Venting on the division within this community between survs and killers
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Trying to win in a video game has nothing to do with a lack of empathy. I reject this entire line of reasoning.
The game is flawed, but the game is what it is. Pretending to play an ideal version of the video game where those flaws don't exist is putting yourself at a disadvantage. Now, you may choose to do that for whatever reason you want (mercy, giving yourself a challenge, etc.) but declaring that those who do not are lacking empathy is honestly absurd.
If what you're doing in the game is furthering your objective or interfering with your opponent's then doing so has nothing to do with a lack of empathy. As I mentioned before, this is distinct from BM/griefing behaviors, which I would define as doing something with the intent of causing negative emotions in other players, and that does not further your objective or interfere with theirs in any way. This is where the "legal but makes you a jerk" part of your argument comes in — for example, bleeding everyone out for 4 minutes even if you can hook. This is not remotely in the same category as tunneling someone out, sabotaging hooks, getting flashlight saves, etc., which all directly further an objective or interfere with the opponent's.
I would argue that the problem instead is people who continue to play DBD even though they are not having fun, and then attribute the actions of their opponent to malice when they are bested.
None of this is to say that anyone should give up on the game; there is good in this game buried under the layers of BHVR's complacency. We can and should argue for change to the game, but blaming other players for playing the game as it exists today rather than how you want it to be is not the way.
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You seem to not like the us Vs them view some people have.... Your entire rant is essentially an us Vs them view but involving a different us and them lol. Instead of killers v survivors your rant is a casual v competitive. Both sides see things differently regardless of if it's killer v survivors or casual v competitive.
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First off, if my message came across as hostile in any way I want to make it clear it was not intended to be so. Sometimes tone is difficult to portray in forum messages like these, and I do appreciate you taking the time to have a discussion about this, and to explain your points of view. I respect your points of view, even if I do very much disagree.
There is nothing wrong with trying to win, but the methods chosen to do so are a personal choice. Acknowledging flaws in the game and then exploiting those flaws because they're available does, in my opinion, reflect that individual. And that's where the lack of empathy comes in. The distinction between playing to win and BM is very subjective, but even strategic moves or traditionally "unfun" playstyles can be done without exploitation.
For example, slugging can be a valid tactic during specific circumstances like if sabo or flashlights are in play. But slugging an entire team to bleed them out, especially now that hooks respawn even after death, in my opinoin, crosses a line. It is still technically allowed, it is still a strategy, but you are knowingly creating a very poor experience for other people, and that does show a lack of empathy. Bully squads show a lack of empathy, even though continously blinding a killer over and over is not against the rules, it is still knowingly making someone else's experience as miserable as you can.
When it comes to your opinion on "the problem is the people who continue to play even though they are not having fun", I agree to an extent. If you're unhappy most of the time when doing something, then you should spend your time doing something else. But that doesn't take away individual player accountability to recognize when strats/perks/playstyles/items/combos etc. harm the collective enjoyment of the community as a whole. I do not think good sportsmanship should be discouraged or ignored.
Advocating for BHVR to make changes is important, but so is encouraging the community to make changes as well. Promoting empathy and responsibility in my opinion, is pushing for change. BHVR provides the framework, they set up the playground, but just because you can shove another kid off the swing doesn't mean you should. And if you do, I don't blame the playground.
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I do want to agree with your first paragraph. I enjoy a good discussion and so far this has been, even if we disagree. Likewise, I am also not trying to be hostile, though I am admittedly often blunt.
The problem with your approach to perceived flaws in the game is that it's subjective. What you call "exploiting a flaw" someone else might judge to be playing efficiently, within the rules, which is objectively true. This is part of the reason "survivor rule book" is a meme among killer mains, because every survivor has their own set of rules, applied inconsistently, and often applied in ridiculous cases. You're not going to please everyone no matter how you play.
There is also a tragedy of the commons aspect. If I play sub-optimally then I am risking that the opposing team/player may take advantage of that and play in ways that I find unfun and "exploitative." I don't think it's a tenable position to say that people should play according to the subjective perception of their opponent.
