Can killers please see hook states?

[Deleted User]

It would be a nice quality of life change most decent killers can track it anyway but sometimes I will hook someone in the endgame purposely take them as far away from the exit gate and see them ascend and be like huh well then.

Kebek

They won't because it COULD make killers tunnel more which is bad because survivors don't like it.

Better not give us that QoL information and ignore the fact that hard tunneling killers focus 1 single player all game so they don't need to remember hook states at all.

HuDawg

This is a bad idea because this will encourage tunneling more so thats a no

ManWithALemon

@HuDawg said:

This is a bad idea because this will encourage tunneling more so thats a no

You know what encourages tunneling more than that?

Showing the image of the Survivor who was hooked in the HUD so you don't confuse them with someone else.

Better not add that—oh wait.

TAG

@HuDawg said:

This is a bad idea because this will encourage tunneling more so thats a no

It's already super easy to keep track of the person you're tunneling. You gain nothing meaningful with being able to see hook states as a Killer if your only goal is to tunnel someone out of the game. If anything, it benefits Killers who DON'T tunnel because then they can keep track of who has yet to be hooked and whatnot.

ManWithALemon

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003356#Comment_2003356

The portraits do very little for killer. It's easy to tell different survivors apart just by looking at them, and if multiple people are the same survivor the portraits don't help at all. I'm sure there are plenty of players who don't intentionally tunnel and who frequently lose track of hook states who would nonetheless preferentially chase people who are closer to death if they had hook state information in the HUD to make it obvious.

Adding hook state information to the HUD for survivors discourages tunneling by encouraging survivors to play more aggressive when their teammates have been hooked more than they have. Adding hook state information to the HUD for killers encourages tunneling by making it clear for all players, regardless of how much attention they've been paying, who they should target to get an advantage in the match.

If someone knows enough to keep track of which Survivors they want to tunnel without using the HUD, then they're going to tunnel. Killers who actually WANT to tunnel have been doing so meticulously and liberally since the start of the game. Adding hook markers doesn't help them because they don't NEED help. All adding a hook marker does is add a QoL buff. Denying that because of tunnelers who tunnel anyway and have been doing so for the past five years is stupid.

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003349#Comment_2003349

Define "tunnel" how you'd like, but It absolutely would lead to killers removing survivors from the game earlier, which is not fun for survivors and therefore not something the game should be encouraging. It doesn't need to be a hard tunnel to be relevant; it could be as simple as chasing two survivors off a gen and preferentially going for the guy on death hook just becasue you saw it on the HUD. This is irrelevant for high-level players because they already keep track of this stuff, but for more casual players it just makes for less fun matches.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing for a killer to try to remove a survivor from the game early - I can't knock playing to win - but I think it's bad for the game to push killers to play this way, especially at low to mid rank.

You have a very skewed definition of tunneling if you think tunneling is just going for the Survivor you know is closer to death.

Zaytex

If someone wants to tunnel, then a tally isn't going to change that. What it would change, however, is making killers become more efficient in the decisions they make. For example, if you were given an option to chase 2 survivors, and the tally told you one is on death hook and the other hasn't been hooked at all, any competent player is going to go for the survivor on death hook.

According to the developers, that isn't acceptable. They want you to chase every single survivor and let them play the game for as long as possible despite a competent survivor team being able to complete any generator and escape before the killer can reach 8-12 hooks, unless you're Spirit or Nurse.

After all, focusing on 2-3 survivors in particular isn't tunnelling and a legitimate strategy to apply more pressure and get survivors out of the game ASAP without actually tunnelling.

Moundshroud

Giving Killers the information will NOT increase tunneling. People who tunnel as a tactic already keep track of hooks on their own; it is kind of their thing. If anything, Killers seeing that information are likely to use it to avoid tunneling if they, personally, are trying to avoid it. All that aside, the easiest ways to prevent a Survivor from being tunneled off the hook are:

1. Do a safe rescue in the first place.
2. Use Borrowed Time when appropriate/useful.
3. Take that protection hit.
4. Take a hook yourself if need be.
5. Don't vanish like a Ninja the second you unhook someone so the only viable target is the same one.
6. Don't do the silly thing where you all take identical Skins; it is just as likely to lead to tunneling as not.

