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I'm going to say it.

Na1ts1rhc
Na1ts1rhc Member Posts: 104
edited January 4 in General Discussions

Tunneling and slugging is encouraged (Edit: maybe not encouraged but intended perhaps?) by the devs and the hate you have for it is ignored. It's built into the game that you should target players with more hook states and you should slug people to avoid saves. The fact that survivors are so comfortable DEMANDING that these things get 100% removed from the game entirely is a troublesome sign of things to come. I won't be the first nor last killer main to admit that killers have it really sweet especially right now. How ever I just need to speak my piece about these issues that players have been complaining about since the dawn of daylight (I know I'm funny ha ha). As a killer player I understand I don't need to tunnel or slug to secure a 4k and it is more gratifying that way anyhow. But people who don't have the time nor bank account to buy every killer and grind out their prestige to share their perks. (I'm talking to you base game barney's. That's right I know you slug because it's hard to get any advantage over no life survivors when the only viable perks you have in your kit are absolute trash.) This will probably come off as bait but I seriously wish that we could all have a healthy discussion about these 2 issues that are so polarizing.

I as well as many other killer players are open to changes to these two systems. I read a good post today by DNet89 called "Anti-slug Ideas" and honestly they are straight up cookin' with these suggestions. BHVR did something about face camping that didn't ruin the killer experience and helped survivors tremendously, they can do it again people just need to be more open minded. I know it's hard to do that when your past 5 games you sat face down in virtual dirt for 15 minutes straight. But I personally feel as if people are looking to tip the scales in their favor instead of finding common ground. Am I wrong?

Post edited by Na1ts1rhc on
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Comments

  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 6,075

    This is where I feel the absence of old BBQ & Chile. The bloodpoint bonus being tied to each unique hook plus the aura reading being far gave killers decent incentive to both spread hooks and not camp either. That perk helped check the super efficient gameplay I think. Back then I would definitely prioritize getting my stonks! 😂

    Likewise old old Ruin gave survs sufficient cause to look for totems first, slowing gens when the killer is at their greatest disadvantage, which is when the trial begins. The issues with that version of Ruin were both being completely a noob stomper and also subject to framerates in peer-to-peer days & the early dedicated servers.

  • CursedPerson
    CursedPerson Member Posts: 232

    Indeed people like seeing there numbers get bigger. seeing the stacks go from 1-4 was satisfying. Also ruin was terrible for people with lower end hardware. the skill checks used to jump all over the place until I upgraded to an SSD then i could finally hit great skill checks and power through the ruin.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,582
    edited January 4

    I'm not as experienced as a lot of the players here, and I'm not going to claim I know better, because I know I don't... however I can speak as someone who has only played/known modern DBD, in this era where killers are supposedly stronger than ever...

    In my experience thus far, which I assume is across low to mid MMR (I doubt I'm high MMR), it's up to survivors how easy they want to make slugging and tunneling. Most of the times I see where killers slug and tunnel, its a direct result of being given a clear opportunity to do it easily by survivors (I run Kindred and Empathy a lot, and its amazing how much you get to see). Survivors often unhook far too quickly and/or at unsafe times, heal in unsafe locations, loop near the hook, loop near priority generators, hang around for flashlight and pallet saves and get caught, don't hide when they are dead on hook.

    I am not very gifted mechanically, but I am good at reading games, and I'm a naturally pessimistic player. I expect the worst case scenario of slugging and tunneling, and often will deliberately run somewhere where I'm guaranteed to ensure trying to tunnel and slug is extremely punishing for the killer even if (and sometimes knowing full well) they will catch me. Even against players hard committed to it, I will often identify what is the most punishing thing for that player, and be happy to take a route that is less optimal for my own survival and trade a hook stage for a important gen to be broken or grant the space for a vital team reset...

    The main thing I see from survivors now that bugs me, is they tend to say "killer is tunneling/slugging, can't be bothered, go next"... instead of saying "killer is tunneling/slugging, screw you man, I'm gonna punish you as hard as I can for it"... and that really gets under my skin... 😒

    A recent idea I've started using, is if a survivor goes to second stage by being camped out... don't unhook them yet, the killer often comes back to cover the transition of the second health stage.… if you unhook afterthey've just turned, thats the free-est tunnel you can gift the killer... they'd be dumb not to take it. Spend 30s doing a gen nearby and then unhook. The killer has to choose between wasting another potential 40s to camp out this player, which is another gen potentially, or leave and allow an unhook. Very useful with Shoulder the Burden.

