The players are the problem
So, what do I mean by that?
It's really simple. The reason we can't have anything nice, the reason all the new players quit, the reason why "everyone tunnels/everyone is genrushing".
It's us. The "I HAVE to win" mentality, the constant Us VS Them arguments, the sheer, radioactive toxicity oozing out of every interaction between players.
BHVR doesn't help as much as they should. True. But what can you even do with a decrepit cesspit that the DbD community is?
Shouldn't the point of a game be to have fun? To have a break from stress and relax?
Comments
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There are people who play games specifically to have a competitive experience, rather than to relax. I like to do both :)
Personally I think DBD is the wrong game to play if you're looking for a competitive experience (there's several popular MOBAs, dozens of fighting games, several RTS with big communities, and a whole bunch of shooters ranging from Battle Royale to Hero Shooters to more standard FPS, all of which are better structured for that kind of thing).
I'd argue it's a clash between people like you and i (who agree DBD should be a more relaxing experience), against people who think the game ought to be treated as competitive, that's causing the problem. We think the game should be treated as casual, so when people hypersweat it annoys us, but those people probably get annoyed that people "aren't taking the game seriously." I also think the "us vs them" point you made also plays a huge part.
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The "I HAVE to win" mentalityShouldn't the point of a game be to have fun? To have a break from stress and relax?And what if to me the most fun i get in a game is if i win a hard, stressful match?
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The biggest gripe for me is when players gets mismatched so much, that the match is pretty much pre-determined in the lobby.
It becomes so lopsided, that one side barely gets to interact with anything, before they inevitably lose the match.Where are the nice, and even matches at?
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The “us vs them” is definitely the main reason for all the toxicity in the community. Most of the “us vs them” wouldn’t exist if everyone actually played both sides a relatively equal amount. Just look at all the posts around here with people calling others “killer mains” or “survivor mains” in a derogatory way and it’s not difficult to see where a vast majority of the toxicity is coming from.
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TBF, i think this is most out of how the devs handed and developed their game than a community fault. Of course, this community is quite harsh, but the devs did very few things to address toxicity, imbalance and bad matchmaking in this game through the years. The community is just a reflection of this lack of care - although they are trying more in the recent years.
Post edited by Rickprado on1 -
I feel this, honestly. The most fun I have in this game is when I'm doing little challenges, whether self-imposed, or just working through quests/tome challenges. I am pretty competitive by nature, and I do get pretty angry over the game sometimes, but I've never taken that out on anyone before. After every match, I try to have a nice interaction the post game chat no matter how I may be feeling at the end.
Dissatisfaction/anger at a video game is never an excuse for toxic behaviour. Getting tunneled out or genrushed is not an excuse for toxic behaviour, and even then, there are counter measures to those things in the game. We can all do better. People just need to recognise that. People need to learn to just say "ggwp" and then take a breather before going to their next game. Or don't say anything at all, even. Because it's never that deep. It's just a video game.
I've received some honestly vile threats from players in this game for the simple crime of being better than them, and I honestly think it's really quite sad that people have such extreme reactions to something that - at the end of the day - is extremely unimportant.
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I think the biggest problem with the game is that there are often wildly different expectations from the player base. Rather than committing to a clear direction for the game, BHVR is trying its best to keep everybody happy. That could be possible if the game grows to a point where it can sustain multiple modes. Ironically, a lot of the changes that do (or don't) come to the game to accommodate the more veteran players tend to drive away newcomers and casual players, so the game never grows and this casual vs competitive tension is never resolved.
Players feed into the problem in the sense that they often tell BHVR they want this, that or the other when in reality that's not really what they want at all. Take better match-making, which many players say is something they want. What a lot of players don't seem to realise is that this will make their games a lot sweatier because those 70%+ Kill rates and 50%+ escape rates have to come down for a fairer match-making system to work. At the top end, this will mean longer queue times, the same repeated opponents and less variety than they probably face currently.
It's puzzling to me when content creators ask for this because what they actually want is to be able to juggle talking to chat whilst simultaneously going on some absurd kill/escape/perk streak. You can have chill games or you can have competitive games, but you can't really have both. I'd prefer a solution that keeps the current looser match-making but gives weaker players some protection against being totally obliterated by a more experienced opposition.
