Petition: Hold Fog Whisperers to a Higher Standard
I've been saying it for a while, but I've been hearing other people talking about this topic lately as well. Fog Whisperers, the streamers endorsed by BHVR (represented by a special badge they put up when they stream/ ect.) Should be the the role-models of the playerbase. They tend to set the Meta. Whether it's their perk selection, the survivor they always play, or how often they d/c from games, they will have imitators.
I'm not saying they should be sweater-vest wearing, day-time T.V. talking personalities. But they should not flaunt breaking rules. An example of this is disconnecting from a game. Due to the high number of games Fog Whisperers play, this will always keep there average above the threshold. Especially if they do it for certain reasons, such as running into a killer they don't like (but someone else paid money to get to play) or to lower their rank, and don't do it wantonly.
But their audience see them do it. And seeing people do things is how things are accepted as normal. Even if You, as a company, have come out and said that d/cing is a bannable offense. They see their role-models doing it and not getting in trouble.
So I'm asking the community to come together, survivors and killers, and agree on something. I know it's rare, but we do it sometimes. And this time, let's agree that our community role-models should be that. And therefore, held to a higher standard.
Comments
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I prefer my Fog Whisperers to be as close to Mr Fred Rogers as humanly possible thank you very much!
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I wouldn't want to take it that far. I love watching Vincent Vega's antics. And that guy has a mouth.
However, I've never seen him intentionally d/c, and he's respectful in the after game chat.
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Exactly. They're in that position selected by Behavior to REPRESENT Behavior and the game as "sponsored" streamers of the game.
They shouldnt do things that are against the rules, or in my opinion even just scummy/toxic. They should try to be the example of what we need in this community.
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Kinda pointless. Hear me out. These streamers were doing these things BEFORE being selected as FOG whisperers. So, For Behavior to notice them, and endorse them, and then condemn them and punish them for doing the same things they were when Behavior sponsored them, is rather insane and abusive.
Noone likes DCs, but noone likes toxic killers either. It's not hard to be a toxic killer. Lol, really you can be toxic with just an ebony mori.
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How about we suspend the program and revamp it?
Put better people that actually deserve the title?
People that actually can take some form of criticism and are not complete ######### making passive-aggressive comments to their opponents.
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@SmokePotion, See Vincent Vega is a good example. Yeah, the guy has a mouth, but that is part of his stream format, whether he's streaming DbD or some other game that night. But in the DbD matches, I've yet to ever see him DC on purpose or derank on purpose. As far as I can tell, he plays DbD by the rules. I have zero issue with Vincent being a Fog Whisperer.
I have no issue with how a Streamer chooses to handle their steaming format and style. If I enjoy it, I'll stay. If not, I'll switch to another channel. Just like any other TV entertainment. But when they start promoting toxic in-game behavior, the purposeful DCs based on Killer or getting downed early in the match, or throwing matches and deranking on purpose, then I draw the line. They should no longer be Fog Whisperers. They should never have been selected in the first place. Simple as that, no excuses.
@Detective_Jonathan, That is exactly what I feel needs to happen at this stage.
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It's a simple process that can be done, You have people dedicated to the bug fixes and stuff, and you have your community management team deal with this issue, it's a win-win scenario/situation, it should not be taking this long for something to be done about it.
And then low and behold, one of them take a snippet of this and put it on the twitter, with nothing to say but "LOL" or "DBDs official Forums is starting to look like the DBD reddit" this ######### has gone to far.
Let me stop before i start talking about the, because if i do then i'm gonna end up getting jailed/banned.
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You'd think this would have been practice from the get go.
People who promote the game should follow the rules, But as it stands now you have people actively encouraging DCing and Deranking which by association and lack of any penalty for doing this makes it seem like BHVR is okay with this kind of game play.
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I made this post after a response from a BHVR employee that said that they know they have fog whisperers do this.
So they know and don't really care. I thought it was time they knew that WE care.
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I literally never heared about whisperers until this very moment xD.
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@Bongbingbing, This is why I've said: I will be the first to criticize Blizzard for how a lot of things have gone in Overwatch over the past three years. But, the one thing they will do is hold Streamers and even their pro-players accountable.
xQc was one of the largest Overwatch streamers. He got banned several times by Blizzard due to toxic behavior in-game that happened while he was streaming live. Things got so bad that he was also terminated from the Overwatch League after being suspended there several times for behavior on his Stream.
