Why does hatch still open when a gate is open?!
Not only is hatch a shortcut around the survivor objective with a key, but it's also a participation trophy. It opens if all gens get done, it opens if no gens get done. But according to popular opinion, it is the best endgame mechanic and is flawless in every way. Riddle me this though: Why does it open after a gate has been opened? Hatch is supposed to be there because "Oh no! What will the poor survivor ever do if there's no way out! They might as well just hold the game hostage." But the exit is an escape they can use. And so is the other exit. So why does hatch still open? The survivor has not 1, not 2, but 3 outs? Seems pretty survivor sided to me. What would the killer equivalent of that be? If all your totems get cleansed, 2 more spawn in?
It's beyond words how crutch for the survivor this scenario is, and I don't care how 'rare' you claim it to be. I'm honestly surprised that there aren't hatch discussions every day like there is NOED discussions. Hatch is not okay the way it is right now. There should be 2 exit gates, not 3. When the last gen is done, hatch should not open just because there's 1 survivor left. It's a participation trophy for the survivor.
Comments
I mean, have you seen some of these Exit gate spawns. Sometimes the remaining survivor has zero chance to even get close to a gate without being spotted so the hatch is their last chance survival.
Tough. Those close gates are probably the only killer sided thing about those maps.
RBT traps
It's not like they can't search the jigsaw boxes. Heck, I already disagree that they can walk out with an unpowered trap. Why aren't the traps powered from the start? Why do they need a gen to be done?
I feel like RBTs should activate any time a survivor gets unhooked or a gen pops.
This would make it so that if they try to save a survivors during EGC, that survivor has to get their trap off or die unless they find hatch.
Still not sure how I feel about hatch escapes bypassing RBTs
Consider this:
If your team is trash and you've done everything you can, you suffer the harsh punishment of dying with them, despite your hard work.
If the killer closes the hatch, they have 2 minutes to elude the killer and open the exit gate, something not possible in most situations given that the door lights up as it progresses and makes noise.
EGC is stupid and the only reason we need it is because there's no way to force survivors out of the match, meaning they can hold the game hostage. The fact that the hatch begins this is stupid enough on it's own.
Also it does not open if all gens get done or if the exit gates are opened otherwise it must be opened via key or there must be only one survivor.
As both survivor and killer I notice in most cases the killer finds the hatch first or is able to get the survivor away from it to slam it shut. I have never had a problem with the hatch. Only one ever seems to get out and it's one guy. Sure you get the odd 2 or 3 outs but idk what the BFD is.
As for keys, idk, if EGC starts up and you have the stupid 2 minute timer, killer eyes the doors BS, then the key is pretty much the only way to get out and you still would have to find the hatch anyways. Best way keys could be nerfed is if the hatch just didn't spawn until all 5 gens were completed or if only one survivor remained.
Some killers have extreme mobility and can easily guard both gates (which is why you usually find swfs have people run interference). The hatch is there so a killer cant just watch them both and has to find it, but so does the survivor.
A better fix is to make the hatch not spawn at all until it opens, and that even nerfs keys while youre at it
I love it when the last survivor dies to the EGC because they stuck around looking for the hatch. Don't take that away from me.
Seriously, though, this seems like one of the least problematic things about the hatch.
I had this one game as Pig where I was screwing around, not playing for real, and I put an RBT on someone. Suddenly, right after I do that, two gens pop at once. The last two gens. Her teammates absolutely screwed her. Luckily the hatch spawned next to a Jigsaw box and her teammates actually left in time for her to jump through it. (The point of this is not so someone can go off about being nice to survivors. The point of this anecdote is how the solo's fellow survivors totally screwed her. That would not have been a kill I earned. Like I said, the hatch opening despite the exit gates being powered/open is the least problematic thing about it.)
The hatch does need to be fixed, though. It shouldn't spawn at all until either all five gens are done or only one survivor is left alive. It being able to spawn with multiple survivors left before all the gens are done is just absolute bull[BAD WORD].
You want to balance exit gates only around high mobility killers, which will not be present in A LOT of matches? So if I play Trapper, or Pig, or Doctor, or Hag, or Freddy, I should just accept that they're gonna get out through the exits because the killer literally isn't fast enough to patrol them? There is counterplay to that kind of patrolling too. You 30%-ish the exit and when the killer comes and goes again, you'll be out in time before they get back.
But I do like your second idea. It leaves hatch as a free escape still, but only ever for 1 person.
Ideally hatch shouldn't exist at all, but that's too radical an opinion.
No I agree, the hatch should be removed and a new system should take it's place. I hate how it's literally just a roll of the dice to see who finds it first - not even the slightest bit of skill involved.
The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to accommodate that, otherwise I'll be held hostage for 30 minutes when it's down to one survivor and I [BAD WORD]ing quit forever if I ever have to deal with that again, I swear to god.
Obviously they need to have some anti-stall mechanic for when there's 1 survivor left in a 'hopeless' situation. Hatch is not it. We can do much better.
We should be able to do better. Not sure it'll happen. First, it'd need to be something where the last survivor standing isn't actually in a hopeless situation, because then what would even be the point of them playing, the match might as well just end as soon as three survivors are dead. (Pretty sure it has been stated that they don't want the last survivor to just give up and stop playing.) Second, it'd need to be something skill-based. Unfortunately, DbD isn't the best at balancing based on skill. The devs like to use RNG to balance elements (if half the time it's in favor of the survivor and half the time it's in favor of the killer, then to them it averages out to be totally fair for both sides).
Trapper and hag can trap gates, another issue that almost requires hatch. Freddy can still teleport around until hatch is closed, doctor has the large area shock to check through walls if he gets close enough, and pg can stealth around, countering the 33% tactic to an extent, as well as every killers ability to use whispers.
We balance around these killers because thats most of them, most have some way to discover or sneak up on a survivor.