The problem is that the rules of the game are what they are, and no amount of wishing will change that. If you want to alter your playstyle to make the game more fun for the other side, then by all means do so, but I vehemently reject the notion that not doing so makes you unempathetic. This is a video game that people play voluntarily.
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I don't mind bluntness, and I welcome it! So long as it remains respectful and doesn't resort to blatant hostility or name-calling, as some people on the forums like to do lol.
I did bring up flaws, because in one of your previous messages you even admitted to flaws being present. I think most people regardless of bias or not can and will agree that the game is not perfect and does have flaws. And while those flaws are various and can be different things to different people, the impact of certain strats/playstyles/perk combos etc. on the overall enjoyment of the game is a shared experience, wether you consider them flaws or not. I don't think the issue is about subjective rules but about recognizing and acknowledging when a certain strat consistently creates negative experiences, and when deterents are even put in place to discourage them.
(i'm going to be saying strats for simplicity sake but know that this includes tings like perk combos and "bugs" and tech, infinites etc.)
I know that it's impossible to make everyone happy in the game, and what I refer to are things that BHVR as already addressed.
I understand that many of the most unfun strategies are often the most efficient ways to win. I believe that ensuring a fun experience for everyone should not require players to hold back or restrain themselves from being efficient. It's up to BHVR to ensure the game's balance, and I think they're aware of this and have shown it by nerfing certain playstyles. This suggests these strats were not intended as the primary way to play the game, which is why they feel exploitative when used excessively.
Given these nerfs, accountability and personal choice are involved when players opt to use them. I believe the game allows for these strats to exist because they are meant to be situational, not primary methods of play. When used excessively, they can be devastating to the other side and make the game both unfair/unfun. If these strats were not discouraged in some capacity, they wouldn't have received any nerfs.
So, it depends on your perspective. If you see BHVR's nerfs as addressing imbalances or if the nerfs aim is to improve overall player enjoyment.
If it's due to the imbalance, then the strength of these playstyles has to be considered. If they create a big enough tilt in balance that BHVR sees it necessary to implement nerfs, and people still rely on it for the primary play, then I believe it can be seen as being exploitative, which I believe does have to do with a lack of empathy, as I think explotation isn't possible without a lack of care for those affected.
If it's due to the overall enjoyment of the playerbase, then knowingly using these strategies despite their negative impact on others is blatantly unempathetic.
We all have our ideas on how to better balance the game and myself as well as perhaps you, have changes in mind. I'm not saying that what BHVR has done is "good enough" to put it simply, but it's taking a step in the right direction.
All this to say ultimately, as stated in my original comment, I believe that a lack of empathy is at the root of many issues in the game. The game will not improve if players remain in their bubbles and refuse to acknowledge the struggles of others. Or better yet, be aware of them but continue to do so without care, simply because they can.
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If you decide to play in a way that a vast majority of the player base absolutely can't stand in order to win, that 100% is a lack of empathy. You are making the choice to say "I don't care who's involved & how they feel, I'm winning at all cost because they don't matter to me," instead of other ways that can be just as successful if you put the time in to learn it. There's no way around it. Not only does is show a lack of compassion or empathy for the people you play against, it also shows an unhealthy obsession with winning. There's all kinds of data out there to show this, and it's indisputable.
This is one of the biggest problems in this community. I'm not saying that you necessarily are doing this, but people try to make excuses for being horrible to each other to justify whatever they're doing. People need to stop doing it & start considering the other human beings they're playing with. Not bots, human beings. Both sides are guilty of it,so it's not one or the other.
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Generally, when one side feels like things are against them, they're more vocal about it.
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This issue really seems to follow BHVR around too, unfortunately for them. Every game has some level of this, but it seems particularly bad in their games. Meet your Maker had it really bad too back when I tried that out. Builders were convinced that they should be able to make literally unbeatable levels and Raiders were convinced they should be able to beat every level first try.