    I look at hook stages as a resource to spend, and whenever I've faced a slugging/tunneling killer, I run them as far away from everything important as I can. I never begrudge the killer doing it, I've been on the receiving end of gen rush, sabo/flashlight squads, and I've been embarrassed at shack, T-L walls and Main buildings plenty of times by insane loopers... and I believe there is a certain amount of you need to be "bad enough" to hold the killers attention at the right time.

    The point is I rarely see slugging and tunneling in my games... and I think a large part of it is I force the killer to deal with me or lose something important. Sometimes this backfires and my lack of mechanical skill catches up with me, but I do believe my mindset of "taking one for the team" helps me a lot on survivor in DBD and playing risky with a "you can ignore me if you want, but, it'll cost you" and forcing the killer to make hard decisions serves me quite well.

  • MechWarrior3
    MechWarrior3 Member Posts: 2,962

    I don’t know how true this is. In my experience I have….not often but enough been gen rushed by survivors with 0 gen perk because they’re tag teaming.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731

    Partially but if you played a round or two of the chaos shuffle game mode you can see how survivors even with random mediocre perks can eek out easy wins against most killers if they have no slowdown. Remove that from the vacuum of random perks and add items and killers do need some kind of slowdown to compete most of the time.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731
    edited January 4

    It can happen, depends on how the match starts off and the killer you are playing, but the obvious comparison is if it gets out of hand (which happens a lot without slowdown) you can toss on some slowdown perks to fight back against it / reduces its effectiveness, kinda like how perks for anti-tunnel-camp-slug work, its weird to have the game balanced around killers using perks to prevent survivors from snowballing into easy wins, while survivors refuse to put on perks to do the same and instead beg for basekit changes.

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,984

    Included, but depends on the Killer.

    Trapper with basekit old Corrupt? Sure. Blight with basekit old Corrupt? No thanks.

  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 6,075
  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 6,075
    edited January 4

    Post edited by JPLongstreet on
  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,582
    edited January 4

    I don't wanna start a fight or nothing with you guys, but there is a similar thread in your language here that is confusing...

    Tunneling and Slugging are basekit and designed? As in a mechanic built into the killer? This is like saying standing behind a rock and staying out of sight is basekit for survivors... it's not part of the kit, it's a tactic/strategy you use your abilities to employ. This might sound like nit picking, but the distinction here is the difference between actual rules of the game and just players using their basekit mechanics to play within those rules... tunneling and slugging are strategies that come from those mechanics, not mechanics themselves, and the reason they are in the game is because they are not inherently bad/evil ideas in all scenarios to do.

    I'm also picking you up cause the phrase "bad design" always bothers me, because it is usually a buzz word people throw around and is often not explained and certainly not valid... what bad design are we talking about exactly?

    Tunnelling is a byproduct of the fact the killer can kill a survivor after 3 hooks, and the obviously logical understanding that 3 players is not as strong as 4 players. There is also the logic that healthy survivors have 2 health states, unhooked survivors have 1, which again makes logical sense. Tunnelling isn't something designed into the game, it is a strategy developed by players by intelligently interpreting the rules of the trial. Would it be better if all hook stages were shared by all survivors and everyone only had 1 health state, and being injured/healing only meant the difference between making noise and not? Where one weak player can cost the team all of their hooks really quickly and the killer can kill you off a single chase after bullying the weak link all game? What exactly is the "bad design" in regards to tunneling?

    Slugging is also not designed into the game, it is a strategy born as a byproduct of logically interpretting that a downed survivor cannot interact with anything until picked up by another survivor and moves much more slowly. Recognising an opportunity to slug, and accounting for the respective risk vs. reward is a strategic gamble on the killers part, where if 2 players are in close proximity where you can reasonably score a hit on both of them, why would you not slug if the opportunity is there to catch 3 survivors at the same time? If you take too long downing the second survivor you can lose the first and spent an additonal 30s+ for still only 1 hook stage. Would it be better if the moment the killer downs a survivor they are automatically forced to walk to the survivor and instantly pick up? Doesn't that require the removal of pallet and flashlight saves completely and reduce the available interactions and skill expression of survivors? What exactly is the "bad design" in regards to slugging?

