Yup - I almost exclusively play anonymously on my P100 ghostie - mostly because I feel I don't have anything to prove if I'm completely anon, and second so I'm not harassed post-match. I do get asked a lot if I'm some streamer, so that's kind of funny.

Had that when I started playing. At this point though, playing killer feels like doing the dishes. You know you often dont want to do it, but youve done it often enough that it becomes routine.

Dont stress yourself when playing a video game. Real life is already stressful enough.

It's not even that people saying that aren't actually winning. It's that a lot of the people who say "oh, and I do play both sides" do play some killer, but haven't played nearly enough to even hit the soft cap. Low level killer is really, really easy. Especially if you're an experienced surv player who comes in with that developed game sense.

But having a couple hundred hours in killer tells you nothing about what it's like at a thousand hours plus. Just about anyone who has climbed the ranks as killer will tell you there is a jarring difficulty spike. In the cases of people who say they 4K 90%+ of their matches, one of these things is almost certainly the case:

1. They're lying (or at least heavily embellishing)
2. They're extrapolating from a tiny sample size
3. They haven't played enough killer to start playing actual competition with any consistency
4. They've got thousands of hours in killer, probably main an S or A tier killer, and sweat their asses off

But again, this topic isn't really about the winning or losing, but how the nature of the two roles contribute to anxiety. Because the killer is the one in the 1v4, the player simply has to actively manage much more than a surv player. You can get totally frazzled while winning and be totally unfazed while losing.

Even though I was winning more often than not, I experienced more stress in hours 500-750 (when I first hit that aforementioned difficulty spike) as a killer than in my 3K+ total hours as a solo queue surv combined.

When i log in to dbd, i feel like playing something like dracula or xeno, and then i click survivor for some reason because im just in the mood to warm up and get some bloodpoints instead of worry about winning. As survivor in solo que you go in expecting to lose, hoping to win, with killer you go in expecting to win, hoping to not lose.

Ive played enough of both sides to have all the achievements n challenges done and often get to red rank 1 before resets on both sides so im confident in my abilities as killer and used to playing survivor as well, which makes me follow the unwritten rules of no tunneling/camping/team slugging and just try to win with skill alone.

But theres some times where the survivors stress you out enough to force you into tunneling halfway through the round regardless, like someone following you with a flashlight everytime you knock someone down they are there to blind n t bag, so you get that person out of the game so you can actualy hook someone else etc. And im surprised how many bully squads there are out there, for example i knocked someone down, and had one guy screaming with scene partner behind me with a flashlight, i look to my right at the hook on the hill and someones crouched next to it with a toolbox alredy i look to the left and theres another crouched around the corner with a flashbang, and so i just disconnect lol other times they arent compitent so they constantly throw themselves at u instead of the generators so u win. But yea killer side is just something you have to really be in the mood for or push yourself to get the ball rolling anyway.

Good take. I feel the same way.

I feel like killer anxiety is mainly caused by the fact that you are in a 1v4. So if you are getting bullied, it is you alone against 4 people. It never feels good to be ganged up while you are alone, and people who have experienced this at school can say as much.

On that note, I have talked with people about 2v8 and they have said that they are much less anxious when playing killer in that mode. Even though there are 8 people ok the other side, the fact that the killer has a buddy to back them up helps them relax. Humans are a social species after all, so being with someone else makes us feel more secure.

1. You have to manage many more variables; you have to play the meta game, managing four survss, 16 perks, etc. As a surv, it's a series of 1v1 interactions broken up by long stretches of downtime. Killer is all go, all the time.
2. As the killer, you should win. At least that's the conventional wisdom. And with expectation comes pressure.
3. As a killer, you are almost solely responsible for the outcome of the match (well, and RNG). As surv, responsibility is diffused over the whole team. And if you lose, you often have someone else to blame (whether they actually are or not).
4. Many killers, including myself, play mostly B/C tier killers and have to fight for their lives to win. Not every killer is a 10K hour Blight/Nurse main just cruising to 4Ks.
5. Survs are more likely to let you hear it after match. I mean statistically, since it's 4v1.

I like the list you put together. Here's my IMO on why I kind of have the opposite reaction.

1: I never found the variables that tricky to manage, in fact I was kind of surprised at the elements of killer strategy that weren't evident to people when I started. That said, I find it much more stressful to make occasionally, but extremely impactful decisions.

Which gen do I go for? Am I running into the killer? Am I going for the save or someone else? Should I use this god pallet or save it?

And all of those decisions are made with limited info on what the other survivors are doing. Trying to piece that together and make the right call carries a lot of stress

2: Expectation doesn't bring pressure, just kind of a 'meh' feeling. Because winning feels underwhelming, losing just doesn't matter that much. I don't really care when I win because I'm expected to, so I don't really care if I lose.

3: This is the one which I probably have the biggest change of feeling on.

If I'm in a 1v1 activity and I make a mistake, no big deal. I'm relaxed, having fun, trying to win, but if I screw something up I tell myself to do better next time and move on. I want to win, don't get me wrong, but definitely can handle my mistakes.

If I'm in a team and I contribute to us losing, I'm devastated. If I don't give my absolute best for the team it's awful. If I mess up a chase, don't spot a killer, misread what another survivor is doing, and I have let other people down, well that's the worst feeling. A single mistake as survivor feels like not only do I lose for myself, much worse than that I cause others to lose.

Sidenote: I'm in my 40s, this is the exact opposite to how I would have felt thirty years ago when team activities where nice and relaxing and individual sports felt like do or die.

4: I played a bunch of perkless Sadako for a while. It felt like giving the other team a 10 point handicap or an extra player. So when I lost, it didn't really matter. This is kind of the opposite of point two, I gave you guys the handicap, so the fact that you won is what was supposed to happen.

5: I can see that, though chat doesn't bother me much and I'll just turn it off if it does.

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One thing that I'll add, as killer I always feel like I have something that I can play for. Even matches where things are going against me, I can still play for a 1k. It feels like I got something at the end. Even games where I get like 8 hooks spread out I can still feel like I played a really good, fair game.

As a survivor, there doesn't seem to be any feeling of 'well, at least we completed 4 gens instead of 3'. I want to escape and I want the other survivors to escape, and there's no 'at least we got to X' point, its all or nothing.

Anxiety? No. I can feel frustration if I play a lot but that goes for survivor too.

If you ask me, can confirm.

Quite important to stop and play other games for a while and dont force yourself to play.

Also helps if you just stop caring of everything and just "go". There is a point where no matter what, you will get flammed xD

Mm I mean I can only play one killer game or max two per day. Survivor I can play 10 games in a row no problem. Playing killer drains my energy even if it's fun also.

@Dadeordye in response to your question, turning on Anonymous Mode keeps you Anonymous thereby relieving the social pressures you're feeling performing in front of a group.

When you're Anonymous, it doesn't matter if you were an embarrassment or an amazing success.

You'll quickly stop worrying about what the Survivors think about you as your gamer tag will not appear.

"I also just kind of stopped caring about what people think of me, sometimes you just make people upset, and it's not a matter of you doing anything wrong, some people want to be upset and want to use other people as a punching bag"

This here is the key. It could simply be my age (I'm an older millennial) but once you reach the point of no longer caring what people think, things become a lot easier. The people I play with and against don't know me from a bar of soap. I'm nobody. They've forgotten about me once they start thinking about what to make for dinner, and they're unlikely to ever think about me again.

Switch has anno too? See ik they are rarest players compared to the other plateforms but I wouldn’t know.

Yes, Switch and PlayStation both have Anonymous Mode.

Its a lonely life out there as killer. You by yourself against four people. I get why people feel anxious.