http://dbd.game/killswitch
Survivor vs Killer Experience
An in-depth look at each role and how each role is treated in the current environment the game has.
I PREFER playing Killer (75-25 Split currently by stats) but it can be draining to play, i don't main any high tiers, and even when i was playing only a couple matches a day, i would still end up seeing Toxicity on most days, luckily i don't really care, sometimes i even find it funny, but i know not everyone is like that.
It did made me think though, was it the way i played, the perks i use, the killers i play, does any of that even matter, or is it just the role of Killer?
So i played A LOT of Survivor recently.
The overall experience is just way less demanding gameplay-wise, being only 1/4 players on the team puts a lot less weight on you, as Killer every mistake is your own, and you are always actively playing, as Survivor the games end as soon as you die or escape, and there's a lot of downtime just sitting on gens, its a lot more chill as an experience.
I would say my main problems are mainly just Solo Queue itself having little to no communication with your team, so you experience a lot of the generic Solo Queue problems, and that i just don't find survivor that fun for the MOST part.
Sometimes there's that 1 match that's really fun, close and with alot of teamwork, other times you hit first hook, and sit there for a couple minutes and then the entity takes you, not cause of the Killer camping, but because your only teammate that was available was sitting in a locker.
But the main difference is, you face very little toxicity, its like Night and Day, and most of the time you probably wont see all the chat responses, especially if you die first you can just leave, while Killer is always the last to leave due to design, meaning they always see everything that's been posted, when People DC/Abandon the killer has to clean up after the entire lobby if even 1 person remains, and after they finish cleaning up, going to Endgame Chat and seeing lots of colorful words is probably not the best experience.
And most of the time if you face toxicity as Surv, it is actually your own teammates.
So i think its rather the Environment, Survivor is 4 People, while Killer is 1 Person, if the Survivors choose to be Toxic the Killer is basically in a disadvantage by default, a 4v1 in chat is not very welcoming.
Another thing is Killers playing Optimally is seen as more problematic in the community, while Survivors playing Optimally is not, which probably makes a lot of Survivors feel validated to be toxic to Killers.
Overall its probably the only game i have played a game with a Community that is so toxic to a side for no reason, the Killer can be seen as Toxic by simply playing the game, which feels very off, its just a game and i feel a lot of Survivors have a bad mindset, there's 4 Survivors, by design you wont win every match, in some matches you will be the person who dies first in a horror movie.
I think its just in a cycle of negativity leading to a worse experience for both sides, i always just type GG in endgame chat, takes a lot less effort than a rant to me.
What do yall think, maybe my experience is different, id like to see how others feel about this.
Comments
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I would argue that you see much more toxicity from survivors playing survivor in solo queue than you do playing killer. In that situation your teammates can literally betray you for any reason they dream up. I play roughly 60-70% survivor, and I play A LOT. (I am tier 72 right now in the rift)
From my experience, survivors are by far the most toxic, and they don't reserve that toxicity for the killer alone.
Bring one of the two instrument perks and gen rush gens. If the survivors are too uninformed to know that this build finishes gens in like half the time it normally takes, they will see your aura when you play some music and go find the killer, and lead them to you during chase. Another gen rush build that is less well known and very likely to get your team to throw, dc, and curse you in chat, uses Specialist and Appraisal with a key to make gens unbreakably complete. Most survivors have no idea what you are doing and they'll throw a fit if they see you brought a chest offering and are opening a bunch of them. On a side note both of these builds are fun and extremely OP. Try them out!
Why is this? Well, inexperienced survivors have no idea what you are doing, but they believe that they know everything and want to be in charge of the team. If you don't play their way they will try to punish you for it.
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I am Tier 70 in the Rift from almost entirely playing Survivor this patch aswell, i agree fully, as i said if u face toxicity as survivor it is from your own teammates most of the time, not to say Killers are never toxic, of course that isnt true.
I have just seen a vast majority of Toxicity comes from the Survivor side, atleast from my experience, maybe its just a thing for any games that are Team based, but in this game only one side is a Team, whether it be blaming your teammates or being mad at the killer.2 -
My experience is quite similar to yours. I've noticed that the game create a certain mentality, especially for the side that feels more in control, which usually the Survivors. Games like this give players a sense of power and adrenaline (or frustration and burnout), and toxic players get too attached to that feeling. They don't make much sense, because they're too attached to a certain outcome or whatever benefits them. I also think the brutality of the game itself fuels some of the toxic comments toward Killers. Even when people know it's just a game, they still take it personally.
