Dbd is unique in that it enables and promotes toxicity
Any other game I've ever seen or played that has the mechanics or communication to be toxic to other players has always had some sort of repercussions if it was taken too far, not dead by daylight though where the player base is essentially coaxed into being toxic to each other in both roles. This is enabled and promoted by the developers by the lack of any punishments dealt to perpetrators of such behavior. I've never seen someone actually banned from violating the "rules," whether that being through toxic gameplay or hate speech. By the devs doing nothing against in the face of these issues they are announcing that it's acceptable behavior which further promotes it to run rampant throughout the community.
Solo que is nothing but killers griefing players who have no answers to it because of the lack of skill and game knowledge to mount a defense so they are completely taken advantage of as the killers intentionally queing up with this mindset get some sick sense of satisfaction that they are ruining these players games.
Then you have survivors who manage to acquire the skill to compete with killers having the option to be toxic themselves and get away with it, commonly seen in swf's who take full advantage of the survivor sided aspect of the game. Now you have killers that are at the mercy of survivors who through sheer numbers and coordination completely change the face of the game to their favor.
It's entirely common to see both roles speaking to each other disrespectfully in the post game chat as this is the only real outlet and sense of justice in the game when reports result in no actions taken. Why wouldn't players grief others when they can get away with it scott free?
I really don't know what goes on behind the scenes that motivates the devs to allow their game to remain in its current state but as a player it's very demoralizing to play and discouraging to even load up anymore. To que up I essentially have to go in with the attitude of expecting toxicity from either side and adjust my loadout and playstyle accordingly. I feel that this betrays the spirit of the game and is truly a tragedy for a game as fun and innovative as dbd.
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I'm sorry, have u played bloons?
Exactly, because it is subjective... You could do either to me and I wouldn't see a difference, because I do not care. What doesn't make any logical sense is to attribute more "toxicity" to one action over the other when the person offended is the one who needs to determine that for themselves.
I have to disagree. Getting upset that someone clicked a flashlight is crazy.
Okay, then for the sake of consistency, I will argue someone getting upset that a stranger told them to kill themselves is also crazy. You can't just cherry pick situations to fit your narrative. Toxicity is based on some objective and understood criteria, or it is subjective and depends on the person taking offense. One of these makes sense, my perspective. The other does not, one where you arbitrarily decide what is or isn't offensive on other people's behalf.
Sadly, the devs have made their stance clear.
While I'm a bit salty that I got forum actioned for literally saying 'you're being a jerk' in a game that the devs have just agreed they are fine with anything short of hatespeech and serious threats in, there isn't really much I can do.
I will say that this will predispose me to be a little bit less nice and a lot less merciful ingame - and that's not going to be fun for the survivors I face. Which is a pity, but it is what it is.
I also predict that BHVR are going to hit the same sort of crisis wall that Riot and Blizzard hit at a certain level of popularity, where the community becomes so hostile for newer players that it starts to strangle growth - if it's not happening already. It'll be interesting to observe their stance in a year.
No, I play proper tower defense games like Gemcraft :)
I used to play a great deal of LoL and HOTS, both of which had communities about as toxic as DBD is right now - both of which ended up with developers overcorrecting the other way and people ended up eating 14 day bans over mild negativity ingame.
This is the risk of allowing a community to fester like this. Toxicity is like a cut. A bit of anti-septic now is preferable to amputation later.
I still disagree. Again, telling someone to kill themselves isn't the same as clicking a flashlight.
I'm sorry this is long.
To respond to the first paragraph I'm not sure the word, perspective I think. It's not that I'm saying that what they are doing is ultimately okay or isn't pointlessly aggrevating. It's more that I realize that no matter what there will always be things that irritates others.
The thing is everyone has different scales of what they consider irritating, annoying or offensive. Humming is nothing to one person but nails on a chalkboard to another. You can't expect everyone to fall in line with your expectations, and ultimately you have to develop ways to deal.
