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Why is toxicity seemingly accepted in this community?
Let's first define toxicity, so that we're on the same page:
- Slugging a survivor and bleeding them out for 4 minutes, even when there are hooks nearby and no threat of sabo
- Camping and tunneling on purpose to be toxic, and throwing the game in the process, as long as the survivor dies (Camping and tunneling isn't always toxic, sometimes it's a strategy albeit a damaging one)
- T-bagging in the exit gate and or doing rushed actions to get the killers attention when they've lost
- Hitting on hook multiple times, and not just to stop the scream
- Being nasty in the end game chat
Any time a survivor or killer is seen doing these things, the general consensus is to "grow thicker skin" and "get over it" however, this is just not helpful. I find myself trying to ignore these things, but when they happen over and over, it is THE one thing that makes me want to Alt + F4. And I'm not the only one.
There are other games where this type of behavior is not allowed and where you can even be banned for it. Why is that not the case here? Why doesn't BHVR try to at least encourage people to be good sports and be kind to the people they face?
The killer you just demolished is a real person, with feelings. You don't have to rub it in. Neither do you need to rub it in when you tunnel one person out of the game at 5 gens and hit them on hook as they die, only to tell them "loop better" in the end game chat.
I know, I sound like I'm whining. And yeah, I am. It's because I just cannot understand why this has been going on for so long and still no attempt has been made to try to rectify the problem. Toxicity is a very detrimental thing to online games, but also mental health.
It keeps people who simply do not have the means to "have thick skin" from playing a game they bought and are trying to enjoy. I can personally say that the one thing burning me out of this game is not the sweaty "high MMR" players who 4k or escape every match, it's the toxic ones that go out of their way to ruin my gameplay experience.
It's not difficult to be a kind person. There is no excuse and it should be cracked down on.
Comments
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I agree with you people should be nicer but there has been a lot of people being toxic since the games launch. Edit: by this I mean some people have given up trying to fight it and have given up which is unfortunate. Back to original post: This is one of the reasons I play both survivor and killer. I always play a nice friendly killer sometimes I let surviors get a four man escape and not attack them at all. Both sides of the community are toxic but I find gameplay wise camping and tunneling tend to cause survivors to become toxic. This is how I find myself feeling so I take a break from survivor and play one or two matches of killer.
Also when you say camping and tunneling isn't toxic do you mean endgame situations and if a survivor is being toxic.
It is unfortunate that people don't seem to realize that toxicity can ruin a game that they find fun. To anyone who feels this way youu have my sympathy.
Here is a link to a post I made a while ago with some comments which I think you might want to look at.
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/346401/why-is-our-community-toxic#latest
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I do agree with you. It's not hard to be kind. But I find it hard to please anybody in this game to he honest. Some players are offended by the smallest things like: gens go fast, meme builds or meme addons. Even when you as killer outplay the survivor, this can be their breaking point to he nasty to you.
A positive and negative report system would be an idea maybe but how it stands, it would probably only get abused for malicious purposes
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I agree with you particularly with the last bit. Some players get so upset by almost the smallest things.
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By toxic camping and tunneling I mean when the killer does it to be toxic, and not just to win. It's evident to me when this is the case because they will usually accompany it by nodding at you, hitting you on hook, and then trash-talking you in end game chat, but even more evident when they throw the entire game doing it just to make sure you die.
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Tunneling and camping are stragedies to win games as fast as possible. Same as gen rush. They're not toxic. But try hard or sweaty definetely. There are some cases when they can be (killer commiting someone 5 gens) but even then they are usually stragedies to secure at least kill or two.
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I think finding your own fun is very important in dbd.
I would prefer any other way because I dislike the constant hostility and negativity.
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By toxic camping and tunneling it's less that it's the camping and tunneling, but more that they do it to make sure you die, nodding at you, hitting you on the hook, trash-talking in end game chat, and even throwing the game in the process. So in other words, not doing it to win. Tunneling and camping as a strategy to win is a separate issue I also have problems with, but I don't consider it toxic.
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Yes like I said I am not talking about that. It's a separate issue (but a real one, nonetheless).
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First all, wholeheartedly agree that there's no need to rub it in if you won. It's sad that some folks go out of their way to do it.
This might be a hot take, but it really isn't. When you ask around, things like teabagging in the exit gates or leaving someone slugged for 4 minutes are generally frowned upon. Usually the only people who will come to their defense are the people who are doing it themselves or their friends. Even this thread (so far at least) has multiple people saying that don't support toxic behaviour.
