http://dbd.game/killswitch
If You Play Killer, Tunnelling Is Against Your Best Interests
Bear with me. I've got some real points to make about this.
So, tunnelling is often a hot button issue, with those who want it to be addressed often answered by comments about how it's necessary at the high level to secure any hope of victory. This, broadly, isn't true, but what I have to say doesn't really get swayed either way by that statement.
There are two reasons why tunnelling is against your best interests as killer… long term. That's the hitch, I'm only taking about long term effects, not short term. In the short term, it's very much in your best interests, it's the easiest value you can get as killer and teams that can properly counter it tend to be pretty rare. In the long term, though, two things become potential problems for you.
1: It stunts your growth with the fundamentals.
If you lean on tunnelling to gain an edge over teams that are giving you trouble, or if you go straight to tunnelling someone out from the start, you're not honing macro fundamental skills (Spreading pressure being the most notable example, but there are others too) and you're also getting much less practice on in-chase fundamentals since the chases you're taking after the first one are very often heavily stacked in your favour.
In the long term, as you gain more wins through tunnelling someone out, you'll face progressively stronger opponents, and you'll be increasingly less able to answer them with anything other than more tunnelling. You'll find yourself locked in to this one strategy even as it gets harder and more frustrating, because you won't have as much of the fundamental skills to fall back on.
2: It's unbalanced and it will get changes.
I want to be very clear about this point, and be transparent that I'm not shaming anyone or judging your gameplay. I am just noting, fully neutrally, that the unbalanced nature of tunnelling means BHVR are going to be addressing it in the future. Whether it's a slow set of incremental improvements like we've had so far, or one fell swoop that handles it conclusively once and for all, we're eventually going to reach a point where tunnelling is no longer actually easier and more impactful than not tunnelling.
Much like the previous point, in the long term that means you may find yourself up a certain creek without a paddle if tunnelling's swept out from under you and you're left at the mercy of teams who are skilled enough to make you flounder. If you don't have anything to fall back on if and when tunnelling stops working, you're going to struggle.
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Those are my points. If you don't care about long term results and only care about the short term then by all means, keep tunnelling, it's very strong. If you do care about being able to beat skilled opponents in the long term, though, tunnelling is against your best interests. Resist its allure, and be a better player for it as time passes.
Comments
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Its important to note as well that theres a difference between tunneling somebody right from the beginning of the match, and going for some one who was just unhooked and is putting themselves in a really bad position, especially when comparing it to the person saving them.
Lets say Meg was just unhooked and runs into a deadzone and Dwight just saved her and is running towards shack, the better play is to go for the Meg. How ever if you flip whos running where then its best to go for the Dwight.
Being able to recognize who its best to go for is a skill in of it self, and theres no shame in doing it as its 100% a mistake on the Survivors part
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Honestly I don't tunnel simply because it was frowned upon, I am used to not doing it.
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Not much to add. I agree completely.
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1. If you go into every match with the "i will tunnel asap" mentality then yes, it will hinder your game learning capabilities because you will eventually run into teams that will hardcore punish you for even attempting to tunnel and you will probably end up with 0k in most cases.
2. Tunneling ISN'T unbalanced and it comes directly from my previous statement. Tools against tunneling are stronger than they've ever been and tunneling in average pub matches should almost always be a dead end. Even in comp matches where some of the strongest anti-tunnels (OTR, Babysitter and StB) are banned and you will usually have only one survivor that actually runs DS and DH, tunneling is severely punished and killer can tunnel only if survivors make a mistake.
Let's be real for once, idk what region you are playing on but it definitely gives totally wrong feedback about tunneling.
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So if tunneling gets any significant changes I play the next best thing. Top 5 of roster. Why subject myself to the fundamentally weak killers just for them to be made weaker? Because I doubt BHVR would go as far as making the punishment less harsh for certain killers. Also playing the game is not the only way to learn/get better DBD. Coaches in sports are considered great at them even if they never played more than a couple professional games in their lives.
