My theory on how the Devs accidentally made the DBD community so toxic
It was clear from the start that the Devs favored survivors. After all, they're the good guys, right? So they deserved to have a good chance of escaping, even if their teammates were absolute potatoes. But how?
Well, first, give them a bunch of second chance perks. It would be boring if the killer won without putting much effort in, wouldn't it? And let's make the survivors' objective faster and easier than the killer's, since they're already going to have to stop working in order to be chased.
Oh, and give them some extra generators so that the killer can't just stand at one and block it, or just patrol two generators. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?
Second, let's put in vault spaces that survivors can jump through quickly, but killers have to slowly climb through. Lets put these in strategic places so that survivors can literally be chased around in circles for five minutes while their teammates repair generators, risking their own hide to help their friends. After all, it's a team game, right?
Oh, and add in shipping pallets, so that the survivors can stun the killer and create temporary vault spaces that survivors can slide over even faster than vaulting a regular space. This looks a little bit over-powered, so lets allow killers to break them. If they lock their camera to the ground and stand still for three seconds.
Now, third, those generator sounds are pretty loud, so lets give the survivors an early warning whenever a killer comes within a short distance, say 32 meters, or 105 feet. Lets also give the killers a red spotlight coming from their eyes, so that survivors can see where they're coming from and what's in their FoV.
Fourth, speaking of FoV, lets put the survivors in third person, so that they can see the killer even easier, and put the killer in first person, so they really have to work to find the survivors.
Fifth, lets make it so that the killer, when they do down a survivor, they have to transport them to a hook in order to really benefit from it. Lets give the survivors a chance to jump out of the killers arms and stun them, so that they can get away. After all, it's not their fault that they lost what was essentially two consecutive chases!
And while we're at it, let's let survivors sabotage hooks, making them unusable. Also, to make sure that the killer doesn't stay in the same spot for too long and be boring, lets make it so that hooks break after one sacrifice. And lets let the survivors get hooked twice before they're guaranteed to be sacrificed.
Sixth, in the event that your teammates somehow all get killed or sacrificed, let's put in a trapdoor for them to escape. Don't worry, even if the killer tries to close it, your actions take priority, so you can escape even if the killer technically started closing it before you even got there. And even if they do close it, you can just use a key!
Okay, now for the killer. You know, the power role.
First, lets give them weapons. They are, after all, monsters and serial killers. So, regardless of their weapons, they injure survivors on the first hit and knock them down on the second. Also, after the every hit, the survivor gets a massive speed boost, and the killer has to stop to clean clean their weapon.
Second, lets give the killer the power to grab survivors out of certain animations, and out of lockers too. But, to give survivors a chance against this, their actions once again have priority, so they can cancel the killers grab. After all, maybe they didn't hear the killer coming.
Third, lets give the killers all unique powers that change the entire playstyle of character. And give a couple of them hard counters. In the form of items and generally situational perks. Fun.
Fourth, how about some one-time use offerings that allow the killer to kill survivors themselves? That would be so cool! It's not like it'll annoy survivors due to being severely overpowered, and we'll nerf it without any warning, annoying all the killers!
Yeah that's it. Oh, wait, bugs that we'll never fix unless they make the killer stronger.
Now, most if not all of these things individually are cool and fine, but altogether it overwhelmingly favors survivors.
So not many people wanted to play killer.
So wait times for survivors were extremely long.
So survivors would be extra annoyed when the killers use bullshit tactics in order to "guarantee" win.
And even when survivors win, "Hey, I just beat Micheal Myers! I'm so cool!"
So they make fun of the killer, who feels like they never had a fair chance in the first place.
This isn't even mentioning the lack of intervention from the Devs, the sheer grind of the game, the nearly pay-to-win mentality, the poor tutorial making it difficult for people to learn the game without heavy use of outside material, or the perk system being used as a band-aid solution for virtually any and every problem.
All of this contributes to a toxic, unhelpful community that runs rampant with bullying and cheating.
Note: If you look at the opinions of people outside of the community, upon gaining an understanding of how the game functions, even if they've never interacted with the community, they generally think that the game is survivor sided.
I was trying to make a reasonable argument, so please try to consider this argument despite my obvious bias.
Comments
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Sry, but u are just talking about ur frustration as killer and not about a decent explanation for the toxicity trend.
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The toxicity has nothing to do with all that. It just comes from the fact that the game kinda encourage people to mainly play one role in this asymetrical game, and thus tend to totally forget the idea that the other side is also human, and is doing what it needs to win the game.
It's particularly present on the survivor side where they think pulling all the tricks in the book is fine, but when the killer does it to is very bad and toxic.
One way to reduce that toxicity would be let people play more of both sides rather than focus on a single one.
Bringing back the quick swap from killer to survivor (and vice versa) that was present in the loby before starting to queue would be a good start, having it there is a constant reminder that you can just go play the other side of the game.
