Unbreakable Base-Kit Suggestion
Obviously, this is probably the best answer to slugging, but it does need to be nuanced. It needs to be strong enough to make hard slugging harder, but not so strong that punishes Killers who are soft slugging or not slugging at all.
Hard Slugging (The one seen as toxic) = Purposefully going out of your way to down all of the Survivors without hooking a single one.
Soft Slugging (The non-toxic one) = Downing or attacking a Survivor after you've already down another because they were in the area and you didn't want to risk a save attempt.
Here's an idea of how to do it:
When a Survivor is down, they can begin to heal themselves. If the bar fills up completely, Survivors are able to pick themselves up.
When a Survivor is downed again, they can begin to heal themselves, but the time to pick yourself up is increased by a percentage. And it continues to increase each time you are downed, until you bleed out.
Your Bleed Out meter is not reset every time you are downed. If your BO meter is halfway gone, then it will be at the halfway mark the next time you're downed.
As for the perk itself, it would obviously need a new job. I have two suggestions on that front, as well.
First, it could decrease the increment at which the time to pick yourself up is increased.
Second, it could give Survivors Endurance until they are hit again, to give Survivors a chance to get away from the Killer in the event the Killer is camping them and waiting to down them again.
Now, if it's used, it's best to put the feature through the PTB so you can find the sweet spot of increasing the time it takes to pick yourself up, where it helps prevent hard slugging without punishing the Killers who only soft slug.
Comments
they can add basekit UB, but it's automatic and costs a hook stage for the survivor.
this way it can only be used to counter bleedout / all in snowballs and won't be weaponized otherwise because the benefits would hardly outweigh the cost.
it should take about 48-50 seconds and recovery needs to be possible while crawling.
when survivor is picked up, they get all the benefits from being unhooked - they get 10 seconds of endurance and haste and all post-unhook perks (like resurgence or OTR) are activated.
this way risk/reward would both be reduced - the killer doesnt get to keep survivor on the ground until they bleedout, but they would also get something if they are picked up by the system.
that would be fair and would be something both sides could play around without making slugging into a dead playstyle, it just would be an alternative to hooking, rather than a way to bypass hooking mechanics altogether.
i like ur idea, but i dont think it should proc unhook perks, at most give some endurance and haste for 10 sec
For example, survivors would have ds,dh,otr etc literally the strongest perks survivors have, and killers would have no gen regression/blocking at all.
maybe, but I don't like the whole idea that killer needs to slug because they need to bypass numerous perks triggering after unhooks.
it would be enough that slugging will deny perks that the unhooker can trigger - stb, well make it, babysitter, etc
i'd rather have perks like resurgence or DS balanced around the idea they will inevitably be activated naturally regardless if killer slugs or not.
You really failed to fixing soft vs hard slugging.
Your idea actually works way better against soft slugging, because survivors are still free to pick themselves up and you need to actually down them multiple times for this to do anything.
Basekit unbreakable also just can't exist close and during endgame. Simply because slugging is the only way to get comeback in that situation.
Another issue is survivors can do things, where slugging can be only thing killer can do. In that situation basekit unbreakable is terrible thing.
Then you also have killer that simply need to slug to be effective.
Another thing is slugging is kinda best thing to use, if you don't want to tunnel. When I know survivor is dead on hook, I prefer to simply down them and let them be to gain at least some pressure. That's not really going to work with basekit unbreakable.
You could make basekit unbreakable to work, if survivor was not hooked yet. That keeps some of the issues I mentioned, but to lower degree. But at that point, you would need to show killer hook stages per survivor.
You forgot about Forced Slugging, where the killer is forced to slug. The killer should not be punished when they are forced to slug.
easy solution bring unbreakable and exponential
I had made these suggestions when they changed knock out:
I think I have to update with the walking dead perks tho, but the idea is the same.
I wouldn't call it fair until slugging is appropriately limited to being a catchup mechanic, but this is probably the best BHVR could do. Better than nothing for sure.
the very fact survivors can self pick up will be a limitation to slugging, i dont see why other limitations would be needed.
Introducing endurance/haste/off the record/second wind just to justify giving the survivor a hook state is not the right way to do it. Most killers can quickly down a survivor after camping and tunneling, which is exactly what they'd be doing to the slugged survivor to justify giving the survivor unhook benefits after picking themselves up. You're punishing the survivor for a situation they literally cannot escape from.
There is no risk/reward for the killer. What risk is there when they can leave a survivor on the ground, not having to check for flashlight saves/pallet stuns/etc., not having to carry the survivor to a hook, just to be rewarded with a free hook state? What that they don't get their barbeque or pain res proc? So they'd just run surge instead of pain res and infectious fright?
do you understand the part about this effect having the same delay as basekit UB people like you are defending?
you are not going to stand over the guy for a minute unless multiple people are also hovering around, you will lose the game.
tunnelling like that is also hardly efficient when the guy can and will crawl under pallet to make as much distance as possible.
however they won't be able to abuse all of that because it will still cost them a stage.
Like I said, it'd need extensive testing to find the sweet spot. In cases of Forced Slugging, like during the Endgame (the only situation where you can argue that you had to slug), the easiest solution is to turn off the feature - like how the anti-face camping mechanic turns off once all gens are done. But regardless, no solution is perfect, and it's why persistent testing would be necessary - it needs to be strong enough to punish toxic players without being so strong that innocent players are punished. There is a sweet spot, but it'd need to be found.
So, basically, you want to bring back the thing where a surv can just beeline into a corner of the map far from hooks with complete impunity?
