Combining Some Anti-Tunnel Ideas Into A New Mechanic To Preserve Agency On All Sides
Wordy title, eh? Couldn't think of a better one.
I saw an idea on the forums a while back (don't remember who said it, my apologies) that really got me thinking about new ways to tackle anti-tunnel as a concept, retaining options and agency for killer while lessening the strength of tunnelling so drastically it wouldn't be seen as the optimal play anymore, basically only something you'd do if forced into it.
Anti-tunnel suggestions, either from the community or from the devs, usually fall into one of two camps: Off-hook protections to make someone harder to chase, or penalties for attacking the same survivor multiple times in a row. Neither are wrong inherently, but this change isn't really either.
Here's what I propose. When someone is unhooked, they gain two sets of effects- the first is what we already know, the Haste and Endurance and really you could even throw in Elusive at the same time, it wouldn't be unbalanced. Some protections are necessary, after all, or a survivor could be hit as soon as their feet touch the ground.
The second set is where it gets interesting. A survivor who has just been unhooked gains what we'll call the Last Hooked Mark, similar in appearance on the UI to the last-hook mark on the 9.2.0 PTB if you were around for that. If a survivor with the Last Hooked Mark is hooked, the following happens:
- The survivor does not gain a hook state, nor does their hook timer begin until the LHM would elapse normally
- The killer does not gain whatever fresh-hook bonus BHVR stick with
Other than that, nothing. No penalty, no negative effect, they're still on the hook and you still get everything a hook provides except for directly progressing your objective- more on that after we've talked about how the LHM would elapse.
The Last Hooked Mark fades under the following conditions:
- The survivor performs a Conspicuous Action
- The survivor successfully saves a teammate from the killer's grasp (side note, this really should be a Conspicuous Action anyway)
- 90 seconds since their unhook has passed
- Another survivor is unhooked, at which point the LHM transfers to them
Effectively, if they're back in the action, if the killer has shown to not be tunnelling, or as a safeguard if the match clearly isn't progressing and the killer just needs to get someone.
So, why do I think this is a good idea?
Broadly, I think this lessens the strength of tunnelling just for the sake of getting the easy value tremendously. Sure, you're getting easy chases and easy hooks, but those hooks aren't progressing your objective, you'd just be cycling that person on the hook until the gens are done and everyone escapes. Why would you ever bother doing that?
Well, that's the other part. There are situations where it's fair to say a lot of killers feel it would be in their best interest to down someone and hook them- those where the survivor is trying to get in their face, or when they just can't find anyone else and have to take whatever chase they stumble across.
On top of that last part also being partially accounted for with the timer, being able to hook someone retains killer agency, and just reframes this kind of opportunistic tunnelling as a tradeoff. You don't progress your objective… but you do pressure the team with that hook (one immobilised, one has to come save, lessening gen efficiency), and you do get to activate any on-hook perks that would be applicable to that situation. If someone's in your face, you have the option of immobilising them, but you don't have the option of getting extra value from intentionally chasing someone immediately off hook.
Plus, don't forget, you can still slug survivors in that situation, so if they're trying to bank on you wasting time hooking them, you have an answer to that too.
Now, I'm not saying this is a flawless plan, I'm sure some things would need to be tweaked and adjusted, but I think it's a very solid foundation.
What do we think?
Comments
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I think this is a huge improvement on the systems BHVR has presented us with.
And I think the goal being to offset (rather than outright remove) tunnelling was always the play. Great work, would love to see BHVR playtest this idea.
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I like the concept, but that nagging voice in my head is asking why wouldn't the survivor with the last hooked mark just bodyblock the killer, especially any M1 killer, from their next target for as long as possible since hooking them would be detrimental to the killer?
And I assume this is also with the anti-slug, so the unhooked survivor can pretty much guarantee a protection hit (twice if they get the extended BT from the update, but I'm not sure if your hypothetical is using that) and extend chases on their next target.
That said, I'd be very interested testing this kinda mechanic.2 -
Well, that's the thing- hooking them wouldn't be detrimental to the killer, it would just be less beneficial.
