Why should I not tunnel?
Big picture question : Why do I need to tunnel to win and how do we prevent it?
The answer is : survivors need to be less efficient at finishing generators & killers need to be less efficient at killing survivors. Mathematically there is nothing wrong with the survivors having two gens done if one survivor has lost two health states. That is a bare minimum that is fair for the killer. But this is the speed at which the survivors want to finish their objective even though it only reinforces my need as killer to tunnel.
Tunneling is 100% cause and effect. If survivors tunnel generators it forces the killer to tunnel one of them out of the game to have a chance to win. If killers play enough strong SWF teams they become conditioned to tunnel every game because it is the most viable strategy. Survivors being hit with this tunnel meta respond with "more gen rush" that reinforces the need to tunnel even more.
There is even a very simple idea to fix the problem that plagues games past "middle" MMR that will make the game way more fun for good players. I won't be typing it here today however.
I'm at a point in the game where most of the survivors in my lobby are 2,500 hour to 10,000 hours played. Most of the time I get either : 2x 2 man swf, 3x swf or 4x swf. If you look like a 3/4 man swf and have lots of items I pick a different lobby. That's just too much of an advantage to overcome unless I feel "in the mood".
When I play a game as killer one of two things happen.
A) I tunnel one player out of the game quickly and the survivors struggle.
B) I am unable to tunnel for some reason and then I struggle to play vs 4 people.
Generally speaking my repeating kill pattern is something like : 4k , 2k, 4k, 0k.
The games at either end of this extreme are not fun for anyone. On the left side I tunnel one player out very quickly (maybe one gen is done and I stil have a very strong 3 gen). On the right side I might only have 2 hooks so the survivors didn't even have the possibility to pip.
The 2k game is still extremely frustrating for everyone because I'm still camping slugging and tunneling. It just so happens that the outcome is close. Reasons for that include : the survivors were in a 3 man that looked like a 2 man swf because their bro logged in on xbox instead of pc, the survivors had a boon, the survivors had reassurance, the game was held on an extremely stupid/unfair map like forsaken boneyard, what I thought were 3 brown medkits were in fact purple medkits or insta heals, the surv team had a clutch deliverance/unbreakable.
The fun game is the 4k before the 0k. And even though I killed all four players (or one got out via hatch) the match was nearly completed usually several times by the remaining three survivors. To be clear here: this game isn't fun because I won. The game is fun because it's close. There were good chases, good gen pressure but in the end I had an edge because all the super annoying things from the 2k game weren't there. I will mention breifly that I do not play Nurse or Blight anymore (and return to this later).
Inside the A and B options there are also some predictable flow chart patterns.
Let's consider the A path first.
1) If I hook a survivor and three gens pop the only way I am going to come back is if I hook the downed survivor next to a 3 gen and literally camp them to death (or stage two and immediately tunnel them down). If that happens the game just ended in my favor - but nobody knows it yet.
2) If the tunneling process is long due to a perk/good teamplay then I might be left with 3 gens that are hard to defend. I will have to down one player (slug them) and injure at least one of the other two players and then I can potentially keep the last player off the gens. If the survivors do not have a boon active then I can still possibly win this - but just barely.
3) If three people are alive and I have what my friend calls a "Y gen" (inverted 3 gen) then the gens are impossible to defend and I just need to down one person whenever I can and accept the 2k. The only way to come back from this is if any of the survivors become timid (want to escape and stop playing), or as killer I have strong 4v1 potential : Pinhead/Nemesis/ maybe pig on the right day.
The B path ends with three or four players escaping, Tbagging at the gate and name calling.
Question : If I win 3/4 game via tunneling then why should I do anything but tunnel?
Followup Question : Since I only seem to win something like 33% of games where I don't tunnel then why should I not tunnel?
Note:
I don't play Blight or Nurse because I believe the game should be in a state where every killer is viable and the difference between the best and worst killer is something like 15% "chase power". To quantify that you can look at doctor and sometimes with perfect play a doctor needs 5 or 6 shocks to get a m1 hit. With nurse you just blink twice and if your range was correct then you cannot miss.
The difference between those two killers in terms of lethality in a chase is close to 55% at my estimation in terms of effectiveness. That number is my opinion and completely arbitrary but you get the point. If we had a machine perfect killer that had wallacks and 0 ping you could see even with perfection the doctor would look terrible by comparison.
The only time I would have a chance at winning the 0k game is if I played Nurse or Blight every game. And in all the other scenarios I would not need to tunnel to win. But if I did tunnel with Blight/Nurse the game would be a complete joke (as can be seen by people who wanted to get 100-200-500 nurse game wins in a row).
Comments
I do agree that a lot of killer players feel entitled to winning every match. I have a personal vendetta against winstreaks as well.
However, I wouldn't go as far as saying they're bad at the game if they need to resort to tunneling.
Survivors at high level do have stupid strong strategies at times, so getting to this point in mmr still requires skill. Remaining there is where tunneling comes in. I have no doubt that OP is an experienced player and probably much better than me at killer. I just so happen to enjoy my games more than they do theirs. =)
That is fair too, I am possibly being harsh I do admit.
I think part of the problem is people want to win and will do ANYTHING to achieve that, with a total disregard for anyone else in that process.
I admit I don't care to 'win' anymore, a win for me is having a lot of fun and wholesome post game chat makes me feel good over knowingly making the game unfun for others and getting a pile of negativity thrown my way.
Yet even with that, I still manage to 'win' the vast majority of my matches as killer
So you're not talking about them 'doing gens efficiently', you're talking about them bringing in a gen-rush build with Hyperfocus/Stake-out and BNPs. But how often do you see those?