Yes it'd be nice if people were more understanding and considerate, but in reality the same can be said about oneself. Unless you never leave the house I garuntee plenty of people do this with you everyday. It's not that your a bad person, it's just what dealing with others is like. You have to learn to ignore certain things so that if someone does go to far it means something when you speak up.
The people in the video didn't go clicky clicky because they are heartless soulless demons from the darkest ichor filled hole in Hel. They are likely immature and are either looking for attention or are the kids who keep making fart noises with their armpits and blame their mom while giggling.
Which leads into your second paragraph. The short is... stuff that happened to me in my past has given me a very different scale. It is hard for me to use a word like toxic on something like clicking a flashlight when it can also mean child abuse.
Its also a problem for me as I find more and more it's just become "I spouted off offensive language or was openly abusive but its not my fault. You were toxic." Just blame shifting for one's own actions and inability to self moderate. The person wasn't toxic, you(not Laluzi you) just didn't want to be an adult.
I find this stuff annoying and wish people wouldn't do it either. I just get that they are doing it less because they are horrid monsters and more because they're just stupid kids you gotta learn to tune out.
Stupid, stupid kids.
But why? I mean, seriously? What is the difference? If you just want to belittle someone's response to toxicity, why is this such an abstract difference that merits distinction? Do you actually have a reason, or is it the fee fees?
Some of the comments are just proving your point. A lot of disingenuous people in this community. In the same breath a person will say camping tunneling flashlight clicking are not toxic and part of the game, then these same people will get all defensive when you message them about them doing these things lol.
Clicking a flashlight isn't even toxic. Telling someone to kill themselves is completely different. I shouldn't even have to say this.
Whether it is or not it does go to show one thing that it's getting borderline embarrassing that it seems common decency is getting thrown out the window. It shows that while some people might be just bming for fun like most games such as halo and such, there is a good amount that does not seem to understand when enough is enough and to stop.
None of those things are toxic. Of course, some people are going to get defensive when you say things like flashlight clicking and tunneling are toxic when it isn't. Some of those things aren't fun, but it's part of the game. But apparently if I click my flashlight at the killer, it's the same thing as telling them to kill themselves. 🙄
Edit- I think I read your post correctly. It's very late here. Had to finish some stuff for work 😆
I mean clicking the flashlight in the exit gates is very clearly a hahaha f u, you suck lol
DBD is also unique in the way that I have never come across another game fanbase that whinges so much at t bagging lol
Not always. Sometimes it's fun to just play around in the exit for a bit. Of course, killers have no way of knowing this though. Everything doesn't have to be toxic.
Video games dont inherently promote toxic environments... a lot of gamers are simply toxic and have zero desire to change their attitude for anything
But yet camping and tunneling you implement perks to attempt to stop it.
Sadly true. It's the OG meme - anonymity + audience = words I can't say on the forums.
This is why games generally need some sort of moderation. And the weird thing is - it's worth the investment, even if it seems petty. Players will not only be more likely to remain in games with good communities - they also tend to recommend them.
Bingo.
There's room for rivalry and midmatch taunting while also drawing a firm line in the sand. Toxicity, if left unchecked always propagates outwards and eventually you have to overcorrect in the other direction, which tends to get really silly.
It messes with photosensitive players for starters (I've got minor issues after a bad concussion a few years, and it definitely makes me feel headachy and nauseous at times - the first game in ages to do that), and I've had survivors say in postgame that they hope they can give someone a seizure one day.
But okay - what is the qualitative difference that separates those two things? Extremity? Then where is the line exactly, and why do you draw it there?
It's tricky, and always dependent on context.
Camping is the equivalent of a cannon rush in Starcraft. It's a cheese - annoying to face and more difficult to counter than to execute, but it's a tactic that gives easier victories. Tunneling is...just how killers are supposed to play. Get one person dead ASAP so you can assume control of the game. If you don't have someone dead by the time 3 gens are done, you're probably going to get 3-4 outed. These are both a balance issue, if there is an issue.
Strobing your flashlight, especially if you are using a macro serves no purpose but to irritate, taunt, gloat at or even potentially harm your opponent IRL. It serves no purpose but being nasty to other players.
