What is a satisfying loss?
With all of this talk about Killers or Survivor perks being frustrating it becomes important to get a control to compare against.
What happens a game makes you go "oh I lost but I had fun doing it"?
Before you answer just remember that I'm looking from the PoV of the other side. Please don't answer "oh when I lose because I was doing a gimmick build or was BMing in the process or whatever". I'm interested in times where you are trying to win, but fail at doing so, yet have fun anyways or were at least satisfied with your failure.
Please also answer the following alongside this:
- What exactly are you using to determine a win vs a loss?
- Were you a Killer or a Survivor?
- Do you care about rank? If so do you usually rank up when this happens?
- How frequently does this (whatever your satisfying loss is) happen to you?
- SWF or Solo primarily?
Comments
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If the outcome was fair without soneone abusing poor map design or cheesing a mechanic in some way.
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As killer, hooking everyone at least twice and maybe getting a kill or twi, but feeling tense and excited throughout the match.
As survivor, contributing the the escape of at least one survivor even if it means taking the sacrifice
I dont care about rank too much but as a solo survivor I prefer the red ranks for obvious reasons.
As killer once I hit red/purple I just play how I want to play. Playing against inexperienced survivors is zero fun for me
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Loss as killer (less than 3k) is never satisfying for me. If I play well and get a balanced map I deserve the win.
Loss as survivor can be satisfying if my sacrifice helps my team get out. If you're counting derank as loss then it is impossible to lose as survivor. Loss is not satisfying if I lost due to silly mistakes or inexperience facing a certain map/killer. Being unsatisfied overall helps me improve and appreciate the satisfying losses/wins.
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As a survivor: If I loop the killer for a gen or two and maybe get a gen done myself, I'll be satisfied. Any altruism is a bonus to me.
As a killer: Hooking everyone twice, that's all I ask.
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My satisfying loss is usually when i feel that i had a chance but the other party just played well
I use pips to determine wins or losses bassicly if the game tells me i've won i take it as a win
I play both killer and survivor
I very rarely get losses that leave me unsatisfied, unless i did something incredibilly stupid
And only solo
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When I did my gatekeeper nurse build, I technically tied, but I loved it because it was something new. I blinked behind the exit door with one gen left. Used insidious and noed, waited for it to open, then downed all 4, with two crawling to safety.
If I genuinely get outplayed, not due to bad map design, but because they juked me, or 360'ed , or vanished into thin air, then I can be satisfied with the loss.
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When I have fun honestly. I try to look for fun when I lose but the best? When your team mates ######### up so so so badly your literally crying. This seems to happen with the trapper more often then any other killer xD. Oh lawl yesterday 3 claudettes I was on the hook because I saved 2 of them and the killer tunneled me (rank 19 I'm not sure how I was like 11 or 10 at rank reset.) He got me on my first hook so everyone comes to me and the killer has tons of traps on the floor to the basement... 2 get trapped and slapped, 3rd one runs down and same deal the killer picks her up and hits his own trap, one trap left at the top of the basement... The Claudette hits it... 4 people on hook in the basement I'm still not fully to 2nd phase and laughing. Look for fun outside of winning it's great xDD I wish I would of recorded it.
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If the opposing side didn't abuse any broken mechanics.
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A 360 to me is that. No cheesy bugs, infinites, simply outplayed me
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Pulling my Weight as a Survivor.
2/4 sacrifices/kills as a killer with a gold in Chases at least.
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So this here is totally my personal opinion.
You can have fun games where players just troll or do silly stuff. But I cant determine here any win or loss. In regular games as killer I win if I get 3 or 4 survivors on dead hook and at least one pip. I dont know what a satisfying loss is. How can I be satysfied with a loss? Dont get it.
As survivor I really never have the feeling of a lost game even if the killer 4ks. I almost never depip. I cant say I won as survivor if I escape, when the game tells me I pip even if I die.
- What exactly are you using to determine a win vs a loss? - I use my enjoyment. If I enjoyed a game, I won. I had a good match and had fun.
- Were you a Killer or a Survivor? - Doesnt matter. I can enjoy games as killer and survivor
- Do you care about rank? If so do you usually rank up when this happens? - Ofc I care about rank. I cant have a good match when Im not pipping. Pips are the only things in DbD telling you how you performed. (Regardless if the pip system is good or bad.)
