When survivors encourage killer tunneling
Braced for the downvotes but here we go. Try reading the full post before you knee jerk react.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like hard tunneling some killers just use it as the fallback or baseline playstyle, and they suck. Lots of killers tunnel because it's expedient, it's an excellent crutch for new/bad killer players and for mid/low skill survs it's basically a guarenteed loss and really sucks to play against. Tunneling someone out at 4-5 gens is proper maidenless behaviour. But mid-late game a tactical tunnel is often necessary.
Thing is, if you have a survivor team with 2 good chase runners who can out skill the killer, won't give an inch and 2 weak chase runner who the killer can down. What is going to happen? Prizes for the correct answer.
When I play killer, if I identify a survivor who can string a chase out and chain pallets, vaults, loop efficiently, 360 effectively etc then I won't commit to a straight up chase with them because it'll lose me gens. Double that if they're obviously trying to encourage chase, beckoning, clicking etc. I don't consider myself a particularly sweaty killer (I will often let 1 or 2 survs go per match) but I'm not going to double down on chases that will lose me the game. I'll wait until either they misplay for a save or unhook, or when I'm at a point where I have control of the game and can chase and down them at my leisure.
My Point is if you can outskill the killer and you stick the figurative boot in by never letting them hit you, then you're encouraging that killer to go after weaker members of the team. At which point you either rush gens as hard as possible and sacrifice a team mate to get out. Or you over commit to trying to wind up the killer and give them free pressure by not doing gens, throwing the game.
Sometimes to need to encourage the killer to go after you, not by antagonising them but by making them think they can get you. Walk around injured as an enticing target, make deliberate misplays to feign that you're bad at chase, even (shock horror) just full on deliberately take a hook.
Special mention for those particular individuals who deliberately take an endurance protection hit when you've just been unhooked then complain when you get tunneled straight away. Honestly what did you expect?
Comments
A vast majority of the complaints about tunneling are from people who don’t play killer, and you’re never going to convince them because they have never seen it from the other perspective.
Probably. I'm an optimistic soul at heart though. Never know some tribal survivor main might give it a read and think about it. 🙃
I mean, you are comparing the tunneling people complain about (=tunneling every game, regardless of the situation) with opportunistic tunneling. I would assume that not many people complain about the latter. And there are several reasons to do opportunistic tunneling:
And probably many other reasons why a Killer might tunnel mid-match.
However, I assume most complaints come from Killers who just tunnel every single game, because it is such a strong "strategy" since the game is just not balanced to be a 3v1 and eliminating one Survivor early is the easiest and most efficient way to win. And there are indeed Killer players who do exactly this and I feel that those are the people complained about. Those who turn the game into a 3v1 ASAP and afterwards basically only maximize their BPs, because they cannot lose and drag the game out.
I'm a strong advocate for tunneling in the current meta: but that being said, I'm not a fan of tunneling to tunnel. Tunneling should only be done when you get the feeling that a looper is too strong, a bully tactic is present, etc. In this particular context I'd agree with Aven - walking into every match thinking 'I'm gonna tunnel' is just fatherless behavior. Those killers I could care less about. If you are putting active, ongoing, intentional forethought energy into tunneling every game than you deserve the ire you get.
My one cent in this is that if you play the game to win, on either side, you should expect the other side to do the same. If the general survivor community is ok to gen rush, teabag at exit gates ect, they should also be ok with killers camping, tunneling and slugging ect.
If the community wants to shift to a more casual style of play, absolutely and once one side initiates this if the other doesnt then we can morally shame one side ect, but the complaining about efficiency on one side needs to stop. Survivors can encourage tunneling in many ways, and it could be from the match before ect.
Ive always been a "play how you wanna play" kinda gamer, so maybe im underthinking this.
Anyone who plays killer knows that tunneling isnt necessary at all.
