Comparison: Feeling Rewarded Lettings Survivors Go or Getting The 4K
Figured this would be a neat topic. I wanted to know what other's feels are on this. So I spent this month letting at least 2 survivors go free until I reached Red Grade IV. Then as Killer you really have to aim for the 4k to even get a pip (or a really hard 3k).
Honestly it wasn't until this point that I've noticed a massive difference in the feeling of reward for "winning" as Killer.
I'll start with letting 2 survivors go each match. So my win condition then was to hook every survivor twice, without tunneling/camping (there was probably some unintentional proxy camping involved), but under the condition that I don't hook any survivor back to back and hook everyone at least once before I start hooking them twice - I will admit, sometimes very immersive survivors got a freebie because I had to keep up with applying pressure in the game, so I couldn't spend 5 minutes looking around one gen for a UE Claudette.
So I would sacrifice 2 survivors this way, then while still looking like I am playing max my bp catagories, and let the survivor go. 30k+ BP every match.
When I finally reached red ranks (Red Grade IV), I switched entirely over to 4k the survivors at any cost. Use all of my knowledge and skill in the game to apply the most pressure, while at the same time still ensuring enough Emblem Points to get a single or double pip (no camping / No tunneling / no letting them heal / short chases / hook everyone for each hook stage / etc). After the first I would like to say 4-5 matches, were excessively easy. Which I am to assume is because my MMR had gone far down when I had to reach an MMR that I could play extremely "friendly" and still pip. Then it was back to the matches I remember before with highly competitive teams, all meta perks, and fair looping skills, that the mistakes get made up for with 2nd chance perks - they could play recklessly without punishment.
After the grueling matches there I made it to Red Grade I.
After all of that my conclusion. The game felt a lot more rewarding, and fun when I was hooking each survivor once, and letting 2 go. I would get instances of friendliness between survivors, and respect for Killers. I could punish the one's one may consider a "toxic" playstyle or with unfun builds (Boiled Over in the RPD library). In almost all cases the game ended on a happy note with gg's, share followage on twitch, the exchanges of discords. All around the Dead by Daylight I remembered before.
The game was least rewarding, felt very punishing for playing well, and all around overly stressful playing for the 4k . In the instance I was playing with all my skills that I had researched, practiced and applied. "Gave myself to the MMR system". Not only did I start to face the most toxic of survivors that would BM me win or lose, tell me to self harm, and even in game - it felt like the game was punishing me for playing well. There is just so much in the game that rectifies survivors playing poorly and making mistakes in loops. There is many things that give survivors a free pass for not learning map layout or awareness. I would see survivors make mistake after mistake, and then it is just ignored because of Dead Hard. Survivors making reckless saves and getting away for free because of DS and BT. I got DS'd by survivors I had not hooked 2-3 hook saves ago!? Survivors grouping up and not spreading out in the midst of a chase so I start do down them, a whole list of mistakes punishment and killers reward taken away because of one Unbreakable. The amount of troll builds of 3 oaks, boiled over, and sabotaging every hook making it impossible for me to even do my objective, forcing the map to go to a realm they would be immune. Forced to let all the survivors bleed out and depip. Sacrificial ward DOES NOT HELP. When you just finished a stressful game, you're on your last survivor. Close hatch. They were waiting at the door anyways and get out of free. Survivors taking a key, and "hatch at killer shack" offering. Then come the end of the game, find them or not, they are just going to reopen the hatch for a free escape. Take franklins? Lol they dropped the key pregame so it doesn't get destroyed or lost during the match. Like it was a terrible and unfair hot mess, while at the same time the community you face at these "levels" are unempathetic and toxic, getting away with racial slurs, and self harm encouragement. Absolutely entitled, and ignorant to mistakes they've made in the game. The equivalent of like "trying to play chess with a pigeon -- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.".
Looking back at it all, you can really see that the Killer is at the entire mercy of the survivor. But I figured out where you got to go and what you got to do to actually enjoy it.
Inb4; Yes I know you can play around Survivor meta perks, and for the most part I do. However understand that in higher skill play it can sometimes - a lot of the time be very detrimental to leave a survivor to slug for the 60 second ds timer, or let a survivor run to safety for the entirety of a 20 second Borrowed Time timer. Also you don't know that they have unbreakable so you have the stress of thinking everyone is going to get up in 24 seconds or less. Survivors 3 gen'd themselves? Well doesn't matter because they are going to go to the other side of the map to heal with COH anyways till either side falters. Did you ensure your 4k, because the survivors couldn't even do 3 gens? Too bad. Hatch exists. There is a significant difference between a survivor that doesn't know fully how to play, and a survivor that has some experience and an arsenal of second chance perks and conditions in the game.
Comments
I try to kill the rude and let well mannered go. Kinda like Hannibal but more forgiving.
I agree, playing for hooks gives a more enjoyable game experience than playing for kills.
Personally, I think one of the reasons MMR system downgraded the game experience is because, to get red ranks before, you had to pip up using the Emblem system which rewards more hooks.
Now, since kills equals skill, according to the MMR system players emphasize playing unfriendly to maximize kills since that's 'high MMR' (which nobody knows what they're at anyway unless they're BHVR staff with access to the data). However, only a few hooks would mean you depipped under the Emblem system.
Personally, unless I'm BM'ed, I don't kill anyone before the 5th hook, usually the 6th or 7th, I alternate hooks until I'm down to two survivors, I have more enjoyable games, get more BP, and see less toxicity. I also hit Iri 1 within the first week (the first couple days if it's a weekend and I'm not busy that weekend).
Players react to game mechanics, incentives and encouragement. Right now, this favours camping and tunneling. It's a design flaw with MMR that the devs, in my opinion, should correct with rebalancing the game. Either that, or change the MMR system.
I stopped being nice after I got the same reactions from people even when I wasn't playing nice.
I understand, I still get BMed playing nice. I get BMed every couple of days though instead of BMed multiple times per day.
BHVR doesn't discourage toxicity, though, and sometimes seems to encourage forms such as tbagging, etc. Players react to encouragement which is part of the reason why I think DbD has so many toxic players.