And yet they scream on here about how 'unfun' it is when Killers play to win and demand the developers 'punish' or 'de-incentivize' tactics they don't like. IE: Camping. Tunneling. Slugging.
And there's a very good reason why. As much as the forums are loathe to admit it, the killer is the power role. They dictate the game. And that has a knock-on effect where these corner-cutting strategies cause the game to break down.
It doesn't matter how badly survivors try to rush those gens, no matter how many BNPs they take, or how aggressively they use Hyperfocus or Resilience even, it does not impede the killer's core gameplay. They still get to use any perk, and do anything they like. This doesn't go the other way though, as a tunnelling killer with relegate one survivor to 'chase only' and three survivors to 'no chase at all'. So the survivors only get to play a fraction of the game.
Facecamping is worse in that regard, as NO ONE gets to play the game proper, including the killer.
This is why 'genrushing' is not comparable to tunnelling/camping/slugging. That's not to say genrush builds shouldn't be removed, as they are a balancing obstacle, but they're not a gameplay obstacle.
The issue is that all this talk of reducing 'hyperefficiency' has been put solely to the survivors, because when 6.1 rolled around, all we got were buffs to tunnelling/camping, and the discussion surrounding those things has not changed at all. Any time anyone brings up that these are a problem, there will be killers rushing in to adamantly defend these things.
Any kind of talk about lowering the stakes in the game right now -has- to start with tunnelling and camping. I've said for a very long time that those are the biggest hang-ups for the game's balance and gameplay, but you can't get any idea through these forums. Hell, look at what happened to Reassurance, a perk that was set to actually severely damage the potency of camping: It got showered with complaints about it working against camping, and was subsequently stripped of its ability to do so.
These discussions go nowhere as long as people can't agree to let camping and tunnelling go. As long as people keep defending them to the death, the survivors will have to be balanced up to them and thus be too strong to 12-hook against. As much as people like to say 'tunnelling and camping are necessary', the flipside is that 'hyperfocus and BNPs are necessary'.
6.1 basically bought into the idea of 'just buff killers and they'll tunnel/camp less!' and it backfired tremendously. So this time, we're going to -start- with tunnelling and camping needing to be punished.
I think that's a great mindset !
I do play the same way. My trophies are not salty comments on my steam page or any number of DCs, but tokens of wolesome endgame chats as a sign that my opponents had as much fun as I did. =)
And as you say, the results are there. Being relaxed about losing a few games from time to time makes most of my games wins or ties, as I let my mmr actually adjust.
Plus I rarely face rude people. They see me playing relaxed and chill as well.
I literally see no downside to playing this way ! =D
Totally agree
If you play against expert Survivors, sure, you need every advantage because they'll also play to their absolute best.
The simple fact of the matter is that most Survivors aren't good. If mediocre Survivors give you trouble, that's not necessarily on DBD, that might be on you. Obviously, yes, some maps aren't fair for you. Other maps aren't fair for Survivors. That's how it goes.
You don't need to be in four places at once as Killer. If you try to be, you'll lose. You aren't supposed to win at 5 gens. You need strategy and I think many Killers tend to forget that.
The ultimate reason not to tunnel/camping and try extremely hard to get a 4K.
Is playing against survivors who not try extremely hard for 4 escape.
You can pull "you dont play in high MMR so you dont know". Thing is, I totally can put 4 slowdown, playing Spirit & hard tunnel these teams for easy kill to get to high MMR...wait, so thats why you're in high MMR?
....you're playing sweaty comp players every match?
Right....
Rest in piece, my old friend bbq.
I wore your icon since my first day on the forums but Bhvr killed your "secondary objective" characteristics and I had to drop and bury you with the rest of boring perks.
Gone but never forgotten. 😭
If you are playing to win, you should almost always be tunneling at least a little and getting your first kill on the 4th or 5th hook
Again see the flow chart.
Tunnel one person means I have an easy game and survivors are under stress. Why should I be the stressed out player?
Survs eliminate gens so I need to eliminate one of them with three hooks. I get NOTHING for hooking three people one time.
At low MMR you are 100% correct. But vs efficient teams it's just not possible to win on "meh killers".
You're suggesting I throw the game on purpose so I get easy wins. No thanks. The game is not a fair contest vs SWF unless you are playing a very strong killer. The game is not fair if you are on a big map unless you are Nurse/Blight or a mobility killer.
The bottom line issue is that Nurse vs SWF is fair on any map. Clown vs SWF might be fair if he has pinky finger on a small map but even his best addon will not win on a large map. It's so dumb.
There is zero balance for high skill play.
So by extension you're saying Otz and Truetalent suck. When they are in the same situation they tunnel to win. But a 9k hour and 7k hour streamer suck because you said so - ok.
We could say anyone that needs to bring an item sucks. We could say anyone that need to pick a map sucks. We could say anyone that only wins in a 3 or 4 man SWF absolutely sucks.
i highly doubt it tbh... skill aside, in certain maps even bad survivors can keep you easily busy without troubles (why learning to loop when you can literally press w shift and throwing down every pallet in the map and obtain the same effect after all?), skill isn't involved much in order to win as survivor (ESPECIALLY if you aren't play killers with some form of antiloop). You can try to "apply" pressure by constantly chasing, injuring and downing people, but if they still smash gens, you don't have chances unless you play in a certain way. I consider myself enough impartial despite being a killer main (this didn't stopped me to play survivor tho) and i see where things aren't fine at all... the problems of this game primarily lies on the mechanics that will gave an edge over your opponent (tunneling/camping for killers, genrushing bodyblocking for survivors), but on a point i think that we both can agree on it: those tactics will never be fixed properly because they choosed to kept those as basic mechanics
Good ideas don't come free.