This is a general rule in games, but DBD is balanced in such a strange way that if both sides play hard you will still see one win more often than not. It's by design. More often than not, fairness falls on the players' shoulders despite the game doing everything it can to tell you that that's not how to play. And that's not even getting into player mentality.
i don't fully disagree that being said i wonna point out that not all killers tunnel equally some are better then other in that avenue and that's a thing that on nether sides of the player base wonna even talk about tbh i think that the volatility of the game need to go down on both side in term of tunneling /shorting too much some of the maps (good for low tier killer and creates problem for high tier killers) and gen being a bit longer with out regression perk being too much on the strong side (more gen time the stronger the regression perk become stronger) i do think that there's some base line gameplay need a good think over in term on how volatile the game can be. although im not sure how to fully address it
To a certain extent it's impossible to balance this game well. It is by it's nature an asymmetric game, and the killer is generally the one with the biggest effect on how any given game goes. And the killers vary so wildly in mechanics and power level, then playstyle, if a killer opts to hard tunnel someone out and survs don't play flawlessly then the game will be a loss.
This is why the devs need to hurry up and fix matchmaking. Hooks are a team resource but players shouldn't feel like they have to throw because the game's matchmaking let them down
Honestly it depends on the killer, higher tiers with more mobility those are the ones I see tunneling the most on, probably because its so easy with the mobility they have to return. Particularly awful vs blood favor/dissolution where they'll proc it off the unhooker then go for the tunnel victim.
for the record I couldn't care less about tunneling on mid to lower tiers, it's mainly just mobility killers where it's obnoxious on, coz lower skill survivors especially have a great deal of difficulty shaking them, but it's in the name of the role, what can you do lol.
I do want to add though a lot of players heal under the hook even with resurgence, it can give the killer enough time to return and just take that health state anyways.
I never see off the record anymore come to think of it… that used to help a lot, maybe its the likes of Ghoul who killed the perk.
Tbagging and tunneling aren't fair comparsions. Tbagging is a usually pointless exercise in gloating; tunneling removes someone from the match. It's like some people are so tilted over someone tbagging them once that they use it as an excuse to punish random strangers.
And nobody voted that tbagging is fine. I don't tbag and it doesn't stop killers from tunneling me, nor does it stop them from the actual equivalences like hitting me on hook or humping me for no reason. But I don't react like a child and start tbagging random killers, nor do I become a merciless monster as killer, even if I get tbagged every match. Reacting that way is an inability to manage emotions.
There aren't sides here. There's no committee voting on these. Most people likely play both, and the way they act on one side is the way they'll act on the orher. You and you alone are responsible for your behavior.
The thing is there is a high overlap between the strongest KIllers and Killers which are more likely to tunnel. The paradoxon is that you see more tunneling from the start done by Killers who would not even need it. And the reason is quite simple: Players who really, really want to win every game are using the strongest Killers. And players who really, really want to win every game tunnel from the start.
E.g. someone who plays Trapper or Demo will go into a trial with the mindset that they will most likely not have an ez win, because they are playing weak(er) Killers. But someone who is queueing up with a Blight or Ghoul expects more from themselves.
(Obviously there are exceptions, there are people who queue up with the strongest Killers and dont tunnel because they know they wont need it. And others start tunneling with weaker Killers right from the start, because they still want to win every game)
OTR was an incredibly overrated Perk when it comes to Anti-Tunnel. The problem is that one hit can remove any form of Endurance immediatly, so if a Killer really wants to tunnel, you dont get any value out of it, since it does not matter if you have 5 seconds of Endurance or 40 seconds of Endurance (on that note, the unneccessary Nerf to the Perk did not help either. But again, it does not matter if it is 40 seconds or 80 seconds).
If both sides play hard, survivors often have the advantage. The best nurse vs a decent comp team can lose pretty easily if they mess up 1/2 times.
I agree in the sense one is furthering the game.
Both are competitive esq behaviours though. As said, teabagging can be used to further the game especially if you are good at chases and want the killers attention. I believe teabagging and tunneling we're brought up by OP hence why i used them in the quick post i made.
"you and you alone are responsible for your behaviour"- i agree in the sense that if someone goes to stab me i might defend myself. If you go into games after a hard day at work and are met with humping/ hitting on hook after some particularly hard day you might be inclined to play a bit better and sweat after those games.
Im saying that quote for those that believe toxicity is one sided and their just reciprocating it to those that are indefinitely more toxic to them. If they believe their side is the non-toxic one, then they can also prove that by removing their toxicity.
