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More and more people want to take away player agency
They want killers to play in a certain way that benefits the survivors but not the other way around. How much are you willing to sacrifice before you end up 30 minutes in survivor queue because you cannot deal with killers doing certain ways that makes you cringe or DC? Player agency is being reduced over the years. Killers already aren't allowed to facecamp, to tunnel, to 3-gen because of 8x anti-gen regression, to breathe so much into your direction, and I'm pretty sure that soon Slugging will be forbidden as well with UB basekit added in a future patch.
I am certain that at some point of this game's lifetime will become so one directional that no killer is willing to play thus I end up not playing survivor anymore because of the queue times.
Comments
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I disagree. Killers are skipping mechanics because BHVR made bad mechanics. Its efficient to play in a boring and time wasting method, but thats how BHVR has set things up.
I no longer get mad at the slugging. Its become the norm and I just go next. But basekit UB isnt the answer. Its a used bandaid at best.
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"Killers already aren't allowed to facecamp"
And why is the a bad thing? Why does anyone need to facecamp?
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survivors are also skipping mechanics tbh, and the best example for that is aggressive use of perks that are meant to be used defensively when killer isn't really primarily doing what those perks are meant to protect from aka. anti-tunneling and anti-camping perks (which is the strongest and most optimal use of those perks actually.
But you are very much right about basekit UB being nothing but a lame bandaid for slugging for example, ot would just strenghten the aggressive use of it than actually deal with the problem.
BHVR just isn't good at dealing with core problems of the game and they keep releasing bandaids due to pressure of players that aren't competent either, and imho this will remain problem for quite, quite a long time.
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Honestly I just want hooking to mean more than Bloodpoints. :( I miss being able to actually use hooks for pressure, which is why Grim Embrace never leaves my loadouts anymore… because otherwise hooks do nothing much that a slug couldn't do better.
And I just don't like playing that way.
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The things you're talking about are the things that take away player agency, not the fixes.
Prior to the AFC system, if you were facecamped, you had no agency at all. The killer literally just stood in one spot, and you could do nothing about it. In the most extreme examples (such as, say, Leatherface in the basement) your teammates didn't even have any agency because they couldn't even try for a save.
Prior to the basekit anti-tunnel (which isn't even that strong on its own, for the record), if the killer wanted you dead and you/your teammates didn't bring one of literally two perks to contest it, you had no agency. You were downed as soon as your feet touched the floor, that's it, no two ways about it.
3-genning is something that had the most agency preserved, but the flipside of that is that you also still have the most agency to 3-gen here. Like, you can 3-gen, you have that agency, you just have to be doing it to win instead of stall.
It'd be the same if a basekit UB ever made it to the game. You'd have the agency to slug, you'd just have to play around there being a timer to make maximum value from it— and the survivors wouldn't have their agency taken away as much either.
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survivors are also skipping mechanics tbh, and the best example for that is aggressive use of perks that are meant to be used defensively when killer isn't really primarily doing what those perks are meant to protect from aka. anti-tunneling and anti-camping perks (which is the strongest and most optimal use of those perks actually.
I did not say all that to once again go to the 'but survivors!' us vs them. I was merely stating why I think killers are going away from hooks: its not worth it. I really don't understand why that was the first thing you felt needed to be said, but I'll try to further choose my words better. Apologies.
However, if thats the best example, then I feel quite confident in my position: its not even comparable. Aggressive use of perks can be meant for all kinds of things. But what it doesn't do is take away you player agency to do anything at all. Stuns from pallets and trapped gens are the best you get with being unable to do anything at all.
@anyone else
If you are going to clamor behind 'being slugged is better than being hooked for your agency.' then again, I feel great knowing that's the best counter that's been given, aside from hooks not being worth it.
Crawling on the ground due to another players choice is terrible by design because humans. This is what I want BHVR to fix. And that means making hooks worthwhile. And like @NarkoTri1er said, '…this will remain problem for quite, quite a long time.'
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Maybe they should make killer gameplay better and more fun instead of putting them in a corner with a leash every update?
