What do YOU think it means when a survivor waves their arms on the hook?
I always assumed that a survivor waving their arms on the hook meant, "Somebody come get me because no one is!"
Then I recently heard others say it meant, "The Killer is camping." And those people were usually the ones who had been playing DBD from the beginning.
So what do you think it means when you see it?
Comments
I would love to see the devs come out and put this to rest once and for all. “Flapping arms on the hook means ______.” And finally everyone can be on the same page about it.
You are right. It is ambiguous. But not everyone realizes that. So people wave their arms and think the other survivors get their intended meaning, but these comments show that's probably not the case.
I think it's got to be the biggest streamers. If there's a consensus there, and then it gets reinforced over and over, then it'll be mostly agreed upon and trickle down. But since waving is a survivor "creation" (meaning the devs didn't put in the ability to wave to signal one specific message. It's a byproduct of attempting to unhook yourself), not enough of the community would care even if they gave their two cents.
Waving constantly = camping
Waving a couple times as the timer goes down = get me off now!
Well, yeah, you’re right. However, getting streamers to agree on a unified message message would be.....unlikely.
Though the devs may not carry the most weight on this topic, I think a really easy way for them to bring people around to one point of view would be to simply put their preferred meaning into the loading screen tips. Newer players would believe the tip, and older players would assume other people are following the same mindset that is now so visible.
I would hope that a symbol would be easier for the biggest streamers to get behind (ranking perks and killers, however, no chance! haha). But you're right to be suspicious. And good point about it being put in as a tip. Judging by how varied the opinions are on this thread, I think the devs would piss off a lot players if they made a determination on its meaning. So many people are tied to the OG view that it only means camping and that any other interpretation is wrong, and others (like me) think the meaning has changed and too many people don't use it that way anymore (personally, I don't care what it means. I just wish it was consistent).
Our of curiosity, did you ever get a different interpretation when you were nearing the hook and the hooked survivor started doing it? Sometimes, sudden arm waving is a warning for a trap.
Oh yes! If I get close and the hooked survivor is spazzing out I take it slow and looks for traps/ killers without terror radius ^^
I'm glad you do! Every time I try to warn people they just barrel right through and get trapped haha
I learned it from Ohmwrecker. He thinks it means, come get me, so I just go with that.
Yeah there's no consensus even among streamers. I'm pretty sure Ohm isn't an OG player, which might explain his interpretation. I didn't even realize until recently that people had different interpretations of the signal.
I've seen streams where some people went into stage 2 even though they were waving, so they intentionally screwed over their teammates the rest of the game out of spite. Could've been those teammates simply thought the killer was camping, not that they were asking to be unhooked. Explains a lot.
Update: In reading all these comments, the answer is, there is no consensus.
Some people feel it's one of the other, others have specific cues for certain situations. So the next time you go into second hook because you were waving your arms or you weren't waving your arms, it could be that your teammates thought you were saying the exact opposite of what you meant--not that they were intentionally screwing you over. We probably should just decide on how to signal "Killer is camping" and "No one is coming for me." But until then (or if ever), at least now there's awareness.
If you asked me in 2016 and 2017 (when everyone was on PC and could share with others what waving arms meant before the match started), I would have said:
"I can see the killer and they're camping my hook. Stay away and do gens!"
Now, in 2021 (when most of the team is off-platform, and informing other console players of what waving arms means requires a long, drawn out process of messaging (because Xbox players don't get a pre-game chat bar, despite having USB keyboard and Chat Pad capabilities)), I'm going to say it could mean anything:
Why do I wave my arms on the hook? I don't do it everytime, but when I do, I wave them to the rythm of the killer's terror radius; the closer they are, the faster I wave my arms (no TR, no waving, unless I can still see the killer watching my hook while stealthed, then I wave them fast again).
I still personally use it as "do NOT come for me, killer is camping me, go do gens or something." Sadly though, that gesture has become so wishy washy that it doesn't really have a meaning anymore. :(
Tries to kobe, gets to stage 2, killer tunnels them and that takes a player out, damaging the survivors chances of escaping.
Back in the day it was a common sign for: "Killer is camping, don't come and do gens!"
Nowadays it means: "Unhook me asap no matter what so i can try to kobe right in your face!"
This
Are you trying to persuade me not to let people hit stage two when they try to Kobe in my face? I've played this game long enough to not care about pips and escapes. If we all die because of it, I'm fine with it.
Its a bit petty tbf, detrimental to your team just to prove a point. It's your game, you play as you wish 👍🏻
You're right. The meaning is lost, but the problem I found was, newer players (and I mean people who have even been playing DBD for years, not just within the last couple of months) had no idea there wasn't a consensus. OGers and people who started within maybe a year or 2 max of DBD coming out usually knew it meant "The killer is camping." But since the meaning changed, the newer players don't know the original meaning, so there's a big disconnect in solo queue. And the problem is, if you don't know there's a disconnect, you will think your teammates are ignoring you. "Why is no one coming to get me?" Or "Why are they coming when they could be doing gens? We're going to lose because they all got off gens."
I try to only do it if they're already approaching and the killer is coming back/coming up behind them, but I can see that.