Talking To A Wall... (DBD Discussion Rant)

Sometimes, sometimes not. Situations like the example above can be about someone from one side sharing similar scenarios where the overall issue is the same in a macro fashion. When going through the methods of conflict resolution, the main one that would be missing from the Op would be Collaboration. That would be finding a solution to both issues without needing to make compensatory adjustments to either side. Relativity becomes important because if two people have a similar issue but with non-exclusive differences, there can often be a solution that addresses both simultaneously. That type of macro approach to problem solving tends to prevent solutions from causing additional problems with their application as well.

As an example we can look at the DC penalty. We'll start from a standpoint of "Survivors don't want other survivors to DC and ruin their games" while a killer might also complain that "Every time I bring in an iri addon, people DC and the addon is not refunded even though the game was wasted." Both of these issues, while not directly the same, share a common thread that they are caused by survivors DCing and ruining the game for their side personally. The compromise would have been to put a penalty specifically on survivors, since both issues were caused by that issue, which would have involved a lot of 2-4 in the first post. These types of compromises tend to involve one side needing to take an unfair concession to come to a resolution, which would have resulted in something like only survivors getting a DC penalty due to how both issues are presented. Since most balance considerations are about only getting things that help your specific side with this community, it would have led to a lot of arguing and would not have been the best resolution. Thats what I take away from it, at least.

That said, Collaboration was implementing a universal DC penalty so that there would be parity in its application, and survivors wouldn't have taken a concession that didn't also apply to killers (aka a universal change to affect all players evenly.) While this at a glance would appear to be a compromise rather than collaboration, this change also fixed other issues that hadn't been addressed in this example: It addressed survivors who get upset when their challenge/achievement/etc gets denied by a killer DCing, Survivors who do well early vs killers preventing said killer from DCing early as well, basically any scenario where a killer could DC to ruin something. The solution to one issue not only branched out to be the solution to an issue for the other side, but addressed other issues that hadn't even been attributed to the issue during discussion. Now they just need to work on when people bypass said system, but thats another discussion. TLDR: The issue shifted from "Survivors are DCing" to "Players are DCing."

Some people don't share these considerations, and they might indeed be trying to muddy the waters to lose focus on the original complaint or even poisoning the well. Sometimes it really is just a macro approach to how multiple related issues can be addressed simultaneously.

I've noticed this a lot here, and I'm getting sick of people only looking at how THEIR side is affected. Lord have I TRIED to be the bigger person and extend a kindly hand to others, but it doesn't seem to matter - people just want to vent and be angry when they don't easily win games it seems.

And I'm tired of it, because this isn't a vent forum. It's a discussion board.

Nobody has a side. There are no friggin' sides, most DBD players play both Survivor and Killer to some degree. Nobody actually cares or should care about whether you prefer Killer or Survivor as if you need to support one side for president or another, everyone plays both to some degree. And if they don't, they are not a well-rounded enough player to make any sort of judgement call and can safely be ignored.

The Devs do not favor one side or the other. The game is not "massively X-sided" just because you are struggling right now.

The game is just really friggin' hard when the opponent you face is about at your same skill level, which I'm starting to suspect more and more is the case if you become too used to winstreaking or winning in general.

I think a lot of Killers boosted themselves in the past and this is why we see those complaints, or have in the past. Now, the issue seems to be opposite - many Survivor things were changed, so now they don't have a competitive edge from old boost tactics, so they face the same issue as Killers do - they get a player they cannot handle from being boosted and cannot get out of it. Since you do not change MMR from a DC, they never get out of the sweat zone from a DC. The result is complaining and upset Survivors believing that a balanced game is "massively Killer sided".

We saw the same happen after the death of the 3 gen meta and Overbrine meta. Killers that boosted themselves with gen perks ended up being slaughtered and complaining the game was too hard. But the game just adjusted an overkill meta and things that were too strong and not fun.

And that frustration leads to derailment and us vs. them. It leads to anger and talking around people and angry upvotes and what I suspect could be a spambot or false account issue on the forums based on the number of upvotes some of these posts are getting. I see it on Killer AND Survivor posts. I'm sorry but I don't for one second believe 35 people actually think a niche Pig addon is too strong and unfair, and that's just one such thread I've seen here.