No, as that wouldn't be fair. The idea, and why I say it needs testing, is to counter toxic behavior, as it would only go into effect if someone is hard slugging. Your pick-up timer would not change from how it is now - you'd still have to heal yourself at the same speed you do now, and each subsequent down would increase the time it takes to pick yourself up. It'd need extensive testing to find the sweet spot, but this feature would only punish hard slugging Killers if tune correctly.
If someone is not being hovered, the killer shouldn't be rewarded with a hook if the survivor wants to get off the ground. It's really that simple.
Forced Slugging can happen at any point in the game. For example, there might only be one hook in range, and a teammate might sabotage that hook while the killer is carrying the survivor, and the killer is forced to drop the survivor, and by the time the hook respawns, the slugged survivor will have too much wiggle progress to get to the hook.
If the killer should be punished for leaving a survivor on the ground for too long, then the killer should eventually be given a guaranteed way to hook a survivor before they are punished, right? If the mindset is "killers should always be able to hook survivors, and therefore they can be punished if they slug a survivor for too long", then obviously killers should be give a guaranteed way to hook survivors before they are punished, right?
I would consider that a case of soft slugging, as the Killer technically isn't in a no-win situation. Yes, it does not feel good when it happens, and lord knows it's happened to me more times than not, but it's not an end of the world "Now I need to slug the whole lobby," situation. At that point, you're simply needing to target whoever sabotaged the hook and accept the person you were trying to hook is going to be picked up.
And no, I don't think Killers should get a guaranteed hook, as the anti-slugging suggestion I recommended isn't a get out of jail free card. Yes, it'll help alleviate some issues, but it still leaves room for Killers who are toxic and do hard slug - they just have to down the Survivors more than once. So, since it's not a "You now get to escape," mechanic, just a "You don't have to stay on the ground all game while the Killer takes the easy win" mechanic. It gives Survivors a chance in a no-win situation.
In no-win situations for Killers, they already have the fact the anti-camp mechanic turns off once all generators are finished, by that same token, turning off the anti-slug mechanic would help prevent a no-win situation for Killers as a result of the mechanic.
No side should get free points as a result of the mechanic, as that wouldn't be fair. Survivors don't get generator progress by getting to pick themselves up, so Killers shouldn't get a free hook state as a result either. It's for the sake of fairness.
Still of the opinion: Can't recover while crawling (basekit), but while under hook can recover the last 5% via some kind of interactive sequence (longer than 5% recovery resetting to 95% on interrupt/cancel).
I wish you gave the same advice to survivors, when they were complaining about the AFK crows. I wish you had told them "it's not the end of the world", and that they should just deal with the mechanic.
Instead, we had the AFK crows nerfed into uselessness, just so they can't possibly punish innocent survivors. So the same attitude should apply to anti-slugging. The anti-slugging mechanic should NEVER punish innocent killers, because survivors sent a clear message that new game mechanics shouldn't punish innocent players, which is why the AFK crows got nerfed so much.
why are survivors rewarded when getting hooked is supposed to be a bad thing?
The AFK crows were a problem, though. They were over-tuned to the point of giving Killers an unfair advantage. Now, yes, increasing the time at which they spawn isn't an inherently bad idea, but BHVR had over-tuned it to the point where they were spawning within seconds, where even doing your tasks wasn't getting rid of them. That's not exactly a fair instance, in fact it led to no-win situations, where, to give an example of something that did happen to me, I had to slowly open the exit gate, as the Springtrap I was facing was going back and forth between his doors - this meant I had to hide nearby. Despite spending a good chunk of that time in Springtrap's terror radius and opening the door, I ended up with all three crows - which got me caught. That's not exactly balanced or fair.
Balance, in terms of anti-whatever mechanics, need to consider actual no-win situations. For example, slugging leads to a no-win situation for the Survivors. Extensive hiding through-out the match leads to a harder time for both sides, which has already had some changes to fix, but obviously there can always be improvements. Completely negating the ability to hide would be like completely removing the ability for Killers to see the generators - maybe not the end of the world, but it does give an unfair advantage to the opposing side.
Essentially, to properly balance, you cannot remove one no-sin situation by creating a new one for the opposing side.
Summary: You're totally cool with killers having no-win situations, but we really should be extra careful to make sure survivors don't have no-win situations.
Punishing killers for slugging, when the killer is slugging because the survivors forced them to, is a horrible idea.
What?
second chance perks like ds and otr reward survivors for getting hooked since that's their activation conditions it's giving a beneficial effect for getting hooked which should be a detriment
I'd love to hear your opinion on noed, lightborn, enduring, spirit fury, batteries included, fire up, machine learning, knock out, shadowborn, and zanshin.
If you think having 10 seconds of endurance to prevent the killer from just farming you off hook is a reward despite being one hook closer from being eliminated, I don't know what to tell you.
noed spirit fury enduring combo (both by themselves are fine since with enduring you still have to break the pallet and spirit you still eat the stun) batteries fire up machine are second chance for killers in my eyes
lightborn is preventing it before it ever happens and if nobody brings a flashlight it's useless
knockout are we talking about pre or post rework knockout?
zanshin is the killer equivalent of Windows/maps if we get rid of all 3 that's fine
what does shadowborn do again?
So you're fine for killer second chance perks that give "rewards" but survivor ones by your own definition should be removed? I'm seeing some bias here.
not really no but i'll double down and say yes. rules for the and not for me survivors are too strong and need nerfs anyway
Thanks for your opinion and your honesty. 👍️