Should the hook mechanic be reworked?

AggressiveFTW

2024. Lots of things has changed over the years. What y'all think?

fussy

Honestly, I enjoy 2v8 version of "hooking" by a lot.
On one hand: no camping, no tunneling, no back-to-hooking, no teammates' suicide on first stage.
On other hand: no pallet/flashlight safes, no boring ~10-15 sec hooking action, no crybabies killing themselves on first hook.
I think this cage mechanic way more healthier and more fun for both sides, but it can't go in usual DBD, because it removes many thing for both sides and will make game more dull. (But if you ask me, I will take it)

AggressiveFTW

@fussy said:

Honestly, I enjoy 2v8 version of "hooking" by a lot.
On one hand: no camping, no tunneling, no back-to-hooking, no teammates' suicide on first stage.
On other hand: no pallet/flashlight safes, no boring ~10-15 sec hooking action, no crybabies killing themselves on first hook.
I think this cage mechanic way more healthier and more fun for both sides, but it can't go in usual DBD, because it removes many thing for both sides and will make game more dull. (But if you ask me, I will take it)

Appreciate the input!

AssortedSorting

Killers should still hook survivors.

It's thematic. And the pickup/carry to hook where the Killer is "powerless" can be seeded with dynamic events such as trying to sabatoge the hook, body-block, drop a pallet, flashlight the Killer, hinder them in a last-ditch effort

What should probably change is how survivors unhook a survivor, and giving survivors tools to combat tunneling/proxying as there are dynamics with the Hook that present gameplay problems.

As it is, with a Hooked Survivor (as Killer):

• You know where another survivor will be within a period of time, as survivors have a limited window to rescue that survivor.
• You can patrol/proxy this hook in addition to nearby gens in order to cut off/discover survivors more quickly as they'll be moving to it and effectively "coming to you" instead of you "hunting them down". Making you more time-efficient on finding survivors by sticking around.
• If you're unable to find another survivor, once again the Hook serves as a place where you can expect survivors to congregate, much moreso than generators as survivors have a time-limit to reach the hook
• The surrounding area of the Hook can potentially be a deadzone, as that's likely where a chase occured.
• Since you know that the survivors will be animation locked, with AoE killers you can get a juicy double-hit in to cause the unhooked survivor to need to waste time mending while you go and down the unhooker.
• If you've hidden/masked your presence you can lull survivors into a sense of security to go rescue which you can exploit by cutting them off or getting a successful hit in while proxying the hook.
• The Unhook notification is an indicator that there are two survivors at that location, that might get players to naturally move back to it.
• The unhook notification also immediately informs you of where at least two survivors are, giving you knowledge of survivor positioning on the map that can be used when deciding on which pathways to use/navigate to cut them off at map edges.

This promotes patrolling/proxying hooks as it's a very good strategy to shave time off of hunting down survivors given you have good knowledge of an area/objective that other survivors will need to expose themselves to get to.

Now, for tunneling (as Killer):

• Because of all the time-saving methods available to you when proxying/playing around guarding a hook, it makes sense to go for the weakened survivor.
• While the survivor may have endurance, it's possible that the Hook is in a dead zone from the previous chase where pallets and the like were used, giving that survivor fewer options than a survivor at the other end of the map
• The Hooked survivor has fewer options to try and evade or gain distance from the Killer if the Killer returns to hook following their rescuer
• Being unhooked "safely" when a Killer is proxying is highly dependent on the Rescuer having an anti-tunneling perk or the unhooker having one themselves. This creates a meta out of necessity.
• That survivor is one hook stage closer to being removed from the Trial, and having the Killer reach "the pressure point of no return" in a 1v3, where one role must be cut from the Chased/Hooked/Rescuing/Repairing gameplay state as there are no longer four survivors to maintain it. Where the killer can keep up a Chase with a survivor while a survivor must rescue a hooked survivor and there is no progress being done on any gens.

All of this together means that the Killer has strong incentive to stick around a Hook because they know where a weakened survivor is, likely in an area with fewer chase resources for survivors. This is why people gravitate to camping and tunneling if they are just "playing to win", and unfortunately what the game has been balanced around, the smallest number of actions needed to get the survivors to the point of a 1v3.

Give survivors tools to circumvent the strengths of Proxying Hooks and Early Survivor Removal with a time commitment

A Hooked survivor is a fountain of survivor location information as well as the hooked survivors hook stage being a natural progression step towards the killers checkpoint of getting the first kill.

To remove the information advantage of a hooked survivor, I'd suggest letting a survivor(s) perform some kind of ritual to teleport hooked survivors to any point in the map without the Killer knowing where they were moved to, with a time investment to do so to make up for the lost opportunities the killer had to be more efficient at finding/cutting off survivors. If the Killer doesn't have a guarantee that survivors will come to the hook, they may move around the Trial in an attempt to find other survivors/prevent the ritual from completing. This in turn also gives survivors a chance to just go straight to the hook for an unhook.

To circumvent the ease as to which a Killer can snowball in a 1v3 scenario, I'd suggest letting survivors perform some kind of ritual to transfer hook stages between them, with a time investment to do so to help make up for the added chase times from "distributing hooks".

These tools would require player input to operate, not being automatic/passive system tools like the anti-camp mechanic.

Perhaps survivors can invoke the transfer of a survivor to an empty hook somehow without the Killer knowing.

Perhaps two survivors under a hook can invoke the entity to transfer stages between them.