What does toxicity look like to you?
Aa someone who plays both roles equally I'm interested to hear what people think on this, from both sides of the killer/survivor spectrum.
Because I see some players who will get triggered by people literally just trying to play the game well. Like as surv I'll run a long chase, good pathing, couple of efficient loops, avoid killers power, maybe a pallet stun and/or blind or two. No bagging, no nodding or shaking head, no gestures and killers will get obviously very mad and occasionally send a salty message.
Likewise as killer when I play well against a team I'll often catch flak after even if I didn't bm them.
As survivor I'll consider killers toxic if they: hit on hook, the old back and forth over me when im slugged, 0r constant nodding/shaking head when they down me. Tunneling, proxy camping and slugging is an iffy one, they can be very frustrating tactics to play against, but at the end of the day, killer is just trying to win and those tactics can backfire. The one that gets me is when killers allow last surv to open gates, down them let them crawl almost to the threshold then mori. That is straight up maidenless behaviour imo, and I have an extreme dislike for killers who pull that sort of bm.
As killer, i mainly consider survivors toxic if they actively bm me, torch click, tbag on pallets. I'm also really not a fan of survivors who put the boot in when killer is having a bad time. I don't suffer this personaly now I'm better with killer and good at the counter play, but as surv when i see other survs pulling siccessul flash saves or bodyblock sabo plays on the killers first down when they've already lost 2+ gens i just think "really?" But as a rule i don't find issue with survs using flashlights, sabos, bodyblocks etc. It's tactics at the end of the day. I also have a particular dislike for survs who wait in the exit gate or hatch to tbag. They deserve every death to bloodwarden, wesker grabs, slinger iri coin plays and hatch closes that they lose to.
As I said interested to hear what people's personaly opinions are as to what constitutes toxicity in the game. Particularly when it comes to Particularly tactics such as tunneling, proxy camping and bully squad builds.
Comments
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The only thing I've considered toxicity is the end game chat. Not even trying to play scummy and the other side constantly throws every slur and death threat just for playing my role.
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Sometimes I'm glad for being on xbox and not getting exposed to the egc. It doesn't sound pleasant. Although sometimes I am morbidly curious to know what PC players are screaming into the void about me after I've had a good killer game.
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I'd say much of the same things you mentioned. Tunneling and slugging are indeed iffy ones. I get tunneling and slugging in late game to regain some pressure after a poor start. But you've got some Killers who will tunnel and slug for toxic purposes as well. I had a Ghoul tunnel me out because I'm a TTV (it was in their username). Another tunneled out a Sable and then became friendly with the rest of us (they declared in their username that they tunnel Sables).
For slugging, you know there's slugging to avoid flashlight/pallet saves, and then those who play solely to bleed everyone out from the start. The latter is an example of toxic slugging.
And then Survivors can also be toxic to each other as well, which is the most infuriating thing for me. They can pin you in corners and you can't do a thing about it. They can lead a Killer to their teammates. Sometimes it can be accidental, but if it happens throughout the match, you know it's no accident. And then the unhook spam. The devs say they've patched that out, but I've seen it happen after that.
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IMO, it's situational and subjective, but it starts to feel toxic to me if it seems like the main objective of what you're doing is to make another player feel bad.
People can also feel bad for other reasons, so it's not just that you do something and someone feels bad and therefore it's toxic. But if it seems like what you're doing serves no other purpose, then it starts to look toxic to me.
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Toxic as a term is applied way too liberally to menial things. With DBD, the only real toxic thing you can do is continue to expose yourself to stressful situations when you don't have to engage at all.
In terms of the gameplay, BHVR has made it so simple and effective to ruin everyone's experience with relative ease. So anything on that front should be pruned from the game, but I still blame the people that allow that to be possible over the people that take advantage of what's in front of them.
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I was fully tunneled out by a killer in 2v8 had to wait the full game for my duo to play again. Got that killer in our next survivor game as survivor and was hard tunneled out. I'd remarked about karma to my duo and in egc they were raging about it. I find it to be a very for thee not for me sorta logic on part of killer players
Agree there are too many things that are just "you don't get to play" elements which we really dont need
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Oh yeah forgot to mention sandbagging and ratting ppl out. Not a fan of those. Making friends with killer is one thing but deliberately revealing another survivor, or hiding and doing nothing all game are both behaviours I hate.
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Pretty much what you said, anything that can make the game miserable for others.
I've had a few cases where to this day, I'm not sure if they were intentionally toxic, except for one player.
They were playing Doctor, body-blocked in a corner and kept shocking me over and over. During the endgame collapse, they kept giving me hope that they wanted me to escape through the gate, but then used his power to stop me from opening it. They refused to hook me until I opened the gate, then moried me there.
The thing I hate most is when players waste someone else's time like this. That also includes closing the hatch in a Survivor's face after carrying them over there.1 -
there is always the cases where something that can be considered toxic isnt meant to be toxic, eg Killer hitting surv on hook - if its just done once and without other gestures like headnodding then it could just be them trying to shorten the survs scream
So yeah, i agree with most being mentioned in this thread but there is often a situational aspect to consider as well.