That said, there is also a difference between someone defending that sort of behaviour and suggesting to not let it bother you as much as it is. This is the position I see most people take. Something like teabagging, for example, has been around in games almost as long as crouching. At some point, people become jaded to it and it doesn't bother them as much. That doesn't mean they think it's a good thing to do, just that it doesn't bother them.
It's also very easy to get caught in a bubble that feels a certain way. If you go to Reddit, for example, threads where people catch and kill Survivors who decided to stick around and teabag in the exit gates are very common, and the comments are always filled with people who are against sticking around to taunt. A lot of it really depends on who you surround yourself with. If you're typically hanging around people/spaces with a lot of negativity, things start to seem a lot more negative. There is also something called the negativity bias, where a negative experience is more likely to stand out than a positive one. This can often make it seem like many people welcome toxicity, when in reality, most people do not support it.
There are exceptions, of course. There are some folks who perpetuate toxicity. Someone might have a bad match and then decide to take their frustrations out in the next one - even though those people may have done nothing to deserve it. Ultimately it comes down to immaturity or apathy for other people. The way people act when they're hidden behind a screen is often disappointing, even outside of gaming.
To touch on why we don't ban for some of these, it usually comes down to proving intent. Something like leaving a Survivor slugged could be the Killer's option if there's no hooks nearby and the Survivor is trying to take advantage of it. Trying to carry them to a hook might allow them to wiggle free. Or alternatively, if multiple Survivors are slugged, the Killer might not want to pick someone up in case one of the Survivors has Unbreakable and uses the opportunity to save the others. Things like camping and tunneling are also very tricky because it's borderline impossible to prove intention. Short of someone admitting they're doing it to ruin the fun for you, there's no way to tell what was going through their head. For all we know, they could have thought that was the best move in the situation. They are also very natural things for people to want to do at the end of the day; many new Killers think camping is the optimal strategy because they simply do not know any better. It's not unreasonable for someone to think, "I just worked hard to catch this person, I better stay here and make sure they don't get unhooked."
Bans are something we need to take very seriously. People paid to play the game, and taking that ability away cannot be treated lightly. We can't have situations where we accidentally ban people because we think they might be breaking the rules. Accidents can happen, but removing ambiguity is one of the best ways to prevent them from happening. For this reason, we stick to very clear cut cases where there can be no doubt.
The short version, more often than not, people don't actually support toxicity. But it can really depend on the types of people you're around and what you view as supporting versus simply not caring.
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I mostly agree with you but there are times where there is no doubt at all that the person is doing it to be toxic. If the killer is JUST tunneling and camping, that's probably just a gameplay strategy. But when they do that, and on top of that, do every other toxic thing in the book, it's very obviously done to ruin someone else's fun. 99% of the time when I am slugged out for 4 minutes it's not because of a lack of hooks, it's because the killer wants to waste 4 minutes of my time to be rude. Their behavior in the end game chat also confirms that.
I'm not advocating for straight up bans, but something like a reputation system or something to discourage this kind of behavior would be appreciated. Other games have them, why can't dbd?
A replay-system would also let devs see how the player is acting both in game and with end game chats logged as well (when someone reports) this would make it easier to understand intention. One thing you should definitely do, is teach new players to not play in a way that is considered bad for the game. You have a tutorial, why not use it to teach people how to play in a way that everyone will enjoy?
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'Toxicity' is supported by the gameplay elements. (I only consider no-agency scenarios as 'toxic', but even then I wouldn't use that word.) In the early Halo days, the most toxic you could be was a 1-2s teabag on the person you killed before they respawn, but you were still open to being killed by someone else in that time frame. In DBD, you can 4 minute bleedout because there is no surrender option. Even being facecamped still gives you the option to kobe/give-up on hook, so the choice is between best for you (go next) or best for your team (stay on hook while they pump gens).
Teabagging after a pallet loses time in chase that could be used to make distance, and at the exit gates can be forced out. The Killer still has agency. Hitting on hook opens the Survivor up to be rescued without a free hit on their rescuer. Those circumstances largely disadvantage the 'toxic' player in order to do.
Tunneling could have DS reverted to 5s, and is bizarre to me they (BHVR) ever thought the lack of anti-tunnel wouldn't lead to any path other than more tunneling.
