Thoughts on a solution?
Genuine question. I know BHVR has looked into tunneling and made changes to try to prevent it, but how much longer are we going to keep having the same conversation?
I'm not saying killers should never be allowed to chase the same survivor twice. I understand killers need pressure to win, and sometimes the same survivor gets found again. But there's a difference between that and going out of your way to get one person out of the game as fast as possible.
BHVR has already acknowledged that tunneling can make matches end too quickly, so what is it going to take for something to actually change? Are the current anti-tunnel mechanics working? If they are, where's the data showing that? And if they're not, why aren't we looking at other solutions?
I'm tired of seeing the answer to tunneling always come back to survivors needing to run certain perks. Why should we have to give up perk slots just to have a reasonable chance of actually playing the game?
I'm not asking for killers to get banned for tunneling, and I'm not saying every repeated chase should be punished. I'm asking why there can't be a better system to discourage excessive tunneling without taking away the killer's ability to play normally.
At what point does BHVR look at this and say that what they're doing isn't enough?
We've had anti-tunnel perks, base-kit protection, and other changes, yet we're still having these discussions. So what's the next step? Stronger protection? Different mechanics? Some kind of penalty for repeatedly tunneling someone out extremely early?
Seriously, what is it going to take for BHVR to address this properly instead of just making small changes and leaving the community to argue about it over and over again?
I want to know what people think a solution could be. (I'm not here to debate the tunneling portion; it's already been acknowledged that this happens.)
Answers
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Just remove the ability for the same survivor to gain a hook stage twice in a row.
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I think just removing the hook timer until endgame would be the best solution. That way if someone is actually being tunneled out they are safe on hook. Yes killers can return to hook but this gives the survivors control over when the person being tunneled is at risk again. The killer maintains pressure because one person is effectively out of the match but it largely fixes the issue of camping and tunneling.
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They need to make it so chasing & hooking fresh survivors is stronger than tunneling.
This can be achieved through various ways, but my favorite suggestion was decreasing the size of the map every time a survivor is hooked for the first time.
This would make chases easier to initiate & generators easier to patrol.
but... This would require BHVR to code new mechanics into the game...
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You are assuming BHVR understands which tunneling exactly is the issue. The Krasue PTB which was the anti killer update, addressed tunneling in it's entirety. At any point in the game, if you needed that quick tunnel to recover lost pressure, the system would royally rekt you. Hell, the survivor could even throw themselves at killer on purpose to trigger the system. That's just not how this game works.
What is the really problematic tunneling: the hardcore, 3 hooks = 1 dead survivor starting from 5 gens one. That one is 100% the unhealthiest strategy in the game currently. Not one after 5-6 hooks, not one in later game. This is the only tunneling which needed a serious change.
How to fix it was also not rocket science, they simply needed to tweak the system which already existed on PTB. Change it to 4 hooks but nobody's dead -> system deactivates for the remainder of the trial. To be extra sure, slap the encouragement on spreading hooks as it was on PTB. That's it, that's all what was needed. But nope, just scratch the entire PTB, we can't let it through.
Bhvr just simply doesn't understand the game at deeper level, you know the funniest little detail about that PTB I tested with a friend? I had my friend mori a survivor with 5 stacks Devour Hope, on that PTB if a survivor died before 6 hooks, rest would get higher repair speed. Of course, once my friend morid the survivor, I got the buff :)
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I really like this idea! So much potential!
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Personally, I think the safest option is to do a combination of two things:
- When a survivor is unhooked, they gain a mark that stays until they perform a Conspicuous Action or someone else gets unhooked. While they have this mark, they cannot gain hook states.
- Off-hook Endurance is dramatically stripped back to the point no perks give it and the basekit amount is lowered to somewhere around eight seconds.
With these two changes, forcing someone out of the match becomes mechanically impossible, and bodyblocking off hook becomes a more consistent risk both parties can play around accordingly.
You fix tunneling at its root, you retain the agency of all players to play as aggressively as they see fit, but you organically encourage away from certain behaviours because they're simply not rewarded as much.Toss in a couple other small details - this system should disable in the endgame, successful flashlight/pallet saves should be a conspicuous action, etc - and you've got a much safer and nuanced system than what was tested before. I even liked a lot of what was on the last few PTBs, but there were definitely big problems that couldn't be ignored.
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Wouldn't it be just better to slug then, having a person hook doesn't give any pressure, the timer was causing pressure.
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Well, yeah, without timer camping or tunneling are removed from the game entirely, it would be purely slugging simulator. Well, I guess tunneling isn't removed as much, but still rendered much weaker, and we all know what happens when one strategy becomes weaker than another one
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Sure, they totally can slug, it'd change the meta a bit, any method that makes tunneling less viable would. I don't really mind the meta changing. Do you?
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I think the meta already changed to slugging, I have seen many killers slugging instead of hooking with the main perk used being third seal.
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How would it work in a scenario of: 2 survivors remaining, 1 gets hooked, another unhooks them, and then killer chases down the unhooked one and hooks them again? Do they remain permanently on the hook until unhooked? I guess it could just disable at such stage to prevent this scenario even happening.
It's a decent suggestion, though I wouldn't apply such system to entire match, at a certain point it should be very possible for a killer to tunnel someone out, otherwise it's too intrusive and requires balance adjustment on a more serious scale
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I don't really see an issue with it working with two survivors remaining, you're still probably going for the unhooker as killer and worst case scenario they're on the hook until their teammate is found. The 2v1 kinda needs changes in its own right, but I don't think this would cause any new ones.
I also don't really see any stage of the game where the killer needs to tunnel someone out, it's always a balance problem until the exit gates are powered. It's not as load-bearing as people make it out to be.
