Where’s the line between altruism and bullying?
Sorry if this is long, want to provide context. My friend dropped the game last week after trying out Flashbang for the first time (she’d just bought Leon). The killer ended up finding her profile and spam messaging her across 3 different accounts afterward. She already has pretty severe anxiety, so even after I told her most killers aren’t like that, she uninstalled the game completely. She said she already gets insulted a lot in endgame chat, and that was basically the last straw for her. So now I’m back to solo queue on console…
What sucks is she’s probably one of the most altruistic survivors I’ve played with. To the point where she’ll throw herself under the bus just to get someone else out. She’ll go for hook saves/body blocks if someone’s getting tunneled because in our experience, a 3v1 at 4–5 gens is basically unwinnable. She even runs Dead Hard almost entirely to protect teammates rather than herself (bodyblock for a teammate getting tunnelled early on). Sometimes she’ll bring a flashlight for saves but she wanted flashbang just to decrease the chance of a killer using lightborn if they see her flashlight.
She’s also good in chase, which usually means the killer stops focusing her and ignores her all game, so most of her build is centered around helping weaker teammates stay alive longer, whilst I do the gens. I’ve always thought she was the kind of survivor I’d respect seeing in my own killer games. Good survivors are rare, and I usually give props when I see one in my killer games.
That’s why I’m surprised so many people seem to view her as a “bully” survivor instead of just a competent altruistic player.
I guess I’m curious where people personally draw the line between an altruistic survivor and an actual bully squad. And what perks people genuinely consider “bully” perks nowadays, because it feels like more and more perks and playstyles are getting labeled toxic/trolling just for being strong (and vice versa!). Altruism for me is what makes survivor rewarding, what’s the point if you play the role as if you are in a free for all.
For me, a bully squad is a group that doesn’t care about escaping at all and 99% of the time they never do. They ignore gens completely and just swarm the killer nonstop trying to make the match miserable for 20–30 minutes until the killer finally gets the 4k.
EDIT: Thank you everyone for being so nice! I’m positive that the comment section will encourage her to reinstall (which was my intention!). She’s an amazing player and she definitely makes soloq better. She can just be extremely emphatic and sensitive and wants everyone to have a good time. It’s only been since 2v8 started when she’s started to have a problem (idk)