The Slugging Meta

I personally do not see killers trying to slug a whole team as a strategy very often at all. It’s definitely not “rampant”, and just because you see a bunch of videos on YouTube doesn’t mean it’s happening in the average match. And the few times they do try it, it almost never works. The only times I’ve seen it work is against inexperienced/bad players who don’t pick up their teammates. Survivors need to treat a slugged teammate just like a hooked teammate - you need to go for the rescue and you can’t just leave them there. When the survivors do a good job of this, the killer usually loses because they’re not making any progress towards eliminating survivors.

Maybe you should slow down and think a bit more about why hooking isn't an attractive option.

unfortunately it’s just the way the meta has been turning this year.

Why would killers ever hook when they are punished so hard for doing so, they have to waste time picking (trying to dodge either a flashy or pallet save [thanks pallet density}) carry to hook then walk all the while survivors are cranking gens while you slowly walk to where they might be at.

Obviously killers have pain res, pop, dms, turn back the clock, but any one of those perks is weak by itself and they’re only effective when stacked with each other in boring quad slowdown builds leaving no room for fun builds.

Killers gotta worry about , deli, ds, dead hard, shoulder the burden, fast track (pre and post rework don’t matter it still works on hook), self preservation, base kit bt, babysitter, we’ll make it, kindred/open handed, 70 sec hook timers.

So again why would they waste time hooking and deal with all that, instead of choosing an easier path in slugging where all you gotta worry about is, unbreakable, wglf, soul guard, mft, conviction.

Haven't experienced much slugging recently except facing twins. Though it really looks like content creators are kinda pushing into it lately. Though the narrative that "Slugging to circumvent survivor perks" isn't new though. Pretty sure I read that quite often a year ago.
Though I don't see it become meta yet. Maybe just a temporarly trend.

As stated by the devs on multiple occasions.

Slugging IS intended play, their issues with it is, it’s not overly fun to play on the survivor end and takes away too much agency.

Just because you don’t agree with the playstyle doesn’t make it not intended, that’s like complaining about snipers in an fps because they’re not interactive for the opponent, but they’re still an intended feature to shake up the game so every game isnt the same.

Killers gotta worry about , deli, ds, dead hard, shoulder the burden, fast track (pre and post rework don’t matter it still works on hook), self preservation, base kit bt, babysitter, we’ll make it, kindred/open handed, 70 sec hook timers.

Then let's buff all these perks to have bonus effects against slugging.

That solves the problem, after all.

It's no more than last year when someone made a similar post. Or the years before that.

Running my tests on this (which we discussed on that thread a while back) I didn't actually get less bp, not by much. Additionally I'd point out that once a killer gets all their killers to P3, BP becomes an invalid means to motivate someone with an intended playstyle. I have zero doubt for some of these killers it's about ego, but I think it's also more complex than to umbrella all of them in such a fashion.

The only solution here that I can see would be for the dev's to implement powerful anti-slug mechanics. The benefits for slugging are just too large. Having run the slugging rounds I did trying to understand I found out too quickly that it's just easier and more enjoyable in gameplay to slug. Yes BP is slightly lower, but I encountered no other issues. Granted I have since gone back to normal 4 hook play, I do understand the position better now.

It's not a strawman to observe the benefits of the tactic, and saying it is 'not intended' is not valid either - if it wasn't intended it would be fixed. The fact that it remains after years means it's effectively intended. I think what we are seeing is a slow shift in the meta which is potentially unhealthy. All ideas I presented to correct it were met with consternation, but that does not mean there are not better ideas out there that could remedy this.

That's fair, and I'm happy to agree to disagree. Though I can answer one of your questions:

"If it's not about ego-feeding and winning at all costs, why would you do something you know quite well is hated? Every match I have against these people the chat is full of vitriol towards them. They know perfectly well how it makes others react."

The answer is easy: Total disregard. The bulk of players aren't on the forums, nor do they care to be. They just want to play. I'm often told some horrendous things in egc even when I'm playing with hook spreading. I'm regularly told to unsub from life, so to speak, regardless of how I play. That's why I didn't hesitate to run my own slugging tests - why should anyone care if it's responded to with vitriol, when most of the killer matchs (anecdotal, as largely my own experience here) end this way? Vitriol either way.

Why not just adopt the standard that is less stressful and more fun, if people are going to be toxic no matter what you do?

Again I have no doubt for some this is ego based, but I don't think even the majority of them fall into that camp. It's just easier to disregard it all and play in a fashion that is most fun. If the most fun means slugging, they'll do that. Tunnelling, they'll do that. I did find it refreshing in my slug trials that I didn't have alot of things to worry about. Flashlights, dead hard, etc etc etc.

It's not against the rules and they'll be flamed either way, so why not do it, you know?

I'm not sure what your point is. Play any way you like, just don't be surprised when your little temper tantrum winds up, yet again, limiting the game for everyone else.

Why not just adopt the standard that is less stressful and more fun, if people are going to be toxic no matter what you do?

I see this mentality a lot and I personally don't understand it. It's just very teenage to me. Mad at the world because some people are mean. I can go ten killer matches of loses with tbagging at the gates and "ez baby killer" but if match eleven is a sudden snowball and people start throwing, no matter how crappy those last 40 survivirs were, I'm still going to feel bad and give someone hatch. Survivors aren't a hive mind.

I can never take chat salt that seriously either, and i also dole it out. It's all funny to me. And I get about as much good as bad. People just really cling to that bad stuff. I also don't understand why people don't just close it if it changes them.

There's also a tendency of PC players to forget that at least half, if not much more, of the playerbase can't see the chat, so quite a huge amount of people only have secondhand exposure from screenshots and videos, so they're not affected by that aspect.

The forum is not my standard for interacrion in this game. There's no one here. The people I see running slugging builds are often high-hour, and soften streamers. I doubt these people have zero interaction with the community at large. Steam forums, Reddit, YT, Twitch. Only baby players who haven't made contact with that side of the game's world have an excuse for not knowing how hated things are. Even these slugging builds are mostly originating from videos.

Need to point out two things:

1.) The primary goal of the killer is to stop the survivors from escaping.

2.) Whether you're sitting out on the hook or sitting out on the ground, you're sitting out either way

The killer is not bypassing their objective if they stop the survivors by primarily knocking them down, especially if the killer character being played is extremely weak in chases. You cannot hold every killer character on the roster to the same standard as the S-tier characters. It's fine for it to be difficult to stop the survivors through hooking. It's a different story when going for hooks becomes more beneficial to the survivors than it is to the specific killer character being played.

For example: Let's say that everyone in a group is running 'Dead Hard,' 'Decisive Strike' and 'Shoulder the Burden.'

In this situation, the stopping power of the Blight is stifled, but not extinguished, the Blight (if played well) can still stop and kill most of that group through hooking because of his immense chasing power. The stopping power of a killer like Ghostface in this same situation is completely extinguished if they try to stop the survivors through hooking because Ghostface does not possess anywhere near the same chasing lethality (or lethality in general) to contend with the empowerment and control that hook-related perks grant the survivors, hence the pivot to an approach that renders a better chance at success.

If hooking is the demanded approach to stopping the survivors, then hooking cannot be allowed to be manipulated into triviality.

I do know what happened. The people who play strategically (most of us) are the ones who end up losing out because of basekit changes caused by people like yourself. If you think the devs are more likely to spend time, resources, and money overhauling every perk you object to, instead of just implementing a mechanic they've already developed, coded, and almost implemented just months ago, then i have a bridge to sell you.

What feelings? What are you even on about?