I've played plenty of games where I simply watched good gameplay and listened to people and as was automatically good at it when I started playing.1 -
Your first statement is just agreeing with me, it doesn't lead to contesting my points at all. If all you do is tunnel (or if you rely heavily on tunnelling, it isn't all-or-nothing), you'll eventually face teams that are better at the game than you to the degree that they can punish your attempts at tunnelling well.
At that point, you won't know how to beat them, because you aren't actually as good as them at any fundamental skills, and you'll need to learn the game from scratch again.
That doesn't mean tunnelling isn't unbalanced, it just means it isn't so overwhelmingly broken that anyone can beat the top players with it. If you're facing people even remotely within your skill level it's definitely unbalanced.
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Sure, play who you like. If you aren't comfortable with the weaker killers, don't play them, that's completely up to you.
Though, I will say this, there are skills in most games - including DBD - that you don't learn just by watching other people. In this game, keeping track of where survivors likely are really only comes from a lot of firsthand experience, just as an example. There's definitely a degree to which you do need to hone your own skills actively to improve.
You get an edge from knowing some core elements and maybe a few knowledge checks going in, but that only gets you so far.
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As @Shroompy says, what exactly do we mean by tunneling? This is one of those things that tend to derail these conversations. To me it means that the first survivor the killer hooks, they target above all other priorities.
On the other hand, if the killer came across three survivors who just finish a heal, one is on two hooks, the other two on one hook, and he targeted the two hook survivor I wouldn't call that tunneling and, all else being equal, is the right decision.
Agree on the game fundamentals. It would be incredibly easy for a new player on Wraith, to target the first player they find, after hook cloak and wait nearby, rush in after the save. They'd probably win a lot of their games until they improved in MMR, then they'd complain about 'good' survivors.
I think one of the primary reasons not to tunnel is that it now adds a huge luck component to the game. Did the survivor you pick / the rest of the team have anti-tunnel builds? You have no way to know that before you begin the tunnel process, and if they do, you're in huge trouble.
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The definition of tunnelling I use is simply "Chasing the survivor who was just/very recently unhooked". Target prioritisation on any survivor that's had time to reset and get away from the hook isn't tunnelling as far as I'm concerned.
That definition gets at the meat of the problem much quicker, and also generally reflects the gameplay people most often complain about.
Usually this is done to get them dead as quick as possible, but I'd argue you're still tunnelling if you only get them to second hook, or only from second hook to dead. The problematic elements - leveraging extreme vulnerability on the survivor's part for an easy to attempt but difficult to counter strategy - remain in those circumstances.
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I can say for certain general map awareness is a skill that can be learned from watching. There is little to nothing in dbd I haven't learned by watching it instead of performing it myself. It's just common sense to me.
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I'm sorry but I strongly and heavily disagree. The killers who play to win from minute one, no holds barred will tunnel relentlessly and if the survivors aren't ready for it/good enough to finish a game in a 3v1 scenario - they lose. Straight up.
I understand your argument that doing this means you don't learn macro play, or splitting pressure; and so on. I agree, if a new player learning Killer just tunnels nonstop and doesn't learn these things it will hinder them but that's not the issue with tunnelling. The issue with tunnelling is once you know these things, it becomes objectively the easiest way to win a match.
Secure a hook, proxy them to 2nd stage if you can then tunnel them out immediately after. Slowdown perks will buy you enough time to do this usually. Most solo Q teams will fold to this strat because they either don't have enough gens done by this point or throw trying to protect the person being tunnelled.
As for the 2nd point about it being unbalanced/getting changes - I'd say be very careful what you wish for because there's two sides to these issues and more often than not a lot of Killer's end up tunnelling because the survivors did 3 gens super quickly and the Killer needs to push the match back toward their favour by making it a 3v1. If Killers can no longer do this at all, killrates will probably plummet for a lot of the cast. Imo at least.
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I'm not sure I understand why that's disagreeing with me?
