Any tips on how to overcome the anxiety of playing killer?
I thought it get's better the more I play but in fact it only becomes worse. It's so bad currently that the moment I join the queue I instantly feel nervous and unwell.
When I play strong killers I get told to off myself.
When I play weaker killers I get told that I'm a sweat or in a bad round the typical ez after getting taunted and tbagged in the round.
I can avoid the chat kinda by looking away from the screen and just spamming the key to leave the result screen but I don't wanna lock my entire steam profile because of one game.
Comments
You can minimize the end game chat by pressing the arrow button on the lower left corner of it. It should not show it the whole game session after you do it once. If the chat is your main hickup.
Still have to admit I don't know what the play style of people who get toxic end game chats are. I rarely get them I see more of survivors blaming eachother.
You know you can lock the EGC so it doesn't show up, and you can play anonymous in order to prevent people from going to your steam profile right?
Aside from that Tbagging and clicking flashlights are going to be in every lobby so I would just ignore it.
Because of the way BHVR has encouraged playstyles for killers that are very derogatory to the gameplay loop in general you're going to get flamed pretty often no matter what. by nature PvP games are already toxic and DBD is among the worst, if you're seriously affected by peoples opinions of you in post game chat just turn it off or take it with a grain of salt…
Can't promise this will work for you but focus more on experimentation with killers and builds, if you think of the games as a test/experiment then failure isn't bad per se it's just the result of what you were testing and you can tweak it to gradually improve the result.
When ever I feel anxiety I tend to instead of focusing on the match but aspects I want to improve on. "I want to get better at daahing on Wesker" "I want to ensure I get in the habit of bottle switching during change as Clown"
If this doesnt help I then suggest you focus on testing build synergy that you'd like. Yes it might seem like your throwing by doing so but thanks to this I found my favorite perk combo which then improved my play style(in this case forever entwined and Agitation).
Also remember that you are a person, and that your enjoyment also matters. You are not a babysitter but also a player on the map.
Also throw out any rule you impose on yourself. Be it related to killer specifically or survivor. I.e. "your not allowed to run "crutch perks" on ether side" Don't let others dictate your play style.
Like I've been given toxic egc for playing JSM, because and I quote "JSM is overpowered because you can track me through walls"
JSM? is this an acronym I am not understanding
Exactly. Test your build ideas. Try a different approach to patrolling gens.
Try even the horrible add-ons.
Jump Scare Myers, also known as Scratched Mirror Myers
honestly it can vary if you win/lose. If you win and get a 4k - and they trash talk you, take it as a complement. If you lose and they trash talk you, theyre just being *unsportsmanlike (I will refrain from using profanity lol).
Another major question - what Killer(s) are you playing as?
I gotcha. Makes me wish I had unlocked myers before he got the Cenobite treatment D:
Play solo queue.
You'll get tunneled and camped so much you'll realize the control of being the killer makes it a lot more peaceful.
Close chat. If it's more than toxic endgame, take breaks.
JSM is an entirely meme build, it uses scratched mirror which is like Speed Limiter or Padded Jaws. But it's fun none the less
I'd recommend you play some practice games against bots. You're not gonna get taunted by bots and this'll let you get the hang of things.
I find being told horrendous things just for existing wether or not the opponent won worse then solo Q.
Not that ether bothers me much, but one is obviously worse then the other
Games should be fun. If readying up for a match made me feel unwell there's no way I'd be playing. Hiding chat and playing anonymously will help with your specific issues. But if you do see comments of that nature then report the person in-game. Unfortunately being able to hide behind a screen makes people feel brave enough to say stuff they'd be too cowardly to say to your face. Let them seethe over a game, you just report and move on.
OP was asking for advice about playing killer, not playing survivor. Do you have any killer experience that can actually help them out?
Try going into a VC with a group of friends and just talk. Sure you might not be able to 100% lock in but eventually youll play to a similar level of your normal self while also taking the game a lot less seriously. If anything, it might make you play better since stress and frustration can hamper performance.
Good ol' fashion exposure helps out a lot. When you play killer enough a lot of the stuff you see on doesn't phase you as much anymore and eventually it just becomes another one of those things.
I'm suprised we don't have a collab with Snickers, as we could make quite a few "you're not you when you're hungry" commercials out of the end game chat screens alone lol
As for tips on how to overcome the anxiety, is to treat playing killer like its a single player game, that has bots programmed to make you feel bad or say the worst things they can think of. Just play the killer because you enjoy its playstyle or theme. And don't worry about winning or losing. Its a hard game and the RNG often throws you under the bus, and unless you play in the most hated way possible, you are not supposed to win everytime like those winstreaks. And im not saying to actively treat the survivor players poorly, everyone has their mindset on how they want to play the game i still avoid tunneling and all that, but i've seen a lot of killers talk about how they enjoyed killer much more by not caring about the survivors oppinons and just tunneling or doing whatever is necessary to make the game easier.