There have been some other streamers as well. It's why some of the formerly large Overwatch streamers moved on to other games. They found out that Blizzard was actually going to hold them accountable for in-game behavior on their personal streams.
Despite issues I have with the direction of Overwatch over the past year, Blizzard at least earned my respect for that. They have the business acumen to know that these large Twitch streamers for a game can dictate not only the play meta, but also play behavior.
Behavior apparently hasn't figured that out.
@Detective_Jonathan, Like I said before: toxic, entitled children. Let them go to Twitter and do whatever. All it accomplishes in the end is that potential viewers and subscribers like me won't invest in their business. We'll go to a competitor that isn't a toxic man or woman child.
I think that over the next year or two, the Twitch demographic is going to continue shifting. Have you noticed lately that those who built their streams on being toxic, raging children, people like Ninja for example, are losing subscribers left and right? Signs are pointing to the strong possibility that that sort of stream format is running its course now. Viewers are growing tired of it. Plus, Twitch is slowly becoming more and more mainstream, and your average gamer-viewer isn't going to subscribe to that. And in the case of Ninja, it certainly isn't a Fortnite issue. That game continues to grow, despite all the odds. Folks like TimtheTatMan continue to grow. But streamers like Ninja and xQc are seeing a drop.
It's going to eventually hit those Fog Whisperers as well.
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they aren't breaking any rules, if they were they'd be banned for it. they also paid money for a game they can hopefully enjoy, what's the point in saying others paid money too? I don't see anything wrong with the current fog whisperers
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I cant see BHVR enforcing certain things on to paying customers.
Fog whisperes are just normal players who happened to stream with decent sexed communities, BHVR have approached then to help them out by way of giving out info to their viewers and keep promoting the game, in return they get certain incentives to help their stream.
They are not BHVR employees so they are simply held by the same rules as any other player nothing more.
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If they want to keep their fancy emblem and incentives, I'de say I could. After all, it's not like they are forcing these people to be fog whisperers. These people asked for the endorsement.
It's like bhvr is an advertiser for their programming. if they are breaching the rules (which they are, they just have a bad way of enforcing them, that lets people that play more troll more) then they can pull their endorsement. And that's what I'm asking for. Pulling the endorsement of people that are doing behavior that shouldn't be endorsed.
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Hello there neighbor
STABS YOU
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@twistedmonkey, I'm sorry, but that is not accurate. When they applied to become a Fog Whisperer, they applied to be part of a partnership program supported by Behavior to help market and promote the game in exchange for whatever perks came along with it. As such, they are part of the official public face for Dead by Daylight.
The goal is to promote Dead by Daylight to bring people into the game, thereby facilitating sales of the base game and potential DLC sales as well. That means their Streams are now part of the Dead by Daylight marketing model. This is the same for Bajheera over in World of Warcraft, FeyRazzle or 1HP in the Paladins program, Baggins_TV, Thor, Krippler, and others for Realm Royale, and so forth. They accepted the partnership to help promote and market the game, and become a Twitch face for it.
When they encourage their viewers to go and attack Steam and Twitch accounts of opposing players or viewers, or DC because they don't like a Killer or how a match is going, or purposefully derank to go against lower-skilled opponents because "it's more fun to watch," they are thereby marketing a toxic behavior pattern within Dead by Daylight. They are marketing it to any existing customers as well as potential new customers that might have stumbled into their stream as a means of researching the game before purchasing. And displaying that type of community face could drive away potential sales.
Heck, there was a poster in another thread about this topic that stated he did just that: checked out a Stream to see what the game was about, saw that type of behavior, and walked away. He has the game now only because his friends gifted him the base game and DLCs to get him to play. But after seeing one of those Fog Whisperers as his first experience with DbD, decided not to purchase the game.
Fog Whisperers are not the same as other DbD Streamers. They sought out and were accepted into a marketing partnership. Now, while they shouldn't necessarily be banned from the game, they should be terminated from the Fog Whisperers program and reduced to the status of just the "average DbD streamer." They should no longer be part of the official marketing face for DbD.
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Since I don't know who or what a fog whisperer it doesn't really matter to me.
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Good Lord the man has spoken, Hey BHVR, instead of placing people that can't act accordingly with a model status nor take any bit of criticism, how about you give it to the people with the right mind set.
I said the same thing, the people that do these things should be temporarily suspended from the program, but it was met with "He is just attacking streamers" or "He's being a drama instigator" whenever i go into the streams, they are always the ones talking #########, i never initiate any conversation with them, and then i see their stupid chat going ape ######### about it and it just pisses me off even more.