They're still immobilised, they still need saving, you still get to activate perks where applicable. Obviously you want to progress your objective as well, and that's why in attempted bodyblocking scenarios you'd still be doing your best to ignore them the way you would now, but if you are left unable to avoid downing the survivor with the LHM, you aren't penalised for trying to hook them if you'd have some reason to do that, like a perk or the hook being literally right next to you or something.
(Except for DS, obviously, but that's an ambient background risk now too)I don't see the anti-slug interfering with this since it's designed to allow situational slugging like this, but I mostly didn't mention it because it isn't set in stone yet, I don't know what BHVR are sticking with there.
Essentially, while this does preserve attempting to keep the heat on you by bodyblocking, it also gives the killer options in dealing with it. Ignore, slug, hook- all of these have risks and downsides, but all of them are viable picks depending on the situation, too.
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So… basically marking a person as “non - objective”.
Which either will lead to hard slug from killer or constant bodyblocking from survivor if they have brain and desire to abuse yet another wonderful idea.
I don’t see any improvements beside literally, lol, forbidding to kill.
By such logic let’s return old eruption with Incapacitated effect of provide absolutely the same system for doing generators as base kit. This is so “logical” to force a pause on objective just because other side is upset.
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Well, there's some form of anti-slug coming soon, if it works out then hard slugging from the killer shouldn't be much of a concern anymore.
As for bodyblocking, nothing's stopping you from taking one of the two tactics you'd take now - ignoring them or slugging them - and you'd still be able to hook them if they make that very convenient or you have good perks to activate from it.Is there any reason you don't think what I just laid out is accurate? Do you think it'd work out differently in practice?
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How it cancel the fact that person abused the system in a way it wasn't considered we’ll keep ignoring, okay…
“Let them abuse, you just have to give more hits and waste more time, even if you didn't tunnel”
It will work different as soon as in lobby will be survivor who can loop longer than 10 seconds. It barely gives any difference between old ptb. It's just It's disingenuous to insist that such a system isn't exploitable. If you literally tell a survivor, "You won't be punished for standing in the killer's face; you'll picked up sooner or later thanks to antislug or another teammate, and if he dares to hook you, progress will be paused for HIM," people will exploit it. Saying otherwise is living in a rainbow world or viewing everything from the extremely one-sided perspective
If tunneling issue is so frustrating, what the most unfair thing that isn't related to personal skill issues and whims? It's the lack of interactivity. The person being tunneled or instanced dies, or spends half the gameplay hooked. As a killer, you're simply patrolling zones without much progress, just trying to quickly hit another second chance. So, kinda soulless effectiveness. Why not then make stage progress dynamic for both terms and relate it to anti camp meter? Instead of self-unhooking, provide a slowdown in the stage if the killer is too close, and conversely, a speedup if the killer moves away from the map point.
Well, sort of... 1) Survivors have more motivation to spread out evenly across the map so they can be ready for a quick rescue if necessary, which already encourages proper gameplay. 2) The killer will be far enough away from the tunnel to give them a chance to reset or position themselves, so chase WOULD BE fun, you won’t be Insta tapped and down if you used that window of time correctly, while killer still have agency and not restricted that much. 3) Survivors are forced not to exploit system of unhooking in last moment, because dynamic stage force to leave gens, and it is natural slowdown of genrush, while not touching newer players who unhook fast and can’t play around stages anyway.
Of course this system requires many changes in the game. Devs have to consider mobility and strength of every killer, adjust slowdown and distance to every killer, maps should finally have proper design of hooks, you have to give actual info for solo survivors, you have to create proper tutorial, you have to finally address endless second chances or actual causes of proxy camp. Finally, you have to build a more developed mechanic around saves from hook. It's harder than just slap “you can’t do x thing” for players and letting do some chaotic changes only to revert them day later because other side will be furious. Devs, oh gosh, would have to actually do complicated testing and not slapping some endurance or handicapping of playstyle because they can’t fix it technically. But if you wanting actual changes of the game not related to some linear prospect, new changes have to force devs to fix already existing technical and balancing issues, not creating a new exploitable area.