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Maybe!
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That happens with every asym games. One side will complain and the other side will suffer.
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DBD has been arguably the most Killer Sided it's been and Killer players still feel shafted and a struggle. Shocker when Survivor complains about certain playstyles instead of asking for reasonable matches. It's always Killer desiring fair play but are hypocrites.
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Killers already have waaaaaay more agency than Survivors do. All we want is to level the playing field juuuuuust a bit.
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This is like arguing that removing infinites took away player agency.
Both sides need agency and exercising that agency should require relatively equal levels of skill.
That was the problem with face camping. The killer could just stand there and all of the work was on the survivors to pull off the rescue.
You can still camp if you want, you just have to put a little more thought into it.
That was the problem with 3 genning. Killers could lock down an area against anything but a top level SWF and just run around kicking gens.
You can still use a 3 gen as part of your killer strategy, you just have to put a little more thought into it.
And its not true to just say this is on killers only. Not only do we have old examples like infinites, but we can look to more current examples like: FTP+Buckle Up, MFT, dead hard twice.
In all those cases the survivors could still engage in the same mechanic, they can still rescue downed survivors, they can still loop, they can still use exhaustion mechanics. It's just not as easy as it once was.
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Can someone explain to me, what exactly happened?
What changed, that people now feel the need to slug?
I seriously don't get it.
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Something about 10 extra seconds on hook isn't fair.
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Survivors get nasty perks from being hooked, and you generally waste about like 70-100 seconds each game picking up and carrying survivors to hooks
Gen defence and regression is the worst it's even been and its only going to get worse
BHVR has confirmed that if enough survivors complain about a killer they'll just gut that killer So people arn't too keen to try and learn new killers anymore
And in general slugging is way more time effective for a killer nowadays and it prolongs the game allowing for more chases
The average game time with hook perks at Top MMR is around 6–8 mins usually and the killer might be around 5-6 hooks and ending with 1-2 kills
Slugging games in my experience end up around 10-15 mins long with way more chases It's not a gurranted killer win but nothing is But in general it's just more fun
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The slugging thing is a recent development. Just a month ago, it wasn't that bad.
Most of the aspects you mention, are nothing new.
So again, what changed?
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Shoulder the Burden bub
Slugging has been better than hooking for months now, it just took shoulder the burden to get it into peoples minds that its not worth going for hooks anymore
Also Choy and Tru3 are slugging gamers now And Otz has said multiple times recently that slugging seems to be better The nhooking
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This is a self-inflicted injury. Certain streamers (who I won't name) decided to punish survivors due to BHVR's balancing choices, and have inspired killer players with bad attitudes to do the same. Now BHVR has to come in and fix the mess these players have made.
I don't blame killer players for exploiting this game's poorly thought out gameplay loop. I blame the devs for not having enough forsight to predict that having a gameplay loop, where players are forced to do nothing for minutes at a time, was a bad idea. They have built this game up on a dodgy foundation. Every addition to the game has just made it more complicated to fix.
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The survey about Slugging last month. If it warranted survey attention then it's obvious something the Devs need feedback on. Now because of the attention people are doing it more than ever. Just a way to be toxic.
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It's true. If you're struggling as killer and people say, "Just get better at chase. Just get better at gens." that doesn't help, because of course you can always be better at those things, but the improvement for a lot of us isn't going to be night and day. It would be like going from 95% of our full potential to 96% of our full potential, over a year-long period of "improvement."
The reality still is that if you go against a survivor team who knows to abuse the brokenness of the game, you physically can't do anything. Even with tunneling, they just rush gens. Even with 3-genning, they just yo-yo/shift W. Even with slugging, they have comms. And the majority just seem to be tone-deaf to the killer POV. They suggest all these changes to make the killer role weaker, weak beyond belief, and when asked, "Well, what can the killer do then to win?" they say, "Just get better. The game is easy for you already."
