http://dbd.game/killswitch
Why Are We Still Protecting Anonymous Mode Players
It’s honestly confusing why BHVR still allows players in Anonymous Mode to participate in in-game chat. The reality is, many players use Anonymous Mode just to be toxic without consequences. They insult, provoke, and harass others in the endgame chat while hiding.
Disable chat entirely for Anonymous Mode users where the chat is permanently disabled.
Comments
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People have a right to be anonymous.
I use it constantly because in the past I have had death threats, toxic stalkers who found anything of mine they could abuse me on like screenshots or reviews etc and all because they lost a match against me. I have had people form little toxic SWF's to harass me and friends and all the lovely stuff that happens with the worst this game has to offer.
If someone says something in chat you don't like, that is just life. If they say something that is abusive, that is what the report function is there for and I know from my own experience, BHVR definitely do act on these reports. Though of course I cant say what action, as the notifications regarding reports are obviously very vague.
You can always hide chat if you find it causes you distress
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Anonymous Mode does not mean they are anonymous from BHVR. If they chat something that goes against ToS, BHVR can still take action if you report it.
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Anonymous Mode has valid use cases… especially for streamers avoiding targeted harassment.
But let’s be honest: it’s also frequently used to dodge accountability.
Players DC, suicide on first hook, throw matches… all while hiding behind a blank tag.
No name, no memory, no consequences.Privacy and responsibility don’t have to be opposites.
A simple compromise? Disable endgame chat for anonymous users.
If you opt out of visibility, you should also opt out of the megaphone.1 -
Dbd is the only game where I encountered people stalking my profile and harass me over it. Anonymous mode protects me from that.
I also still see toxic players who don't use anon mode.
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On one hand - I use anonymous mode. On the other hand - I kind of support your reasoning in some circumstances because people hide behind anon mode to talk trash. However even with my bias I'd say that chat should be more readily available to anyone rather than limit it. If someone breaks ToS you can hide their chat, block them or report them granted I feel blocking anons does nothing.
I will say this before I state this - I know you're not saying every anon mode user is a trash talker. However while my comment may seem out of left field I want to say I am thankful for anon mode because DBD has some of the most mentally disturbed people I have encountered in my 20+ years of online gaming. The trash talk comes from everyone not just anon mode users. I've played many games including League of Legends in the past and this game is probably home for some of the most deranged people I've encountered.
I've gotten death threats, I've had people look up my socials including my pets, people have vote bombed my social media stuff or in one case tried to contact people on my friends list to try to get back at me for killing them in a game.
This community is full of mentally deranged people and I feel like anon mode is the only barrier I have from being stalked by one of them. I even have proof of being stalked by a few people I've encountered on this game. I'm not by any means a sensitive person but when you start stalking my IRL ######### because I killed you in a game or maybe ran you longer than you can handle you should go outside (Not you specifically OP).
I share my story with you because I want you to maybe have a different perspective. All these people I encountered were not in anon mode. But it didn't matter if they were or not because they targeted me when I didn't use anon mode or before it existed. Valve nor BHVR can do anything for these people because it doesn't happen on game.
My point is - the real problematic people aren't going to make their presence known in chat. They're going to open your profile and harass you out of the game. Me personally I don't care if someone calls me dogwater in game chat. I'm just going to forget them immediately when I leave lobby.
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It doesn’t really matter anyway. Any time I’ve ever reported players for chat harassment (non-anonymous ones, obviously), there has never been any action taken by BHVR. You can say pretty much anything you want without consequences.
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But if there's a report function for harassment, why have an anonymous mode? Anonymous shouldn't exist, its really just a tool used to harass people without consequence
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Because that only protects you from in game chat abuse, it does not protect you from being stream sniped, harassed and threatened outside of the game.
You may not have had insane DBD fanatics stalking you and your profile and lucky for you, however if you have you would know how crazy these people are and the harassment goes well beyond what BHVR can deal with.
Anonymous removes all of that completely and removing this layer of protection because people get butt hurt about chat is absurd.
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I want to ask you and anyone with this POV - What is harassment to you?
I'm not going to scold you but again you don't need to be anonymous to harass someone without punishment. If your profile is public there is nothing stopping me from acting nice in chat saying "gg" or nothing at all or even being two faced with a little "gg <3" and then moments later going to your Steam profile and looking for anything I can to hurt you. That is what harassment is.
I would never do that because only a loser would do that but I've encountered many people who have done that to me. An observant person may make the assumption that I had done something really awful but nope. I play pretty casually and fair to most players.
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I do feel like "harassment" to many really = 'things I don't like'
You may have experienced what it is like to get hate from a toxic little children and their SWF group, who persistently harass you and ruin every match possible if they can find you. Along with harassing your friends and finding all means possible to troll you anywhere on the internet they can get to you.
I had a friend who used to stream DBD and they drove him off (before anon was a thing), constantly stream sniping him and subjecting him to all the usual horrible stuff you can do if you're a 'comp' Nurse.
Anon absolutely removes 99% of the toxicity and harassment
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The worst thing I've had to deal with is some moron threatening to kill my dog and another who threatened to kill me IRL. If they weren't complete morons and hid their personal identities better I'd have been concerned. But unfortunately given I love my family and pets I had to spend time making sure I had as much info on them.
Sorry to hear that about your friend. Back before the report system was a thing I had to have alts just to play Nurse because I'd have people target me because I was simply playing Nurse simply because I'd have people trying to crash me back when the game was p2p and they had my account memorized.