The only reason you are feeling the anxiety is because you are worried about what the people on the other end think of you as the 1 player against them. So once you stop worrying about them it gets easier. The chat box also has some kinda option to keep it closed, if you don't want to have to skip the chat anymore.
There will always be whiny crybabies who want to win every game, if you tunnel or camp they'll trashtalk you if you don't do the best they mock you, so I play chill and just type gg in the endgame chat and immidiately turn it off.
Not much worse then playing weaker killer especialy with handholding devs lately did such as pallet density, 15 seconds of endurence and haste as unhook protection.
Go and write another sentence to your rule book like anybody cares.
For playing killer well its simple just dont care that much even if you play nice (no tunnel or slug or hits on hook etc.) there will be survivors that will still hate you and write you slurps in endgame chatt even if they win they are toxic its just people showing what they realy are so dont let it get you its their problem not yours.
Another advice is this
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZmN3Ld4_L-M
if you care for win and if you doesnt well just play how you like but dont take people seriously. Another fact is if you win more its easier to annoy them with things like "yeah just get better" or "I won so" to crack that salt it works all the time how they rage bait easily.
From my experience there is a difference in killers and how they are perceived.
So maybe try to stick to the "generally beloved" killers for now. From what I can tell, Trapper or Bubba literally never get a bad response, while playing Skull Merchant, Nurse or Ghoul will get you bad comments on a regular basis.
Trapper and Bubba also are rather basic and can be played with fun add ons or perk builds. Or go for Myers/Ghostface with the goal of jumpscaring survivors (so kills actually aren't your primary goal).
Also try to be a killer who shows some "emotion" or gives funny interactions. If someone stuns you with a pallet, just stop for a second, look down at this wooden Nemesis of yours, do a 360 and run off. Shake your head when someone puts a chemtrap on a pallet and run off. Stop chase and look at a tree for a second. Sometimes doing stupid/funny things does raise the mood and lowers the stress. It really works - at least for me.
Maybe also try out survivor for some games besides playing killer and try to find out which killers feel bad to go against and which ones are actually fun to go against - no matter the outcome. And then maybe try out those killers you had fun going against yourself.
Last but not least, try to focus less on competitive goals for now and maybe restrain from tactics like hard tunneling at 5 gens. I know - it is legit to play like that. But it really does cause backlash as well.
'trapper or bubba never get a bad response' lol
This right here ^ Been playing Spirit for the first time this last week and I purposely loaded in with no perks/addons and played 10 rounds that way for practice and while in game, yeah I was getting some bags and flashlight clicking; by endgame once they realized what I was doing, came at me much more respectful realizing I was legitimately just trying to learn her power.
Another thing, when I first started playing killer, I adhered to the "survivor rulebook" very often to the detriment of my own growth in the killer role. I had only played survivor myself for a few months and even in that role didn't fully understand the game to the fullest, and so I played in a way that I felt as survivor would be more enjoyable for that role. Don't do that. I'm not saying go forth and tunnel, slug, camp, BM, etc. but I am saying don't play so pent-up with anxiety that you're ruining someone else's game and therefore making your own time miserable with that thought.
Lastly and most frustratingly for you is just time. The first 6 months of dedicated killer play for me was full of anxiety (some self-induced by being too altruistic as the killer as I mentioned). Nowadays I don't experience any negative feelings whatsoever, even when survivors are being stinky lil guys. 😅
"From what I can tell" lol
If you quote, quote everything and don't mutilate the sense of what was said.
Follow Nike. Just do it 😏
You can minimize the chat screen and never see it at all.
I wouldn't worry too much about what people say in video games.
Block them if they are following you to your Steam.
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
I can recommend reading up on Stoicism. The main idea is to focus only on what you can change and just accept what you cannot change. Like others in videogames why should toxic people affect you? They only can if you let them. If you see anyone write anything bad just think "ok" and move on.
There is this old story about a farmer and his horse:
The farmer loses his prize horse. Neighbors say, "What bad luck!" The farmer replies, "Maybe." The horse comes back with several wild horses. Neighbors say, "What good luck!" The farmer replies, "Maybe." The farmer’s son breaks his leg trying to tame one wild horse. Neighbors say, "What bad luck!" The farmer replies, "Maybe." War breaks out, and soldiers draft local young men, but spare the son because of his broken leg. Neighbors say, "What good luck!" The farmer replies, "Maybe."
