Ever thought off why slugging increased?

What changes did the devs make that would benefit killers from hooking a survivor? Tell me.They just keep nerfing all the generator defense perks and giving more second chance perks to survivors.In addition to increasing the hook time, which was completely unnecessary.

"we'll keep making people's games miserable until you buff us" is somehow a good way to convince the devs to change the game or fix perceived issues.

'Until BHVR undoes the changes to medkits and Circle of Healing, my SWF and I are going to gen rush with commodious toolboxes every game and brag about it on Twitch and Youtube!'

Cut to: Shocked when BHVR nerfs toolboxes.

This would be the survivor equivalent, which never really happens. I agree, I don't get what people are thinking by slugging thinking that will make BHVR do anything but nerf slugging. We have the equivalent of the guy who was 3 genning with "Chess Merchant" to time out matches, except he was probably trolling to get SM nerfed.

I mean you nerf one playstyle then people shift towards another, slugging has always been this strong but hooking was just stronger for a while by far, and before that the gen kick meta, then before that the gen block meta, then before that…

You have to chase only a single survivor, with no perks on trapper and not use trapper's power at all, Then when you finally down the survivor, you need to immediately pick them up, make sure you don't face a wall so they have a chance to flashlight save. Then you hook them, then you need to immediately run to the opposite end of the map as fast as possible and face a wall. Then once they get saved, you need to wait for them to heal, then you can start chasing another survivor. But make sure you don't go after the person who was just hooked, or that is tunneling. In fact, if you even enter a chase against that survivor, you have to immediately run to basement for 30 seconds as a punishment.

And they've always done it.

Both roles are have tacitcs and playstyles that have criticisim and can be considered unfair, a crutch, or toxic by whomever deems them to be so. The reason why tactics like Tunneling and Slugging are so heavily criticized and receive more backlash is because the effort you put in compared to the value you get out is not comparable to anything else in the game.

To explain it simply, a possible comparable to slugging for killer is getting blinded. Both render the particpant mostly incapacitated, unable to work towards their main objective for differing amounts of time. So Lightborn, the counter to blinding, let's say it now would work like a counter to slugging, UB or a counter to tunneling, OTR.

This would mean that Lightborn now:

Has a cool down (you can only resist a blind every 60 seconds), an activation requirement (you must hook someone before it activates) and it was not free (either get it through the shrine or you have to buy a character).

Meanwhile, the survivors ability to blind you does not require a perk slot, has no restrictions, no activation requirements, no cool down, nor does it require an item to use. And it also, passively, works towards their main objective in the end but circumvents the intended mechanics, meaning they all would be able to escape without doing any gens so long as they keep you incapacitated for a set amount of time.

This is the core issue with tactics like Tunneling and Slugging. When compared to other tools in the game—perks, add-ons, items, or even killer abilities—none offer such an extreme level of value with so little investment or some kind of trade-off. They all have cool downs, they all have restrictions, activation requirements, or can only be done a certain number of times. Even killers entire powers have a combination of those things listed above. Thus, the heavy criticism.

What is it that you'd say was a healthy strategy that got nerfed, though?

Is it just that a couple slowdown perks in particular were nerfed? I wouldn't personally call running the strongest handful of perks a strategy, which is why I ask.

There's quite a bit of downsides or "punishment" for hooking. First, picking up a survivor makes you vulnerable to a flashlight/flashbang/pallet save, removing all pressure when occurring. Second, you telegraph to the rest of the team that the survivor has been picked up, meaning all gen repair and healing is safe. Third, you become vulnerable to sabotage/breakout/boil-over/power-struggle during the carry, which can be up to ~15 seconds. Again, if failed you lose all pressure. Fourth, the survivor is now locked in a safe position from you for up to 70 seconds, where they will then gain potentially the strongest perks in the game upon unhook should you choose or have no choice but to the chase that unhooked survivor.

Literally all of this can be avoided if you leave the survivor on the ground where you can then immediately start chasing another survivor, occupying half the team (or more).

Slugging needs to be nerfed, I can agree on that, but maybe hooking should be a bit more useful and less risky for killer, yes?

Hello Ryuhi! Good to speak with you again. I always enjoy the conversations with you even when we don't always agree. But I do believe for the most part I agree with you here(?) Forgive me if what I think you're saying isn't accurate.