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i play to have fun so i dont tunnel camp or do any toxic things
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Slugging a survivor and bleeding them out for 4 minutes.
Sometimes can't be helped. When survivors run flashlights, get down in a pallet with teammates clearly in the area, or teammates been breaking hooks. Also when the survivor crawls off and can't be found in time.
Camping and tunneling on purpose to be toxic (Camping and tunneling isn't always toxic)
Sometimes tunneling out a survivor is the best course of action. Not because the survivor deserves it but that the other three are harder to catch. Even an extreme example when a killer camps the first survivor they catch shouldn't be considered toxic. Toxic would be targeted aggression towards another player. Not a generalize strategy they always use.
T-bagging in the exit gate and or doing rushed actions to get the killers attention when they've lost
Agree. Fast vaulting at an exit just so they can gloat is toxic. It serves no benefit to the survivor. Now on its own t-bagging at the exit isn't real toxic. When paired with other behaviors it can be.
Hitting on hook (This depends on the context)
Agree. Continuously hitting a hooked survivor is toxic. Unless the other survivors are dumb and stays around the hook, it serves no benefit to the killer.
Being nasty in the end game chat.
A big issue with the game yet there are those that still want voice chat built in.
Now there are more toxic things in dbd not listed. Survivors can be just as toxic as the killer ones listed. Mainly SWFs that play with the purpose of tormenting the killer other than trying to play the game.
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I want to reiterate that I am aware that a lot of these are context dependent. I do not blame the killer for slugging me for 4 minutes when there is a sabo squad or no hooks are nearby and as such will usually crawl to a place where there is so we can both move on if it's the endgame, nor do I blame them for camping when there are survivors swarming the hook, or tunneling when a survivor farms me infront of them for no reason.
What I am referring to is when these things are done with the end goal being to be toxic. I have been bled out for 4 minutes many times and in most cases it's not actually because the killer is forced to, but because they want to be rude.
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We disagree on toxicity
- Slugging a survivor and bleeding them out for 4 minutes
- Sometimes this can't be helped. At least once or twice a day, i get someone who is the last survivor, all the other survivors are dead, and they crawl to a corner making them unhookable. So, now i risk leaving them, looking for the hatch, and maybe they find it. Or i pick them up, let them wiggle off, and look for the hatch. The only way to make sure i get them at that point, is to let them bleed out.
- Camping and tunneling on purpose to be toxic (Camping and tunneling isn't always toxic)
- Camping and tunneling, even on purpose, is not toxic. Sometimes camping and tunneling are the most effective strategies to win a game. And if that is the case, you should not be getting mad at the player for employing it, you should be mad at the devs for allowing it.
- T-bagging in the exit gate and or doing rushed actions to get the killers attention when they've lost
- I agree with you on this one, but mostly because its just wasting everyone's time.
- Hitting on hook (This depends on the context)
- Again, context is important, but several survivors have extremely loud screams and i hit them to stop it.
- Being nasty in the end game chat
- This one i agree with you.
You need to stop thinking that actions someone is doing in the game is "toxic" using a strategy to win, even if you don't like it, is not toxic. It is playing to win. And if you think camping or tunneling is "toxic" then you are by definition a "scrub" I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, but in a definitional sense. I suggest reading the free e-book by game designer David Sirlin, "Playing to Win", https://www.sirlin.net/ptw here is in excerpt from that book.
The derogatory term “scrub” means several different things. One definition is someone (especially a game player) who is not good at something (especially a game). By this definition, we all start out as scrubs, and there is certainly no shame in that. I mean the term differently, though. A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.
Now, everyone begins as a poor player—it takes time to learn a game to get to a point where you know what you’re doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or “learn” the game, one can become a top player. In reality, the “scrub” has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He’s lost the game even before deciding which game to play. His problem? He does not play to win.
The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevents him from ever truly competing. These made-up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. Let’s take a fighting game off of which I’ve made my gaming career: Street Fighter.
In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.
You will not see a classic scrub throw his opponent five times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimizes his chances of winning? Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you—that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap. Street Fighter was just one example; I could have picked any competitive game at all.
Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. That is true by definition of playing to win. The game knows no rules of “honor” or of “cheapness.” The game only knows winning and losing.
A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. You have the power to dispatch those who would tell you otherwise, anyway. Simply beat them.
