http://dbd.game/killswitch
a discussion about personalized killer and survivor rhetoric
Hello, I’m once again back with probably one of my longest posts in forum history because I just enjoy yapping fr
so as we all know, a lot of discussion goes around balancing and the state of this game on the forums. what's interesting is when the discussions that are had here have gained the attention of youtubers and twitch streamers, whom contribute to these discussions outside of the platform. one of the more notable individuals i've personally seen review posts and talk about them recently is someone named "v.h.s.x", who is predominantly a ghostface main. their videos primarily address opinions surrounding perks, metas, addressing ‘us vs them’ statements, changes made to the game, and discussing other content creators’ opinions. This is pretty standard of those who engage in community discussions, but what makes this case interesting is the perspective and perception of the forums when talking about some of the posts that are made here.
What my opening post is about today isn’t focused on the topics themselves, but what influence such content can have in these conversations as well as the reinforcement of ideologies based on how a conversation is interpreted. Dead by daylight, over the course of its years, has seen much commentary from many different types of players. Often times, you would encounter posts and arguments that have what would be considered a bias. Bias is the nature of our human psyche, since talking points are often made from personal experiences and interpretations of the subject matter. The issue with bias is that it can often reduce someone’s perspective the longer that its reaffirmed. While this is a given, it’s something that people often ignore or forget about when engaging in conversations with others.
A good example of what I described is in real-world politics. I think social platforms that harbor discussions about this game is a near one-to-one example of how political commentary works. Various ideologies, or cultures, coming together to talk about their experiences and how they personally believe the world should be shaped. Some conversations bring good and can be very insightful, other conversations bring bad while being equally as insightful but encouraging change or behavior that does not help progress society as it is today. The quality of conversations is often dictated by one’s understanding and own personal verdict. If you apply this in the game’s current setting, you can see the same formula in the way that things are discussed here.
But what makes this particular person so interesting is their approach and how the things we see in today’s world tends to be reflected in content like this. Now before I get into it, I wanna preface this by saying that just because I am linking videos and talking about an individual person doesn’t give you the right to go out of your way to flame them or accuse them of anything. The whole point of this thread is to invoke a deep conversation about a smaller creator’s content, real-world attributes, and what it contributes to the on-going discussion. If you’re personally going out of your way to invalidate someone for having an opinion for something as trivial as a game, your arguments also deserve to be invalidated just the same.
On dec 6th, v.h.s.x posted a video providing their own perspective to a thread created by kaneyboy discussing kaneyboy ’s OP and the people commenting in it. In particular I wanted to address this conversation because I think it was probably one of the threads that deserved way more attention than just 2 pages, primarily because it allowed everybody’s unique perspective to be showcased. I actually encourage the video gets watched because it is formatted as a more of a counterargument to a lot of the things that were said in that thread and I’d like to see what people think about their points. I will not provide a summary because that is not the intention of this post
As I was watching this video and a few of the other submissions they created on their youtube channel, something I noticed is that the content that was made is more from the perspective of a killer than anything. In this case, this particular video I linked even states in the description that the posts were “broken down from their perspective as a top 1% P100 ghostface main, while also pulling from my own experience of playing over 400 hours of survivor”. There is a lot of statements containing language like “survivor rhetoric”, “survivor opinions”, or “survivor mains”, which is also very common on the forums. This is fine, as this is their way of addressing a specific group of people, but when you understand the concepts within political commentary, you can probably see why this can be a point of concern.
Naturally, someone may develop a preference for playing a particular side of the game due to how they perceive the game or what they feel comfortable learning, playing as, or controlling. Based on what side you may play as more, you’re more inclined to generalize or group together player types by their behavior the longer you grow familiar with similarities in players. However, this comes at the cost of over-generalization and assumption superseding the context of someone’s statement, which can ultimately devalue their personal experience and reasoning. If you do this enough times, you’re challenging the health of conversations and the ability to make clear what is exactly an issue and what isn’t.
This brings me two questions: what is the true validity of most arguments that are made in the community when such biases exist? How can you have a productive conversation and steer something in a healthier direction when discussions become gridlocked by subjectivity? These same questions exist in politics, which is what makes it really intriguing to read.
The reason why I propose these same questions is because of the overarching factor of experience and bias. Dead by daylight, despite is simplicity, is a very complex game. Much like the human experience, you are dealing with a multitude of factors that can influence how someone thinks, behaves, and destroys and builds. Even though this game features obvious variables in its balance like perks, the influence of data, map design, etc., at its core you are exposed to the behavior of humans due to it being a PVP-centric game. You have to spend an exorbitant amount of time understanding player behavior in this game to be able to leverage any of the tools the game offers you, whether its objective focused or interaction focused. I personally believe this makes up a majority of the friction that comes with playing this game: players truly not understanding players and the reasoning behind a decision. If there’s a misunderstanding, it is generally due to an assumption or lack of information to draw an effective conclusion.
