For both Killers and Survivors
This is a little essay, a simple breakdown of the Killer gameplay loop in DbD written by a brilliant poster long ago on the Steam forums. It's been my profile text for years now, so i thought i'd share:
An Essay on Camping, and why it happens, by Dezzmont. (Abbreviated to fit in a summary)
DBD is, at its core, a really simple game, and the killer killer gameplay loop when it comes to hooked survivors is really easy to model:
-After hooking do you leave or stay to defend the hook?
1. If you leave, and survivors go to the hook, you put in a significant investment in time to slow down the survivors very little. This is the second worst possible outcome.
2. If you leave, and survivors don't go to the hook, you can enter a chase swiftly and are now delaying half the survivor team for at least some amount of time while progressing time on the hook. Best outcome if survivors don't rush the hook, and second best outcome overall.
3. If you defend, and survivors go to the hook, you are now in a new chase and are delaying 2 survivors indefinitely as you skirmish at the hook, potentially more. This is the highest value possible outcome.
4. If you defend, and survivors don't go to the hook, you are now not progressing your objectives in a meaningful way as your presence does not help secure the kill on the hooked survivor any more than if you were not present, and now 3 survivors are free to repair as fast as they can for as long as you defend with you gaining no value. If you defend the full hook timer, you lose the match.
In essence, camping is NOT a playstyle, in the same way that throwing rock every time in Rock, Paper, Scissors isn't a playstyle. Camping is an attempt to counter expected survivor behavior, and it is required to get a good outcome if the survivors hook rush. Good killers think less of if they should camp or roam, and more try to anticipate the survivors.
If they suspect the survivors are extremely altruistic, then the ONLY correct choice is to defend the hook, perhaps trying to pretend they aren't to bait a rescue.
If they suspect the survivors are pragmatic, the ONLY correct choice is to leave the hook to find another survivor ASAP.
And, of course, if a killer sees a survivor at the hook not trying to hide their presence, they automatically know that defending will be the highest value action they can take, and leaving is the worst thing they can do in that scenario. They are essentially choosing between outcome 2 and outcome 3, and outcome 3 is the best possible combination of choices on the survivor and killer's side from their perspective.
Killer choice is irrelevant in which scenario actually plays out. As most experts say, camping comes about because of survivor behavior. If you ALWAYS go aggro for the unhook you create a game where it not only is ALWAYS the best choice for a killer to camp, but its always a game losing state for the killer to not camp.
Your most important tool to get rescues vs killers who default to camping is subterfuge. Even if you are 100% committed to unhooking what you MUST do is make it seem like you are not going for the rescue.
This means not being seen near the hook. This means making sure that if you are SWF that allies make it clear gens are being done by either finishing them or intentionally failing gen checks once or twice. This especially means not using really transparent diversions that make it clear someone else is ready for a hook rescue, like jumping over a window repeatedly, because then you are just saying to the killer "if you keep camping you have incapacitated 3 people, not just 2" because you now know 3 people are not on gens - you who is trying to get the killer to chase you, the guy on the hook, and the person hiding going for a rescue.
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