Stealth Is Undervalued

This has been something on my mind for quite awhile, and since I haven't really seen any posts that share my sentiment, I decided to make one myself. I feel like, as years have gone by and new perks and mechanics have come out, stealth has become worse and worse to the point of almost uselessness. As somebody who prefers stealth gameplay (note, that doesn't mean I hide all game, I just prefer evading the killer) it makes playing survivor that much more aggravating.

With the glut of information provided to killers, via scratch marks, loud noise notifications, crows (sometimes) and auras, often times I find myself unable to get out of a chase no matter what I do, and sometimes I can't avoid one to begin with. It kinda blows having my preferred playstyle be nearly impossible to achieve without dedicating multiple perks to it.

I think my main reason for writing this post is wanting to hear what everybody else thinks on the topic. Do you think stealth is too weak, and/or there's too much info to work with?

Comments

  • @SimpleSage said:

    Honestly I don't mind stealth at all if you're productive about it. I don't think anyone likes the teammate who hides in the corner all game and frankly that doesn't appear to be what the original topic of discussion was.

    I 100% prefer a teammate who knows they can't loop so they stealth and use that time to do gens, get unhooks and heal, over a teammate who wants to get chased and goes down instantly and can't contribute to the workload because they spent the entire match on a hook. While fully immersed stealth can be a hindrance on the team, so can being overly aggressive.

    Taking chases doesn't win the match, completing objectives does. You can loop the killer for 3 mins and it means absolutely nothing if gens aren't getting completed.

    That being said, I usually play with a decent bit of stealth but it really depends on some factors.

    What killer is it? Is it one I can loop decently/somewhat or one that stomps on me no diff? If I can't loop the killer at all I'm not going out of my way to take every chase that comes my way, I will absolutely avoid what chases I can (within reason ofc) and opt to do gens, get unhooks, eat that pesky Devour Hope and heal. I am way more useful to my team when I'm jumping from completed gen to completed gen than I am jumping through my hook states. It is worth more to my teammates if the killer spends 50s looking for me after I got tagged on BBQ while I run across the map to get unhook, heal and double a gen that was half way done while my other teammates sit on theirs, than it would be for me to gladly take the chase and force another teammate to get off their gen for unhook, only to be sitting on a hook myself 20s later. That also being said if its a killer I can loop or I'm the last one w/o hooks I will take a chase.

    How good are my teammates? I have no intention of taking chase from the Renato who has been looping a Doctor for 3 gens without taking a hit (and because I didn't he looped for 5 gens and escaped while taking a hit running to the open exit gate.) And the 3 man SWF that mugged a P100 Wesker and left him with 2 hooks probably preferred that I was willing to pop 4 gens solo. On the other hand if it's Billy or Oni I will happily go run them down and/ or steal chase if my team needs me to if I haven't already attached myself to their back like a parasite.

    If you're getting tunneled out at the start of the game you can 100% expect to see me when you hit death hook to force a down and hopefully take a hook state to give you distance and a chance to reset. I get that in some cases stealth can hurt more than help, but I see more people outright hate it in any form and I don't see the logic behind it. If the goal is to survive, why do I have to play every moment like I'm rushing to be sacrificed?

    As for needing perks to be stealthy, I think you might be surprised. It's much harder to do against killers who have the mobility to immediately respond to info, but the rest of them? It depends a bit more on if the killer is using their brain or not, for a while now its been common occurrence to come across killers who cannot find survivors at all without info perks and the survivor panicking. 9/10 times if I'm stealthing a killer I'm perfectly visible, in their face, just chilling. And I can't tell you how many times I was able to calmly walk away without the killer finding me after I got hit with Ultimate and they came for me. Understanding the killers thought process, what's in their LOS and how you can deny tracking perks without using perks of your own can't be understated.

    To all of my useful stealthers and Gen Jockeys out there: Keep up the good work.

    Stealthful gen jockeys win games. And it’s ok that survivors have different roles on the team. Not every player is a good looper, some people find working on gens boring and prefer chase. Some enjoy healing others, some love that feeling of seeing the ‘X gens remaining’ counter tick down & knowing that’s because of them. Not all survivors are the same and that’s a wonderful thing. Because there will always be different ways of being strong.

  • Killers have gotten so many aura, reading, perks, and abilities over the recent years. On top of that Iron Will got the most unjust heavy-handed nerf ever. It’s just gotten worse over the years and I guess the devs don’t like that playstyle since they nerf it.