No, yes, yes, no.
The Bubba example is doing your objective - killing.
The Head On example is NOT doing your objective - generators.
Flashlights are in the game, so using macros to try and give people seizures isn't toxic. BHVR is beyond parody.
Apparently killers getting bullied by swfs with constant flashlight clicking, tbagging all match, making the match as miserable as possible, then in the after game chat getting "gg ez" "baby killer" "noob" "learn to play" is not considered toxic in any way, these are just things in the game...
Interesting take BHVR, i think many people would disagree.
Btw - That is coming from same the company that renamed items because "they might be upsetting or otherwise harmful to some of the playerbase"
The idea that toxicity only exists when someone is throwing racial slurs is a problem. I've had a good handful of friends who seemed interested in the game, so I brought them in, taught them how to play and did some swfs only for them to quit a couple weeks later because the player base makes the game such an unenjoyable experience. That's a big problem, and fairly frustrating for me. I want people to play with. Playing killer has lost all enjoyment for me and solo queue matches are heavily onesided in whatever direction. It's either no hooks or twelve with very little in between. If this was just a one time occurrence, someone didn't like the game, fine. But six? Six separate people all coming to the same conclusion independently means there's a problem in the game.
If you think DbD doesn't promote toxicity, then ask yourself why isn't there a way to end the match as the killer instead of having to escort the exit gate, t-bagging survivors, out in EGC. That's just one of the many QOL things that any responsible DEVs would fix in order to lower toxicity, but guess what toxicity = views = popularity = profit
All of that is fair. It seems like the only major difference in opinion here is a desire to see something done about it, or the sense that when enough people are negatively affected by something, it should merit action and pass the 'learn to deal' stage. To use the irritant analogy, few people would be irritated by background conversation, so if you're bothered by people talking in a restaurant, you're expected to bring earplugs or some other self-solution because the world isn't going to stop for you. But most people won't tolerate someone screaming next to them, so you will be told to stop if you have a heated argument in the middle of that restaurant, and you'll most likely be made to leave if you continue to disturb the peace. It's part of the social contract.
I never thought these people were pure evil or anything so hyperbolic, but I do think they need to shape up and learn how to behave themselves, and that letting them make a mess of the game is sending the wrong message by giving them a green light to carry on. And consequences are the quickest way to dissuade people from actions, whether that's social pressure or laying down the law. I am pretty willing to call them out on their lack of empathy, but to be fair, there's a quite literal link between empathy and maturity (at least, in the literal sense; no accounting for the adults in the picture.) I see no problem judging people by how they treat total strangers in a vacuum, and if they don't like that judgement, they could try not antagonizing the people around them for a change. Are they evil, no, are they the kind of people I would consider good, also no.
While there's plenty of rude or obnoxious people out there in the world, you get less of this kind of overt behavior when you go about your business IRL (barring when you work in customer service, anyway... but the reason for that is actually quite similar.) The internet takes things a step beyond 'strangers that I'll never interact with again'; anything you do is completely consequence-free when there's no managers to signal or no risk of a fist in your face. Which lends to the internet being an outlet for people sublimating their frustration or unsatisfied need for attention. This is a universal phenomenon, but it's mitigated in small communities (which isn't possible here) and in moderated communities (which is.)
"tbagging ... is not toxic"
Teabagging is the same as showing the middle finger to someone else. The gesture in itself isn't bad, but everyone knows what it means. It's an international known gesture in gaming. Show a cop the middle finger and explain that you just raised your finger. You will see what effects it has.
Nevertheless, I don't want teabagging to be banned because it isn't always meant to be toxic. But to say it is generally not toxic is inappropriate. Im sry, cuz I actually really like u @MandyTalk
T-bagging is whatever you make it to be... I've seen it used so many ways. Whether they use it to know you're there, or because they want you to chase them, or because they didn't know you were there, or just as a show because they were able to escape... it doesn't mean anything more than that. The rest is up to interpretation. If people start trash talking you after the game then of course they are a toxic player... but you'll never truly know unless they open their mouths to speak.
