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The level of toxicity in Dead by Daylight
I've always wondered whether or not the game is more or less toxic now than it use to be, I've seen evidence for either argument and I was curious on getting some other insights.
I know some people would just say who cares don't pay attention, if that is you I appreciate you but keep your comments to yourself, this is for people that want to share their thoughts
Earlier this year I move to PC dead by daylight from console of course this provided me the lovely access to the end game chat. I've seen my fair share of toxicity both in game and in the post game, but on the other hand I have also seen a lovely amount of wholesome moments in the very same chat, people encouraging and helping one another.
Having started played the game when huntress was first introduced I think that overall the game has gotten more positive and wholesome, however their are always bad apples in the crowd and in Dbd's case there are a lot of bad apples.
Please share your thoughts
Comments
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Its hard to tell ingame. As survivor you cant see what your mates are doing all the time and for both roles it depends on your skill level.
In my experience the most toxic are the people who are decent at the game. And they are obviously toxic against beginner bc they win against them. If you are better and lose only against good players, you dont see much. Bc giod players are rarely toxic.
Well it depends what counts as toxic. A good killer will use things like slugging, camping etc when neccessary and some think its toxic. Im speaking about thinks like bleeding out for 4min when i mean toxic behavior.
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Yesterday I had to go against several SWFs in a row who all had DS, DH, Sabotage and Head On equipped. Also kits with syringes and flashlights. Oh yeah, definitely the game is less toxic and nobody is abusing the game features to create a miserable experience.
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That is not toxicity. The game allows loadout combinations like this to happen. Its not abusing tools, its using tools. Does that make it less of a problem? No. However, its a seperate problem, mostly unrelated to toxicity.
Toxicity is end game chat harassment, writing stuff on peoples steam profiles and, because it goes waaaay beyond simple in game taunting, the notorious humping that some killer players enjoy to do (for whatever reason).
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Honestly, I don't really see a lot of toxicity (at least not as much as some players report). Yes, I've experienced my fair share of teabags, GG EZs and slugging to bleed out Killers, but it's maybe no more than 1 in 10 games that something "toxic" ever happens.
That said, I play on anon mode to keep my Steam profile private and the end game chat window closed most of the time, which probably cuts down my exposure to some of the toxicity. End game chat in my experience is 5% wholesome, 5% players being salty / angry / poor sports and 90% silence.
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I play on console so can’t see chat but Survivors are always giving me their items when I play Killer! Hopefully they’re not yelling BM at me afterwards hahaha.
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I think toxicity is at record highs.
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I doubt toxicity got any worse between now and 2 years ago, it's still just as bad.
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Every once in a while I get my typical "Die from cancer", "Burn your family", "Get raped" or lovely stuff like that.. But that's like .. maybe 5% of my playtime.. Can deal with that.
Might add that I mostly only consider end game chat as a possibility for toxic stuff
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We're kinda under the impression that it's not becoming more toxic, but the number of actual niceness is dropping fast.
We're not getting things like threats or hyper wannabe bully squads as much as we used too, but we're seeing less people just being decent humans.
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The only way the game is more toxic nowadays, is the amount of people who love being a victim and making it a much bigger problem than it really is.
Some one pressing CTRL 3 times in a row after a pallet drop, or a killer tenderizing you on hook doesnt mean they are a nuclear waste plant dumping on you, it is purely in game taunting.
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Dude this is one of the chillest live service game there are.
This game's community is like tf2's, you will never face toxicity 90% of the time
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I disagree. There are lots of angry messages on PC and console, no matter what happened in the match. And there are major thought police in community discussions, to where you only hear 1 perspective.
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Following your logic, if game allows humping, then it's not toxicity, it's just gameplay?
And yes, it's totally not toxic for a group of "friends" to select map offering that gives them an advantage, equip Head On and keep getting downed near lockers for endless saves. They are totally using perks as intended. It's not toxic for them to chase Killer carrying a Survivor to sabotage all the hooks around vicinity to force either a drop or a wiggle off, denying the Killer all the hooking points. It's not toxic of them after making the game as miserable as possible to hold the endgame hostage by standing in the activated gates and waiting for the Killer to come and watch them tbag, drop a final flash grenade in their face and then leave. Oh, no, they are totally being friendly that way, they were just having fun! You see, they're laughing with the Killer, not at them for sure!
/s
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As a console player who doesn't have post-game chat, it seems about the same as always. I guess it depends on what you define as toxic.
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The game allows killers to "hump" and survivors to "teabag." Must not be toxic, lets not use the excuse that just because the game allows it makes it not toxic. I think most the toxicity comes from bad game design, balancing, and matchmaking.
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Yes. What you describe in the second part is not toxic. It's people using the stuff in game. They want to win while having a big advantage. The same exists on killer side as well. It's the loadout problem of dbd. It's not toxicity.