3 - Slugging a survivor and bleeding them out for 4 minutes
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I have clearly not been thorough enough in defining how I perceive toxicity, so I've edited my post in hopes to clear up future confusion.
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I don't think you're whining. I think there is a just a particular group of people who are very loyal to these forums and have summed it up everytime someone is unhappy with the game as, "whining" or a "skill issue" etc. It's not. DBD has one of the absolute most toxic communities in gaming. It's disgusting.
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Tunneling and camping occurs in MOST (not all) cases because of the gen rush problem. It's literally a reaction to a current action that is not being addressed. Bhvr can't help that their community is toxic (apparently) but they know they've set everyone who isn't a SWF group up for failure and refuse to correct it.
Killers will continue to tunnel and camp as long as gens fly the way they do. Survivors bringing perks for whatever fun little build they wanna try vs. killers having to bring multiple gen regression perks and hope they help...sounds balanced.
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You fail to mention survivors who crawl away and hide to bleed out willingly because they feel if they bleed out, you didn't "win." This is on the same level and no one ever discusses that.
I had a match where the last two unhooked out front of me, I downed one and went for the other and when I came back to pick him up...I couldn't find this person anywhere. I was upset because I didn't want to wait for a bleed out. When I messaged after being like "hey man why waste our time." He was insistent I didn't 4k, because he "bled out" which you know = dying..which = not surviving, which = killer won. But no one ever talks about that being a waste of killer's time. It's always "the killer wasted my time bleeding me out." That door swings both ways. I have an actual life, I don't wanna play a little bleed out game, because a surv can't take an L.
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I always wanted to run DH back in the day. But it caused so much grief that I stayed clear of it. I'm 500 hours in and I have no idea how to use a flashlight to save anyone. I knew when I started playing the game that killer players hate flashlights, so I just avoided them. I don't bring items to the trial in general (unless I have to for a challenge). I do all of this to try and communicate to the opponent that I'm just here for fun. I don't want to sweat or troll anyone, I just want to have a laugh and hopefully escape.
Looking back on it, I actually regret resctricting myself so much. I could run a flashlight without being a troll with it. I could run meta perks without making the killer angry. We should all give a little thought to how our actions and choices affect other people, but it can go too far sometimes.
You definitely can't please everyone. Some people are only happy when they win. Some people are unreasonable in their demands. But it's always worth having a little thought about how your actions contribute to the community at large. If you want a happy, healthy community, you have to make an effort. But don't be unreasonable with yourself.
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Yeah that is toxic tunneling. I simply tunnel to win and gain my pips unfortunately there is no better stragedy for that. I do try to get usually 4-5 hooks before I kill someone but more than that is usually throwing the game. Pipping system really punish you if you don't take someout before 3 gens is done.
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Lot of it happens because pipping. Tunneling is best way to get pips and avoid depips because your more likely to win. If depip were removed I figure that would reduce already lot of tunneling because then losing would not punish you really. It would allow gaining pips just by playing.
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I think the last slugged aura should be just showed to the killer. I lost pips because last one managed to crawl. I only slug 4K when I see both survivors or really need it to gain pips.
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I think that's a fantastic idea. If they don't have unbreakable, or any other perks that will help pick them up off the ground, it's a waste of everyone's time.
I have also been routing for no depipping for a long time. I feel if you earn it, you should get to keep it. It can either be harder to get to the next pip or a 0 pip on a match you were immediately tunneled out etc...I think it would help a lot on both ends.
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Ironically, gen rushing is also the best way to counter tunneling and camping killers.
Doing gens is also the only productive thing survivors can do if the killer ignores them and decides to tunnel someone out. You can take a few hits for your team, but after that, it's just back to doing gens quickly before the killer decides you're the next survivor they want to tunnel (but with less pallets available on the map).
For camping killers, same deal. What else can survivors do? Only inexperienced survivors would get off of a gen early to try and rescue hook. Best play is to "gen rush" till the last second and try to trade hooks before the teammate goes into the next hook stage. Exception being, Bubba or any other fast downing killers. Just hope the person on hook is a team player, and do gens fast as possible and get out.
For slugging killers, do gens until teammate is ready to be picked up. Pick up, and do gens without wasting time healing. No point in healing till endgame if they're not going to hook. Time is better spent doing gens and just rotate when you hear them coming.
Chicken egg situation. The community will never come up with viable solutions. Some tried, and that's how we got those survivor/ killer rulebook memes (which spawns its own toxic arguments on these forums).
