http://dbd.game/killswitch
Kill switch the AFK prevention system now
As many correctly predicted, this thing is already a complete disaster. This problem had very simple, obvious solutions, but someone(s) either way overthought this or didn’t think through it at all, and now survivor players (already at a major deficit in the queues) who are trying to play normally have a new miserable issue to deal with.
Please BHVR - admit that you screwed up, kill switch this now, take some time and feedback, and make sure the solution is reasonable before putting it live again.
Comments
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Nevermind, thought this was about the go next penalties. Regarding the afk system though, it seems like survivors gain afk points way too quickly. And certain actions that should count as not being afk don't count currently.
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yeah, 10 seconds of not interacting is considered AFK. Completely insane.
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Should be more like 30 seconds or so. Or at the very least 20 seconds, that way it would take a minute before crows start spawning on top of survivors.
Not to mention it seems like cleansing hex totems doesn't count as being not afk? If so that's just crazy.
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if you don’t finish the totem it counts as no action. So trying to cleanse a Thrill totem and being interrupted will accumulate crows
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The only real AFK problem scenarios that I ever encounter while playing killer is when there are two survivors left and they both hide for as long as they can. A very simple solution to this would be to reveal auras or even just a noise/location notification when the survivors don’t touch a gen for a certain amount of time. That was all that was needed IMO, but the devs went WAY beyond that and are punishing normal play now.
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Yeah I'm not sure i like this either
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That's not good at all.
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It's because they decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and make the anti-hiding system and the anti-griefing system one and the same thing. But yeah, the "excessive hiding" that I actually wanted BHVR to address was the two remaining survivors hiding to play for hatch and refusing to touch gens. Ideally this system would only kick in with two Survivors left remaining, but the anti-griefing measures need to be active from the very start, so it doesn't make much sense to combine the two systems.
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Imma just take a break from DBD and play some battlefront till they sort this mess out.
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What's wrong with it?
-12 -
Yeah that's definitely excessive. I do think it should exist though for the same reason I think Anti-Camp should be buffed. Hiding survivors is so boring and unfun to play against, camping is boring and unfun to play against. They shouldn't be completely removed obviously but the systems to counteract them should exist. I think the AFK system should kick in after 1 minute 30 seconds of not interacting with anything 1 minute after the match starts, then after another 45 seconds you get 1 crow. 45 seconds again 2 crows, 45 seconds again 3 crows.
Also as a side note 1 crow should be enough to lose collision with the killer, there's no reason for it to be 3, it's not like it's abusable, and even if someone finds a way to abuse it it would require them to sit and do nothing for a while.
-5 -
I agree. It is way too easy to trigger it. I get that excessive hiding is a genuine issue that needed to be fixed, but this new system is too aggressive.
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It is a step that had to be done and people will get used to. It will create a lot of positives for killer players that might help them through the game. I like it!
-17 -
I am not against preventing excessive hiding, but this new system detects everything as "excessive hiding".
Survivors gain afk points and crows too quickly. For example, you can't cleanse thrill of the hunt without getting a crow and even in justified situations (e.g. hiding from oni in power) the system will give you crows too fast.
There is a difference between employing stealth as a legitimate short term strategy and excessively hiding to bm or drag out games, but this new system doesn't differentiate at all.
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Again, this is good step towards healthier game. If there are issues (like Thrill), they might adjust it afterwards.
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Honestly, since the patch dropped, I’ve played about 7 hours of Survivor… and I personally haven’t encountered a single crow.
I’ve crouched behind cover, used Plot Twist, hid when I had to, and even paused for a few seconds between gens. Nothing. Not a single crow. Which makes me wonder: maybe I just got lucky. The current patch has introduced quite a few bugs.. especially tied to the new killer… so it’s possible some edge cases are simply not affecting me. But from what I’ve seen, the system doesn’t punish normal gameplay.
Instead, it seems designed to highlight non-contributive behavior… survivors who spend several minutes running around aimlessly, looting chests, avoiding risk and ultimately not helping their team. In those cases, a crow isn’t punishment → it’s feedback. A reminder that, hey, maybe you're wasting valuable match time. And that’s actually a good thing.
Now, to be clear: I’m usually one of the first to criticize BHVR when something feels rushed or half-baked. But in this case, I think the direction is right… even if the exact values might need some tuning.