Another way to do that would be to have an indicator of the queue times for both sides and give incentives to people for playing the underrepresented side (like more bp and XP). Not only it will smooth out the queue time, but it will also bring people out of their lil corner and experience the other side more often.
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The reason this community is so toxic is that there are a lot of really stupid people that just love blaming things for being bad at the game. No names mentioned.
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What I'm trying to say is that the mechanics were implemented without any idea of how incentives or human behaiviour work.
The lack of QoL makes people feel powerless, which makes them feel frustrated, and frustration fuels anger, which fuels toxicity and tribalism.
I wasn't giving a solution, just pointing out the problems that I saw.
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Words.
Also, the whole "getting trashed by the devs" narative you are building here Beelzeboop is mostly true for the killers, but guess what? They arent the side that is overwhelmingly toxic.
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Most of this doesn't really make sense, but the gist of why the game is so toxic and how the Devs are involved comes down to the fact that they thought it would be thematic.
I'm not kidding, that is how they justify things like hardcore tunneling, facecamping, t-bagging, etc. They want us to be frustrated.
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I was aware of the phenomena, but I never thought of it that way.
I apologize for my poor writing, but my writing style is flow of mind.
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Not exactly, they have said that they don't want to take away player autonomy. You have a choice if you want to play toxic or not. You are blaming the devs for choices made by the players, the devs just don't intervene.
As for the mechanics of the game, they exist to make it actually a game.
There are 7 gens because if a killer could just camp 1 or 2 gens to win, the game would be pointless.
Windows and pallets exist to give the chases some sort of excitement, some way that they prey can escape or hinder the hunter.
The hatch was added to stop the last survivor from just hiding until the killer DC's from boredom. Because the last survivor was never going to do the gens.
I don't think the devs prioritize one side over the other, things that unbalance the game have been added, others have been removed. I look forward to the DS nerf, I also look forward to changes to Freddy.
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Yes really, they have said both. They very, very clearly stated that they want the game to feel frustrating, in response to one of their numerous questions about toxicity. One does not cancel out the other, though one is clearly far more awful a reason than the other.
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Literally every gaming community has a toxic side. Why do you guys get so worked up over it.
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The devs did not make the game toxic or at least I doubt they created the game with that intention, you think that economically the owners like it when the players get fed up and stop playing their game because the attitude of the community, the players (all of us) are the ones who have a toxic attitude and devs can´t do anything, they don´t have the control to change people's behavior even if they improve the game the community will remain whiny, complaining and toxic, In general the people cannot have anything beautiful, everything must be corrupted.
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The stuff I agree most with is hatch existing, and hooks being destroyed after a sacrifice. Neither mechanic belongs in this game, they don't make any sense, they make the killer's life harder for no good reason, etc.
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We need the quick switch killer/survivor button back. It made the main lobby feel so smooth and accessible. I definitely noticed when it wasn't there anymore.
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Really?
It is MLG/Streamer culture that makes a game toxic.
I know because I long ago played smite..When It first came out a large amount of people where super chill and If someone was being a dingus people would tell em to pipe down or get reported...Then, the MLG tournaments started happening and those kind of people invaded the game. A game where everyone was having a good time and being silly turned into tryhard town. taunting, spaming reactions cause someone is not picking the god you wanted It...It went to #########.
The problem is a lot of people now film themselves playing games and do not play them for fun as much as to get something as a result they got something to prove. On top of that every match of DBD is in fact a rank mode Which drives salt even higher.
It also does not help the ranking system is jank on bothsides and only rewards plays for drawing out matches to the point of being toxic. and playing the scumyiest ways possible.
Killers are expect in a game they are winning to basically pull the wings off the flies and just chase survivors around and torture them. I can confirm this cause when I run my "one punch Myers" build I only ever get brutal because I end chases really quick and no one wants to save anyone after I down the first dude.
Survivors are rewarded for disrespecting the Killer, in fact they game basically wants them not to play like they have brains and run around being a Ikea employing and showing the killer every piece of wood in range. You can be a sneaky boi, never get cought save people off hook to most the gens..But, If you did not make the Killer chase you thou 100 windows..tsk,tsk you only don't Depip.
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So they don't know that people play video games for fun.
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"Freddy's getting changed because he's OP. I don't know why he's OP, he just is." -A dev
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Because the devs literally encourage it, because those types of people are willing to spend money on this game. That's why this community is more toxic than CoD.
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Same. I have no idea why they have removed it tbh, having it alway present was a good way to push people to just... take a break of their side and check the other one from time to time.
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Ego si the main reason of toxicity in this game. It is too easy to be rank 1 on both sides and little kids think they are gods because of it to make up for being loser irl.
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Eh, imo, it stems from the fact that it feels good to humiliate the other side.
