The Anti-Tunnel Timeline
I'm sure I'm off on the exact month by month breakdown, but here goes.
18 months ago - We've heard you, anti-tunnel is coming!
15 months ago - We're going to need some more time on that anti-tunnel, but its coming!
12 months ago - Here's the anti-tunnel PTB. It's anti-tunnel everything. Even more types of tunneling than we can remember with FOUR substantially game changing punishments/ways to make tunneling harder. You wanted anti-tunnel, we're giving you all the anti-tunnel.
Also, here's infinite pallets for funsies while you test whether anti-tunnel (and anti-slug) is broken or not. Just test all of that, together, at the same time, and a new killer, and get back to us. Don't worry, we have a long and extensive PTB process to gather detailed, well considered feedback.
Oh, btw, almost forgot, we're nerfing OTR and a bunch of perks because of the new system. We're just trying to get ahead of this change that is absolutely going to happen.
3 days later - Actually...let's walk that back. Everything, but the pallets which both sides are telling us they absolutely love. But don't worry, we're just rethinking
Oops, forgot to undo a lot of the nerfs.
11.5 months ago - Hey, the anti-tunnel needs more time.
OTR is staying nerfed because of new reasons
11 months ago - Anti-tunnel is dead, all of it, we're just going to increase the off the hook timer by 5 seconds. The only two options that existed were do everything or adjust the current system.
10 months ago - As we work on fixing MMR, we want to see if that addresses the issue before resuming anti-tunnel
-Lots of cricket noises-
1 month ago - Hey, let's take away those extra five seconds. Here's some elusive for you. Incidentally, this allows a killer to know when you are safe to hit again if they're tunneling shrug
1 month ago - MMR rework is here! It does...something!
Now - when we said we'd resume thinking about anti-tunnel after the MMR rework, what if we went in the opposite direction and weakened STB
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Just kind of wanted to walk through why it feels like the 1v4 survivor side is getting repeatedly let down by BHVR.
We were told that the most common survivor complaint about what ruins the game was being addressed, it didn't happen, and then we actually go in the opposite direction of what was 'promised'.
It's not a 'this breaks the game immediately' but the continual progression from 'we hear you, we're going to address it' to 'let's go in the opposite direction' creates a feeling of 'so you heard the complaints, you agreed they exist, you agreed they were a problem, but you still decided to not just ignore it, but go in the opposite direction?'
Comments
They are making promises they won't keep!!!
I've always maintained that any anti-tunnel sentiment from the devs is purely performative. Waiting almost 10 years to introduce an anti-tunnel feature then dropping it within 48 hours and never talking about it again is indicative of that. They don't actually care lol
It's wild that all it took were the recent few months of CCs and their parroting drones to get StB nerfed but ten years of complaints about tunneling and it's getting multiple buffs after some preformative bit of canceled faux hope.
I play both sides about equally and I’d be fine with some sort of anti-tunnel/anti-camp mechanic, but I have yet to see anything that isn’t overly punishing for killers when they tunnel or camp for legit reason (people who claim you never have to do it are just not being honest or they simply don’t play killer at all). If anyone has any good ideas that aren’t overly-punishing / abusable like the first version that was tried, I’m willing to listen.
They could start by not nerfing what's already in place.
The first version could have been tweaked. No issue with that. Decreasing the punishments, increasing the rewards for not tunneling, changing values when it applies… Maybe making it more dynamic like taking Gens remaining into account. This could have been done.
Because nobody has a problem with a Killer who is tunneling/camping/slugging for pressure because they are starting to lose the game. It is the tunnels at 5 Gens which are the problem. And those should be the things which should be fixed. But there is exactly nothing. And the worst part is that mainly Killers tunnel who dont even need it…
@Topic:
I honestly give nothing on a "We hear you" from BHVR when it comes to Survivor issues. Survivors get thrown a bone sometimes but thats about it. We just saw it with the latest Patch - Vigil basically deleted. Sprint Burst nerfed so much that nobody uses it anymore. And the bone was 1 second extra on Adrenaline… A perk you might not even get to use.
When it comes to Survivor, BHVRs words mean nothing.
EDIT: The last "We hear you" was basically the change to Judgment that you dont spawn next to her when coming out of Exile… Which, as they mentioned, is not the Killers fault if they tunnel. Seems like it was the Survivors fault then if they spawn next to the Killer while having almost no Tunneling Protection. And since this could not have been done alone, they also gigabuffed her.
(In general, I feel that bringing 3 Killers in a row with a Mini Mori and a Killer who ignores Unhook-Perks just shows that the Devs dont care about tunneling)
yeah, I'm just tired of it, I'm not playing anymore… The fact that they announced it and made a big deal of it and then entirely walked it back without talking really any more about it, and also went on to buff tunneling and nerf multiple longtime mainstay survivor perks into the ground right after too, I'll just play something fun.