Humping on the other hand provides no in game value. People lose time doing it. It's purely done to make the other side feel bad.
I'm not even going into why humping in particular is the absolute bottom of the barrel because literal threads got closed for that reason alone. It's vile and disgusting behaviour.
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Tbagging is not toxic, no. Hitting on hook is not toxic, no. Animation spamming is also not toxic. This is taunting. Fine by me although unpleasant.
Slugging, genrushing, camping and tunneling are also not toxic as isnt using strong loadout.
Humping on the other hand is. Why? Because of what it implies.
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You'll never get tid of toxic comments unfortunately.
There will always be bad losers and bad winners.
Harmless comments like ez or baby killer etc you can ignore, laugh at or respond to in kind and I don't have an issue with at all.
But when it comes to comments like get cancer etc these players should:
get a warning
then a temp ban.
Then a permanent ban on their ip address so they can't just create a new account with a vpn etc.
These vile comments need stamped out. If you post them or think they are funny you're either a small child or if not you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
Take a visit to a children cancer ward and tell that it's funny.
Go to a funeral and laugh at the person being buried.
Help the fire service bring out burned bodies and laugh whilst you do so.
It's ready sad that pixels on a screen can lead some people to being so vile and pathetic.
For me I think, unfortunately. toxicity is on the increase.
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I've played since 2019 and have never seen anyone WS on the floor until 2024. In my experience, hitting on hook and full team slug until bleedout has also increased. Facecamping for toxicity's sake has decreaased, but I think that's only because of AFC.
On the survivor side, teabagging and "watch me leave" + notification spam seems about the same. If anything, I've seen slightly fewer flashlight clickers since the flashlight change and locker flashlight removal.
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I would argue toxicity is anything that tries to make the other side feel bad/worse just for the sake of making them feel bad.
I personally am not too bothered by taunting but I understand why some others might be, and I think intent matters more than impact.
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I was playing against a killer that tunneled me out at 5 generators for being the only one without a flashlight. Looked at their stream while they were still in the round, the guy is teaching people in his stream to tunnel and that its ok to tunnel 1 and slug the rest, no need to worry about player satisfaction at all winning is all that matters, and the chat was just cheering him on. Theres nothing you can say to people like that to get them to stop playing that way, but for some reason its very easy to convert people to that playstyle. The fact that people care less and less about the other players around them is what makes the game feel more toxic. Ive even met allot of killers that don't even realise everyone in the lobby is mad at them and they will say gg<3 as if anyone else had a good time or just some kind of cheap taunt, and then they get confused by the verbal explosion that follows lol
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That's the thing though. Bringing strong stuff or going for blinds does not have to mean that they want to ruin your experience. Same with animation spamming after vaulting or pallet throw. Some people genuinely do it to win. They don't want you to have a bad time, they just don't care.
Humpings intention leaves little to imagination. It depicts an act that is absolutely horrible. It should have no place in a game, where people try to escape reality. Not so far back we had a person right here on the forums telling us that they could not play the game anymore after experiencing something like that.
Tbagging in exit gate is bm for sure. It's done to make tue killer feel bad and I see your point. However, humping goes waaaay further than just simple bm. It brings real life trauma into a space where it has no right being at.
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Yes. What you describe in the second part is not toxic. It's people using the stuff in game. They want to win while having a big advantage. The same exists on killer side as well. It's the loadout problem of dbd. It's not toxicity.
So, not doing the objectives in favor of harassing the Killer and denying them their objectives, forcing them into situations where they can't get an upper hand, and wasting their time is not toxic? Survivors not having fun at the Killer's expense and don't understand they're making their match miserable? Using perks and tools meant to be used defensively for a single goal of bullying the opponent is not toxic?
Humping on the other hand provides no in game value. People lose time doing it. It's purely done to make the other side feel bad.
So does tbagging. So does using Boil Over only to get downed in the farthest corner of the map while teammates sabo nearby hooks. So does standing at the exit gate for a final spit in the face to the Killer. Yet you defend such behavior.
I'm not even going into why humping in particular is the absolute bottom of the barrel because literal threads got closed for that reason alone. It's vile and disgusting behaviour.Once again, tbagging has the same connotation, but you make excuses for it.
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In regard to the first part:
Yes. The survivors trying to slow down the killers progress is not necessary them trying to be toxic. They try to survive. I personally take a flashlight squad over a gen efficient team any day of the week. They want to interact with me? I'll gladly take that.
As you see, this does not mean, that it makes the killers match miserable. I WANT to face groups like this. They don't ruin my game, they improve it and more often than not, their plays lead to hilarious scenarios. It's fun.
Tbagging by no means is on the same level as what humping implies. If you think so, then we can stop this discussion right now.
