Are survivors giving up more often?

[Noelle Holiday (she/her)]

Hi! Killer main here. Is it just me, or are survivors giving up more often, leaving their teammates high and dry? A lot of the time, the give up at the 1st down and don't even bother seeing the match through. Has anyone else experienced this happening more often, or is this just a fluke? Comments from both killer and survivor mains are greatly appreciated!

[Hot 4 Myers]

I'm finding that yeah, both as killer and survivor. Had a game a while back with Huntress (not my main, I'm still learning her really) and downed two early on (one, I assume his swf mate, was hanging around for a flashy save and I wasn't going to let that happen lol) and they both DC'd on hook. I wanted to let the other two go and do gens after offing the bots, but they didn't get that's what I was going to do so I just ended it quickly. It's a shame to see.

[Zero(the number)]

yeah its happening alot more than usual, i played one survivor game and after the killer was revealed to be plague i just see
bot, bot, bot
its honestly sad to see that even if i try to play in a fun way [no tunneling, no proxy camping, purposely letting survivors have a second chance if they do a funny mistake] there will always be one survivor who just leaves instantly or just kill themselves on hook

im a killer main and sure i like getting a free win but its not fun to play a killer i enjoy then after i hit one survivor with feral frenzy its suddenly one survivor constantly running towards me and pointing at the hook. every time a survivor tries to purposely make me kill them i start slugging them so they either have to bleed out or they will leave the game, its unfair and not fun having to deal with one annoying player ruining the match for everyone

[󠀡bhp]

Yes. The "go next" epidemic is real. First chase didn't go too well? Go next. Teammate went down too fast for your taste? Go next. Map offering lost? Go next. Don't like the killer? Go next.

[G3N0]

This is a consequence of having a single game mode with virtually zero stakes and rewards based off individual performance. It is also the nature of the games design itself as it snowballs pretty hard especially if you are playing with randoms. I will usually stick games out for about 5 minutes if the start is super awful from others but time is precious and wasting it on a lost cause when you only play 4-5 games at a time is pointless.

If it is happening more now than at any time before that speaks more to the state of the game than the player base as the player base has always and will continue to choose the path of least resistance. Its up to the game to be "fun enough" or "rewarding" to not do so.

[Jjthejetplane3]

Yup, I’ve seen it a lot more. And I’ll admit I have done it. Now everyone’s reasoning is different so I can only speak for myself. I base it off killer gameplay. Mainly, If they come immediately back to hook or camp and tunnel. I’ll move to the next. Want a killer with skill, or the game is boring at that point. So on to the next until find a skilled gamer or one who challenges themselves.

As far as the other survivor players, I’ve seen it definitely after they get downed, or if they get found first. That is kinda weird to quit that soon. No time to analyze the killer or other survivor’s gameplay. Sometime’s survivor gameplay is just awful too.

It could also be killer choice, “beginner” killer’s or the more “annoying” killers such as Legion, Wraith, Cenobite, and Plague. Those can get a lot of DCs or on to the next responses.

But honestly, over all of it, most are just unhappy and the survivor side of life is overwhelmingly negative. Majority survivor games are unenjoyable and more now slugfests. I will admit, I have started to see more killer’s now though actually hook the last survivor instead of wait for the mori. Which has been kinda nice when we get those.

[Diavkha]

Originally posted by Noelle Holiday (she/her):

Hi! Killer main here. Is it just me, or are survivors giving up more often, leaving their teammates high and dry? A lot of the time, the give up at the 1st down and don't even bother seeing the match through. Has anyone else experienced this happening more often, or is this just a fluke? Comments from both killer and survivor mains are greatly appreciated!

Yes, I main survivor and I have noticed that either people won't do gens and just run around like headless chickens or someone waits until they are the last alive to try to make it through the trap door.

Its irritating how many matches we can't get past 1 or 2 gens and then everyone is on 2nd hook or already dead.

Out of all my matches, most of them we can't even reach Exit Gate phase.

Killer's just have too much of an advantage now, too many perks to block and regress gens. Too many perks and abilities to track survivors too.

I still have fun with the game but what is even the point of making a match longer if there is zero chance of success?

[ObsidianButterfly]

The execution of Skull Merchant was the breaking point. It got exponentially worse after that.

I hate tunneling and slugging as much as anyone (and I actively try to avoid doing it while playing killer), but I don't think people actually realize what it would take to eliminate them. No amount of incentives to avoid or it, or punishments for doing so, will work. The only option is you basically make it impossible through game mechanic changes. How?

