Why Tunneling needs to be examined by BHVR
As background I recently did a comparative group of sessions on solo queue play between sessions that were close to two years apart.
I summarized and showed all of the data on the two sessions and provided links to the videos of the games here.
@TheSubstitute said:
Here are the links to the data for those that just want to see the data and watch some mediocre Survivor play over the last couple years. DbD Survivor Game Data is from the current games. DbD Stats is from games that were about two years ago I think. The descriptions of all games show which video to look at if you want to see the video.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/EQHNXT3MT5NI/dbd-survivor-game-data.xlsx
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/XVWHVOGM3952/dbd-stats.xlsx
For those of you that have the patience to read my very long post here goes.
I started an experiment because I feel that there has been a substantial decline in the quality of survivor games over the last few years and the amount of tunneling and camping has gone up substantially. Fortunately, a couple of years ago when somebody said nobody was enjoying solo survivor and I said I can’t speak for anyone else but I do the forum poster accused of me lying and being a killer main (when I’ve played Killer/Survivor 60/40 roughly for years). As such, I recorded 74 games from close to two years ago and I have a basis to make this comparison.
So what I did was recorded 100 games over the last three months so I could compare and see what the changes are. I didn’t record games during 2v8 as that was too popular and would have thrown off my basis of comparison nor did I start until after the anniversary event this year. Also if there were bugs noted such as being unable to unhook or I had to leave suddenly I did not include the session. The Excel sheets showing the stats and links to the YouTube hosting my videos are in these series of posts.
First before I start I want to clarify some definitions. Also please keep in mind that I understand that my experience is my experience and other people may have different experiences. I have an understanding of statistics and sampling so I’m not going to claim anything truly foolish like a poll out by a content creator directly applies to all regions and all MMRs in a game as large as DbD. I can only speak to my experiences.
Tunneling: This is defined as attempting to remove one survivor from the game over all others first. If survivors were swarming a Killer and someone just happened to be the first one out, or if a Killer just found a particular survivor first, that’s not tunneling. If a Killer tried to remove one survivor first but the survivors countered that’s still attempting to tunnel. The Killer just failed to do it successfully. People will also try to tunnel but just realize they’re up against a strong looper and switch to take a different person out first. That’s still tunneling. The easiest way in my opinion to judge is do they return to the hook and do they target the unhooked or the unhooker. I didn’t include it if a Survivor was specifically targeted in the endgame though.
Dbd Survivor Session 1 (youtube.com)
Auspiciously or not auspiciously depending on your point of view my first game when I started was against a tunneling Clown so you can see an example of what I consider tunneling in Survivor Session One in the first game.
Camping: This is defined as staying around the hook and the returning to the hook to hit either the unhooked person (also tunneling) or the unhooker (not tunneling). If the camping was after all gens were done I did not include it.
Slugging for the 4K: This was defined as trying to slug all survivors left to either complete the 4K to minimize Hatch chances or slugging at the very beginning to just knock all survivors on the ground to either bleed them out or hook them all at the same time to minimize any chances of Hatch.
As a sidenote if you do watch my videos please note I’m not a content creator so don’t expect editing or commentary. Two of my videos have managed to reach the dizzying heights of low double digit views (but less than 20 for each) so don’t expect too much. I’m also average as a survivor. I’m not claiming anything else but as that would put me in mid MMR my experiences are more likely to be similar to the majority of the player base as opposed to a comp survivor that would be in top MMR.
For the current sessions all the videos showing this are title Survivor Session (Number) and there were 20 sessions to get 100 games.
There are a total of 175 solo survivor games worth of data between the two sessions The most concerning data showed that, over two years, my escape rate fell from 45.3% to 26%. As well, the actual escape rate was 31% for all survivors overall in the current sessions. However, when the games without tunneling and camping were excluded from the data set the average escape rate was 44% for all survivors. When only games with tunneling and camping were included the escape rate was 7.69% for all survivors. When I examined the previous set of games it turns out the main driver behind the reduction in escape rates between the two sessions was that tunnelling had increased five fold.
