Balancing Around Tunneling (rant)
If there's one thing that annoys me more than power-creep in games, its inconsistent design philosophies. When you start to do something one way, and then contradict it shortly after. Whether its not giving it a full measure, leaving the job half-way done. Or if its singling out one part of the problem, never solving the other parts. All in all, it always gives me an itch that I can't seem to scratch, and becomes hard to not think or talk about.
Specifically in this post, I want to talk about some of the very few measures we got out of the anti-tunnel PTBs we had, mostly specific examples I want to highlight and air my concerns on.
1. Deep Wound
A lot of the tunneling issue is actually a camping issue. Many players that get tunneled out by the killer in their survivor matches, or choose to tunnel as the killer themselves, do so by hanging around hook. Whether its by choice, or if a survivor was caught moving in for the save, either way, tunneling and camping often go hand in hand. One of the changes we got out of those PTBs was an increase to the basekit Borrowed Time, including endurance. Only issue is, if the killer can hit you and put you into deep wound, you're instantly downable regardless of if its 15 seconds after you were hooked or not.
I'm a Pinhead main, although recently I have regretted making such a decision. His kit has been pretty much untouched for years now, his addons not particularly great, less interesting than Doctor's, and his kit only allowing specific playstyles at the top level of play. One build I always loved though, was a Nurse's Calling anti-heal build with the 'Original Pain' very rare addon. It was by far one of his top 3 best addons, providing deep wound when an injured survivor breaks free from a possessed chain. Pair it with the 'Engineer's Fang' to injure healthy survivors, and you could basically guarantee that survivors you chase will be injured, remain injured, and it would counter the occasional Dead Hard, Styptic, or self-heal build. I bring up this addon because it was reworked into another aura reading addon during one of the anti-tunnel PTBs, alongside removing the deep wound effect of 'Soma Family Photo' for Singularity. The reason? It was considered too easy to camp a survivor and tunnel them out with it. Only issue is, this is just two specific purple addons from two specific killers.
2. Intention vs Reality
Using the example of those two addons, lets consider for a moment the equality of the change. What is Cenobite capable of in the case he decides to use 'Original Pain' to inflict deep wound on an unhooked survivor? The survivor is stuck for up to 3 seconds that the chains can last. A teammate could potentially break the chains with their body to quicken their escape. However, with the 'Impaling Wire' addon this might be countered if it counts as breaking with the environment, as the unhooked survivor would just be hit with more chains, maybe. I can agree it seems potentially problematic, especially for solo-queue or uncoordinated survivors. The clause in the description of the addon reads "when an injured survivor breaks free from a possessed chain." Perhaps the solution to the addon would be to require the addon to damage the survivor, similar, to the 'Engineer's Fang' addon, giving them the speed boost typically given when put into deep wound. Then the Cenobite player would have to chain them again. This would allow for the intended use of the addon to remain (interrupting healing) while giving a way for its unintended use (tunneling) to be more difficult.
Soma Family Photo is an addon that gives 3% hindered when a survivor is slipstreamed to. I'm not the most experienced player when it comes to Singularity, but I believe the issue of this addon is that the anti-camp slowdown from his biopod cameras is removed almost immediately after someone is unhooked. Meaning this addon could give deep wound to an unhooked survivor right as he teleports to them. It makes sense this would be problematic. The status effect was increased to 6 seconds of hindered from 3 as compensation. The intention of the perk now is a blanket buff to his slipstream teleport, now twice as effective, at the cost of no longer being able to directly counter healing or Dead Hard. However, Singularity is powerful enough that this is not an insane loss in build or playstyle variety. He pairs well with a lot of anti-heal perks and has a hemorrhage addon as well. Cenobite, however, does not have the same map mobility or chase pressure that Singularity does, nor an addon that gives hemorrhage to survivors. Which brings me to the main problem.
3. Two-Tap Potential
Cenobite is among the category of killers with a two-tap potential, I think most would agree. Although, he would be at the very lowest part of that category. Where as characters like Singularity can put immense pressure on survivors by teleporting directly to them in the middle of chase, all achieved simply by placing a camera and tagging a survivor, Cenobite cannot compete. Instead, he must use Nurse's blink charging mechanic, place a portal on the ground in view of a survivor, release a chain that moves 10m/s (about the speed of first-dash Blight), and needs to hit the survivor's offset hitbox while the chain has a hitbox of its own the side of a single Trickster blade. Needless to say, far more difficult than Singularity's automatically aiming teleport.
