Understanding the "Go Next" epidemic: why did it exist?

Because people are still treating a purely pvp game as a party game. Party game implies it can be enjoyed almost anywhere with (most if not all of the time) RNG elements like random space movements or chances to happen when dbd has more than RNG elements so DBD can not be classified as a party game. Casual maybe party? no.

So when they "stop having fun" they think its totally fine to just ruin a match even if it just started. People need to stop treating dbd like it is a party game. This isn't a social gathering of any sort digital or physical. It's strictly Player Vs Player against random people.

DBD is very blatantly a party game, the same way Among Us (a PVP game) and Town Of Salem (a PVP game) are both Party Games. Games that are meant to be fun even though they are PVP games. DBD at its core is a party game.

The biggest reason why I'd ever hypothetically "go next" is due to outrageous killer ping. Even to this day (yes literally today) I get lobbies against killers with 100+ ping. It makes the entire gameplay loop of chases completely unfun. When you are hit through pallets and windows that you definitely should NOT have been, it really makes you just want to quit because at that point, the game is quite literally out of your control.

Huge self report but go off.

I agree with basically everything you said. But let me add on, a killer is ALWAYS in the match the entire game no matter how long it is, BUT survivors are only in the match until they die, then they are completely removed and lose 100% of rewards after that point, but killers don't, they still get every single point for chases, gens being damaged, pallets destroyed. Hopefully the changes actually punish people for using scummy tactics to "win".

there’s a drag queen streamer that says Wraith is boring and they always go next when the match isn’t going their way. Mind you this person uses a smurf account to bully baby killers.

I'll pop up out of nowhere after my long absence to see If this helps the discussion. I kind of went next as in I haven't played DbD for months nor purchased any of the DLCs. Killer was too easy for me even though I didn't tunnel or camp, solo survivor was too frustrating as there was almost no chance of winning once the Killer started tunnelling as the skill expression to tunnel is far less than the skill expression and coordination needed among four randoms to counter tunnelling, and the only fun I had in the last few months before I quit was memeing around with the survivors and then letting them go. That's not what I want as my main experience with a PvP game.

As such I went next as in I stopped playing DbD and played games I found more enjoyable. I only checked the forums today to see if there had been any improvements made that might entice me back but it looks like it's the same old same old that influenced my decision to leave.

Perhaps once BHVR meaningfully addresses issues such as tunnelling I might try it out again but it doesn't look like there's any point reinstalling right now. An axiom in business is that for every complaint you hear there are a few dozen unreported complaints so I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.

Good luck to all of you who are still attempting to improve the game and I hope you succeed.

[Edited for typo.]

First off, I'd like to thank you for opening this discussion at all, and for managing to maintain such a congenial attitude even when things have started to lean a little… less than civil. That's beyond commendable, and I wish I had a fraction of your patience.

Secondly, I'd like to apologize in advance for the novella.

On the topic itself, I started playing a little over a year and a half ago, with what felt like the real starting rise of the "Go Next" epidemic. It always drove me up the walls having someone instantly DC because of the map, or having someone DC or die on first hook when we had been in a good position (all four Survivors alive, 2 gens left, it's their first Hook, we were set up for success).

There were also times when I understood. Someone's getting hard tunneled at 5 gens and it's clear the Killer is determined to get them out of the game as soon as possible, even ignoring teammates trying to body block and take hits. This is one of the reasons I would sometimes go next. I will give any Killer a chance, even the ones I don't usually enjoy playing against. I've had days where the most fun matches I'll have wind up being against a Skull Merchant, or a Knight. And yeah, maybe they get the 4k, but they rotated hooks, the chases were really fun, and everyone actually got to play the game. There was never a sense of hopelessness.

The hopeless and helpless times? The times of unmitigated frustration?

Those were the times I'd go next.

I load into a lobby to where I'm the only person that does a Generator, I wind up in chase, and during the 2 minutes I'm running the Killer I never see on the HUD that anyone is touching a Gen. Then I get downed only to see the auras of all 3 (or at least 2) of my teammates lurking with flashlights, flashbangs, and/or toolboxes. Of course I want out. I want a team that actually wants to play the game, not farm me for flashlight and sabo saves.

I've seen an exponential increase in sell-outs the past 3-4 months. Teammates teaming with the Killer and leading them to other Survivors, only for the sell-out to ultimately get Hatch. Why would I make my checks? Why would I want to stay in a game where I'm going to get BMed and point farmed?

MMR has gotten increasingly worse, not just matching Killer and Survivor, but matching within a Survivor team. Every now and again I'll get a team with a Killer where all are an equal match and things are tense and fun and could go either way at a moment's notice and I savor those matches because they've become extraordinarily rare. More often than not It's mostly a shift between:

1. My duo and I get a Killer that is well matched with our skill level, but our teammates are actual babies who are petrified of terror radius until they need to go for an unhook, then they'll run for the save, injured, right in front of the Killer. It's not their fault, they're new, the tutorial is borderline useless, the game is not new player friendly. It's still intensely frustrating, and at best someone gets Hatch because we were hamstrung right out the gate.
2. We are (comparatively) the baby Survivors against a Killer who is way above our league, and one person is dead with another hanging on their second hook, and the other two on Death Hook with one slugged with 3, 4, or even 5 gens left.
3. The Survivor team is decently matched in skill, but because MMR values queue times, we wind up with someone who is very clearly new at the Killer they are playing. They aren't comfortable using their power, and there's an equal chance they resort to tunneling/slugging/camping in desperation, or they keep trying their Killer power only for our teammates to bag at the gates - my duo and I stay behind to give them Hooks and a Mori, they shouldn't get a trash game and no points because of bad MMR.
4. P100 comp Blight who just had a bad breakup and needs to take it out on someone. Everyone is dead inside of four minutes with no gens progressed past 20%.

It's 2, 4, and the sell-outs and teams throwing for flashlight saves that made me go next, because the match was clearly a wash, I would like to move on to one that I can actually play instead of feeling increasingly miserable and hopeless as we trudge toward the inevitable loss.

Nothing has ever cracked me harder, however, than the anti go-next system, itself. In every other 'Go Next' scenario, the round was hopeless. Then, after match after match of being stuck with teammates throwing for flashy saves, getting sold out to a Knight, getting steamrolled by another Knight that got a 4k at 5 gens, getting a Ghoul that got a 4k at 5 gens, getting a lobby of babies that were afraid of terror radius, then a Glitchtrap with an Undetectable/Oblivious build that took us to RPD and relentlessly tunneled and camped, I wind up with this…

…and I thought, "Okay, fine, I'll just bring Vigo's Jar so if it happens again, I'll at least get the chance."

That's not what happened.

I threw.

I hard threw.

I was the first found and downed by a Nemesis and it set fire to that tinderbox of helplessness and hopelessness and frustration that the anti go-next had just dumped gasoline on, and no it was not logical, and no I am not proud of it, but it wasn't something I had ever done before, and I sure did not go into that round expecting to do it, it just happened, I just needed out of this game entirely, to do anything else at least for a few hours.

…so I end up taking my chances while Nemmy comes back to hit me on Hook for it. I second-phase by the time someone unhooks me, and I just stand there, and yes, I feel bad for my teammates, but also incredibly relieved when I get thrown on the Hook and Sacrificed and can just get out and do something else and I can't help but wonder to myself if that Steve in the video wasn't experiencing the exact same thing.