Look at the survivor objective. You work a gen to half way and it gets reset to 0% so now you have nothing. If I hook one survivor three times I kill a survivor. If I hook three survivors one time I get nothing. As a base kit change hooking three survivors one time needs to be better than 3x hooking one person.
Tunneling is not embarassing. It's shaming the killer for playing the most efficient way possible as a response to survivors doing the same thing. The second a killer can turn generators off so that they can be undone then it might make sense to not tunnel. But that's not how it works.
It's easy to tell who plays killer and who does not. Should survivors work a generator to 33% and then get all gens to 33% before they get a single gen to 66%? No. Why should killers play in an inefficient manner just because it hurts survivor feelings? It hurts the killers feelings if they get gen rushed and they had 2 hooks.
Survivors are unreasonable if they expect a killer to not tunnel when they want to tunnel generators.
I will agree not to tunnel if survivors do gens inefficiently. They must work all generator to 33% and once all 7 gens are at 33% they may get one generator to 66% progress. If any gen falls below 33% then they have to stop go back and get all the gens back to 33% progress.
But since nobody ever plays like that except noobs the devs don't balance how quickly it takes efficient players to finish the primary objective.
if survivors keep running around the hook trying to save their mate who is almost on 2nd hook state instead of doing gens, how is camping a looser mentality (2/3 people that aren't on gens and you have also the possibility to dispose of a survivor, making the game a lot more manageable)? if a survivor with bt will bodyblock instead of fleeing how it's a looser mentality going for that guy (same example as before: less survivors working on gens=easier to manage the match)? Seems more than you have some butthurt regarding those tactics (which mind you, can be understandable, but it's not a reason to deny the effectiviness of those tactics)... it's like genrushing in a certain sense: both sides will rush their goals in order to win. Is that fun? Not at all, but it's effective, that's the point
I'm not suggesting you throw the game, or try to get easy wins. I'm suggesting you start caring a little bit less about winning a bit more about your own fun. Why play at all if 75% of your time makes you feel frustrated, bored or numb, for a measly 25% that is exciting and fun ?
That being said, it's all your prerogative. I can tell when outside perspective is not welcome.
Hope your games get more interesting in the future !
*Loser not "looser".
See this is a strawman argument, as nobody rational is complaining if survivors rush hooks in your face that you should just give a save for free (though if they get it I tend to take the trade). If a survivor insists on tanking a hit instead of making their escape, then if the killer decides to give them the aggro they so desperately seem to want... so be it.
So you can argue with yourself regarding your examples as they are not what the sane majority is frustrated with.
What is killing the game is the increasing number of bad killers who just camp first hook so survivors are forced to attempt a trade, though instead of going after the unhooker they hard tunnel the survivor who just got unhooked therefore preventing them from even being able to play the match. People will not put up with this continuously and what happens is people just stop playing the game and as killer you can impact 4x people by ruining matches like this.
The same applies to toxic survivors who cant just play the game without BMing the killer, nobody is going to keep doing that and ultimately many stop playing. Both are wrong but the killer is unique in that they ruin the match for 4 other people and the survivor role cannot retaliate against this tactic.
If I play an easier killer like Nurse or Blight the game is a joke. You smoke those other teams and move along to the next set of teams.
That's not how the game should be. Nerf the best killers. Nerf SWF. Make gens have a forced base mechanic slowdown (like Deadlock base kit- the perk would lock out gens for an extra 30 seconds meaning it would have 60 seconds of lockout). Make a mechanic so someone who has been hooked twice can't be killed unless X number of gens are done [Still not the million dollar idea].
You and I are playing a different game. IF you could log into my steam account you would hate it. I could play my brother's account and get easy smurf wins for probably a year if I rotated the killers to keep my MMR from spiking on any one killer.
It's boring tunneling out one person but it's necessary for balance vs efficient players. That fundamentally needs to change. The real problem is that survivor mains say : tunneling needs to stop when the killer does it but it's ok when I tunnel out his generators.
I just thought you wanted to talk about it, since you mentioned it.
Would you just make gens take longer? Add more gens? Remove the generator repair perks?
I don't like any of those, I'd rather they added a great many extra objectives to fill survivor time, and expose them to risk. But, I think they know that based on the survey we just had.
Anyways, as you said, tunnel for win. Rotate hooks to entertain survivors.
Why shouldn't you be under stress?
That's the Killer role. You play against four and are outmatched at the beginning. It's your job to make sure the late-game favors you.
At average MMR that's how it is. Nobody plays against top level teams all the time.
You do what you have to in order to win. Nobody is telling you to not try. Generally though, people don't need to tunnel. You could focus on trying to improve other aspects of your game. But like I said in my original post, it's hard. It's much much easier to just tunnel out the weak link and like you said, far less stressful. I get it.
I agree.
Choosing to keep tunneling/camping and slamming gens as mechanics was a poor decision.
They aren't really fun for anyone, don't promote skillful interaction and are genuinely boring to play against. Should've rebalanced core mechanics in order to stop these things.
But why do that when you can band-aid fix it and sell a perk.
-"What is killing the game is the increasing number of bad killers who just camp first hook so survivors are forced to attempt a trade, though instead of going after the unhooker they hard tunnel the survivor who just got unhooked therefore preventing them from even being able to play the match."
