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Help. I really want to play the game, but somehow I don't

Who of you knows this strange feeling?
I played DBD very actively for a while, but in the last 2 years or so I've taken more and longer breaks.
Now I'm at a point where I've been wanting to play for days, but then I think about the unfun playstyles like tunneling, slugging and camping, and I immediately lose the desire to start the game.


Note: This is NOT an Us vs Them post !!!!
I can only speak from the survivor perspective because that's the role I play most of the time and prefer to play. I'm sure there are also Killer players who know the same or similar feelings as I've described, for other reasons (swf, tbagging, flashlights and so on), who are also welcome to talk about their feelings.


My question is: What should I do? Do you have any tips for me on how I can stop caring about these unfun things as mentioned above? I wish I just didn't care and could think "Okay, the match was unfun, go next".
But unfortunately most matches are unfun with the same unfun playstyles over and over again. I only play solo, which is even more frustrating because you not only have the killer as an opponent but often your team too.
Searching for people to play SWF with is not an option either, I'm introverted and on many days I don't feel like talking at all.

I found 2vs8 quite relaxing, it was chaotic but tunneling and camping were hardly there and when one or two survivor disconnected or were eliminated early you still had the feeling you had a chance. I know, many people missed the perks but for me it was great that there were no clear meta. But even though I really feel the need to play, thoughts of the sweaty 1v4 mode keep me from doing so.

I know I asked for tips, but I doubt there are any good tips for my weird problem. Maybe I just want to know if there are other people who feel the same way and hear what they do in this situation.

Comments

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,684

    I'd say try something different. As a killer player I'll swap to a different killer, play some survivor games (of which I'm terrible), or even just play something else if I start getting stressed after afew matches. I bounce back and forth between this and Warframe alot, which is a pretty chill experience for me.

  • TragicSolitude
    TragicSolitude Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 7,410

    in the last 2 years or so I've taken more and longer breaks

    I immediately lose the desire to start the game

    I really feel the need to play

    Sounds like an addiction and you're having withdrawal. I'm not being cutesy when I say that, it really sounds like you understand that the game is bad for your mental health but you're so used to playing it that not playing it leaves you feeling like there's a hole in your life.

    There's no hole in your life. The game is bad for your mental health. Do not force yourself to play it. Do other things, enjoy yourself, treat your time as valuable and don't try to convince yourself that just because you've done something a lot previously means it's worth doing today.

  • steezo_de
    steezo_de Member Posts: 1,213

    It's very easy. Take a break. I did, for over a year and a half and find it fun again because of the crapload of perks I had to figure out. And some of them are pretty goofy so that helped a lot, like bardic inspiration and background player, the gen time reduction perks, and combining all the dumb ones like mirrored illusion, wiretap, and red herring, etc. Especially helps if you have a good team to play with. I pretty much play exclusively SWF these days and it's a very different experience than solo. At the very least, if you still want to play, don't play to win. Just use uncommon loadouts to see if you can get them to work. But I say, take a break. There's nothing wrong with leaving a game if you don't enjoy it any more. I encourage it. Don't you have a backlog? That's what I did when I was gone. I finished somewhere in the vicinity of 50 games and cleared mine all out.

    2v8 was a good mode for people like you and I hope it comes back soon.

  • IWantCandys
    IWantCandys Member Posts: 181

    What ? Lol, I guess you misunderstood me. If I were addicted I would get nervous if I couldn't play the game and would focus on it all the time. I can take a break for months and not miss anything about the game. But I've just come out of a month-long break for 2vs8 with a renewed desire to play DBD more regularly AFTER MONTHS, but when I think about the sweat in 1vs 4 I just can't.

  • IWantCandys
    IWantCandys Member Posts: 181

    But I just HAD a long break before I came back to 2vs8. xD

    I guess I should have never played 2vs8 in the first place, now I can´t go back to 1vs4 because it feels so sweaty and competetive.

    It was a huge mistake to try that mode. :/

  • steezo_de
    steezo_de Member Posts: 1,213
    edited August 23

    Yeah, but you can also stop playing completely.

    Edit- I'll add that the tunneling, camping, and will even include overall unfun mechanics.. those won't end. The devs can't stop players wanting to win. Unfortunately as a solo queue survivor, it's not a great experience if you really want to win. So I get when you express yourself about not having fun. Feedback is good for the devs to hear, but ultimately this is the state of the game and sure, they can address it if they want— there's always hope for that, but I'm not holding my breath at all.

