Meaningless Ramblings on DS and Tunneling
Tunneling.
Killers do it. Survivors hate it. DS and BT are the two defenses survivors have against it; both of them being meta perks practically since their inception. With the latest nerf to DS, apparently, tunneling has become a rampant epidemic and the change must be reverted!
I believe what's happened is that, intentionally or not, the devs have given us a concrete definition of what tunneling is.
Before, it was somewhat broader. Going after the same person over and over again instead of targeting another survivor. And that form still exists as you can target the same person again and again if they progress the game in any way. Some survivors would call this an extremely unfun experience, as they didn't really "play the game" and instead were forced out of the match as quickly as possible. DS prevented that and said, "target someone else." It effectively made it an anti-momentum perk with anti-tunneling elements.
But now with the deactivation conditions, we have a more solid definition. Tunneling is going after the same person again and again UNLESS they unhook/heal someone/touch a gen/do a totem/etc. DS isn't a perk that says, "go after someone else." It's a perk that says, "I'm not doing anything; leave me alone."
But as I said before, getting forced out of the game as quickly as possible is an extremely unfun experience. That's why some would even go as far as to say Old DS was a necessary evil. In a perfect world, a killer would be able to target multiple survivors, spread the hooks, and then the game could end with all sides having a good time. It's why some go as far as to count wins by the number of hooks instead of kills.
That said, kills are the most universal conditions of winning in the game for killers. A common rule of thumb is 0-1k is a loss, 2k is a tie, 3-4k is a win. It's an asymmetrical game and both sides want to win.
The unfortunate reality that killers face, however, is that in order to win, they can't afford to go for 12 hooks. A popular strategy is to focus on 2 survivors (maybe a 3rd if the opportunity comes), get one out of the game, and suddenly the match is a more manageable 3v1. Spreading damage just takes too long and you need someone out of the game in order to keep up.
So what does this mean? Are gens too fast? Do killers not have enough means of reliably slowing the game down? Are the maps too big? Should kills be the deciding factor of what's a win? Does the Pig need more nerfs? Will Legion ever get his knife replaced with Glock-38?
Those are really complicated questions that I'm too dumb to think of reasonable answers to. I mean, come on, I'm literally just typing out a page of meaningless ramblings because I'm bored.
The devs have stated that tunneling itself (along with camping and slugging) is considered a necessary evil, and DS is meant to be a survivor's defense from getting tunneled immediately off the hook. That is what the new DS accomplishes. Like it or not, the devs have now defined tunneling for us, and going right back on the hook after tapping a gen is not tunneling by their logic.
Although, I speak for many who use DS for anti-tunneling purposes when I say this: STOP UNHOOKING IN FRONT OF THE KILLER WITHOUT BT! It just kills us both!
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