In general, if someone goes out of their way to make someone else feel miserable.
Oh and special case (which happens very often with content creators) is bad mouthing your opponents and/or teammates. Worst case scenario here is starting a witchhunt against other players, but even if not that, insulting someone over not playing perfectly, making some mistakes or even just doing something they personally don’t Like i do consider to be toxic as well, similar to end game chat.
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I hope you made that comment to the Killer while they were raging.
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For me i see toxicity as the other player starting to taunt you for no reason. Either side.
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Anything actually in the match, I've largely grown to not care about. It used to bother me a lot but my outlook on the game changed, and I'm better off for it. I don't care if the Killer tunnels, or the Survivors "rush" Generators, or the players emote at me. That's just silly in-game stuff that I signed up for when I readied up.
For me, toxic, is anything that spills outside of the match. Name-calling in post-game chat, harassing people on their profile, flaming them on social media etc. I personally don't use the word "toxic" to describe this kinda thing though, because I feel like the community overuses it to refer to trivial matters and it's sorta lost is meaning.
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Toxicity is playing Ghoul, I'm half joking LMAO
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100% this is why I never say a ‘side’ is toxic as if it’s two different species of people. I’ve seen and experienced many times that toxic people play both sides a toxic way. I’ve also seen countless steam profiles where the comments indicate a person is toxic as both killer and survivor.
that’s why I can’t help but laugh and cringe at many of my dbd brethren who defend their role as though it’s a religious order0 -
it doesn’t happen often to me I must say, but I was once insulted in a pregame lobby for not bringing an item and then some more for my perk load out in endgame.
irony being they used my boon expo to get up three times as well as receiving my for the people on one occasion. 😅-1 -
I tunnel and slug because I want to win the game and it's hard to play without those strategies as the game is survivor sided (there is proof and facts). Especially when I play ghostface without those strategies it feels impossible to win on weak M1 killers. I personally don't understand the complaints about when you are tunneled, it's obvious that chasing is much more fun than doing gens, the only thing you are losing is blood points from gens but more fun and skill based experience.
Post edited by SpyUA on-3 -
Play Survivor and you'll understand.
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I do play survivor and looping was always more fun to me.
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People are going to have a difference on what the consider "Toxic" but to those that say you can't be toxic in the game itself, I would disagree.
A few days ago I had a Sable run up to me with the killer while I was on a gen and point at me. When I ran off she kept trying to body block me. Once I was down she tbagged over me and once I was hooked, farmed me off the hook and once again body blocked me.
While this might not be up there in life as a terrible event I would say that's pretty toxic within the confines of the game.
Before anyone says "What did you do to deserve that?" Nothing, it was right at the start of the match and I was sitting on a gen. Hadn't even had any interaction with the Sable yet.
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That is simply a bad attempt to justify your behaviour. You tunnel, because you can't win otherwise is essentially what you say. You define "winning" obviously by getting all four survivors. I had plenty of ghost faces who didn't need to tunnel. Slugging at the beginning also is rarely helpful, it is only effective with killers who can down quickly, which ghosty is not.
A chase is fun if both sides are somewhat in an equal position, tunneling is the opposite of that, because the Survivors is in a massive disadvantage frome the beginning.
That being said, I don't consider that toxic, but bad sport. It is something bhvr would have to fix, not something players should mitigate. And they are lucky that quite a lot of killers willing refrain from these tactics, otherwise killer queues like in 2v8 would be the good ones.
Toxic behaviour in game in my opion is something like teabagging at the exit gates, intentionally hitting the hanging survivor. Using the endgame chat to tell survivors or killers "ez" or how bad they are, using the n word and other things like that.
And theses examples are not my imagination. I've seen them all, the guy with the n word even repeated the word with one g less so the chat would not be censored.
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Refusing to advance the game. Killer standing over a slug for no reason, all alive survivors just standing in the exit gate.
Attacks in end game chat.
I think if people are playing a sweaty build when they have other advantages is also a problem. Killer using best build when they have a 90+% WR or a comp level SWF running full meta builds - I think if you're on that level you should be giving yourself challenges instead of advantages.
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Mostly what you said. I don't consider tbagging during chase to be toxic though. It's generally strategic, done by confident players who want to tilt you into staying with them. I don't consider sabo players toxic either. Those perks and tactics are part of the game. This again comes down to confidence. If I'm playing killer and someone keeps being aggressive with sabos, rescues, or a flashlight, I just turn my aggression up as well. That's all just gameplay.
I guess what i consider toxic is things the other player is helpless to stop or retaliate against. Tbagging at the gates is stupid and unnecessary, especially if the killer wasn't being crappy in any way. I absolutely hate it when teammates do this to killers who did terrible. There's no need to rub salt in the wound. Humping, hitting on hook, and nodding at a downed survivor are the same.