But from what I gather, I do agree that when healthier strategies or tools/perks that support healthier strategies get nerfs, tweaks or changes which will lead to players defaulting to whatever is next. But I also believe the same could be said for it's opposite, nerfing of unhealthy perks or tactics will also result in healthier game play because there isn't a different option. I do agree that balance changes should definitely not only be "punishments" but also rewards as well, incentivising the desired outcome while also discouraging the other.

I do also believe it's a chicken and the egg scenario. As changes are just domino effects that can all be dissected into subjective reasoning. Bob does X becaue of Y but Sally does X because of Z. Both have different reasons for doing X but X is still done, and both of their reasons are valid. We can debate wether or not Y or Z are good enough reasons to do X, but that's just a distraction from the fact that X is occuring, and I think it takes away from the conversation a bit when things like that happen. If we're taking your example of "LCD" strats, I think nerfing them isn't a complete fix either, but the effort-to-value ratios are still too high compared to other tools in the game, and that should be balanced.

The thing with LCDs is that they are all basekit, its part of where I coined the term from (accessible to all killers from the start, with loadouts and powers only accentuating them) which is why I don't consider things requiring perks specifically into the mix. They're the lowest effort for the most reward while being accessible to any killer the moment they install the game. As for the ubiquitous "spreading pressure," it varies wildly among the roster, with some killers excelling while others might as well not exist outside their TR. Likewise it can be much more reliant on perks, addons, and even offerings, basically making it too volitile to be an LCD. My argument is basically that the easiest option should never be the best option, and the nerfs and/or changes that other aspects of the game got are how we got there. Hope that makes sense.

Likewise friend! Respectfully disagreeing but understanding why people feel the way they do is always better to me than just having people blindly agree, so its always nice to see. That said, we actually do agree on most of it, I was mostly iterating on your post (I know it seems like everyone only responds to counterpoint here.) You're also correct on the juxtaposition regarding nerfing the unhealthy, like the OverBrine example. The issue is that BHVR tends to overnerf things and then put them on the backburner for far too long, which is particularly serious when it comes to core gameplay mechanics.

This affects incentivizing healthy behavior the most, as it gets people into bad habits that need to then be re-conditioned out. Making up completely hypothetical extremes for a scenario, lets say that PGTW was 90% flat regression. This would be extremely stupid, and would then understandably get nerfed. Before its nerf, however, killers would be incentivized to go for hooks to keep their Pops going, and they would be encouraged to search multiple gens while its timer is active instead of settling on that nearby gen thats only 20%. Now the perk gets nerfed (as it should in that case) but BHVR makes it so that its only 5% of current progress, and they internally decide to keep it there so people wont complain about it while they try to think of a rework. This would remove the perk from viability, but also remove the playstyle changes it encouraged in its previous form. This causes a slide backward to LCD strats, and even if reverted at a later time, the time in between would get killers in the habit of just sticking with the comfortable LCDs. The damage gets worse the longer that the overnerf is present, and would be completely avoided if the nerf was less severe. People would still try to work with it instead of abandoning it entirely, thus its incentivizing impact would still be present.

Not a psychologist, but emergent gameplay is something I've been taking a lot more seriously over the last few years in game design. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The best way to get players to conform to a behavior you prefer is to gently guide them toward it in a way they discover it themselves, and the more esoteric you make viable strategies, the more their intuition will simply settle on LCDs (in any game.) Simply put, if a player plays the way you want them to and you didn't have to bombard them with flashing arrows pointing at what you want them to do, you designed both their (dis)incentives properly.

TLDR: LCD strats need nerfs, but ONLY after better strats get buffs that make them both equally viable while also requiring more skill. There needs to be more healthy universal mechanics and they need to be less braindead, but they need to retain their current level of strength.

I wouldn't call the OverBrine meta healthy, but the idea was there. You're right that having a stronger kick meta encouraged a lot more hooking and patrolling and less camping and tunneling, but the numbers mixed with the incap duration were just too much at their best, and got brought too low at their post-meta values. My theory is that there is not very good internal testing for synergies on either side, which is why we end up with combos that go from way too strong to near useless when they get panic overnerfed.

