So... when is the anti-tunnel and anti-slug measures BHVR promised is coming in...?
Getting pretty exhausting having to deal with certain killers tunneling or slugging, and I'm finding them WAY too often.
I get that it's a supposed 'strat', but at the end of the day it gets tiring with having to deal with it constantly.
It's to the point that I'd rather wait for 2v8 to come out and play that 24/7. That was the only mode enjoyable for both sides imo.
Comments
What can I even say, though? Have you seen your argument?
'Krasue and Ghoul are because of anti-tunnel changes! We didn't get the anti-tunnel changes, but they opted to buff Krasue from a strong PTB position because of changes that they were cancelling in the same patch and pushing out to an unspecified date as opposed to holding back the buffs until the anti-tunnel changes are there and also Ghoul was because of the anti-tunnel changes that were almost half a year out but also not because BHVR is just bad at balance but this is totally the new balance standard and they just released Springtrap without the anti-tunnel changes in mind. Or something.'
You're working backwards from your conclusion. Things that contradict your theory become proof in your mind. There's no point in arguing with that.
>At an undisclosed point in time. The last time they tried anti-camp and it got booed off the stage, it took them literal years before they tried anything again
good
>We're still waiting on Skull Merchant and Twins reworks. 'A future patch' could be next patch, but is more likely on a longer term schedule. The +10 seconds hook timer that was supposed to come with 6.1 to counterbalance the longer gens and not have that be a strict buff to camping took 'em two years. Are we gonna have two years straight of killers being designed for anti-tunnel before we actually get said anti-tunnel? Do you think that that is their plan?
no, I think that's their incompetence and/or inability to properly communicate. Logically, +10 seconds nerf happened so late because they didnt initially think it would've been necessary and gathered data to make a decision. They made it sound like they just forgot to add it right away. So either they're unable to communicate properly or they are actually incompetent and self reporting.
Either way it doesn't contradict what Im saying, they're either painfully slow at making decisions or have delayed reaction.
>Krasue was tested on PTB with the anti-tunnel/slug changes. We then didn't get the anti-tunnel/slug changes, but they did buff the hell out of Krasue moving from PTB to live.
No, I quite literally did. Krasue was buffed because she was NOT GOOD ENOUGH with these changes. If they are planning to go through and are already halfway done coding that, why not proceed? If people get mad, devs roll out a bunch of placebo nerfs like they did to ghoul and they'll have an easier time selling the systems to the community later.
Either incompetence or slow decisionmaking.
There's also multiple other factors like the fact they still need to sell the chapter and NERFING the killer people ALREADY perceived as "clunky/bad" wouldnt make a good case. It's not just one thing, it's multiple.
>IF what you're saying is true and the reason Krasue is this overtuned is because of the anti-tunnel changes that didn't come in, wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to, when they realised they weren't going to push the anti-tunnel, leave Krasue as is and not buff the hell out of her in response to a patch that is not happening?
IF the changes aren't actually coming in and not just delayed. Again, bigger picture, at least within a year which is slightly more than their development cycle IIRC.
Look at Singularity and his update. It was planned to ship somewhere in late 2023, but was promptly delayed and instead we've had Skull merchant 2.0 with 8 kick system / AFC. Then he got updated almost a year later and the changes he's got didnt involve any actual nerfs to 3 genning (unless you count camera CD skip exploit that got fixed w/o a patchnote) and a QoL that cut the camping punishment by 4 seconds. Something tells me if they didnt choose to go for the fundamental design change and opted to balance killers individually w/o external bottleneck, Singularity would've been nerfed badly.
>That's nonsense too, considering all the other changes they made and have made in the past. They have no problem making 'drastic sweeping changes' on the short term, and this PTB, if anything, proves that to be the case!
You just gave examples of them being unable to make quick decisions / changes.
Does it make a difference? It's still taking them ages, so there's no reason to assume the next iteration of anti-tunnel/slug is right around the corner, and therefor also no reason to balance the game to it.
Except that's not a sentiment that came from the community, even WITH the anti-tunnel/slug system.
Because according to you, the balance level they're aiming for was WITH anti-tunnel/slug driving it upwards. They cancelled that, so why are they still balancing as though these changes ARE going through as opposed to just reserving the buffs for when they are actually needed?
Or, alternatively: Your theory doesn't hold up.
Not getting a buff =/= getting nerfed. You can't claim Krasue would've gotten nerfed if she hadn't received her laundry list of buffs inbetween PTB and Live.
Those are very distinctly different terms and conflating them is bad faith arguing.
Well, are they in the game?
Or should the entire game always be balanced for changes coming in who-knows-what-year? Should we just delete more components from perks on the assumption that they'll be basekit 'someday'?
Surely you can agree that it is incredibly bad planning to just overbuff the killer now to account for changes that are specifically and explicitly not coming now?
No, I gave examples of sweeping quick decisions and changes.
