Do people actually experience killer anxiety?

I have about a 65/35 killer/survivor split with way too many hours in this game and have never experienced killer anxiety. I constantly hear about it a ton from content creators and people on forums, what is it like and how do you guys deal with it.

Feel free to answer in the comments so other killers can learn how to deal with it!

Tagged: Killers

Comments

  • @XtremeDBDForums said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/468362/do-people-actually-experience-killer-anxiety

    I used to, though ever since 2v8 dropped again, I haven't seen any good teams on pubs in awhile. Pretty much just been 4King left and right for the past month and a half. Not complaining

    https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/VGZQCP3Q3M4X/image.png

    That has been my experience too which is why I was wondering if people still have a bit of trouble

  • @pidgeon said:

    I have about a 65/35 killer/survivor split with way too many hours in this game and have never experienced killer anxiety. I constantly hear about it a ton from content creators and people on forums, what is it like and how do you guys deal with it.

    Feel free to answer in the comments so other killers can learn how to deal with it!

    I find it quite common for me yes. However something i can reccomend is think about the fact its just a game. or find a killer that makes them enjoy the game, win or lose. Skully and Artist are thoese killers for me

  • Yes, to varying degrees.

    I'm someone that has these anxieties that eb and flow. Now, I am autistic, which may feed into it. Keep in mind what I'm saying below is not my average experience, just the kind of thought cycles that can cause it in me on a bad day:

    1. Killer requires you to consider much more macro at once, making it quite stressful for people that are prone to being overwhlemed.
    2. Ego and shame. You're responsible for how your game goes, yes, but you are also 100% dictating how the game goes for the survivors to a very large degree. On bad days, small mistakes feel like your entire ass has been placed on a billboard. It's stagefright, essentially.
    3. Playing poorly and getting bullied is double humiliating as a killer because you're supposed to be the big scary, but instead feel like a snivelling wimp. It feels like you're letting yourself and the rest of the lobby down somehow.
    4. There's no real easing into learning a new killer, you just kinda get thrown in and there's as much likelihood of being treated poorly vs treated ambivilently if you don't perform well.
    5. Fear of the unknown. As a survivor, once you get into the match and first chase starts or you hear a TR, you know the kind of game you're getting, generally. As killer, skill level of survivors is so extremely variable that you could get looped for 5 gens or snowball at 5.

    It's not rational thinking that causes this at all, and some people are able to compartmentalise that it's simply a game. Logically, I'm aware it's all silly pixels, and the worst outcome is rudeness from people who don't know me and do not impact my life in any way, but anxiety is not a rational process in most modern situations.

  • My duo partner loves trickster, but absolutely refuses to play killer unless its 2v8. They enjoyed it when i made them try killer around the time they started but ince they started getting all the bully squads n stuff they just don't want to play killer at all. They havent even tried out trickster since his changes. Bought the mina skin but never used it yet.

    I don't exactly get too stressed about losing as killer anymore, but i will admit when I go to pick between survivor and killer theres certainly hesitation to pick killer as survivors kind of the role you expect to lose, hope to win on, while killer you kind of expect to win more but then end up not doing so when you get a really tough organised group.

    My advice for getting over killer anxiety is to play killer with a survivor mindset, as in expect to lose hope to win. That way if you do start losing you don't feel stressed about it and just try to get what points you can like you would in a hopeless survivor match. Takes the stress of having to outplay 4 people because you got this killer to p100 and feel like you have to prove you are good at it or something lol.

  • Every 20-30 games or so (adjust as needed) just change to a silly meme build and goof around with the survivors. That helps me shake off the yips.

    Heck, if I figure out that I'm facing a coordinated squad that I can't possibly beat, I'll switch to "Goof around with the survivors" mid-match! I mean, I COULD try really hard and possibly beat them, but if they took the time to coordinate and want to win that badly, who am I to stand in their way? ;) I'd rather pass them up the MMR ladder to a better killer than to beat them and foist them on a lower-MMR killer that's just going to have a bad time…

    I think "stage fright" is a good descriptor for it. It's fine to want to perform well, but if you find the deck is stacked against you unfairly, you can just stop and say, "Ok, ######### you guys, I'm not playing this game." and let them win.

