Giving up on hook in a different language.
Preface: I am not asking anyone to discuss disciplinary action of any kind. That is none of my business that is up to whomever looks at player reporting to deal with this.
I used the in-game report feature and I am almost positive I will see nothing come from it. As I dont think the devs or anyone thought of situations like this before implementation "go next disabled"; There is nothing explicitly telling players that doing something like this, is against the rules.
"Well if I dont like the killer/things dont go my way, I will just go get downed fast"
"Well if I dont like the killer/things dont go my way, I will just sit on a generator, and if the killer is near I wont run"
I post this to highlight that my reports on this matter. Will probably just go into the trash. Which wouldnt make any sense, given the fact that Giving up on hook is disabled yet people are finding ways around this to do the exact same thing but in a different language.
Since the removal of this feature, the same actors that would other wise be doing this, instead give up in a different way, several actually. Which intentionally sabotage entire matches and intentionally ruin the match for everyone, whether they participated in this behavior or not, even the killers match is ruined.
Things such as:
•Standing still and letting the killer just down you
•Touching a generator but not running from the killer (you did the objective, so you didnt do anything against the "rules" right?)
•Running at the killer to get the match over with
•Spamming loud noise notifications to get the killers attention but not running away
•Refusing heal or help from teammates often leading to snowballs of multiple deaths
Look…
I dont like facing Kaneki anymore than the next person. But I would never do something like this.
Here is…..
One example of the chat of 3 people; attempting to justify all 3 of them standing still and letting the killer just down them
Its important that even if people are on your same team. That you actively discourage this type of behavior. This would be no different than helping out a cheater that you see cheating.
I hope this helps the players/community as well as any staff members realize that just because the giving up on hook feature was removed, doesnt mean that the behavior was changed. People are still doing it now, just in a different way.
I am a bit heated by this so I have to take a break after matches like this, but it is becoming more common now.
-Thanks
Comments
just because griefers can still grief doesnt mean they shouldnt struggle with that.
You’re always going to get losers like this, but things have generally improved since the ability to unhook has been removed from base kit. I’d prefer it wasn’t left in via perks and offerings, but I’ll take what good BHVR actually manages to pull off.
We all knew this would happen. Bhvr tried punishing the behaviors you described, but all it did was create a bunch of false positives that punished the wrong people (i.e. People who got hardcore tunneled). I see no way around that.
I personally think the "go next prevention" is a bit over done. For instance, the ability to unhook yourself shouldn't be removed but you shouldn't die after your second miss of a skill check while struggling. Makes it to where you still can 4% (which plenty of people did without giving up) but you cant just let yourself die on hook.
You can definitely put players into miserable games they don't want to be in and hold them there, but you can't make them try. They will instead look for other ways to get the match over quicker while avoiding penalties.
Everyone could see that this was going to happen since the underlying causes for miserable games have still not been fixed and no automated system will be able to differentiate bad plays from throwing on purpose without falsely banning innocents, which would be unacceptable.
Got to wonder why these people still play. Doesn't nearly every match invoke this reaction from them?
The other part of the prevention was detecting actions in game. This bombed and was taken out for now but would detect this kind of behavior if left in.
The unhook could stay as long as it was limited to 3 attempts base and didn't progress the bar. To balance out the free unhook (no downside for attempts) the survivor could become broken for some time after if successful.
It's important to remove the ability for survivors to easily "go next", because the more barriers in the way the more likely serial rage quitters will just stop playing, because they are wasting more of their time not playing. Before the DC penalty was introduced, you would see disconnects nearly every single game. Since the DC penalty seeing disconnects is much rarer which means it's functioning as intended.
The fact that people don't understand this absolutely blows my mind.
The average dbd match is a slog at best, absolutely miserable at worst. However, the issue isn't skin deep. The issue stems from almost an entire decade of technical debt, the refusal to modernize gameplay systems, etc. Essentially: the refusal to iterate on the formula, and the refusal to listen to the majority of negative feedback and to ACTUALLY respond to it in a timely manner.
I do believe that if a game's loop is solid, it won't have to be changed too much; however, in dbd's case, when adding more "modern" killers when the rest of the mechanics still reek of 2017, you're going to encounter a massive power imbalance. 95% of Games are won and lost in the first 60-90 seconds. The average dbd match is around 10 to 15 minutes. It makes sense why people find current dbd miserable when 90% of the match no longer matters if the first 10% did not go their way.