It's just rationalisation, dude. Any time anything doesn't line up with your theory of them intentionally overtuning Krasue to prepare for anti-tunnel, you just trot out a
Alternatively, Krasue's design and overtuning had nothing to do with the anti-tunnel changes and they didn't massively overblow a killer in preparation for an axed patch, creating a whole new problem that requires a whole new solution because they aren't going to fix up the anti-tunnel/slug system that fast and they still need Krasue to be balanced down in the meantime.
There are anti-tunnel and anti-slug measures already. Those are called DS, OTR, Unbreakable etc.
As a killer main that uses Spirit and Sadako, I’ve never had to slug, tunnel, or camp. I consistently get 3-4 kills, even against SWF teams. I’ll never forget when I was up against a 4 flashlight-ridden Feng SWF team. They looped and tea-bagged me like crazy, but I got them all. So I don’t understand why killers complained about the changes; I thought they were perfect. Maybe there’s just a lot of bad killer mains out there who need these toxic tactics to win?
I’ve played plenty of survivor though, and I feel for you guys. It’s just not fun. Tunneling and slugging run rampant, and they simply prevent you from playing the game. You wait around more than anything else. I’ll stick to killer.
Implementing some of the 2v8 ideas would help, if anything. The hook moving after a hook, no unhook notifications (was that in 2v8?), simple gen flash-bangs, variable difficulty/catch-up but built-in nowhere to hide. 2v8 is the best mode by far.
I won’t get into the idea of having more for survivors to do other than gens, but that would fix so many problems this game has, and become something special.
Thank you for clarifying. 😎
When I played primarily survivor I wondered why killers constantly tunneled. But after playing killer (below A tier) I can understand why. The concept of solo-queue and S tiers distort how people view the game. Like yes, solo queue is abysmal, and it needs changes. But a four man swf running full meta with toolboxes/ medkits is extremely hard to counter for any killer other than S tiers(Unless theyre very experienced). The pallet changes are extremely hard to counter if a survivor is somewhat competent. What is a demo going to do against 4 pallets chaining into shack?
The disparity between killers is honestly jarring. A blight/nurse tunneling is almost a guranteed win for the killer. S tiers are undoubtedly broken, but they skew the strength of tunneling. A wraith tunneling is not even comparable. If tunneling is changed, and survivor meta tool boxes, medkits, full swfs, go unchanged, A-tier killers will be mostly fine. But that leave half the roster struggling.
Im fine with tunneling nerfs if the killer disparity, addons, items, maps, swfs, and other things are addressed simultaneously.
With how ready and willing so many people were to throw at least 60% of the killer roster in the dumpster with the original proposed changes and simultabeously be completely unwilling to give any time of day to the myriad of very obvious problems it entailed... I'm extremely worried about the return of these changes.
I don't disgree with reducing the power/effectiveness of tunneling/slugging... but shooting m1 killers in the knees and at the same time giving killer side a bunch of effects that only benefitted the A and S tier killers, instead of taking the obvious route of taking a nerf hammer to those A and S tier killers and then buffing killers across the board was madness to me.
The way discussions were going around the issue, I genuinely feel like DBD is on borrowed time if anything even remotely resembling that PTB ever comes back...
These so-called measures are like putting a band aid on a broken bone.
I saw no evidence of problems, and only panic, anger, and other emotional responses. People have been "finding problems" with the system since they put the words "anti tunnel" on the road map, and it has literally nothing to do with the actual details, or the system, for most people. Based on the things people say on here, most killer players can't even think of any other way to play, and don't believe they can adapt to the change.
And given that there were only 2 days of actual testing, I don't honestly believe there are as many actual issues as people are trying to say.
People claiming that 25% gen speed will somehow cause survivors to die intentionally are just delusional. Same thing with "but if someone dies in the first minute why can't I kick gens?" Because you've already won the game at that point. That's why.
The one and only thing I wanted to see in testing I never got to, because they pulled the plug too fast... But did those systems, as "punishing" as they were, even matter? I didn't see anyone continue to tunnel to even see if the systems made a difference, because, and here's the real trigger for people: if hard tunneling is still the "best way to play" even despite these changes, then it's likely they actually weren't enough.
I hate to break it to you, but addressing tunneling needs to happen first. Because we can't ever seen to have any meaningful discussion about "what about trapper" until tunneling is addressed.
Then we can actually have some discussion of how we can individually buff killers who need it.
Because starting with killer buffs hasn't worked in at least 3 years now. Buffing killers had only led to more tunneling, and we still have the same disparity between blight and trapper. Maps are smaller (trapper buff), pallets are weaker (trapper buff), distortion nerfed and aura reading off the charts (trapper buff), healing nerfed (trapper buff), 7.3.0 patch notes (literally trapper buff).
And the result of all of that and tons, tons more, is that we're still having the same discussion about how trapper isn't as good as blight/nurse and we can't possibly do anything about tunneling. Yet every single one of those buffs directly or indirectly buffs tunneling too.
Tunneling first, then we can finally have the room to talk about how to fix "D tier".
We can disagree without making things personal; please keep the thread civil. Thank you!
