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General Discussions

slugging in general?

honestly, i dunno if people even care anymore, but apparently this is a legit game tactic. and it upsets me a little. im asking you all, genuinely. what do you think of this whole 'slugging' thing? personally, i'd rather see my screen say 'the entity hungers' that slug people and be lazy

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  • Member Posts: 1,352

    Depends on the reason I slug:

    if they were toxic - well bad for you I guess, funny for me. (Bleedouts)

    If I just get more and more people near me so that I don't have a reason to pick up - survivors own fault, I won't ignore another down. (Normal slugging)

    If I'm close to losing - I'll slug to save my game, I don't see a reason not to slug then.

    Besides the first case I never bleedout (well I guess I also do that for people that just refuse to be hooked. So people with boil over making them unhookabe), I only slug normally and that's perfectly fine for me. I also don't have a problem being slugged myself, I just watch youtube besides it xY

  • Member Posts: 7,444

    It's difficult to address because there's no one-size-fits-all answer to it. Sometimes slugging is obnoxious and/or unnecessary, and sometimes it's the only correct decision and anything else would be game-losing and/or giving a free save. It really just depends.

    That said, reworking Knock Out would help a lot, that perk is a major part of the issue and should not remain the way it is

  • Member Posts: 1,268
    edited January 14

    It is a legitimate tactic in certain circumstances, though. Like if I get a Survivor with Boil Over on an indoor map, there's no hook in sight and I'm not running Iron Grasp, I'm sorry but they are getting slugged. Or if I get the opportunity to put everyone on the ground because they're swarming around the hook for a sabo / breakout play, then I'm obviously going to take that.

    But I do think both unprovoked 4 man slugging and doing it for the 4K are problematic for the game's health. Plus, there are Killers like Oni and Twins that have powers which incentivise a slugging play style (and since the recent Twins rework didn't go so well, I doubt they want to touch them again for a while).

  • Member Posts: 2,533

    It's something that is a part of the game and the problematic aspects should be an easy fix, but BHVR hasn't done it.

    There are lots of times slugging is the necessary or right call. Don't have time to hook, don't have a hook to make it to, in risk of a pallet/flashlight save, see another survivors - all are perfectly fine reasons to slug and if the killer couldn't the game really wouldn't be able to happen.

    There are three problems that have arisen

    Blatant BMing - just leaving the survivors to bleed out instead of picking them up and hooking them. Survivors can't DC and are trapped in the game. I am continually stunned that BHVR hasn't done anything about this. The easy fix would be to rapidly speed up bleedout times or allow survivors a surrender option if all survivors are dead or have been on the ground for 30 seconds.

    Slug for the 4k - it's reasonable why killers do this, if boring. The fix here is the same as blatant BMing

    Never hook strategy - something that has grown more common recently. It undermines the core flow of the game and with the use of knockout is a soloq killer and ignored by SWFs. Knockout should be changed and the above options would solve most of the worst aspect of this.

  • Member Posts: 6,215

    Reworking knockout won't change the playstyle, people will just move on to other perks that give blindness and are actually better than knockout. The strategy and build is now evolving beyond knockout.

  • Member Posts: 3,216
    edited January 15

    Slugging and bleeding out are different things. Slugging is done because its genuinely better to do at this point than to hook because it counters so many of the survivors unhook perks which you see in probably 8/16 total perks per game at the least and then the killer starts hooking once all survivors are on the ground. Bleeding out is just done to bleed out.

    What you're seeing now is just killers adapting to the several strong unhook perks survivors have and are choosing to play around it because they want to win. If a killer didn't care about winning as much you would see them hook. All this generally boils down to BHVR failing to balance correctly by nerfing the hook perks killers have while buffing base kit hook options survivors got. I guarantee if BBQ got its BP bonus back you would see killers hook WAY more.

  • Member Posts: 7,444

    It wouldn't necessarily change the playstyle altogether, but I still think it would help and be a step in the right direction, even if it's not a direct solution. Other blindness effects can either be disabled (Third Seal, or Singularity's Cremated Remains for example can be removed by EMPing - I've seen a few people trying to slug with this addon) or generally run on a time limit. Knock Out is the only blindness perk that is specifically designed for slugging.