The farmer thinks like a true stoic, so can you 🙂
At one point in 2023 I got severe killer anxiety and I had to change the way I played.
If I was trying to win and I was in a chase that was taking too long the anxiety would peak bad enough that I would have to stop playing mid-chase to calm down. I had bad hypertension at the time and might have been risking a stroke over a video game.
So now I go into my killer matches with a similar mindset that I go into survivor matches. I'm hoping to have some fun but the outcome of the match doesn't really matter to me. Games are just something to pass the time, winning isn't that important. Having fun is important.
If I am playing killer and I am in a chase where the survivor is taunting me, blinding me at every pallet or just looping me too well for too long I just leave the chase and look for better opportunities. Usually I'm playing Billy so the next survivor is just a chainsaw sprint away. If I am in a match where I am having a really rough go I'll just go for long chainsaw sprints or practice my power/farm deviousness if I am playing another killer. Once the last generator pops I'll open the gate and keeping practicing or go AFK until they leave, I don't give them the satisfaction and stack my own frustration by watching them teabag as I push them out. If I don't have the chatbox hidden (I usually don't) I click continue ASAP to get out of the post game screen to avoid crap in the chat.
I hope this helps.
This is a good attitude and I don't know why there are so many people who can not care about the outcome of their survivor matches but are unable to carry that view to killer. People feel like they have to win on killer, or that their supposed to, and that's the most detrimental mindset.
and/or its the fact that they can explain the loss as survivor because there is three others too but with killer its them alone so if they lose it hits harder and there is nobody else to blame.
That's what I prefer about killer though: my situation is my responsibility alone. I don't want to be trapped in an unwinnable match because of someone else, nor do I want to be that one that fumbles it for the team. As killer I'm in control, and if I blow it or I'm outclassed it's only me I have to worry about.
And in a lot of situations you can't do anything as killer and on survivor side you can play in swf so those situations don't happen (nothing stops you from playing in swf) but on killer you are the responsible and it often feels unfair so that's where anxiety comes from for people as they can't rely on anything else because it's only them they "have to worry about" unlike on survivor side.
Playing in SWF doesn't make the problems go away. You can't control your teammates anymore there than you can in solo. People get frustrated and play suboptimally in SWF too. You just know what you're getting in parties, and you get people to commiserate with. Doesn't mean it'll go well. And personally, if this is about feelings, I feel less guilty slapping on anon mode and letting down strangers than I do about disappointing friends.
Some things do stop people from playing in SWF. Some people have anxiety around social interactions. About talking on comms, about making friends in general. People hard devoted to video games aren't always the world's most social.
But if your view is that killer feels unfair than why stress so much about it? Isn't that the same mentality of blaming other survivors on your team?
I suffered with this quite hard in 2020/2021, after years of playing it all suddenly hit up until 2025-ish. I'd be playing my absolute best to win, took it as a personal failure if I lost, and overall while I still called myself a killer main there would be a lot more occasions of me opening the game, sitting in the lobby, deciding I didn't want to do it today (and didn't want to touch solo queue with a 10m pole) and closed dbd to play something else. It was at its worse easily in 2022/2023.
But at some point it all just clicked that none of this… matters? DBD is a video game, and it's a video game I care a lot about, and it's a video game I've put a lot of time and effort into getting good at, but it stays a game. I have a life, I have a job, I have people beyond the screen; who actually is going to care if I don't 4k every game? People telling me to jump used to affect me really badly, and now I just feel sorry for them, because I remember what it was like to care this much about a game. Who cares if you get called a sweat by someone you've never met, and will never meet again?
I appreciate this sounds like I'm saying "just grow a pair" in flowery language, so let me clarify I don't just mean to toughen up or anything. But the thing that helped me was realising that it just genuinely did not matter. I'll do more in my life than anyone who sits behind a screen all day insulting people and you can too.
DBD is just a video game. The other people are just playing a video game. There's no real stakes, there's no life or death situation, your family aren't at risk if someone calls you a tryhard; so honestly, who cares what they think?
i agree with this. its this year myself that i have been able to change my perspective after playing for 10 years and getting very upset when i have tough games or losing.
i know it sounds silly but it is just a game and none of that matters. idk how long youve played but youve no doubt won dozens of games. how many of them do you actually remember?
how many of your losses do you actually remember? not much right?