Looking at you, BuffDH.

You're very right, most topics tend to get diverted or they take a very lateral turn until a mod steps in and eventuelly locks the post or deletes it.

But I'll be honest, the forum isn't what it used to be anymore and that is because a lot of the people who used to be on here, who would have a proper discussion/conversation, try to hear you out, and offer actual tips/advice or propose possible solutions, are no longer active (or have been kicked out of the fog). Which is a shame.

To your point, the second one, I personally wouldn't say that it's fine when someone does that. It is still diverting the main topic of discussion. Instead of trying to solve your issue or address it, they add another one into the mix, which doesn't help anyone get anywhere.

I think the best way to not let these things bother you or get under your skin is by agreeing to disagree with them (because multiple things can be right or wrong at the same time). Or just refraining from replying to them in the first place. I hope that makes you feel less like you're talking to the proverbial wall (even if it's by a small margin). Take care!

I think you make a good point that as long as arguments are made honestly, it's best to have people advocating for both roles to prevent some very one-sided updates.

I do also feel that there's a lot of disregard for the experience of other players by a non-zero fraction of the player base though. My biggest issue with the game in general is that there are a lot of mechanisms for making a particular player's experience worse. And that goes for both sides: The killer can tunnel, proxy camp, and slug for 4k, and survivors can try to bully the killer. Also, survivors can just go next and ruin the match for three other players. A lot of posts/comments I see appear to only consider one issue without considering the game balance and/or the experience of the 'opposing side'.

I think all of those should be gradually pushed out of the game with small updates that nerf those tactics over time in small increments, except in niche situations. Like in the endgame, probably most tactics are fine to try to save a survivor or secure a kill. And we shouldn't try to fix the issue of someone just having a bad match. But I guess we all acknowledge that we can't just take away those things suddenly or the game balance would be destroyed. But ultimately, I think tactics that make one player have a much worse experience than they need to have should be fixed over time. And I think a lot of the discussions that appear one-sided are a result of that kind of thing; that or inexperience…

Really though, I agree, we do need people pointing out all issues that players can experience so that BHVR gets to see the full spectrum of problems they need to balance for. And crowd-sourcing is a great way to do that.

What frustrates me is knowing that the developers basically never actually take feedback from this forum (I believe it has happened before but not frequently) and they don’t even listen to feedback from fog whisperers. Other than arguing to argue or discuss with fellow gamers what even is the point?

I think that both sides have issues that definitely should be adressed. Sometimes they are very closely connected and sometimes they have nothing to do with each other.

In my opinion it is completely fine that both sides do have some issues that are expected to be fixed with perks. That's why they exist after all. However, there are some fundamental problems that perks can't fix (like tunneling and slugging) without creating new issues, that might be even worse.

The reason why discussions often lead to nothing is that a solution would require everyone to debate based on logic and facts. But when people don't come to believe something because of logic but personal experience, bias and emotions, they begin to rationalise and in the process of doing so they become irrational. At that point there is no sense in arguing anymore.

Many people hate being wrong because they view it as a negative indication of their intelligence (which by the way it isn't). So they will come up with all sorts of reasons why they must be correct, which leads them to the conclusion that you are wrong and everything you said was irrelevant.

I think the issue is, people here are quite serious-minded in some ways about the game. BHVR clearly seems to care more about casual players, not competitive ones, and despite what people here claim about being casual, I think we're all more competitive than we like to admit. That is, we tend to care about winning, strategy, and really in depth tactics more. We're the people studying how to loop effectively and what Killers are strong or weak, worrying about perk synergy, etc.

The average player, that is the majority of the community, doesn't. They barely read all of the perks in the game, then get confused why a Killer running Friends til the End was able to one hit down them but only made their friend scream when they got unhooked.

BHVR balances for the average player, the mediocre but not terrible player. They don't balance for newbies or the old hardheaded DBD hardcores. They don't balance as much for people super familiar with the game. They know people like us will be fine and make do, and that if newbies don't learn quickly they will just quit, I think.

Frankly? Game should be easier for everyone, both sides. We need robust tutorials and help for newcomers. We need to keep what we do for intermediate players and casuals. And then we need some extra option you can unlock or opt into for hardcore intense players. I just don't know how we'd achieve all that.