- How frequently does this (whatever your satisfying loss is) happen to you? - Too less to be happy, too often to quit DbD
- SWF or Solo primarily? - Atm 50/50
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As survivor if I performed very well in a chase and bought my team enough time to get out, then I'll be super content with dying.
As killer? Not so sure. Just a fair game where the chases are good back and forths, and not people just humping a safe structure that you can't counterplay, and the game goes at a reasonable pace.
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Good plays, i can't get mad if randoms work together and escape
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Satisfying match
Losing
Pick one
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You can't. Sure it can be sorta fun but it won't compare to the dopamine you will get from winning unless you were memeing around which you already said you didn't want to count. So there isn't real such thing.
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I rate a win or a loss by whether I meet the win condition. Meaning a win as survivor is an escape, and a win as killer is 3+ kills.
I don't care about rank in either case, in fact I really dislike ranking up because it usually feels undeserved. So this is a difficult question to answer because I usually don't pay that much attention to it, so I couldn't say whether I usually rank up with a satisfying loss. I'd hazard a guess at about 50/50.
Satisfying losses happen maybe 25% of the time as survivor, a lot less as killer (maybe 5-10%) because I'm quite a low killer rank so I'm usually very much in control of the game. When I lose as killer, it's usually on purpose.
As a survivor (which I usually play in a SWF group), I'd say a satisfying loss is one where I feel like I had a chance or played well, but was ultimately outplayed by a skilled killer who played fairly and showed good sportsmanship both during and after the game. This can happen if the whole survivor team loses, but more often it happens when my death saves the life of a player who I thought deserved to win or who saved my life earlier in the game.
As killer, assuming I'm trying to win, I'm generally satisfied with a loss if the person I killed was the most challenging of my opponents, or again, if I feel like I played well, maybe got quite a few hooks in, but the survivor team managed to pull a win together in the end. As long as the survivors were good players and good sports, I am generally happy to accept defeat at the hands of worthy opponents.
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when i get brutally slaughtered but managed to save someone with head on
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Well if you are using your enjoyment to determine a win then no wonder you've never had a satisfying loss. You've literally defined a loss as being unsatisfying.
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You summed it up perfectly ^^ thank you
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Maybe I should clarify what I mean by satisfying.
I don't mean "I like this result", because that wouldn't be much of a loss. But rather, I'm talking about a loss where despite not getting the result you wanted, the way you loss'ed was such that you still enjoyed the process anyways.
For example I've had a game in MTG where my opponent pulled off a crazy series of combo's in order to get infinite mana, draw his entire deck, play laboratory maniac (which makes him win if he draws a card with an empty deck) and then drew a card and won.
Did I lose? Yes. Did I stand a chance even? Absolutely not. Was it satisfying? Heck yes. When you lose to something super impressive it can wow you in a way that just makes you go "wow you can do that!?" and that makes the outcome satisfying, even if not successful.
Or maybe you make a mistake and learn from it thus improving your gameplay forever. Or maybe you lost but it was such a close call that the tension alone made it worth it.
There are a lot of scenarios like it, and of course everyone is different and prefers different things (just look at the variety of responses in this thread), but I wouldn't just count out the idea entirely.
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Btw how does that work exactly?
Like, how do you quantify it? Because it's not easy to use subjective qualities such as happiness to measure objective ones like a win state.
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As a survivor I’m ok with losing and dying if it meant that a good teammate got away and made it out. I can’t loop for the life of me, but I’ll take a hit or two when I know I’m not on death hook. If all gens are done I’m willing to die for another teammate who helped me or actually did objectives. Doesn’t matter if we all win, what matters is we had fun.
As a killer, fun is when I’m put up agains similar skill level survivors and I get looped but nothing too severe. It’s gets boring and annoying when they blind me over and over from different directions, tbag incessantly, and communicate with one another to set up locker stun after locker stun. That’s when I don’t care about tunneling and camping.
I also consider twerking while moonwalking with Ghostface as fun. So much so that I sometimes throw the match to just mess with the survivors. Until someone thinks it’s ok to blind me. Then Death!
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If I had fun and didn't think about how it is my last match for the day at all, I consider it a win.
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You right. The enjoyment I get is set by things that tell me I did good. The only actual thing in DbD that tells you how you performed is the emblem score or if you de-, black-, double- or pipped. You can say with a black pip I feel neutral. Like I didnt win nor lose. But theres a difference in playing killer and survivor for me. If I play killer and I black pip it feels very unrewarding. Imo killer is more stressful, more pressure and needs concentration throughout the whole game. That doesnt mean I want easy games or always a win within my mindset.