Here's a really good Reddit post about it
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No; you are wrong and biased. There is a much more simple reason for why DbD exists in its current form. To explain it I'll have to tell you about Ded Bob:
Ded Bob is a ventriloquist act where the performer didn't have to learn to throw his voice. It is pure genius. Dead by Daylight is a video game where the coders didn't have to design Bots. All they had to do initially was create maps and basic mechanics and let the Players do all the work. It is the video game equivalent of The Ded Bob Show. Why work harder when you can work smarter? Bots are time consuming and a far more challenging endeavor than maps, Perks, etc. And even the best Bots can never adapt and challenge like people.
So the game is not Survivor-sided or Killer-sided; the company knew from the start for this to continue to work they needed Players for both roles. Their job has been the rough balancing back and forth to maintain their crazy, high-wire act. In a way, they took an easy shortcut but are now paying the price in the long run for it. With each additional Perk, Killer, etc. added to the game it becomes harder and harder to keep things roughly balanced. It will be interesting to see how long they can keep it up before they "must" simplify the game back down to something like what the first started with.
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Or maybe it has more to do with the individuals themselves?
I’ve seen people rage in other games too which lead to toxic comments, so this isn’t exclusive to DBD. It exists in other pvp-based communities.
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bro if you wanted to play a game without mechanics go purchase a 99 cent asset flip on steam
second chance perks CAN be annoying (although once DS is changed it'll be less so), but if those perks didn't exist this game would be even more of a tunnel-fest.
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The hatch actually has a good reason to exist, but not in it's current state.
If we just outright removed it and didn't implement any sort of mechanic like it, there would rarely be a reason for the last survivor to do anything but DC, because they would have almost no way to win at that point.
It should be a test of skill, as opposed to a test of "Did you find the hatch after your teammates died?" It should be more of "Were your teammates absolute potatoes and you had no chance of saving them?"
You should have to earn your victory, as opposed to having it handed to you.
I don't have much that I can argue with in your point, other than
- the windows, and
- the lack of prioritization.
The vault spaces are near unnecessary at this point in the games development. The survivors essentially get the ability to pass through certain walls, chase-wise, and they have good enough perks and items that they can already draw out a chase for five minutes even with a chase-based killer, without looping or vaulting. I know because it's happened to me, and, despite what several people have assumed from me complaining at all, I am not actually a bad player.
On the priority issues... god, just look at the rift right now. I don't mean to be rude, but look. If a killer main wants to finish the rift, or even progress to part three, they have to play the Nurse. This is a character that has had almost no bugfixes, but had a nerf fairly recently. A nerf not actually designed to make her harder to stomp survivors as, but to make her more difficult to learn.
This is just one example, and I literally just woke up, so I'm kind of exhausted moment, so I'm gonna stick with this response, regardless of how weak it is.
This is true, but I wanted to look at it from a perspective other than "People are inherently toxic," (though I'm not disputing that) because I've seen PvP communities that were actually really wholesome once you got to know them.
I was thinking it may have roots in the mechanics and the behavior of the developers.
@Moundshroud, I can't really formulate a functional response to you right now, but I thought it was worth saying that starting your argument with saying "No, you are wrong and biased," is a terrible way to present your argument, even if it is true.
Would you want to listen to someone whose opening statement sounds like a poorly formed ad-hominem?
Once again, I'm not really disputing what you've said, more of critiquing the way you presented it.
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No, I'm not going to waste time on being dishonest. The reason things are they way they are is because it was the least expensive way for the company to populate the game.
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Do you even play? Killer animations always take priority.
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Literally just the other day I was in the middle of closing the hatch (as in, animation a quarter way done) and the last survivor ran up and jumped down it. While I was holding space. This happened to my brother on the same day, on a different map, with a different killer, and a different survivor.
The same thing happens with grabbing survivors off of generators. The game even delayed my attack in order to start the grab animation, but unlike with lockers, it doesn't lock the survivors in place in any way, just the killer.
Weapon hits are decided on killer's side, grabs and the hatch are server side (survivor priority), and pallet hits are decided on the survivor side.
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Oh, and give them some extra generators so that the killer can't just stand at one and block it
Lol I stopped reading at this...
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I think people need to just try to relax and realise dad is just a game. You’re going to get “toxic” (hate using that cringe terminology) in every game. Granted I’ve only been playing for a few days but I’ve already had dozens of inflammatory messages and I either just chuckle or facepalm. Be the bigger person. I know it can feel personal, but at the end of the day they’re just random strangers messing about in a computer game and most of them are probably kids/teens doing what they do.
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I wanted to say that I wasn't saying it was a bad idea. I was mostly trying to think about it from the dev's perspectives.
Except the Mori thing. They handled Memento Moris so poorly they don't deserve to be taken seriously.
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All video game communities are toxic and that is something that will never change the problem is how much will you let that affect you.
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