    When it comes to perks countering strategies, couldn't we just as easily say this about any decently strong perk, item or add-on?

    E.g. Sprint Burst - Counters the strategy of approaching the gen from the side with the shortest distance to the tile/unspent resources so the survivor has to run to a less safe side. SB however allows the survivor to move fast enough to make it to almost any tile before the killer catches up... Isn't the fact the killer isn't rewarded for playing intelligently here because this perk exists an example of bad design?

    Obviously I'm giving an asinine example, but if you're going to say perks shouldn't be used to counter a strategy, you're gonna have to tell me why this stupid example is fine and tunneling/OTR and slugging/Unbreakable isn't.

  • AmpersandUnderscore
    AmpersandUnderscore Member Posts: 1,934

    If people are "tag teaming" a gen, as you say, with 0 toolboxes or perks they're simply doing gens inefficiently and should be splitting up. After all, they're taking a -15% (or more) speed penalty just for grouping up for no reason. That's the opposite of "rushing".

    While the definition of "gen rushing" is not very well defined in general, you have to draw a line somewhere. And a team with no toolboxes or gen speed perks is simply "doing gens" at the start of the match. The horror.

  • FMG15
    FMG15 Member Posts: 494
  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 6,075

    I can see something like that working. If you don't hook the same surv twice in a row maybe that earns a stack. Definitely has possibilities!

  • FMG15
    FMG15 Member Posts: 494

    Losing points is not gonna discourage anyone. The past has proven that punishing mechanics barely have the desired outcome.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731

    Finally someone with reason

    Now the strategies themselves were discovered rather early, so while not probably intended as initial design the devs did like the emergent properties they had. Like how rocket jumping was discovered in quake and then stayed around as a feature rather than an exploit to be removed. Emergent properties can become a mainstay in the game. And if they don't like certain aspects of it they well change it to be a more middle ground but usually not a free lunch for survivors because its their role to survive not be handed a free win for playing recklessly. So lets give a small history.

    Swivel Hooks, the first strats as trapper was to put down a trap directly in front of the hook. Survivors had to unhook from a single direction so they had to disarm the trap and survivors who attempted an escape would also be caught. The devs didn't like the loop they changed it. They even probably later added a bit of trap immunity on self unhook since you could only self unhook in a single direction.

    Basekit BT from instantly going down, to a perk being added that protected both the unhooker and the unhooked survivor, to a perk that protected just 1 of the survivors. To a basekit feature and a perk that extends its duration. While survivors got punished for doing things in the killers face they still wanted to give a bit more agency to the person who got unhooked since they don't get to choose how their teammates save them, what situation they save them in, and when.

    Anti-facecamp, camping was always intended going back to the hook being around the area, you got a bit of progress towards killing a survivor and usually can then use it to catch someone else out of position for an easy chase or free hook. But standing 2 feet away and staring as a bubba or billy just wasn't fun after a while. Now they are forced to play slightly further from the hook but they aren't completely prevented from going near for a little while.

    Now for slugging

    Currently I don't think we quite need it yet mostly because the perks that counter slugging are much stronger than most of the other perks for anti camping / tunneling, We're gonna live forever (especially with mft) does a great job getting people back up and protecting them for a bit, unbreakable used at the right time even by one person can get 2-3 teammates up while they go after the 4th person. Exponential uncommonly but can be used in a similar way. There are even a few gimmicks that can gaurentee free saves in groups with powerstruggle flip flop, basically forcing the killer to leave you for 4 minutes on the ground, give you a free save, or go far enough that you just reset / unbreakable.

    But

    I wouldn't mind a faster bleed out after a certain amount of time on the ground / if everyone is on the ground, most of the time if there is a team slug its just not worth the time and chance going around hooking everyone because they might get a free reset or any number of reasons like all 4 in the same corner (not enough hooks to go around) ect

    If anything 4%ing off the hook and slow bleedouts is the problem with slugging, not the slugging out the team or for the 4k itself.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731

    Fixes imply that its a problem and not a way to weaken a strategy

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,643

    Honestly, I'm not sure there's actually a fix to tunneling, camping out slugging. They are tools the killer have to build pressure and removing them would require an actual game overhaul which isn't guaranteed to be worth the dev time when the game has a stable playerbase.