The ultimate reality, to me, is that you will never truly 100% know why someone does something, so you are forced to guess based on how much time and information you collected about the people you play against. And yet so many of our arguments are based off of the premise of what we assume to know, and appear to advocate for reinforcement of a foundation that is very shaky. There is a lot of “no, you’re wrong” and less problem-solving to find a middle ground among the community. This brings me to take issue with both videos and posts like these.
Not necessarily because of what is being said, but the reinforcement of what is being said as if it is factual and that an entire group of people wholeheartedly believes. It’s like saying “all people that like the color blue are sad and all people that like red are angry all the time. Red is scary because anger is volatile, therefore the people that like the color blue are the best to be around because red-likers are more likely to be violent, and that everything should be put in place to limit red-likers to keep us safe as much as possible while taking care of the sad blue-likers”.
You never question where the association came from, why someone who likes red may even be angry in the first place, or even question why blue-likers are sad and supposedly require protection. Not once are you encouraged to think about why things are the way they are and what can be done to improve the situation as much as possible. Instead, you develop vitriol through confirmation bias as you begin to pay more attention to things that “prove” the argument that was made. It’s even worse when you encounter individuals who don’t want to learn, merely laugh at it and distance themselves from it, are close-minded, or cast it aside as a non-issue rather than considering the implications. If you put monetary or collective incentive behind this, either as a content creator or as a community-acknowledged ‘leader’, this escalates confirmation bias further. This is what people start to identify as an “echo chamber”. If you read comments or responses to videos and forum posts, you may see what I’m referring to.
Both sides, killer and survivor, inexperience and experienced, do this, and I think it heavily devalues our ability to communicate as people.
Is this a big deal? Not really in the context of DBD itself alone. It is a game at the end of the day. But it is concerning when rhetoric begins to sound awfully close to what we already deal with in today’s age as a society and how we talk about things. Video games, however, tend to be very good at showing what someone’s thought processes and perception of life may be like behind the screen.
Before this post ends up exceeding some character count by accident, I’m going to cut it short here. Let me know what you think. And please don’t use this post as an excuse to ACTUALLY get political. The reference to political commentary was more of a framework to my point.
Comments
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what is the true validity of most arguments that are made in the community when such biases exist? How can you have a productive conversation and steer something in a healthier direction when discussions become gridlocked by subjectivity?These same questions exist in politics, which is what makes it really intriguing to read.The answer is the same as it is in politics: You can only control your own mindfulness. Bias is inherently human, as we live in a subjective perception of an objective world around us. That said, acknowledging and being honest with others (and ourselves) is what we do to apply dialectics. Bias becomes an issue when it inhibits the ability to face thoughts and experiences that directly contradict our own, while facing those contradictions instead allows for understanding in adjusting conclusions to allow for both. Many arguments are not as mutually exclusive as one might think. Essentially it comes down to critical thinking, using information that seemingly contradicts our own to instead expand our hypothesis to incorporate it as possible/viable/likely/etc. Some people get lost in the emotional details and seeking validation rather than having their mindset challenged, which leads them to hunker down on biases like a flotation device instead of adapting or even attempting to find common ground.
Unfortunately some people do this willingly and knowingly. Can't do much about them, which is why its better to have reasonable discourse than pointless arguments, and instead not engage with hyperbole in favor of nuance and mediation. People can do this pretty easily, it just takes an ability to find commonalities that go beyond the more personal aspects of our gripes and woes. But the most important thing is honesty, as its one of those "you get what you put in" kind of things: When people are constantly hyperbolic or knowingly hunker down on logical fallacies, they make it harder to be seen as objective, and it makes their own arguments much more likely to be discarded by anyone who tries to be (or just disagrees in general.) Its part of why proof claims are almost envenomed with this game, seemingly always used (either offensively or defensively) for spite instead of just simple coaching.
In the end, there is much wisdom to be pulled from a surprising amount of rubbish. Even people who do blatantly one sided campaigns can still be correct about some things, a broken clock is right twice a day. The big takeaway for anyone who wants to actually be heard is to honestly work toward that goal of objectivity when discussing anything specifically outside of their personal visceral reactions: If someone provides a counterpoint on something that aggravates you personally, they're not saying you're not allowed to feel that way, just that clarity can often make the medicine go down easier. People can learn to improve in reducing subjective biases, but they have to want to. All you can do is give them the opportunity to work toward a more objective assessment, or strip the hyperbole for parts of actual points and reasoning that get reasonably close to it and deprioritize the rest. Because again, no matter how emotionally charged or even irrational an argument might be, that isn't to say that the feelings that evoke it aren't valid. Just misguided, sometimes.