Eruption with “you can't touch gen” showed how bad is forcing a pause on objective, even if it was an insignificant second. This game is about time. Why repeat same mistakes but for other side — no clue.
I mean true, your idea have right to exist as everyone else. But it’ll be rational only in case where system will force such pause of objective on survivors as well, as I hinted with my example of old eruption. And something telling me in such case, where this “fair play” hit both sides, no one would be happy.
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Why would it matter how good they are at looping? You aren't looping them, they're bodyblocking you. They're giving you the hits, you don't have to waste any time getting them.
The problem with Eruption was not that it paused objective progression, there are multiple killer perks that do that which haven't been anywhere near as terrible for the game as Eruption was. The issue with Eruption is that it effectively forced survivors not to play the game at all, because they couldn't interact with anything other than chase or unhooking.
This solution may pause progression, but you still get to interact with the game. You still have real choices to make, you can still benefit from hooking that survivor if you choose to (because remember, you're trying to ignore that one survivor as much as possible), you still have complete agency in your actions and decision making. You just don't get to tunnel someone out for an easy game.There's no need to force a pause of the objective on the survivor side because that isn't currently a problem the way that tunnelling is. The most we have there is that toolboxes are still unbalanced, but you fix that by reworking toolboxes, not changing the system mechanics for survivor.
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Why would it matter how good they are at looping? You aren't looping them, they're bodyblocking you. They're
giving youthe hits, you don't have to waste any time getting them.
So, we simply aren't welcomed with concept of proper bodyblocking once, and still thinking something like allowing to tank hits by default is acceptable. No point to discuss it then
If your argument solely based “for survivors it’s different, so you can’t apply this concept for them”, the only thing I see is actual understanding of unfairness of proposals, but a simple refusal to say it out loud. I won’t stop believing if you are touching playstyle and pausing objectives, you have do it for both sides. Otherwise it’s just a tag game
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Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that first part.
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Why I even should try to? I already explained my position above : your idea exploitable and one sided. So it’s just shifting problem and responsibility on other side. Nothing actually “let’s keep agency and no penalties” about here, just an attempt to cover it by brand new cover
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Terrible idea, that is essentially a free ticket for bodyblocking excessively after an unhook.
If this mechanic was in action, I'd bodyblock for the unhooker every time. They'd get two free hits and the killer wouldn't be able to hook me at all, since it'd be pointless. You'd be able to throw yourself at the killer with reckless abandon.
There is basically zero pressure in hooking someone without progressing your objective, especially compared to what bodyblocking potential it'd open up.
For extra points, you could run No Mither/DH. Tank two hits straight off of unhook and immediately put the killer in a lose/lose situation. The killer hooks you? No hook progress, but you gain an extra health state through DH again. The killer slugs you? Just get back up and keep going.
That, or just have another survivor with WGLF to delete any sort of slugging pressure that would be mandatory to progress the game, I guess.
This is just ONE of the scenarios in which it could be abused.
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So, if you throw yourself at the killer for a bodyblock, let's look at that scenario- now for the sake of this argument I'm going to assume the killer does not peel off to chase you, and you have to keep running into doorways and such to bodyblock, since I tend to make these posts and comments on the good faith assumption that the killer in question is trying not to tunnel.
First, we need to acknowledge the obvious: Two survivors are being chased, leaving only two on generators. We must therefore be comparing this situation to one where the person who got saved doesn't bodyblock and instead goes to repair gens. We don't need to break down specific numbers, just keep that in mind.
Now, let's assume after downing the survivor, the killer does choose to hook them. We'll assume the survivor went down directly under a hook, or the killer has a perk they want to get value from, or something along those lines- otherwise the obvious call would be to just leave them on the floor, which will remain an option depending on circumstances, that mustn't be forgotten.
The question to ask is, what pressure does the killer get from this situation? First we'll acknowledge the possibility of perks, then move on to basekit.
The bodyblocking survivor is now immobilised with no way of rescuing themselves, unlike being slugged where certain perks could help them. That survivor is pressured.
Someone has to come rescue them, meaning they're probably leaving generators to do it. That survivor is pressured.
