http://dbd.game/killswitch
Playing ARC Raiders has really highlighted how much I can't stand DBD's player-base
Whenever I play ARC, 99% of the interactions I have with people are either neutral or outright positive, very few interactions I have with people on that game are anything I'd consider negative, sure I've had people backstab me or shoot me on sight for no reason, but those types of interactions are almost always followed up by more positive interactions. ARC genuinely has done a lot to restore my faith in humanity and I keep playing to see who I run into next almost as much as I want more loot.
Meanwhile with DBD I open up the game for 5 minutes and get this
Full lobby of cheaters who healed in my face instantly and sped around the map for my first match of the day, one of whom was a flagrant racist and another being the first guy's little minion. This was, and this bares repeating, my first game today, I had the game open for 5 minutes, and the first game I get is this, kinda speaks for itself.
Now obviously this is a massive outlier, not every DBD player is a cheater and/or racist. But, I do still think its fair to say that DBD's community interactions aren't exactly nice. There's very few ways you can interact with people in DBD during a match, the few methods that do exist can easily be seen as BM, and end-game chat…well, when the most common advice related to end game chat is to close it and never open it for any reason other then saying gg at the end of a match I feel like something has gone very very wrong. I don't remember the last time I've had a positive interaction in EGC, I've had either completely nothing, examples like the above, or stuff like what literally just happened as I was writing this where a Anon Elodie gave up at 5 gens because I got a early hook, hid around the map and did nothing until I could abandon the match and move on, and then had the nerve to say MY gameplay was garbage. I repeat myself, you cannot make this stuff up.
I have played some multiplayer games in my time, but genuinely I have never encountered such a unendingly infuriating group of people like I have with DBD. My ever dwindling desire to actually play DBD has almost nothing to do with its gameplay, it's the knowledge that I'd be willingly subjecting myself to lobbies like this on repeat for however long I decide to play, Killer isn't fun because Survivors either give up for no reason or just have no idea what the hell they are doing, and SoloQ isn't fun for the exact same reason.
What makes this even more baffling to me is that the game quite literally has zero reason to be like this, DBD is a game where the stakes are so minimal they might as well be non-existent, as I've said before, the only difference between winning a game of DBD and losing a game of DBD is some challenges, maybe some achievements, and less then 10k bloodpoints. The player-base as a whole is this insufferable over what might as well be thin ######### air. If it was something like Rivals where a actual rank was on the line, then there'd at least be something resembling a excuse, but DBD doesn't have that, you are not rewarded for winning, you are not punished for losing, and for some reason incomprehensible to even Cthulhu the player-base of this game manages to be almost as bad as League over complete and utter nothing.
With that rant over, how exactly do we fix this issue? Well, for one, actually punishing bad behaviour, not strategies like tunnelling or slugging, actual bad behaviour, BMing, being a prick in chat, disrupting the flow of a match just because you don't feel like playing it through, people who do things like that should be given the boot, do something like what ARC does and add some conditions to the matchmaking where people who give up repeatedly or are otherwise disruptive are more likely to be paired with people who are also prone to giving up and being disruptive. More importantly then punishing bad actors though is rewarding good behaviour. You remember that DBD has a props system, right? That feature at the end of matches that does literally nothing? Why not give it a actual use? Survivor played well? Give them props and let them get a BP Multiplier next match, Killer gave you hatch? Give them props that does the same thing, how about also making it easier for people to communicate in matches to alleviate the frustrations of not knowing what your team are doing. Stuff like this where we were able to coordinate builds together in pre-game chat is really nice, make this the standard and encourage the players to do this more often.
There is only so much you can do on a Developer level to fix a game's toxicity problem though, the effort has to mostly come from the players. So, next time you're playing DBD, don't give up just because the match might not be going in your favour, maybe give the last guy hatch, or just give people compliments in end-game chat. It costs you nothing to be kind and not be a prick.
G'night
Comments
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With arc you have the option to pve rather than pvp. Instead of the obvious "slug for 4 mins" when you literally cant and dont need to.
In the dbd game, its all pvp no matter what unless you play friendly which you will never do.
Eventually arc will evolve like gta online or Rust did.
First friendly, eventually filled with sweats and campers who want nothing but to torture someone else ingame, just like dbd.
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Completely anecdotally, but DBD has gotten far better over time.
I have this one screenshot from years and years ago with a whole bunch of players whose names were slurs, live streaming on Twitch saying absolutely horrific things.
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I don't really play DBD much anymore and never played Arc Raiders. HellDiver 2 been my primary multi-player game the community there so well together and cooperative. The community is the biggest factor why I play HD2 and nearly quit DBD.
The DBDZ survivor player base the most entitled toxic dicks I've seen even worse than League of Legends. They'll throw every slur at the killer for just playing their role or how they played. Sometimes it's the survivors own fault that the situation happened. Unhooked when the killer is too close, touched a gen in the killer's face or ran to the killer? Better blame killer i guess. Positive that most of these toxic survivors don't even play killer past the baby MMR or understand how killer is needed to be played or how things work. The killer is not suppose to play nice.
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The issue of years of experience with DBD As the years go by, it becomes relatively peaceful. This is also the reason why beginners cannot compete against each other. The competitive spirit is especially high when playing as a killer.
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Your very accurate part about the stakes reminded me of Sayre's law, "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." Or, in more modern terms, "Its only game, why you have to be mad?"
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