"They designed Krasue with anti-tunnel in mind! The proof is the fact that Krasue literally has game mechanics in it that heavily favour tunnelling!"
Like I said, you have your conclusion that you desperately need to be true and so you rationalise -everything- around it to serve that end.
It's a complete waste of time, because there's nothing I or anyone can say to disabuse you of that notion.
Even if the devs themselves came on here to tell you that no, you're wrong, and Krasue's design wasn't based on the anti-tunnel changes at all, you'd just turn around and claim they're only saying that to make the changes more palatable.
The problem with balancing killers like Trapper has nothing to do with S-tiers or tunneling.
The problem is that trying to balance him around high MMR would make him broken at average MMR, because of the way his character is designed.
Trapper doesn’t have a dash or a projectile that can be accidentally aimed incorrectly. BHVR even told us that Trapper can’t easily be buffed, because we have to look at his performance across all skill levels.
You won't get the PTB version just like we didn't get the PTB auto mori changes. Something tamer will come out at some point.
BHVR will rework the idea and give us the ability to test it in another PTB. This is good as these large game changing/breaking ideas should be tested in a PTB.
What people are doing is discouraging BHVR from doing these public test. If an idea comes to the PTB its automatically must come to live or BHVR is breaking promises. BHVR has said they want to fix these issues but last PTB wasn't the solution and it will take more time. Or do we want to suffer through half baked solutions that hurt more than help?
Well I can't see how you reach that conclusion myself to be honest; the proposed unique hook changes as written had a clear and obvious preference for highly mobile killers who are also lethal in chase.
However you slice it, mobile killers won out way more on that system over less mobile killers, and it doesn't take a genius to see that mobility is already a massive boon for a killer to have over his immobile counter parts. That is why, barring few exceptions most mobile killers are typically B-S tier and immobile killers are typically D-B tier...
With the changes provided there is a clear and obvious preference for mobility, that leaves any killer who is immobile fundamentally incompatible with the new direction of the game, and this creates a more insidious problem that no one wanted to talk about.... what do these hypothetical buffs to these killers look like? "Trust me bro, we'll fix em later" is not something I can put stock in if the fundamental mechanics of the game are hostile to anything that deviates away from "down fast and sprint across the map to stay viable".
You want to buff low tier killers in this new world order after the tunneling changes are in place? Tell me, how do you buff Trapper? Hag? Pig? Myers? Sadako? Ghost Face? Bubba? Clown? Deathslinger? Trickster? Etc?
Because short of just slapping some kind of high mobile ability on them, you basically have to make all of them super lethal in chase to make up the difference to match up to their A and S tier counterparts... everyone either becomes homogenous... OR you have to make all of them extremely obnoxious in their individual identity, kind of like the Clown changes were...
What about alternative kill condition killers?
Fundamentally these changes shifted the game to the Kaneki / Krasue style of killer design. Highly mobile, little counterplay in chase, cause thats the only thing that would be viable. I dunno about you, that sounds like a bloody awful direction for DBD...
...and your answer to anyone who doesn't already play highly mobile/lethal killers is effectively "screw you, you don't matter, no one likes you anyway, we just wanna face Wesker".
The game is balanced around casual Killers and SWF, not casual Survs, that's a genuine fact. SoloQ is a disgusting excuse for an asymm, left neglected to rot.
That's what kills me the most about it. I'm genuinely not trying to remain stuck in the past here, but 6.1.0 wasn't pulled despite how drastic the changes were or how strong the feedback was. More recently, they let the anti-go next and the AFK crows "buff" stay live for an entire patch even though players were unfairly copping bans left and right. It got to the point that you wouldn't be wrong to assume they have some personal vendetta against The Walking Dead. 😵
And yet anti-tunnel/anti-slug was so strong that it couldn't even survive the entire PTB cycle without being cancelled. Genuinely what are we as a community supposed to take away from that? Even the pallet update feels like they're switching goal posts and giving players something they didn't even want (better, thoughtful pallet placement =/= spamming them to try to distract from the other changes to maps).
Ideally we wouldn't have to barter in extremes like this, but it's all we seem to have. And more often than not, the ball lands in the court of what's least beneficial to the game.
Ultimately, this sad attempt at Operation Health has only proven that BHVR should not be the ones to decide the direction of their own IP, in my (very fair and justified) opinion. And that's not even getting into the fiasco regarding the Rift, which has left many of us wondering what can they manage successfully? Not trying to be a d*ck either, but we're all sick of it.
Neglect is when they don't pay any attention to it. They do pay attention to it, though, as they've gone out of their way to make it worse.
Would you rather BHVR treat phase 2 exactly like the AFK crows, where the buffed AFK crows went live for a while, then got completely nerfed into uselessness, and months later they are still completely useless?
Seriously, would that make you happier? Because I’ve literally never seen a survivor with 3 AFK crows since the nerfs happened months ago.
I've gotten them while doing the "last two survivors hide and seek" several times, also seen them as a killer. (Although I didn't know what the heck was going on the first time, I just thought the player was being a schmuck)
So yes, they do work, just not as fast as "you" want.