I think its worth noting that this is something that seems to come up a lot especially regarding content creation for the game. Creators tend to get their niches, where they may find themselves essentially chosen by an audience who may have overlapping beliefs that the creators themselves might not even have. Sometimes they have to play things up or down as entertainers, and a lot of good ones know how to do so in ways that aren't dismissive but instead can help players grow from other perspectives. Honestly, I enjoy occasionally watching some of the more passionate creators on multiple subjects regardless of their perceived biases, because I end up learning more from them even when I don't agree with many of the things they say. I feel like that type of patience to curate information instead of people is something we can all improve on, personally its just something I've tried to get better about over the years, and I know plenty of others do as well.
Post edited by Ryuhi on4 -
you bring up a very good point. on a personal note, i guess this is the reason why i observe people so closely when it comes to a lot of the conversations that are had on here. a lot of the time is spent learning what not to do, learning what not to be like, and how to cut through things rather than solely just discussing the subject matter. its in the interaction that i gain my wisdom.
the nature and relationship of argument and human emotion is one of those things that i can never fully quantify, however. i suppose it's because of the difficulty trying to pick apart something that tends to be more visceral than logical. but i think that's because of my failure to understand just how intertwined it can truly be, especially when it comes to anything that contradicts the self or someone's perception. frankly, i don't think others can quantify it either and don't realize what they're up against when they create responses to posts that are emotionally charged.
in a way, it all reminds me of the epimenides paradox with the way some of us communicate our perspectives about the game, but in more of the lens of an assumed 'reality' of a situation than directly self-reference. it is such paradoxes that make this community probably the most interesting thing i've come across.
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Your mention of Epimenides makes me think of the similar Socratic paradox
"I neither know nor think I know,"and how I feel it applies to our understanding of the experiences of others in the game. We can relate, but the only constant is that which we actually experience: For streamers who play the game publicly facing for hours daily, its still not enough to understand how every given match is experienced to them. Those visceral feelings can only be emulated via context or explanation, but the long and short of it is that no two people have the exact same experiences, but especially "under the hood" so to speak. Thats why, while not concrete in logic, its still always worth some consideration. As many of these things can be adjusted within reason (anxiety and hopelessness being pretty big ones in the community,) they should primarily be seen as personal avenues to improve before bending the game to them, with the latter being a result of the elements impacting the game's health directly.Connections on strong levels like that are a big part of what I feel pulls many people together on subjects. Personally I've had discussions on a topic like, say, how double sided the abandon feature is in its current application. Using that as an example (please nobody use this to derail the conversation,) I feel that killers should be able to abandon in true checkmate scenarios, using logical consistency regarding elements like it only requiring a check rather than a checkmate for survivors. On paper, its a very simple point. But then you get other layers like the killer role being load bearing making it a much more difficult position to fit within the abandon system they decided on.
In the end, there is a lot more nuance to the situation. Its actually one where I feel Hegel should be invoked and the abandon system should be replaced with something more direct to the overlapping issues that would make either side want to leave a match early, but the responses range from strawmaning/downplaying/disparaging to agreement/expansion/zealotry. The more people zoom out their perspective, the more they can find common ground. The more they look at discussions as argument fodder rather than actually seeking insights, the more they will try to force bias either for or against their belief. And unfortunately, that tends to lead to concepts like nuance and objectivity itself to suffer for it.
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Your second question about how can we have a productive conversation and steer it in a healthy direction is a very good one. I think it’s pretty simple: people need to spend time playing both roles. This helps people better understand the pains and difficulties that each side experiences, as well as how demands for buffs/nerfs for one side can positively or negatively impact the other. There are people on this forum who I disagree with on a regular basis, but they play both sides, so despite the disagreements I see where they are coming from and respect their opinions.
The most divisive and counterproductive conversations tend to come from those who only play one side and use the forum for the purpose of antagonizing the other side that they don’t play.1 -
I agree with all of this, with a
smallasterisk at the end.The most divisive and counterproductive conversations tend to come from those who only play one side and use the forum for the purpose of antagonizing the other side that they don’t play.While this may be the case in many situations, I feel the antagonizing part is less universal. I know you used "most" instead of "all," but I don't even know if I would go that far. I think more of it stems from simply not experiencing certain situations within said role, regardless of intent. If you take a topic thats come up recently like killer anxiety or even something across the isle like mental stack, I'm sure more silent misunderstanding comes from just ignorance of the situations behind them: Someone who rarely plays killer isn't going to have the sheer sample set to have realistically experienced some of the worst the role has to offer, which is something they probably feel toward killer mains who rarely play survivor enough to be constantly burdened by more niche but impactful issues on survivor side. Mental stack is something that affects players the more information they try to keep track of simultaneously, so someone who barely thinks when they play or listens to music or watches twitch chat might not be bothered by it. Or they might if they're gigabrain and can manage to keep a high stack with those distractions on top. Either way, someone who doesn't even bother to track information mentally in their normal gameplay wouldn't even see it as an issue compared to someone keeping multiple mental timers while playing guess who with their opponent's loadout on top of everything else. Skills like that are easy to be ignorant of in discussions if they're not even factored into the original mentality or not considered.