But these two killers were the only ones with any real change in the name of anti-tunnel measures. Meanwhile, other two-tap characters like the Ghoul or Jason are in the top 3 of most played currently and both have similar if not worse issues of tunneling. Ghoul is probably the biggest offender in this situation, as he can return to hook at incredible speeds if he uses his grapple properly, upon which he can immediately attach to the unhooked survivor and give them deep wound, allowing him to go into his enraged mode and gain an additional token for his ability, creating a situation where he can catch up to you again incredibly easy. Jason has a similar issue, where he can interrupt the unhook using his low-cooldown teleport to appear somewhere nearby, his spears having near infinite range, and upon hitting the saving survivor, they slam into the unhooked survivor which makes for an easy two-tap once the Jason closes a little distance.
Examples go on and on, like some classics. Bubba and his chainsaw, which can sometimes hit a survivor twice in one sweep if there are no pallets or windows nearby to make distance with. Pyramid Head can hit both survivors in the unhook animation right as it ends, leaving little distance for the unhooked survivor to make. It can take a lot of time to get the down after a full chase, but Deathslinger is also capable of putting survivors into deep-wound directly off of hook, also assuming their aim is good. Survivors unhooking directly in front of the killer is just never a good idea in general, but these killers and others like Dracula or Nemesis with their respective short range abilities can two-tap an unhooked survivors with ease. Huntress can tunnel a survivor from half-way across the map if the hook is in line of sight. Trickster's main event can chew through endurance easily. There are likely a few more I'm missing as well, but you get the idea. Killers who can two-tap are good for tunnelling. The more mobility, the better.
4. The Point of This Post
In my opinion, the root of the problem is that survivors will unhook in front of the killer in numerous situations. This might be unavoidable. But what the most problematic tunnelling killers have in common is a level of mobility that increases the odds of a camping or proxy camping scenario, where survivors are basically forced to unhook in front of the killer. Ghoul and Jason have a level of mobility and a ranged attack that can enable tunneling to a far easier degree than some killers that are widely known for camping/tunneling, like Bubba or Pyramid Head. No nerfs were made to them in the name of anti-tunnel measures. In fact, Pyramid Head got an addon pass and some basekit buffs, as well as Bubba a few minor number tweaks. But for some reason, of all the killers to get nothing positive, Cenobite had one of his 3 addons that did something unique turned into another aura reading one, despite the fact that he does not have the level of mobility or chase pressure needed to truly utilize it, like Ghoul or Jason can. I think that solving tunneling isn't a matter of problematic playstyles as much as people think. In my opinion, I believe its a symptom of balancing. As I mentioned, in my matches of being tunneled out over and over, the same culprits have lead to me realizing that mobility + two-tap potential = EZ tunnel. And this is all not to say 'Original Pain' or 'Soma Family Photo' were not problematic, and didn't need to be fixed. But that the solution could've been something of a rework to the addon instead of what was essentially just a removal. Deep wound could've been applied by Singularity's addon whenever an injured survivor uses an EMP, picks one up, or their slipstream is removed. And Cenobite's addon could've be reworked to simply apply deep wound immediately and give a speed boost to the survivor without any chains. These changes would create counterplay while allowing for the playstyles that were intended to still exist. With Cenobite, a survivor could mend if the killer loses track of them, which would make it so that the next time they are chained they get a speed boost instead of being slowed. It creates a counterplay and a tradeoff for the Cenobite player who then has to play around it. Meanwhile characters like Ghoul, in my opinion, should have their ability to give deep wound removed outright, and maybe delegated to a purple or blue rarity addon. His ability should realistically only injure a survivor, considering how free it could potentially be, especially against a survivor right as they are unhooked. And for Jason, there is no reason he should be able to use his teleport at all within 12 meters of a hook, even if he is getting a slower animation. If Dredge, the original teleport killer, can't teleport within 12 meters of a hook, then why should Jason?
Looking forward to hearing all of your thoughts on the issue, because lately its been bothering me that these two changes were all we really got in terms of kit/addon reworks after the anti-tunnel PTB. Was really hoping for a more consistent and wide array of changes, especially going forward.
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