izigame.me

To start this off, I have over 1500 hours on DBD on Xbox, before I made the move over to Steam, starting from scratch. I also play both killer and survivor. So where do I even begin with this?

I think we did a pretty good job so far

For me, the game in it's objective is the exact same as it was years ago when the game launched. The script has never been deviated from. What even is a win? Is getting hatch a win? Did you win if you ran the killer for 5 gens and your 3 teammates got out but you died? On the killer side is 3k a win if the 4th survivor gets hatch? No one knows and everyone interprets it differently. Even the devs can't give an answer and it's THEIR game. When streamers do escape streaks or kill streaks, they have to outline what the rules are because the game doesn't differentiate.
Notable updates and changes take so long to be implemented. This makes the game feel stale. How long did it take to fix keys? Moris? Both sides were given such powerful tools that they could use to make the other side's experience miserable and it took years for changes to be implemented. New maps have been so few and far between over the past couple of years. The graphical reworks are stunning, and the devs deserve tremendous credit for that, but ultimately the maps are the same with a new lick of paint, the novelty wears off after just a few games.
Speaking of things that never seem to change, the survivor meta has been the same for three, four years? Dead hard, Borrowed Time and Decisive Strike are your staples with the only new introduction being Circle of Healing. A perk so strong that the devs are now struggling to balance it. The killer meta has changed, but the strongest perks have always been the ones that slow down gen progression. Unfortunately, as effective as these are, they make for an incredibly boring experience when playing survivor. Remember Forever Freddie? Yeah I try to forget too.

MMR

No one wants to play a game and get stomped on so playing with and against players at your skill level, particularly for newer players is great; in theory. The reality has been completely different, does anyone have a good word to say about MMR? The old ranking system was far from perfect but it felt more natural, and you could see ranks. The current visible ranking system is pretty much correlated with your playtime and doesn't mean anything; it only impacts on the number of bloodpoints you'll get at rank reset. The determining factor on who you are matched with comes from the SBMMR which is invisible to all players, so you never actually know what level you're at. Luckily there a few clear giveaways that you're at high MMR. If you're playing as survivor then you will most likely be playing against Nurses and Blights, with the odd Leatherface and Huntress thrown in. You will very rarely see any other killers. Why? Because the difference in power level with those listed above, particularly Nurse and Blight are far superior to every other killer who will get stomped at the highest level. A top level Nurse can probably down an entire team in around the same time it takes Trapper to gather and place his traps. Y'all remember when Nurse could Blink five times consecutively? Fun memories. As well as playing against the same killers every single game, you'll see a lot of sweaty strats. Everyone can play the game however they like, this isn't a criticism just an observation. At high MMR you will be camped, you will be tunnelled and yes, they most definitely have NOED. The main issue with NOED is that it contributes so heavily to kill rates which the devs are then seemingly use to make decisions on balancing. From the killer's perspective, what are they supposed to do? In my opinion, the survivor is the power role, not as a solo, but if the killer is facing a 4 man SWF at the highest level? You've probably already lost multiple gens in your first chase. At high MMR this will be your experience every other game. There is an absolute irony that you try so hard to "win" to increase a rank you can't even see, to make your in game experience more and more miserable with every success.

Doing gens, you?

The survivor experience. You'll be camped. You'll be tunnelled. If you do your objective too quickly then you'll be called a gen rusher which then means you're fair game, apparently. In solo, salty survivors will kill themselves on hook or dc on first down. Play for hatch.

GGEZ

The killer experience. There is a lot of hypocrisy on the topic of toxicity, as the killer you drew the short end of the stick, congrats. You've probably heard of the survivor rulebook. You probably thought it was a joke; no it is very real but there is one fundamental flaw, it changes from person to person. There are a couple of key ones though. First, don't camp. Yes that includes if the survivor on hook's teammates have just bombed the hook, you gotta take a stroll to the other side of the map and let them heal. That's survivor rulebook 101 my friend. Don't tunnel. This one is tricky because some people genuinely don't understand what tunnelling is and have their own interpretation. Oh and no Lightborn. All the sick survivor plays involve flashlights, so you're practically hacking if you run Lightborn. Having a flashlight on macro isn't annoying you're just tilted. Booping the Snoot = free escape. Teabagging isn't toxic. If you run NOED then you're a little bitc...well you know. Now here's the best part, most important rule of them all actually so listen up, it doesn't matter if you followed every single rule, it doesn't matter which killer you played, which perks or add ons you used, it doesn't matter how the survivors played, good or bad, if you "won" the game, you played incorrectly. Confusing right? Survivors hate losing and they'll have no problem telling you everything you did to seemingly ruin their experience. But if the survivors "win"? You're going straight to teabag central at those exit gates and you'll probably get hit with the GGEZ in the post game. The classic. And this brings me to probably the single biggest issue with DBD.

The Community

The DBD community is one of the most toxic I have ever had the displeasure to be a part of. Not the entire community, I have had many positive memorable interactions, but for every one of those, I can recount at least ten bad ones. The way the DBD community treats each other is, at times, horrific. My Xbox inbox is filled with hundreds of messages from players I met on DBD, salty that they lost. It was only when I started watching DBD content on YouTube and Twitch that I realised I wasn't the only one getting messages like these, particularly when playing killer. Within the space of an hour on Steam, I was called a re***d by one SWF and then told to kill myself by another. What had I done to get that reaction? I killed them and "won" the game. I've seen countless interactions like this on YouTube, many far worse and there are absolutely zero consequences. The devs stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to acknowledge this kind of thing goes on. Using the in game report feature is the equivalent to writing something on a piece of paper, scrunching it up and then lobbing it in the bin. Whilst whatever happens in game, should stay in game, there has to be accountability for those who use racist, homophobic or otherwise serious abusive behaviour towards other players. How could I possibly recommend DBD to anyone? Game communities should be a safe space for its members, DBD is not it.
Anyway I've rambled on for far too long so I'm going to take some advice and I'm going to play something else. Maybe I'll try Civilisation or something.