Predicted changes in meta from the End Game Collapse
At first glance, it may seem like the collapse won't do much other than prevent games from dragging on. In most matches this will probably be the case, however the collapse does something that almost never happens in any other situation in game: It puts time on the killer's side. Because of this, there is bound to be some situations where people will play very differently.
1. The killer will now want to draw chases out where possible. Situations previously where a loop was between the survivor and the killer so that the survivor couldn't reach the gate without going down, but the killer couldn't down the survivor if they committed, are now wholly in the killer's favor. Unless you can make it to a different gate, the killer is gonna want to hold you there to drain the timer at max speed, and the survivor may have to accept going down as a better alternative. Perhaps we'll see more self-care to force the killer into committing, but sneakily waiting for an exhaustion perk will work too if the Killer can't keep the survivor moving. "Killers can pallet loop too" suddenly makes sense now.
2. The Killer will slug before hooking during the collapse. Survivors have 2 minutes on hook, and 4 minutes on the ground. The killer will want to maximize the time that they can hold a hostage and burn the timer to make late rescues more dangerous, so they'll want to slug for as long as possible, and hook only when they decide they need to. This'll mean lots of time for the other survivors to coordinate a rescue, and time to tempt the killer with more damage. With how quickly survivors at full recovery can be pulled up, and how popular unbreakable and instant-heals are, there'll surely be opportunities to escape. In the case that the killer just stands over the survivor however, they can find pallets, find the exit, or their team could even sabotage any hooks within range. We might see more use of perks like Flip Flop or Tenacity or even Sabotage to fight this situation, who knows.
In either of these cases, it will necessitate teamwork for someone in danger to escape, even more than it already did. This necessity might encourage people to hang around until nearer the end of the collapse, increasing the possible danger an eventual down will pose. Or the threat of the collapse may cause survivors to leave each other to fend for themselves, something that the collapse will make much more dangerous.
3. Killers may face-camp (slightly) less during the collapse than they do after the gens are done now. Previously, a big reason for face-camping once gens were complete was because there simply were no other objectives left, and any survivors not hooked would keep too close to the gates to be worth chasing. There was literally no other practical option than to secure the kill you have or try and force a trade. However downing is no longer the only objective, simply keeping the survivors from the exits is a goal. Because of this, killers may want to allow opportunities for rescue, with hopes that they can then force survivors into loops and possibly control the match for longer. Much like how a survivor trying to lure a killer away from a hook has to offer a chance of catching them, a killer trying to lure survivors into the map has to offer a chance of making a rescue.
4. End game perks. I'm not sure how popular end-game builds will become, but there will certainly be more temptation to try them. At the very least, I'm sure NOED will become even more popular simply due to how much it increases the Killer's options. However it may be that everyone willing to use noed already does, and everyone else still won't be willing to touch it even after the update, who knows?
At any rate, I don't think the collapse will be inconsequential to end-match game-play at all. It does something very interesting for the game by twisting the killer's goals on its head, and I hope the devs respect that and try to maintain it as they update the collapse in the future. I look forward to seeing strategies for how to minimize chases as survivor, and drag them out as killer, that's gonna be fun to see.
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