The PH "hotix" was just bad optics in general
and should be cause for the devs re-evaluating how they launch anything regarding "balance" hotfixes beyond the typical bug/glitch fixes.
Foreword; I don't think devs wake up every morning thinking "how can I make lives worse for 1/5th~ the playerbase of my game (killers)" or that there is some secret conspiracy to get either killers or survivors to quit playing their game in general. Is there a slight bias? Sure. I think everyone has some opinion of which side is stronger than the other.
My issue with the patch is that there was no "give and take". Just a straight nerf to ALL Pyramid Heads without addressing any issues from PH players.
There were many complaints about Pyramid Head; Yes, the tunneling off of hook from the survivor's side (and the crappy "tormented" UI that wasn't changed); but also there were complaints from PH players of the controls of M2 feeling overly clunky, there were complaints of "caging" feeling useless/detrimental outside of extreme circumstances for PHs who DID NOT want to tunnel freshly uncaged survivors, there were complaints of PH's M2 ranged attack feeling too easy to dodge outside of locked animations (vaults/pallet throws).
The fact that only one side of complaints was addressed is what leads to the "lol survivor bias" mentality. How about BHVR doing a better job of communicating through action instead of patch notes that are either overwhelming survivor sided for months or overwhelmingly killer sided for months?
There has been MULTIPLE patches where I couldn't help but say to myself something along the lines of "wow, what a killer-sided patch. Are survivors done for?" and vice versa. That should never really happen. Seriously. Big changes, small changes. Throw both sides a bone to get excited for in EVERY patch outside of bug fixes, because it's very disheartening for dedicated players otherwise.
Comments
Whats strange is how quick they were to fix it yet leave camping/tunneling so prevalent in other killers (Ghostface/Deathslinger etc)
Can’t rely on perks either because I can’t force people to take DS or BT, and most of these killers with camp/tunnel problems are killers with little to no terror radius
I feel they fixed it so quickly because Out of GF and DS PH had insane tunnel capabilities. Part of this comes from his power some of it comes from just bad map design. Also the Hook-Cage-Final Judgement tunneling strategy that was so terrible.
He’s 115 which means he shouldn’t have a problem getting to the other side of the map quickly if there is not a survivor already over there. Then carve trenches over the area. Cages do not work like hooks so any exhaustion perks that could help you at least get some distance or get to a pallet before PH is back on you won’t immediately be usable again when you get rescued. You have to crouch so you don’t get tormented again in which some cases you have to get tormented because he’s already so close. If you do he will just mori you once he inevitably downs you again. Or send you back to a cage or put you on a hook so he can just use final judgement once you get unhooked. Most maps are small unless your on indoor maps or maps with 2 floors. He will get to the cage first if a survivor is not near. Compare this to DS who still has to deal with borrowed time if he shoots the unhooked survivor and deceive strike. GF can hide his terror radius (although he might get broken out by the unhooked survivor) to avoid borrowed time but he still has to deal with decisive. tl:dr PH has way more advantages when tunneling then DS or GF could ever have since cages ignore BT DS and exhaustion instantly being removed. Alongside his built in mori and hooks and cages sharing sacrafice states. Imo cages definitely are not as useful now but they never were a tool for tunneling they were a tool to save time carrying survivors to hooks and to ignore flashlight and pallet saves...
Well said from you both. This is what I thought: they nerfed PH straight up but didn't give anything in return. I watched a Space Coconut video where he was saying that one change that could probably benefit PH and wouldn't be too overwhelming is to make his trail he makes jut out just a little bit in front of him so you can actually torment survivors that are pretty much right up in your face. Something as simple as that would have been nice.
Also, it was confusing to me that they left other high profile camper/tunneler killers unchanged, or at least they're hiding their plans for now if they do plan on changing them. Pig is an example I bring up all the time because she can remove terror radius by crouching meaning BT can't work. Same thing with Freddy, and he just does it passively too. Also with Ghost, they still haven't fixed his terrible detection radius. I went against a few yesterday and every time I couldn't reveal them. Even if I was right up behind them within lunge distance, staring at them. IDK how they let things like that pass, yet a bunch of people complain about being tunneled (when you have to let yourself get tormented first for it to happen) then it's suddenly "fixed" in a hotfix.