Why is the killer engaging in that behavior? I will always do exactly that if I have lost two generators. It is the only way I can catch up. Again look at the math. Compare 2/5 gens done vs 2/9 hooks. Who is closer to their objective? IF I tunnel one person then I might actually be closer because the game is radically different with only three living players.
-"So you're not talking about them 'doing gens efficiently', you're talking about them bringing in a gen-rush build with Hyperfocus/Stake-out and BNPs. But how often do you see those?"
I see efficient gen rushing every game. It does not have to be that specific build. The first chase costs a minimum of two generators vs good players. The only time it does not is when it costs 3 gens; ok I kid - sometimes I down someone right next to a 90% generator so I kick that gen then hook them neaby and camp the gen and the hook for double value.
-"As much as the forums are loathe to admit it, the killer is the power role."
Killer is the power role when it's your first week playing vs noobs who have never played the game (and everyone plays solo). Until you get to "average" players then the game becomes equal.
When you get good at survivor they are the power role. This is why every DBD tournament heavily restricts survivor perks items and character repeats.
This shows that you know very little about the game or play it at a very low level.
-"It doesn't matter how badly survivors try to rush those gens ... it does not impede the killer's core gameplay"
You don't even look at high level play do you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3J-WImbQIsAnd this team is limited by tournament rules. I played a team on this level tonight and they could bring whatever they wanted. They stacked luck offerings and picked the map. In a tournament the map is picked by the system to pick a fair map. This video is old as it shows wraith pre nerf but you can see the idea clearly.
Have you considered that maybe if you have to tunnel and camp to "win" at "high MMR" maybe you're in the wrong skill bracket? Maybe you're playing at above your paygrade? MMR isn't a ranking system, you don't get brownie points for being higher and miserable. Maybe the Nemesis who needs to tunnel at 5 gens shouldn't be at the same MMR as the 12 hook nurse who hits every single blink attack perfectly, the same way the Feng who loads into the game with a key and hides with 0 hooks while her whole team dies shouldn't be at the same MMR as the Yui who ran the killer for 2 gens and completed a further 2 gens herself.
You're stuck in a vicious circle of tunnelling for kills, increasing your MMR, going up against skilled opponents and crying about it. If people just played the game normally and stopped treating MMR like a reward system or something to brag about (ironic how it's always people complaining about how hard the game is who believe they're at high MMR) I'm sure a lot more fun could be had.
TLDR; Skill issue. Needing to make a 4v1 game into a 3v1 as soon as you load into the match is actually embarrassing. Customs against bots are there for a reason if you wanna play on easy mode.
"Have you considered that maybe if you have to tunnel and camp to "win" at "high MMR" maybe you're in the wrong skill bracket?"
Have you considered that it's unfair for certain killers to play beyond a certain level of skill? An average Blight will easily beat the best Doctor in the world in a tournament. That's messed up. MMR is more likely the problem than my skill level. I can play the broken killers and smash teams I would lose when playing lesser killers. This is not rocket science.
-"Maybe the Nemesis who needs to tunnel at 5 gens shouldn't be at the same MMR as the 12 hook nurse who hits every single blink attack perfectly"
Maybe the game should be set up with weight classes. You don't have heavy weight boxers fighting flyweights.
Give all killers a MMR cap and no matter how much you win you can't play past that number. Set every killer that isn't nurse and blight around 1500 (lower if the killer is worse). That would be a good first step to making people want to play killer at high MMR.
"Needing to make a 4v1 game into a 3v1 as soon as you load into the match is actually embarrassing"
I guarantee you if I pick one of the bottom 5 killers for you to play with no addons on a map of my choosing vs my SWF team with the best of everything you will lose. And you'll look really bad - except that you were dealt an impossible hand.
Against efficient players you either tunnel out one player with a bad killer and hope you can win or you just skip that entirely and just play the easy killers and win without limits.
I see efficient gen rushing every game. It does not have to be that specific build. The first chase costs a minimum of two generators vs good players. The only time it does not is when it costs 3 gens; ok I kid - sometimes I down someone right next to a 90% generator so I kick that gen then hook them neaby and camp the gen and the hook for double value.
If you're not talking about the build, then you are not talking about 'genrushing': you're talking about survivors doing gens -at all-.
Killer is the power role when it's your first week playing vs noobs who have never played the game (and everyone plays solo). Until you get to "average" players then the game becomes equal.
When you get good at survivor they are the power role. This is why every DBD tournament heavily restricts survivor perks items and character repeats.
This shows that you know very little about the game or play it at a very low level.
No, that's you not understanding what a power role is. The killer forces survivors off of gens. The killer can direct the chase. It is way harder for survivors to force the killer than the other way around. Even if the killer is losing, they are still the power role.
You don't even look at high level play do you.
At what point was he impeded in his gameplay? He got his chases, he got his slaps in, he got perk usage, he got his power usage, he's got everything you are promised when you play killer. He just didn't win.
You -could- try to argue that he didn't get a hook so he didn't get that part, but if you have to reach to the literal best team in the world to reach that point, your argument is divorced from the game at large.
'Oh, but tournament play'
Tournaments are for spectators. Not for players. You want to use that as your baseline, you might as well quit the game, because the only way that is going to get what it wants is for the rest of the game to die.
Lmao that team let a trapper get a 3k, you were very serious about going into low mmr.
"Why is the killer engaging in that behavior? I will always do exactly that if I have lost two generators. It is the only way I can catch up. Again look at the math. Compare 2/5 gens done vs 2/9 hooks. Who is closer to their objective? IF I tunnel one person then I might actually be closer because the game is radically different with only three living players."