  • Member Posts: 3,216

    You put the word reason in quotes as if its not an actual thing when it is. You ignore a multitude of game mechanics and perks by slugging which if you want to win is the best way to play. Lets go over just a few of the reasons slugging is better than hooking right now:

    Avoid anti camp
    Avoid basekit BT
    Avoid flashlight, flashbang and pallet saves
    You get into chases quicker
    You can still use other gen regression

    And thats only to name a few.

  • Member Posts: 3,216

    Well its a PVP Asymm. Fun logically is one of the least occuring factors. If it was same side same objective PVP sure you can have fun no matter what usually but Asymms don't allow for that. Also being slugged is no different to being hooked other than it takes longer to die while slugged and you can crawl to wherever you want. What can you do on hook? See your teammate run around doing nothing until stage 2 then you get skill checks which still aren't that interesting.

  • Member Posts: 1,222

    Umm they can 4 % to die faster in the hook so no dying on hook technically is faster than being slugged.

  • Member Posts: 513

    The actual cases of having a killer slug me and leave me bleed out intentionally are pretty rare and from my experience, most killers don't actually go out of their way to intentionally slug survivors. More often than not, I'm left on the ground for an extended period of time because I'm under a pallet and there's a survivor nearby attempting a save which the killer knows of. Or I'm downed and the killer knows there's somebody else very close by and they either feel confident (or greedy enough) to try for a second down.

  • Member Posts: 315

    In 2020 I used to watch a Fog Whisper that whenever he played The Wraith he would slug everyone and let them bleed out in the floor. To this day he is still Fog Whisper, but apparently slugging is now a problem for some reason.

  • Member Posts: 3,216

    People are only really having a problem with it now because people found out slugging is just way more valuable than hooking from the basekit mechanics they added to hooks and the amount of super strong unhook perks for survivors which slugging all bypasses. If only survivors adapted to it by idk running MFT and good positions on the slug…

  • Member Posts: 3,279

    My best match today was against a super-slugging Singularity. He had Sloppy Butcher, Knockout, and Infectious Fright. Kept trying to slug and camp the slugs so he could snowball the team and bleed everyone out. It was a terribly tedious and unenjoyable experience, but he messed up and we all managed to avoid the snowball and fix all the generators.

    The only time he hooked was after we opened the exit gates, where he got his one and only single hook. Then that survivor got the 4% to jump off the hook and ran right out the exit gates. Most deserved teabagging at the gate I've ever seen.

    Knockout could use a rework. Either put a timer on the aura-hiding, decrease the range it's hidden, or just remove it entirely and tweak the perk to focus on its other function, slowing down a slugged survivor's recovery or temporarily immobilize them so they can't crawl to pallets.

  • Member Posts: 1,352

    I see it relatively often. I know about strafing and do it effectively. I talk about ironworks of misery in the room above as example, if just one hook is broken near it chances are good that you won't get that anymore, especially because the survivor combines it with flip flop most likely.

    And no I don't justify anything here, I can tell you dead serious in your face, that I tunnel people out as soon as I get the chance to do that, even at 5 gens, I just won't go out of my way to do that. I don't really care if my playstyle is super liked, so I don't do that generally xD

  • Member Posts: 1,212
    edited January 15

    Slugging is something some Killers are better at than others, but it is usually a last resort and niche tool if you need pressure and genuinely can't find a hook in time. It should be used for nothing else.

    I prefer to always hook if need be since I want the points and also to pip, and slugging does not give you pips. I genuinely don't understand people who play for slugs at 5 gens, it's boring, I want chases. IMHO, Slugging is only useful if you are a) desperate for pressure, b) there's a lot of Survs swarming and it makes sense to slug someone, c) you literally cannot find a hook in time, d) they are doing wiggle sabo tactics (slugging is the proper counterplay to this), e) you legitimately downed them and lost them and cannot find them again to hook. There is never any other reason to slug.

    You don't need to leave downs for more than about 30 seconds in my experience, and unless your Killer excels at it, it shouldn't be your go-to playstyle. You simply don't need it, just take the loss if you lose and move on. I would like to see all toxic slugging eliminated, there's no reason to leave someone down for four minutes until they die - that's just rude.