Devs have to make core changes to their game's mechanics. Until then, people are going to do what is allowed to secure their win.
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I doubt most survivors consider bleeding out a win.
Most probably do it because they are bored. They're ready to be picked up, with nothing to do for up to 4 minutes.
Sometimes they moved because they are trying to meet up with the last person in a safe area. They are not going to crawl back to where you downed them because their plan to get picked up failed.
Sometimes they just crawled to some corner and tabbed out to watch some Youtube to punish you for wasting their time. You made them wait for you to secure your 4K, so now they are making you stay in the game till they bleed out.
Sometimes you're the 5th killer of the night to slug them for an extended period of time. Even with Unbreakable, it only works once.
You have no obligation other than courtesy to pick them up, hook, and let them go next. At the same time they have no obligation other than courtesy to make it easy for you to find their body.
It's much easier to just aim for the 3K, and see 4K as being a bonus. My games as killer have been faster and much more enjoyable with that mindset.
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This misses a key element of playing games that is unfortunately ignored all too common, the human or social element. People play games to have fun. Some people have fun predominantly by winning. People don't have fun being treated like trash or having their time wasted. If people are playing for the $5 Subway giftcard, then by all means, play exclusively to win. The problem is playing so 'sweaty' in normal public matches, and not only in tournaments and private matches.
When you play Street Fighter and Joey keeps doing the same unfun stuff. You stop playing with him. When he says "wanna come over tonight and play some Street Fighter" you reply "not if you are going to play like an expletive". Then he either understands that you don't have fun interacting in that particular fashion, and you go back to having fun playing Street Fighter, or you never play it again with Joey. When the interactions are online and there are not matchmaking bans against certain players, non-interaction becomes the response. The people Kobe attempt on first hook, or hard DC to 'go next' instead. That is the online equivalent of asking your friend to "not play like an expletive". This is so simple, it is understood by children in elementary/grade school. They see Joey acting like "a poop head" and stop playing with him. It is then on Joey to stop acting like that, or risk being intentionally excluded.
This can be fixed by a multitude of ways. One is the matchmaking ban I alluded to. Another is a deliberately separate ranked queue, where everyone understands 'anything goes'. The problem with DBD is that it currently forces everyone into a ranked queue, as MMR is not optional. The final method of 'fixing' the problem is to no longer play the game. If the final method is the main method, then the game bleeds players, and the match quality drops immensely, which snowballs into more players leaving the game and match quality dropping further. Some people have the social presence and knowledge to have learned not to act like Joey, and some people never learn that lesson even after being excluded previously for doing exactly the same conceptual thing. The Joey's cause that bleedout of the playerbase, so it is on the Devs to put forth the mechanical method of dealing with Joeys (such as surrender during dying state), or the remaining players to exclude/train the Joeys to be less antisocial (endgame chat).
Also the use of 'scrub' was intended to be someone so bad at fighting games (or any game for that matter), that they button mash randomly as if they were 'scrubbing' the controller. He may have redefined it for his book, but that doesn't change the origin of the term.
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When it comes to hitting on hook and tbagging I honestly feel like people need to stop letting video game animations hurt their feelings so much.
Yea, words can hurt sometimes (even more so when you know it's true) so toxic end game chat yea I get.
Slugging for absolutely no reason other than to waste their time is annoying (not really sure if reportable) but honestly if you are the last survivor and nothing can be done just tab out and wait for it to end.
Camping/Tunneling has less-so become a toxic thing and more of a strategy that sweaty players use to win. I've had killers play super casual and get destroyed and after 2-3 gens pop they give up and just bloodlust 1 survivor and hook them then camp/tunnel them out to try to win because they can't accept losing. Aside from bubbas nobody really camps to be toxic (or unless that one survivor pissed them off) they do it to "win" because winning in DBD is all they care about
Tbagging and Hitting on hook though? You're just being a snowflake at that point. Crouching in a video game will not do you any harm in game or in real life. Same goes for hitting on hook.
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I know it's a mmo but I like how ff14 newest pvp handles toxic behavior. For example they made it a bannable offenses for spamming "nice job" in team chat or emoting/settings off fireworks on opposites dead bodies (aka ff14 version of teabagging). Maybe it's just a Japanese culture thing but they don't take toxicity lightly in game and I for one glad for it. I wish more pvp games took measures to punish toxic behavior and try to discourage it.