It really hampers any attempt at discussion of balance to address the underlying issues.
The irony I find is that, for as inclusive is this fandom is, I've stayed away from engaging in the community for years because having an opinion on the game itself seems to be the one thing it isn't inclusive about, whether that being you think a Perk is too strong for one side or the other without being called a bully, or liking Sable without people making judgmental assumptions as to why. ;P0 -
Been about 6 years for me, and I agree
Al though there are a lot less "extremists" than before. Most active users nowadays are more chill.
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I know a lot of people in this thread have claimed a big part of the us vs. them issue is related to players only playing one side or the other. Well in my case I started as a killer main but eventually switched to survivor because killer is so brain dead easy. Anyone who plays both roles and claims Survivor is Op is either just bad, or they except to be able to get a 3 or 4 k nearly every game. Yes I get all the arguments "that Survivor used to be super OP" and "the Killer is supposed to be the power role" and all that. And let's grant that Survivor was that OP. Well now the tables have turned and Killer has become the OP role.
There is no argument that it's not imbalanced in favor of Killer at this point. Even Bhvr have admitted this by stating they are shooting for a 60% Kill rate. I get the point that they want the killers to be powerful and feel hard to escape from, but they've taken it too far and need a course correction at this point. I'm not saying change it to 50% but maybe 55 would be a good sweet spot.
2 vs. 8 shows an example of a mode where survivors can load into a match and not feel they have almost 0 chance to escape. If Bhvr. wants to continue to grow their game they WILL buff Survivor at some point soon because it has just gotten ridiculous. All the new players who came in for 2 v. 8 mode will quit when it goes away if they feel like they have no chance of winning in the normal mode. Of course keeping the 2 vs. 8 mode is not a solution either at this point because of the que time issue as well as the fact it will just eventually become very repetitive playing the same 5 killers and 4 classes over and over.
As for the issue of unfun playstyles, I will just say both sides seem to be hypocrites on this. If you as a Killer insist on always slugging for the 4k and proxy camping and tunneling then don't complain about survivors that try to use boil over and go down in a place that's impossible to hook, or that drag out the game at the end by hiding and not doing gens as long as possible, or even (gasp) "hide in a locker and don't let me get my achievement that I of course self evidently deserve." And of course that goes the other way around as well, but the fact is at this point it is way easier for the killer player to make the game unfun for survivors than vice versa. Perhaps the needed Survivor buff I spoke of above could help with this issue as well because if both sides have a more even ability to make the game unfun for each other things will even out in a "Mutual Assured Destruction" sort of way.
And I know someone might comment "you're just perpetuating the problem the OP is talking about." Well as I stated at the start of my post I play both sides and it's obvious to anyone who does as well and is at least decent at games that killer power creep has gone too far. I feel like some of the complaints about "too much division" is coming from Killer mains that want to shut down any implication that their role has gotten too strong.
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Am I the only one who has noticed all the unconfirmed accounts that are popping up, spewing nonsense troll posts? I saw one user get banned for hate speech, and be back on with a new account within a day or so. Same inarticulate complaints, just with less slurs. I feel like there's a lot more of this than there used to be.
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It does slightly amuse me when I play in a way the opposition considers toxic or boring or generally disagrees with... They make out like it's my duty to make the game fun for them. Absolutely not. I play the game for my entertainment, if others don't like how I play the game, I'm sorry but that's really not my problem. I don't expect people to think "must make the game fun for someone else" I openly admit to having no empathy for others when I'm playing the game as people have none for me and I don't expect them to. I'm not a dev, it's not my game I just play it, the onus to make everyone have fun isn't on me. I don't see anything wrong with people enjoying the game however they want as long as it doesn't conflict with the Devs TnC and their rules. If anyone has an issue with not having fun then it's down the the Devs.
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That's the thing though, the game is objectively killer sided. Ignoring even the killer streamers who go on thousands+ kill streaks which would be a sign of a game being horribly unbalanced in any other game we have the devs stats saying that on every level even against 4 man swfs at the highest level killers are winning more often than not.