Don't immediately assume the worst of everyone because it's not healthy for you.
Yeah according to that response they are essentially denying anything is toxic in this game which is a just ridiculous, the main arguments being made in this post is people basically straight up saying that killers and survivors do nothing that is toxic at all when they clearly are, it's almost like they are denying that the game has a player base that are incredibly frustrated at what's happening in game, I guess denying it happens at all is the result of becoming desensitized to the waves of criticism on the matter?
Exactly. An analogy to what BHVR is telling us is that if someone says 'f u' then that's bad. However, if they're giving you the middle finger then they're just raising a finger and that's not toxic.
Tbagging can't be removed because crouches can mean many things; 'thank you', 'hi', etc and survivors have very few emotes. Tbagging at the exit gates, as an example, is the digital equivalent of giving someone the middle finger. It's toxic, diminishes the enjoyment of the game, and drives some players away.
While it can't be mechanically removed, the devs could at least state that they're against it. Here's an example from Planetside 2.
Just stating that the devs dislike it because it diminishes enjoyment of the game would be great to see. Now, in Planetside 2, where I am objectively terrible, is an FPS game, and my biggest contribution is normally drawing fire so my teammates can make a kill while my character gets killed I only see a small fraction of the toxicity I see in Dbd. I am quite definitely far more successful in Dbd than I am in Planetside 2 but I quite often enjoy Planetside 2 simply because of the lack of comparable toxicity.
Toxicity causes problems in gaming communities and drives players away: even just a statement saying the devs are committed to player enjoyment and good sportsmanship is better for the community would help to combat that.
I agree.
Always remember to put only one little circle in the "Did you have Fun this match?".... 🙃
Not get getting killed is an objective.
"gg ez" "baby devs"
"learn to create rules" "noobs"
Only the actual escape part of not getting killed is an objective.
the thing is that even the head man himself encourages people to do things that others find toxic, like in the announcement video of the new movement animations he mentions you will look good while crouching or something along those lines literally encouraging people to tbag. tbag is BM you can debate toxicity or not but when i played sports if i was to pin my opponent and tbag them because i won i would have been doing laps for days. this community is by far the worst ive seen since OG xbox cod days. except 1 big difference that wasn't a 4 on 1 pile on. you do your very best as killer and you get macro spammed by survivors because MMR has magically matched a newer killer with vets its not the same as oh i killed you in halo now i tbag you, this is " there is literally nothing you could have done this game but lose and now we are going to rub your nose in it. like a dog that crapped on the floor" I try to correct any survivor I'm on a team with that's like that but this is a game where not being toxic is the exception. add on to this that killers have so much pressure and have been unhappy for a while on top of things matt says like "play another game" this does nothing but enforce that the balance team and community cares very little about fun and more about making survivors feel good.
Like I've already said: Clicking your flashlight isn't toxic. Survivors will usually t-bag if they really want to be toxic. Flashlights can be used for many different reasons. I personally click my flashlight sometimes to get the killers attention (especially if he is tunneling my teammates), for saves, and I also do it because I like the clicking sound, lol.
Killer players shouldn't take everything so personal and assume every survivor is evil. Telling someone to kill themselves is very extreme... I don't consider clicking a flashlight to be on the same level as that.
It sucks that flashlights can make you (and others) feel sick, but I'm not really sure if the devs could do anything about that. I do dislike people that use flashlight macros, though. These are just my thoughts on flashlights in the game, nothing else. This will probably be my last post on this thread.
I hope you have a good day/night wherever you are.
Camping and tunnelling aren’t exclusively “toxic,” and there can be a number of reasons for them, even at 5 gens.
The game chat censors most things, and I mean most things in general like the word “killer,” or sentences like “that was a really fun match your billy is cracked.”
I’m pretty sure you can also disable the chat?
I don’t see how the game actively encourages “toxicity.” As far as I’m aware there are no incentives to being “toxic.” You don’t get bonus bloodpoints for teabagging or flashlight clicking for example.