The answers they give us are not acceptable, because they don't line up with the reality of the role. "Just do X and you win EZ every time." That might work for Nurse or Blight, but what about the 95% of other killers who need way more help just to have an even playing field? Have you even played those killers, or gone against good teams with them? It's night and day to how you see the game. Like, when have I just been able to hop on Wraith or Freddy, or do some random meme build, and not get crushed for it? Only when I'm going against uncoordinated, inefficient noobs.
The killer role's problem is that the average killer doesn't have enough power or agency to get the survivors before time's up (gens are all done and everyone runs out). The survivor role's problem is that in solo they get bad teammates who have no place being in their lobby, meanwhile the killer is actually trying to win. So like I always say, this doesn't get fixed until matchmaking gets fixed. After that, we can see what's OP at what level (just disregard bottom level, where survivors don't know what their objective is), what undesirable things are happening and why, other factors like how many hooks and gens were done, and use that data to balance the game. Right now, that can't happen, because it's mostly random matchmaking like we're in 2018 again.
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Yeah, I mean it's so obvious. If you make it as hard as possible for killers to chase, hook, and spread hooks, they simply won't. They want to win, and these days that means slugging and hoping to dodge all the SWFs, meaning solo gets punished the most. If killers had incentives to play in other ways, or SWF was nerfed (for once in this game's lifespan), or matchmaking was competent, this wouldn't be the daily discussion.
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Absolutely not. When a match of non-stop bad chases can be recovered for survivors by 1 good chase, but a series of really good chases by the killer doesn't let him come back from 1 bad chase, something is fundamentally wrong with the game.
I'm trying to think of what agency you're referring to, and I'm grasping at straws. They move faster, and can* get the survivors in chase almost no matter what, but that doesn't cement a favorable position for the killer. If the survivors know how to waste enough time at tiles, and take long enough to go down, it doesn't matter if the killer's time sink "pays off," because he's lost the game by that point. Even if a survivor does the worst chase imaginable, like instantly getting downed or grabbed before they even had the chance to run, that's a crumb of momentum, and doesn't bring the killer closer to victory unless the rest of the survivors' chases are like that.
So many times I've played solo and was in a lost match, and then we brought it back, or came close to doing so, because I and 1 other teammate decided to sit on gens for like 1 minute, or gave the killer a decent chase instead of going down instantly. It's like, "What? We could have done this the whole time?" Yes, you can. And that kind of highlights how survivors have agency, not killer. I've never been killer on the cusp of losing and decided, "I'm just gonna do X now" and have that be enough for me to bring it back. I've only experienced that as survivor.
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High MMR games??? Those show Killers with a 61% KR or, at worst, a 51% KR. Winning either way.
It saddens me, genuinely, to see just how badly the gen kick meta ruined Killer players. It is actually depressing to see people wholeheartedly believe that gen defence is the worst its ever been.
This whole notion of slugging being better is built off of the idea that most people ARE NOT in a SWF. All you are doing is punching down on Solo and Duo queue players.
I question how any of these newer Killer players would have handled the game when it was actually Survivor-sided.
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You could nuke survivors, and slugging wouldn't go away. Players now know that it is the most effective way of winning. So the strat is here to stay. Even before the hook timer change, and StB was introduced, slugging everyone to death was very effective.
My guess as to why it's become more prevalent, is that most players only seem to only realise how good something is when it's shown to them. A high MMR killer steamer might struggle against strong teams, starts slugging everyone to death, and in the process, give permission to their viewers to do the same. Even though the viewers are likely struggling due to their lower skill, and not the game's balance. Which I'm guessing is why hardcore slugging seems to be everywhere, not just in high level play.
It's going to need to be addressed at some point. But I have no idea how BHVR will do it without messing it up. Adding basekit UB solves one problem (sort of), but enables other problems (things like pallets saves), which can make it impossible for the killer to pick that survivor up.
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facts
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The issue is SWF, it's not an issue with Surv in general or even Killer. SWF is ruining the game for everyone else.