I trust you get the idea. I want to repeat, people who CHOOSE to tunnel already know who they have hooked. They don't need the counter. Adding one isn't going to massively increase the number of people who do this. I'm sure there would be a small percentage that do, but I think it would be equaled out (or exceeded) by the number of people who would use the information to AVOID tunneling.

madminer95

Been making a case for this for a while.

@madminer95 said:

I made the suggestion here:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/226933/buff-the-killer-hook-ui

But I've yet to hear a good reason against providing Killers the same hook information as Survivors.

for the sake of preventing repeat responses please fully read the suggestion post and i'll put points and counterpoints I've seen so far below.

Killers would use the information to tunnel.

A Killer inclined to tunnel is already told the Survivor they are hooking is dead on they're next hook by them beginning to struggle and the "entity summoned" score event.

Even if it wouldn't encourage tunneling it would encourage better target prioritization.

Giving Survivors the hook state information allows them to effectively prioritize preventing the killer getting kills by body blocking and not wasting time hanging around for a save if the person being hooked is on death hook.

If memory of hook states is going to be lorded as part of a killer's general skill ceiling why shouldn't that also apply to survivors?

The hook counter was only made to bring solo Survivor communication more in line with SWF.

It's generally accepted that SWF communication imbalances the game. As quality of life adjustments are made to improve solo Survivor communication, logical corresponding counterbalances need to be made for killers to prevent killers experience being made miserable, further increasing Survivor queue times as less killers play.

X community collected statistics show killers get 4K's more often than not so should be nerfed

While i wouldn't trust stats from small sample sizes since even the Dev's stats often are meaningless like the ones that showed nurse was the worst killer in the game with pig being fourth best.

This is a horror franchise 1v4 game, The killers are supposed to feel powerful and even if they're power needs toning down over all this particular feature is not the place to be doing that.

glitchboi

I've asked myself "wait, why can only survivors see the hook states?" until I realized how easy it'd be for the killer to get kills if they were able to see who was on their struggle phase and whatnot.

ManWithALemon

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003442#Comment_2003442

You're right that killers who are paying attention and want to tunnel without the HUD. Everyone gets the HUD, though, and it incentivizes everyone else to also attempt to remove survivors from the game early. This would only be a QoL benefit for the same people who would be negatively influenced by it, namely those who don't keep track of hook states. For those who already track hook states this is a moot point as it provides no additional information.

My comment says "define tunnel how you want" to make it clear that 1) everyone defines tunneling differently and 2) how you define tunneling is entirely irrelevant to my point. Adding hook states to the HUD for killer would encourage killers to preferentially target specific survivors to remove them from the game earlier than they otherwise would. That just results in more frustration on the survivor side, less fun, more toxicity, etc.

Tracking just the total hook states also passively encourages people to hook survivors instead of slugging them, which again is irrelevant for skilled players, but which incentivizes more casual players to play the game in a way that is more fun for everyone.

So, adding hook counters is bad because it encourages Killers to play in a way that causes them to win the game.

Let's remove Adrenaline then. And toolboxes. And the gen counter. Those all cause Survivors to play in a way that cause them to win the game, so clearly they're just as bad.

dezzmont

No, because the devs can't go a patch without needling killers and reminding them that they are second class citizens who only have the barest quality of life updates given to them like scraps of bread to a starving orphan juuuuust enough to keep the population alive.

Survivors are the user-base, they buy the skins and recruit new players. Killers are infastructure, they are non-social and thus don't recruit new people and create more sales, and can't even see their own skins and so only the most diehard buy em.

Ergo, anything the devs can do that will make the survivors feel better and not drive off killer players will be done. A hook counter would allow more tactical killer play (but, as others noted, not hard tunneling because a hard tunnel can't be stopped anyway) which would result in survivors getting eliminated more. Despite player elimination being a key element of the game and vital to how it flows survivors hate it, so making it harder for killers to eliminate in a chaotic game is prioritized over that QOL, and likewise making it easier for uncoordinated survivors to keep track of who needs to make the sacrifice play and eat a hook is a goal.

Yords

@HuDawg said:

This is a bad idea because this will encourage tunneling more so thats a no

That would happen and already does happen regardless.