Every negative change tends to lead to LCD strats while people look for a new meta. The problem is when the community can't find one, so instead they just stick with the LCDs due to the conditioning effect from my other post. This is also coming from someone who doesn't think that LCD strats require no skill, just that their impact is disproportionate from their skill floor. Simply put, they should be harder for how effective they are, and I'd rather it move in that direction than the opposite of just removing/limiting the strats altogether. In fact, hard nerfing something like slugging due to complaints about bleed outs and the like would directly impact its practical applications (like chasing down someone waiting for a save, slugging one for pressure, etc.) This would apply to tunneling and camping just as much, and is probably a big part of why they put the face in AFC.

But basically I want them to get better about nerfs staying reasonable rather than ham fisted. It feels like there is so little forward thinking in a game that forces new content every 3 months that its kinda wild it hasn't burst at the seams at this point. Which is unfair to the game's planning/directing, but these are all things they could be working on in a way that benefits the entire playerbase through a health chapter instead of risking unhealthy strategies within the userbase (survivors included.)

Thats not what people mean by second chance. They mean they won the chase yet were forced to lose it due to a perk or mechanic

The problem, however, is that these perks don't work in any ordinary chase.

If you get pulled off the hook, you're injured, and you're likely in an area where there's reduced resources due to the last chase. If the killer is on you right after, you were never going to get a proper chase to begin with, that's the killer short-circuiting the normal gameplay.

'They won the chase'

If these perks come into play, they more likely won half a chase and expect to reap the full reward. These perks just reset to normal. If you're smashing your face into all these anti-tunnel perks and getting hit by all of them, maybe the problem isn't the anti-tunnel perks. Maybe the problem is you.

These perks are incredibly avoidable and incredibly easy to nullify, but apparently it's easier to bash your head into the wall and then complain to behaviour that the bricks hurt too much.

The only one that can be argued for is OTR, and I have made a suggestion about reworking it in the past, but I think in general, killers have decided that they'd rather hang on to tunnelling irrespective of the consequences for the rest of the game.

Again, if you are eating every single anti-tunnel perk, that is a choice that you made as killer.

It's like driving down a dead-end road after passing a 'dead end' sign, then passing three more 'dead end' signs and going "This signage has really gotten out of hand".

yeah all the time actually I play without those things, bc I do consider the other side. I literally never use or do any of those things. Sooooo this is awkward…

Yes, absolutely. Understanding the why regardless of agreement or not is why I love discussions. I think it’s always important to appeal to different perspectives no matter how warped or biased they may be, so you can then explain things better from their point of view. (Maybe a reflex of discussions with my kindergartener lol as I try to see her way of thinking and the kind of language she uses before I try to explain something to her in a way she will understand).

Anyway, yes, I do believe in agreement. The way “balance” has somewhat shifted into simply “nerf” is concerning and you bring a great point about it being scary when base game changes are brought into balance as we’ve seen what has happened to the perks themselves. And while I believe you agree with this so it’s not necessary to say, I would still like to mention that regardless of the fear or the difficult of balancing anything base-game may be, it doesn’t mean we never try. And we have seen the devs already implement some base game changes for balance that did what they were meant to, (anti-face camp, BT off hook).

It can certainly be frustrating to see the hammer so heavily brought down on changes in the past, and I share the same concerns as you about it happening again and putting the game in an even worse state. I think PTB testing any base game changes would be a start, along with considering feedback from the community alongside actual data they received, as facts aren’t everything , nor are feelings everything. The best results happen when both are taken into consideration (imo). I don’t want tunneling or slugging to be eradicated from the game, as both can and sometimes be the best option in certain situations. If they worked more like perks, where you had to be selective about when you used them I think that in itself would be a huge improvement. I don’t want to take away more player freedom that has already been restricted, but more so making it a choice that they decide is worth making. If there are no downsides then it’s hardly a choice, it’s obvious. And I agree that the best choice shouldn’t be the easiest choice.

I wouldn’t be surprised if slugging did see some kind of change. The survey question indicate at the very least that the devs are asking about it, and who knows what kind of data they have on their end to feel it needs adjusting. And with the influx of new players coming soon with the FNAF games, I would be concerned as a dev myself if it was still possible to bleed out 4 people for 4 minutes as it would leave a very nasty taste in my new customers mouth. From a business perspective alone I don’t agree that the ability to do such a thing is profitable in the long run, you’re pleasing 1 customer and losing 4. That math is not in their best interest. So that being said. Here’s hoping any changes that come to base game mechanics are carefully thought out, and given a chance to be tested before put into live games.