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kill rate is not win rate
I forgot the exact metric but you can win like 3 times as killer then get a draw like 7 times in a row and it'd be a 60% kill rate
dont quote me on the stats as i forgot the but its basically this
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To be fair, the good option here is to already have someone else in chase, ideally already being carried to the hook, when the unhook happens. You don't actually have to care about any of these tools if you're already generating more pressure to keep the team on the back foot.
We'll Make It and Resurgence are good - very good even - but they aren't so good you need to deny the survivors any ability to use them or you'll lose outright. Ultimately, you should probably expect survivors to be healed when you next chase them after an unhook, so all you're "taking" here is a few extra seconds on generators. If you're already in a chase and close to getting a hook by that point, you can make up for that by dragging survivors off generators again pretty quickly.
The thing you need to be doing is forcing reactions, you can have ultra fast chases but if you aren't actually using them to generate pressure like that it won't help as much.
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That's a lot to ask of most killers on the roster given how safe most maps are unless the survivors are seriously outskilled. Most maps have an overabundance of pallets and easily chainable strong tiles.
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That doesn't make that much of a difference to this principle, outside of making chases generally longer.
Even if the survivor you're chasing after getting a hook immediately runs to a safe area, you're still occupying three survivors at once. That chase being difficult isn't like, good for you, but it doesn't change the value you'd be getting from the hook to begin with- just means you're less likely to have the chase finished before the unhook, especially since most survivors like to save sooner rather than later.
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Pretty sure someone took NightLight stats and did the math.
KR was almost identical to WR. They were extremely close.
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While you're occupying that survivor in chase, the hooked survivor gets unhooked and either stays injured or heals in 2 seconds with Resurgence or We'll Make It. Those two then tag team the nearest generator and finish it quickly. You'll have already lost 2 or 3 gens at this point against good survivors. You're better off taking a pallet or two from the person you're chasing then being a back to the hook Harry. The pace of efficient survivors is too fast for what you're describing
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Assuming they have those perks, yeah, they can get back on the gen pretty quickly. The thing is, though, in this scenario you don't get better results from going back to the hook- in fact, you get worse results, because the two unoccupied survivors in the second scenario don't even have the combined travel time + unhook animation + heal + travel time back timesink, they're just doing generators while you return to the hook without any interruption.
Obviously, there's nuance depending on the scenario you're in. Sometimes going back to the hook and chasing the unhooker is the right call. Generally speaking, though, the basic fundamentals of good killer play involve spreading your pressure so multiple survivors are occupied at once, that's how you win when versing efficient teams.
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Shoulder the Burden only affects tunnelling, not hooking in general.
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If you're having a bad chase against a certain Survivor, you can choose to drop it at any time. That's still your agency more than the Survivor's. Survivors can try to take chase from you, but only you can choose whether or not to chase them.
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Facts.
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How can you tell what people main lol
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Something about comp becoming the new rave. Or influx of new players from IP's coming in, could be bringing less desireable types. All kinds of reasons but hard to pin one or two down.
But the comp scene seems to have taken off with people and when streamers are doing this, there will be sheep that follow and because their streamer said so, its law. This is my best guess.
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A 60% kill rate could hypothetical result in as low as a 20% win rate, but there are three key problems with this point
1: A 60% kill rate could also hypothetically lead to an 80% win rate.
2: In a 20% win rate hypothetical, the killer has a 0% loss rate, which somehow gets overlooked whenever it gets mentioned.
3: Nightlight data gives us a pretty general indication of where a 60% kill rate ends up on the win rate scale - A 52 to 55% win rate, a draw rate of 11 to 15% and a loss rate of 31 to 35%.
A 60% kill rate almost certainly results in the killer winning considerably more games than they lose, and likely winning more games than they lose and draw.
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The problem with this, and Pulsar pointed this out, lots of what survivors are complaining about and is getting discussed in this thread, are soloq stomping strategies. Slugging and face camping are relatively easily to deal with for a 4 person SWF.
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Sorry, that doesn't add up. That one perk, that almost nobody uses has drastically changed the way you play? Have you played at the time, when perks like and bt and ds where in their prime and actually punished you hard for hooking? I assume no, because otherwise your opinion would be similar to mine. People are greatly exaggerating if you ask me.