I win as killer if I at least pip. The game tells me I did good and I get a pip. Due to that I feel satisfied. Its very hard for me to understand others who find games (other than meme/troll games) satisfying in which they didnt pip.
As survivor i find other things satisfying. Its not even about defining a win or a loss. I can have a good game because I did flash saves, long chases, etc. Doesnt matter if I pip or not. But If I hook 3 survivors in a game and all gens pop, all escape on their death hook, I have to resort to tunnel or camp, get tbaged, flashed, messaged after the game, etc. and didnt even pip, its hard for me to say I lost but it was fun. because its not the case.
I hope I could explain how I dont measure the win with something subjective. Sorry for my lacking english ^^ hope you could understand.
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Ok that makes a bit more sense.
Do keep in mind that part of the point of this thread (while not quite the MAIN point) was to differentiate between winning and enjoyment, because while correlated, one does not imply the other.
However winning is inherently satisfying to a degree (which is what you just pointed out), so it's a bit more than a correlation. More importantly though, this means that LOSING and still being satisfied is not due to the inherent properties of the outcome. This lets us control for that variable thus leaving the gameplay itself as the satisfying element. Identifying THAT is the actual function of this thread.
Like ok so old Legion was unsatisfying to lose to because both the Killer didn't need Skill to catch you and you as the Survivor couldn't use skill to avoid him. So I would expect to see a bunch of people citing skillful gameplay from the other side and from themselves as satisfying.
And sure enough:
Lots of people agreeing that skillful play from the other side overcoming your own legitimate efforts can feel great.
It's obviously not the ONLY satisfying kind of loss, but it's pretty much what I was expecting.
Plus it's also just nice to stand back and think about what you actually consider being legitimately outplayed, so you have something to contrast the BS loses with.
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I like a loss when i got iridescent in chase but got nothing in gen protection :)
I'm not sure i'm sarcastic or not, because either way it's true for me
Edit: maybe because i care more about the chase emblem
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I understand your point of view. Its just that it doesnt reflect mine.
You mentioned "Lots of people agreeing that skillful play from the other side overcoming your own legitimate efforts can feel great." And I think that is where I have a different opinion. I want to leave aside the skill thing because thats very dependend on someones point of view. If I get outplayed, and sure I get, the question is why. If I get outplayed because of certain perks or by the other players using coms, how should I come to the conclusion they outplayed me on a fair level? I also wouldnt claim I outplayed the killer by losing him due to iron will or sound problems ingame. I wouldnt say I outplayed a survivor because of spirit fury or double backing. Its difficult for me to identify this skillful play in an unbalanced game with many different things that influence the actual game experience.
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For survivor I usually have fun if I actually felt like I did good in a match, and wasn't super boosted. Like landing my Ruin skill checks.
For killer it's more about if I had to sweat or not. If I have to sweat to keep up with the survivors I might feel accomplished, for getting a 4k, but I probably didn't have much fun.
I don't care too much about rank or the ranking system mostly cause I'm almost always in red ranks.
I frequently have a satisfying losses for survivor, but I usually do win as killer ( getting a 3-4k ), so satisfying wins mostly for killer.
I very rarely play SWF, and I dislike going against SWFs as killer.
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If I get a decent amount of BP it's a win for me. If I have 4 tokens of WGLF I don't mind taking the L so someone can live.
If I get facecamped because I was looping killers for a while, that's a personal win.
Also getting good 360s is cheeky
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Of course! If this was an objective matter I wouldn't need to ask people about it, I'd just try and work it out from the definitions and mechanics. But it's not, so this thread exists so you can give your opinion and everyone else can give theirs.
Like I said, while my hypothesis was mostly confirmed, it's hardly universally true. It's more like a tendency than a rule of some kind. It would be weird if everyone agreed about it.
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I get that yeah. I understand that you want to confirm your hypothesis but I think its too biased to actually confirm it. I would just take it like you said as a collection of different opinions.
Either way thanks for the interesting exchange of thoughts. And one last thing. MTG is the best game ever invented ♡
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If the other side is meming around with me. Like survivors staring at me in the face or turning their camera angle way up so their heads look like ducks. Or if the killer spins in circles and moonwalks before killing me. If they can make me laugh then it’s a pretty satisfying loss.
If I played well as a killer then I’m not ever upset. I’m never about getting outplayed, it’s more FPS drops, bugs, and map designs that make me wanna pull out my hair. I hate getting BHVR’ed.