Players might say they want an alternative to the exhaustion Survivor meta. But then BHVR created Made For This and people still complained because a small number of players could get insane value from the perk, especially when stacked with Hope. Then they decided to limit haste stacking and players complained yet again, because it would kill goofy builds like end game haste Legion, so that was shelved too. Personally, I'd rather have stronger individual haste perks over the option to stack but I guess that's just me (7% haste Batteries Included was so good).
Lots of recent changes have been about limiting options and railroading players into very specific play styles. Like being stealthy but active? Never mind, we're nerfing Distortion so that it's useless to anyone except the Survivors that like to take chase (they would never use this perk anyway). Like to bring a "selfish" back up perk in case your team is half dead at 5 gens? Cool. Let's nerf Wake Up! so it's only useful if you can stop your 50 hour Bill from being tunnelled out early. Stuff like this just pushes players away that don't want to conform to playing aggressively with constant Killer and Survivor interaction. There isn't much respect among the player base for different ways of enjoying the game. You could put the upcoming Spirit Fury nerf in this category too, although there's a good long term reason to make this change so I'm not certain of that. These are just a few examples.
I honestly don't think this community knows what it really wants from the game half the time. Do we want a goofy casual experience or a more balanced "competitive" one? I don't know.
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I don't disagree with the sentiment here but this is quite literally a PvP game. 'I have to win' is not some rare disease that snuck in through the cracks, it was literally baked into the cake. The idea of us being the problem is very, very accurate however that's much like blaming a blueberry for being blue. BHVR built this into their cake - they cannot then act surprised, indeed no one can, when there's blueberries in their cake.
Yes it doesn't need to be quite as toxic, but all PVP games garner greater toxicity than their PvE cousins. Even Chess, in all its glorious balance and grounded traditions, is known for having a great deal of toxicity, anger, and poor sportsmanship in its tourney wings. DbD is not somehow exempt from that condition just because the fostered community is somehow less desirable to the dev as a result.
We can mitigate some toxicity, certainly, but approaching the DbD experience from the angle of 'it's just a game bro' is not productive. True, yes, but it's not productive. The overwhelming majority of sports fans, competitors in tourneys, and even uno games can inspire a level of infuriation in people that 'It's just a game' does nothing to balm the burn of. This is a PvP Game, and as a result the walk-in is an expectation is not 'I'm going to play to have a jolly good old time!' but instead is 'I'm going to play to win.'
That's the very premise of this genre of games. Acting surprised or attempting to convince people the game is not based on 'I'm playing to win' is, while very mature, not going to bare any fruit I think.-1 -
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Thi bis why we should have a competitive ranked playlist separate from a casual one. Despite all the tournaments etc dbd is not designed to be a balanced competitive experience.
Majority of dbd games are a landslide one way or the other. Not fun games. Heck when I play killer I'm honestly bored of 4ks. I have much more fun playing hardball until I have control of the game. Then i usually take it back a notch and let at least 1 survivor go. Because I know in my mind that I had the win secured, I beat the team. So why bother chasing the 4k after that? I let one or two go and lose a few bp but they get a better game. And gain way more BP than I gave up. If more people tried to make the game a little more pleasant for others, the gsme would be much better
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I don't disagree with your first point, and I often do the same in regards of letting people go in landslides. But the fact of the matter is that we're making a choice to let those people go. Game balance cannot be weighted upon player choices. That would not be game balance, that would simply be a community preference. Balance of a game has to exist first and foremost outside of player choices before factoring them.
The game not being balanced or incentivized in a particular fashion is not something that can be easily dismissed. It may, by example, be considered in some circles a rude play to take a pawn with a knight on turn three of Chess but that does not make the move illegal, it just makes the move discouraged. There's a difference between game balance and social expectations of a given game and we'd be playing the fool to not acknowledge them.
