Pyramid Head change and how it parallels the obsession mechanic
In the hotfix today Pyramid Head was changed in order to stop tunneling. When he went to a caged survivor he knew for definite that he can chase the survivor with no repercussions, as the cages disabled hook perks like DS and BT. This resulted in many players abusing the fact and relentlessly tunneled the survivor until death. I of course welcome this change as it's always a good idea to discourage toxic behavior. However since this change another aspect has been highlighted that also encourages tunneling without repercussions. As you may have guessed from the title I'm talking about the obsession mechanic.
If you don't know, how this mechanic works is that when a killer or survivor brings something that causes a obsession, as indicated by the claws around a survivor's icon in the bottom right. However, if there's no obsession perk or add-on then they'll be no obsession, and here is where the problem lies.
As you know, Decisive Strike is one of the most powerful survivor perks that heavily discourages tunneling. As it's an obsession perk they'll be an obsession every time a survivor uses it. When a killer sees an obsession in the game they'll likely think that a survivor has DS so they'll take the necessary precautions like slugging or going after someone else.
On the other side of the coin, what if there's no obsession? When a killer sees that there's no obsession they'll realize that there's no DS. Therefore, they know that there's no repercussions for picking up a recently unhooked survivor. This leads to an increase in tunneling.
Does that sound familiar? That's because it's eeriely similar to the Pyramid Head situation. As Pyramid Head knows that caged survivors are defenceless, killers know that survivors are defenceless if there's no obsession. A survivor experience varies a lot depending on if there's an obsession or not. It's not uncommon that a killer tunnels a survivor to death because they know that there's no obsession.
I believe that this mechanic should be changed to discourage tunneling. I believe the way to do this would be to guarantee an obsession every game regardless of perks. This helps survivors by making sure that killers can't tunnel without risking a DS, but it can also benefit killers as it hides your obsession perks from survivors. I'm sure there are many ways of doing this but I think that this is the best way. Of course if you have any suggestions I'll be happy to see them.
After reading the following post, what do you think of the obsession mechanic? Do you believe it should remain the same or be changed? I believe that it should be changed but I'll be happy to hear your thoughts below.
TLDR: The obsession mechanic encourages killers to tunnel if there's no obsession. I believe that the mechanic should be changed to discourage tunneling.
Comments
The survivor gets hooked on the OPPOSITE side of the map, how is that even actually tunneling, if the other survivors are neither on gens nor unhooking then the only thing for PH to do is look for the only objective which is the caged guy.
There's no need for further nerfs to PH.
If you don't want the freshly caged survivor to get tunneled go interact with the killer or with other objectives so he actually has something else to do.
I think you misread my post. This isn't a discussion about the Pyramid Head change, this is about the obsession mechanic and how it encourages tunneling. I only talked about Pyramid Head to draw similarities to how the obsession mechanic encourages tunneling. I was looking at this mechanic from a general killer view, not a Pyramid Head view.
Plus Pyramid Head would be the one killer unaffected by this proposed obsession change, as he can use his changes to avoid DS.
Just to point out, there being an obsession wouldn't tell the survivors that the killer has an obsession perk unless the team is full swf. A full swf could tell each other what perks they have. If it's not a full swf the survivor(s) outside of the swf could have obsession perks.
It's more informative for the killer if there is an obsession for reason OP already stated but only if the killer did not bring an obsession perk.
If you wanna discourage killers from fast hooking like this by taking away their info then please do the same for survivors, if a killer instadowns a survivor with for example Haunted Grounds or myers gets T3 etc, survivors should not get a huge "YOURE EXPOSED" warning and figure it out themselves, that would in turn make survivors way less cocky after for example rescuing somebody from a hook because they'd not know if MYC is on them or not.
The reason that survivors are notified about exposed is so everyone is on the same page. You and I know about Haunted Grounds but new players coming into the game would just get insta downed out of nowhere and have no idea what happened. That would just frustrate then and widen the already massive gap for new players getting into the game. The purpose of the exposed status effect is to notify survivors so they can act accordingly.
Meanwhile, the obsession mechanic is supposed to signify which survivor you should keep in mind for your perks or add-ons, however some killers just use it as a signal of when they can tunnel or not, which is not it's intended purpose. If there was an forced obsession every game new killers wouldn't notice, it would only affect the killers who use it as a sign to tunnel, just like how the Pyramid Head change mainly affects tunnelers and campers. Its original purpose remains intact.
Also balance shouldn't be approached as "we change one side, so now we have to change the other." Each side gets their own buffs and needs without having to do anything to the other side. We don't say that since Ruin was nerfed so survivors need a nerf or that maps were changed in favour of killers so killers need a nerf. Change can happen on one side without needing a change on the other.