A response to the Q&A and the problem of time wasting (related to end game slugging)
BHVR had one of their Q&As today about the last two patches. During the livestream one question they answered was "Why does the game end when everyone is in the struggle phase?" You can find the question by going to 51:17 in their video but in short they said that they introduced this mechanic to prevent those fringe scenarios where multiple survivors are struggling on the hook and the killer and survivor can't do anything for 1 minute. The game is over and the outcome is set, so why not get the match over with? I approve of this change as it speeds up the end of the match, but now since the devs have confirmed that they view time wasting as a problem, there is another more glaring problem that in my opinion, needs to be addressed.
I'm of course referring to the act of slugging all remaining survivors until they bleed out. Of course, I'm not against slugging by itself, but what I don't like about it is when all survivors are down and the killer is not picking them up, whether it's due to toxicity or the killer just forgot where they knocked down a survivor. The match is over (most of the time, but I'll get to that later) and the outcome is set but now the survivors can't do anything, sounds familiar? Even worse, while struggle state takes 1 minute, bleeding out can take up to 4 minutes! That's almost half a match lying on the ground doing nothing. This is the best way of wasting someone's time expect for blocking them in a corner indefinitely, and you wouldn't get banned for it either.
With this in mind, I think the best solution would be to give survivors the option to surrender. When all 4 survivors are down, one of them can put up a vote to surrender. If all survivors agree, they are all instantly sacrificed and the match ends. This system already exists in other 4v1 games like Identity V and is great at ending games quickly.
I know that some of you will have some complaints with this so I'll try to address some possible points in this posts.
"But survivors could use various perks to get themselves back up, so the games not over just because everyone is down." I'm aware of this, that's why it's put up to a vote. If you don't want to surrender yet you can just reject the vote and the game will continue on as normal. Another thing I think would be neat is that if someone gets up, the vote will automatically be rejected, so you can just focus on getting yourself back up.
"What about the killer's points?" Ideally I would add new scoring events so killers are rewarded for survivors surrendering. I would also change it so survivors that surrendered also count towards your emblems and BBQ stacks.
"Survivors should just wait until they bleed out." As mentioned above, bleeding out takes 4 minutes. That's double the EGC timer (when no one is downed) and quadruple the struggle phase. The devs have shown that they don't want people to waste time as they introduced the previously mentioned features to prevent that, so I believe they should do the same here.
I know this is a long post and that adding a surrender mechanic is more work than auto-sacrificing everyone in struggle phase, but I believe that this is a quality of life improvement that would benefit both sides.
Comments
If Killers got the same amount of points as hooking a Survivor 3 times and the Sacrifice, sure. Let's be honest, 99.9% of the plays I've seen when it comes to slugged Survivors is that they crawl away to hide and not be found. Choosing to prolong their fate instead of taking the L and getting hooked.
Example: 2 Survivors left. I'm a Killer so I down Survivor # 1 and go look for # 2. I find #2, down him, hook him, and go off to find # 1. Well # 1 decided to crawl away to God knows where to either find the hatch or be spiteful and not be hooked. And then if you find the hatch before the dying Survivor does, now the Survivor is still crawling around or hiding in a corner, refusing to be found by having crows fly over them.
I'm not going to lie and say I haven't seen it where a Killer hasn't downed a Survivor and let them bleed out. Hell I've done it myself (to toxic Survivors or Survivors who have DS, Buckle-Up, etc.) But it is so rare and infrequent that I wouldn't even claim it to be an issue. This is coming from someone at Rank 1 on PC.
If Survivors want to stop having their time wasted, then they need to stop crawling off to be spiteful and sit where they can be easily found. The sound glitch already makes it extremely hard for Killers to find dying Survivors as it is.
I won't deny that some survivors will hide just to spite killers, but as you said other survivors will crawl to try to find the hatch before you can. They can't notify you where you are and it's not their fault that sounds are sometimes bugged. If those survivors had the opportunity to surrender and end the game immediately, it would save you the trouble of looking.
Of course this mechanic is not intended to be used ever game, but what it would excel at is ending those fringe games where you're all slugged and saving time that can be used to move to the next game.
But you get that same opportunity if the dying Survivors stopped moving. There's already an in-game mechanic to where if you don't move or do an action for a period of time, crows fly to your location and give Killers notification of where you are. So yes, they can notify you of where they are if they just cease activity. But when dying Survivors crawl around, even when hatch is closed, they are refusing to be found.
Again I see what you're saying, but I don't see the problem to be so frequent or severe that such a change is needed.