That said, some people are just bad actors. I just feel its worth hearing people out, regardless of disagreement, until you get to a point where you are convinced they aren't being genuine. Unfortunately since those people are generally looking for arguments rather than discourse, they tend to be loud enough to both drown out and sweep away reasonable dissent that can improve opposing ideas, often leading to people accidentally (or subconsciously) conflating arguments.
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what is the true validity of most arguments that are made in the community when such biases exist? How can you have a productive conversation and steer something in a healthier direction when discussions become gridlocked by subjectivity?It's interesting because there have been a few posts I've started typing recently then deleted because I feel like we're all just going through the same circular arguments.
Conceptually, there are ways a healthy discussion should occur (if we're talking about posts discussing possible changes):
Generally the person starting the discussion lays out a few things - what they want to happen (ex: nerf Vigil), why they want it to happen (ex: it results in boring shift W gameplay), and then why they think it will work (ex: Vigil boosts Sprint Burst, resulting in more survivors bringing the perk, and that nerfing it will decrease this association).
The starter may also add on examples or anticipate possible counter arguments.
People who disagree may come at it from many points of view. They may disagree with the concept (ex: maybe they think shift W is not as boring), they may disagree with the solution (ex: actually SWFs and precalls are the problem and always have been), they may highlight another issue (ex: with other styles of play being nerfed, survivors have fallen back on what they have left), they might discuss a game benefit the original poster is not weighing (ex: Vigil + Dramaturgy results in more exciting games), or they might agree but offer an alternative solution (ex: nerf Sprint Burst). They might also do multiple of those things.
If the disagreement is over a fundamental issue, such as what the players are looking for in the game, they are unlikely to reach a consensus. But that should be fine, we all want different things in games.
But if the posters agree on the fundamentals (this is boring), then they should be able to have a more productive discussion on what ought to happen and the implications of the possible changes. I don't think bias per se is the limiting factor, as much as that we all have limited information compared to what BHVR has available to them, but even with that I think rational discussions can happen.
Or you can just say the other person isn't high MMR.
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The dude you are refrencing is just a ragebaiting killer main.
Why should i take whatever this dude seriously when he thinks that the game is so bad because of survivors?.
Im biased myself, everyone is to some degree, but atleast i dont defend the most aggrecious bs for views and engagement.
Or the notorious side of dbd yt with the : us vs them "toxic [side] gets stomped by p100". Videos.
Best you can do is not even give him attention, because he will never change his mind regardless what you say to this kind of hardcore us vs them mentality.
Even if we give them what they want, they will still complain and never be happy.
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I wouldn't say ragebaiting, but he self admits to having a killer bias. Its the role he enjoys, and his time with survivor is pretty decent, so he clearly has a killer's perspective on different issues while having a more simplified understanding of his opponents' perspective. I don't agree with a good number of his points from the video's I've seen, but he gives them from the perspectives of his wins, losses, and frustrations. If someone doesn't play as much survivor, they would likely not run into as wide a range of experiences in that role. Same with Survivor mains who occasionally play killer and never run into most of what killer mains complain about.
And all of that is ok.
The point is to take the experiences you don't have that someone in that position does, then try to learn from them in your own position. You can disagree with someone on 99% of their points, but if that 1% is true and outside your own purview, its worth hearing them out. When I mentioned watching passionate content creators who have personal biases, thats what I was talking about: I certainly haven't played killer, let alone a low tier M1, anywhere near as much as someone like that. While I feel that level of exposure probably skewed some perspectives due to human nature, it would be a waste to not try to understand anything they have experienced that I simply don't have the sample set to experience.
Something that creator in particular pointed out in one of the videos I watched was in regards to content focus between roles: Killer mains tend to talk about strategy, tactics, and focuses much more often than survivor main content creators do, and I kinda agree with him from what I've seen. I used to see more survivor content creators take that route, but a lot of the content tends to center around trying to assert dominance on the killer, or lamenting the shared agency of the role, while the rest is just normal trying to entertain the audience. Obviously there are many content creators on both sides that defy this type of assumption (and if anyone has any good examples to follow that focus more on improvement and insight, please feel free to mention them. Positivity vibes for either side only please,) but it resonates with my experiences and what I look for from DBD content. And to note, I've seen some content creators switch mains entirely based on how they feel about the state of the game, sometimes out of spite and sometimes out of simple dissatisfaction in the state of their preferred role.