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,582
    edited January 5

    Appreciate the explanation of terms, but I would challenge your notion that tunneling and slugging are inherently poor design. I understand your point they are not particularly fun to go against, but they are the byproduct of the mechanics that make logical sense for the world they are representing. You should not be able to unhook the survivor in the killers face without incurring risk with it, which is why Survivors have the much more reserved BT basekit, not off the record.

    There are numerous deterrents for tunneling including the fact that in order to tunnel, you need to remain in close enough proximity to the hook to ensure you are able to pick up the unhooked survivors trail, thus camping and tunneling are linked. Thus the full list of deterrents for tunneling are: -

    • Basekit Borrowed Time, allowing time to reach tiles on unhook.
    • 70s hook timer that cannot be improved by the killer with the exception of Monstrous Shrine. This long timer punishes extensive camping into tunnel attempts if survivors use it.
    • Gen rushing perks and items that if left ignored while hovering for a tunnel further increase the above problem.
    • Stronger perks for killer (such as pain res, grim embrace, etc) having built in incentives to not tunnel, as their value is greatly diminishes and can be potentially lost the longer time is spent tunneling.
    • Basekit exhaustion recovery for survivors on hook.
    • Numerous strong perks that severely hinder the effectiveness of tunneling (such as Decisive Strike, Dead Hard, OTR, Babysitter, Blood Rush, We'll Make It, Resurgence, Shoulder The Burden, Reassurance).
    • Strong items such as Syringes that can heal on the move and greatly extend chase.

    Exactly how many mechanics do you want that makes tunneling less effective, before you would consider it "good design"? Does everybody need a Mettle of Man down block basekit before it's considered good design? If it's not that, then what is missing?

    Or are there particular killer powers/perks that create the problems that need addressing?

    Now I personally think survivors have plenty of mechanics in their favour to face tunneling, and a vast majority of the time I attribute problems for tunneling to be the result of survivors being too keen to unhook. If survivors read the survivor HUD sensibly and don't all mass rush to unhook, even soloQ can generate plenty of pressure.

    How about slugging, what deterents are there for that?

    • An extremely long 4 minute bleedout timer that is far outweighed by the speed of gens.
    • A 30s self recovery time that makes the pick up time for a supporting player virtually non existent if the survivors make full use of it.
    • The fact that it doesn't advance the killers objective efficiently at all unless all 4 survivors get successfully slugged all at once, which requires very good survivor location awareness.
    • Vulnerability to strong time wasting perks likes Made For This and WGLF, Unbreakable, as well as losing the survivor and falling prey to various fast healing methods, erasing your pressure completely.
    • Again strong healing items like syringes can resolve a lot of slugging problems.

    Again how many mechanics are needed to make slugging "good design"?

    Slugging is largely only profitable if survivors are nearby to be slugged, trying to slug when you have no idea where anyone else is not a particularly effective method of play. Maybe if you're an uber Blight, Nurse or maybe a Billy you can do it. Singularity with Knockout and Twins obvs, but for anyone short of that its generally a bad idea.

    I do think slugging is a little too effective in these extreme cases, given that time to pick up and hook is actually costly to the killer, and slugging completely removes that downsides for similar levels of pressure is the killer can move fast enough... though the only thing I think that really causes an issue for slugging in SoloQ is Knockout, all other slugging instances are perfectly managable for the survivor team unless they make a horrific mistake.

    I personally also think slugged survivors should have a little more agency, and I would suggest being able to move and bleedout faster at the expense of being louder if the survivor chooses once they've recovered to 95% or greater. I'd also consider letting them swap items in opened chests and off the floor while in the dying state, and I'd also allow them to open hatch from the dying state with a key.

    However in both cases they are perfectly logical strategies that give an intended level of threat to the killer. The killer is a human being, not an NPC with their hands tied behind their back to serve as a punching bag for survivors. Both tunneling and slugging are and should be tangible threats in the killers arsenal that survivors should be mindful and respectful of.