    2v8 will be back again, or at least some other modes will that can make the game more casual.

    Post edited by steezo_de on
  • TragicSolitude
    TragicSolitude Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 7,410

    lol sorry, I was using it more as a metaphor. But I mostly play DbD during events and special modes, and I have fun with meme-y things like Bardic Inspiration and Plot Twist. I take a lot of breaks. I mostly play the game because I play with a friend. Outside of that I would've quit, I only enjoy it because of the memes and because it's a way to spend time with my friend. The actual intended gameplay of basic 1v4 is often not fun. So I could suggest memeing with perks, but if you're playing solo my recommendation is really to play something else and only play DbD for events and special modes. 2v8 is so much different from 1v4 it's like a completely different game. Playing 1v4 like a stopgap while you wait for 2v8 to return is unlikely to scratch the itch.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,353

    feel the same - and personally, I occasionally play a few rounds to remind myself why I don't usually play. Sometimes some of the other guys also still play dbd then we swf a round and that can be decent fun. Other than that: I just wait for the next modifier to roll around and hope it's as entertaining as the 2v8 (while that one too had its anti-fun synergies and strats those were few and far in between on most days).

    Other than that: just don't play. Find something you look forward to doing. For me that's a bit tough, cause there are so many memories tied to this game; every match is a little like going down memory lane. But present me thanks past me for stopping to play dbd all the time even though it wasn't fun anymore.

  • crogers271
    crogers271 Member Posts: 1,907

    It's not really that unique of a problem. I have lots of games that I used to love and every now and then I load them up, but the magic is gone. Maybe I'll play for a little bit, but it's hard/impossible to recapture those feelings once they're gone.

  • SweetbutaPsycho
    SweetbutaPsycho Member Posts: 286
    edited August 23

    You cannot change the playstyle of other people just the way you deal with it.

    I also took a longer break from DBD after playing consistently for like 2 years and accumulating almost 2k hours. I took the break because I had a lot going on irl but actually realised a couple of weeks into my break that the point where I had fun with the game was just long gone. I played DBD every evening not cause I was having fun but because I had gotten used to it and instead of cheering me up and giving me a break from real life, as games are designed to do, it was making me even more frustrated cause of the various problems this game just has on both sides.

    I started playing again after a 9 month break for 2vs8 with a few friends and actually had fun with DBD again. Since then I played more matches but not nearly as frequent as before the break and with more of a strict eye on myself if Im truly still enjoying playing this or if im playing because I force myself to.

    My advice from my own experience would be that if you feel like you want to play again, go for it. But you have to be aware that things like tunneling, camping, toxicness etc. have and probably always will be Part of this game. So if you get affected by these things you should stop regularly and ask yourseld of you are still playing DBD cause you are actually enjoying it or if you play it because you feel the need to and if that is the case rather take an early break than to go down the downward spiral

  • tjt85
    tjt85 Member Posts: 986
    edited August 23

    I totally get the feelings you describe OP because I've felt them too (I'm a Solo Q player as well).

    I find that reframing the way I feel about certain frustrations has helped me to deal with annoyances a little better. And if I go into a trial expecting to have a bad time, I probably will.

    Some things I do to help is to play a character that has something comforting about them (Like Steve's goofy scream, Meg's injured noises or Jones the cat visiting Ripley in the lobby). Or I'll put together a build that helps mitigate my common furstrations. For example, all my Killers have Lightborn and Iron Grasp permanently equipped to deal with Survivors that won't let you get even a single hook. Or I'll have a goal in mind that goes beyond simply escaping or killing, so maybe working towards an achievement, completing a tome challenge or getting perk value. Or I'll go full meme build and decide I don't care about winning or losing today.

    Nowadays, if I have two rotten games in a row and my mood goes bad, I log off and play something else because that day is obviously not a DBD day. This is my most important rule to follow to keep my enjoyment of playing the game.

  • Beaburd
    Beaburd Member Posts: 998

    I'm experiencing this myself right now.

    I logged into DBD a couple of times, went to the killer screen to play my favorite killers and record more games for data analysis. But instead of being excited to play, I just remembered how bad my last full day of playing was. Gens flying, feeling pressured, when I do well people rage quit, there was with a bunch toxic post-game chatters. It just discouraged me, so I logged off and haven't been on in a week.

    My only advice is take a break. This happens to me periodically, but after a year or two break I get the urge to play again, have fun, then rinse and repeat.