This game needs massive overhaul in every facet, but unfortunately it's more profitable to sell Sable, Mikaela, and Vittorio skins while also banking on the next resident evil dlc than actually fixing any of the issues in the game. This game still has massive potential, it just needs the effort put into it.
You just described deliverance, lol. Broken as a downside is much perfered over a lossed hookstate because you hit 2nd.
Unfortunately, there was always the possibility that this would happen.
Getting rid of "going next" without addressing the reasons why players would choose to go next in the first place, inevitably will make these players look for alternatives.
The problem is the list of reasons was endless. Every time and item on the list was checked off, the list would get expanded to add something else.
Just because we can't address all of the reasons doesn't mean we shouldn't try to address some of them.
For sure... and they did. They kept addressing things and the goalpost kept changing over and over and people pretended that nothing was addressed.
Obviously across every pvp game there will ALWAYS be griefers you cant always stop them.
If the game wants to continue going forward. They really have to add a replay system. This is what all the major pvp games have as a MASSIVE advantage over this game.
Dbd is currently like a … he said/she said sort of report system and then hope someone, at some point, has something to show. And if they dont then tough luck chuck.
Standardizing a replay system would be great for a bunch of reasons but it would make this less about statistics, numbers and what people say. To actual game footage of what happened. (Machine learning not the perk lol, can detect people that frequent stand still on purpose, or spam vault etc…)
I know its a lot of work but … this is honestly a point in this games development where it should already be a thing. Ignoring it for this long, especially with a growing player base, is only going to make this issue worse.
And this goes further than just player reporting as well.
The problem is your shooting in the dark trying to figure out which one to fix. Is it X, Y, Z, a mix, or cherry picking parts of them? In addition to that not everyone has the same issues with X, Y, whatever. You'd 'fix' a problem for some while others get a new one with the "fix". Thats not even touching the losers like in the op's post. It's a strangled mess.
It is, but besides new players, attempting was really used to get to that second stage.
I feel like if anything, the better tradeoff would be the incapacitated status effect to even out the fact you saved your team time they'd have to use to get you.
Well, friend, you might recall that we made an attempt to understand why, exactly, people were giving up all the time:
Based on this discussion, it doesn't seem to me that the goalpost was changed, mostly because many things that were causing frustration were not even addressed.
But in that same post you admit the trend continued "even if some of the worst offenders (such as the gen kick meta itself and Skull Merchant's first design) we're no longer around." A good amount of the major complaints sans tunneling and slugging have been in some way touched or addressed.
The easiest example of a moving goalpost is Nurse. Ppl claimed that as soon as those extra blinks were removed shed be fine since it would just leave the skilled players who didnt need a crutch... then it was the range addons... then it was the cooldown... then it was that she could use basic attack perks. Even after all that, you STILL have ppl claiming BHVR doesnt nerf her. Every time they nerf an aspect that ppl claimed they'd be fine with her if she didnt have, they'd jump to wanting something else.
It's an unpopular opinion but I think they should just remove the DC penalty. Better to have a bot that will at least try than a player who will do nothing productive and may even sabotage the game.
I dont think people claimed any of this was fine in this stepwise idea you have.
The reaction we have to when nurse gets changes are:
"good she needs less blinks"
Not
"Good she needs less blink everything will be fine from now on"
Thats not something that happened.
And the less blinks thing happened…. jeez WAYY long ago in 2019.
The only thing that was ever talked about with nurse was "Im so sick of starstruck nurse"
Which was fixed when her blink attacks were made special and not basic.
Her cooldown never changed, or was talked about.
The other two you have listed here were done at the same time, where her blink attacks were made special and range addons completely removed.
More importantly though:
No meaningful or long discussions ever really seem to go anywhere with her for the most part. As that would be suggesting to nerf a specific killer and that is not something people like to discuss. I made a whole post on what needs to happen to her to bring her in line with restriction and it was met with vitriol and "shes fine" comments.
Or was met with "just remove aura read during her power" while I post, video proof by the way, of not needed aura read during power to show that wouldnt do anything. And the conversation went nowhere.
When people ask for changes or suggest them its usually not with the line "and all will be fine" attached to it.