BHVR, i know i give you aot of support since you added in Detective Tapp, but i shouldn't have to sit there and worry about who i am going against or playing with. This ######### has got to stop, listen to your playerbase and listen to your community.
The only reason these people are still streaming this game, is simply because it is a form of income, they don't even enjoy the game anymore, they only play it because it brings in the money, why the hell would you even bother holding some kind of status, if you don't even enjoy the damn game? It doesn't make any sense.
Get rid of it Devs, it was a stupid system to come up with, and it was a stupid decision to give these people this kind of title, when their behavior in-game is ridiculous.
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And who says those streamers will care?
They were streamers before and would be after losing it, one thing the viewer bases of a lot of streamers hate is seeing them be a sell out.
So do BHVR listen to the 9 or 10 people posting here or the thousands of viewers of the people they know had bad practices yet help them sell the game?
This thread itself hasn't gained traction which tends to say most people simply don't care about what streamers do and just want BHVR to fix dcing for everyone.
Post edited by twistedmonkey on0 -
Actually it is accurate as the ones most people refer too were approached by BHVR themselves as they were announced when the beta program was launched, the rest applied after the beta program.
I dont agree with what they do and I am against dcing but you forget those people are not employees it's a mutually beneficial agreement.
BHVR chose the original ones as they have large followings and have supported the game from the start, they also knew about them and what they do when playing but still approached them, what does that tell you?
Why do you think they would now try to force a paying customer who brings then in money to adhere to different rules just because a miniscule amount of users don't agree with it? They have thousands of viewers don't give a ######### and make jokes about it.
BHVR need to punish everyone the same for dcing fog streamer or not, If i watch someone it's not because of a tag I will watch who is entertaining.
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That's besides the point. Although, since they went through the process of becoming a fog whisperer, i'de think they would care a little. However, again, that's beside the point. It's about the company endorsing things that they know actively hurt the game.
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@SmokePotion, At this point, I have to begin wondering how much Behavior truly cares about DbD anymore. It's not just them allowing Fog Whisperers to run rampant and/or encourage account attacks against opposing players or viewers, it's the state of the game. And trust me: they'll swoop in here like Peter Parker with a web-shooter and proclaim how much they care. But unfortunately, none of their actions in any aspect has shown that for months on end now.
As was stated by Cote in an interview, they're now in partnership with Lionsgate for a new game. DbD is three years old now. Maybe they're just looking ahead to their new title(s). Wouldn't be the first time I've seen a game studio do this.
And some people in my life wonder why I've been a Blizzard customer for 25-years, despite their warts. Outside of the rare outlier like Diablo 3, they support their games for years on end.
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Supported for years on end... Unless their name is Heroes of the Storm.
Sorry had to.
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The Peter Parker web shooting made me burst out laughing. 😂
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I'm all in for this, Fog Whispers are at a higher standard and should be setting examples for other fog travelers to follow. If they can't do that because it's too demanding, that's okay but they will be demoted and lose their Fog Whisper status.
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@SmokePotion, Yeah, that one is in an odd place. I just checked it out on the launcher tonight, and they just completely redid all the hero categories. They also seem to still be putting out new heroes and patches. I know they had stuff done for something like six months in advance, so I'm waiting to see how that goes after June or so.
See, HoTS is yet another example of Activision assuming more control over Blizzard, which is happening and has been documented in interviews with employees. It's not a good thing. It also makes me question how much longer I really have as a Blizzard customer, because I already don't care much for what Activision is doing with them. Hell, Activision-Blizzard (which yes, is a separate entity in too many ways) is the part that's behind the Overwatch League and the influence its had on the actual game. And the OWL is spearheaded by Robert Kotich, the CEO of Activision-Blizzard.
@Justified, Thanks. It was the visual that kept popping into my head tonight about how they keep swooping into threads proclaiming their sense of caring. Which for months now, carries about the same weight as if Dr. Doom had said it.
You know, I have an annual subscription to Marvel Unlimited. I think my brain is telling me I should get back to reading some of it.
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And to be honest: Like I said, some of us danced this dance back in Fall 2018 when this whole thing was announced and the first Fog Whisperers revealed. It started a war that actually brought said Fog Whisperers to the forums, making their very first posts, just to tell us how evil we were and how good they were and how they were only doing it all for entertainment value.
And here we are now, some seven-or-so months later. Exact same crap. Only now they avoid the forums and play the role of snarky martyr on Twitter.