Don't need or want to go into more specific examples, but the point is that there is a lot of content for anyone who plays DBD to improve in their understanding and execution in the game. It can often come from people you fundamentally disagree with on a myriad of issues. The most important thing is to understand what insights you can glean from their stances, as they help you understand what that person is feeling while they play. Its ok to dismiss things as "entitled" or "oblivious" in the community, but only really after giving them a fair and honest shake at consideration. I feel like I bring up Sun Tzu a lot on these forums, but understanding your opponent works both in and out of combat. You'd be surprised the things that are easy to overlook when ignoring warning signs from unlikely people.
Even if we give them what they want, they will still complain and never be happy.This is true of a very large portion of the community, and is absolutely not role centric. In fact, some people believe that entitlement runs much more rampant on the survivor side, due to how multiple aspects of the game work. Personally I think its a user problem more than a role problem, being a scrub has no allegiances in itself.
TLDR: Its ok to disagree with someone on almost everything, so long as you give them reasonable discourse with the things you can agree with them on. If you dismiss them entirely off the bat, you never get that chance.
Post edited by Ryuhi on-1 -
HELL YEAH that's why I just drop one truth bomb after another. red pill all the way exposing the heavily killer sided nature of Dead by Daylight so that we can make Dead by Daylight great again, nerfing one killer at a time until solo Q is saved.
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?
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So do you like a challenge, as you said, or do you want killers nerfed until survivor is overly easy? Choose a lane.
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DBD balance discussions are exactly like political debates. Survivor main this, killer main that. And I'm convinced that these terms are usually used in a derogative way.
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There is close to nothing for me as a survivor main i can do that would change their minds. (Because in my experince, it never does anything anyway, so i dont bother to waste my energy and sanity)
For example, killers love to defenf kaneki like hes the 2nd comming of jesus, even though he had and still has alot of balancing issue and stat issues that just makes the others look like a direct downgrade.
He would defend it and think its needed for a "casual game" to have a easy killer to go on winstreaks with, while survivors should have the opposite...for some reason. Because for some reasob swfs are hardcore dominating the killer, when thats not even true.
If people need a break or quit if they dont enjoy something, why would u argue with someone who is clearly baiting for engagement and most likely just doing it for reasons that just benefits him?.
Atleast for me, i can argue for soloq. But that doesnt matter since the echo-chamber is nerfing soloq anyway, so i dont even bother.
The only thing i can do is make fun of them and tell killers via copy n paste why kaneki for example, is full of #########, then mute them to keep my sanity.
If they dont believe it, not my problem, not my job.
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There is close to nothing for me as a survivor main i can do that would change their minds. (Because in my experince, it never does anything anyway, so i dont bother to waste my energy and sanity)And why would you ever expect anyone who disagrees with you to not have that same mindset? You have to give if you want to receive and especially if you want to do more than just shout at each other.
For example, killers love to defenf kaneki like hes the 2nd comming of jesus, even though he had and still has alot of balancing issue and stat issues that just makes the others look like a direct downgrade.And "Killers" aren't a hive mind. You can focus on people who you can't find ground with, but its a fool's errand to allow that to paint an entire role with the same brush. There have been survivor mains defending obviously broken things throughout most of the game's history as well. Its not a role specific thing to disagree with whether X or Y is broken or balanced.
He would defend it and think its needed for a "casual game" to have a easy killer to go on winstreaks with, while survivors should have the opposite...for some reason. Because for some reasob swfs are hardcore dominating the killer, when thats not even true.He also talked multiple times about how he dislikes "fence sitters," yet seemed to find one of my mediation posts pretty agreeable. If as hard headed as you project, I should have been called all kinds of degrees of spineless. Again, I don't agree with many of the things he says about the game, and thats ok. I don't consider anything I've seen worth silencing, and certainly not worth dismissing good points. And I especially don't feel the need to engage with someone who dislikes him summarizing his arguments, potentially excluding all context and/or nuance.
If people need a break or quit if they dont enjoy something, why would u argue with someone who is clearly baiting for engagement and most likely just doing it for reasons that just benefits him?.There's a very big difference between having a focused audience and ragebaiting. Believe it or not, all throughout history people have been able to discuss things with people who actively hate them, fought wars that lasted years, committed countless atrocities and yet they still eventually find ways to return to diplomacy. I don't think someone disagreeing with you about balance perspective in a video game is quite that deep. As for ragebaiting, I feel its a term that gets so overused it apparently means "someone who won't agree with me" now.