ManWithALemon

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003522#Comment_2003522

The game tries to encourage hooking someone then leaving the hook to chase someone else, because that is the sort of gameplay that's most enjoyable for both sides. There are many mechanisms for this: BT, DS, BBQ, Devour Hope, Make Your Choice, more pips for killers who chase and hook more, much higher BP payout for killers who chase and hook more, etc. It doesn't matter if tunneling someone into the ground is often the best way for killers to win, because at the end of the day it takes the fun out of the game. Nobody should want that, not Behaviour, and not the players. Killers can still tunnel whenever they'd like regardless of whether or not there are hook counters on the HUD, as we've established, but it is absolutely not something the game should encourage. Showing hook states would be expected to encourage tunneling, though, and should therefore not be done.

Adrenaline, toolboxes, etc. have nothing to do with this.

You're saying that because being efficient with hooks is not fun for Survivors, Killers shouldn't have a hook counter. I'm saying that if we're keeping stuff out of the game that isn't fun for Survivors because it encourages the Killer to do their objective, then we should remove all the tools that encourage Survivors to do their objective because that isn't fun for Killers. Otherwise there's an obvious bias that shouldn't be here. Both sides should be treated fairly.

Either we add a hook counter, or we remove "anti-fun" pro-generator tips and tools for Survivors. That's the only fair choice here.

CornHub

I'm a killer main, but I don't want the hook states shown. Imagine you're chasing someone and you see someone who's DOH on a gen or across the map ect... While that isn't tunneling and the surv should have just hide better, it's still a situation I could see people complaining about enough.

ManWithALemon

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003700#Comment_2003700

Is your point that tunneling is not unhealthy for the game and therefore should be encouraged? Every killer in the game, no matter how weak, has the tools to prevent similarly-skilled survivors from completing generators. No survivor should be able to prevent a similarly-skilled killer from tunneling them to death, though, and it's a frustrating experience. That is why there are so many disincentives to tunneling.

You're welcome to die on the hill of tunneling just being "efficiency", but I'm not going to bother debating that. Killers are welcome play however they'd like, but I will always support the devs incentivizing behaviors that make the game as fun as possible for everyone.

Your definition of tunneling is just wrong. It's not even a matter of debate. It is just objectively wrong. By your logic, if I hook a Survivor, the others let him get to second stage, I hook everyone else once after they get unhooked, and then when all four of them are together, I go for the person on death hook, I'm tunneling. That is just absolutely wrong. Unless I am going out of my way to focus a Survivor and kill them, I'm not tunneling. Simply choosing to chase someone because they're closer to death isn't tunneling. It's basic game sense.

ManWithALemon

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003759#Comment_2003759

I have said multiple times now that how we define tunneling doesn't really matter, subjective as it may be. Swap "tunneling" with "preferentially chase survivors with more advanced hook states whenever convenient" and then let me know how you feel about my point.

I did. I think preferentially chasing Survivors with more advanced hook states whenever convenient is a totally fine gameplay tactic and having a hook counter would not be unhealthy just because it assists that tactic.

Don't want to get hooked? Don't go down.

[Deleted User]

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003759#Comment_2003759

I have said multiple times now that how we define tunneling doesn't really matter, subjective as it may be. Swap "tunneling" with "preferentially chase survivors with more advanced hook states whenever convenient" and then let me know how you feel about my point.

how you define tunnelling does matter as your arguing that killers having the hud may increase tunnelling.

[Deleted User]

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003778#Comment_2003778

Well, it should increase tunneling by any definition. It should make killers who normally don't pay attention to hook states more likely to prioritize chasing survivors with more advanced hooks states. My basic point is that games are the most fun when everyone gets a chance to interact with the killer. No one wants to feel like they're constantly picked on by the killer and no one wants to hold M1 for 10 minutes and walk out the exit gates. Killers who are playing to win will always have an incentive to remove survivors from the game early. That makes for less fun matches, though, and at the end of the day having fun should be an important thing for the devs to focus on. It makes sense, then, that the game should have disincentives to playing that way, and it absolutely does. Adding a hook state counter would just serve to counteract some of the incentives already in the game for splitting up hooks, which is not a good thing if the goal is for DBD to be fun to play.

Tunnelling by your definition.

