Suggestion: Shared hook pool. A variant hook system to solve several problems at once.
I'd like Behavior to consider a modification to the current hook system. Move one hook stage from each individual survivor into a Shared Hook Pool. The Shared Hooks can be used by any survivor in the game and are consumed before their individual hook count (one hash mark, then death hook). This means that no survivor can die before all of the Shared Hooks have been consumed first.
This does several things. First, it keeps the total hook stages the same; 12 hooks and all survivors are sacrificed. It completely eliminates the efficiency of early game tunneling and camping, which are a problem for survivors. A killer who face camps their first hook will spend up to six minutes waiting for that survivor to die, which is a guaranteed loss. It discourages tunneling, since killers can spend the start of the game pressuring gens away from hooks while still making progress toward the hook count of the game. This also means that once the 4 shared hooks are consumed, killers can use camping and tunneling "strategies" at the late/end game without them being as effective at the start of the match.
One additional change I would make here is that this would still incentivize slugging early game. So I would also allow survivors to consume one Shared Hook state to unbreakable themselves, effectively trading a down for a hook stage. This would be a limited number of unbreakable attempts, and would still give killers the ability to have slugging pressure at any time. A slugged survivor will either draw another survivor to heal them (pressure), or now the slug can unbreakable and consume a hook state that would not have been used otherwise. Again, this essentially gives options for early game without having to deal with infinite unbreakable issues in the end game.
This would also allow for unique incentives, and I recommend there be a bloodpoint incentive built into the Shared Hook system. You could add a BP bonus similar to the old BBQ bonus, but only if the 4 Shared Hooks are consumed by hooking 4 unique survivors once. That would add a non-gameplay impacting incentive to not tunnel as well, but killers can opt out of if they decide the game requires a different play style. It also means the BP incentive is not tied to a particular perk, since this would be a core gameplay change replacing the current hook system.
Comments
Then you'd get the asshats that throw the game to screw over the team
Good intentions but terrible idea
You already have players who throw the game, and no amount of core gameplay changes will fix that.
If you want to go farther, you can make 'giving up on hook' take their own individual hooks, and the rest of the team is unaffected, but that doesn't seem strictly necessary. I don't believe you can fix the game by balancing around people who don't want to play it. You can, however, make core gameplay changes so the most efficient way for killers to 'win' doesn't also involve tunneling one person out of the game as fast as possible.
What i meant is someone would keep throwing themselves at the killer no matter how many times they get unhooked
We knew that was what you meant. Just making it obvious that no amount of changes could fix that. Can't stop people from being salty.
Problem. This doesn't do anything but make the game harder for the killer.
Basically the killer has to hook 4 more times. Which leads to what 7 hooks before a kill?
Not fully disregarding the unbreakable, but that still puts too much time in the survivors hands.
They already do that
It's only 4 more hooks if you're hooking less than 4 hooks in a game. It doesn't add 4 stages to the game, but moves one from each survivor. Think like each survivor only has one 'hash mark' instead of two, with the removed hash marks being shared.
Technically speaking, this would make the killers job considerably easier in many cases. Since now, after the first 4 hooks, you only have to confirm/camp one hook stage to kill someone off late game. That 'good survivor' carrying the team gets one less hook stage and chase if you catch the potato teammates first.
This only makes the killers job harder if they're using a strategy that requires less than four hooks before end game. So basically face camping, and maybe an end game build where the killer doesn't go for any hooks at all. Even no way out and remember me need 4 hooks to be most effective, so there shouldn't be a problem with end game at all.
In my killer games, this wouldn't change anything to my play style, wins are still wins, losses still losses. I've been watching streamers as well with this system in mind, and I have yet to see any games where this system would have change the outcome for the killer. All it does is destroy early game camping and tunneling, without impacting those 'strategies' in the late/end game.
6 hooks would be the minimum in this system, compared to 3 hooks in the current system.
There is a very simple solution. Make hook sharing require a choice with a linked perk. If you have the perk then you are health state shared.
Also on this point : the game would need some kind of base slowdown on hook. A simple stacking 3% like dying light would work.
I'd make this an optional rule set for an alternative game mode maybes