    If you really want to play though, I don't know what to tell you. I find it difficult to force myself to play something I don't enjoy, so I just let my whims take me wherever they want to go and don't think about it more than that.

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,347

    When you feel confident enough to return, remind yourself that tunnelling, camping, teabagging or whatever isn't as prevailant as you might think it is.

    If you look at things objectively, you'll probably find that you will remember negative moments far more than either positive or neutral moments. That's because the human brain likes to preserve itself, and will remember bad experiences more strongly as a way to avoid them in future. This also can inflate the number of times those experiences happened, when in fact it's not as big an occurance as you might be led to believe.

    Another thing - which may or may not be an issue you experience - is whenever I go on forums or watch a video, there's often a bombardment of comments such as "I'm tunnelled EVERY match!" or "Why do survivors ALWAYS wait to teabag". This also can influence someone's way of thinking. Again, it's an example of negative bias.

    The best thing to do to relieve yourself of your thoughts would be to take notes in a match and think objectivelt of what happens. How many trials were you tunnelled? If so, think whether you were actually targetted or just had some bad luck or made a bad play. We all do it, no matter.

    The most important thing is this: play what you enjoy and when you feel like enjoying ir. Forcing yourself won't make it fun. I play DBD, but I'm also playing Anno 1800 and War Hospital presently, and select the game I'm most keen on.

  • rha
    rha Member Posts: 419

    I'm in a similar boat. I really loved the game (playing since 2017) and would still like to enjoy it, but I can't. Solo queue survivor. Too much of a crap experience, since MMR more than ever as once you've lost enough to play with survivors who just don't do gens and go down in seconds during chases, the bad games just repeat infinitely. With the old ranks (and I mean the really old ranks with the actual rank reset) at least the experience changed as the month progressed.

    What's so sad about my situation is, so many streamers I liked to watch are quitting the game because they're burnt out. Many have a far more enjoyable time playing since they can play SWF with reliable people but they quit because of burn out. I would love to get to the point where I could enjoy the game for awhile and quit because of burn-out, not because the game experience has become unbearable.

    For me it was pretty easy. As a console player I just cancelled my Playstation Plus subscription, so I can't play anymore. Before that I took longer breaks as well, but it didn't help, mainly again because of MMR I am sure … I just had to play one game after coming back and was instantly reminded of why I took a break.

    Tunneling I don't mind much … if I'm tunneled it depends. If nobody does gens I stand still and go next, otherwise I try to give them as much time as I can. If someone else is tunneled out at 4-5 gens with the players I'm matched with it's hopeless, so I just go next too.

    Camping depends, I see it really rarely these days, with master campers like Bubba it's definitely stupid and dull, with others as long as players are good enough to pull off a save, particularly in endgame, a rescue can be really exciting. It took me a couple of rounds of 2vs8 to realize that because there it was basically the opposite kind of boring compared to a camping Bubba. EGC, killer downs you and cages you, you reappear on the other side of the map next to an open gate where someone standing at the gate rescues you from cage and you can walk out chilled because the killer is on the other side of the map, that's not really exciting either.

    Only thing that really triggers me and has my finger hovering over the "Leave Match" button is the slugging for 4k. So boring and such a waste of valuable time. Only solution to that is to check the situation after the first survivor has been sacrificed. If I don't think we'll get the gates powered then I see I am doing my best to be the second survivor to be sacrificed. Unfortunately this is much, much, much more common than tunneling or camping.

    I'm more angry about how the other survivors win the game for the killer by not touching gens, making dumb decisions in general, unhooking right in front of the killer without any reason or when I'm left to die on first hook even though I bring Kindred.

    If you play mostly survivor, maybe you enjoy playing killer without trying to win. I'm super chilled as killer, e.g. when I notice someone is going for flashlight/flashbang saves and doesn't have the timing down I practice a bit with them, don't care whether gens are flying or not while I do. Before MMR I regularly played my own challenge to pip up as far as possible without killing anyone.

    I could imagine going SWF with decent players is also an option to enjoy the game again, but I never was able to find one.

  • ChuckingWong
    ChuckingWong Member Posts: 429

    Just want 2v8 back as well.

    More fun, easy pickup.

    Devs cant balance the game at all so at least let us play the chaotic mess of 2v8 versus the joke of a base game we have.

  • solarjin1
    solarjin1 Member Posts: 2,222

    The base game have been nothing but tactics for years now. If u don't wont to face them then don't comeback because little have change. I recommend you come back but you definitely gonna see these things every other game. I agree with everything you said about the 2v8