    This game is not Slug by Daylight nor is it meant to be. This game is not supposed to be about winning efficiently on any side, I don't care what your skill level is that is an excuse. If I can go in at my 4000 some hours, at my MMR (which isn't low, I get decent Survs all the time), and still 4k as an M1 Killer like Wraith or Trapper or Ghostface or Sadako without slugging everyone at five gens, so can anyone else. It's not that hard.

    Learn to be okay with losing sometimes, and you will never have to slug for a 4k especially not at 5 gens in your entire Killer career. In fact the only time I ever have had to slug or had a 4k slug at five gens is against literal sabo-wiggle abuse squads and Survivors who don't know enough yet to realize that altruism isn't always the best policy.

  • Member Posts: 622

    Notable difference you are not mentioning that accounts for most complaints:

    when everyone is hooked, then you take your attempts, and it doesn’t force you to wait the phase 2, you can move on instantly.

    Not to mention, you usually are not hanging from first hook to death unless you are playing comp. People complain about that too, because sitting there for so long doing nothing is boring.

    If you get slugged and the killer wants to be a jerk you are waiting at least 4 minutes. And if you alt tab or go do something some nasty people will pick you up and leave you on the shoulder until you start to wiggle, then mori/hook.

  • Member Posts: 622

    To be fair you can also do that while slugged as you still see everyone.

    But I agree that it is boring and at the very least the idea of someone being able to waste 4 minutes of your time with no counteracting that should be removed. Self bleed out maybe.

  • Member Posts: 1,212
    edited January 15

    I'm with you and @Spare_Them_Mori_Me basically. Bleedout shouldn't be 4 minutes. Nothing else in this game is 4 minutes. If someone doesn't save you or you don't get up after about 2, it's over. Everything else is capped at 2 minutes or less. So why the hell is a bleedout the exception to the 2 minute rule?

    When games last max 10-15, rarely 20 minutes, 4 minutes of being on the ground is an ETERNITY. Being slugged sucks, laying on the ground for four minutes sucks. It does not need to be this way.

    Address 4 minute bleedouts and truly toxic slugging. Then we can address genrushing and how fast rounds feel at the start, which is often what triggers or conditions Killers (either in a single round or over time) to want to play like this.

  • Member Posts: 9,061

    Just a quick note, its 140 on the hook. Everything else though I agree with.

  • Member Posts: 236

    I rarely ever play as Killer. In one game, because I didn't want them to open the gate that they all went to, I slugged everyone. I managed to hook two of them, but the other two crawled off, and in the chaos of the lights out event, I couldn't find them. I'm sure people can list off reasons why they think their slugging was justified. What upsets me are the people who do it every single match on purpose, and then just bleed out the survivors.

  • Member Posts: 1,346

    no, slugging didn't become infinitely stronger, in fact, it barely got any stronger at all. Forcing hooks is what got punished more and more over the time by game design. At the point where you have to think about everything that awaits you when survivor is on hook/gets unhooked, why would you force hook instantly?

    Besides, skill of average survivor player didn't purely just stagnate, it deteriorated a lot over time. 20s chases aren't just a modern thing, they are a thing for years already.

    P.S. Healing is still very strong meta survivor aspect, with syringes still being gigaoverpowered.

  • Member Posts: 405

    I think because with being hooked its absolutely expected. Where as with aggressive slugging it means that multiple people need to keep an eye on the situation.

    If my teammate gets slugged and then my other teammate is being chased while injured I have to leave my objective to help out as I know that there is a timer on the bleed out and that it means multiple people are off objectives, I guess I just doesn't feel natural to the game flow.

    If we talk about when all 4 survivors are on the ground then we're basically done. Unless someone has unbreakable there's 4 whole minutes where we can't do anything. Now I understand that 4 survivors can be hooked at the same time BUT in that case people can try for the kobe or go next (which in the particular situation is totally valid). Also in most cases killers bring knockout which means that I don't know where my team mate is slugged unless I have comms to get them so chances might be i can't even get them. And basically it just drags the game out rather than hooking.