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ooh it is toxic as hell.. and more or less we all are part of this
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I had two matches last night where in both games ran the killers for all gens, one blight and one knight, both were bad mostly trying to m1 over power lol and in both rounds even though my team literally gave them two hits to do a hook exchange they slug said team mates to still try get me, sad part is one of them was a stream lke myself.
It like bro imagine your a streamer too and your mad cause I 360s and mind game your playing braindead knight and shaking head bming on hook which I had harden so am not even screaming lol. Enjoy that 1k, same with that blight and its funny even though I died O score more points than them.
I get alot of people have this malice towards ttvs and its w.e but when your one yourself it just really shows something and yes killer streamers seem to have intense bias towards ttv survivors.
It is really a pity again that ds dont work in end game no more since bvhr wanna give killers pity kill, in both those games if conspicuous actions did not exist both of them would have 0k.
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The game has always had toxic players for as long as I have been playing (started in the first few days of 2019). The toxic ones can cause absolute chaos though and cause a lot of misery for others.
The majority of people aren't toxic but there are a minority who go out of their way to ruin the game for others in any way they can think of.
I think the more potential ways they can grief that are removed and the harsher the penalties, the better the game is as a result. A small number of toxic people cause disproportionate misery
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How does actively harassing other player by abusing gameplay features helps them survive? More often than not, Killer opt just to stand AFK in the corner and wait bully squads out. Is that their survival mechanic? I guess, writing death threats to Killers who actually managed to beat them are also just part of survivors being friendly and just trying to survive. Surely, they didn't mean anything by that.
As you see, this does not mean, that it makes the killers match miserable. I WANT to face groups like this. They don't ruin my game, they improve it and more often than not, their plays lead to hilarious scenarios. It's fun.
Good for you, but other people have self-respect.
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DS only occurs if you are tunneling someone,
Wrong. I lost count to the times when unhooked Survivor was inserting themselves between me and other survivors, basically rushing me aggressively and making me down them because they had DS and wanted to use it on me. Survivors have been using defensive perks for offense for a while and it's really hard not to notice.
Sabotage is annoying but you just drop the survivor you're carrying and slug down the person who destroyed the hook.
Except that while you slug the person who destroyed the hook, the previously downed survivor is picked up and rushes to sabo other hook. I'm not even talking about the entire Sabo squad, with a dash of Unbreakable. The only way to play around these builds is to slug everyone — which then creates a lot of stink about Killers being toxic and unreasonable and how "unfun" it is for survivors to just be forced to eat dirt for the rest of the game. "Rules for thee but not for me", I guess.
SWf are annoying to play against but bully squads are the easiest type of swf to beat.
I'd take genrushers who power the gates and leave without waiting for the Killer to show up over bully squads any time. The miserable experience bully squads create is not worth my time.
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How is flashlight-saving / head on-saving abusing gameplay features?
How do they survive? They keep their team alive. Do I excuse the end game chat harassment? No. Absolutely not. I already said that.
Just for your record. I have self-respect. Thanks.
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Tbagging is not toxic, no. Hitting on hook is not toxic, no.
I think they are both toxic, tbh.
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I don't like anything that is done intentionally to annoy the other side.
Unless you get provoked first.
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If humping is toxic because of what it implies but teabagging isn't are you aware of what teabagging implies? I don't really think you are if you're taking that stance. Everything you said against humping, what it implies, how it has no in-game value, how it's done solely to make the other side feel bad, also applies to teabagging.
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Less, but it still sucks.
One of the big differences is that a lot of the tools that could be used for griefing were fixed, like the spots where a survivor could stand and be impossible to hit or pick up. You could take a match hostage very easily with NM.
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Teabagging is a universally accepted BM and has been for years. That's like saying (in response to yelling racial slurs) 'oh no they used words at me'.
Meaning is created by consensus.
…
Anyone want to explain to this individual what teabagging implies?
This is a double standard and you know it.
I read this twice and I still have no idea what your point is…aside from I guess 'killer players bad'?
You've never faced an actual bully squad then.
One who'll send you to Ormond or Asylum to abuse the unhookable spot, will abuse BGP+the flashbang model glitch or double locker save (yes these have been partially fixed) to ALWAYS 100% save, or who will run stealth perks and go out of their way to waste as much of your time as possible by hiding all over the map and not doing gens to try and make you DC.
You got any streams or videos by the way? You make a lot of claims about your own personal skill at dealing with coordinated hell SWFs and I'm genuinely curious to see.
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You have nothing to do but be a qoute police with your irrelevant points? I just have you join someone else on my ignore list congrads.
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A…what?
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I don't like it either. However, if I have to distinguish in-game toxicity between someone crouching and someone intentionally reinacting a real life crime.
