Dead By Daylight

2020 was an incredibly difficult year, and one of the major ways I coped was to double down on playing video games. Immersing myself in other worlds helped me escape from debilitating anxiety, grief, and loneliness, and bond with people all over the world. In a year that left me feeling powerless, paralyzed by the reality of back-to-back horrors in the world around me, I never imagined that I would take to such a dark and violent game as Dead By Daylight, the 2016 asymmetrical survival horror game from Behavior Interactive.

Now in its 5th year, the game has made a strong comeback. Quarantine has left many gamers in want of cooperative, team-based games, and DBD has quickly joined the ranks of Fall Guys, Phasmophobia, Among Us, and JackBox as one of the most popular titles. As Behavior has continued to release new content, features, and updates, this perfect storm has revitalized the game's fanbase. Though I'm having a blast learning the game and playing with a passionate fanbase and friends, the Dead By Daylight community, like so many player-vs-player multiplayer titles, has a serious toxicity problem.

In this post, I talk about my experiences learning the game and dealing with some instances of toxic behavior.

Table of Contents

1. Comfort in Terror: A brief history of my love of the horror genre.
2. Enter the Fog: An introduction to the game's core mechanics.
3. Killing in the Name: A closer look at my favorite way to play, Killer.
4. The Entity is Displeased: One of several incidents that inspired this article.
5. Death is Not An Escape: An inquiry into the rampant toxicity in the community.

Comfort in Terror permalink

I first jumped into Dead By Daylight in October. Though Halloween was never going to be the same during the pandemic, I knew I could at least enjoy some spoopy content. Growing up, horror was very popular in my family. We would gather around for jump scares, gross outs, and lots of laughs. I rarely came to associate horror films with being truly scared. We spent most of the runtime roasting the victims for making ridiculous decisions that ultimately lead to their deaths. So I approached the game intending, for the most part, to laugh. Being consensually frightened is fun for me.

Just about the only horror villain that ever gave me nightmares was Freddy Krueger. I still recall one nightmare vividly. In the dream, I sat at the kitchen table enjoying breakfast, light streaming in from the window, in what any Krueger survivor might assume was the safest environment to be. Except he was seated across from me at the table, sliding my carefully peeled boiled eggs onto each of his knives. As he taunted me with one of his signature jokes, the eggs bled. I woke from the dream in a hot sweat, uncertain of whether to laugh or cry. I shook it off and promptly went back to sleep.

With the exception of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and certain subsequent films of Saw (2004), which I found incredibly grotesque, erring on the side of torture porn, I genuinely love horror content, and video games are hardly an exception. In fact, Resident Evil 2 was my first and most memorable foray into the survival horror genre, and one I absolutely intend to revisit on this blog, and on stream. I recently purchased the franchise on Steam after a ridiculous sale following the announcement of Resident Evil 8. For now, however, Dead By Daylight is a mainstay in my library.

Enter the Fog permalink

If you're not familiar with asymmetric, they're essentially multiplayer games where the players have distinct roles with different gameplay. In the case of games like Dead by Daylight, teams are literally asymmetrical, as one Killer attempts to sacrifice 4 Survivors. The identity of the killer is not known to the survivors and vice versa, making it difficult to plan a build of specific perks and add-ons around the opposing team. Instead, there is a strong focus on tactics. Other than that, Dead By Daylight is essentially a virtual game of Hide and Seek with some key mechanics designed to give you some unique advantages.

• As a Killer, you have special abilities designed to help you trap, spook, and sacrifice Survivors to a dark entity by hooking them before they escape.
• Meanwhile, 4 Survivors work together to evade, distract, stun, and escape the Killer by fixing Generators to power Exit Gates that allow them to flee to safety, before time runs out.
• A match ends when either the Killer sacrifices all 4 Survivors (what the community calls a "4K") or the remaining Survivors escape, either through one of the exits or a hatch which is hidden on the map.

The game delights with the inclusion of several licensed characters, including Freddy Krueger (The Nightmare), Michael Myers (The Shape), and Ashley Williams from the Evil Dead franchise, to name a few. Bruce Campbell reprises his role as Ash's voice actor, lending several of his famous catchphrases to the Survivor. Groovy.