Stats say otherwise. So do streams.
Do they? Because most agree SWF beats killer, which is survivor. Which would be them playing in the most optimal sense.
Thr comparison is common. Tbagging tilts killers; tunneling frustrates survivors. Their similarities are that they both generate anger. We once had a thread that was pretty eye opening for me. I don't remember the topic but a lot of killers said they started tunneling not because of the classic "it's a strat" but because of tbagging, because dead survivors couldn't tbag them. At some point, I guess those sort of people stop doing it out of anger and just do it all the time. The connection between the two things is often emotion and not strategy.
But what does that mean as survivor? I get humped for 4 games in a row and just decide I won't get downed so it doesn't happen again? That not really avoidable. But if I switch to killer and tunnel indiscriminately because I'm angry then that's childish. If you're playing out of anger then it's not tactics, its just random punishment.
Hardly anyone agrees on that.
The issue is the game itself doesnt tell you anything besides "play as ugly you want". And the devs themself promote this with their statements and development. A game can never be called "balanced" if the premise of the devs is that one side should win more often by default.
what that means as a survivor is that instead of playing casually you progress your objective quicker, like the killer is doing, in the most efficient way. That might mean bringing sweaty perks, a maxed out toolbox, whatever floats your boat. You say "thats not avoidable" neither is it avoidable for the killer to not kill you. its part of their job. tunneling is just doing it efficiently. Complaining about tunneling should get as much respect as complaining about gen rushing, but it doesnt.
Just because one of them takes the other out of the game doesnt change this, thats sadly the nature of assymetrical horrors. The killer to win must kill you as quickly and effectively as possible. And survivors, they must rush the gens and loop and link tiles as effectively as possible to escape. Its like complaining about survivors holding w key, ridiculous.
Otzdarva, hens, Scott Jund and a bunch of well respected top tier players have all said this on vod. Most agree it goes Soloqueue<killer<swf.
"Gen rushing" is something people say when they lose. It's a vague, abstract idea. There could be zero gen-boosting perks in play and no toolboxes and they'll say gen rushing. They could commit to one survivor for two minutes to get one hook and say they're being gen rushed. There's nothing else for those other survivors to do if the killer isn't spreading pressure. The killer, however, gets to choose who they'll hook next. Hooking someone three times in a row is tunneling. That part of it's definition isn't vague. Actual gen rushing is a 4man bringing full gen builds. I've never had that happen to me in thousands of killer matches.
We currently have a new killer who has built in slow down. He goes in OE and everyone gets off gens. I haven't seen this much inactivity in my matches since I was in the baby leagues. And do you know what I've seen in 50ish matches against Jason? Hard tunneling at 5 gens in almost all of them. More than I've probably ever seen in a short period. The gen rush excuse is bs. Killers default to tunneling either way. You slow down the gems and they just keep tunneling.
It's only the nature of the game because this company is too spineless to stop it. They tried. They put a bunch of work into a whole new gameplay system—and then they immediately caved to killers screeching that they'd quit the game. It's not like they're unaware of the problem.
They say that the POTENTIAL of SWF is the biggest. This does not mean that SWFs beat Killers on a regular basis.
Tunneling should ideally only be a last resort kind of strategy. Not something you really should be able to do at 5 gens up, to heavily skew the match in your favor (not always guaranteed, but usually is).
Then again, when someone compares it to teabagging, it really isn't comparable.
Teabagging is more like taunting for attention, while hard-tunneling someone out is pure evil.
Not quite true. The real ladder goes like this:
SoloQ → Casual SWF → Killer → Competitive SWF
The comment you replied to, was responding to my comment "if both sides play hard" and then continued to talk about the best survivors vs best killer player.
The best SWF should by all means beat the best killer, which you should agree with since you said "the potential of swf is the biggest".
Id say casual SWF are on par with killer tbh. Even casual gamers give callouts and an efficiency unheard of in soloqueue.
Sure, casual SWF is stronger and more efficient than SoloQ by a large margin, but in relative terms of strength, many struggle to be on par with even B-tier killers, due to how bad the power creep has gotten.
To pretend like one side doing efficiency is toxic but the other isn't is what my post was saying.