True. But some things do remain unchanged, friends, such as map design, which I think I mentioned in one of my responses.
Well, to be fair, Nurse is a complicated example, since she ignores everything a survivor can do.
Afew things...
The reduction of her blinks started back on patch 1.1.2 which was 2016, which was why I listed it first. There was a second nerf to it in 2019 though. The cooldown complaint was that she didnt have the charges mechanic she does now, so after the fatigue... she'd have full blinks ready.
Seriously, if you check her patch history, its one of the longest in the game covered in nerfs or bug fixes... which is kind of the point. People still make threads titled things like "Why dont they ever nerf Nurse".
I never said anything about when it started or stopped. I just gave one point where she had blinks reduced.
Her cooldown though was never touched.
This is a bit off topic from the post now so, lets keep this discussion about the topic on behavior in game, and less about nurse balance, as this is not really related to the thread.
There was no step wise "and everything will be fine" after any change really made to this game. This post alone doesnt even have that message underneath or expressed anywhere.
Changes happen as changes are needed. Updates to balance are never done with the idea that they will never have to happen or needed again, they are reactionary to a lot of things in game.
New perks come out, map changes, killer additions, gameplay changes, perk behavior or strength changes, problematic playstyles or workarounds even in light of those changes(this thread)
All warrant further work be done on them.
Im actually NOT drifting off topic. My point was that they DO address things that are complained about, which never leads to people going "yup, we can stop DCING now". Its always ANOTHER reason to give up. The list of reasons to give up never shrinks no matter how much gets addressed. They've been trying to address WHY people "go next" since 2016, and it doesnt stop people from doing it.
But that sounds like a reason to keep working on the problem, not to stop. Your message comes off as "well we tried so I dont see a point in going anymore"
Thats …. giving up on hook lol. Lets get away from that mindset
Saying, “people always find another reason to go next” doesn’t mean we should just throw up our hands and accept it. That’s the whole point of game balance and behavior systems, they’re ongoing, not one and done fixes.
No one system is ever going to solve 100% of frustration or griefing, but that’s not a reason to stop further changes. It’s a reason to keep developing them. Or continued balancing.
Players finding new workarounds to disengage (like refusing heals, baiting killer attention, intentionally throwing) just shows that current systems aren’t fully addressing the motivations behind that behavior. That’s not an argument against fixing it, it’s a reminder that behavior systems need further development, just like balance does.
For sure they can continue changing the game to try to make it better. Im MOSTLY talking about the idea of "we should find out WHY ppl DC instead of punishing DCing" isn't a good approach. We can do both. Ppl have proven for 9 years that no matter how many changes happen, they'll still DC, so holding off on punishment until the game gets to the perfect state of balance just means the punishment will never come.
But there are systems that many games put in place that prevent stuff like I am talking about in my OP.
LoL has all of these. With detection software that analyzes thousands of games through replays of player behavior they have. The honor system rewards positive players. And placing leavers and throwers in their own que in low prio
Theres stuff we can do furthering a system around giving up clearly.
Reasons for it are definetely another route, noone wants to play an unbalanced mess of a match. Still dishing out punishment (like in my OP) Kaneki is absolutely god awful to face, as are most of the "top-tier" killers because what makes the "top-tier" is around the fact that they are just unbalanced messes or unfair (in most cases).
I'd be TOTALLY down for replay systems and such. That would be GREAT for catching cheaters too. Stuff like that would be nice to integrate into a "go next" prevention system. Im not a LoL player, so maybe YOU can answer this question. Is it perfectly balanced and everyone agrees? Do they not punish griefers if specific characters that are OP get played? I wouldn't mind if DBD took some notes from LoL, but it sounds like they ALSO dish out punishment.
Sidenote btw... I dont play nearly as much survivor as I do killer, so maybe I just dont see it. Do killers regularly DC in your matches? If your gonna have a separate queue for griefers and quitters, you'd need people to fill both roles. Obviously there's 4x more survivors, but there seems to me to be way more than 4x the amount of survivor QUITTING.