The real life crime takes priority in my book
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If you want to interpret it that way, then both are a consent violation and both are simulating a certain kind of act. Again, there is a double standard here big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through.
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I'm an individual. Thx.
You know what? You win. Enjoy it.
I'm done trying to tackle the behaviour of the people playing this game. I'll never say anything against it ever again here.
Sorry for trying to be better. It leads to nothing.
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The whole BM thing stops being annoying after a while and just becomes funny, especially when it doesn't distract you in your gameplay. Don't get me wrong though I'm not defending it and I never do it myself outside of the occasional headnod/headshake in return.
Survivors bming just makes it all the more funnier when they inevitably mess up, since very rarely do survivors play 100% perfect no mistakes. Sure it can get frustrating when you feel powerless but that happens anyway, it's just how matches go sometimes.
Killers bming, well usually they do this when the game's over and they're just trying to waste your time. In which case I just alt tab and watch a video while they're wasting their own time. Then I just say gg and click continue. Must be pretty frustrating for them to spend all that time anticipating salt and they get nothing but a gg and wasted time lmao
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I played Overwatch and League of Legends before, and I say with confidence that DbD has the most toxic community. I very very very rarely seen a wholesome moment between players in this game. However, in 2v8 I got to experience some nice moments, as people were generally more chill there.
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Nobody said you weren't an individual, I'm just trying to explain that society applies meaning to lexical terms or phenomena. There was no personal attack here other than what you chose to infer.
What people took issue with was the enormous double standard.
You were basically saying 'well if a killer does something gross that's a serious consent violation but if survivors do something gross it's harmless because reasons'.
Don't sadpost or sympathy fish, it only makes you look bad.
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I think it's a lot better. I've been playing since Clown release on console and used to get a lot of messages telling me to kill myself or just overly angry people which I always found funny; I used to save screenshots just so I could laugh at them later.
I haven't gotten one in ages now. I think the last one I got was months ago and wasn't even that bad either; it was like, "Wow, tunnel much." and that was it. Part of that also might be because people realize how anal Sony is with messages and you can report for pretty much anything that swears or has an overly negative meaning.It also depends on ones definition of toxicity. I don't think in-game taunting of any kind is toxic, i.e. t-bags, WSing, hitting on hook, etc. It's part of gaming and I don't think stuff like that should be considered toxic. Annoying? Immature? Pathetic even? Sure, but not toxic. Toxic is way too strong of a word for something so trivial. Even if one does consider it toxic, it's so minor on the scale that it shouldn't even matter. That sort of stuff should be forgotten by the next game.
I don't have EGC but I imagine a lot of that is in the moment anger that most people on both sides will get over 5 minutes later after they have a chance to destress. I don't doubt there can be toxic chats but it can also be turned off if it bothers the person that much.I do however think DBD's entitlement issue has gotten way worse though. Back in the day it didn't matter nearly as much what you ran or how you played. Today a lot more people are complaining about meta builds and playstyles; to the point people will even call you toxic if you run full meta or play in an unfun way. People are also very quick to give up the moment anything even slightly goes wrong. That is a major entitlement issue and a far bigger problem then what toxicity the game does have IMO.
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However, if I have to distinguish
But you don't have to. At the end of the day, it is all toxic behavior that should not be done.
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I've had discussions with people that humping is harmless, told me to grow thicker skin. I had discussions with people that tbagging is harmless. Just in game stuff. What i took from those discussions is, that indicating a real life crime goes way beyond simple taunting. "humping" doesn't leave much to imagination. It's a powerful person "humping" a vulnerable victim on the ground. It's a serious issue that people find this acceptable.
Is tbagging fine? I don't like it. I grew accustom to it. I grew thicker skin so to say.
Just a few months back there was someone writing that they could not play this game anymore due to some killer humping them while playing survivor. This is serious.
I've never seen people say the same about tbagging. Maybe I'm wrong.
Doesn't matter though. Over the years I've tried to improve people's mindsets here. I see that nothing changes. Why bother trying.
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Here's a real life crime involving teabagging. Is that which crime you're referring to?
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Again, I'm done trying. It's real enough for me. You win.
Let the behaviour of this playerbase rot. Nothing changes anyway.
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You go ahead with good friend. I'm done trying. It leads to nothing.
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The point is you're using a double standard. Humping is bad due to what it implies just as teabagging is bad due to what it implies. Neither should be done. You're saying it's okay if survivors do it but not if Killers do it; that's encouraging bad behaviour not speaking out against it
Here's a screenshot, by the way, of where the Navy specifically called out teabagging as it was used to sexually assault new recruits (Behaviour 7 of 8)
You're not speaking out against activities that imply sexual assault; you're supporting it but only for one side with your arguments. If you were speaking out you'd say neither humping nor teabagging should be done.
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