Atleast for me, i can argue for soloq. But that doesnt matter since the echo-chamber is nerfing soloq anyway, so i dont even bother.What echo chamber? I don't think thats how that buzzword works, as an echo chamber would be a platform(s) that specifically constantly validate one another while ostracizing dissent from the common "good." Jumping at "wrongthink" shadows and whatnot. Those people do not even have access to the code of the game, so they can't be the one to nerf things. If anything, ignoring and silencing people over disagreements is how you get echo chambers. They're anathema to actual discourse. Not even going to touch how you feel about "nerfing soloq" when the role has gotten multiple buffs irrespective of how they affect SWFs. I'll just continue to enjoy all the stuff we've gotten (especially the HUD update people constantly downplay) and take each change as they come, then assess them from there.
The only thing i can do is make fun of themThats the hallmark of not having a solid counterpoint.
If they dont believe it, not my problem, not my job.Thats not the point. You can't force people to submit to your reasoning any more than you can your will. Its about presenting your points honestly and respectfully, expecting the same from the people who disagree with you, and then shifting your reaction based on theirs. Note how I'm still trying to explain these things to you despite how stubborn you're being about arguing over discussion.
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All I know is that anyone saying anything positive about killers or even saying that a surv's idea to nerf a killer is bad usually gets heavily down voted no matter how valid their point is.
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well said. i agree with your vision. i think it would help for people to expand outside of their viewpoints, both the players and the developers. your response was so well put i don't have much to say about it.
i joked about this in a voice call a couple days ago, but sometimes it really does sound like they're almost being used like slurs at times. xD
but yea, it really does feel like political debates. it makes for interesting commentary regardless, but it definitely strays too far a little too frequently.
i think this goes for any post that counters a particular opinion. as time goes on, this place appears to be more divisive and does not allow for diplomacy. i've seen it go both ways, which is making it increasingly more difficult to have good conversations, especially if individuals are somehow finding it more engaging to antagonize another side. Like @Ryuhi said, "there's a very big difference between having a focused audience and ragebaiting."
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I think people in this game are always going to have some bias toward either killer or survivor. It’s pretty rare to find someone who’s truly 50/50. The real issue in these discussions is that killer mains and survivor mains often try to speak objectively about the other side without acknowledging how their own playstyle bias affects their perspective. Most arguments on this forum seem to boil down to a few recurring points:
Solo-queue players rightly saying their experience sucks.
Killer mains jumping in to complain about SWF and gen rushing.
SWF players using solo queue struggles and tunneling to deflect any proposed nerfs to SWF.
That dynamic then feeds into the survivor vs killer mindset among killer mains. I think some of the political-style comparisons people make are a bit much, unless the argument is that SWFs intentionally use the solo-queue vs. killer debate to distract from their overall strength which would be funny, but I don’t think there’s some coordinated SWF lobby here. More realistically, if you’re a 1k, 5k, or 8k+ hour player, you’ve probably played long enough to know enough people that you can SWF whenever you want. Because of that, this forum is likely to have a higher proportion of active SWF players, alongside newer players who come here to vent after getting 4k slugged by a Bubba.
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Ill just ask you this.
Do you think, this does anything?, did any of us change our minds or opinions?.
(I can already answer the last one, which is a no).
I could argue back and explain all what i meant, but honestly, it wont change anything, nothing ever does.
I have seen it personally after trying to make bhvr and the community rally behind an idea or against an idea with alot of upvotes. Everywhere, Yet never comes to results.
Sure, i could try again and aim for more support, but honestly if thats what it takes for bhvr to do anything, it would explain alot why its where its at.
Because there never will be a point where i have literally everyone rally up on an idea or against it.
For example the fog-vials nerfs. Not reverted, easy case, still isnt.
Or survivor classes for 2v8, boon class shouldnt be too hard to carry over. But again, nothing. (Mind you those were 6-8 months ago).
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Do you think, this does anything?, did any of us change our minds or opinions?.I laid things out as best I could. If you still refuse to, that's on you. You haven't really given me anything to change my mind with, which is why I haven't. If you were more open minded, you'd see my point is one of neutrality, not opposition. If thats not enough for you I can't do anything about that, but I gave you the chance regardless. Thats the difference.
I could argue back and explain all what i meant, but honestly, it wont change anything, nothing ever does.Because you're arguing when we're trying to discuss. Mediation is a two way street, and doesn't really work that way.
I have seen it personally after trying to make bhvr and the community rally behind an idea or against an idea with alot of upvotes. Everywhere, Yet never comes to results.Judging from this conversation, I can kinda see why. I mean that in the least offensive way possible, but regarding the community, its fractured nature means that argumentative approaches lead to limiting support to the ones who agree with you "on party lines," rather than across the entire community. Similarly, the devs are supposed to be trying to be as bipartisan as possible between the two sides, so argumentative one sided positions wouldn't/shouldn't get as much attention as feedback that considers both sides equally (even when focusing on one particular side for a particular issue.) You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and that certainly applies to being understanding vs argumentative, which feels pretty relevant to the point of this topic.