You are not understanding the flow of the match... of course the first gens will get done faster than the rest as initially you are only pressuring one survivor. But as you take one out of the match to hook them, you also take another off gens to come and get the save.
If you have information perks and/or good game sense you will know where at least one other survivor will be working on a gen and if you can push them off you now have 3 survivors off gens, if two are on the same gen you have them all occupied for the meantime. If they choose not to heal you can usually punish that... sloppy can be a good tool for that.
This is also why killers slug - you take one person off gens by slugging them and another off gens who has to come and get them up and likely heal them. This is all how you build pressure and the early game is not the same as mid/late game as far as survivor pressure on gens.
I have over 2500 hours on DbD alone, every single match is against professionals with a similiar hour-count. There's no room for relaxed play or mistakes, at least not on the killer-side. It's downright ruthless and very stressful.
There's nothing "wrong" with tunneling and it's usually a smart move but there is a bit of a "one of you isn't going to be in this game for very long" aspect that's not great. I'm not saying you should care about this you shouldn't but BHVR should but nerfing gen times even more isn't the answer atp I think I we've gone down that route as far as we can without making that part of the game a boring slog.
I really think chase oriented perks need to be buffed a ton and nerf gen regression perks across the board heavily. I think the best thing for the game is to encourage killlers to not tunnel and camp by getting them to believe they can get another down in a timely matter if they leave the hook, we don't need longer gens we need shorter chases. Make Beast of Prey hide your red stain at all times let bamboozle be active on multiple windows at once buff brutal strength to 25%, make seeing the killer a "oh ######### this is really bad" moment instead of a "lol I'ma try to loop them for 5 gens" moment. And if this is effective shorten gen times and create harsher penalties for camping and tunneling if that seems needed but I definitely think making killers feel more powerful in chase is the way to go.
But back on topic no the meta is definitely tunnel 1 person out and stack gen regression perks right now so there's not reason to not do that.
Yeah the MMR system isn't that good or reliable.
So I'm afraid I just don't believe you.
"If you're not talking about the build, then you are not talking about 'genrushing"
Two survivors can finish a gen in about 45 seconds with prove thyself. You can't really stop this because it is too fast. You lose 5 gens and get 5 hooks - game is over. T bagging commences.
-"No, that's you not understanding what a power role is. The killer forces survivors off of gens. The killer can direct the chase"
You need to play a game that has a power role character to see what a power role is. In F13 you can find someone and kill them instantly. That's a power role. Nurse and Blight - ok sure that's a power role. Doctor? Hell no.
"At what point was he impeded in his gameplay? He got his chases, he got his slaps in, he got perk usage, he got his power usage, he's got everything you are promised when you play killer"
He never had a chance to win. SWF is too strong. And the buffs the wraith had during this time got rolled back so that killer would fare even worse now.
DBD is not a fair game when only 2 killers are viable.
-"Tournaments are for spectators. Not for players."
Tournaments do one thing really well : they nerf SWF and limit them so they can't be abusive. Usually this means no perk/item/character repeats (no offerings are allowed). The problem is that efficient teams ruin the game : either killers tunneling or survivors rushing gens.
"Regular" players run a killer for 40 seconds and then get hit while bad players run a killer for 20 seconds or less and get a hit. The best players can sometimes lead killers on a chase for 90 seconds (thanks to team play and dead hard). That only becomes fair if the killer has something to speed up chases or make the gens take forever. Since the killer doesn't have those things he has to tunnel someone out of the game.
Go play VHS and try to queue as teen. Nobody is playing the game. Teen was fun but the monster role was miserable. DBD has been in the same predicament for 6 years with most of the killer cast. There was a killer strike in the first year and around that time it took 15 mins to get a game as survivor. Had another 4v1 game come out around then DBD would have died out. The same could be said on DBD's release wit the infinite window debacle.
Well. From a game health perspective as many players as possible should have a good match experience.
Two issues with tunneling in that regard.
1) This game is intended as a 4v1 with the odds significantly changing once it becomes a 3v1, meaning it's effectively game over for survivors once that happens and it's not late midgame (~1gen left) or endgame. As such consistently turning a game into a 3v1 at 5, 4 or 3 gens left leads to a consistently bad match experience for 4 out of 5 players.
moot counter argument: "But with all the genrushing there are only one or two gens left by the time a survivor has been tunneled out!" - What else are survivors supposed to do? Wait patiently and staying away from gens? All they can do is hold M1. --- Imbedded "but they all bring BNP!" ... No. They don't. - There is a focus to complete gens quickly, true - but again: if you as a survivor have to expect that tunneling and/or camping is gonna happen the only way to win is to do gens extremely efficiently. (It is a self-enforcing circle of misery - but the thing is: survivors are actually at a disatvantage in this 'efficiency race' simply because tunneling doesn't cost the killer any limited resources while BNP are a pretty scarce resource and other suitable TB add-ons are, at the very least, a limited resource).
2) This game is inteded to be engaging for 5 people. In the case of tunneling only two players are actively engaged in gameplay for the vast majority of the match.
But to answer the question: Since you as a player are not obligated to guarantee game health there is no specific reason, other than the game being a better place if people are a chad and still do what they can to cover the dev's behinds when it comes to game health.
Then again, I think the question is somewhat missing the point anyway: It should be "Why shouldn't killers *be able to* tunnel" --- and that is very much a game dev decision.
I think the problem with tunneling is that it works so well. Imagine killers would get some more buffs, and getting a 2 kill 2 escape were about the given in most matches without tunneling. Then killer would still tunnel, because they want to get a 4k. And thus the killer would only stop tunneling if they get the 4k anyway, and then only maybe.
