Dead by Daylight

[pk1yen]

Anyone here play this? I'm fairly addicted to it at the moment.

4 vs 1 asymmetrical game -- 4 Survivors have to fix generators and escape the map, while 1 invincible Killer has to kill them before they do.

Sounds fairly standard written down, but what makes it for me is that it's specifically designed to make you absolutely fucking furious.

If you're playing the Killer, the Survivors will do everything they can to distract you from taking down the weakest players. They'll teabag and taunt you, shine lights in your face, knowing they're probably good enough to escape your grasp if you go after them early. And even when you know what they're doing, it's really hard to resist.

The Killer is by nature more powerful than the survivors, and given enough time, the killer will always win 1-on-1. So as a survivor, the way you win is basically by getting the killer angry enough to make silly mistakes. Making them rage so they'll follow you for too long and let the other survivors fix the generators.

It's got a tonne of flaws (high-ranked survivors are often in a group communicating on discord or whatever, which makes it borderline impossible to win as killer), but when you get a good game - either escaping a toxic killer, or finally slugging that smug overconfident survivor and sticking them on a hook - nothing beats it. Pure adrenaline rush.

I'd say it's a more effective RPG than most RPGs. The way it channels pure primal emotions, it really does make you feel like a raging murderer seeing red, or an adrenaline-fuelled terrified weakling constantly glancing over your shoulder.

[bgmnts]

Had it for at least a year and never really got into it, but then playing with random probably isn't how it was meant to be played.

[H-O-W-L]

I think it's neurotoxic shite and I had to pack it in for my own mental health because as you say it is very emotionally manipulative and I realized that continuing to play it was just a net mental negative; there were no true victories, only an endlessly manipulative sense of being able to achieve victory, strung out infinitely, to encourage addictive and compulsive play. A truly cynical and nihilistic game at the design level, and it really upsets me that it's the only game to date with so many horror icons and classical horror concepts under one roof. A good developer could take those licenses and make some real solid gold, enjoyable game but instead it's all shithoused into this proto-MOBA hyper-competitive unbalanced shit designed to make fucking everyone involved in playing it as miserable as possible.

Were it merely a bad game, like, poorly designed, I'd forgive it its sins, but it isn't just badly designed, it is cynical mind-twisting skinnerbox shit legitimately designed to play with your emotions and target your wallet at every turn. Truly one of the most awful games short of gacha.

It is absolutely fucking terrible, what I say genuinely cannot overemphasize how emotionally manipulative this game is on every level -- it WILL get you somehow -- and I cannot warn people off it enough.

[evilcommiedictator]

It's the problem with playing 1 v 4 games, if you're pubbing it can be a very good or very bad game, and the learning curve is quite steep yeah?
Still, it's the most popular 1 v 4 game out there, I quite liked Depth, but that had some balance issues but the 2 v 4 nature of it was nice

[pk1yen]

I think it's neurotoxic shite and I had to pack it in for my own mental health because as you say it is very emotionally manipulative and I realized that continuing to play it was just a net mental negative; there were no true victories, only an endlessly manipulative sense of being able to achieve victory, strung out infinitely, to encourage addictive and compulsive play. A truly cynical and nihilistic game at the design level, and it really upsets me that it's the only game to date with so many horror icons and classical horror concepts under one roof. A good developer could take those licenses and make some real solid gold, enjoyable game but instead it's all shithoused into this proto-MOBA hyper-competitive unbalanced shit designed to make fucking everyone involved in playing it as miserable as possible.

Were it merely a bad game, like, poorly designed, I'd forgive it its sins, but it isn't just badly designed, it is cynical mind-twisting skinnerbox shit legitimately designed to play with your emotions and target your wallet at every turn. Truly one of the most awful games short of gacha.

It is absolutely fucking terrible, what I say genuinely cannot overemphasize how emotionally manipulative this game is on every level -- it WILL get you somehow -- and I cannot warn people off it enough.

[Cuellar]

Played a few games but it didn't really grab me.

[H-O-W-L]

I actually only have 400hrs in it-- and I stopped playing it back in late June (started, on and off, in September) because I realized just how shit it was.

[chocolate teapot]

I bought this a few days ago and am completely addicted, overall play it for about 3 hours a day, think of what else I could be getting on with.

Also for the first time in a while I felt a sense of incredible lowness, I'm on antidepressants already but this was like a sudden feeling of fatigue and I blame DBD, another player said the same thing, it does something to your mind, I totally get what HOWL is saying. However I'm not going to stop playing it yet, I'm a bad survivor and a worse killer, being a killer is little joy because cuntery is the main game of most survivors, it's very hard to see a survivor if they're really close to you, they can loop for hours distracting you from getting the other survivors. Also you can go into a game but other people have different intentions, I managed to work out that the killer wasn't killing on purpose and the other survivors all wanted to jump in the hatch, this game went on for a long time and it wasn't fun.

If anyone wants to add me as a friend please do, I'm not sure what details I have to give.

[H-O-W-L]

being a killer is little joy because cuntery is the main game of most survivors,

My ultimate breaking point at the end of the day, all the shit design choices and the endless manipulative design aside. A game that encourages such open hostility and toxicity and does nothing to control it is absolutely meritless IMO. They've done, and will do, nothing to combat survivors being able to treat killers like shit, for the sole reason of "lol just kill them" when their whole design ethic since launch has been designed to prevent and punish exactly that. Spend five seconds on some cunt who's clearly trying to get a rise and you lose. Not that you'll win anyway.

If the game is making you feel low, or if you at least feel it is, then I implore you to put it down-- there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It only gets worse the lower rank you get, and I really mean worse. In red ranks every single match is worse than the sweatiest match you've currently played. Every single one. There's no completion to be had, no real victory, just this endless, endless sisyphean struggle designed to be compulsive and addictive. It really is mobile game gacha shit given a very complicated-seeming first/third person action layer.