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if they don't want to remove anon mode, they should at least make it so that anon players CAN'T check profiles and names of other people in lobby at all
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Lol yeah I have an alt from 2020 when I was learning Nurse as there was of course no anon and of course certain toxic kids really didn't like that. So yeah, you get the idea it seems.
Anon is a good thing and it does far more good than bad
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It wouldn't be a problem if the reports were taken more seriously. Removing the anonymous mode only encourages putting at their level and filling their profile with insults, something for which this community already has a bad reputation.
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Are you seriously missing the point this hard or are you just being willfully ignorant? Nobody said BHVR doesn’t know who they are that’s not the issue. The point is that we, the players, don’t know who they are, and that gives toxic players a free pass to spew garbage in chat without accountability.
You think every toxic interaction deserves a report and a hope BHVR eventually does something? Keep dreaming. If someone needs Anon Mode for safety great. Use it. But you don’t get to be fully hidden and still run your mouth in chat.
So next time, before acting smug, try understanding what people are actually saying.
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"that gives toxic players a free pass to spew garbage in chat without accountability."
Not it doesn't. Accountability is getting banned if they broke any rules. It makes no difference to accountability whether or not you can see who they are.
What, did you want to go to their profile to spew toxicity back? If so, then you're just as low as they are. And this is not accountability, that's just 2 toxic people at each other's throats.
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What "accountability" are you talking about? They can still be reported like any other player, and unless you do stuff like check every profile you can (if on Steam, dunno how this works on other platforms) nowadays people can change their name. Especially on Steam, where the only limit is you can't just non-stop spam name changes, like 10 in 5 minutes type spam.
And for every "good" use of profile access like that if you mean checking if people are ones you've marked with a steam block or something, you'll have several using it to rage post in comments, or even get giga mad at someone for daring to have comment permissions set to friends only/private. Or game details (hours), or friend details (swf status check) or whatever other privacy shaming that has always been rampant in the community.
I support the total obliteration of profile access for ALL players though, so I guess I indirectly support the "don't let anon check profiles" idea. As I don't think anyone should be able to snoop, ever.
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Because BHVR isn't going to cyberstalk you after the match - players do.
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Had a Match as killer, Won Fair and Square; Endgame Chatter threatened me with info like what city I lived in, my real name, etc…
After that, I went full Anon mode, Subscribed to a VPN, Changed various other things, and Scrubbed my social media. It's all fun and games in multiplayer until some unhinged creep who knows how to find and Trace your personal info threatens your life, because their ego was bruised in a game.
Anonymous mode doesn't need to go… those monsters do. The only problem is, you never know when you're gonna be playing a match with one, so how do you propose we protect ourselves? Until someone comes up with a Feasible answer to that, I'm sticking to Anon mode + VPN, because that ######### scared me to the core.
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Reporting for harassment is futile. I’ve never had any response when I’ve submitted reports, even for extremely vile and hateful things.
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Yeah I'd rather not go back to the era of getting PSN messages from the kinds of sociopathic people this game seems to attract sometimes, thank you.
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Psn has its own system that doesn't allow people to message you unless you message first
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Ive gotten ban feedback about harassment reports in the past, they definitely do something about it
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As already said, Anon-Mode does not protect from any penalties. Especially non which are chat-related, since for those you dont even need to file a report to Support.
However, I would agree that Anon-players should have some restrictions. I dont think they need to be chat restrictions, but not seeing other peoples names or at least not being able to click their profiles would be great. But this would require to put Anon-Mode locked once you are in a Lobby, because otherwise people could just enable it after checking all the profiles. (In general, nobody should check other peoples profiles, this should have been removed years ago)
Because the only courtesy Anon-players should have is to not flame other players for things which they themselves are hiding. Like hours played, other games they might play, nationality… If you are making your profile private or use Anon-mode - great. But dont blame others because they play a lot of DBD (or not a lot of DBD) or other things. And since not all Anon-players have this courtesy, BHVR should do something about it so that they can lower the amount of harassment which can be done by Anon-players.
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I'd agree to anon players not being able to chat. That's it though. They have a right to be anon if they want to.
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Oh I'm aware, but I don't have this problem with other games, and I've had plenty of positive & unique interactions with people from other communities that I would've missed out on if my messages were turned off. I remember getting one from someone playing NieR Automata even, which was extra special given the omega spoilery circumstances. I'd rather not have to micromanage my PSN settings of all things just because one community is a notoriously toxic shithole.
And really, if you think getting rid of anonymous mode is going to get rid of or even remotely reduce the toxicity to a tolerable threshold, you have another thing coming. The game's practically designed to breed it.
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Well if you can hide yourself from others you shouldn't be able to see others. Thats ny only other thought process. You can't open someone else's profile and such and you can't see their name, just as they can't with you. And anonymous people can't use in game chat
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Absolutely agree! if you opt into anonymity, it should apply both ways.
No names, no profiles, no chat → just pure fog.That way, anonymity remains a shield… not a sniper’s perch.
Because let’s be honest: too many players want to vanish when it's time to take responsibility, but stay visible when it’s time to throw shade.2 -
I mean I'm personally ok with that, but I know it would impact some streamers a lot. Especially the whole "you can't chat/see chat" thing.
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Well too bad for them. If they don't want to risk harassment, then they can't harass people back
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So, this poster has a good point - the anon mode IS sometimes used to harass or hide cheating without "consequence". But it's also useful for TTVs to avoid being targeted, people who don't want to be profile stalked, and others. Maybe BHVR just needs to block viewing anyone's profile.
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