I remember coming back after the Mori rework and being confused by how sudden it was. I thought the Killer was mad at me because they didn't finish me on hook, only to realize later that it was a new change. It's easy to interpret the game based on how we think. So yeah, we really shouldn't take this game to heart.1 -
I play allot of both. Enjoy both, but gravitate towards survivor for the more chill experience, i have 100s on either side and got all the achievements and challenges done etc. And from what ive found over my time in the game is i started back then and as i was learning the game i learned tunneling/camping/teamslugging = win, but bad for the game and disrespectful. And nowadays theres 10x more streamers teaching new players tunneling/camping/teamslugging = win = fun. We as the players and our mentalities are what have degraded this game over the years nobody really respects eachother anymore.
Just yesterday i was doing some dailies in solo que, and as im on a generator i see ghost face chasing someone around the main building, they finally go down, but get saved, twice, three times, then ghost face spots me running by, and from then on i get turbo tunneled into the ground right off the hooks till i was gone. He goes off on the survivors who were bullying him in the chat, i ask him what i did? He says i was on their team, and left. And thats all it takes is 1 - 2 toxic people in a lobby to make each and every round miserable. Or even toxic people from the previous round influencing how the killer plays in the next one. And so the majority of rounds are miserable and i end up only playing long enough to finnish dailies or whatever quest page just opened.
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Another part i didnt include in my post is how high Prestige Killers get unrealistic expectations planted on them, i noticed once i neared my first p100 Killer people would point out your Killer prestige and mock you over it sometimes.
And after p100 it just feels like it happens way more, maybe its just me.
Survivors will be more toxic depending on the result of the match sometimes.
If you underperform, and lose 'Wow you are p100 but are this bad?' 'P100??? LMAO BABY KILLER'
Or you overperform, and win: 'Wow you rely on this at p100?' 'cant win without 'Insert excuse here''
It makes it feel like you have more pressure on you just cause you like a character enough to p100 them.
I dont have any p100 Survivors so i cant say how the experience is on that side personally.0 -
I also feel this everytime.
I can’t really agree that you can’t refuse to take pressure as killer tho. Playing as survivor a lot of time, I’ve seen that type of killers who just don't bother themselves with macro a lot and just playing for hook stages and chases itself. One day or another such killers dropping their level to lobbies where they mostly of the time feel comfortable with playing, because players against them most likely will have miserable level of escape rate, so you can chill. If 3 generators not popping within 2 mins, it is more likely such lobbies. There are many killers in this game who play like this, because there are many survivors who play like this as well. Probably they are the same people even.
As killer I’m always trying to take pressure on my shoulders. Even if I understand I’ll lose, I’ll try until the end. And so do I on survivors. Yet many teammates not really doing this. I don’t know, but they are either completely giving up, or don’t realise high pressure and simply refuse to take that huge amount of responsibility that can be thrown on your shoulders as soon as you are priority for the killer. The only thing I want is stop being matchmaked with such people, but because in this game MMR in a mess, I stuck with them for a long time. I also don't feel satisfied realising that such people in lobbies and not myself can be a reason of my win rate on killer. People afraid or don’t wanna taking pressure in horror game. People want to stay extremely casual yet upset by dying too fast. This is just baffling.
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Survivors that are toxic ingame just have that us va them mentality . Any player who does not is able to see that both sides are just playing the game and doing their objective without any actions being a personal attack towards you .
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Ive got about 6 p100s, 3 survivors 3 killers, working on 4th killer at 89. Ive had the same experience on killer with dracula and it was a full swat team not letting me hook with 4 flashlights etc so i just flew around as a bat and kicked gens for the quest at the time. Got the "p100 for what? Whyd you give up so easy?" So it does happen more often.
My first survivor however was rebecca long before they hid the survivor prestige, and i can confirm it was 10x worse for survivor until it was hidden. As not only were you targetted by the killer as a "challenge target" you were blamed and insulted by your teammates as well as the killer for every 5th - 10th round. Not so much anymore as almost everyone has a p100 somewhere nowadays
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I always find it curious how differently people playing the same game can experience it. For me, Killer is the "chill" role. Of course, it wasn't that way when I started playing and encountered my first bully squads, but I have to tools to handle those guys for the most part now. I'm a former Survivor main that has flipped roles fairly recently (I only play Survivor now during events, modifiers and when Nintendo Switch is isolated from the rest of the player base).