That much of a divergence in results would signify that the kill rate data used for balancing is flawed and will get worse if tunnelling becomes more common. Unless your analysts are specifically viewing each game and determining if there is tunnelling there would be no way to determine the disproportionate effect it has as tunnelling is not linked to more easily measurable data such as perk picks and Killer choice. As BHVR keeps on introducing perks with incentives to not tunnel and the entirety of the Emblem system is hindered by camping and tunnelling it does not appear tunnelling is your design choice.
However, an easily available tactic that increases win rates by that amount against a subset of players is concerning. Solo queue survivors do constitute a large portion of the playerbase and it is not human nature to continue playing a game for entertainment if your chance of succeeding is less than 10%. As well, balancing Killers off of a kill rate that is inflated by tunnelling will lead to frustration among Killers who will then feel forced to tunnel or will drop the game as tunnelling would be inflating the kill rates enough it would appear there is a problem when there isn't one (assuming tunnelling is not the intended play style).
It also suggests that tunnelling is too effective for solo queue to be able to handle consistently. My escape rate was at over 45% before tunnelling substantially increased in my games and, when tunnelling was removed from the equation, the overall escape rate in the current set of games was 44%. This strongly suggests the issue is tunnelling. The skill floor to counter tunnelling may simply be too high for a random group of teammates with no way to communicate or coordinate perks to counter while the skill floor is extremely low to tunnel and it's extremely effective.
As I've been playing since a bit before the introduction of MMR there is no question my MMR should have stabilized as I've been playing throughout the entirety that MMR has been around. All changes that have been made since the two sets of data for Survivors has been positive (hook grab removal, status icons introduced, bots for DCs introduced) and yet escapes have been cut significantly.
My suggestion is that to determine if this is a phenomena that is not restricted to just my experience would be to have your playtesters queue into solo queue games and measure the escape rates versus tunnelling and non-tunnelling Killers over a large enough sample size. If the same phenomena occurs with your playtesters you might to consider taking much stronger action against tunnelling than you have in the future as it would be distorting your data, preventing you from making accurate balancing decisions and negatively affecting player retention.
Comments
The only RIGHT decision is to realize that things that make the game harder doesn't mean they should be nerfed. You have tons of pallets and endless windows and jungle gyms. When getting tunneled, use them.
Again you are showing data where people (you i guess) have problems with them when they are scores of players that can almost never be tunneled.
It's not about "data" that shows the game is hard for you - it's about fairness. And you have tons of advantages so use them. What's next, once a killer hooks a survivor they need to run all the way across to the other side of the board or you get 3 hook states back?
You're not responding to my actual points and instead are making suppositions with no actual value to them. If you feel it's so easy feel free to show your 100 or so solo queue games where you manage to counter tunnelling while dealing with random teammates, no knowledge of perks held by said teammates, and no way to communicate. Until you do so, none of your posts make any sense.
Getting those games together would be much more constructive on the forums than just pinging me over and over saying the same thing.
That's a lot of assuming there, friend. I have been playing this game for about 2-3 years now and have thousands of hours, I may have joined the forums recently but I am not new to this game at all. but I guess you can't go one day without looking for a reason to discredit people who disagree with you as "just new to the forums" or "just a Killer Main" or "just doesn't play enough Survivor" or "Just a noob at DBD."
I refuse to dignify such a low blow with any sort of real response, the argument ends here. If you truly believe my post history and newness, or my assumed time in the game, means nothing, why even bring it up here? I didn't bring it up with you.
This is all very true. If we want a fix for tunnelling period, we need to buff the things that discourage anything but tunnelling (alternate playstyles through perks even if the other side finds it annoying), and also nerf tunnelling, while also allowing Killer to have breathing room by capping how fast rounds can go.
You're the one assuming I'm a 'Survivor main who needs hand-holding'. If you have been around for as long as you claim then you should have seen one of my posts dating back from starting in 2021 and realized that making an assumption like that is ridiculous.
Or in other words one of the suggestions I discussed in my original post and have restated should be the case multiple times. Reading those would probably be more fruitful than simply pinging me over and over constantly on a feedback and suggestion thread.
Closing the thread here, as comments have once again gotten out of hand. Please remember to keep comments civil and constructive when posting on the Forum; not only towards others, but their comments as well. Thank you.