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The 2v1 example is more of it being unclear how the mark would work tbh. Are they hookable but don't get a stage? What about timer, etc.
And why it's clear a killer not applying enough pressure might need to use slugging or tunneling to recover, especially at 1-2 gen remaining, I don't see any reason why they should be denied doing so. Tunneling at 5 gens with no hooks in between, and tunneling with hook spreading at 1-2 gens is entirely different, but the proposed system wouldn't see them as different
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I do envision the timer still ticking down, so if you do hook someone with the mark there's still some pressure to go save them for their teammates. At two survivors remaining the mark would just keep functioning, no real changes necessary.
As for tunneling later in the game, they're not as different as you think. It may be less egregious, but nothing about being at 1-2 gens remaining changes that tunneling is itself inherently unbalanced— what you get for choosing to target someone who was just unhooked a few seconds ago is still too strong and still too easy.
While there are gens remaining at all, tunneling is unfair in its own right. No context really changes that. Players might feel more pressure to fall back on it when they're doing poorly, but that doesn't make it fair or reasonable.0 -
So mark pretty much acts like an extra hook stage, I see. Eh, it's fine I guess.
They are entirely different, a survivor getting tunneled out later in the game can backfire extremely. The tunneled out survivor can waste a lot of time by simply running away from progressed gens, and commiting to them can cost the remaining gens for killer.
From a 1v4 pov, tunneling at last 1-2 gens is risky gamble by itself, one that can't be just done at any moment needed, and needs proper condition to commit to unfavourable chase into empty gen area. And that's not even including perks that can ruin that even further, like Decisive Strike, which would be present if killer was hook spreading prior
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It's pointless discussing this - there will be no changes because anything benefitting survivors will be met with "outrage". Take away tunnelling and slugging means taking away the easy mode on killer, and that's what the majority of killers want to keep.
They just took away the Abandon for repeated slugging, buffed Nurse's to see downed survivors and took a tiny percentage off Coulrophobia which makes hardly any difference. The message is clear.
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Tunneling has many reasons not only pressure, mostly because killer wants to win and stronger the killer easier the tunnel.
My solution to tunneling was simple:
Survivors changes:
→ Survivors no longer have endurance, elusive and haste as unhook protection
→ when survivor is unhooked they are shielded for 30s (have no collision with the killer, are immunune to status effects, basic attacks and GRABS) - this makes survivor shortly invincible while negating abusing this to deny killer's intention to chase different survivor
→ Shielded ended sooner if survivor performs conspicious actions or different survivor is hooked
→ Deactivated once 2 generators are remaining untill end of the match
Killer changes:
→ Each time you perform fresh hook = different survivor than the last hooked survivor you gain following: 10 % extra damage for the next damaged gen (this would work with any regression perk), extra 5000 BP, 10 % haste untill you use your power or enter chase, aura reveal on any survivor who is further than 32m and has same or less hookstages than currently hooked survivor.
→ This mechanic is completely disabled if any survivor dies at 5th or sooner hook - this would still make targeting 2 survivors as viable option if enough pressure worths the lost of this mechanic.
→ If you have at least 8 "performed" hooks before the game ends = meaning that no one has to die, you will keep your add ons and get 10 auric cells.
Just an idea. Feel free to discuss.
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Just apply only the Survivor changes and make it 60 seconds. Problem solved.
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Saying this right after your previous comment is a funny joke ngl
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Ngl Auric cells alone would be a gigantic encouragement to spread hooks, but I doubt something rewarding auric cells would ever get implemented in regular gameplay.
These are decent changes, though I think aura reveal is a bit too much. Just haste and extra regression would be decent enough as encouragement to keep the hooks fresh. Godmode for 30s is sketchy but it can be worth a try to test it out.
I think changing the condition to "This applies to last hooked survivor only" to avoid possible issue of 2 survivors getting hooked at same time and the freshly unhooked one being capable of unhooking the other one. Wait, no, in that case the first unhooked won't get the protection at all. Hmmm, tricky situation , not sure how to prevent it
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Not really? Otherwise you'd see people running stuff like exponential. Sure you'll see a few unbreakabills but if slugging was actually meta you would see a change.
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I legitimately don't think it's possible to solve this issue at a core level.
Tunneling is too important of a killer pressure tool to remove. Anything you could do to try to remove it would be very hand-holdy to survivors and majorly disrupt the game. Because if tunneling ever becomes an objectively bad play, then survivors have no reason to respect the killer's presence around a hook.
Trying to reward killers for spreading hooks is nice, but clearly people don't like the idea of buffing killers lol
The only other game which plays like DBD is Identity V, which also has tunneling, and like… wow, lol, the community attitude towards it in that game seems completely different. Seems like they just consider it a normal part of the game and if you have a problem with it you just need to get good.
Like… sorry, but tunneling is counterable through good play, and if nothing else DS is a generic perk now. If you hate it that much, there's no excuse anymore not to run it.
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Identity V also has a ton of tools for survivors to counter tunneling. In dbd the devs keep removing tools from survivors or making them weaker, Just look at what they did to shoulder the burden.
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😜
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Shoulder didn't get nerfed hard enough.
Also unless you can list some of these "tools" I'm going to assume you're making that up, because the only mention I can even find of people discussing it in that game is a reddit thread of people saying "What else is the hunter supposed to do?" and accusing the OP of being a DBD player for even having a problem with it.
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Okay dude if you don't understand basic game mechanics then why are you acting so hostile? Like come on man, the survivors in Identity V are actually really unique and interesting. For example there's the embalmer which tldr lets you save people from the hook and place them on potentially the other side of the map.
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