I dont care the motives behind why someone plays efficiently. I wouldnt complain about a survivor looping efficiently, hugging the curb, bringing the optimum perks ect because thats them playing well. The gen rushing occurs when a killer doesnt apply adequate pressure, we agree. But you can bring things to make this harder on the killer, such as meta perks, a maxed out toolbox ect ect.
People complaining about tunneling are because its "unfun/takes them out the game" you dont know, nor care, why people are tunneling most games. Its a thinly veiled excuse to hide the fact that your mad you got taken out of a game that you believe you deserved to have escaped. To pretend otherwise is ludicrous. The unfun part is sadly a part of an asymmetrical horror, where the killer has to remove people from the game and is doing so efficiently. The devs have already given you some handholds, such as basekit BT and haste, as well as perks you can (and quite often do, according to survivor pickrate) take to make it as inefficient as possible because that's the nature of the game. They are aware of it and have put things in, but unless they wanted to casualise the entire game, it isn't feasible nor fair to add.
Any complaint about tunnelling has to be calling for a more casual game, because in nature your asking to stop the killers being efficient. However, in the past when survivors were asked about increasing times on gens (which would be one of the many steps theyd have to take to make it more casual friendly for killers) it was overwhelmingly outcried by survivors publically because that "wouldn't be fun". You cannot have it both ways, you cannot force the killer to remain casual whilst survivors can play in an efficient manner. It just isn't logical nor reasonable. The game would die the second that happened, and that's why I often remark the similarities between "gen-rushing" and the outcry against tunneling. Both are outcries against efficiency, and both should be treated with the same vein of respect.
I honestly don't know how much id agree with that, as having played as part of 2,3 and 4 man swf i can safely say my escape rate and my teams overall escape rate has massively improved outside of 2 man swf (which has improved slightly, but nowhere near as noticably). 4 man swf when me and my friends are playing (my friends have relatively little hours in the game, sitting at around 300hours, whereas myself sitting on just over 2k hours) and we're chatting chilling and vibing we're still saying whos in chase, where they are, who should unhook ect. It does massively increase our chances of winning.
its funny how we're splitting hairs in the survivor character potential by obfuscating the single character into 3 groups but summarize all 40+ killers as nurse played by supaalf.
If one had to rnter the survivor character into ones favorite killer tierlist, they be somewhere in the upper A tier lol.
Agreed, but even when we split it into 4 groups comparing between casual swf and competitive swf they agree comp swf is above killer. And rightfully so.
It isn't. Being tunneled out at 5 gens after being hook camped and sent back to the lobby with 5k points is just garbage. The person gets no chance to play at all, never mind escape.
Anti-tunnel perks are trash. DS is easy to chomp through for at least half the roster. Off the Record is useless.
Gen times have been increased and now most gen perks have also been hit by diminishing (while most regress hasn't). Again, we have a killer that has built in slowdown (and we're about to have another) but the cheese has been worse than ever. Half the Jasons I encounter run full hex builds with Ruin, Thrill, and Penimento. It's almost impossible to sit on gens, and almost impossible to get rid of the totems. Gen times increases won't stop cheese, they'll make it easier.
Again, the whole point is that the killers job is to have you not play for as long as possible. This is the killer doing their job as efficiently as possible. Thats a downside of playing an asymmetrical horror sadly.
So you used to have a much much stronger version of ds. It was abused again and again. If you abuse/exploit the good thinks given to you, you lose them. Because it turned into not an anti-tunnel perk but a free shield for 60s to do gens ect. However, as i said, anti tunnel perks cannot be too effective otherwise they just outright punish the killer for playing efficiently, which we both agree you don't want to punish otherwise you'd have argued against it already as it was the majority of my point.
So, let me split this into 3 points.
Firstly, they got increased from 80s to 90s in 2022. Most the time theyve been kept at the 90s, and this was followed by nerfs to Pop goes the weasel (from 20% of current progress to 20% of overall progress, a huge nerf) and ruin ( percentages cut in half from 200% regression to 100%) which were the major forms of regression back then. So yes, regression was hit, massively.