The division is because killers refuse to accept the objective reality of the game and survivors just have to deal with it.7 -
As a survivor main I used to think ghost face was incredibly op. I struggled against ghost face like no other killer. I started watching streamers and realized there's lots of survivors that don't struggle against ghost face nearly as much as me.
I was forced to realize that probably meant the issue wasn't so much ghost face being op as it was something pertaining to me. I began to look at the situation objectively. I realized my strength in this game is that I'm very good at staying out of a killers line of sight, but to do that I have to be able to look at the killer. When my location is given away just by looking at a killer my biggest strength in any other match is now a glaring weakness.
It's forced me to get considerably better at chases, but it's still not what I would call a strength.
I honestly think a large percentage of the gripes on the forum come from people that aren't nearly as good at this game as they think and they are either unwilling or unable to acknowledge that simple truth.
I'm not saying there are not valid grievances, or legitimate changes that need to be made at times. What I am saying is it's human nature to place blame anywhere other than ourselves.
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Coincidentally, polarized views on this forum became worse when they took away the vote down button. People muted themselves a little more for some reason. C'mon BHVR, you know what to do.
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The game is sweat sided, it’s as simple as that. It’s why these last two modifiers have been a breath of fresh air. Games have mostly felt varied (at least until Huntress became 2 v 8 meta) and well paced on both sides. Loading into the base mode, I know if I’m not bringing meta on either side the chances of a good time are not there.
As for the us vs them stuff, as someone who has played the game since 2020 and peruses DBD content here, Reddit and Twitter, I would say that this forum still has the most reasonable takes (take from that what you want) whilst being killer sided, with Twitter being obscenely survivor sided and Reddit somewhere in the middle. Players who vehemently stick to their one side are indeed a massive problem when it comes to cultivating the us vs them narrative and shouldn’t be taken seriously.I do think the game being survivor sided narrative stems from years when it really was survivor sided, with the peak of this era being before the big patch two years ago. The game most certainly isn’t like that anymore. My completely average friends and I who play killer can win 6/7 out of 10 matches playing our favourite killers without sweating at all and that could easily be pushed to 8/9 if we were to play with a bit more intensity at all times. Sometimes I’ll cross paths with a very intense SWF but I don’t let that one match dictate my entire viewpoint of DBD. And I don’t let the “threat” of a seal team SWF get to me and make me play like a sweat every game because I might lose 1 match if I don’t bring meta perks on an A tier killer.
I actually think the game is in a pretty good spot. It’s just balance wise there are still too many ways for either side to make it miserable for the other. And for some reason the devs don’t seem to want to remove these miserable things or even mitigate against them.1 -
Honestly, any common players are absolutely tolerate anything that happens in the game, as long as it's not the targeted harassment
Empathy really works when both people have same standards, which I doubt to be true
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( `³´( `³´)`³´) 🆚 (•-•｡ )•-•｡ )•-•｡)
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it's also hilarious that the us vs them comment targeting killers, stating killers are majority here ratiod op lmao
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I'm a bit lost as to what your saying, could you clarify a bit please? If it's that both sides should be respectful of the other, I agree 100%, and all we can control is how we decide to act regardless of what others say/do. I've said it in other threads, it takes a stronger person to not feed in to whatever is being done that's unacceptable, but it needs to be done to stop the nonsense. That and again, being cognizant that your playing other people and not bots.
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"respect" only works when both sides have same sense of respect or disrespect, most people just don't really care much in things happening in games
If someone don't feel disrespect for the very thing they are doing, there is no way empathy or anything alike stops them from being "disrespectful" to others, so whether they have empathy or not is really irrelevant
And not like this game has "common standards" that can be applied to any players, because if that exists dev would start banning anything bad
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The people on here the most are not killer sided. The killer sided posts always always get pushback. "Killer having aura reading is OP" came from here, "Eruption and Pain Res are OP" came from here, "Blight and Pinhead's add-ons are OP", etc. Now it's Weave Attunement.
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