You're absolutely right in that DbD is not balanced for a competitive experience, but unfortunately it is a competitive experience. There are defined losers and defined winners. You can 'lose' a match, and when you do so your opposition 'wins' that match. I'd love to see a world in which letting people go is more and more common, but hoping for others to adopt that mentality is just that, a hope. There's no meaningful incentive to do so, and the very game genre itself exists in counter-intuitive opposition to the act.
Perhaps this could be alleviated by blurring the lines on what it means to win, or lose, a bit further and creating a gradient? I'm not personally fond of the idea but it is tennable. The recent survey did spend no small amount of time focused on what people consider a win or a loss after-all. If the results of those surveys are taken to the direction we discuss, perhaps we'll see more and more meaningful incentives given to Killers to not aim for a 4K with consistency. It would be nice knowing that letting a survivor go at the end of a match would see meaningful reward, and not just be a gamble of whether I'll be tea-bagged at the gates.1 -
"I'm not responsible for your fun, therefore I'm legally obligated to slug in the 1v2 every time for the 4k"
people like this are why people don't stick around. complete lack of empathy. I enjoy upsetting these people because quite frankly, they're a net negative to the community experience.
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- I'm a player who LOVES good games and I don't care about winning at all. But when I play survivor mode, I simply get depressed, both because of the MMR that REALLY randomizes matchups, and because of the killer... some are so bad that they can't win even with hard tunneling and a full set of slowdown perks, the situation is really worrying. Sometimes I ask myself "Am I so bad at the game that I should be put in a match with this killer?" Where are the REALLY exciting games? Maybe 1 in ten.
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BHVR doesn't help as much as they should. True. But what can you even do with a decrepit cesspit that the DbD community is?
They could have a backbone? They're the ones in control. Just because you're players are a bunch of whiny babies doesn't mean you have to bend to them. Push things through and adjust accordingly. Stop listening to everyone who loudly proclaims they'll quit over every little thing even though they won't. Because for everyone of these, there's 10 more quitting silently because they've had actually enough.
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Aren't you kind of exemplifying the OP's point? You are not DbD Batman. Targetting people out of the community because you don't like their behavior isn't righteous or just. It's just trying to upset someone because you enjoy it, which is markedly lacking empathy in itself.
Not that I can't relate, mind you. I'm no saint. I've had my own bouts of 'they deserved it' and should strive to be better as well.-2 -
The toxic game mechanics attract such people. BHVR is totally at fault cause they just promotes those playstyles instead of getting rid of them to have a fun game for everyone.
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I'm tempted to agree, but out of curiosity, can you think of a way to make DbD Fun for everyone? I've been trying lately and I can't come up with a way to do it, given the competitive nature of the game. It's particularly rough for the survivors, as even if there's only one kill a match that's always 25% of the survivors sitting on the hook doing not much but dying. Assuming you could find a way to get Killer to be happy with only killing one and that being fun, you're still isolating 20% of the matches players into oblivion.
Legitimately, any ideas? I'm curious, but I can't come up with much that has any sticking power.0 -
Never forget that the community wanted a dev fired for having a joke quote about not liking SM. We are often awful as a community, and the devs are right to be scared of us.
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It doesnt matter if people are satisfied with one kill or not. Its about the core mechanics that are actually just pain out of hell. Just get rid of tunneling, camping and slugging and look how the core game works out. But BHVR is just afraid of making the game fun for everyone, so they hard cater to killer since years.
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Its impossible to make it fun for EVERYONE. What survivors find fun, the killer might not. What the killer finds fun, survivors might not.
If you can find a solution that would make everyone happy and enjoy the game then you should put forward a proposal to BHVR lol.
I do know 1 thing, remove tunneling, camping, slugging and i wouldnt find the game fun as killer or survivor.
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This, effectively. I would be fine with tunnelling, slugging, and camping being hard-coded out if the reasons Killers needed those tools were also removed. But I suspect we'd just find something else to fight about at that point, sadly.
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This is why we can't have nice things.
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I think the OP meant more something like "I have to win at any cost".
I want to sacrifice (or mori) survivors as a killer, and I want get myself and as many people as possible out as a survivor. But that doesn't mean winning is so important that I become toxic to others or needlessly use tactics, that limit their ability to play the game.