Killer can be as chill or as sweaty as you make it, imo. As Killer, I can decide exactly how I want to play most of the time. I can cool it a little if my opponents are struggling or I can kick it up a gear against the sweatier teams. I have more freedom to run the perks I like. I can give hatch if I feel merciful or I can treat myself to a 4K. If I see a lobby giving me SWF vibes with multiple beamers and toolboxes, I can bring Lightborn and Mad Grit to counter. I mostly play for hooks and chases not just for Kills as my personal "win condition" (or landing impressive curves if I'm playing as Billy). Sure, I still get the bags now and again. But most of the time I don't know what my opponents think about the way I play because I keep the chat window closed unless I'm 100% certain everyone had a good time. So many aspects for the "feel" of the trial are in my control when I play Killer.
That's often not the case as Survivor. I'm at the mercy of the whims of the rest of the lobby. There's always a chance that something will happen that will put me in a rotten mood and make me want to switch off the game. Maybe a Survivor will unhook me in the Killer's face for no sensible reason and get me tunnelled out. I might be left to go second by oblivious teammates. Or a teammate might decide to grief me because they saw me get into a locker. Maybe the Killer decides their strategy will be to slug everyone out. Maybe I'll be tunnelled by the Killer because that was always their plan / they have a vendetta against Scene Partner, Head On or because they just don't like Megheads. I don't have a good time, I don't get to progress my quests and my time feels like it's been wasted. It also feels like there is more at stake to winning and losing as Survivor. If I go on a losing streak, my teammates get progressively worse and it becomes harder and harder to dig myself out of SoloQ hell. If you lose as Killer, it's back to mashing potato teams for a bit until you get back to where you were. No big deal.
All this is in spite of my Survivor games being easier than in recent times and Killer being harder (I put this down to pallet density changes and casual players abandoning the game en masse).
Post edited by tjt85 on3 -
from my experience it is as follows:
Killer: you have to perform if you want a fun experience otherwise you WIL get tbagged and bullied + survivors WIL stretch out the egc timer
survivor: you are allowed to goof off with perks like scene partner et you can allow for mistakes since you have that failsafe of multiple hookstates.so all in all killer is MUCH more stressfull since your the one to blame your the only one making the mistake and 4 people wil judge you for it. You have to bring perks that are good/great otherwise its a waste of a slot you cannot bring perks like shattered hope or perks on the weaker end since you cannot afford to do so bc gen speeds are flying. You need atleast 1-2 gen regression 1-2 chase perks and some hybrid perks are things like noed or no way out
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It's exactly the same for me. I had to do that 'lose chase after dropping a void crystal' quest this morning, and my hubby stuck his head in the room asking what I kept yelling about. I did not enjoy a single one of those survivor games. I was on edge. Switched to play Freddy afterwards and immediately felt my shoulders relax. I have no one i have to rely on when I play killer, no expectations, it's just me and the game is what I make it. Outside of quests, I just can't play survivor.
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If you're still struggling with that quest I'd suggest using Vigil, Lightweight, Ghost Notes and Sprint Burst to get it done. I'm totally addicted to this build because so long as you're not injured and can break line of sight, you can do a disappearing act because your scratch marks will disappear so quickly. It's very effective when paired with the void crystals.
Streamers have done videos on this build so I'm sure it's already on BHVR's chopping block (even though I've never actually seen anyone else using it). I'm going to enjoy it while I still can.
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Thanks for the advice! I actually did manage to get it done after a few games, thankfully. What worked was running between the killer and whoever they were chasing, then dropping it lol
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It's something that's often overlooked. Unless you're devoted equally to both roles (I'm talking 50/50 across the board), you will always be more invested in one role over the other. The one you care more about is the most frustrating while the one you care less about is the chill role. Literally nothing phases me as Killer and I play incredibly casual, but my Survivor trials are a nightmare because those are the ones I actually want to participate more in.
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I know I'm going to be odd man out on this, but I've always found playing Survivor overall more stressful and frustrating. I started off playing mostly Killer, then played mostly (about 75%) Survivor for almost a year, and in the past few months I've skewed heavily back so I'm playing roughly 50/50. I got my Survivor main to P100 last Anniversary, I just got Huntress to P100.
