On The Subject of Hook State in The U.I.
So I'm reading the notes about the latest stream from the devs, specifically the Q&A portion and their answer as to why Killers are not getting the full info on the hook status of Survivors. I have to say I am very, very, disappointed to say that I was right in that Killers will not be seeing what hook state each Survivor is in.
The "It will encourage funneling" answer shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Killer mindset. If someone is going to tunnel they will do it regardless on if they have a handy reminder of who is dead-on-hook and who isn't. It is very easy to remember that "the Meg" is dead-on-hook so you go and hunt her down, ignoring everyone else. The only time it really comes into play is if there are two or more Survivors running the same character with the exact same skins with the same items and that very rarely happens and when it does it's easy enough to remember "The Survivor in the second position from the top is dead-on-hook" so when you injure someone if it is not that person you can either move on to go tunnel out the person you want or keep this chase going to get them closer to death. And even beyond all of that the lack of knowing who is dead-on-hooks and who isn't is not going to change a tunnler's or some who always goes for the four-sac play style over much. Maybe make it a bit easier sure, but they are going to do it anyways.
However, for the Killers that don't want to tunnel at all, knowing who is dead-on-hook will give us the information of who to avoid. There have been too many games where I was in the middle of a chase while someone was on hook for the first time and they don't get saved before reaching the second stage but because I was busy in chase I didn't notice the "Entity Summoned" pop-up and later when I found that person for the second time I down and hook them because I've mentally noted I've only hooked them once but they wind up dying because I didn't know they had reached second stage. As a Killer Main who actively wants all the Survivors to get out alive this makes me feel horrible when it happens.
What I am saying here is that by giving the information to Killers you make it easier to not tunnel more than you do to actively tunnel. There is so much info to keep track of as Killer, and because a lot of it is not in the U.I. (who has been hooked how many times just being one of them, items held, perks revealed, play style at loops, gen progress, last place we saw another Survivor we're not chasing, and so on and so on) we have to keep mental lists, and mental lists are very weak things. If someone is of the mindset to tunnel a specific person out of the game they will devote more mental power to keeping in mind who just got unhooked and is thus now dead-on-hook.
Tunnler's are going to tunnel no matter what you do, but "nice" and slash or "fair" Killers will actively benefit from having this information in a place they can double check to be sure they remember things right. By knowing who is dead-on-hook and who isn't there will be fewer accidental sacrifices and more Survivors getting out alive because Killers who go for second hooks over just grabbing whichever Survivor they find first or going after just one person the whole time will be able to do so easier.
Comments
Yeah, this is sad. But we kinda knew already why they did it like that.
I still hope that they will reconsider this decision after negative feedback, since it seems that they didn't decide how to fix new UI yet, and there should be way more fixes.
Interesting, I thought I was the only one like that. I just love playing killer for the chases, not necessarily kills, and right now I still need to manually keep track of hook states. I have four pins and when somebody goes on second hook I flip that pin. When someone's hanging for a long time I watch out for the "Entity summoned" message.
I would really appreciate it if I could see more easily if a survivor is dead on hook. Then again, there are probably way more killers who would use that information to tunnel someone out of the game than those who use it for good causes.
And the intended, "normal" gameplay is probably to neither intentionally tunnel someone out as fast as possible, nor to be overly friendly, so the new hook progress counter is probably fine.
I’m usually able to track that information easily enough so long as there aren’t duplicate survivors
I have very bad memory, both short and long term, and am the type of person that has to write things down to really remember them later. I don't really have that luxury in the middle of a game like DBD. So I often resort to repeating aloud "One and three have been hooked, need to hook two and four is dead on hook" or whatever the hook states are over and over again while I play but if my mantra ever slips even once I'll often forget it.
There is a concept called ableism, where people who are able to do things don't often think about people who are not able to do that thing. A good example of this is when someone says that "An out of order escalator can still be used as stairs". What about people who can't use stairs?
You have a good memory, I do not. I have to constantly try and remember everything that is going on in the game dealing with the four Survivors as a Killer. Who has shown me they have Dead hard? Who had Sprint Burst? Balanced Landing? Was it the Meg or the Nea that has Iron Will? Was it Dwight or Ace that had Borrowed Time? Who has a medkit over who has a toolbox over who has a flashlight and is the flashlight holder nearby for a save? Did I hook Bill or Ash last? Have I hooked Ash at all?
Having one less thing that I have to mentally keep track of will make the game more fun for me and allow me to make the game more fun for others by making sure I don't accidentally sacrifice them. Being able to see hook state as Killer will mean I only ever purposefully sacrifice someone, which is not something I do often. However I accidentally do it more often than I want to, which is at all.
i can kinda see where they are coming from with that but yeah, pretty silly response honestly
I see this purely as a solo queue "buff" so that it will tell oblivious teammates to take a hook state as a buffer to get to EGC. I don't care if I can't see it as killer. I will tunnel when I have to anyway, and I usually do a good job keeping track of that #########.
Frankly I am not a fan of all the auras and visual/sound cues and would prefer less of it in game, but if it helps with solo queue QOL then fine- it won't break the game. At least it will take the flame off the killer and put it on the more selfish survivors that don't want to take aggro.
BHVR's response on this makes perfect sense to me.
100% agree
I do my best not to tunnel and whatnot. This information would just help me with that where someone who doesn't care is going to hook them regardless.
It would especially be nice when BPS are in play. I've made it a bit of a personal rule that if multiple survivors use BPS, I do my very best NOT to sacrifice someone as my own little thank you. But I've accidentally done it anyway as I either lost track or mixed up survivors. Something like a counter would be a God send. I get that it's probably a rare thing since this is just kind of my own made up rule but still...
I mean, it's not a difficult concept and it doesn't require a philosophical dissertation. If you want to tunnel, you can already do it by tracking hook stages by yourself. They simply don't want to make it easier by giving a separate counter per each survivor. Of course, they can't stop the tunneling. They just want to let you put some effort into it instead of holding your hand.
I totally and completely disagree that killers need a hook state counter. For every killer that would use it for nice and kind reasons, there are probably 5 or even 10 who would exclusively use it to tunnel easier or prioritize chasing a particular survivor more readily.
I have had multiple matches where the killer expressed surprise that when they hooked me at the end, I wasn't dead- in fact, it was only my first hook in many of the situations. They all said the same thing- they wouldn't have focused on chasing me over anyone else if they hadn't mistakenly believed that *I* was dead on hook.
I think juggling hook states is part of playing killer. Keep track of it and remember it yourself. As a survivor main, I care much, much more about killers not having an individual hook counter to help prevent tunneling rather than help the very few and far between killers who are attempting to be nice and farm. I promise you, the amount of killers who would use an individual survivor hook state counter in annoying ways is much, much larger than the amount of killers who would use it kindly.
It is better this way.
Yeah, I heard the reasoning and was frustrated by that. It was a bit annoying, but I feel that it was not too big of a deal.
i mean just count hooks it will be even easier to track with survivor portraits.