So i dont think it is about the need of tunneling, or balance.
The only reason for you not to tunnel is basicly yourself.
At high mmr, you get more swf, thus more coordinated opponents, and tunneling helps you to keep up and not not derank.
However, thus you stay in the bracket where you have to tunnel. If you dont do that, you will simply lose mmr, and might end up in a state where you dont have to tunnel just to win.
its not nice
Two survivors can finish a gen in about 45 seconds with prove thyself. You can't really stop this because it is too fast. You lose 5 gens and get 5 hooks - game is over. T bagging commences.
So they can do 2 gens in 90 seconds, or... 2 gens in 90 seconds.
Prove Thyself is a tactical benefit in being able to handle a tactically critical gen a bit more effectively, but it does not affect gen speeds. In fact, since PT only comes into play when survivors group up on the same gen, it gives the killer opportunity to exert more pressure. After all, he's interrupting both survivors when he gets there.
Which I've also suggested as an option for improving things for the killer's side: Reverse the co-op speed penalty. Increase base gen time and then increase co-op speeds to off-set it, so that it's easier for killers to exert more pressure. But guess what? You can't have that as long as camping and tunnelling still exist, because it would be a direct and very hefty buff to those tactics.
You need to play a game that has a power role character to see what a power role is. In F13 you can find someone and kill them instantly. That's a power role. Nurse and Blight - ok sure that's a power role. Doctor? Hell no.
IIRC, Doctor had one of the higher kill rates at high end play. At least he did before MMR, he was top dog back then. Even over Blight.
But that doesn't matter, because that's not what 'power role' is about. You're talking about balance, but that's not what this is. Survivors must respond to the killer's action, and the killer is the one who steers that. Therefor, the killer is the power role.
He never had a chance to win. SWF is too strong. And the buffs the wraith had during this time got rolled back so that killer would fare even worse now.
He had every chance to win. Or if he didn't, the majority of survivors don't, either. But he got to play, and he got to play the full part of killer. That's something survivors can't take away. But it IS something the killer can take away from survivors.
if you as a survivor have to expect that tunneling and/or camping is gonna happen the only way to win is to do gens extremely efficiently. (It is a self-enforcing circle of misery - but the thing is: survivors are actually at a disatvantage in this 'efficiency race' simply because tunneling doesn't cost the killer any limited resources while BNP are a pretty scarce resource and other suitable TB add-ons are, at the very least, a limited resource).
This reminded me of another point: As many killers keep saying, they'll react to gens going fast by tunnelling/camping, but another issue is that survivors don't have the option of running 'genrush' responsively.
If you go into a trial and spend the first two minutes opening a chest and doing some totems, and then you find out the killer is tunnelling/camping, it's too late to genrush. You're not catching up. Survivors don't have any catch-up options, so if they fall behind, they stay behind, and usually end up 3-4Kd. So if you do gens 'inefficiently', you are legitimately just handing the killer the option to win on a whim.
It isn't the point about the perk being strong or not but giving an alternative goal that doesn't take fun from either side or focuses on escapes or gens and is at the same time rewarding for people like me that focused more on BP to not get burned out by toxicity from the opposite side.
@DBDVulture
Survs eliminate gens so I need to eliminate one of them with three hooks. I get NOTHING for hooking three people one time.
Killers get a lot more value than "NOTHING" from hooks and not just kills. A hooked survivor is not doing gens and neither is the rescuer. Survivors "waste" a lot of time rescuing and healing teammates.
With any perk that relies on downs or hooks for them to be activated (especially regression perks like Pain Res, Pop, or Eruption) it is often more beneficial for the killer to go for the fastest down or hook and many times it is better to not tunnel.
i always loved the "gens need to be slower so i don't have to tunnel" slowing down gens will straight up make tunneling(which smart tunneling is already the best killer strat in the game) even better, since the risk of hard tunneling is that you leave the other 3 survivors free to do gens.
Gens are flying in your games because you're tunneling, so you're letting 3 survivors afk on gens for at the bare minimum of 2 minutes if you magically insta down and hook 1 survivor over and over again.
Yeah, this person is either lying or mainlining the same "TOP MMR" smack that Tru3 is.
I have ~3K hours in DBD (which isn't all that much, really) and I don't face "professional" teams all the time. Or even at all probably ("professionals" probably don't spend much time on public matches). If you watch even the best streamers, you can tell they don't, either. MMR is far, far, too imprecise for that. And if it was, your "top MMR" queues would be astronomically long.
Maybe a third (and I'm being generous here) of my matches are against teams that are good enough that I feel tunneling would be necessary to win.
Embracing the flawed line of thought that every match is against atomic supermen and tunneling is the only way to survive is just a way for people to justify refusing to vary their playstyle and/or consider others for even a second.
Am I making judgements about people who prioritize winning above all else in a game with no clear win conditions, trash matchmaking, wildly inconsistent game parameters and a grip of other potentially determinant variables that matter more than "skill"?
Yeah, I suppose I might be. I am only human, I guess.
I respect people's right to play that way, and won't berate them for it, but that doesn't mean I have to pretend I don't find it absurd.
I guess this is a teachable moment.
Comments like these are not helpful in anyway.
I don't care what you think the OP thought.
-"From a game health perspective as many players as possible should have a good match experience."