Behavior made their bed, and there isn't anything going to change. They seem dead set on rushing head first into a wall with so many aspects of DbD that it's going to inevitably result in a broken neck.
Which is a goddamned shame, because despite my criticisms here at the forums, I am genuinely enjoying Dead by Daylight. I actually want the game to grow and stick around for a while. It's frustrating, though, when one feels that way about a game, and to play it is forced to be a customer under a Studio that seems damned and determined to slit its own throat.
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Just commenting to keep this thread relevant. Fog Whisperers are an issue on the same level with Legion, DC ing and balance issues. NOTICE THIS MCCOTE
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No, legion is in a far better place than this. Hell I'd say legion would make better fog whisperers than some currently sitting. 😂😂
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i appreciate this bump. Let's keep this thread up there for so long they have to see it. preferably with like 8 pages of thumbs up.
i"m hoping the difference between now, and the last time this was brought up is 2 fold.
1: A lot more people upset at the state of the game.
2: DbD is still losing players, even during free weekends. So this should have the staff worried.
losing players is shown here: https://steamcharts.com/app/381210
With the free weekend, it looks like they might just hit green for this month, matching the same amount of players as the start of last month. Which is still down 30% from over the year. Which means they lost a years worth of growth.
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If BHVR is still losing players during a free weekend, then that is just sad. Ya'll can't even maintain a good playerbase because you guys just suck at management and you suck at giving people specific titles.
I bet they didn't even think about it when they were asked if they could get one, they just handed them out because most of them are friends with not_queen or something.
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@SmokePotion I was reading this post.. I don't disagree with it if people would like that. I'm just making a comment about your comment on "Vince"... I like vince too.. some people see me in his lobby the odd time when I'm near his rank and can snipe in. I enjoy his entertainment with DBD, can be pretty funny.
But the comment about intentionally DC'ing?... He does that.. Probably once a night... For the same reasons most do it.. There is something unfun about a particular situation from the start or during the match and they are gone.
For example.. Get mount Osmond with Vince as killer.. You'll most likely get a DC from him. You slug him while you sweat as a killer to prevent the 4th survivor from getting hatch and hunt them instead of hooking Vince... You'll get him DC'ing.
No offense to Vince or anything, I enjoy his content, but what you said is incorrect. I've watched him pretty regularly for almost 2 years now.
TBH I think everyone at some point as DC'ed... Especially if they have a few hundred hours plus. I would be a hypocrite if I said or pretended I haven't.
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Everyone has dc'ed one guy told me he never dc'ed but i just chalked it up to him kissing major ass trying to get up there and be a Fog Whisperer.
There is no one in this game that has not dc'ed in their entire time of playing this game.
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1st thing: You've sniped Vince? You lucky bastard, I can never get him. I have beaten Stream Dad and Noob3 with my hag though. (i didn't snipe them though, they just popped into my lobby,a nd i confirmed it with their stream)
2nd: See, that makes me sad. I've watched a lot of his stream, and never seen him d/c. I love Scardette, it's pretty funny. But content aside, he really shouldn't. And i'm sure if he got an email from bhvr saying "Any fog whisperers caught intentionally d/cing will lose their status" he wouldn't do it again.
I believe this, because he's never been on his stream saying things like BHVR will never ban them, ect. Like some streamers have. ANd I stand by this. If we want this zeitgeist to stop, we have to take steps to stop normalizing the behavior stopping it.
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@SmokePotion Well everyone has done it.. does it. I DC'ed a couple times last week as killer cause I didn't feel like playing against a few OoO SWF groups back to back and got bored.
There is stuff in the game that people don't find fun sometimes, so I understand why they may do it. He doesn't do it very often so that is why I wouldn't see it as an issue, but some people do.
If people got penalized for DCing a bit more harshly... or/and the Devs took it more seriously, then I don't believe there would be any need for a petition.
It is extremely easy to snipe in if you are the same rank... in this current match making. The new Match Making where it groups up everyone before sorting into lobbies... I didn't have any luck in getting in. I found the new MM much harder to try and snipe in.
One tip is to stop and start their stream before they go into a lobby.. so that it will resync the delay and make it easier to guess.
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The thing is, sure. it might be a point that you can argue that if you run into sweaty swf that are rushing gens, and no ones getting points anyways? Maybe.
However not for Vince. I hate to say it, but he is a role-model. If he likes that official endorsement, and I know he does, then he needs to remember that his actions have a ripple effect. It's just how it is. He should try to make the ass-stompingly bad game funny for his viewers, and step away from it emotionally.
