Experience of new killers?

I did a similar experiment a few years ago with my 200-300 hour account, back when survivor mains on this forum started to increasingly complain about tunneling/camping and played extremely survivor friendly. From intentionally playing like a newby to playing for the kill while making sure to not double hook and avoid areas with the last hooked survivor.

My result in regards to chat was a little bit different from yours. It was a very roughly 70/15/15% split between silence toxic and positive chats. But I guess the influence of social media has worsened this aspect.

But what I can say is that survivor back then didn't care for the killer players experience. When it didn't end in a full farm game or when I was facing obvious baby survivors, they didn't hold back at all and all forms of taunting/attention seeking were rather the norm than an exception.

Anecdotal here, but as someone who only really started playing the game this year (I've owned it for years but played like 3 custom games in 2022 then dropped it), I've found toxicity super rare. Sure, I get hit with the occasional bag when I get pallet stunned, and I've seen an 'ez' here or there if I allow a 3 or 4E, but it's most certainly not the majority of games. As said above, most games end in silence, or someone actually being nice because I have a habit of memeing a little as killer without actively throwing the game.

In fact, on my worst day, I got matched into a SWF that was clearly far above me. Gens were popping so fast I couldn't conceive of how. Survivors always knew what path to take, where to bait me to allow for gen progress etc. I tried to play around it, but did not have the game awareness needed to understand where I should have put my priorities. I don't think I got more than a single down and that came from happenstance. They gave me a few bags at the exit gate, but then in post-game one actually said sorry. Told them I was doing my best as a baby killer and they said I did pretty well for sub 100hrs (with most of those at the time being in menus or custom games). They probs didn't think I was as fresh as I was, but upon learning that, the attitude shifted. They even told me where I went wrong (I was looping brainlessly instead of considering direction and where they might try to chain to).

I do think I might avoid it a little more than most because I go in with positivity first. Any rage I keep private lmao. I always hit with a 'ggwp' even if it was an 8-minute humiliation ritual.

I could just be lucky though.

I think the killer role could be made a ton more accessible and less stressful for newer players with just a few small tweaks to chat and gate-opened endgame scenarios. Like sure, people might still tbag sometimes in matches but then you have the choice to chase them or drop chase, frustrating as it might be.

First of all it'd be nice to see who is and who isn't in chat on the scoreboard, for example to know if someone is playing on Epic games or on Console if you're on Steam for example. But if they don't have post game chat you'd see a little "no chat" icon. Second, it would be great to be able to disable chat yourself and turn it off completely in the options just like console has it. I either skip postgame or just say gg and leave 99% of the time, and most matches are indeed silence, especially when I win. Being able to abandon as killer (but leave behind an afk bot that stands still to not mess with challenges) once gates are open and all survivors are healthy or injured would be nice if survivors are waiting or bagging at gates and the game is decided, kind of like survivors being able to abandon when everyone's slugged or hooked and the game is otherwise decided.

And just so we're not only pushing less interaction, it'd also be nice to be able to say "gg" if you had a fun match without using chat, so how about this? A little GG button you can press near your own name plate on the scoreboard. You press it, and it will say "GG" on the scoreboard with a little animation so even cross platform, you can get a little positive interaction in the post game and express that you enjoyed the match. And you could still use it if you had no chat or chat disabled. To top it off, what if the killer saying "gg" gave all four survivors 5k bp each, just a little thanks for the good game? And each survivor that says "gg" gives the killer 5k bps each as well? Just a small thing to encourage some positivity without the need for chat at all.

Other than that, I think matchmaking plays a huge part in why the new player experience is awful, as well as how MMR is calculated but that's another huge topic for another day. Short answer, they really need to remove lobbies if they want better and more consistent matchmaking, as well as start to measure MMR gain and loss on a team basis based on how many survivors escaped or survived, gens progressed, potentially hook states. Not just individually track for each survivor if they escaped or died. Maybe we'll get some news on this at some point this year since they claim to be looking at improving MMR but I'm not very hopeful they'll improve this in any sensible way tbh. BHVR just seems a little out of touch these days with this stuff.

I don't personally get much BM in my matches but I also find that many of my matches I'm either going against players way worse or way better than me. It's awkward and in matches where survivors get rolled they're more likely to just move on without saying anything, no point in waiting for the team to finish. I guess that's why I often get more BM when I'm struggling or losing a match, which is just rubbing salt in the wound and definitely tracks with how a beginner might get more BM than someone that simply has more experience and wins more.

I think it has a lot to do with the skill level. Like you said its the most common for a new player who was successful at beginner level. You also get them as experienced player (mmr is kinda random), but they are not toxic bc they lose. Most good survivor are not that toxic, so if you only lose against them, you dont see much bm.

Maybe the problem is that they lose often and they vent it on the baby killer. Or they are toxic bc some killer was also toxic (bc someone else was toxic and so its an endless cycle) and some killer/survivor are just toxic without a reason.

Its also not a great new player experience. Tunneling new players who cant loop well on 5 gens, makes them frustrated. And there are a lot of other things which are confusing and frustrating. And frustrated players can easily become toxic.

it's human nature to abuse people that cannot leave a situation. if you have the leeway, may as well taunt the other side and make them want to quit. nothing can fundamentally change our species. killers slug people to hold them hostage, and survivors prolong killer torment.

every game attacts bad people, it's not dbd specific but having an audience is what entices these people.

if it's not too much too ask what region is this? I play EU every day and have always felt the toxicity problem is overblown. Is it an Americas thing?

I only started two months or so ago, but I can confirm the killer experience is kind of wretched. I've seen more death threats and SA threats to my mother in those two months than I saw in years playing League. It's truly outlandish and out of pocket how some of these people seem primed to go off. That aside?

Teabagging at every single pallet drop before flashing, check. Bullysquads being 25% of match ups, check. Tea-bagging and stalling at the gates, check. 99%'ing gens when I'm at kick limit just so they can play ring around the rosie, check. TTV'ers going in with their stream bullysquad with the intent to content farm me, check. Consistently finding survivors that gain speed on me consistently in a 30 second straight line chase? Check.

To top all of that off with a cherry, if I tunnel, slug, or camp a bullysquad I'm the scum of the earth and will be told about it. Likely streamed about it. If I do anything but play into the 'walk into pallet, get flashed, streamer laughs' cycle then I am told I am being toxic. Being a killer right now feels alot like I am livestock that exists only for the sole purpose of making survivors happy, and if I fail to make them have a good game I'm subhuman.

Granted not all games run this way. 50%~ or so are genuinely kind of chill. I'll get a 'GG EZ' or 'low tier newgen' in post chat, but it's not so bad. But when it is bad? When it is bad I'm seeing people spam my Steam profile to inform the world what scum I am, got looped like a fish despite 4k'ing, and no small amount of helpful instructions on how to stop existing, etc.

I think the killer experience is just made harder not by survivors being more toxic, they aren't, but by survivors being 80% of the communiy so exposure to larger numbers means exposure to more toxicity.