One thing I’ve said for ages: if we want to improve the solo queue experience (and eventually justify killer-side buffs), showing teammates’ perks in the loading screen would be a huge quality-of-life change. It’s long overdue.
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The AFK system is out of hand. The fact that I'm getting crows while sprinting across the map to get to door or when trying to stealth to unhook a teammate because I haven't interacted with an object in a few seconds? It's absurd, and truthfully making me not want to play as much.
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The crows are way overtuned. Got crows along with a teammate because a Springtrap ran "no way out". Us having to wait out the timer for the perk gave us crows that lasted while we finally got to try and open the door where he had "remember me". So we ended up dying because of afk crows that we could do pretty much nothing about. This is a load of BS to say the least and they need to dial this change in a bit again.
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Curiously I've not hit any issues with it playing all of yesterday evening... I actually completely forgot all about it... but because I did forget... I also haven't been putting it through its paces or keeping an eye out, and maybe I just didn't see it while I was using things like Built to Last...
I think it's important for someone to compile a comprehensive list of false positives to be addressed. Might lead to more meaningful tweaks in the upcoming hotfixes.
-3 -
I like how we are seeing all the people who don't do anything during matches coming out of the woodwork to be mad 👀 I played about 10 games yesterday, was tabbed out at the beginning of each match for at least a few seconds, and didn't get a single crow. Survivors have to ACTIVELY be doing nothing to get a crow. So maybe stop following people around trying to get flashlight save for 5+ minutes (or whatever else you are "doing") to get crows and get on a gen?
-7 -
So the only time I got crows was with stealth killers. Usually the terror radius helps prevent the crows from spawning so fast however just trying to find gens can take long in bigger maps if your not running Deja exspecially when there is only 3- 4 left. Also trying to find no Ed takes time not including cleanseing it which is something these crows does not give. I feel like this is a good and bad thing. It just needs to be tweaked a lit more depending on situations. Like maybe once the gens are finished make it stop like the anti camp instead of after endgame collapse. Also this not being able to sacrifice yourself on 2nd is a good and bad thing exscially since now killers can mori at 2 survivors. So now we can't hide till the other survivors dies becasue of crows and we also can't get lucky with hatch spawns under us while downed. Idk I feel like this is all to much 😕.
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Yall asked for it, y'all got it 😂 now deal😂 see, they do listen! Tell ya what, just play the game the way it was meant to be pkayed with the original rule set and adapt, cause none of y'all are ever happy.
-6 -
yeah killer sided.
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I don't think a single person in this thread asked for this system, but feel free to dig through their post histories to prove your accusation.
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Battlefront 2 is a hot mess and has been since launch. Literally the buggiest game to exist lol.
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It’s honestly fascinating how suddenly “AFK crows” have become the new villain, as if survivors are being hunted down unfairly by a broken system. Yet funnily enough, after 10 hours of survivor gameplay since the update, I’ve not seen a single crow.. not in my own matches, not in high-MMR streamer (Ayrun, KL, etc) games, and not in any actual objective-focused play... that's how it is.
Yes, the system punishes inefficiency. And maybe that’s exactly the problem some players are having.
Flashlight stalking, camping behind objects for 3 minutes, or aimlessly opening chests mid-match isn’t “stealth” or “strategy”→ it’s deadweight. And this system doesn’t even punish it harshly. It just says, “Hey, you’ve been inactive a while, maybe it's time to contribute something useful to your team”
If that alone feels oppressive, maybe the issue isn’t with the system.
Let’s be honest… some survivors have coasted for years without contributing meaningfully to their team, and now for the first time, they’re being told it’s visible. That’s not a bug. That’s overdue.
And if a few players quit because they can’t run their solo self-care + urban evasion routine anymore… maybe that’s a win for everyone else.
-4 -
Had an issue with this yesterday. The killer let the other survivor go so she could show where the final survivor was and the final survivor couldn't do gens because they were working together
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It simple then just don't hide in lockers during the whole match and depend on other survivors to do all the gens so you can survive how the hell is that fair , and i do see it happening when on the hook ,
-3 -
Oh to continue , but it's ok for you to disconnect like a baby when you get hooked or trying to ######### on first hook cause your impatient to wait for your teammates which they took care of thank the lord, if your going to play like that don't play the game at all , go play COD or Poopnite, or Dumbcraft
-5 -
The thing I always wanted most was for survivors not to be rewarded for doing nothing but hiding. I'm already seeing the stealthers tap gens to avoid crows while still mostly UEing around the edge of the map, so this update is about as helpful as anyone expected it to be.