As a survivor I really don’t care if I die. If my team can escape then it’s a win for me.
If I had fun in the game then it’s satisfying to win or lose.
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@Waffleyumboy I have to disagree with your definition of a killer win because no one is ever obligated to win just because of the map. Sometimes you'll get out played because this is a game of skill. A truely balanced map shouldn't make you feel like you should win because it would be an even chance for either side. I feel like the upmost factor that should be important factor is that you had fun.
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Killing all with Devour Hope really fast.
Sometimes Entity will go BOOOOO, but i go YAY!
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Basically this. Idc if the survivors used strong items and perks, but if they abuse a infinite, that's not cool.
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But just a game where I had fun. If I had fun or had to try super hard then it was a good game
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I play both sides and a good game for both IMHO would be the killer getting 1-2 hooks on everyone, gates open, and maybe 1 kill at the end when teammates work together or give themselves up to save another.
Those are fun to me, bring the suspense back
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I'm not satisfied with being outplayed as killer. If you disagree, that's your opinion.
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Nice, did not know you could blink behind the gate! Add blood warden to this and you got something!!
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As killer: if I had a number of fun chases, not overly immersed survivors and at least 7-8 hooks, I don't really care how many escape.
As survivor, as long as I've had at least 3 chases, decent amount of pressure from the killer throughout the match (I. E.i didn't just sit on gens and then die on first hook), I don't care if I escape
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This sums my thoughts up better, as someone who plays survivor too I almost prefer games were I hook everyone twice but they all get out by the skin of their teeth.
As survivor as long as my chases were long-ish and I got a couple gen done and saved a couple teammates I’m good... so basically pipping I guess
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You said not to count it, but I don't think that it's fair to not count getting to actually successfully use your gimmick builds as satisfying. If I make a stupid gimmicky build, and it works like once it's usually a fun game.
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@Waffleyumboy that's fine. What made me feel the need to comment was that you said that if the map was balanced you deserved to win. It's a game of skill. No one is obligated to win and especially not if the map is balanced.
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I understand that and I hope you now understand the reason I deserve to win is because I am not satisfied unless I'm performing at my best.
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That's not how deserving works.
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I'm a survivor main so I tend to enjoy most of my games win or lose (at the end of the day it's a game🤷🏾♂️). But to be more specific a loss that I absolutely love is when the killer is actually extremely sneaky because it adds to the tension of the game. It's meant to be tense, your supposed to experience a jump scare every now and then and that adds so much excitement. The only time I don't enjoy a loss is when I'm the only survivor actually working on objectives or when your teammates refuse to save you when they have the opportunity to do so. It's a team based game so if you don't intend to help your team why play? When survivors coaborate with the killer and run them directly to you for laughs it ruins the game for me. So overall, as I said, every loss can be enjoyable it's just about the people you get paired with. As a killer I don't really care either way. If I kill everyone and if I don't oh well I enjoy chasing people and finally getting that good smack in. I'm the type of person who really gets into games like this because there is no fight back so it's just a lot of thought on getting away. So at the end of the day find enjoyment in the simplicity of the game and you will care less about if you win or lose. Rank could matter less, and more times than not I play solo but every now and then I run SWF.
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I’ve gotten screwed over hard by map design many of times but I just deal with the fact that I wasn’t meant to win that round against an optimal team.
Yeah you may have done better on Shelter Woods rather than Disturbed Ward but that doesn’t mean you “deserved to win”.
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Playing against a killer who is clearly new (at least on that killer) and seeing them get into a groove and learn on the fly. I love the roller coaster ride that starts with the easy ride to a high then have the floor suddenly fall out from under you.
Also playing against a killer who dominates for 2 kills then farms with the last 2. Never knowing if or when they will turn on you (usually not but there is the unfortunate but inevitable betrayal for some)
I'm pretty lousy as killer and survivors know it. And being able to down someone that just stood there teabagging in an overconfident way is soooooo satisfying!
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I've had games where I needed to reach the endgame for a challenge but the Survivors were bad and I killed 2 of them super quickly.
So I just farmed with the last 2 and then Killed both of them when they finished.
Have fun with the confirmation that Killers that will betray you are out there!
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I didn't either, I accidentally went back there while chasing and it gave me the idea. Blood warden is a great idea, but I'm in the process of leveling Freddy, so I don't have it yet.
I did film that match if you'd like to get a look at it.
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