Some Tactics like Hard tunneling and facecamping kinda limit other peoples ability to play and to grow . I usuallly try to spread hooks for that reason, so every player gets some time to play. And I definitely "win" less because of that. But I think it's worth it for a better community.
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I understood, but the topic is sadly so broad it's hard to touch on each nuance whilst painting in broad strokes. I also like to (when I'm doing a little too well against a team) let people go or just 2 hook. But if I see things like SWF flags, call outs, headon+flashbang, the standards? Then I will tunnel immediately.
I'm not out to ruin peoples nights, don't get me wrong here. I reserve advanced tactics for advanced tactics. But my perspective is likely skewed in that I don't play an S-tier killer. If I see survivors employing advanced, sweaty tactics I know at once these people are not here to have a good time with me, and act accordingly. When I see four flashlights, similar response. If I see the opposing team is sporting high-end competitive tactics, I bring tunnelling and slugging to the forefront, as those are the only responses I actually have in my toolkit in many cases.
But if I blast through 8 hooks before they complete more than 1 gen? Yeah, pretty good chance I'm just going to let them go because they clearly got an unfair MMR matchup and that's not their fault.1 -
nobody else will discourage the behaviour. when I play killer, if I see the last survivors sure I may slug to finish it so we can all move on faster, but to just drag the matches out is torture.
I make attempts to keep finishing the generators, even with 2 survivors at 5 gens. however, if the killer makes it impossible, I will keep making that attempt in good faith. if that means the killer could have played 1 or 2 whole matches if they just hooked, so be it. maybe they'll think of me the next time they try it. I'm just thinking of the next people, I was born with too much empathy.
these killers will always end up resorting to teaming with the survivors because they get upset that I'm simply too good at not being caught
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You are right that it is a competitive game, or at least it can be.
But, due to how it's designed, you are not supposed to win every time, over and over again with a 100% kill/escape rate. Kill streaks are an anomaly, not the norm.
Some people swear they "cant win without running full meta and tunneling", but that raises a question: Maybe you are not supposed to be at that high of a level? I don't get why people strive to get to the top MMR, and then complain the game is sweaty.
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True.
Old BHVR made some really questionable decisions, but they at least commited to them. Mostly.
Nowadays they just spew out random things and roll it back if enough complaints arise.
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They tried to do that, remember? Extreme hiding prevention, anti-tunnel, anti-slug, go next punishments?
Everyone exploded with toxicity and instead of nuanced adjustments, we got a few sledgehammers and ground up everything into a pulp.
They literally tried, and the community screamed no.
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I don't understand why you would make this point. Because what is anybody supposed to do with this information? The players can't change. The game can.
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I disagree.
The players can, in fact, change. For example, we could, I don't know, stop vetoing EVERY. Single. Update. BHVR is trying to implement?
Half of the QOL stuff was removed because the community moaned and wanted nothing to do with it.
The game can change, and the devs CAN do changes, but they have to stop listening to all the overwhelmingly negative people. And I bet if they do that, then everyone starts crying that they aren't being listened to.
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Assuming this is about the cancelled anti-gameplay updates. Despite all the fearmongering, there was many valid criticisms that i believed in and i also believe it's what the devs agreed with as well because i found they demonstrated that clearly in a community stream. I found their conclusion that it would make the game worse overall reasonable.
Fearmongering is not something i support or partake in, but it happens because people want their concerns to acknowledged and they don't have the capacity to do anything more.
So i do not believe that the players were at fault here. I actually think the blame still traces back to BHVR.
They should not have promised these anti-systems so far in advance because it felt like the solutions that were proposed and tested were rather basic, something that i imagine any designer could have come up with in weeks at most.
So players that see these issues as a large source of frustration had their expectations built up. I can understand the disappointment that they were scrapped but the solutions were radical and i think bhvr was right to cancel them. I just think they were foolish to promise it, in general the QOL initiative was too ambitious because they were practically expected themselves to do more things with basically the same amount of time. It was only until the awful release of TWD did they realise that they actually needed to slow down if they want to take QOL seriously.0