Because there never will be a point where i have literally everyone rally up on an idea or against it.Of course. Its not about gaining every single person's support, thats idealism a bit too far. Its just about presenting yourself in a manner that doesn't shut others out before they finish understanding your position, being open minded and giving people the opportunity to do the same in kind. You won't get through to everyone, but you get through to more than you do by being combative or exclusionary. Likewise, you gain more from the ones who are combative than you would without. Hence why some are able to learn a lot from content creators who they do not agree with on x or y issues, but people who fundamentally disagree with them won't even hear them out enough to get that perspective.
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Something that creator in particular pointed out in one of the videos I watched was in regards to content focus between roles: Killer mains tend to talk about strategy, tactics, and focuses much more often than survivor main content creators do, and I kinda agree with him from what I've seen.
I mostly want to dig into this. I agree that killer content focuses on these things much more than survivor content does but I don't think there is much content you could make for survivor that focuses on those things. You could make a video explaining which gens to work on first and which to leave, how to watch the HUD to decide if you need to go for an unhook, how to body block effectively. There is more obviously but the well runs dry much more quickly than it does on the killer side and more advanced tactics are locked behind being grouped up and requiring perks. Solo queue can do those things but it is significantly harder.
Before a survivor can really do any of that they first need to be able to last in chase, if they can't do that then the rest will not matter. You can watch videos on how to run various tiles and how each killer power works (and play those killers) but unless you path well they won't do anything for you. Pathing properly takes practice and once you have enough practice that you are running tiles efficiently and running correctly against a killers power you have likely already started to understand map layouts and acquired enough gamesense for the rest not to matter as much. Even at this point the most effective way to win more games is often still to just be better at running the killer.
On a separate note and as someone who recently learned one of their comments was in a video from this guy (and who has never watched a video from them but was aware of their existence), I found his take on what I said to be entirely misleading and seemed to lack an understanding of ping and what constitutes a 50/50. His sole goal was clearly to paint me as a whiner and dismiss my points out of hand. The format of the video is like so many others where they imply discussion but its just them yapping from a soapbox with no way to challenge what they says or clarify what you said, all while they hmmm as if they made some strong point against you. I posted on a public forum so he is free to use the comment how he wants but if he wanted a real discussion he could have commented back to me, he didn't, he wants to be able to challenge what people say without a way for them to respond, its reductive.
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I absolutely agree its easier to do from a killer perspective than a survivor one, mostly due to the lack of downtime by comparison, but the best example I find tends to be killer mains playing survivor. Take someone like Otz, even when he's goofing around he still tries to explain his mentality while playing survivor, even outside of his more informational focused videos for youtube. He also tends to spectate other players when dead and maybe cheers them on or outlines plays they are/could be making, which comes off as very informative. My point was more how that type of focus contrasts with the more ego boosting/validation centric focus I see from a lot of survivor content creators, as that type of content seems to not resonate as much with that crowd. Like I mentioned earlier though, I am always open to suggestions on creators who defy that expectation on the survivor side, as there are more creators out there than drops of rain.
That said, as you mentioned, there are plenty of instructional videos on how to improve. I guess my point is more that practical application is different than instruction, like you surmised, and while you can't directly improve things like routing and pathing by watching (particularly in the realm of input accuracy) you can watch for how they do so in order to improve your own improvement (for lack of better wording.) This is best done in practical application, and believe it or not, you actually learn this best by watching a survivor's movement from the killer's perspective. When playing as killer, you can pick up on a lot of commonalities in good pathing by recognizing things like the directions and angles survivors approach tiles and resources, how they chain them together, recognizing how they utilize things like checkspots, preemptive juke attempts to throw off ranged aiming, etc. These types of things become subconscious as you improve at them, yet are best understood visually through practical application instead of an instructional video in private match examples. Thats a big part of why I constantly state that survivor players can learn to get better by either experiencing or even watching killer gameplay, its about what you're looking for more than who its coming from.
As for the creator themselves, I can entirely understand why people would disagree with him on things, much like I can why people disagree on things at all. If you take a subjective opinion and someone disagrees with it, the disagreement usually stems from each person having different points of reference and experiences, so considering an opposing position as misleading isn't necessarily worth invalidation. It just means if neither side can see the situation from the perspective of the other, it might not be worth engaging in further. Again, I have heard him say many things I disagree with, but I also found many things I did agree with, and some I even learned from. I would not have found those insights if I immediately shut out the rest due to them, which is more my point on the matter. I guess my other point is that you gain more from trying to be the better person than you do focusing on the shortcomings of someone's presentation of their arguments, as well as their contents.
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I don't disagree, especially on how Otz plays survivor. I do want to say that I see just as much validation/ego boosting content coming from both sides, I don't care for it on either side so I just ignore it.
Thats a big part of why I constantly state that survivor players can learn to get better by either experiencing or even watching killer gameplay, its about what you're looking for more than who its coming from.