And almost nobody considers the killer perspective. It's not a fun game vs efficient players. You are supposed to get around 9 hooks by the time 5 generators are done. Efficient players can make generators be done by the time you have about 4 hooks. That is a game design problem that needed to be addressed years ago. In reality no perk/item/second character should speed a generator by more than 10%. Toolboxes probably need to become : sabotage only with the exception that a BNP eats your toolbox and gives a gen boost.
For years there has been a problem in that chases can be 20 seconds for a hit (noobs), 40 seconds for a hit (medium skill players), or two minutes (experts in a SWF). This should be more like 20/40/50 for the game to have standardization. The best players should not be running twice as long as everyone else. They should be running 10 or 15 seconds longer. The only thing that would make that fair if you can run longer vs the killer is to make the gens take longer - (which nobody wants). Or we need to only use overpowered killers relative to all others like Nurse/Blight (until some universal map travel ability is added for killers that survivors cannot use - see MHW with tunnels too big for the player but giant monsters could use).
-"What else are survivors supposed to do?"
The problem with the current game loop is that as a survivor you stand still and work on a generator. With efficient play you run as soon as your SWF buddy tells you - before you are supposed to know to run. That extra 10 seconds ruins the chase experience (once again a SWF problem). There are 4 survivor who work generators 4x faster than the killer's regression. That's very simple math to make the game impossible for killer with zero gen perks. The only working solution is gen defense + tunneling.
Killer should almost certainly have a 1:1 regression speed if 4 survivors are alive. Every time one dies you half that regression. Or There should be a base ruin effect that is 100% regression when you get off a generator with 4 survivors alive. Every time someone dies this effect is halved (and is removed if two players are dead). Either option would work fine.
What's another alternative people suggested along time ago? Limit healing to two full health per game. At the end of the game you can't get healed so chases are automatically short eventually. Getting hit actually matters and you can't just slap down a boon that lets your team heal 30 times (literal numbers in some games).
Here's a new idea I've never seen suggested :Imagine that a survivor can't just heal anywhere after the first heal. Imagine if they had to look and find an altar, a mark or something around the map unique to them by visual inspection. To complete the second heal they have to find that thing. That will take about two minutes. Each character would have to find their own special mark but you could say to a team: I saw a mark under the door frame in main, or I saw an altar near the corner gen of main. Think about it like a "freddy clock". If you want to heal you have to run to that thing, interact for 10 seconds and then you are allowed to heal. That way you can have unlimited healing but you have to go through hoops first.
-"What else are survivors supposed to do?"
Nothing- because the devs can't seem to incorporate imaginative gameplay that balances the game and makes them have "more stuff to do". Boons are a complete joke because they are not immediately destroyed forever once kicked. At a bare minimum the killer should be able to break a boon's bones if not using any hexes as a base kit feature (or kick it like now if he is).
Boons would only be fair if the killer had a 5th hex slot perk. Everyone would run shattered hope. And then one day nobody would run boons - so killers would run some random hex. Then people would start using boons again and the cycle would repeat.
I understand the devs not wanting gens needing parts because it would make the game too similar to F13. But there are so many options that could easily be added to make it so you're not just holding a generator's hand the whole game.
... most of those suggestions turn into stalling by virtue of having to hold shift-w for prolonged periods of time instead of holding M1 in one location. Same difference to me.
You're also kinda going off topic though, going from why shouldn't killer tunnel to a complete game mechanic overhaul. - But I do agree in sofar as the focus on gen times is hella annoying and the time it takes to repair gens should have a much smaller range (what are we at, it can take anywhere from 42 seconds to 3+ minutes - assuming the killer doesn't stop by to kick it at some point). Which applies to both, perks and items that help speed up repairs as well as perks that slow gens down or regress them.
That being said; my answer to why killers shouldn't tunnel remains the same: it's just way cooler to be chad than a sweaty d*. Same goes for full-genrush-squads; it's just way cooler to be a chad and leave the BNP in the inventory.
-"So they can do 2 gens in 90 seconds, or... 2 gens in 90 seconds."
That's a very obtuse point of view considering the gen defense perks we have now are based on one survivor finishing them without voice coms. Eruption and Overcharge are largely pointless if you run away and tell your team to finish your gen while you are being chased. The second killers have the ability to undo a completed generator then it would matter - but that's likely never going to change.
-"Doctor had one of the higher kill rates at high end play. At least he did before MMR, he was top dog back then. Even over Blight."
Stop and listen to what you're trying to say here. Doctor is better than blight at high MMR? You keep saying things that show you know less and less about the game (killer is the power role - kek). Blight was a weak killer when people didn't know about S ,J, Z flicks or hug tech. remove all that and yea he will be a "meh killer" after his addons get balanced to all the other killers. But he will still be better than doctor because he has antiloop and very fast movement.
-"But he got to play, and he got to play the full part of killer."
You say this with either no empathy or the ability to understand high skilled play. If the first option is the case then every noob crying on the forums (according to you) deserves to get tunneled and deserves team members who D/C.
"That tunneled survivor I face camped on the hook had every opportunity to play survivor even though I never went after anyone else and made his rescue/escape impossible." - This is what you are saying.
-"Survivors don't have any catch-up options"
Boons don't save minutes of survivor team time. Neither does prove thyself, streetwise/built to last (and all gen perks), dead hard (and all other exhaustion perks).
Also there are not medkits you can find to heal you. Nor is it possible to get a greentoolbox in a chest. And there can never be a key in a chest- oh wait that is in fact a possibility and you simply don't understand the game (or don't want it to be balanced).
Good ideas don't come free.You know I was beginning to regret reading this thread, but this line made it all worth it. I love the idea that you've spent essays here arguing about the game, but you have some other idea that is so spectacular that it can't be shared given its value and you'll just sit on in case you somehow end up in video game development. Hilarious. Good read.