[Deleted User]

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003801#Comment_2003801

Tunnelling by your definition.

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003778#Comment_2003778

Well, it should increase tunneling by any definition. It should make killers who normally don't pay attention to hook states more likely to prioritize chasing survivors with more advanced hooks states. My basic point is that games are the most fun when everyone gets a chance to interact with the killer. No one wants to feel like they're constantly picked on by the killer and no one wants to hold M1 for 10 minutes and walk out the exit gates. Killers who are playing to win will always have an incentive to remove survivors from the game early. That makes for less fun matches, though, and at the end of the day having fun should be an important thing for the devs to focus on. It makes sense, then, that the game should have disincentives to playing that way, and it absolutely does. Adding a hook state counter would just serve to counteract some of the incentives already in the game for splitting up hooks, which is not a good thing if the goal is for DBD to be fun to play.

i accdentley quoted myself lol

Adding a addition to the hud will just take the tracking of 1-3 states out of the game is just a quality of life suggestion if a killer wants to tunnel a survivor adding a counter to hook states wont affect that. Giving a tunnelling killer information they may already know will not affect tunneling

DemonDaddy

It will have no effect on tunneling. All it shows the killer is what stage the target is on and no one else has a hook yet, same as now.

Tunneling is one survivor at a time. Counter changes nothing in this situation.

What it could do is let the killer know one player is on first hook and allowing them to be last hook will deny them bp. Also aids in situations where the team has twins or more.

[Deleted User]

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003838#Comment_2003838

Giving a killer who already tunnels information on hook states will not change their behavior, true.

Giving killers who do not tunnel information on hook states likely will change their behavior, though. It's not just a harmless QoL feature.

If a killer chooses to try and kill a survivor whos 2 stages in who hasent been tunnelled is fare game if thats what your getting at if that make a player feel like the games unfun they just dont like losing and that still happens without the hud

Sonzaishinai

Saying it would encourage tunneling is a pretty weak argument imo. I've had a ton of games where i faced lesser experienced survivors and tried to hold back just to accidentally tunnel someone cause they wore the same outfit.

But even outside that. The information we are asking for is already there. We are the ones doing the hooking. If someone wants to tunnel he'll remember the hookstates. It's just a QoL thing to put a reminder.

Survivors also are there for the hookstates so if killers should remind it by themself then survivors should too. And visa versa if survivors get it killers should too.

I am the first that will call baloney on anyone who says the devs are biased. But I can't argue against this. This is straight bias. There is no reason why one side should just have to remember the information and the other just have it on display.

As a killer I'm annoyed the same treatment isn't given and as survivor I'm peeved that they apperently think that survivors are that much dumber then killers to remember the hookstates.

This isn't helping the us vs them mentality everyone has

[Deleted User]

@[Deleted User] said:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2003811#Comment_2003811

It does both. Devout emblems give points for hooking survivors once each and BBQ gives stacks for hooking survivors once each, for example. If you just tunnel each survivor until the game ends you could end up with a 9-hook 3k and still get less of a boost from BBQ than in a 0k in which you hook each survivor once.

I don't think the game is survivor-sided right now; I think it's more balanced than it has ever been. That's entirely a different conversation, but.consider this: why should we expect a perfectly-balanced asymmetrical game to always have proportional amounts of players on each side and fast queue times? Let's take a real-life example, just for the fun of it - imagine that killers are tasked with rolling a giant boulder uphill while survivors are tasked with finishing pina coladas by the beach. Even if the killer finishes rolling their boulder before the survivors finish their drinks exactly 50% of the time, who would ever want to play killer?

Queue times are going to relate to time of day, region, etc. too so I'm not sure how they are on the aggregate, but if we don't have enough killers right now I wouldn't assume balance has anything to do with it. I would be more inclined to point the finger at things like the endgame chat, or terrible console performance for killer, or bad matchmaking for baby killers, that likely push people to play survivor instead.

---

If I'm wrong and killers do need a buff across the board, by all means, buff killer. This is not a healthy buff to give, though, and there are so many other options. No need to cling to this buff in particular.

killers dont need a buff across the board some need nerfs and some need to be brought back to relevancy and spirit needs to be deleated but i dont wanna have anyone respond to that last point im dont wanna talk about it :(