Its a once or twice every 12 game sort of thing. I think I got out of low MMR hell awhile ago and am getting consistent soloQ matches. (Hitting 5-6 escapes in a row quite consistently hit a 8 in a row a couple days ago) Somewhere in the 60-70%?? win rate as well
Edit: Its a bit unbelievable but ill post it here just for any detractors:
meant 8 in a row
Took a long break and came back only in the last like 1.5 weeks. Will see how the 30 day stats end up.
Survivors DC still…. regularly and its honestly relegated to matches like this. Where they will just flatout DC if they see a nurse, blight, kaneki, or a security door.
I did have one dc against a pig game, which funny enough I posted about and the bot that remained actually got out by DHing her lol. It was a 4 out in the end so that was funny.
DCs for survivors in my game are pretty relegated to the top tier killers at the moment. Which hey they were punished at least.
Obviously this means we should nerf pig, lol. If they wanted to do a quitters queue instead of a time out, I'd be all for that too. Was just curious if there'd be enough killers to actually make it work. Would be ironic if instead of a 10 minute time out, ppl got a 1 hour queue time instead.
Id imagine a quitters que "low priority que" would be the answer. The penalty you get already for matchmaking on DC is pretty consistent. Getting it too high without addressing some of the very obvious why's around the top tier killers would be a bit too much I suspect.
If I'm killer and I get someone doing this, I usually slug them until bleedout or kill their 3 teammates, then bodyblock the hatch force them to do gens and power the gates before closing it and slugging them until bleedout.
You might be trying to go next to avoid the DC penalty but by god I will do everything in my power to ensure your gameplay experience is as miserable as possible so it's in essence about as fun as staring at the DC penalty timer.
I really wish they'd just let people DC without penalty and become bots because yeah, there's a million ways to disengage or get killed on purpose. I never DC, but I'm all for it. As someone who plays both roles I'd rather have bots than deranged players who don't want to be there. Finding more ways to punish people and force them to stay isn't going to improve anything.
And the no-unhook thing sucks. As a survivor, I can no longer die on hook in a hopless match with two players left and give my remaining teammate a chance to find the hatch.
Man, that's definitely going to solve the problem and definitely not just tilt more people.
You dont need to do all that. You're just reinforcing, in their mind, that their initial judgement about you and the game was correct, and their attempts to leave were justified.
The anti- go next feature means that the ones who run up to me at the start of the game get downed and hooked, and then they get to hang there and think for a bit. Most of the time, the next time I see them it's when I'm chasing them off a gen and the game carries on like normal. On a couple rare occasions, they seek me out after getting unhooked and I just ignore and go around them. Only once since the update have i left one on the ground so I could continue chasing their team mate without them in my face. They got the hint. It doesn't have to go any deeper than that.
I do think, ultimately, that people who are over the survivor role just need to stop playing it. Why make yourself and others miserable? I play survivor only for survivor-specific quests nowadays, as it gives me something else to focus on. That's my tolerance limit. People need to find theirs.
So here's the thing:
Giving up got worse, so bad in fact that the "go next epidemic" became the phrase in the last year or so. It's not because players became more petty over time, it's because of balance changes over time.
Specifically, when the match is over in the first two minutes, why play it out? Survivors still don't have a comeback mechanic so camping and tunneling one person out early not only means a boring game as far as gameplay, but you're also likely to lose unless you "gen rushed" to try and keep up. And you might still lose even then.
And since you're going back to the beginning of the game, tunneling in particular has been a complaint longer than dead hard at this point. Remember the "dead hard had been a problem for 6 years" thing? That was 3 years ago they dealt with that (twice in fact). Tunneling is over 9 years now.
BHVR can at least try to address some if the reasons people started going next in huge numbers.
And it's not as though BHVR is blind to at least some of the problem. Camping, tunneling, and slugging changes are planned.
The real question is why were these literally secondary? Why did they not implement these changes first, and then see if "anti go next" was even necessary at all?
The answer seems to be that they listened to the loudest voices only, which, coincidentally involved punish them all. They ignored reasonable arguments (like, let's try addressing literally any of the reasons games are hopeless first), and completely ignored feedback that their punishment system they designed was massively flawed before it went live.
I can't emphasize enough that "prove to us you're playing the game every 10 seconds" was what they pushed live. And doing so was a gigantic disaster, and likely lost them a massive number of new players in the most popular chapter launch in the game's history.
So let's try the actual, reasonable take this time and do something reasonable and meaningful in phase 2.