There were lots of ideas. The starting problem with how they approached it is that they threw everything at the wall. They called it a Quality of Life when it was a radical, unexpected overhaul of how the game would work on both sides. Even those of us who were extremely anti-tunnel were surprised by the overall changes. Most people believed, even those who really liked the ideas, that there were going to have to be some substantial changes to the original numbers.
If instead of that they focused on one of those choices and seeing if that changed things before going more radical it would have been a lot healthier to get feedback. @Aven_Fallen mentioned it and I and others have discussed it as well, but also just adjusting the amount of gen speed increase that happens after the first survivor dies based on total hooks would have been a healthy way forward as well.
With three genning, players going next, and hook camping they had a pretty clear problem, and it took them too long to make some pretty obvious changes to improve those elements without radically altering the game. Why they totally lost their focus on what worked I have no idea. They could easily though make a similar change to tunneling by giving a large boost to gens if there was a death at 3 hooks - it would deal with what is considered the most problematic form of tunneling and the chance that it would impact games outside of that would be extremely minimal.
Yeah, I'd like to hear the justification for disabling it on every survivor after a use. That's a forum/CC complaint that's illogical and really makes it seem like BHVR is listening to certain voices verbatim. The 'swapping hook stages around' never made any sense, and if the killer continues to target one survivor again and again to the point that more than one survivor gets to use StB, well good. It's supposed to punish exactly that type of play.
What's interesting is that maybe the best complaint about StB, that a killer who isn't tunneling, but is at 2/1/1 on the hooks can suddenly be 1/1/1/1, isn't changed at all.
don't forget what the original trade was:
survivors lose styptic, syringe and off the record but survivors gain 5 seconds of extra borrowed time!
the new trade is survivors lose 5 seconds of borrowed time and sprint burst, but gain 10 seconds of elusive!
How about just making people who are unhooked 'ethereal' for fifteen seconds. They can't be seen or interact with the killer during this time or until they preform a conspicuous action. Can't bodyblock but also a guaranteed protection from tunneling.
This is the best solution with the only downside being it technically removes interaction, you'd never have a sick body block or getting past a body blocker to still down someone. I think its "healthier" for the game overall but it is somewhat sad it would remove that interaction level.
I mentioned many times…
Give survivor who is unhooked:
→ 10 % haste, elusive and invulnerability for 30s (meaning they can't be attacked, infected and can't bodyblock) this would solve two tapping by Bubba off hook or killers who can keep you close untill protection runs out, such as deathslinger, clown…
→ Deactivate it instantly when being fully healed, healing yourself, doing any cons. actions and fully in the endgame.
Give killer who performs fresh hook:
→ 5-15 % extra damage when manualy damaging gen (Nurse 5 %, Nemesis 10 %, Pig 15 %)
→ stackable 25 % extra BP per each first hook on survivors (old BBQ)
→ Reveal on every survivor with same or lower amount of hookstages (similiar to Judgments add on)
→ 5-15 % haste depending on mobility (5 % to killers with high mobility such as Jason, Hillbilly, Ghoul or Clown, Krasue, Onryo, Dredge, Freddy…), (10 % for killers with small or low mobility such as Wesker, Houndmaster…) and 15 % to killers with no mobility such as Pig, Ghost Face, Trapper…)
Boom! Both sides would be satisfied.
That’s an interesting idea and I think it’s worth a try
Yeah like, honestly speaking if I was the devs I would literally just make events all the time with crazy ideas like this to try and find one that works well instead of making the ptbs. Like, why not test stuff so more than pc players can join in.
they could have even made an event queue to test how it did on live servers, ptb isn't accessible to the majority of the casual playerbase (console)
The only way to reduce tunnelling is to punish it so heavily that the killer would be throwing the game if they do tunnel.
The Anti Tunnel "solutions" fundamentally broke the game. They had so many issues with determining "what is tunneling" that killers would get punished just for playing the game
Again, what defines tunneling.
To quote from my first post:
12 months ago - Here's the anti-tunnel PTB. It's anti-tunnel everything. Even more types of tunneling than we can remember with FOUR substantially game changing punishments/ways to make tunneling harder. You wanted anti-tunnel, we're giving you all the anti-tunnel.I don't think BHVR should be let off the hook because they didn't take the time to figure out what the actual complaints where and instead just threw everything at the wall - if anything it proves their failure wasn't proof of the idea being bad, but they had no clear concept going into the issue. Many, many people have proposed pretty simplistic reasonable solutions over the years, but BHVR took the approach of crazy overhaul or nothing and since has gone in the direction of making tunneling easier.
I believe there is a lot of miscommunication and confusion around this topic. Probably the majority of players agrees that hard tunneling isn't healthy for the game. But what I've seen too is some people considering so many things as "tunneling" that the issue got diluted in vague discussions that "bad players tunnel" without addressing what they've meant for tunneling. In pub matches people accuse others of "tunneling" even when its a 12 hook game.