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The whole "get over it" is something I mentioned in my original post. It doesn't work for everyone, and expecting people to just turn off their feelings is not helpful advice. Yeah, it's not a big deal, but it's when it happens constantly over and over that it starts to get to you. People are different, and calling them snowflakes for being annoyed at something you're not annoyed at is just inconsiderate.
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I would say the players who deserve being slugged or hit on hook are the ones who tbag/spam vault at the exit gates/bm in end game chat.
Chances are that they are the ones who will complain the loudest when they are on the receiving end of toxicity despite being toxic themselves.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
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Toxicity breeds more toxicity. Not helpful.
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I'd agree with this. Cycle must be broken.
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While some of the things listed may be unpopular mechanics, personally the only example of genuine toxicity here is 'being nasty in endgame chat'.
One could make the argument that the rest is just gameplay, now gameplay may be obnoxious but that doesn't necessarily make it "toxic."
While as Peanits so eloquently pointed out trash talk and the mechanics of trash talk have always been part of gaming does it's presence make a scenario toxic?
I don't think so... and before anyone says I'm only defending it because I do it myself that is gross assumption and completely incorrect.
But what I will do, and always have done, is say people can play how they please and this is a monstrous game where the monster can be just that... monstrous.
But it's all make believe and while bleeding out, for example, may be a generally unfun mechanic its that very unfun lack of participation you are trying to escape from.
The fact such things create a visceral reaction in players that they would go so far to call them toxic is part of what makes DBD so great. There is genuine threat to your ability to play the game imposed by the antagonist. That's one of DBD's strongest points. It's what makes it effectively emulate the slasher flicks that inspire it.
I firmly believe a thick skin is a necessary part of succeeding in life in general and if you are crumbling in the face of very inconsequential video game mechanics to the point you find it the toxic equivalent of real world abuse, then you gotta take a step back and ask...
- Am I being to sensitive about this?
- Do game mechanics need to change simply to facilitate my sensitivities?
Post edited by pseudechis on0 -
I would agree with you if it was something important, but it's not, it's a video game. Nothing anybody does or says to you in a video game will effect you in your day to day life unless you allow it to.
So a guy crouched repeatedly at me (most of the time it's to get the killers attention so they don't focus on their team) so what? I still get to sleep, eat, work, and play games at my leisure so who cares. It's not a reportable offence according to BHVR so why let it bother you just ignore it and play the game and go to the next.
Idk what happened to the world where adult men/women allow something like this mentally break them down into fits of rage/depression but it's really sad imo
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I can only speak for myself but I tell you why it bothers me a lot. I play games to have fun and being taunted by someone who is clearly beating me at the match makes an already unfun match even more unfun. This is why I don't go to the exit gates anymore and push ppl out bc I know all they going to do is teabag me at the gates, try to blind me, or act like they going to give me a free hit for points and just run out. It's like rubbing salt in a cut, it just makes the sting feel worse. You said move on to the next and that's what I love to do, If I have a really bad game and clear I'm not going to get a single kill I usually open the gates myself and sit in the basement in hopes survivors get the hint Im done and want to move on. Do you know what most do? They do not just leave, they stand at the gates or come to the basement to taunt me. I would love to just move on to the next game but sometimes I can't, I have to be focused to stand there for 2 minutes and watch these clowns. At the end of the day it's not fun for someone on the receiving end and you can say "get thick skin" all you want but some people can't.
Btw there are games out there that do ban ppl from bming in games. In this post, I named one already and that is ff14. Its pvp mode will ban you if you are reported to be toxic which includes taunting someone who you just killed by emoting on their dead body or using the fireworks item on their dead body. So this behavior could be banned if the devs wanted to.
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Sadly there's a lot of people who play this game who have a genuine, real-life seething hatred of the other side. Like not just a "haha stupid killer" but a deep-seated personal grudge against anyone who plays the other side. This is something you can even see with some posters on these very forums, who take every opportunity in every single one of their posts to demonise survivors/killers and blame them for all of society's ills.
It's unhinged.
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I think key point is that even if taunted it can't hurt you unless you are already upset about the game condition.
"I play games to have fun and being taunted by someone who is clearly beating me at the match makes an already unfun match even more unfun"
The concept that the match isn't going well making it unfun is where this kind of thing takes root. You've undermined your own resilience to being taunted because you are already taunting yourself about the state of the match.