Examples:
To eliminate tunneling, you would need to make a survivor unhookable again until all of the other survivors have been hooked an equal amount of times.

To eliminate slugging, you would have to give every survivor permanent endurance until the downed survivor is hooked.

The point is, you need to remove any sort of loophole that can be exploited and the only way to do that is make survivors insanely broken.

[DollarTom]

most of those go next players are hardcore veteran players (or think they are) and when they see that the match is unwinnable because the killer is too strong and / or teammates are not good enough for their taste they give up.

imho the biggest issue is that the game is not new player / casual friendly anymore and if you don't eat, drink, breath DbD 24/7 and not just play it but watch it in your free time than you won't be good enough for the go next players. You can't really get better just by playing you must go further and start watching tutorials and such which is too much to ask for majority of people. Not everyone has that much free time.

and I didn't mention that we don't know how the previous matches of the player giving up was. If it was a misery to experience they don't want another one so they quit instead.

making a separated queue for casual and competitive matches won't solve this because the hardcore players will go into the casual queue to be a d*ck over there.

[Bonedigger93]

when i play killer and this happens i just dont want to play the round anymore and i just run around till i either kill bot(s) or they realize im done and just get gate open and leave i just try and find thing to get some points out of

[Jake]

Survivors usually set the tone of the map with map offerings, optimal loadouts, and comms.
And they still DC it takes playing a weak killer to keep them in matches these days.

[Legion = surrender]

I often, way too often see as solo queue, that other survivors dont do gens and do "speed unhooks" after 5 second of the hook, or taking even free hits while the survivor is carried to a hook while no survivor has been hooked already. So after 2 minutes of match start, you see other of yourself has not made any gen progress yet, 2 survivors are injured and 1 survivor is hooked.

At this point i know this match is not going to go in the right direction and I draw the "go next"-card.

In 19 of 20 games, after 3 minutes of gamestart, i have finished 1 gen already and the other 3 survivors have not touched one yet, but 3 or 4 hooks are made yet.

An additional factor why this "go next"-mentaily exists are the mayority of toxic killer builds without any way of counterplay as survivor.

The game was good at this time, where there were not so many aura reading perks. Today, killers have clear vision to survivor with almost 100% uptime, what is the point to play there then?

[Skadelige]

Yes, constantly. I can understand because I sometimes play for survivors. If one player plays badly, or two, it's easier to die and start over. Survivors get little experience. I get 30-40 thousand for the killer. And for survivors 20,000 if the battle is normal and I survive.

[Madhatter]

Yes. More often, survivors are giving up on hook or disconnecting on first down. Also, more killers are camping, tunneling, slugging, and bming. The game is in a terrible state right now, regardless of what role you play.

Honestly, I'm not sure why. I have no idea how it can be fixed. I'm not even sure it's a problem with the game, honestly. It's just like everyone collectively decided that no one is allowed to have fun.

[Mewsha]

I don't see people giving up early often as killer, but I do see it often as survivor.

If the killer is using a lot of aura reading, especially Lethal Pursuer, and is tunneling early (which is the case with Lethal most of the time), people just give up. Tunneling early is extremely effective because most teams are not coordinated enough to counter an early game tunnel or absorb the early 3v1. It's incredibly efficient.

The only time I don't see that happening in that example is when they're in a 3-man SWF where they're taking hits or fanning out on gens to prepare for the 3v1. It's one or the other.

If they're solo, yeah I pretty much expect them to go next. There's not much I can do for them as a fellow solo queue survivor. It needs to be at least 2 survivors taking a hit to reliably lose a competent killer. 1 survivor taking a hit won't slow the killer down much.

Loading into the game and getting immediately chased is not fun and used to be very rare, like the last time it happened to me without Lethal was when you used to be able to spawn facing the killer back in the day. It's especially demoralizing to know that not only will you die early, but the rest of the survivors are still not going to do gens.

Scoring is a thing too. Coordinated teams are required to escape competent killers, but we're scored individually. There's no reason for survivors to really care about what happens after they're dead except for good sportsmanship. They're not rewarded in any way for you getting out.

As for me? If I get tunneled early I'm hanging on and lasting as long as I can in chase because I'm petty.

Best thing you can do is just get on a gen the moment you see someone chased and hope your teammates are doing the same. Sometimes they'll hang on long enough so that you're in a 3v1 with 2 gens left if they see the killer will pay for the tunnel with 3 gens.

[Sluzzy]

Survivors are conditioned to losing a majority of their matches. They know they can't win.

It's a symptom of balancing for perfect 4 man SWF vs. weak killer. The game has been designed for survivor to always lose and killer to always win.