RE: Hooks Vs Kills
Hey all - I posted this in response to Scott Junds vid recently, would like to entend this to y'all and express some thoughts regarding the discussion and see what peoples opinions are of it in a bit more detail.
So to preface, the only things that can end the game (outside of disconnections) is for:
- Survivors power exit gates. From here, they escape or are consumed in end game collapse
- Killer kills survivors
Everything inbetween determines the difference between a Win or a Draw for either side, though these concepts are still relatively subjective until idealistically the Devs clean up the pip system (Killer kills 2/4 = Draw, Hatch escape over 2+ = Draw/Win etc) but I'm certain, and think it'd be clear to most, that this discussion will not go away with this re-evaluation when it comes.
Currently, Pips can only influence behaviour during the match; it's like playing by a rulebook or having in-game etiquette. Your objectives are then split in this scenario. People want to impact the game in a way that brings it to a conclusion, simple... is what I'd love to say if it were as black and white as that.
Here's why I think DBD is a game where Pips don't matter though, not in the way you may be thinking: If you were to consider Pips as points, as genres like FPS' tend to rely on to determine things such as which team won, how each player did individually, leaderboard ranking etc then that's fine. Except that works primarily well in "Timed" modes, where the game is set to end by xx:xx time.
You care about your kill count and other points when it's a team death match, you don't when it's capture the flag because it doesn't contribute at all to the objective, specifically to the objective which ends the game. It's pretty obvious what DBD is representitive of in this analogy.
Food for thought after this, I think something which does need addressing in this conversation is - How can survivors as a Solo/Team and Killer prove to be better than the other in contributing to their respective goals? What is "Skillful Play" for each side?
So, here's a fun situation that occurs all the time and is brought up in these conversations: Killer gets two people in the basement, one's in second stage, both survivors remaining are injured (or even just one), 5 gens remaining. The most efficient way to bring the game to a close and prevent the survivors from fulfilling their objectives, is for the killer is to camp, end of story (however the goal of Pips diverts you from this line of thinking).
Here's some things to consider in addressing this situation:
- Devs remove the basement, 4 hooks in one place is ridiculous and unbalanced just at a glance. Extreme resolution yes, but I personally think would be healthy for the game.
- Should 2 survivors be able to alleviate the pressure of 1 killer? If so, they get countermeasures for the situation in the form of perks (Borrowed/DS) but becomes unbalanced in situations outside of this (Hooked survivor near an exit gate becomes a free escape with borrowed/DS) and means that the strength of each individual survivor basically becomes on par with the killer.
- Is equal skill required? i.e. in this, the killer can just stand at the staircase, the survivors need to first heal to address the situation, then both rush the basement to save at least one person with a high likelyhood of trading anyways. Or B. do gens while he's doing that, resulting in (at the least) the loss of 1 person.
So the answer to this could be:
The killer has already outplayed the survivors at this point, so it's only fair the killer should have advantage in this situation.
OR, the game should be changed in form of map/perk changes so that survivors can play on an even playing field (when it comes to specific situations, ignoring how it impacts the entirety of the game).
Point being of this is that the choice right now is we have to decide what we value, points or ending the game efficiently.
Something which changes from the perspective of the survivor is, they each have the freedom to choose whether they play Self or Team oritentated. I enjoy this aspect of the game; a loose idea to promote this is to have points which attribute to different emblems depending on how you play and maybe gets represented to others in a ranking system which acts similar to a personality test (for lack of better terms). You play altruistic? You get the Medic Emblem. you often sneak around the killer and outlast your survivor friends, or you escape while someone is hooked? You get the Lone Wolf Emblem. As you do more of X actions in the same category, your rank goes up in that Emblem.
Anyways I'm rambling at this point, but these are some of the thoughts I thought might be worth sharing. Hope I don't come off as arrogant in any of these opinions, very open to feedback on it!
Comments