Hopefully never. Survivor is the only thing I'm enjoying on dbd right now. I don't fancy sitting in Qs for 20 mins to consistently play against S tier killers only. Forget that
The AFK crows are so easily delayed and bypassed that I’ve literally not seen a survivor with 3 crows in literal months of playing the game.
How on earth can you twist that to “not as fast as I want”? So you would be ok if the anti-tunneling changes were nerfed so badly that you never ever saw them activate? And if you complain, I could say “they do work, just not as fast as “”you”” want”???
For killers that dont mind pallets at all? LOL
I never said that. The crows work fine, I've seen them work properly several times. When there's one gen left and two players, no, it's not easy to prevent 3 crows. Good killers who are patrolling gens will keep survivors from being on them for the time needed to get rid of them. I've had hour long games in the last month, it still happens with two really good hide and seek survivors.
Honestly, if you're not seeing them, then you're either putting proper pressure on the survivors and they're always engaged or something else is going on. Because they work right.
The Anti-tunnel/slug stuff was fine imo with 2 changes; 5 hooks and 15% speed increase. Those were really mechanically the only two things that I felt were unreasonable, as 6 hooks is a big ask and 25% is way too much. Again imo.
First of all, that's BHVR's MO. Changes made to the game are usually extreme and very black and white. Secondly, I would like some consistency. I do believe delaying the system was most likely the right call. But you have to admit the way they handled the entire thing was not good.
Like come on if you create pressure by winning chases theres no need to camp, tunnel or slug.
There should be consistency. The phase 2 changes should be just as impactful as the AFK crows.
Why not as impactful as, say, anti gen tap?
You know, one mechanic that decisively and completely eliminates what it's targeting and makes it impossible to circumvent in one fell swoop.
Seems like you're cherry picking here.
Maybe you're not seeing them because the survivors are progressing the game? In the first iteration, people were getting them just trying to find and remove hex totems. That's not AFK.
TD;LR: Survivors are just crouch walking in a small area, and using things like chests, dull totems, or killer interactions like disarming a Trapper trap, to hide for 10+ minutes.
Problem 1: AFK point gain is 25% if the survivor is moving at all, which includes crouch walking back and forth in a small area. It takes 8.5 minutes of being AFK, for a survivor to get their first crow, if they are just crouch walking in a small area.
Problem 2: Opening a chest, or cleansing/blessing a dull totem, aren't important enough to fully reset AFK points (and they currently fully reset AFK points). Cleansing/blessing a hex totem, absolutely should be worth a full AFK point reset, because there is an actual need for survivors to remove hexes.
Problem 3: Some killer interactions aren't high-priority enough to be worth a full reset of AFK points (and they currently fully reset AFK points). It's ok if high-priority killer interactions fully reset AFK points, like searching a Pig box, or solving a Pinhead puzzle. But disarming a Trapper trap, or looking through Springtrap's cameras, really isn't important enough to be worth a full AFK point reset. All the killer interactions should be reviewed, to determine how many AFK points each interaction should remove.
Do you honestly think the phase 2 changes had the equivalent impact to the game as anti gen tap?
Lots of this seems to have relatively simple solutions and answers.
1: Right now there are D tier killers. There will be D tier killers after anti-tunnel. It's potentially an inevitable portion of the game for a variety of reasons. A new system creates a possibility of change.
2: Other types of change are even worse. All of the pallets just got added are having a substantial impact on those very same killers. They said they want to improve the survivor experience, anti-tunnel with compensation is not nearly as bad as some other possibilities for these killers.
3: While high mobility killers could get more access out of the unique hook benefits, they were also the killers who had the easiest time tunneling.
4: I think the unique hook benefits are underrated for some killers. Things like free info from basekit BBQ are of substantial help to a stealth or trap killer.
5: Even if all of that fails, there's a simple solution. Just as there is tier of S class killers who get less benefits, they can create a new tier for the C-D tier killers who get more benefits. If Trapper is unable to get Pop value as frequently as a faster killer, then give him a stronger Pop. If in fact a group of killers falls behind, they could give them as a group a buff with the system they proposed, something that will never happen under the current system where they go one by one making killer changes.
Do you honestly think the phase 2 changes had the equivalent impact to the game as anti gen tap?If your issue is fair treatment/consistency, you can't just ignore times in the past when BHVR made changes that focused on killer. You don't get to have your way and then when BHVR finally says its time to pay attention to survivor demand that things be 50/50 from here on out.
Fair enough, though I remain unconvinced, cause we're still asking all killers to play the same way, a playstyle that fundamentally benefits a particular archetype far more than others, and imposes a set of restrictions that savvy survivors can exploit to insane degrees.
I won't go off again explaining all the various reasons in depth why I hate the conception of these suggestions, I've discussed it till blue in the face in many threads already.
The simplest way of explaining my position is I like elegance and subtlety in game design. I like rules to be simple and make intuitive sense... there is a lot of complexity in DBD, but the basic rules of the game are quite simple. This whole system is none of these things, it takes a relatively simple premise and starts slapping asterisks on it, with rules that are contradictory to the original premise and makes the killer objective unclear.
