrolling generators, trying to catch survivors off-guard on or around them.

Nowhere To Hide deserves mention as one of if not the best anti-stealth perk in the game, and it obviously also relies on going to and kicking generators. For the basic gameplay loop of actually leaving hooks and venturing out to engage other survivors, NTH is a lifesaver. Too often players instead of taking a chase will hide as you approach their gen, even if someone is hooked and you not finding anyone else therefore leading to you having no real option but to return to the hook. NTH reliably gives you another chase, and between the 5% instant regression and 5% repair needed to stop the regression, kicking gens before you chase is actually often worthwhile if the survivor is hiding anyway (i. e. if you wouldn't have been able to engage them in a chase immediately or let alone gotten a hit instead of kicking the gen).

I will also say that while Barbecue & Chilli is a really nice perk for the basic "hook it and book it" gameplay flow that you describe where you are aiming to have at least 3 survivors occupied for as much of a match as you can (one hooked, one unhooking, one chased), more optimal perhaps for that approach would be to show you survivors within the 40m range around the hook. That way, you are able to engage the survivor in a chase that would be the closest to the hook and could get the unhook the fastest, thereby then necessitating a survivor further away to leave their gen and spend the time going for the unhook and back again. This is part of the reason why I enjoy playing Doctor so much, being able to find survivors within a large radius around the hook after hooking. An alternative to this is Ultimate Weapon. A Scourge Hook perk that makes any survivor scream and reveal their aura as well as perhaps get Exhausted and/or Hindered for a couple of seconds if they are within a certain range of the hook upon hooking (perhaps tied to the killer's terror radius) would be cool.