Yes, it's currently objectively the easiest way to win a match. My point about it stunting growth for the fundamentals is that you'll rise to a point where survivors start being able to put up a legitimate defence, and while it's still going to be a very strong strategy, it becomes much less comfortable and a lot more stressful. You'll be boxed in, and you'll need to rely on tunnelling where before you would've had the room to mess up more.
As for the last point, I somewhat doubt that, but it's a little outside the scope of this post. The only thing to point out is the obvious reminder that three gens being done in your first chase is actively on the roadmap as something getting addressed.
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Edit: i hit quote but it didnt so this is in relation to @Shroompy post.
I personally still never tunnel with the excuse of getting either the weakest or strongest person out (heard both sides). Weakest because often those are newer or inexperienced ppl. Strongest because then they're usually wasting time as gens get done. However, to your point, doing that like once is one thing. But specifically and repeatedly going for the weaker person is still tunneling, regardless of the reason why youre doing it.
People who say "get good" (not that you did) miss the point of they can't "get good" if they dont get to live long enough to try. Looping, learning zones, and all of that takes time. When you're consistently tunneled out, especially by your example, then you never learn. While im not saying that someone's inexperience is the killers concern per say, I am saying tunneling anyone is unfair especially someone inexperienced. However, regardless of experience, unless you have a build and or a swf, even experienced players get tunneled. It's a vulnerable spot for survivors which is why it's exploited and a debate.
People say "what if they unhook in front of me", then go after the unhooker - that's what I do. Or "they wanted to take a hit" then deep wound and move on. Taking a hit is common, strategic, and often frowned upon if the unhooked doesn't event try to take a hit. I respect killers more if they immediately go back to hooks but go after the other person. It's annoying but generally not viewed as toxic.
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I think I just worded myself badly. I don't disagree with your logic at all on the 'long term' side of things, I suppose I just don't agree that it's something we should try to push people away from either meaning I don't think it's necessarily against a killer player's best interests if that makes sense.
That's not meant to be a "let people play how they want" type response though since I genuinely think it's something people should learn and shouldn't be stigmatised in the way it is because it creates a lot of unnecessary hostility in the community imo. If a Killer tunnels me, I take it as they just really want to win and that's that.
It sucks sometimes but it's the nature of the game right?
It's not like survivors are pushed away from tactics/playstyles/perks that give them short term wins at the cost of long term improvement. Not meant to be a 'us vs them' complaint, I genuinely think it's a good comparison. Instead of learning map tiles or surveying their surroundings, nah just slap on Windows. Why not? It's objectively easier and I wouldn't fault survivors for doing it.
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It sucks sometimes but it's the nature of the game right?
Perhaps that will change, my friend! If the anti-tunnel features are as effective as they should be.
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Well, nobody's actually being pushed away from these strategies, I'm just one person.
My personal recommendation is not to tunnel if you want longterm results, I'd make the same posts about survivor tactics if I were more immersed in that role.
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That could be! I'm not optimistic or pessimistic about it but I think the surrender and anti-facecamp systems (While flawed) have helped reduce frustrations immensely just because they exist. I've got an open mind to it, personally.
No yeah, I meant in a general sense yk. The community at large treats some of these things as taboo things only certain types of player do and it always makes me a bit sad when I see newer players being basically taught "yeah if the killer ever goes after you after unhook they are xyz and its this and that". The mentality rubs off on them
Wasn't meant to be a critique of you, I enjoy the discussions!
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The thing about MMR SOUNDS true but my personal experience tells me it's wrong. For context, I play mostly M1s on console. I almost never hard tunnel because i hate fighting through all the crutch 2nd chance perks yet I get matched with lobbies that have 5k - 10k hour compies every other game. I'm most likely averaging 1.5 kills against them and my MMR NEVER goes down. This system is broken. If you're not a baby at killer, you're gonna right there too, tunneling or not it doesn't matter
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I can't even remember the last time I've tunneled, and that's mainly because I don't like it when I play survivor.
