Why I’m Hanging Up My Medkit: Reflections After 2,500 Hours

This video showed up right after I read your post.
There's a nerve wracking issue where many players are giving up mid-game. It feels like they still want to play, but the experience has become so miserable that instead of stepping away, they keep pushing through and hoping the next match will be better in a stale meta.

I feel the same way, honestly. I've been wanting to play for two days now, but haven't. I've never played a game that made me feel miserable even before I opened it.

^ this.

Saying that a Killer is weak or low Tier does not mean that you suddenly have fun against it. And I dont really understand why Otz goes down that route, he should know better.

Pig is one of the most obnoxious Killers to go against if they run a Hex-Build with Thrill and Face the Darkness. And in general it is not like people give up against the strong Killers. Like, I can have 50 games each with Billy, Nurse, Ghoul, Blight and Dracula and I guarantee you, the most times someone will give up is against Ghoul. Even if all of those 5 Killers are really, really strong and two are stronger than Ghoul.

I can't play more than a couple killer matches without people AFKing/sandbagging to go next, and it's always because they feel like the match is hopeless, like when I have 4 or 5 hooks with 5 gens up. There really needs to be something in this game to make a match feel worth playing even if a win is unobtainable.

Not at all. What I've said many times is that I have lots of suicides but almost no DCs.

it's funny bc i didnt even use distortion but since the distortion nerf dbds just gone to shite xdd

Cool but they're still technically different. People say they see endless DCs. I do not. I see suicides. The suicides are the whole reason I think the DC penalties are stupid. People will always find a way to leave if that's what they want. It'd be much better to make the game less unenjoyable for what's cleary a huge amount of players than to push for more and more penalties, but all people every seem to want in this community is to compound misery.

When people are starving, you should advocate for giving them food, not for making the laws against stealing it harsher.

See why i play the way i do?

No I don't, and I never will. I'm the same in solo as I am in a party. Other people don't change me, and I'm not nearly as focused on winning as you are.

You're right, I don't want useless teammates, but I still play exactly the same in solo as I do in swf. I'm going to unhook, I'm going to take hits, I'm going to give the killer free hooks to try to save a tunnel target. I will try to help people not have a bad time and I will die for it. Playing the way you say you do, being selfish and letting people die on purpose, is exactly why people are so discontent. You're exacerbating what you're complaining about.

And I'm the same as killer. Those under hook AFKs? And the ones who chase me to die? I usually swerve on them, and they generally end up reengaging. They often do well afterwards to. Sometimes they escape too, and that's cool. It's a video game. I'm not trying to make people miserable.

The definition of tunneling is targeting one person to repeat-hook them and get rid of them quickly. I'm doing the opposite. If I rehooked this freshly unhooked AFK that would quite literally be tunneling since they were my last hook. I'm going to ignore them and go for the unhooker, as I would whether they were AFK or not. That's what plenty of killers do. I've had many instances where I've stepped away for a second while on hook thinking I had longer only to come back and see the killer do the honorable thing and run right past me. If you're a halfway decent player, you don't need to down someone who's just standing there.

I reenagage with these people once they reengage. And I mean the team can win, not the individual specifically. I know you don't get it, but some of us view survivor as a team effort.

I haven't noticed any specific trends. It's been going on for about as long as I can remember. It's usually when things are wildly snowballing in the killer's favor early on. I actually have two examples from just last night:

First was a killer match. I downed someone super fast at the beginning and hooked them. I moved on and found someone else to hook. I then came upon that first person again, on a gen, still injured, and downed them. I was Undetectable and came around a corner, so I'm sure that upset them. They didn't struggle when I carried them and then AFKed under hook. They had two hooks with 5 gens up so they felt hopeless, and I can't blame them. The team could still win, but they knew they're own win was unlikely.

Second was a survivor match with two duos. The other pair were TTVers, and they were also hooked early. They just gave up, and that caused us other two to loose as well.

The problem is a few things. There's no reason to continue if you're heading for either a personal death or a team loss, especially if you've already hit a certain burnout threshold. There's also no chance of a proper comeback in these sorts of scenarios. Case in point, one of my killer matches from last night:

Hooks were spread. No one was tunneled or targeted. Didn't change much from beginning to end. And what do they get for this unpleasant match? No chance of comeback and low scores. The Bill DCed as he was in the dying animation out of what I'd assume was pure frustration. There's just nothing encouraging survivors to carry on. On the flipside, I regularly play as straight trash as killer, get like one or two hooks like a total noob, and end up with a 3k or 4k in end game by some kind of heavenly intervention. It's been my consistent belief that this lack of a shock turnaround on the survivor side is why survivors are more prone to hopelessness.

ThIs is pretty rare on my end, especially compared to my killer matches, where I get at least one script-flip every session. Even with that good chase, there's a solid chance the killler will at least get a 2k or slug everyone in end game. I've had plenty of matches where I loose momentum and gens start popping even though I have everyone with hook states and someone dead, but this comebacks is usually everyone dead at 1 gen instead of 4.

But I also feel anyone with any sense will drop chase if a gen or two pops with no down.

Mental state is really the number one thing with this game. You can try to cut out emotion and view balance from a completely clinical perspective but that isn't going to work. Where there's humans, there's emotion. I'd venture to say that most people who are unhappy with either role still have stats at the target numbers. It's not the outcomes that matter so much as how the match feels. People want to feel like they had a full experience. As killer, the thing that keeps my mindset from tanking is those shock turnarounds. They are utterly undeserved, but they keep me from feeling beaten down.

Survivor is more complicated, because there's a lot of moving parts.

For me, personally, my mindset is actually quite good right now. That doesn't mean I don't think survivor as a role needs help, but I myself feel possibly the best since I was fresh and new. But four or so months ago my mindset for survivor was at rock bottom. My friends were leaving, my matches were miserable, I was burning out and felt like a punching bag. The thing that changed was making more friends. I played with seven different people yesterday, in three separate sessions. Was there tunneling and slugging and general scuzziness? Yeah. But frustration over cheese tactics can cool very quickly when your friend runs over to slap the killers butt while it's happening. Something disheartening becomes funny. The outcome is the same but how you feel about it isn't. This is why I'm a huge advocate for SWF. It's not about sweaty squads for me, it's about groups of friends having fun.

That's also why I want more for soloq. I'd like a reason to play it as well. More info like basekit Kindred. More in-game tips to develop macro. These aren't game-breaking. They'll just make survivors—especially new and average ones—feel like they have a shot. And yeah, more reason to feel like you accomplished something when things are rough. They had said when the abandon was being introduced there'd be big incentives to stick out rough matches. I don't even know what those were supposed to be. If the only thing they can give us is a free pass to leave whenever things are bad, then the game is not doing a good job with making people happy.