Content creators are not my compass that have to tell me how to play. I have my own head to think and decide. I hope most people do.
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I guess we wait and see.
I'm just kinda done with people having to "find new ways because it's suddenly necessary".
It wasn't necessary years ago and it isn't necessary now.
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Correct. Anything regarding a choice is always a choice. 'Reasons' are simply shields to prevent harm to the ego. 'I do it because hooks work against me/they were toxic/fell out of bed this morning.' Your reasons aren't even in the conversation, it changes nothing about the state of the game.
Stating 'this isn't fun, why is it apart of the game' is just met with defenders of the skill-less tactics. Its basekit now to remove other players ability to play the game. It cirles back to 'its efficient.' Yes, another shield, but not any less true. This is BHVR's making and can only be dealt with by them. WHich doesn't bode well for us, imo.
(No you specifically, Radiant! Just making sure :) )
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sorry, i didn't mean for it to sound like us vs. them, i just wanted to point out how the game is nowadays basically revolving around both sides technically skipping mechanics because BHVR is doing terrible job at actually trying to balance the game out against healthy aspects.
I haven't even seen them actually releasing a proper change to deal with problems in the game. Two of recent changes that are also nothing but bandaids too were also hook respawns and +10s to hook timers.
Point of hook respawns was to what? Reduce the slugging problem? But it also removed strategical aspect of hooking while BHVR further buffed e.g. sabo strats (which are extremely healthy for the game) in response to that. They simply aren't playtesting this game nowhere near properly.
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This "strategy" primarily harms the killer, because at best he will be able to make -1 and get 8k bp in a 5 minute game, it just doesn't make sense.
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Oh yeah, I feel freedom of action when the gate is open, survivors unhook and calmly run away blocking me with their bodies. Great freedom of action, in such moments I want to smash the monitor from helplessness.
I just hate these moments, give me my 1k and go to another game.
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I hope you realize that this is the MAIN mechanic of the game? The killer is chase the survivor. That is literally what this game is.
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Well, yeah. But if you're having trouble catching one Survivor, wouldn't it be wise to stop chasing them and push the others off their gens?
If you're overcommitting to chasing that one Survivor that you just can't catch, that's when the gens fly. And that is the Killer's choice. A Survivor can't loop for five gens if the Killer doesn't commit to the chase.
Post edited by CrypticGirl on12 -
Unfortunately the killer side doesn't have a team to perform team plays. Survivors do. And body blocking to protect another survivor is actually one of the better things in the game atm. Frustrating to you, perhaps. But absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just fell to a good team play.
And this is not the type of 'freedom of action' thats even being talked about. Please stop lobbing things in that really aren't even in the same solar system as the topic.
Oh survivors understand this, but some of your brethren seem to disagree with you, and just slug. The one thing that removes all other aspects of the game from the game. Perkless. Basekit. Any killer. Brand new players. ALl of this can tunnel/camp/slug.
So, what to do, what to do. Thoughts?
All good! I was a lil frustrated I came off that way. Yes, both sides suck. But like anything, individuals make it bad, not the entire group. Not every killer does this crap. Not every Survivor wants to make it hell for the killer.
But agreed with everything you said. We need merely wait for the Entity's lackeys to do something already…
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Facts. You're 100% on the money here @radiantHero23 per usual. The Jabronis complaining that are playing this game today would have crumbled after getting DH'd once pre-nerf. I was that masochist playing m1 killers back when every surv in every lobby had a guaranteed DS at 35% wiggle bar. Literally, when every perk was at it's strongest, when tiles would waste even more of your time with less time to defend gens, and never, ever, before was it even close to anything like this. I know anyone who's seen the game and it's community change over the years like I have will agree. It was never this bad even when survs actually had almost every advantage stacked in their favor from perks to add-ons and map layout. We have to change the culture and take our game back. People are getting fed up with it, and if something doesn't change then we will ultimately get Dev intervention, whether that's through an unbreakable basekit system, or something else they have in store. So, really one way or another the issue will be addressed.
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