It stops killers playing in this unfun manner, sure, but even for killers who are not playing in an unfun manner, it creates weird scenarios where the killer can't capitalise on Survivor mistakes because the game arbitrarily punishes them to do so... and this reality makes Survivor just as unstimulating for me.
I have a game here that demonstrates my point well. Main important portion of it starts about 2 minutes in
https://youtu.be/iS44qKOdbWY?si=Zw6bg_uFVpRjnfKhThis game, is not what I would define as tunneling, the Xenomorph did not sprint immediately back to hook with the clear intention to tunnel me, and I have Wicked to prove it. I even have Empathic Connection and Kindred, so there is no SoloQ excuse, Survivors know where the killer is and where I am at all phases here. What happened here is the Survivor team (including me) made a number of mistakes that kept bringing the killer to me and set me up to die very quickly, mistakes that I cannot blame the Xenomorph for capitalising upon. For them to ignore me, it would have been very nice of them, but also it's not the point of the game.
This new system as proposed would remove all of the mistakes that we made here, and I dunno man... that's a level of hand holding that I don't want.
The simplest way of explaining my position is I like elegance and subtlety in game design. I like rules to be simple and make intuitive sense... there is a lot of complexity in DBD, but the basic rules of the game are quite simple.Sure, let me expand on that bit to make sure we're on the same page.
To me a really good game frequently gives the player a few choices with easy to understand risk/rewards, but also have lots of subtle complexity that make the "correct" decision never obvious. DbD generally does this really well. Do I pre-run and create distance, but risk losing gen progress if the killer doesn't show up, or stay on the gen to maximize progress while risking a shorter chase? Do I pursue the injured survivor away from the gens to get a down and risk losing gens, or do I let them go and potentially heal while I protect the area? Scenarios like these are common and one of the things that makes DbD great is that when people come to ask for advice and lay out a hypothetical, the answer is usually 'it depends'.
Which brings me to tunneling and 1 of the 2 reasons I think something needs to be done. It's simple, but not elegant. Tunneling is the "optimal strategy" to use a phrase that's been floating around. A good game should not have an optimal strategy that is just the default presumption on how to play the majority of the time.
This whole system is none of these things, it takes a relatively simple premise and starts slapping asterisks on it, with rules that are contradictory to the original premise and makes the killer objective unclear.So let's talk about BHVR's proposed solution.
I'll start by not wanting to rehash my own version of something I've said a bunch, which is that BHVR too frequently tries to reinvent the wheel instead of taking the obvious approach. If it was me, I'd probably have just done the 'delay unhook notification' and see how that works for a few months and then make additional changes to either side as needed. But in fairness to BHVR, and I've been pretty negatively lately, if they didn't take the "swing for the fences" approach they probably never would have even tried to design a 4v1 asym horror game.
But anyway looking at the proposed idea and to what degree it adds asterisk on to things:
Since it has come out I haven't liked the use of 'rule' or 'punishment' even as BHVR has adopted some of that language. As I said above, I think games are about risk/rewards: trade offs. A killer can still tunnel, but its not the optimal strategy that should always be pursued any longer. If you get a survivor out too quickly they do gens faster, or you can risk spreading pressure to deny this benefit, but give them more time with four survivors alive.
And yes, it creates a situation where a killer could not be tunneling, but then get in a position where an elimination is the best course of action but the survivors get a boost. But I don't think the goal of this change was just anti-tunnel (if it was I'm tempted to take back my earlier complimentary statement to BHVR), but a larger reimagining of the game. I think too many people approached the PtB on the idea of 'okay, this should never trigger because its a rule' to looking at it as just another game element to consider.
Is that concept ruining the simplicity? I don't think so, though I certainly think there are easier approaches. They should probably get rid of the idea of gens blocking and tie the speed boost to number of hooks (i.e. not a threshold, killing a survivor on 3 hooks gives the survivors a larger boost than killing one on 5 hooks). If they want to stay with the idea I think that keeps it simple, more hooks, more risk, but less boost.
Thanks man
Cheers the response man, I greatly appreciate the effort that went in to it, with well thought out and well put together points and arguments. It's a refreshing change compared to how discussion over that PTB have usually gone.
You do raise a good point about reimagining the game, and in amongst all the smoke, I am absolutely not against reducing the effectiveness of tunneling. As much as I bang on about this PTB, I do agree that the tunnel situation is certainly not elegant… what my issue has always been is the ham fisted approaches to achieving the amti tunnel goal, and this idea that these changes should have gone through because stopping tunneling is more important than any of the issues around it.
How to buff m1s?
What I would have expected given the, to me, obvious issues with these changes as highlighted above, is we as a community would keeps the bits that were sensible (like elusive), discuss the issues and come with alternative and better solutions for the bits that were obnoxious, introduce the risk/reward you're talking about but avoid sledgehammering m1 killers into the ground with little more than token buffs that don't synergise with those weaker killers.