    Killers can do that without punishment. Survivors can't. Use it.

  • @survivormainwarrior said:

    whenever I play any killer, even the so-called "weak" ones, I'm just laughing the whole time at how braindead easy it is to win most my matches. Okay, once in a while a skilled SWF comes along and maybe I get 0-2K, but that is like at most 5 percent of my matches. the rest of the time I'm just steamrolling through P100 survivors with thousands of hours like they just installed the game for the first time

    How many hours do you have on killer? I find it hard to believe you get many hard matches since your user is literally survivor main you are still likely in new player lobbies. I was originally making this post aimed towards killer mains with a few hundred hours in the game wondering if they still experienced anxiety and/or have any tips for new killer players.

    Sorry for the confusion

  • @survivormainwarrior said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4087111#Comment_4087111

    I got far too many to name. Over 4.5K playing both sides. Just played a couple solo Q matches with AngelZ last month, in fact.

    Hundreds of hours is nothing. This game has been around since 2016. What's really happening is these killer players have inflated MMR from abusing low skill cheese tactics like tunneling, slugging and camping. Then their MMR goes up and they hit a brick wall when facing seasoned veteran survivors with thousands of hours experience per player. Then they falsely conclude the game is survivor-sided, when really they just got outplayed by higher skill survivors despite the killer having a huge balancing advantage. Regardless, the average killer player still wins most of their matches no matter what character they play, or whether they're in high or low MMR.

    This is not the killer players' fault. Its the fault of the developers for making killer role way too easy to play, which throws off the whole MMR system. Some substantial nerfs to tunneling, camping and slugging would put killer back into a fair spot balance wise. Those cheese tactics are far too easy to get amazing results while requiring little to no skill to execute.

    So yeah…killer is just the most chill mode you can play in the game. You have all the power. All the control. If you lose, you have a skill issue to work on.

    Since you literally joined forums today I doubt it. But since I have no way of proving any of what you said is true I agree with you in a lot aspects.

    Yeah I said hundreds of hours because I don't want to be unreasonable and wanted to get a wider variety of players of all skill levels. I do think that people shouldn't be tunneling, or slugging every match as it definitely does make you seem way better a player than you really are. (At least with the way MMR is calculated.) Same goes for survivors at the moment too, since as long as you're in a 3 man SWF or higher it is genuinely so hard to lose unless the killer is genuinely insane at the game. Cannot wait for the MMR rework woo!

    Which goes into my next point which is the fact that I disagree with your next statement. If I'm being completely honest the game isn't survivor sided at all since the game is built around solo-duo queue. I genuinely think the game is really well balanced in that regard. However I (and many others) agree that the game is extremely SWF sided which is why so many people have started slugging and tunneling as they see so many CC videos explaining how the game is so unbelievably survivor sided and SWF runs rampant ect. that they feel the need to employ these play styles as if they're going against SWF every game, even when the match is in their favor.

    I actually do agree with this last part, as the devs have genuinely ripped the soul and skill required to play the game for both sides. Unfortunately due to the fact that player count is at an all time high it will not be changing any time soon. I really do wish we that could go back to when the game felt rewarding for both sides rather than everyone running the same builds with zero thought.

    Side note: minor continuation of last paragraph is it just me or have players genuinely gotten significantly dumber? I have seen less and less killers and survivors mind gaming or just being genuinely good at looping in general.

  • @pidgeon said:

    https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4087103#Comment_4087103

    How many hours do you have on killer? I find it hard to believe you get many hard matches since your user is literally survivor main you are still likely in new player lobbies. I was originally making this post aimed towards killer mains with a few hundred hours in the game wondering if they still experienced anxiety and/or have any tips for new killer players.

    Sorry for the confusion

    I asked the same question. See their responses and draw your own conclusions