If you already feel its unfun when you're struggling then you've got nothing left in the tank as it were to resolve yourself against being taunted at over it.
The problem with banning people on the simple premise of offence is that anything can be offensive, so basically you can ban people for anything. Its a slippery slope.
You are never gonna stop people from gloating, especially in the online world, its far more effective to arm yourself with the tools to manage being upset about it then it is to impose highly spurious bans based on the incredibly subjective idea of offence.
With that power you can chase people out the gate and have fun no matter what the outcome, this is especially true with something as inconsequential as a computer game.
Some people might claim I'm just victim blaming but the reality is a healthy gaming mindset starts with you and then moves on to your interactions with others. That's the process by which you build resilience not resentment.
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Well this community literally teaches you to be a jerk. If you fail as killer, you will be mocked without exception, so you learn to be a jerk also over time
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I don't think it's about getting over it. But one thing I tell my kids is that they can't control how other people act, they can only control how they react to it. It'd be nice if you could reach out, flip a switch, and suddenly everyone were kind. But it unfortunately doesn't work that way - especially with the anonymity of the internet. You're never going to erase BMing from this game, so all you can do is work on not letting it bother you.
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Reading this thread and the response from the community team is worrying. Do you not see how letting the game have such a laissez-faire approach contributes to toxicity? Hoping people will play nice is just a ludicrous way to manage a community.
Let’s look at two examples here. Firstly, the situation whereby a survivor runs to a hook dead zone and the killer cannot hook them. Why is this a thing? Literally, stop hooks breaking when a killer sacrifices someone else, problem solved. This situation will never arise again (maybe with boil over somewhere like Eyrie of crows but that’s another issue- so long as hooks are around it’s not as big a deal). It’s seriously that easy. Instead the devs allow situations to arise in the game where killers are forced to slug. Is it the survivors fault? Well, sort of. But why should a survivor give in? And why should a killer let the survivor escape? It’s a stupid stalemate the devs could solve in an afternoon but they won’t. A concede/bleed out button and/or don’t destroy hooks after a sacrifice. That’s all that’s needed.
Secondly, the comments on camping and tunnelling are worrying. These strategies should not be seen as frequently as they are right now. The game should be balanced in a way that both prevents these strategies often being optimal and also gives killers breathing room to not have to resort to them. Instead you’re just relying on the player base to what? Police their own play styles? This is wrong. Developers should be shaping the game or at least rewarding fair players a hell of a lot more than those who resort to cheap tactics. Because it sounds like you’re saying camping and tunnelling are fine in the “right” context. Ok, but who is deciding that context? It’s all very murky and wishy-washy and not healthy for the game.
In short, we shouldn’t be looking at things which are clearly bad for the game and trying to say “look at the context around them”. Instead the goal should be to eliminate these things from the game altogether and balance accordingly.
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You shouldn't let any of that bother you, not saying it's right but since the dawn of multi-player games people have found ways to be toxic just for the laughs of hearing other people upset, old call of duty lobbies instantly come to mind, while I don't think it's right to be toxic without a cause I think that if you find the humor in it and find ways to make yourself laugh at the situation it doesn't matter what's happening in the game, not only that but it pisses those people off twice as bad in the endgame chat when you're laughing it off instead of raging out like they want , basically they yearn for the salty reaction back and if they don't make you DC or be derogatory to them it makes them uninterested in dealing with you all together
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1) New players learn from others that things such as "Camping, Tunnelling, Genrushing, Slugging" etc etc are behaviours that are considered bad signs of character so they feel justified in lashing out at those people and shaming them.
2) Those new players perpetuate this behaviour and usually end up involved in some kind of echo chamber that reinforces their POV. Basically, people who really hate killer players surround themselves with people who think the same and vice versa for killer players. This also extends to the content they watch and the behaviours they encourage as well.
A lot of us grow out of this mindset once we understand how the game works for both sides/never took it that seriously to begin with.
3) A criminal lack of empathy combined with the presence of anonymity. It's one thing to just go "it's a game lol" if someone insults how you played but it's an entirely different story when they go overboard with it. Trash talk's a common multiplayer thing and BHVR themselves don't really care about it either.
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nah. "you playing wesker?? i hate that killer! thumbs down!" if you are gonna say the majority of the lobby should vote someone good or bad, that could be so easily abused by, once again, ✨swfs✨. idk how that could be implemented without failure.