When a survivor is undownable just realise "does this actually matter enough to get emotionally invested into"?
and one thing ive found is, if im not tilted, i play far far better. and when i dont feel like my self worth is tied to whether i won game number 5, then even when i have been obliterated i am still having a fun time in the match because why am i only allowed to have fun if i win?
if i recognise that i am outmatched, i make an active decision to make winning not what im interested in doing and instead its to just chill, play the game and see if i can have some fun moments with survs.
when i have been outmatched ill try to indicate to a surv to stick at a loop and keep doing that pallet or whatever so that i can practice that loop against someone who is running it better than i can run it.
yes, all the gens are going to go, yes im going to lose the game. and i have lost ALOOOOOOT of games doing this. but because i wasnt trying to win, and i made an active effort to reaffirm that winning or losing doesnt matter(it genuinly doesnt even if we FEEL it does)
the weird reality is this. when i started using huntress and actually learning her, if i had played in my older ways of getting mad because i got stunned or blinded or lost 2 gens on a chase or had a 4 man out i would be crap at huntress right now.
When i played huntress and i did nothing in game but m2 and refused to m1 under any circumstance even if it lost me the game and me getting a surv to undertsand im not wanting to down you so much as run loops with you so i can practice has led to me having a pretty vicious huntress now when i do put some effort in.
every game i lose is just gonna lead to another game i win.
and who cares if a surv tbagged? i used to get so worked up over that. now i undertsnad that a tbag is just the surv not making distance and if its in end gate and they are tbagging, its only an issue if you let it be.
a tbag is just an animation. it only MEANS something if YOU decide that you should be upset over the animation. and that silly to get mad over an animation. the animation doesnt DO anything so why should i get mad?
We as players and humans have to understand when we should respect our emotions and negative feelings. its not healthy or very reasonable to get as upset as we do at many of the things in game but we do. but its on us as humans if we want to grow to recognise when you are letting unhealthy emotions rule over you. and the dbd community is rife with that.
I used to contantly launch the game, look at the killer roster and then close the game.
Now, im having fun in my games whether im having 4k noob stomp(i dont find noob stomping fun, i do like some challenge) or getting bent over and spanked by a team of juicers.
and i know it seems like the "just dont care" talking point but i guess the thing is is that its just correct. stop caring so much about your own performance. stop caring if the survs whine about how you played. those are people who also just get tilted over everything and their opinions dont matter. play the game you paid for. its a game, not a job
LITERALLY THIS. It all felt so real and personal over covid when this game was all I had to get me through some of the toughest years of my life. But I got a job, started uni, FINISHED uni (and ######### aced it), and the whole thing truly put into perspective just how little impact DBD truly has on my life. If I feel myself getting tilted, even in a SWF, I tell my mates I need five and I'll go and stand up and crack a can of Pepsi and just... Not. I don't need this game anymore and that has reduced it to just a game, which is all it ever really should be.
"But at some point it all just clicked that none of this… matters?"
Yup. No one is gonna be talking about our win rates at our funerals lol nothing about this game needs to be taken personally. We can't change the behaviour of other people, we can only change how we react to it. I choose indifference.
And here lies Karu, may their soul forever rest, most cracked Executioner player on the DBD forums as per their killrate stats 🙂↕️ also did some other things too I guess
We are all creatures of the fog connected by a thin but nimble string that is the internet. Just ignore the other creatures if you prefer to. If you can't do that easily pretend it's bots. If you can't do that easily log off for the day and play some minecraft, i can recommend the Matcha Flavoured Datapack.
It depends on what's causing the anxiety. If you have pre-exisitng anxiety related to being bullied / ostracized /rejected / judged unfairly / etc, then playing killer can trigger it because it's 4 against 1 and there's a high proportion of matches where at least one of the 4 is being antagonistic while the others either say nothing or take that person's side. If you have pre-existing anxiety about making a social mistake / not being able to read the room / behaving inappropriately, then playing killer can trigger that, too, because oftentimes the feedback you get is that you shouldn't have done what you did and you're a fool if you don't already know that.
If that's the type of anxiety it is, then social support could be an answer. Playing in 2v8 means you're not alone. Or having some other line of communication open to the outside world while you play DBD alone — talking to someone on discord, or in real life, or listening to a podcast with one ear, etc. Something to help remind you that these four strangers are not the whole world.
Its a PvP game, you face players, you either best them or they best you.
If the thought of losing (being outplayed) makes you stress, then the game is realistically not good for your mental health.
Just play to win, but even when you know you will lose, play to learn. Look at what perks combinations, play styles etc make the game in survivors favor. Look at how they run you around certain tiles and loops, study the game and figure out how to counter common things that cause you to lose. Thats how you get better at any PvP game, by going against opponents and learning how to outplay them.
As consolation prize, you could always just play low tiers, or play with suboptimal perks. It will mentally ease the pressure, since you are intentionally playing with a suboptimal setup giving your opponents more room to win. Endgame chat can entirely be ignored if survivors say "ez" after 4 outing you while you are playing Sadoko with no slowdown on Mothers Dwelling.