As already said by others in this thread, buffing lower tier killers isn't really possible, because they become oppressive at lower levels. This is a major issue, people have cited Trapper, but while he is a good example, a far better example is Pig, whom I main... and what terrifies me most is how these killers get buffed in this new world order.
Pig ultimately is a killer who has to take whatever she can get. You are constantly having to reevaluate your situation to try and figure out the best way to squeeze Survivors, and when she gets the chance, she is very good at doing so... this is what makes her incredibly good against weaker survivors, she needs a couple of Survivor mistakes to get her snowball going, but once she has it she can be deadly, and low skill Survivors give her those opportunities...
As a result she has enjoyed a high kill rate because of it, despite the fact that she is a C, some people argue D tier killer. My big concern is, if you take away her ability to capitalise on those survivor mistakes, she has to be buffed, substatially... but what do buffs to help Pig look like? Can she even get any because she does and probably still will enjoy that high kill rate at low MMR? Anyone who puts time into Pig inevitably hits the Pig wall, where you start going against Survivors who are competent and know what they are doing... and your games get exponentially harder.
I'm a killer who started out alway going for 8 hooks and could do consistently on Pig without tunneling, slugging or camping... I would punish obvious misplays, but generally I was very fair... Then eventually I switched to 6 hooks then kill, I had to because I was regularly starting to throw games trying to 8 hook, finishing with 2, 1 or sometimes even 0ks regularly... and nowadays I often have to kill on my 5th hook because the game is just running away from me, I just take too long to down, even if I'm playing my mind games well... and often even then, I'm still quite often losing the game or snatching a win on the bleeding edge.
I'm still not tunneling and not slugging, but it just keeps getting harder and harder to even get my RBT pressure going... and I do get the odd 0k from time to time... With the tunnel changes proposed, I saw no way you can buff Pig that doesn't make her oppressive at low level and bully fodder at high level, that also doesn't butcher her identity beyond recognition.
An alternative suggestion
A suggestion I've been spitballing in my head for a while regarding anti-tunnel is some kind of Despair/Hope mechanic (sadly I don't have a better word than hope, and it's taken already, but to present the idea)... Something like:
This needs fleshing out, but this rewards killers who spread hooks by inflicting multiple repair and heal penalties across the Survivor team, slowing their speeds overall, while also decentivising tunneling because the tunnel target has a penalty you aren't benefitting from, and you risk giving the rest of the team a boost to repairs if you continue to tunnel.
Combined with the elusive change, that is a thematically satisfying, far more reasonable set of changes to build around... but conversations never made it this far, as slamming m1 killers in the dirt was seen as completely fine... it reminded me of the Skull Merchant conversations, where if you didn't blindly support the popular narrative (no matter how unreasonable it was), you were public enemy number 1... and the way things looked, we just couldn't get Survivors and Killers on the same page to even attempt to hash out a more reasonable answer. 🥺
Nope. We're comparing phase 1 with phase 2.
The phase 1 anti-hiding mechanic is very easily bypassed by survivors, and excessive hiding is still very much in the game. There are also still a lot of survivors that Go Next, and the system punishes innocent survivors so rarely that it takes over two months just to get one video of it occurring.
That is how the phase 2 changes should go. Killers should be able to easily camp/tunnel/slug, while bypassing the phase 2 mechanics. And camp/tunnel/slug should very much still be in the game, with the phase 2 changes punishing innocent killers so rarely that it takes over two months just to get one video of it occurring.
Oh, I like that! Severe at 3 hooks, strong at 4, modest at 5, and weak or gone at 6?
Broadly, yes. I hate to guess at numbers because, as I believe you also said during the PTB discussion, the numbers are tied to how strong the killer unique boosts are, but it could be a fast dropping scale (50/40/25/5/0) or it could be a linear scale (dropping the same percent for each additional hook). The former would be more anti-tunnel, the latter easier to explain.
Nope. We're comparing phase 1 with phase 2.Why?
You're just making up rules without a logical explanation for why it would lead to the best possible game.
It would make as much sense for me to say that because the killer issues came first, survivors are owed interest on our delayed boosts and thus must be considerably stronger, for the sake of consistency.
It doesn't even get into the idea that the survivor QoL is coming with compensation for the killers. I think it would be silly to give survivors compensation for the AFK mechanics or all the survivors starting together, but being that's your argument you should be saying that first we need to give them compensation for those changes on top of the anti-tunnel.
Lol. Never of course. They canceled all antitunnell and antislug systems and nerf Off The Record and Tenacity)
What I would have expected given the, to me, obvious issues with these changes as highlighted above, is we as a community would keeps the bits that were sensible (like elusive),Part of the problem when discussing this is that there are two discussions that happen (three, if we involve BHVR):
1: What is the goal?
2: What is the best way to implement that?
(number 3 would be how hard would it be to implement, which only BHVR knows for sure).
An example of number 1 is stealth. Some people want a lot of stealth, some want little to none and instead a chase focused game. Neither desire is right or wrong, they are just different games.
