First Chase Takes Too Long
The core of the gameplay issues for killers is the first chase takes too long. The areas of the map at the start is too safe at the beginning of the game. By the time the resources of each map are expended, too many generators are completed and there is no payoff in the later part of the match for removing the pallets.
Comments
I know that CI does not help killers win their first chase.
You could always try Whispers or Lethal Pursuer to get yourself into a chase ASAP at the start of the match. It doesn't help you win the chase faster but starting it faster means getting pressure on them that much more quickly.
This does have a point, but I don't feel I am having an issue finding survivors at all. I cannot tackle them with most m1 killers quick enough to generate the pressure needed to stop the generators at the beginning of the matches.
you guys keep suggesting perks to fix a fundamental flaw of the game . in what world is it a solution to fix game balance with a perk ? thats the equivalent of a bandage over a gunshot wound. but this is what people who play both sides a good amount should expect , majority of this playerbase only plays one-side and is completely naive about the other .
No...the CI meta is mostly dead. Even at intermediate MMR, people now know to just hide, do totems and wait it out. If you want an opener, it's sort of LP or bust.
I prefer to look at it as - the longer the chase takes, the more of the map's resources are consumed which allows a hard snowball later.
However, it can certainly be frustrating when you are facing an SWF and they pop 3 gens while you are trying to get your first down. But that's an issue with gen speeds and toolboxes.
How long the first chase takes depends a lot on the skills of the killer player and the survivor player involved in said chase, artificially limiting that would not be good design.
Another issue with the idea of somehow implementing something to make sure the first chase cannot last long is that then killers can simply camp the first hook and are well on their way to a win much of the time.
And if the issue is just the amount of resources on maps, well, that does not only affect the first chase but the entire gameplay flow of matches overall. Some maps definitely do have too many resources (Cowshed, Gideon), but that's a problem with specific maps, and again a problem that affects more than just the first chase.
One thing I do think would be healthy for the game is basekit Lethal Pursuer for killers and basekit Kindred for survivors. Killers regularly cannot spare a perk slot for Pursuer, but early pressure is very important. Not only that, but knowledge of survivor spawn patterns is something even veterans do not usually acquire just by playing, you'd have to go into custom matches with 4 friends and Pursuer (or in the past communicate spawn locations), generate maps over and over again and figure the patterns out that way, and that's just not something you can expect from most players. And even then there's still a certain amount randomness to it. It's an unintuitive element of the gameplay that has too big of an impact, giving everyone the Pursuer effect is sensible IMO. Maybe decrease the duration of the aura reveal a bit though, such that killers like Nurse and Blight cannot benefit too much. And you'd also want to notify survivors that they are being revealed.
On the survivor side, people just factually do not run Kindred often enough, and coordinating rescue plays as well as combatting camping are two of the biggest issues survivors face when they aren't 3-4 players communicating with voice chat. I'm not sure the aura reveal on the killer should be baskit though, maybe that should only activate if the killer spends more than a handful of seconds around the hook.
I also still like the idea of an "early game collapse", even as something simple like all generators are blocked until the first chase starts. As opposed to the basekit Pursuer thing, this still allows stealth gameplay in the beginning where survivors can try to cleanse Hexes or set up Boons, scout the map for generator locations and the spawns of chase-relevant structures, but it does make sure that survivors cannot put in actual progress before the killer has a chance to start getting progress too. And survivors even benefit a little from it themselves, as they can tell that someone is being chased as soon as generators become available.
I'm not suggesting a way to "fix the game", I'm suggesting something to the original poster who seems to be having trouble getting the first down quickly enough.
If you are having trouble the answer is Leatherface.
I think that's mostly a gen speed thing.