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idk, if you care about long term results, what you do is get involved in the comp scene, do 1v1s, review your gameplay/have others review it, etc. I don't think "don't tunnel" is good advice for someone who wants to win, as tunneling is a tactic that goes hand in hand with macro. I guess it's good advice for people who care about vague concepts of honor & sportsmanship, but as someone intimately familiar with the invasion aspect of the souls community that's a whole can of worms that this community isn't ready to discuss.
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I think there's a very broad middle ground between just wanting to generally get better and beat the players you're matched with, and getting so invested that you're joining the comp scene.
This advice is more for those who just say they tunnel because it's how you win. The feedback for them is, not in the long run. In the long run you're making games harder for yourself.
As an aside, tunnelling is the inverse to macro fundamentals. You do it to ignore the macro at first, and then autopilot the macro very easily once someone's dead. They very much don't go hand in hand.
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This is true and the OP is also right. There is a time and place to focus a Survivor, you need to do this tactically. The less mobility or antiloop a Killer has, the more you have to do this.
I personally never outright tunnel on purpose. But if someone makes a mistake or I happen to find the same person twice, sorry. You're going back on the hook, I'm not doing it to be mean but you have to learn to not put yourself in bad positions or heal under hooks and stuff somehow.
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I think there's a very broad middle ground between just wanting to generally get better and beat the players you're matched with, and getting so invested that you're joining the comp scene.
I simply think that said middle ground is a breeding ground for mediocrity & frustration for a lot of people, and if you want to get truly good at DbD (for some reason) you need to engage with those options I mentioned, because there is an ever growing playerbase that is doing those things right now, every day, and you will face said people in pubs due to how MMR works. And this includes new players who are being subjected to the realities of modern DbD from the get-go, many of which who are younger & more inclined to take the game seriously & have the reflexes & brain space to adapt. The what I'd call "face value content creator approach" of getting good at DbD isn't really good enough anymore unless you're already naturally talented. Which ties into the next point.
This advice is more for those who just say they tunnel because it's how you win. The feedback for them is, not in the long run. In the long run you're making games harder for yourself.
If someone isn't savvy enough to quickly realize that hard tunneling at the start of the match isn't necessarily ideal then I don't think giving the advice "don't tunnel and you'll get better" is going to be particularly useful for them. Because at that point a lot of people I think can understand what you mean by hard tunneling leading to bad habits, but the people who need that advice need better guidance than that. And I think disregarding tunneling entirely and painting it as a no-no strat can also lead to bad habits and worse play.
And yes, tunneling and macro very much do go hand in hand. Otherwise tunneling wouldn't be so prevalent in comp (yes I know they have their own rules and restrictions that make tunneling more desirable), and wouldn't be seen as being this hyper effective thing that everyone hates on. It's all about the contextual realities of the map, match, & players + perks you're up against.
To me it just feels like this is the endgame philosophy of the anti-tunnel position, to ignore the nuances of higher play and make it out like it's somehow a bad idea for players to even consider that a tool/strategy might be effective in some situations just because it is deathly unfun to face for most people & can be misused by lower skill players to the point where it can build bad habits & cost them the game against better (and/or better equipped) players. If anything I think there's an argument to be made that tunneling better players can potentially help one develop more skill in the chase department, and that if you end up tunneling a bad player and winning off of it, you probably weren't going to learn much from that match that you don't already know anyway.
I suppose my questions are: how is someone supposed to know when tunneling is or isn't a bad thing to do to get results if they don't try it? And isn't saying "don't tunnel, you'll be a worse player in the long run" just as far away from the truth as saying "tunneling will always make you win"?
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To address the last few sections there, I think some people have developed a sort of warped understanding of the position tunnelling holds in this game.
It's only considered a tool to use tactically in key moments because of its imbalance. If chasing the person who just got unhooked wasn't easier/faster, they wouldn't be the obvious target, you wouldn't be getting any extra value out of them that you can use to turn the game around.
If it were just as fast/easy to chase them as it would be the unhooker, or someone else entirely, there's no reason you'd target them. If it were harder/slower to chase them, you'd actively choose someone else. It's only in the killer's toolkit as a tool to use in specific circumstances because it's unbalanced, not because it's actually fundamentally sound play.