  • Member Posts: 1,346

    ohh yeah, the good ol' excuse for people lasting so short in chase, the mighty "maps are getting smaller and have less resources" even though 5 maps in total are prone to this argument. What about the other 54? Do you maybe want to tell me that 54 maps are not enough to pull the average chase speed above 20s? Dude this is just plain coping with lack of self awareness in the game, the easiest thing you can do when you lose is constantly blame game and your opponents and never turn back to your mistakes and mistakes of your team.

  • Member Posts: 6,215

    That's the point right there "you take your attempts"

    The thing i'm getting at, is that the only reason people don't like being slugged, is because they can't "go next" and "go next" is an epidemic all its own that needs to be dealt with.

  • Member Posts: 1,346

    1. i am talking about maps that have number of tiles lowered and made somewhat less frustrating to play on. I am of course excluding Eyrie which is still the most survivor sided map with safest tiles to ever exist in this game.Ormond Resort is a honorable mention too since it didn't really lose any of it's properties from the mini rework.

    2. more basekit ways to deal with opponents means more autopilot playing of the game meaning skill gets toned down. You can't play e.g once a day and expect to be a good player. Also, you can't expect to do scrims every day and be absolutely good, take a month or even longer break and still be as good as you used to be.

    In case of average pub player, SBMM, or i should better say lack of it, has pumped up egos of so many players thinking "ohh i am playing at top MMR and i am constantly losing, this game is sided to the role my opponents are playing".

  • Member Posts: 1,685
    edited January 16

    1. You said 5. It's at least 14 just for number of tiles. I forgot to include RPD so it's 15 or 16 depending how you count it being split into 2 maps. It's more like 30 mininum when you include tile and layout changes.

    2. "More basekit ways to deal with opponents"? So anti-camp mechanic that does nothing in 99% of matches, basekit BT that prevents being insta downed immediately off hook. And survivor UI. What do any of these changes have to do with skill in chase?

    "Wow I can see that claudette is self caring in a corner, and Steve is on his 2nd hook state. Ah damn I forgot how to loop!"

  • Member Posts: 1,412

    It's clear that most people complaining about slugging have never played killer before. Yes, sometimes killers to it just to be jerks, but it is often required to counter things the survivors are doing, like lying in wait for a flashbang/flashlight/pallet save. I'll give you my own perspective as someone who actually plays killer. I don't slug people just for the hell of it unless they are intentionally BMing me (t-bagging at pallets, flashlight clicking, etc.) I do it because it's the right play given the situation. In so many of my killer matches, I've downed someone, noticed someone else close by, gone after them in a chase, and then later come back to find that the first survivor has crawled away, nowhere to be found. I'm not going to waste minutes trying to find that first person to hook them, so you're going to just have to stay slugged. This "slugging problem" is often self-inflicted by what the survivor players are doing. If you want to make it easy for the killer to come back and find you and hook you, don't crawl to the other side of the map.

  • Member Posts: 622

    I explained in the rest of my comment why that is a problem not related to giving up on hook. If the killer leaves everyone on the floor, the game is over and lost, at that point you aren’t ruining the game for anyone else if you have a button to insta bleed out.

  • Member Posts: 456

    I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but this is probably the first time I agree with Danielmaster87.

    Slugging, not to check for pallet or flashlight saves, but heavily and for a multi-survivor down, is an easy way to bypass core game mechanics by putting very little effort, essentially working as a shortcut to victory. It disables about 80% of the survivor perks and can transform a 0 hook game into a full wipe.

    It would be foolish for the killers not to slug when you can essentially bring a game to a halt the moment two people are on the floor. If anything, if you think about it, killers going for hooks are essentially just either throwing or flexing, when heavy slugging is just the most efficient way to gain an advantage over survivors.

  • Member Posts: 1,212

    I can't agree with 10 minute bleedout or lack of bleedout. I do not want to be permanently slugged or sit there for ten minutes. I'm sorry. :( Too abusable. The only way I'd agree to no bleedout/longer bleedout is if everyone being downed instantly ended the round in a Null - no Killer win, no Survivor win. but you get the points you got. Slugging people this way should never be a goal or a wincon. Slugging should always only be tactical and limited in how long you do it for. Your goal ought to be hooking not slugging.