    I for example would be against any mechanic that makes it so survivors can mindlessly unhook under the killers nose for free without repercussions. I would also be against any mechanic that forces the killer to hook given the numerous methods to combat hook attempts, such as pallet saves, flashlight saves, sabotages, breakout and body blocking, various obnoxious boil over strategies, etc, etc.

    Post edited by UndeddJester on
  • JudgingYourMind
    JudgingYourMind Member Posts: 20

    or maybe make these things more fun
    idk about tunneling but in 2v8 mode slugging is in no way good
    you can make slugging an option to take instead of hooking and make it more engaging for survivors.
    now how is another topic but I am sure it is doable

  • UndeddJester
    UndeddJester Member Posts: 3,582

    That makes more sense, I do believe my above post addresses that quite well, but for the abridged version, I believe there are plenty of mechanics in the game vs. camping and tunneling. The primary issue for tunneling (and one of my main sources of frustration in DBD) is survivors don't use hook time to their advantage in SoloQ, and don't try to hide when on Death Hook. Survivors who do can win games without much mechanical skill solely off the fact they read the HUD and play sensibly.

    Slugging I do think survivors should be able to do a little more than they can currently... as suggested above, the fact you do nothing is lame, having something you can try is better even if we don't reinvent the wheel

  • MechWarrior3
    MechWarrior3 Member Posts: 2,962

    The gen is done in 60 seconds vs doing it alone for 90…

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731

    Everything is a problem for solo queue players, the game is built off low amounts of information, if they wanted the game to have more info you would see teammate auras 24/7 see killer aura when teammates see the killer, there would be a ping system to point at objectives and help keep track of stealth killers moving around the map ect.

    Its not a problem of the strategies its a problem the difference that information makes in just pulling it all apart.

  • Rudjohns
    Rudjohns Member Posts: 2,260

    Ah it will
    When you queue a game only to get like 6k points at the end, was that worth it? It probably doesnt even pay the add-ons

  • MrT1412
    MrT1412 Member Posts: 125

    They are definitely unhealthy and should be looked at, but people shouldn't be pretending that completely removing tunneling and slugging wouldn't destroy most killers.

  • FMG15
    FMG15 Member Posts: 494

    Most players that main a killer who play like that have an abundance of addons. It won't hurt them much. And they'll just get it back when an event starts.

  • FMG15
    FMG15 Member Posts: 494

    Well how do you want to implement features that benefit soloQ players but not SWF? Perhaps they should start to implement features that only soloQ players will get.

  • bjorksnas
    bjorksnas Member Posts: 5,731
    edited January 5

    You can't the main part of making buffs to survivor is that they will be buffs to survivor you can't really just exclusively buff soloq without also giving swf a bit as well, but then killers will have to be buffed to compensate for the fact that survivors know where all other survivors are, where they are more often whether seeing them or seeing pings of where they are ect, id say probably a handful of killers could keep up with info like that going around but certainly not more than ~6 of them.

    Do the devs want to rework a big chunk of the game with a massive new amount of information in mind so solo queue survivors can be closer to average swfs and average swfs can be much stronger, probably not.

    Is it also partially a skill issue that the average solo queue player could overcome or overperk, probably, will they, probably not.

  • Rogue11
    Rogue11 Member Posts: 1,502
  • MechWarrior3
    MechWarrior3 Member Posts: 2,962

    I know the breakdown and how exactly gens work in regard to efficiency. However, again I disagree with you completely, because time and time again. That's all survivors do is group up on gens and guess what? They pop it in those 53 seconds, IF they don't have perks and toolboxes to go with it.

    There could be 2 survivors taking the chases while the other two are just tag teaming gens together, rinse and repeat when I chase those survivors off the gen. I have had several…many actually where games end in 5 minutes WITHOUT toolboxes and gen perks because survivors are just hoeing up on gens.

  • Rudjohns
    Rudjohns Member Posts: 2,260
  • thrkeybs
    thrkeybs Member Posts: 20

    Nah this is either misremembering at best or just straight up disingenuous.

    Killers wouldn't normally do things like that despite the game's mechanics allowing them, because they… actually cared about how the other players perceived them, and wanted to have a fair game.

  • emetSdidnothingwrong
    emetSdidnothingwrong Member Posts: 331

    Yes! I also agree that gen slow down perks shouldn't be required to not lose!