Secondly- I don't know why you say the killer has built in slowdown, he doesn't. Jason doesn't require you to crouch/stop working on gens when using power unless your on death hook. He'll gain info, but nothing else. I don't know why your acting like you'll lose a health state or something if you stay on a gen when hes in power. The only reason currently it gives slowdown is because people are too scared to take chase and just sit there hoping someone else does.
Thirdly- if half the jasons run those perks (and your seeing almost all jasons), do you know what you should probably do. Run a map. Genuinely, running a map, or a perk like detectives hunch in your build and bam you can smash out those totems. Pentimento also slows down the killer, and ruin does very little rn. smash out gens and use detectives or your map to hunt them down. Hex perks like devour, ruin and pentimento are common anyway so taking it shouldn't be a burden at all.
However, this isn't a argument against jason (the third one), but an argument against that hex combo. Other killers also use that combo a lot, so maybe you should focus your energy at that here.
they also buffed gen kicks and removed gen tapping, don't forget those!
Buffed gen kicks by removing gen tapping you mean, and that simply meant you couldnt remove 3s of a killers animation with 1s of a survivor tapping it. Gen kick was useless outside of PGTW before the removal of gen tapping.
No gen kicks were given 5 percent baseline regression unless I'm mistaken which is why a lot of gen regression perks were nerfed to compensate for that addition.
i play both😀
Idk who this "you" you keep referring to is but if this were true, something would have been done about egerious tunneling and slugging. Sometimes they're tactical, sometimes they're desperate, but often they're abused. I just got out of a match with a Billy using the slug build that's been going around. Everyone slugged with no gens done. I got less than 3k points you can't tell me that's not abusing a bad system. Yet anti-cheese survivor perks get nerfs.
But do you not see the issue with saying "just bring perks" and I say "those perks suck" so you go with "well, there's a reason for that"?
I was talking about diminishing, which hit almost all gen perks. The increase did come with nerfs to regress, yeah, but diminishing hit gen speed boosters drastically more than gen regress. This idea that killers will be nice if gen times go up is nonesense. Gen speeds can't be changed without anti-cheese going through too.
Yes, that's how you do it. That's how we've been doing it in SWF, which is the only way I'll touch survivor right now. How often do you see soloers electing to take chase? The matches are stalling to a halt constantly even in SWF. The few solos I attempted were even worse.
Finding them isn't usually an issue if you know the game. It's having enough time to get rid of them with Thrill and often FtD while managing his free info. Also, Detective's Hunch is behind a pay wall.
Thrill is bad as is, but these builds have been basically autowins on Jason. If you don't do the totems he keeps chasing you off gens and they regress. Most are using Badge too, so free regress just for existing. If you do the totems you'll likely be found cause of free info. It's hard to do them against a halfway decent killer without coordination.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying mate.
We agree.
I was stating what it was before the changes.
You, is in general. If either side abuse something given it is taken away. It goes to show that tunneling is not seen as an abuse of the killer, moreso that the killer is just doing their job efficiently.
Let me rephrase your second point. "I don't like the killer playing efficiently", "we can give you perks that make it harder for the killer to play efficiently, but casualising the game isn't something the community as a whole wants" , "why don't these perks stop the killer playing efficiently". The whole point is there is perks that make tunneling less efficient, but removing tunneling /making it entirely inefficient isn't good for the game because it forces the game to go in a casual direction and force things like longer gen times, easier regression, less skill expression on both sides ect.
"The idea killers will be nice if gens times go up is nonsense" I agree. But casualising the game must be on both sides or it becomes unplayable for one side. This is why monstrum failed. They tried to casualising their killer side whilst the runners could endlessly respawn and had plenty of time. So if you want tunneling removed, the other necessity is it's easier for killers to apply pressure/ less punishing when they don't. For example, increasing gen times. This won't make killers play nicer, but it will allow the Devs to implement proper punishments for it because they're heading in a more casual direction.
"How often do you see solo'ers elect to take chase"- out of my 20 games of Jason, about 5 of them people have just hid and hid for a minute+ and then elected to take chase. The 15 games I played against Jason, I was electing to take chase most of them, and when I was death hook someone took chase relatively quickly. This is as a solo surv.