The killer, presumably, has gone to chase someone else. That survivor is pressured too.Even without progressing your objective, hooks are pressure and slowdown, that's how this works. You still benefit from everything other than directly progressing your objective when you hook someone this way.
Now, as I said in the post above, obviously it's better to hook someone who actually gains a hook state from it, but that's good, that's what we want. That's incentive to try and avoid hooking someone who has this mark on them, and only do it if there's some clear direct reason to.
On the survivor end, you have to remember that anything you gain here will be weighed against the opportunity cost of the generator repair you could be doing, and the lack of objective pressure that results after you've been put on the hook. It's not impossible to benefit from this situation as survivor, but it's not guaranteed either.That's kind of the bottom line I want to stress here, both sides have options and both sides can misplay by misreading what the best call would be. It's not survivors abusing a mechanic and killers being helpless, it's both sides utilising what's available to try and get the best value- both sides have agency, both sides are engaging with the game, both sides have choices to make. Clearly miles better than one side having practically no agency and the other side just getting free value, which is the situation now.
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I don't think you really understand how much effective bodyblocking can rob pressure from a Killer, or how time consuming it is to actually take someone to a hook when considering efficient play.
Simply immobilising a Survivor by taking an extra 10-20 seconds to do so is negative pressure. It's a lose/lose, you either slug, and lose pressure since there's no real threat to it, or take a bunch of time to hook, and don't fundamentally get anything from it objective wise. That's not even mentioning the litany of incredible reset options that activate from an unhook (Resurgence, WMI, etc).
Taking a down for another Survivor can oftentimes be the optimal play, even without your suggestion in mind. Buying time by having a Survivor with less hookstates taking a down for someone who's dead on hook is incredibly effective.
Two Survivors can crank gens for free while the intended target essentially has two extra hits in a chase, and if you slug, you can leave them on the ground until they're nearly fully recovered and then run over to pick them up in a second.
That's not even mentioning perks like Unbreakable, where even doing this strategy once would cause such a massive shift in pressure that it could be game-ending for the Killer, as now you have two gens being worked on, without any sort of need to divert attention to the slug at all.
This idea just seems like there is a misunderstanding regarding macro play in DBD from your end, no offense. Completely risk-free bodyblocks are not something we should be adding.
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I do understand how effective bodyblocking can help out a team, which is why I made sure to keep this conversation focused on survivors running around behind the killer to try and force it after an unhook. In my experience, while that can translate to effective bodyblocking, it usually doesn't.
The much stronger form of bodyblocking is coordinated survivors running to a teammate while they're in chase so that teammate can take one hit then run away and reset or get back on generators. We're not talking about that here, though.I also made sure to clarify that we were not talking about situations where you take an extra 10-20 seconds to hook a survivor for only basekit pressure. As I said, that wouldn't be worth it. We are talking very specifically about situations where the hook is much closer than that, so you're taking about 5 seconds (the two-ish for picking up and the two-ish for putting them on the hook) for basekit pressure, or taking that extra time for some perk that makes it worth doing.
The specifics matter, here. Yes, bodyblocking can be very effective, but it also can be game-losing. We need to ascertain what kind of bodyblocking survivors are capable of forcing and what options the killer would have in responding to them, not just take the potential highest value from bodyblocking as a concept.
Which, again, remember, it's not risk free because there are options. Killers aren't going to be boxed in to only one response that will backfire on them, there will be multiple ways to handle the situation based on what you think will yield either the most value or the safest value.
It's not risk free. The killer could be able to ignore the survivor, meaning they're just wasting their time. The killer could leave them on the ground when they're expecting to be hooked, meaning they wasted their time. The killer could hook them when they're expecting to be left on the ground, meaning they wasted their time.I will acknowledge that I personally find bodyblocking annoying and would like to see it weakened, but that's separate to the balance of it, which is what I'm contesting here.
Ideally, for me, we see this to fix the bigger problem by far in tunnelling, then down the line we make some adjustments to make bodyblocking less annoying. One is an actual balance problem and a gigantic one to boot, the other is an annoying strategy that has and would continue to have answers.-2