That's why I bring up that it's going to eventually get changed to the point of not working that way anymore, at some point in the future. If you rely on tunnelling as a thing you can use at the right moments, then when tunnelling stops working in that role you're going to be flying without a safety net. It's better to just try and avoid it if you want to improve.
Obviously, I'm not saying throw the match to avoid someone that runs into you or anything, this isn't something I'm recommending you stress over at every second of the match. Just try to chase the unhooker or not even be near the hook to begin with by default, and you'll build better habits.
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That's why I bring up that it's going to eventually get changed to the point of not working that way anymore, at some point in the future.
I mean they've been trying that for 9 years with perks and still haven't hit that mark once outside of 4 mans stacking OtR/DS/StB/Reassurance etc, because people simply don't want to run certain perks & don't bodyblock for their solo queue teammates but still want to complain instead of adapting to their current reality for some reason, so I really doubt whatever basekit plans they have are going to be that fundamentally game changing for most players. And if they are so effective that getting someone out of the game as killer when you want to becomes a completely dead strat then you might just see this game turn into VHS. Because stripping away that much agency from what is supposed the power role is a huge turn off for people. It's one of the few things that I've come to agree with Almo on, funnily enough.
Like again, I understand that tunneling can build bad habits. But saying it's not a "fundamentally sound play" when like…it objectively is (in certain scenarios) and has been for 9 years because of how the game is designed right now (even if it comes with risks, risks that you can often mitigate with game knowledge) is wild to me. We have little to no idea what the anti-tunnel changes are going to look like and given BHVR's history of backtracking, if they're even going to stick.
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I think the main thing is that some players that keep tunnelling do not care about improving. Some of them are actively looking for cheap wins, and don’t care that it’s cheap.
The whole ‘you’re not gonna improve’ is simply lost on them.
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dbd is a game of utilizing most unbalanced aspect at the moment tbh, be it tunneling, be it skull merchant, be it undying/ruin, be it quad stacked slowdowns
Adaptability is the key
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Its not lost on us at all. Its just everytime we do "improve" you guys demonize it because it helps us eliminate survivors from the match in terms of powers/addons/perks but you guys find it "unfun". Killer mains shouldnt only have to rely on their ability to find survivors and using mindgames in loops. Survivors dont improve either, instead of using perks to deal with tunneling they instead complain to the devs to nerf killers for just doing their objective.
-6 -
It's less "You won't improve" as its own caution, and more "You're going to make your games harder for yourself because you're not improving but the opponents you're facing are".
The thing I'm trying to convey is that in the long term it makes the game more frustrating and difficult.
-1 -
Does "If You Play Survivor, SWF Is Against Your Best Interests" work too?
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And how do you improve ? By facing difficult survivors, not hindering yourself with stupid rules from the survivor rule book.
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By honing the fundamentals and not taking shortcuts, mostly.
Again, this advice isn't for everyone. If you don't care about the arguments I laid out, totally fine. I'm not trying to police anyone.
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There's no reason it would.
If you want a survivor equivalent, it'd be relying on toolbox builds, I guess? There isn't as much a clear survivor analogue anymore because there are fewer specific individual things to point to. If you'd asked me three years ago, I'd have said relying on Dead Hard would be the equivalent.
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I was moreso referring to players that are actively salt farming. That probably wasn't clear from how I phrased it, mb.
That said, I'd actually say that survivors are improving. That's more or less an inevitability. It's one of the reasons why tunnelling feels 'necessary' these days.
Sure, I don't disagree with that, but I have to wonder if that'll even reach the players this applies to. I suppose we wouldn't know either way, but it just kinda feels like you're preaching to the choir instead of the flock, so to speak.
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Really? Being in a SWF, and having access to voice comms, where players can coordinate healing, or warn each other where the killer is…. doesn’t create bad habits that make survivors less likely to survive in solo q?