Completely agree, I am obviously a biased survivor main but I do go out of my way to watch content from killers to not leave myself in a bubble and improve myself from things more visible from their perspective. Some people don't like facing streamers because they might feel judged, I love it because I can watch my chases and the rest of the match back from their perspective. I do play the role occasionally but just tend to bounce off it for some reason.
I agree on letting everyone have their subjective opinions and allowing disagreement. However, it becomes an issue when they allow their bias and subjectivity to cloud objective fact and then potentially have their viewers parrot that objective falsehood to others. In the ping case their entire argument was "thats the server," which is an objective misunderstanding of what ping is and that I wanted killers to suffer for bad ping, which I did not state or even imply. I could explain that if they wanted a real discussion and also clarify that what I want is whoever has a bad connection, above a reasonable threshold, to suffer, since unfortunately someone does have to suffer. As a ghostface main they would likely even be open to that argument as it would also make gen grabs more reliable so long as their own connection is good but they would rather stay in their own bubble and further the us vs them by claiming to their audience that I am another whiny survivor main that just wants them to suffer.
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I don't disagree, especially on how Otz plays survivor. I do want to say that I see just as much validation/ego boosting content coming from both sides, I don't care for it on either side so I just ignore it.Completely valid. Even for the content creators on the killer side I do learn from, it doesn't always come free of those caveats. I was generalizing based on trends in what I personally see out of creators on both sides, which will vary wildly from person to person. I guess my point was more that I tend to find insight of value from one side more than the other, which again, will vary from person to person.
Completely agree, I am obviously a biased survivor main but I do go out of my way to watch content from killers to not leave myself in a bubble and improve myself from things more visible from their perspective. Some people don't like facing streamers because they might feel judged, I love it because I can watch my chases back from their perspective. I do play the role occasionally but just tend to bounce off it for some reason.Funny enough, I've been a survivor main for years, despite a lot of my considerations on the forums going toward the killer role. Thats also a great outlook on going up against streamers, its the same type of thing I would do when reviewing my match footage in fighting games. Seeing it from a different perspective that you couldn't have during the match itself is even more helpful, since it adds context that was missing during the original decisions.
I agree on letting everyone have their subjective opinions and allowing disagreement. However, it becomes an issue when they allow their bias and subjectivity to cloud objective fact and then potentially have their viewers parrot that objective falsehood to others. In the ping case their entire argument was "thats the server," which is anobjectivemisunderstanding of what ping is, and that I wanted killers to suffer for bad ping, which I did not state or even imply. I could explain that if they wanted a real discussion and also clarify that what I want is whoever has a bad connection, above a reasonable threshold, to suffer, since unfortunately someone does have to suffer. As a ghostface main they would likely even be open to that argument as it would also make gen grabs more reliable so long as their own connection is good but they would rather stay in their own bubble and further the us vs them by claiming to their audience that I am another whiny survivor main that just wants them to suffer.This is true, but it is also a part of human nature. Nobody is truly objective, and I won't pretend that I am either. I just make an active effort to do so, for that exact reason. I understand entirely what you mean about the dangers of ignorantly taking perspectives as fact, which is why I am opposed to that kind of argumentation in the first place. My point is more around how those types of distinctions need to be done on an individual level, and how it relates to concepts like shared agency: You can't control how other people take that information, the only thing we have direct control over is how we take it. In regards to others, all we can do personally is try to offer perspectives that try to provide context or opposing viewpoints that my have been excluded or ignored in the original hypothesis. Unfortunately you can't make people be honest/genuine/etc in how they present their perspective, but thats kind of a fact of life.
That said, people can be just flat out wrong about things. Not all perspectives are equally knowledgeable, and people are often ignorant to their own ignorance on topics. Part of why the forum format still persists in an age where people refuse to read something longer than a tweet's character limit is because it allows for that type of discourse. When one platform refuses to allow for discussion and instead favors soapboxing, other platforms become necessary to provide those types of counter points. Unfortunately, like you mentioned the damage can be done from initial misinformation, and thats a very unfortunate fact that ties this topic and its initial comparison very close together. But thats also why they are best handled in a similar manner, simply trying to be the better person and doing what you can to undo that type of damage, while simultaneously not immediately ignoring any truth stuck deep in the midst of un-truth.
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Agreed, and to add to this, the same applies to
survivor mainsboth sides blanketing killers themselves, rather than even just the players. Balance considerations for a Nurse and a Freddy are going to be very different, yet those types of nuances are rarely demonstrated when discussing the role overall. Its the entire foundation on why the Nurse's blink attacks had to be changed to not synergize with basic attacks, since a lack of that nuance took things intended to buff M1 killers specifically and just let her have them as well. Those types of points are why its important that we generalize less in our expectations of what "the other side" discusses.1