For me, a lot of it is just 'The Solo Q Experience'. Sell-outs have gotten really bad in the past year, and it seems like I made a terrible mistake not maining a cute girl because it doesn't matter how well I do in chase, how much effort I'm putting into doing gens, unhooking, healing, etc., if a Feng or Sable or Jill is the other person left and sells me out, I am always getting hooked or Mori'd, and they're getting Hatch. It's extremely demoralizing. There's also, even in solo q, the pressure of failing my teammates, which I know is definitely not the norm for most considering my teammates are a bunch of strangers. (And god forbid I don't play perfectly, then I'm getting chewed up and down in chat because, "P100 plays like trash," from my teammates, but if I play well, then, "P100, touch grass, get a life," from the Killer.)
Playing Killer, if I make a mistake, that's on me and no one else. I don't have teammates whose gameplay is going to suffer for it. People T-bagging at Exit Gates, especially if I was being nice and 8-Hooking, is obnoxious and stupid, but it doesn't feel nearly as bad as running the Killer for three minutes only to go down and see that two of my teammates are lurking for a flashy save, the third is hiding in a corner, and no gens got done. Playing Killer is like vacation time.
…or, it was.
The map rotation the past few months has been so atrocious (orbital/snipe Huntress does not play well at Hawkins, Lery's, and Midwich), and gen speeds are so lightning fast that there are more games where I cannot keep the pressure up because I cannot snipe people off of gens before they pop. MMR is ridiculous on both sides. Playing Huntress I'll get entire teams of baby Survivors that don't even have Tier 3 perks, or I get a 3-stack sweat squad that has four gens popped before I have time to breathe, and it doesn't matter that I go out of my way not to tunnel (which often means, at least for a little bit, ignoring Survivors that make stupid mistakes), slug, or camp, and to rotate Hooks, to make the game as fun and fair as possible - I'm getting T-bagged at the Exit Gates or on the Hatch, I'm getting accused of wallhacking or aimbotting, etc.
Survivor-side, I'm playing solo and duo q and I can't get tome challenges done. Most games everyone is dead at 3 or even 4 gens. I won't T-bag, or otherwise BM, but if I last more than 30 seconds in chase there's a good chance I'm getting hit on Hook or WS'd on the ground or bled out. Roll the dice on teammates selling me out or even doing gens or not.
It feels like, Survivor-side, unless you're playing in a 4-man SWF or the Killer is being exceptionally nice, you're getting steamrolled. Killer-side, unless you're playing a high A- or S-tier Killer and/or running plenty of gen hate, you're getting steamrolled.
I've had more fun just playing in the event mode with things like undetectable Wesker standing in Rift Portals with Insidious, or playing Doctor with a chase build that quickly humbles flashy spammers and then I can choose to goof off and be nice if I want.
Outside of niche and off-meta builds and playstyles, though? It honestly feels like, for the most part, most people aren't having much fun…
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I think a lot of it is because there's two sides - a remedy for sports-like competition - except it's asymmetrical. How can this work?
DBD should always be considered a party game. You can't make this game competitive, no matter how desperate the streamers and the developers want it to be. That one amazing killer player won't be as good as that one amazing survivor player if roles were reversed and vice-versa, not to mention there's four people on one particular side. What standard can we have to ensure that both sides always have equal strength if all five players rotated killer? See how confusing this is getting? What measures all this? What's a win, if a survivor dies within a minute but the rest escape? That dead survivor definitely didn't win. The killer wasn't able to kill everyone. There is no winning, only living or dying. The fact that the community tried to implement a win-condition - or perhaps the MMR did - was the first wrong step in the wrong direction.
There are too many random factors to determine how many kills the killer will get. The random map, the random team, the chosen killer, the perks on both sides, the mistakes, the reliance on team-effort, the hatch, the random spawn placements, etc. I always felt that because of these random occurrences, the game should have been geared towards party-esque. The super popularity of cosmetics and IP's are an extremely obvious example that people want to look good and play as their favorite killer/survivor. Yet, so much time is spent on trying to balance what feels like an unfinished game (due to it's lack of content and repetitive gameplay). And guess what? Still endless complaints on both sides.
Once we stop taking this game too seriously and entrapping it in a mundane, repetitive niche, the sooner we can have more modes and objectives. They should be focusing on the fun factor, and it will make more people happy. Sure, some people consider competition fun. If you feel that DBD has a competitive nature to it, then that's fine. However, it really needs to be an expansive, jam-packed game which has something for everyone. The 2v8 is certainly a step in the right direction, as it is by far the best mode. The game as a whole needs an overhaul.
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