  • @Star99er said:

    Killers have gotten so many aura, reading, perks, and abilities over the recent years. On top of that Iron Will got the most unjust heavy-handed nerf ever. It’s just gotten worse over the years and I guess the devs don’t like that playstyle since they nerf it.

    Aura reading perks especially are the worst part, typically on the killer side since theirs mostly give survivor auras. Some of them are fine, like Nurse's Calling and Awakened Awareness, some aren't such as Nowhere to Hide and (imo) Lethal Pursuer, but overall there's just too many right now. Hopefully someday stealth can get its dues and not be constantly shot down by everything.

  • @Mentally_Mechanical said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3681619#Comment_3681619

    I want to know why you think that, considering there's already several stealth perks and mechanics. Why should it not exist?

    Not sure why the mechanics and perks would have an impact on my ideal. Stealth provides boring game play for both parties, except for a few exceptionally weird survivors. After a certain amount of time maining stealth only a very slim amount of people commit to it without suffering extreme boredom. Only so much of a pvp game can be played with MINIMAL interactivity.

  • @Archol123 said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/408706/stealth-is-undervalued

    Stealth is peoblematic in the sense of avoiding interaction with the killer, because he needs that interaction to down you and therefore achieve is goal. So if it was too effective you would basically be unable to play as killer. Besides the obvious point where stealthy survivors are on of the most annoying encounters you can have, as it makes you feel useless while walking around not finding anyone.

    Besides that it can also be a disadvantage for your team because by avoiding interaction with the killer hooks will not be shared evenly therefore making the tunnel way easier or even required because if you can only find 2-3 survivor as the 4 th one is just hiding the entire time you try to find him you might as well ignore that guy.

    So while some people may find the playstyle interesting it is boring for the killer and a sub optimal choice if you want your team to succeed, at least in some ways.

    Basically this.

    I can't stand stealthy players, sorry. I mean, I can understand playing stealthy when survivors are newbies because they are still bad and have a lot of fear of the killer, I played stealthy at first too, but the people who have a reasonable amount of hours and still playing that way...

    I don't like the ones who play that way, not only when I play killer, but also when I play survivor. Everytime I play survivor and I see the classic guy roaming the map crouched with urban evasion equiped is like *eyeroll* "ah sh*t, here we go again" because I know that they didn't took the time for learning the most basic things of the chases and will last 20-30 seconds in chase.

    I'm happy that the stealth is becoming more irrelevant, and killers having more aura reading perks and stuff.

    I'm not saying the survivors should always be running like a headless chicken all the time and never crouching next to a rock. I hide sometimes too, but I'm not obsessed with never be seen.

  • it is extremely strong when done properly. each second the killer is not in a chase is a net positive for the survivors. this is also a significant reason why killers with good mobility (hillbilly, blight, etc.) are the best. they have very little downtime between chases and it's hard to stealth against them because there's much less time to get off gen and to cover before being seen. killers that dont have this mobility tend to resort to proxy camping and make survivors come to them. of course every killer proxy camps but especially a killer like trapper you can expect they're gonna camp the basement for the rest of the game once 1 guy's hooked down there.

  • Stealth is technically more powerful than chase as it uses 0 resources. Dropping pallets is a strategy that, by definition, has a shelf life.

    Play survivors that Killers hate, or play in a way they don't like and you can get similar value to chases.

    Remind me again how you loop a Nurse on Dead Dawg or Nostromo. Oh wait, you can't.

  • @Sava18 said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3681668#Comment_3681668

    Not sure why the mechanics and perks would have an impact on my ideal. Stealth provides boring game play for both parties, except for a few exceptionally weird survivors. After a certain amount of time maining stealth only a very slim amount of people commit to it without suffering extreme boredom. Only so much of a pvp game can be played with MINIMAL interactivity.

    I actually think stealthing Blights is the funniest thing ever, personally. Angry old man with cane cannot, in fact, get the dang kids off his lawn!

  • @100PercentBPMain said:

    Stealth is technically more powerful than chase as it uses 0 resources. Dropping pallets is a strategy that, by definition, has a shelf life.

    Play survivors that Killers hate, or play in a way they don't like and you can get similar value to chases.

    Remind me again how you loop a Nurse on Dead Dawg or Nostromo. Oh wait, you can't.

    The amount of people I see say Nurse isn't played like other killers, and in the same breath complain you can't loop her is both hilarious and sad.

    Stealth is potentially powerful, my initial point was that there's too many things working against it as things stand.

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