Id agree with the fourth point. I think thrill needs some sort of nerf. It's too oppressive as is. I personally run corrupt, BBQ, discordance and bamboozle as Jason. Sometimes switching bamboozle with ruin if I'm having a rough few games and need the extra slowdown (happened once, switching it for three games, then continued). A fun build with info and chase perks to help with the harder tiles.
I've got a 76% wr as Jason, and a 67% escape rate Vs him. As a survivor I run lithe, decisive, kindred and deja vu.
None of them said something like this. Youre just generalizing discussions.
Most agree because Killer has an ego problem. Naturally the narrative would be that Killer is always the weakest even when the data says otherwise.
Absolutely. They consistently choose the options that keep the worst parts of the game alive. The "balance" has always fallen on the kindness of individual players, which of course went out the window when they started encouraging more aggressive play.
Otz has specifically said this.
Scott junf said this and stated that swf is stronger and has used this to justify why voice chat should be in the game to make balancing easier.
Hens refuses to say which side is stronger, but has said swf is on par if not stronger then killer when people asked for swf only queues.
Jrm mentioned he agrees swf is way too strong and skews balancing, but doesn't want swf only queues.
I can probably find more instances of this.
Lmao, and playing with Comms in a game not balanced around it and then pretending it doesn't make you insanely strong isn't egotistical?
Killer is stronger then survivor soloqueue, "casual" swf are on par with killer. Comp swf beat killer. These are generally accepted. And are Stated by big streamers, it's you who has an ego that your ability/knowledge of the game is better than those.
It's a tired narrative. It might've been true years ago, but nothing supports it anymore.
I mean I'm pretty sure the streamers are the ones with the big egos. They make sweeping statements and generally only consider their own gameplay experience at their own skill bracket (usually super high)
And often they are completely wrong. Had a streamer who claimed to have over 9000 hours in game cuss me out after I played killer against them. He accused me of breaking the rules on 3 counts:
1. Tunneling: laughable because it's not against the rules even if I had been hard tunneling, which I wasn't.
2. Guarding a 3 gen. Also laughable not against the rules and i was guarding the last central gen on dead dawg because the pther 2 had popped and it had 70% on it.
3. Lighting pentimento twice. Astounds me that a 9000+ hour player didn't know that pentimento can light on multiple totems.
Streamers come out with all sorts of nonsense about balance and people just parrot it back.
A lot of killer mains need to play survivor more. The fact that they'd rather wait in a queue than try the other side tells you everything you need to know.
I mean have you watched comp tourney's? Comp SWF can easily get a 3e if they misread a couple mindgames.
So the statement i replied to,(which you've either not checked the comments linked to see the whole discussion or are intentionally being ignorant, either of which is fine ig) stated that these opinions arent generally accepted. I mentioned the dbd streamers who have the highest subscribers and have been a part of the community for way longer than the majority of people, and have devoted a large amount of time to debate the specifics and figurehead these opinions (which could make or break their community, given how shallow dbd players can be).
Most people would agree that these streamers are some of the most knowledgeable and well versed people in dbd, scott jund makes constant videos critiquing BHVR's choices and going in depth into his own thoughts, and has done so for years.
Otz, whilst more well known, definitely leans towards the more gaming side of things then the theory side, but even he has thousands of hours, has played in comp tournaments, and is incredible at the game.
Now then, your own criticism doesn't work in this case. We are talking about their skill bracket. We are discussing which role is the strongest. The skill bracket we are discussing is the optimum players from both sides. And whether the best SWF would beat the best killer. In this area, you should agree due to your last statement, they are the king in that court. And so you should respect their opinion there, in which that is what we are discussing.
As said, I personally, and a lot others it seems, believe that casual swf can contest vs killer making them if not the same, slightly weaker on the power scale. Even if i give that casual swf are weaker than a killer, that doesnt matter to this discussion. When talking about which side is stronger, we should look to the best of both.
You wouldn't ask bronze players/100 hours in dbd who the strongest killers are, because bubba will appear on that list whilst nurse won't due to not seeing them at the lowest of mmr.
What does that have to do with anything? Those are custom games with a tiny, curated group of players. Even if we were to take it into account, how often does it happen? More than 50%? What do the hook states look like?