Killing people at gates or by hatch after pretending to be cool is probably the grossest thing you can do. It's happened to me plenty of times, and I always give people a very safe distance when I'm being cool as killer because I know everyone with time in the game has been burned by this.
End game chat I actually love for the trash talk. At least everyone is equal in chat and can clapback as they please. There's no power imbalance there.
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It's not obvious, it's an opinon. Not everyone likes chase. I prefer the macro of survivor, and outsmarting the killer and their perks. I'm happiest when the killer doesn't even see once me until I'm walking out the gates. And considering how complained about tunneling is, I'd say many don't agree with you.
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to me it's stalling and wasting time when you know you have a captive audience
if an animal has to be put down you kill it quickly so it doesn't suffer tgats what I was taught as a kid. yet there's people who basically let their prey bleed and enjoy periodically kicking it in the head.
I absolutely can hold others to the same standard I hold myself to, so never do this to me as survivor because I have autism so I will play for the server close to spite these people so they don't do it again.
In 2v8 for example I had 2 killers hump my locker for TEN MINUTES because they slugged a bot and wanted to slug and mori the other last Survivor and I'm like nah bro quit being such a clown and open the locker. Odd since it's wesker, I thought he only had 7 minutes? I will never let anybody have their way with me or allow a fellow survivor to endure it either.
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I consider toxicity to be most of the things you mentioned. Slugging and tunneling can be toxic depending on how they're done. Like you're tunneling at 5, it's kind of a dick move unless the survs instantly started bagging, emoting, etc. from the first chase. Then it's just returning the favor. Other then that I find standing in end gate forcing the killer to hit you out to be pretty cringe and little toxic when you can just leave and spare the killer the nonsense of stroking your ego. I find bully squads to be hyper toxic as well. If you're only intention when you load into the match is to make the game as hyper annoying and unfun to play as possible for the killer than you just suck as a person or a group of people. Even if you do no gens and all die in the end, it's still not an enjoyable win. Killers holding the game hostage is pretty cringe as well. I also find slugging for the 4k to be pretty toxic as well. If the survs weren't bagging or anything during the whole match, just playing normal and optimal, then slugging for the 4k is just cringe. You're purposefully holding the game hostage just to make yourself feel good about killing all the survs when you would most likely have done that anyway, even with hatch in play.
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The toxic part isn't the players. The toxic part is the game's awful balance.
If the game were even remotely balanced, a huge amount of the hypocrisy within this community would disappear overnight.
What I find even more toxic, however, is that the imbalance seems to fit perfectly with all the modern techniques of engagement optimization, behavioural design, intermittent reinforcement, compulsion loops, and psychological manipulation that the industry uses to maximize retention, spending, and recurring cycles of abandonment and return.
At some point, it becomes difficult to believe that such an obvious imbalance still exists by accident, especially when it appears to benefit exactly the kinds of behaviours that a live-service game is designed to encourage.
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That's certainly a take
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Most things people call toxic are not toxic, at least as far as I see it.
I get that tunneling is efficient, and I know it's usually not something personal, however I do hate it when it happens. I'm mid at looping and if I get identified as such, quite often it can feel personal even when it's not. I wouldn't call the killer doing it toxic, but I would say that they are knowingly taking advantage of a design flaw in the game. Killers that gloat about playing like this are the worst though. If you find the weak link and tunnel them out, you didn't really outplay the team did you? You just punished the player that clearly doesn't belong in the same lobby for the crime of being in the same lobby. Do it and bow out of the game if you must, trash talking, humping, nodding and hitting on hook like you're a king? Nah, have some shame, we both know there was nothing impressive about how you played.
But it isn't just killers.
I'm comptentent enough at the game that most bully squads end up feeding me 4 kills at 4 gens. I suppose that's fine for them - helps keep their MMR nice and low so they hopefully get Little Billy fresh out of the tutorial, excited to play as this cool guy called The Trapper. That kind of thing I find toxic. I don't go easy on baby killers, but some players really see blood in the water and use it as an opportunity to mock, frustrate and discourage them as much as possible. That's not just toxic in its meanspiritedness, it's toxic to the health of the game. If my first killer game was replaced with the first time I came across this "playstyle," I'd probably have dropped the game. This behaviour is usually followed by bagging on the line and trash talk in post-game chat, again, like it was somehow impressive that you outplayed someone with 5% of the hours you have.
And all the cruelty in chat. It's not as widespread as people act, but when it happens there's just no excuse. Being kind to people should be the default, but losers with a keyboard and internet anonymity will do what they do.-1 -
Indeed, it is an opinion, thanks for covering me and pointing that out.
Yes, an opinion like any other... "the game is balanced because generators can still be repaired", "repairing quickly automatically equals balance", "genrush proves that survivors are strong", or that "a 20-second chase is a satisfying experience because generators can be completed".
All opinions. Like many of the things that have for years been called (from opinion) balance.
This doesn't prove anything, of course. I just randomly came across it yesterday and thought it was interesting.
No opinion attached.
Post edited by Chapero on-2