That's kind of where we are with anti-tunnel. Make it impossible (relatively easy to brute force in)? Make it harder (relatively easy again, just more basekit off of hook)? Make it a possibility, but less attractive (hard and seemingly what BHVR was trying to do)? If players disagree on that getting to the implementation question is going to mean they are talking past each other.
None of those are right or wrong, they're just different directions the game could go.
As already said by others in this thread, buffing lower tier killers isn't really possible, because they become oppressive at lower levels.Ture, though I'll also add on three points
1: Balance is not the be all, end all, though it is really important. Imagine a killer was fun and enjoyable for 95% of the playerbase, but kind of broke down for the remaining 5%. Now more specifics would be needed to give a true answer, but I think overall that would be an okay position.
I kind of feel like this with Ghost Face. He's got a unique power, is fun, and provides a good atmosphere for the majority of players. Does he suffer against SWFs? Absolutely. Would it be worth risking his unique feel to balance him out in those other scenarios? Not to me, though its a subjective call.
2: BHVR's 60% KR doesn't add a lot of wiggle room on the overpowered side. If they get up to 70% at low MMR well, especially when Hatch is factored in, they're winning the vast majority of their games and won't be in low MMR for very long, potentially matching them against players they aren't ready for.
3: Hypothetically, they could address this by giving lower MMR monsters stronger high level addons than they do other killers. Now I hate the way addons work on both sides with a fiery passion, but BHVR could just make the statement - 'If you are playing the following killers, we expect you will need to run the highest level addons to remain competitive at high MMR'. It would be far from perfect, but would generally address the issues.
I'm still not tunneling and not slugging, but it just keeps getting harder and harder to even get my RBT pressure going...This is where I think BHVR really messed up with their messaging.
One of the benefits of the anti-tunnel they proposed is eliminating the idea of a 'rulebook'. Want to get a survivor out early (either as a strategy or an opportunity)? Sure, here's the cost you pay. There's no need to say 'I try to spread out hooks to be more fair', because both possibilities are still a fair game each with their own pros and cons.
but conversations never made it this far, as slamming m1 killers in the dirt was seen as completely fine...I think we needed a lot more testing to see how it actually shook out. Worrying that mechanics or perks are going to break the game in a way that never comes to fruition is a classic forum past time. I wish BHVR had been more informative about what specifically they didn't think was working, or if it was truly just a game feel issue, but keeping players in the dark is BHVR's own hobby.
Because phase 1 focused on problematic survivor behavior and phase 2 focused on problematic killer behavior.
The whole point is that problematic survivor and killer behaviors should be treated equally. They are either both supposed to be handled extremely gently, or both handled extremely aggressively.
Because phase 1 focused on problematic survivor behavior and phase 2 focused on problematic killer behavior.Maybe because they saw the survivor issues as needing larger changes than the killer changes because there was larger need on the survivor side, thus necessitating more time.
The whole point is that problematic survivor and killer behaviors should be treated equally.But its a point you're making that you want to be true without any reasoning on why it should be true. It's an asym with radically different sides who have had differing levels of QoL treatment over the years. There's no reason to presume that both sides are in a position of equal need.
But the phase 2 changes actually got super reverted, which implies the killer changes need to be way larger than the phase 1 survivor changes.
That's reasonable, I suppose thats the crux of my personal philosophy for DBD lies. With 40 different killers in the game, you'd expect 40 different sets of strengths and weakness, and thus playstyles that require different approaches... the main point of my contention with the anti-tunnel changes is, what do we want killer design to look like? Do we want killers with unique strengths and abilities, like we used to have for old DBD? Or do we want every killer to have the same cookie cutter template like modern DBD? To take you're next point:
I think you're spot on, but I think there is still an issue with killer strength skewing the conversation, because for an m1 killer, those punishments are so harsh, they to me sit in the "Make it impossible" band for m1 killers. It's much more palletable as a "make it a possibility, but less attractive" if you're a top tier killer like Kaneki, Krasue, Blight, Wesker, Spirit, etc... However you can't afford penalties like that as a lower tier killer, where you often have to just take whatever you can get. If I get a player off hook be the one to trigger my trap and their unhooker doesn't come back to help them for me to m1... what do I do here? This isn't a strength issue... it's a concept issue. It's especially a problem when Survivor's can force your hand, such as getting unhooked and hovering near your totem or a nearly complete centeal gen, or sabotaging a hook, or baiting a Decisive Strike... I have to leave and let them do what they want off hook, or I have to eat a penalty... this again is conceptually a problem.
What I'm more arguing about it, is how do you impose such a hard set of rules, without placing a severe restriction on the designs of your killers? The answer is, you can't... Tunneling should not be the optimal strategy irrespective of the killer you play, that's an idea I can get behind... however in the same breathe, trying to impose such a hard set of rules to make it basically impossible to do regardles of context, inevitably is going to be incompatible with killers that deviate away from the enforced playstyle that the strongest killers are having those rules imposed for... m1 killers get stuffed by these changes even when not tunneling.