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Tunneling is part the game, it’s under the fundamental skill of target priority. You don’t value this skill, you think it’s cheap. That is your opinion.
It doesn’t matter in the end, if you improve in one area it’s going to lead to wins and you will have at some point to be good at all fundamentals.4 -
That's not the criteria for being an equivalent here. In order for it to be a survivor equivalent, three things need to be true. It needs to be something that:
- Provides short term results against players that aren't equipped to deal with it, but,
- Stunts long-term growth in such a manner that you'll start to flounder when you reach a level where opponents know what to do about it, and,
- Leverages a fundamental imbalance such that it being nerfed/addressed eventually is an inevitability even if it takes a long time.
Just playing in a SWF doesn't really meet these criteria. You're still playing the game straightforwardly, you're just taking the extra RNG of solo queue teammates out, you're not really exploiting any cheap imbalances, people are going to become more capable of dealing with you in a broad sense instead of the specific thing you're doing, and there's no reason to assume nerfs would ever come down the line because it's not an obvious fundamental balance issue.
You're trying to cross two lines here, which is that the habits built in SWF won't apply in solo queue… but that's a lateral shift, not a linear progression. Relying on tunnelling will, without any adjustments at all on your part, raise you to a point where tunnelling becomes all you know how to do, it's a straight linear progression. If people in a SWF just don't play solo queue, there's no reason their habits would become negative. They'd just keep working, because they're just playing the game.
Again, the survivor equivalent would've been something like old Dead Hard, which met all those criteria. Currently, it's hard to point to any one specific thing, but the most unbalanced thing a survivor can bring into the trial is a toolbox build, so it'd probably be that.
(Though, if the whole team's doing toolbox builds, the notion that more skilled opponents can beat it doesn't really apply)
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I'm not speaking out against target prioritisation. There's nothing wrong with that.
When I say "tunnelling", I mean chasing someone as soon as they're unhooked. That's the thing I'm talking about here.
-1 -
I mean… It's part of the game so…people will continue to do it as long as they are allowed to.. Sucks to say but it's the truth.
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Voice comms are the survivor equivalent of camping and tunneling.
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You're gonna need to back that one up, my man.
How do voice comms fit into the framework I just laid out?
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You should take up your own advice and improve at the game yourself instead of dictating other people how to play for your benefit/comfort.
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I play killer.
Also, this isn't dictating. This is advice.
-5 -
I def know the truth behind this advice. It's great advice. But to those people who tunnel/camp as a play style, it comes off more as a, "I didn't ask for advice!", when reading it, knowing they won't change how they play. xD
I know one thing for sure. NOTHING and I mean NOTHING will EVER stop tunneling/camping. Even just doing it to the first Survivor at 5 gens. It won't stop unless BHVR actually come to their senses some time in 2032 and realize, ya maybe we should've made it harder to keep hooking the same person.
Against most teams, even pretty good SWF, the majority of Killers can get 3 people dead with only slight tunneling/camping when it counts, so nerfing the way it is now won't affect much in terms of kill rate. It'll just start to get rid of that LAZY mentality that created the tunnel/camp at 5 gens play style to begin with.
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Voice comms heavily stunts the growth of situational awareness. Survivors can just voice comm where the killer is, or where the other survivors are, or where a generator is that needs to be repaired.
- If a survivor is injured and needs to find a teammate, instead of needing situational awareness of where the other survivors are, a SWF player can just use voice comms to find other teammates.
- If a survivor is being chased by the killer, instead of needing situational awareness of where the other survivors are, so they don't accidently bring the chase to a generator that is being worked on, a SWF player can just use voice comms to figure out what areas of the map they should avoid bringing the killer to.
- If a survivor doesn't know where the killer is, instead of needing situational awareness of what general area the killer is in, a SWF player can often use voice comms to just tell each other where the killer is.
- If a generator has a lot of progress, and a teammate is chased off of it, instead of needing situational awareness of where this generator is, so you can help repair it, a SWF player can use voice comms to directly tell each other where the generator is.
