Tunneling isn't real.

What confounds me is all the survivors that send hate mail. If I didn't have you out there to possibly kill me then I wouldn't have a game to play. Like I said, I get pissed when I get face camped but I won't DC or send salt. I need you lmao

It's probably easier now than it's ever been to get away from a killer chasing you strait off the hook but it's still going to be hard to carry out your objective if they really want your head. If everyone that complained about tunneling did their part to take the heat off of their teammates by baiting the killer in whatever way possible it wouldn't be much of an issue anymore.

When you're in a race against time you're going to go after your only visible option so you shouldn't be too mad about it happening when you're staying out of sight and not giving the killer any incentive to hunt elsewhere. Most of my frustration is directed toward my teammates when I get tunneled because they aren't doing anything to help besides safely waiting for the hook save points. I never get that mad about it though because it was my playing that got me caught in the first place, well beside the rare sandbag, but I know you can't always rely on your team. Really most of the things people complain about post game are things that I know could have been countered because I've seen it done enough times with people playing against me in the same exact situations.

I had this one game where as wraith:

1: I hooked an ash for the second time (I had already ate his MoM)

2: I immediately cloak so I can go and find someone else

3: Before I can even turn around a Claudette with a flashlight unhooks him

4: I uncloak to chase them

5: The Claudette BODYBLOCKS the ash preventing him from getting to a window (and then using it herself right next to a safe loop that will take me far too long to chase)

6: I down and rehook the ash for a Kill

End of the game

Claudette: "Stop being such a ** you tunneling wraith"

Not even the other survivors bought it.

You guys are totally missing the real issue here.

It's not whether tunneling or gen rushing exists or not, because they do: Killers do in fact focus on one survivor until they are dead and removed from the game and Survivors do focus on nothing but completing generators as fast as possible.

It's whether or not these things are healthy for the game.

I would argue they are not.

Tunneling is unhealthy from both a competitive sense and a casual sense. From a casual sense, it's obvious: someone who just wants to have some fun and maybe a few scares alongside it now doesn't get to play the game. What fun is there in that? When this happens to you for multiple games, it ruins your experience. The competitive side requires looking at it form a different angle, but it exposes the imbalance of viability between Killers.

Take a look at which Killers tunnel the most often. You may notice they are mostly Killers noted to be lower on the ladder. You won't see as many Nurses, Spirits, Billys or Hags tunneling (or camping for that matter) because they are built in such a manner that they can succeed with out it, and look where they are on the Killer Totem Pole. This shows that in terms of competitive balance, Killers with weaker Kits require tunneling as well as other unhealthy methods due to a lack of base effectiveness in their kit.

Gen rushing is also unhealthy from both a competitive sense and casual sense. Once again, casual sense is obvious: if you are a Killer who doesn't care about getting a 4K and just wants to have fun and enjoy the thrill of being a murderous psychopath, suddenly the gates are powered and you barely touched anyone at all. It makes games too short and ruins the experience. From a competitive sense it has the same issue with games being too fast, but the issue is once again from another angle: nothing else matters. If it's not a generator, it's not as important. Chests, healing, looping, sabotaging, taking hits, blinding or stunning the Killer, even unhooking...none of these are as important as getting a generator done. This means the entire playstyle of both the Survivors and the Killer revolves around a single objective. Does a new Survivor Perk make it so you can do gens faster or for longer or help your allies do them faster or for longer, either directly or indirectly? Does a new Killer Power or Perk stop them from doing gens, directly or indirectly?

If so, how effective it is determines how often it will be used.

If not, it gets tossed into the pile of Perks deemed to be useless or the Killer will not be as viable competitively.

Funnily enough, it seems to me that the people who play competitively on both ends seem to accept both sides using these tactics. It doesn't bother them because they too are trying to be competitive and rank high on the ladder. Who it negatively affects are the casual players who just want to have a good time who are suffering by people trying to rank up when seasons reset or after losing hard and de-ranking.

The solution I offer? Making two separate modes and matchmaking for Casual and Competitive. This way competitive players can weed out some of the hate they get as well as consistently getting more engaging matches and casuals can face less players trying to win so hard and enjoy the game more.

Of course this doesn't solve the problem that the game focuses too hard on a single objective and thus has balancing issues because of it, but that is for a thread for another time.