People do throw around the “toxic” stuff far too often.
It’s a computer game.
Many of the things mentioned in this thread are mostly irrelevant. Hook hitting for example. It’s a computer game where the killer is supposed to kill the survivor. Hitting the hook is hardly a tragedy and if it bothers someone too much, it’s on them to change how they react to it. That’s the only thing that will actually help them.
I'm pretty sure that like thumbs-upping a user, that option is merely a placebo.
I still do it, but without match replays saved, that information can't actually mean anything. I'm not sure it even saves that feedback, and if it does, the only data points potentially collected are score and killer/perks/items/addons. Maybe there's more one-stars when it's a tombstone Myers or 4 BNP/full meta/CoH, but 'this person didn't like dying with 3000 points' is a bit of a no brainer. It definitely doesn't tell BHVR what the killer or the survivors were doing. If I give the match one star because I got facecamped (sweeping aside the question of toxicity for a second, getting facecamped early on is definitely a 1-star experience) or because the survivors were trolling me, then the important part of my feedback isn't conveyed in the feedback itself.
Just because you don't use something for toxic reasons doesn't mean other people don't do it either.
Flashlight clicking can be benign. So can tbagging. Tbagging can mean 'hello', 'thank you', 'heal me', 'look at this'... and it can mean 'haha ######### you.' It's all about the context, and clicking is the same. Clicking at a pallet, at the gates, or after something like a Head On play/DS/a flashlight or pallet save is a taunt, and macros exist purely to be irritating.
Even the 'get the killer's attention' argument is a little flimsy because while there is a tactical element at play, that tactical element hinges on the killer being annoyed by the clicking.
The devs could easily remove strobing issues by capping the amount of times the flashlight can be activated in a very short period of time. Bam, epilepsy fix right there. Photosensitivity in general is harder (some players have an issue with the blinding screen), but I think that could be dealt with just by creating an option that turns the visual of a blind from white to black, like colorblind mode.
I don't really agree, but I'm honestly just tired of commenting on this thread. Not really... I don't try to annoy the killer with my flashlight when I'm trying to get his attention. I just want him to notice me. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm not constantly running after him, lol.
Edit: Would be nice if the devs did something for those people.
Then go body block if you want their attention on you and off someone else, or try to chase trade, trying to annoy them is not the only way and its also the least effective as it relies on the killer being annoyed.
Or people could not be toxic. There is a real person on the other end which makes it more than just a video game.
No it doesn’t. We are talking about trivial, meaningless nonsense like clicking an imaginary flashlight in a computer game, and trying to twist it into some kind of abuse lol.
However, if you manage to invent a mind control device that can take away people’s free will, maybe you can use it to stop them from engaging in whatever you deem to be “toxic” behaviour.
Depending on the context, it's bullying. It doesn't matter if bullying happens on-line or off-line; it's still bullying.
or counterproductive
I don't want to deal with annoying people at all.
No it is not. Your definition of bullying is extremely flimsy. It’s a computer game, and it’s an imaginary flashlight being clicked. An imaginary hook being hit. Etc. That’s not bulling, no matter how desperately you want to pretend it is.
Bullying online is still bullying. No matter how many times you say people should just get over it there is still another person on the other side.
"Chat is in the game so typing in it cant be toxic" thats your logic, it makes no sense.
It’s not bullying though, that’s the point. DBD a computer game. Clicking an imaginary flashlight or spamming a crouch button is not bullying.
People should try and learn to deal with it in a different way because at the end of the day, they are the only ones who give it power. That’s the healthy approach, and it will spill over into other areas of their lives too.
Verbal abuse is a different story entirely. That’s actual bullying. Not hitting an imaginary hook in a computer game about murder.
Bullying definition from the national centre against bullying:
"Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening."
All these apply to the situation, especially the social and psychological aspect. How does it being online change things at all? There's plenty of cases of bullying online.
This sounds exactly like what everyone is describing minus the physical aspect. So yes, it is bullying.
"It’s not bullying though, that’s the point." Your point is wrong and detrimental to addressing the issue.