A player using voice comms can become reliant on them, and might claim solo q "is miserable" because they don't know how to navigate the game without voice comms.
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And voice comms will obviously NEVER go away period. They'd remove everything else from the game before they'd be against using comms. It's a problem that the devs have created for themselves to bridge the gap between information in Solo Q and SWF. We just have to sit and wait to see how long they take to create this "bridge". It could def use improvement at the moment, but they're only going to be able to do so much.
I know many people seem to think adding voice chat for Solo Q is a start but… I have to say it.. Putting voice chat in a game like this for randoms would be the WORST possible decision they could ever make due to the level of immaturity and insensitivity that dwells in DBD's ranks.
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That's one of the criteria. Really, it's half of one, because it's "stunts growth" but it's not "in ways that will make the game harder as you face tougher opponents", which is the full criteria.
What it's not is something that sees good results only against unprepared/unskilled opponents, and it's also not something that is very clearly one specific balance problem that's inevitably going to be addressed.
You're acting like I'm saying you shouldn't ever bring tools or perform actions that give you an advantage of any kind, but that's not the position. This is about tunnelling, specifically, and the specific position it holds within the game. I don't think you should rely on that, specifically, for the reasons that I actually laid out.
You're also not addressing that a player in a SWF won't necessarily ever need to play solo queue, so the growth it potentially stunts (I think your points are overblown, but that's besides the point here) doesn't necessarily ever have to matter. When I say it stunts growth to rely on tunnelling, you will end up dealing with the consequences, because it doesn't require you to start playing in a different way to see it.
You're only hitting half of one of the three criteria and you're also insisting on a lateral shift being the same as a linear progression. Remember: It has to work extremely well against the unprepared, be weaker but still strong against prepared opponents, and be in legitimate danger of being changed, to be equivalent to what I'm saying here.
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I generally agree, because tunneling effectively removes you learning how to apply map pressure properly. However, tunneling is mandatory in some cases, such as survivors just gen rushing, they have 1 gen left to do, and there's still 4 of them. Spreading hooks then is pretty much a guaranteed loss. The only hope is to try reducing to 3 asap.
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I know plenty of consistent 4k before gens are done that get their wins without tunneling. Whether they're being serious or not going into the game. One of them I regularly play with. Tunneling has been a strat (in my experience- 2k hrs and have been playing since before they lost the license for Stranger things) that newer players, or players that are just done with the game and don't want to admit it and therefore become bitter and toxic use. Tunneling is not healthy game play for either side. As a skilled survivor and a newer Killer, I'm able to get 4ks fairly regularly without tunnelling. It's all about knowing the killer you're playing, knowing the map, and understanding the different ways survivors play. And learning all of that takes time and patience. If you're tunnelling, or condoning Tunneling to any degree (the survivors running into a dead zone and being the easier target I kind of understand), you haven't truly learned the game or it's mechanics, and you don't show you have the patience to do so.
My opinion based on my experience and exposure to the community.
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To say that just because somebody understand why tunnelling exists and that sometimes it is genuinely the best course of action to win a tough match, they don't 'understand the game mechanics' is a really unfair way of describing it. Tunnelling the first guy you catch from 1st to 3rd hook is unhealthy and I wouldn't wish that on anyone but to blanket say all tunnelling is bad/unhealthy and so on is just not accurate at all.
And about the anecdotal stuff you mentioned, I think a lot of people go into Killer wanting to play 'fair'. Not tunnelling, not slugging and so on but as they become more familiar with the role and realise that sometimes to win you have to do these things sometimes, and yet they still catch flak for it. I think the community would be a lot healthier to stop with the tabooism associated with in-game actions that is completely allowed by the rules of the game.
You mentioned you're a 'newer killer' since I'm guessing you've mostly mained survivor, I think you'll see in the future sometimes you lose a game because you played too nice with the survivors and they took advantage of that. I play both 50/50 and genuinely I lose games not due to prolonged chases, or bad map RNG - sometimes I just lose because I 4 hooked 4 different survivors and played too nice.
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