-"Killers get a lot more value than "NOTHING" from hooks and not just kills. A hooked survivor is not doing gens and neither is the rescuer. Survivors "waste" a lot of time rescuing and healing teammates."
You might have had a point before the meta became strong medkits and strong healing perks. Maybe boons should have a timed duration when placed (60 seconds).
You're missing the pressure difference. If I have a 3 gen and I play knight or say Nemesis - how are you breaking my three gen? If one person is hooked who stays on the gen if I chase one player? With one person dead the gens are always at -25% repair speed relative to having 4 people alive. With one person dead any hooked or slugged player makes the gen speed go down to -50% potential. Compare that to : they were on a hook for 20 seconds and someone healed them in under 10 seconds with a perk.
Now imagine a scenario where being hooked reduces your healing/totem/repair speed, and door opening speed by 25% for the rest of the game. That would be worth not tunneling if every killer could get fast downs like Nurse/Blight.
What happens on RPD if I have 2 gens in the main room and 1 gen on a side room about 8m away? What happens if I camp the hook in the middle room? No gens get done and that survivor will die if you do nothing. Most of the time this is the only time killer is in a power role : a hooked survivor is in the middle of their three gen setup.
You get to camp and defend the gens at the same time. That is the only way for most killers to pressure 4 players at the same time.
-"Gens are flying in your games because you're tunneling, so you're letting 3 survivors afk on gens for at the bare minimum of 2 minutes if you magically insta down and hook 1 survivor over and over again. "
Gens fly because the survivor objective requires zero skill. If you are not mentally challenged then the task is a complete joke. The gens will fly regardless of what you do. Two players on a gen with prove will finish that gen in 45 seconds. The bare minimum for a chase is about 20 seconds per hit. That allows you to set a pace that is impossible for the killer to match.
Chases are too long relative to generator completion times (except in the case of very bad players). There are too many pallets and too many vaults after a certain level of skill. We can go look at truetalent's recent games where he tunnels two people out with 6 hooks. Bad loopers who gen rush can often win the game because all you have to do is repair faster than he can down without making too many mistakes. Perks that speed up healing and gen repair massively cripple the killer.
The difference in map sizes also matters tremendously. Imagine playing on coal tower and you chase someone only to find someone on the next tile over. Now you are chasing two people for the price of one. That is why small maps are fair and large maps are not.
The reality is that gens fly because I'm not playing Nurse and getting a hit every second or third blink.
"What happens on RPD if I have 2 gens in the main room and 1 gen on a side room about 8m away? What happens if I camp the hook in the middle room? No gens get done and that survivor will die if you do nothing. Most of the time this is the only time killer is in a power role : a hooked survivor is in the middle of their three gen setup.
You get to camp and defend the gens at the same time. That is the only way for most killers to pressure 4 players at the same time."
strawman lol
Gens fly because the survivor objective requires zero skill. If you are not mentally challenged then the task is a complete joke. The gens will fly regardless of what you do. Two players on a gen with prove will finish that gen in 45 seconds. The bare minimum for a chase is about 20 seconds per hit. That allows you to set a pace that is impossible for the killer to match.
"Chases are too long relative to generator completion times (except in the case of very bad players). There are too many pallets and too many vaults after a certain level of skill. We can go look at truetalent's recent games where he tunnels two people out with 6 hooks. Bad loopers who gen rush can often win the game because all you have to do is repair faster than he can down without making too many mistakes. Perks that speed up healing and gen repair massively cripple the killer."
Yes, gens don't require skill to do that's not the point of them. Never has been never will be. Skill from the survivor comes from learning how to minimize how much pressure the killer is able to apply. If survivors are getting huge prove thyself value in a match you are playing poorly. Trying to get value of prove thyself early in the match is a bad macro play from the survivors and will set yourself to fail.
Tru3 is extremely whiny, he's always been. He whined playing for honor, he whined about injustice 2, and he is still whining playing dbd 5 years later. So i honestly don't really care that your example of proof for you point is that he lost a few matches.
i was actually petty enough that i went and counted his W/Ls on his last stream. 12 4ks, 3 games with all 5 gens done. Worse match for him was a 1k on cowshed as ghostface. That's like a +80%~ winrate.
"The difference in map sizes also matters tremendously. Imagine playing on coal tower and you chase someone only to find someone on the next tile over. Now you are chasing two people for the price of one. That is why small maps are fair and large maps are not."
Your best point. I 100% agree with every said here.
The game is fundamentally built around tunneling (and also camping, though that one depends on where you down the survivor in relation to generators and the behaviour of survivors) and not tunneling means that you're eight hooks in and still have no kills. Then 4 people t-bag you at the exit gates. No amount of survivor nerfs are going to make killers tunnel less, it's the way they are supposed to play.
Never would I imagine that playing to win in a PVP game is considered "scummy".
Survivors have been win-shaming Killers for years, man.
Don't tunnel, camp, or slug. Don't use 'crutch perks' like NoED (It somehow gives mythical 'free kills' and is somehow magically uncleansable and uncounterable). Don't use 'Crutch Killers' either. Or 'OP' addons. There's a list of Survivor Approved Killers and Addons, but it's up to you to find it, and it can change hourly, or even based on the whims of who's in your lobby from one match to the next.
In short: Don't win if it makes the Survivor Overlords sad. And make sure you filled out your Permission To Hook form in triplicate before hooking anyone, because it might inconvenience them. And they can revoke that permission at any time without telling you, but they expect you to know if they did. 🙃