While it is relatively easy to pick up, Dead By Daylight can be a challenge to master. It's appealing to survive with friends, but you can learn a lot by switching roles and taking down Survivors as a Killer, and vice versa. After all, it is best to know your enemy as well as you know yourself, improving your Survivor and Killer ranks as you progress.

The different perks and add-ons for each character, bought with the game's core currency, "bloodpoints," which are selected from a procedurally generated, self-destructing "bloodweb." This simple mechanic ensures there's always a new way to play. The novelty of trying different characters, builds, and tactics, leveling up and matching with more challenging opponents, along with the joy of being scared, keeps me coming back for more.

Killing in the Name permalink

Now in my 5th month of playing the game, I have developed some strong preferences in the game. I've learned I mostly prefer playing Killer, given the unique challenge and variety, as well as the shorter matchmaking time. I have settled on two mains, namely The Wraith and The Clown.

• The Wraith uses a cloaking ability to gain the upper hand and surprise Survivors who are not always able to detect his presence without certain perks. The Wraith doesn't seem very popular in The Fog, and this has actually been part of his appeal for me, along with his origin story.
• Slightly more challenging is the Clown, who throws two types of bottles, one for buffing himself, and one for slowing Survivors, to take out his opponents from afar. I was really surprised that my throwing arm was relatively decent. It's been really fun to embody both of these characters.
• Frankly, I find the vast majority of the Survivors to be mostly interchangeable, especially as you play with more of them overtime and unlock their universal perks for all of your characters. I'm not a player that spends a ton on collectibles like costumes, so this is even more true. I usually end up with Meg Thomas for her speed, or Kate Denson for her evasive maneuvers.

Still, part of the charm of the game is being able to try different characters and skills, so lately I've been working on The Nurse, an apparition who moves slowly but teleports to her prey on any floor of the map, and The Trapper, who lays down bear traps to capture his prey. The Nurse, being so slow, with an ability that punishes her after 2 uses or missed hits, is by far one of the most difficult Killers to master.

However, it is really satisfying when you do finally begin to get it, flying across the map and freaking out your opponents. Unfortunately, usually don't take her too seriously under the assumption that most Nurse players are not at all skilled, and will often resort to trolling and teabagging, running well within arm's reach of her attack, but just far enough that she would never be able to catch up. A player who has the perks or mastery can easily slice through that behavior, but it can be a challenge if you are new to the character.

Trapper, on the other hand, is one of the recommended starting Killers, and for good reason. His strategy is slow and methodical, yet he moves relatively quickly. I've learned to place traps around common exit routes, near Generators, and close to hooks, or where the environment makes his traps particularly difficult to see. Though I'm still learning this character, I'm just starting to learn his strategies. It is with this character that I encountered one of the most egregious instances of toxicity on the platform yet.

The Entity is Displeased permalink

I recently won a game of Dead By Daylight on the Midwich Elementary School map from the Silent Hill series. I usually struggle on this map, as it feels larger than the vast majority of maps, given it has multiple floors and both indoor and outdoor partitions, as well as a labyrinth of classrooms and hallways. It's not a map that I know well, but I took it all in stride and did my best to use the strategies I practiced on outdoor maps; keep calm and lay bear traps.

Trapper's setup approach makes him a strong contender for endgame wins, as you can use the duration of the match to anticipate where Survivors will end up in search of the last 2-3 Generators and Exit Gates. If you don't encounter Survivors in the early stages, you can almost certainly count on them coming to you, so it's best not to stay focused and plan ahead. I am by no means an expert at a measly level 10, but the game does do a great job of classifying The Trapper as an Easy Killer to learn. Given my relative lack of inexperience with this Killer and the Midwich map, I was exceptionally proud of myself for clinching a victory that was all but assured to my opponents, who had managed to pop all 5 Generators.

Unfortunately, my opponents were not so happy with these results. One player, indeed one far more skilled than myself if our ranks are to believed, accused me of both "camping" and "tunnel vision."

Level 7 Player: you tunnel vision, camping piece of ****. holy hell like really ***.
Gynesys (16): Don't know what that means, but have a good night. n_n
Level 11 Player: you do know there was a total of four people in this game right??
Gynesys (16): Yeah and I got 'em all.