  • Member Posts: 1,212

    I think it's more likely, unfortunately, that people would just DC while being slugged.

  • Member Posts: 5,677

    And I whole heartly agree with that... and the same for tunneling as a matter of fact...

    Killers should be penalized for not entertaining the entity... and that is how they can implament this

  • Member Posts: 187

    Perk Name: “Against All Odds”
    “Even in the darkest moments, you refuse to let go.”

    Effect: If there are only two survivors remaining and one of you is in the dying state for more than 10/8/6 seconds, their bleed-out timer is paused as long as the other survivor is within 20/24/28 meters. The survivor in the dying state also gains the ability to fully recover without assistance if they remain within this range.

  • Member Posts: 6,215

    You are talking about a very specific scenario of bleeding out 4 survivors on the ground, that isn't what i'm talking about here. I'm talking about the act of slugging in general. You slug survivor A to go after survivor B, and so on. Once all 4 are on the ground, you just pick them up and hook them. Its pretty rare to bleed everyone out forever.

  • Member Posts: 1,088

    I think slugging in general enriches the game, be it slugging opportunistically/tactically in a match that otherwise follows a more regular gameplay loop or strategically slugging where you try to slug as much as possible and win through it.

    People say being on the floor is boring, but it is objectively less boring than being on a hook. On a hook you essentially cannot do anything. You have more agency on the floor as you can recover, crawl to pallets, teammates, gates, hatch or areas the killer is less likely to find you in, position yourself to enable someone to pick you up mid-chase, and there are vastly more perks that benefit survivors in the dying state than there are that benefit survivors on hook. You also cannot nearly as effectively be "camped" or "tunnelled" out of the game from the floor.

    Full-on slugging matches yield low-downtime, high-intensity gameplay loops where a lot more chases and chances happen, camping and tunnelling effectively don't exist, and foregone conclusions are much rarer, as the match can flip at practically any time even if 3 (or even 4) survivors had been slugged, even after 10 or more minutes of playing whack-a-mole, since it is possible for everyone to get back up and reset, without having accumulated hook stages. It makes for really dynamic, back-and-forth matchflows and I for one much welcome this on both sides. Alas, it's vanishingly rare to encounter a killer that actually slugs as an overarching strategy.

    Of course, there are killers that it can be overpowered on, most of all Nurse, Blight, Billy, Singularity and Twins. But that is more to do with those killers being overpowered than slugging itself being an issue (Singularity and Twins aren't generally as overpowered, but they have problematic aspects and they are overly problematic against uncoordinated groups). Slugging in general on most killers however is a perfectly fine and engaging strategy, even - or rather: especially - when including things like Knock Out and Third Seal. I would encourage anyone to try it as killer, and any survivor player to earnestly reflect on the fun levels they've had in such matches. People usually complain about "slugging" when it was one of those aforementioned OP killers that likely would have beaten them decisively anyway and where they merely opportunistically slugged 1-2 survivors, or when someone slugged them to bleedout even after the match was already won, or when they slugged the second-to-last survivor to guarantee the kill on the last one. And those are actual problems worth complaining about and that should have long been addressed. But slugging tactically and strategically benefits the game greatly.

    Play any killer as you normally would, but simply never pick survivors up (unless of course you actually manage to slug everyone). See how much fun you can be having with the low downtime and frequent chases this yields. Mind you, you will regularly lose when playing like this (unless you are playing one of the stronger killers and are a strong player), but it gives you an impression of how engaging and refreshing a change of pace this can be. And as you find the right build and get more familiar with the strategy and make some adjustments to it (e. g. actually hooking people if you don't get an Infectious Fright proc), you will also start winning more often.

    I really hope BHVR won't get rid of Knock Out or implement general basekit counters to slugging. The only changes we need in this regard are nerfs to specific overpowered killers and remedies to the ability to bleed people out and "slug for the 4k". Those can be things like giving survivors the option to "surrender to the Entity" when everyone is in the dying state, being sacrificed then and there just like in EGC, and both this option to surrender and the ability to recover from the dying state when only two people remain in the trial, forcing the killer to pick up in a reasonable time or forcing the hatch endgame.

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