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Dude is a grown man probably pushing more than anyone can handle, he should always be aware of his actions, no matter what. But for the younger people it don't seem to click for them.
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I completely agree with the sentiment of this discussion.
If someone is privileged enough to offically represent our game, and endorsed by the Devs, they should be ambassadors for the game and maintain integrity.
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The game itself should be fixed properly, then no one would disconnect.
If both partie would be balanced and maybe ranks would mean something, nobody would disconnect.
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@mcNuggets I wouldn't go that far. Hell, I will disconnect from a non-ranked match in Overwatch when I realize my teammates are absolutely horrible and we have no shot in hell at a win. Granted, such doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
People would still disconnect here for the same reason. Survivor feeling their teammates just aren't up to snuff, or they're solo and the SWF teammates just don't care about them. Killer just having a bad match (assuming balance is there) and just says: to hell with it.
But the DCs would go down by a significant amount.
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I think this is the best explanation so far.
Every game has their fair share of in game DCs but honestly, no other game is as bad as DbD when it comes to DCs.
Since Dota 2 is a free 2 play game, when you just start playing the game, you see a lot of people disconnecting because they have nothing to lose. Even in that game my experience was better than DbD.
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@Kilmeran Seems to understand how business works tbh. He seems to have this very good "Tell it like it is personality" which i think we need more of here on this forum.
The Fog Whisperer program is nothing but a program filled with people that are trying to put themselves in a forced-positive mindset, which i think is something that shouldn't be healthy for people nor business.
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@Detective_Jonathan Thank you for the compliment. I'm far from perfect and I am not all-knowing by any stretch, but I've spent close to 25 years in the entertainment business. Though I am a fiction author at my core, I've also worked in television, sports-entertainment (i.e. wrestling), comic books, table-top RPG, and briefly in video games.
I do have a decent grasp of marketing and comsumer psychology as it pertains to entertainment. Like I said, though, I'm not flawless or all-knowing, and will screw up or be wrong about something. Hell, I've even had the oddball product that just failed to pan out with the customers. Like anyone else, I've had success and failures. It happens.
Not trying to flex, mind you, just stating where what knowledge I do have comes from.
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Flex all you want dude, i would rather someone like you steering the ship than someone like BHVR, because at this current rate, i think the ship is sinking.
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@Detective_Jonathan Yeah, I'm going to be honest: Many of their moves, especially in the past six months or so, have really made me sit back and wonder what the hell the decision makers are thinking. Do they just not have enough knowledge of gamer psychology, and are simply crunching numbers and deciding where to go? That's not something you do in the industry. You have to combine the two. You have to absolutely understand gamers.
Us gamers can ######### and moan all we want about companies like Blizzard, but they understand gamer psychology in a way I have rarely seen from a video game company. It's why they are where they are. Hell, I know what they're doing, I've done it myself to gamers in the table-top RPG industry and made bank with it, and yet Blizzard still gets me to fall for it time and time again.
Gearbox is another one with what they do with the Borderlands series. They play into gamer psychology very well.
I mean, granted, I'm only looking at Behavior from the outside and I've zero knowledge of what goes on at the offices, but as a gamer, customer, and someone that's successfully marketed and sold to gamers, they are really giving me pause.
And to be honest, without a serious "Operation Health" period for Dead by Daylight, and a rework of systems like the Perk RNG grind just to be able to play DbD as intended and experiment with builds without first needing 1k+ hours in the game (which is the biggest stated turn-off to new players, and likely their primary cause for a lack of new player retention), I don't know what to do. On the topic of the RNG grind, it's so bad now for new players that it makes the EQ1-era MMOs pale in comparison. And that is not why people play a PvP genre game.
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Hey @Peanits and @not_Queen Perhaps you guys should take what this guy is saying into consideration. Think you guys could need/use it.
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Da ship is SINKING!!!!!!
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@Nickenzie and @Detective_Jonathan, Well, I'd agree that it appears to be taking on water. But it can potentially be plugged and repaired, assuming enough resources exist to allocate to it and tough decisions can be made.
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While I 100% agree with obeying the rules I find the "scummy/toxic" part a little too much of a grey line. Monto and Noob3 are toxic and scummy sometimes but not to the extent that they want to deliberately ruin someones day. I think its sort of a tough spot to judge.
But again yes any representative for a product (Dead by daylight in this case) should be responsible for upholding the standards the company wants to set for their product.
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Some of you people care way too much about these Fog Whisperers.
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