I wasn't familiar with the term at the time, though I could certainly glean what he meant after the fact. The insult, mostly blocked out by the game's obscenity filter, was amusing at best, so I wished the player a goodnight as I reviewed my results. But their friend chimed in with a condescending remark in support. So much for peaceful. I could not resist meeting their rage and derision with sarcasm, before closing the match for the next one. That's about the extent of my own toxicity. Rage just ensures the next game is even more worse off.

Death Is Not An Escape permalink

This exchange might have been a prime opportunity to teach another player about why "tunneling" is bad, but instead my opponents chose to insult me, or attempted to. Tunneling is apparently the strategy of single-mindedly targeting a single player. Many toxic Survivors presume that targeting the hooked player after another Survivor rescues them, rather than the Survivor who initiated the rescue is also a kind of tunneling, but I don't agree. It makes sense to punish players for rescuing their teammates while the killer is nearby, rather than focusing on the central tasks, as in in this scenario, opening the Exit Gates. "Slugging," or downing multiple players in succession, is an alternative approach, but by no means a realistic endeavor on a large, enclosed map with multiple levels.

While I recognize how tunneling might be deemed an unskillful approach, the game's stance on this is clear. The ranking system doesn't punish this behavior at all, relative to camping, where points are actively deducted from The Killer. In fact, Survivors who make risky rescues with the Killer downing previously hooked Survivors within seconds of the rescue have points deducted immediately. There is no such deduction for Killers who target vulnerable, injured survivors.

Camping is obviously a bad strategy, as it all but assures that a Killer cannot target the rest of the opposing team while babysitting a single opponent until their death. The game is designed for the chase, and rewards this, while actively deducting points for spending time near a hooked player. At 31,113 score, it was clear the game did not determine that I had camped very much at all. I do place traps near hooks for Survivors who are naive enough not to watch their step, and that requires a brief moment near the hooks. However, whether targeting a recently rescued player is a bad strategy depends on the map and progress downing other players on the opposing team. If a limping Survivor remains within range of a Killer's lunge relative to another player who skillfully goes to another room or jumps from an obstacle, it makes the most sense for the Killer to target the former, especially when it's clear the team will come to their aid.

Given the opposing team was already in the endgame, all they had to do was focus on the Exit Gates, but instead they chose to team up on my Trapper, falling into my traps in their desperate attempts to rescue their teammate. On Midwich as a Killer, it makes little sense to go into the classrooms if a limping Survivor is determined to run in a straight line down a hallway. While it is usually preferable to target a player who hasn't been downed yet in the earlier game, targeting an injured Survivor gives the Killer a more profound advantage in the endgame, particularly against a team that is determined (and rewarded) for getting every Survivor out alive.

The game offers a number of strategies, perks, and add-ons for Survivors to discourage a Killer's repeated attempts to target them or their teammates, including Decisive Strike, Borrowed Time, exhaustion perks like Meg's Sprint Burst, hook sabotaging with the toolbox, and dazing the Killer with flashlights. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as my knowledge of Survivors is somewhat limited, but it's a start. Tunneling is a real thing, and not at all fun, for either party, but I emphasize that it was not what I did here. Camping and tunneling are beginners' strategies I've observed from new Killers, particularly when frustrated, but in my case, I simply targeted players whose lower skill levels were very apparent. This is apparent by the order of the deaths in the match. I'd wager a guess that the Level 7 player's rage likely cost them the win as well.

Conclusion permalink

While this isn't the first time I've encountered this kind of behavior in the gaming world, it is astonishingly common in the DBD community. Whether I win or lose, if I happen to match with PC players, I am bound to be met with griefing, trolling, and derision. The only time any praise or a "gg" is uttered is when I am the losing party. While the reporting system seems robust by design, it's not clear when action is taken for repeat offenses, if at all. I can only imagine how horrid this game would be if all players had access to the chat. As to why it's only available to PC players and not others, I haven't the foggiest idea. In a world where most people have access to Discord, Steam chat or, some other means of communication, the textarea does little more than incite bullying and harassment. While it won't stop stream sniping or other undesirable retaliation from toxic players, my recommendation would be to disable it, so that we might review our match stats and progress in peace.