I have no issue with your points here, they are all sound, however they do all feed back into my points above...
Even without the tunnel changes in place, you ask anyone what a killer needs for modern DBD, and the answer every time is they need mobility to keep up with the pace of the game... and thus becomes EVEN MORE important if severe tunnel penalties is a thing. This need to have this cookie cutter killer set of baseline abilities is already a problem now, and it's why every killer released over the last year all have some baked in mobility ability... can you imagine how much worse this issue gets if the afformentioned tunnel changes came in?
I play Pig, Trapper, Hag, Bubba, and there are a myriad of other off meta killers like Sadako, Pinhead, Skull Merchant 2.0, Artist, etc, that I enjoy because they offer something different to the fast paced norm of modern DBD, a more tactile element of the game that faster and stronger and killers don't have to pay attention to as much. I want to stress, I don't tunnel or camp (unless I have literally no other sensible options), and I often take lumps for doing so, but that's the area of the game I find the most interesting, where I gave to pay attention to what is going on in the trial.
I have wondered for a while if its fine to have weaker killers that dont scale vs. good survivors, as lowbies need to have killers to face too, and having killers deliberatey weak/strong to combat in particular hemispheres seems not.necessaroly a bad thing....
However the big concern I have though, is these killers often already have an uphill battle, even if you go balls to the wall meta and hard tunnelling... but when not tunneling, it's quite challenging handling the stark weaknesses these killers have... and it's why I ask the question above, how do you buff these killers in this new world order? They are fundamentally incompatible trying to play a game ruleset optimised for Blight, Kaneki, Spirit, Wraith, Wesker, etc... you would either have to make them all faster, or you would have to make them all very obnoxious, otherwise it's just pointless trying to play them... why put any time into a trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?
So instead of such a hard ruleset... I felt a more conservative approach that isn't such a hard ball slap is a better approach... because I honestly can't see how satisfying the condition of making a killer fun and fair can happen, when you're trying to insert changes that force a "fair Blight chase gameplay style", on a killer like Pig, without making Pig not Pig anymore... it just can't work that I can see…
And just to give a TLDR version to this (very engaging and interesting) debate:
With the tunnel changes as proposed, my biggest worry with this whole thing... it's all well and good saying bring it to live, reimagine the game and nerf tunneling and slugging first, worry about low tier killers later...
However it's not a question of if you will buff the weaker killers or not... but more a concern or what do buffs to these weaker killers look like in this new world these changes are proposing?
Because if Myers is anything to go by, I think having a whole stack of reservations and concerns is absolutely completely valid... as I said before "trust me bro, we'll fix em later" looks very scary to me with these changes on the table. 😬
fog vial died in less than 7 days because of killer complaints. Anti tunnel anti slug didn’t even get past 3 days of the ptb before bhvr walked it back. We didn’t even get to test these changes in a public scenario.
The first time anti slug and finisher mori was tested, both got scrapped but we did eventually get the finisher mori even though it completely craps on potential unbreakable plays and buffs slugging for the 4k.
The anti tunnel and anti slugging update should’ve came to live, with zero changes. Bhvr has said before when it came to nerfing the ghoul they didn’t want to be reactionary they wanted to collect months of data first. Why does that only apply to killers?
Now we see killers whining about pallet density because oh no they can’t get 30 second downs anymore, the games not easy they gotta work for it. It will only be a matter of time before bhvr reduces them again because the survivor gameplay experience doesn’t matter to bhvr.
Its a shame really as I play mainly killer, i don’t tunnel, slug or proxy camp. I don’t go back to the hook unless its a 2 v 1 scenario in which case its the only thing to do. The anti tunnel buffs to killer would’ve been good for me, i could’ve stopped running barbecue, i could’ve stopped bringing pop freeing up 2 perk slots for other things or had them in scenarios where I never brought those perks.
God forbid my killer brethren have to work for their wins though.
Honestly while killer queue times we’re taking forever i started playing survivor more and as a result i can see how boosted bad killers are, they shouldn’t be in higher or even mid mmr but they get there anyway due to tunneling which makes them never learn micro and macro play.
Don’t even get me started on comp play because as far as im concerned dbd comp is bringing this game down. There is no coincidence that the rise in popularity of comp also brought the rise in how terrible this game feels for both sides of the player base.
Anti-Tunnel? How about we introduce a system which punishes you for BEING TUNNELED, oh wait they already did:
Go-Next Prevention.
That was so bad on release ngl.
Tunneled? Lose a grade.
Slugged? Lose a grade.
Camped? Lose a grade.
Like wth??
Great, so if it is balanced around casual players, then where are my nurse buffs? Why are we crying about ghoul and blight and nurse needing nerfs?
Devs balance for a 60% kill rate. So these 3 killers are fine. Actually nurse needs some buffs.
You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If you balance DBD around casual players you MUST BY DEFINITION contend with the fact that the majority of "top tier" killers that everyone complains about that needs nerfs are actually fine, and might even need buffs.