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I'm actually quite glad this was the first thread I saw in quite some time as I was taking a break due to, well, being tired of toxicity and was debating whether or not to come back. A part that was particularly frustrating for me was the only other response I saw from a dev was in the past and it was essentially a boys will be boys style comment about toxicity and that was a contributing factor to me taking more frequent breaks.
Your perspective, on the other hand, does seem more reasonable as I understand why you wouldn't want to unfairly ban someone and intent can be hard to perceive. I would say, from a business perspective, that toxicity is bad overall even though it's hard to quantify. As an example, though, I just quietly left and didn't spend any money while I wasn't playing. Now that a dev has acknowledged that being toxic is bad, which is all I wanted to see, I'm going to try out Nick Cage and the Xenomorph. If I had checked out the forums and saw a 'Teabagging and other BMing isn't a concern' attitude I probably would have just quietly uninstalled. That would have been too bad as I do like DbD but there's a point where dealing with an aggravation just becomes something you don't want to deal with enough that players will just walk away.
I do think it should be dealt with more as I had walked away for a few months. There is a truism that if one customer leaves and says why there are tens or dozens more that did the same but without saying why. I wasn't going to say anything if I had left but that I was at that point shows there may be other people about to or having done so as well.
Anyway, thanks for saying that. I know BHVR can't control other people's behaviour but all I had wanted but didn't previously see was just a statement that playing with the intent to ruin another player's enjoyment was considered a bad thing.
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I'll say first of all I sympathise with you and how you're feeling. I went through a particularly awful depressive episode a while back and tried to use this game as a way of comforting myself and it backfired enormously with the toxicity that was running rampant at the time. Something I've learnt through that is that this game is NOT one to play if you're feeling low or going through tough periods, unless maybe you're playing with friends. When you're playing and your own and it feels like some of the killers you're getting are just out to make you miserable (not saying this is necessarily true - but it can be easy to interpret it that way when you're feeling low) it just makes you feel worse, and the only way to stop it is to just stop playing.
This is what I did. I used to play the game at least every other day for a couple hours but then I didn't touch it for weeks. Didn't touch Cage. Had a tiny bit of interest in Alien but played maybe a couple games. And I played for a couple hours tonight. And I felt a lot better. Had a game where a Blight with Iri vial and Alchemist Ring went out of his way to slug everyone at five gens and normally it would have tilted me but I just didn't care. I died and moved on to the next game and they went considerably better.
I'm sharing that little anecdote to show that taking a break, as cliche as it is, may drastically help you in how you approach and feel about the game when you come back.
I'd also say that while there are obvious examples of toxicity (bleed out, beating on hook, teabagging, endgame chat) there are others that may be more accidental for lack of better phrasing. Example: in a game I had today I went back into the match to grab a flame turret to bring back to the gate to get extra BP. The killer was nowhere to be seen, but it took me a while to get the turret and bring it back to the door. While I was only doing it for the 1000BP, the killer may have thought I was waiting in the door and teabagging till I got run out. So I may have been seen as toxic, albeit accidentally. You could say the same about tunnelling. Maybe the killer just happens to find you three times in a row and can't afford to lose the pressure. Maybe they didn't know you were death hook. It's whatever.
And you're going to get killers and survivors that equally go out of their way to be obvious asshats just because they can. You can't stop them and the devs can't really either so the only thing you can change is how you respond to them. And, like I said, this is particularly difficult to do if you're already annoyed/upset at something else and are looking to DBD as a break from that.
I suggest taking a break and coming back to the game a while later. If it still bothers you the same way then, find another game to enjoy. We play games to have fun, not to make us sad, and I don't want to see you fall into the same depressive loop that I did for a time. Watching streamers play this game (I recommend a guy called Slate) is much more relaxing than playing the game yourself, I find.
Take care!
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BHVR Devs literally said of animation updates, "We wanted to make sure that teabagging was still satisfying for our players". And you wonder were the toxicity comes from?
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Setting off fireworks on opponent's bodies sounds like a cool game mechanic. Maybe the devs could implement that in DBD somehow for the summer events.
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Based BHVR
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He said the same thing the other developer you mentioned said. He just has better corporate speak skillz.
Translated it means:
LOLOLOLOL, we had a meeting and LOLOLOLOL.
We'll be having a double lunch at the bar next week to schedule a new onboard to get on top of your concern.
Once we find a manager for the project.
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