I've always felt that survivors are rewarded way too much for escaping. A survivor who hides all match and does nothing shouldn't get 9.5k BP for escaping through the hatch. The BP received for escaping should be based on emblems (not BP, because for instance soloing on gens earns garbage for BP).
Freaking aggressive AFK crows screwing people over trying to cleanse bones, trying to open exit gates, crawling in the dying state, this is a bad system.
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How about killswitching the invisible killer first?
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-Know the Killer's only tracking perk is Friends 'til the End
-I am the Obsession-
-Three of us are on a Gen
-I hop off the Gen to get in a locker as someone is hooked so the aura read doesn't bring the Killer over before the Gen pops
-Get out of the locker to go for the save
-Have to run all the way across the map for the save
-Get 2 idle crows as I'm running1 -
This will prevent survivors from avoiding killer, which is good. Untill Nowhere To Hide killers couldn't waste time earching around gen and finally now they don't need to run this perk as much. Along with it will prevent people from following with flashlight saves or bully killer with head on.
Killer sided? Now, just healthy for game. Survivors got massive buffs this patch - less teammates will give up, meaning much higher escape rate. Absurd buff to healing builds. Healing perks should not stack! You want to heal yourself? Ok you have self care and take 50s to do so, you want to heal others faster? Bring We'll make it, do no harm or something. Don't understand how it's fair that survivors can heal others in 6s and themselves in 20s. It's absolutely unfair and need to be removed so only highest boost value is applied.
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"Healing perks shouldn't stack" says the killer while hitting a gen with surge, followed by pain res, followed by pop.
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I'm a killer main. And as always I will say the same, they can completely gutt slowdown perks if they balance base game, so you are not forced to tunnel, slug or run 4 slowdown perks every game.
-1 -
Yes, because survivors can fill 16 slots, killer can do that only with 4 slots.
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true, but at least the developers of BF2 aren't actively making the game worse.
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I don’t believe this to be true for BHVR. Seems silly to me.
-1 -
I literally hopped in a locker to use Built to last and got a crow. It took longer to get rid of the blasted thing and Spring Bob No Pants was able to hear it and pop a U-turn on me. 🤦
-1 -
It already takes a minute to spawn crows if you are not running and you are away from the killer. 1 minute is already the minimum.
Also, finishing a cleanse removes all crows. To prevent "totem tapping" to become the new "drop and pick up items" you need to finish the cleanse.
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Thrill of the Hunt with full stacks makes a totem take 35 seconds to cleanse. Thats like half the amount of time to get 1 crow. And finishing the cleanse resets your AFK progress.
-1 -
Hey there folks. Both in this thread and across the others that have popped up over the last few days, we've appreciated reading your thoughts and ideas regarding the AFK Crows feature, and want to thank everyone who took the time to share their gameplay - both in text and video! It's been very helpful to see your experiences with these AFK penalties while playing the game normally.
Our design team have looked at the information carefully and they do see that this system is a bit too aggressive. Hotfix 1, which is planned for Thursday of next week, will have a few adjustments to the timings that drive this feature so that the Crows do not appear during the course of normal gameplay. This will include:
-We are extending the Grace Period before AFK points begin accumulating
-We are extending the interval and rate points accrue and decay
-We're slowing down the speed you get AFK points while moving and after the Exit Gates have been powered
Again, thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback and experiences with this feature! We really value it and, at the end of the day, we want to make sure you have a blast with this game we all love.
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Great news.
Was the DC Penalty from Go Next Prevention designed the same way as if you would have DC'ed normally meaning repeated Go Next Preventions have or would have banned people from the game potentially?
Post edited by Emeal on1 -
There needs to be a system for this against Killers who play for protect 3-Gen. I got 3 crows because Killer did nothing but chase off Generator and kick Generators then teammates get mad thinking I've been doing nothing. Sure, the Generator gets blocked but I look like a fool to everyone else.
-1 -
5 minute penalty because I got DCed from two matches due to the servers - once last night, and now once today.
Both the AFK system and go-next need major reworks.
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and what does AFK system and go-next have to do with you losing connection to the server. The new systems have nothing to do with you getting DC penalty of losing connection to game server twice.
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Because I've never gotten a time-out before when it's their servers causing the problem. The system seems much more strict.
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