In pub matches people accuse others of "tunneling" even when its a 12 hook game.I say this about a few things, but I really don't think people should take seriously what people say in end game chat. Some players are just trolls who will say something negative and others are just emotional/heated after an intense game and overreacting to what happened.
Which, to kind of get around to my point and I think @Aven_Fallen - whenever people discuss this is in a calm manner, there are pretty clear definitions drawn of where tunneling is. Does it vary person to person? Sure, but people are generally able to establish what they view as problematic and not just use it as a buzz word.
BHVR's job should have been to cut through that and establish a clear line. They did it with anti-camp, players had, and still do, widely differing definitions of camping, but BHVR drew clear lines where they thought it was a problem. With anti-tunnel they failed to do that in a pretty shocking fashion, but it is something that they easily could have been done.
They don't even get that. The 10 seconds of elusive begins when the unhook animation begins, so you're animation locked for 2 seconds of it, while simultaneously, there's a gigantic visual notification and audio notification on your exact location. By the time you're even able to leave the bubble, you've lost probably half the elusive and endurance.
But that's the issue: its not an anti-camp system, its an antifacecamp system. That why it works. Many claim it doesn't work as an anti camp system because they don't like what this system allow.
I've said endgame chat because its a common thing people calling whenever they dislike about a killer behaviour as tunneling.
Its not clear about anti-tunnel. Some people claim that killing someone with 6 hooks still is tunneling and shouldn't be allowed; other believes a kill with 4 hooks is fine. People have been saying things about "tunneling" without even trying to define what is tunneling.
But that's the issue: its not an anti-camp system, its an antifacecamp system.Eh, not really though its common to say. It still punishes lingering near the hook or killers who frequently return expecting someone.
Many claim it doesn't work as an anti camp system because they don't like what this system allow.Whatever system is put in place to address anything you'll almost certainly having some people saying it goes too far and others that it doesn't go far enough.
But by putting a system in place BHVR moved the discussion to that. Instead of 'should the system even exist or not' people argue over the radius and how fast it should tick. That's an overall sign of a healthier game.
I've said endgame chat because its a common thing people calling whenever they dislike about a killer behaviour as tunneling.Sure they do, I've also been called a SWF, bully squad, gen rusher, etc. when not even close to anything of things. The fact that some people troll or have crazy takes isn't really relevant to the discussion.
Some people claim that killing someone with 6 hooks still is tunneling and shouldn't be allowed; other believes a kill with 4 hooks is fine.Very few people have said shouldn't be allowed. One of the more absurd things about the response to the anti-tunnel idea is that certain things were just becoming impossible. Some were harder or had bigger trade offs, which is what survivors have broadly been asking for, but the idea of impossible was never accurate.
People have been saying things about "tunneling" without even trying to define what is tunneling.This is true of everything. How fast does a squad have to do gens to be gen rush? How many hook sabos to be a bully squad (or is that even a bully squad?). How far does a killer have to go to not be proxy camping? This is just a normal part about how words work.
With anti-camping, anti-3 genning, anti-infinites, BHVR recognized an overall game problem and set reasonably cautious guidelines around extreme events and then modified from there based on feedback/gameplay/data. And, again of course, people disagree with them, that's normal, but at least they are approaching the issue in the correct fashion. BHVR did the exact opposite with the anti-tunnel ideas (i.e. throw everything at the wall instead of setting a starting point and working from there) which is why it was such an extreme failure. But the issue isn't shifting definitions or a foundational issue, that's true for many elements of the game, the issue was their approach.
i never camp tunnel or slug lol still get 2-3 every game unless the group is just that much better than me in which case you learn to accept when others play the trial better and you learn from it. you dont have to resort to very negative and poorly designed mechanics in the game to "win". why do all killers think they should be getting kills every trial?? its like the people on the other side have brains and can play against you or something hahaha so wild to me
BHVR and promises just never end well.
Knotted rope and Skull merchant being prime examples.
Personally when I refer to tunnelling it's when the same person is targeted from the start of the match, regardless of the match progress and the presence of other survivors nearby. The killer makes no effort to find or go after any other survivor, ignores the unhooker and repeats until that first survivor is removed from the match.
A good solution would be to always give the first hooked survivor basekit DS and Unbreakable - for example 45 seconds of Unbreakable and 60 seconds DS. This way slugging the survivor is not effective either. Once all killers know this is in play, they will have no choice but to find another survivor. Only having this apply to the first hooked survivor helps ensure they had a reasonable chance to participate in the game. A one-time Floods of Rage effect for other survivors outside a certain range could also be added to help the killer get things rolling.
BHVR only is concerned with killer complaints and issues for them.
Only way to stop a killer from tunneling you is to remove the killer.
BHVR arent killer sided, or survivor sided, they are on BHVR's side. And that side wants to squeeze alot money out of all of us.