Toxicity in gaming

[Nel Celestine]

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[Averis]

Very true. I remember to this day all the crap I got as a WHM in XI because so often the tank charged in before everyone was ready and blamed me for not healing through it. I felt very much abused as a main healer and since then I never touched a similar class again. I'm thinking of trying healer classes again this time, but I hope to not come into the same type of toxic situation.

 

In RP I've seen my share of very dramatic arguments over a variety of things. I've yet to get into an argument over RP, but I've seen how some people can really get bent out of shape over things.

 

It would be nice if we could all "just get along", but I think part of human nature is to often feel that you are the odd man out. I think a lot of people take the defensive posture too easily online since we are missing that face to face interaction. It's like missing a part of the whole image. We take a lot of information from a persons face when we communicate, so lacking that tend to naturally defend ourselves when online, which can cause a lot of misunderstandings.

[Nako-Chan]

Very true. I remember to this day all the crap I got as a WHM in XI because so often the tank charged in before everyone was ready and blamed me for not healing through it. I felt very much abused as a main healer and since then I never touched a similar class again. I'm thinking of trying healer classes again this time, but I hope to not come into the same type of toxic situation.

 

This gave me a giggle, so many moments like this as a healer with the tank running ahead and bulldozing face first into a pile of elite mobs when I had already said "Out of mana." And all I hear is "OMG Why aren't you healing me n00b, I died!" I solved the problem by just healing people I know: Guild members, friends, my brother or anyone else who I knew and knew me. Suddenly no more rushing tank problems.

 

Funny enough, toxicity continued in a different form directed at my personal tanks now. So my tanks would stop when they saw me out of mana and let me drink my mana-water while a lot of the DPS players start screaming OMG TANK GO FASTERRRRR. FASTERRRRRR. And my tank has to constantly point out the obvious that I am still drinking and recovering. Or I even have to point it out too because they don't care what the tank says.

[Myxie Tryxle]

I think it will be an unfortunate reality in this game that the whole "PUULLLLL FASSSTTTTEEEEERRRR!!!!" mentality will be both encouraged and rewarded by the kill chain mechanic.  I haven't done any grouping yet, but I'm assuming it will be there.

 

The best defense from this is your social lists.  If a tank or DPS are being jerks and making my game much more aggravating than it should be, I hit them with an ignore.  If I'm DPSing or tanking and a jerk DPS is harassing the healer, I call them out.  9 times out of 10, the bully will back down or leave, and once one person has called them out, others will speak up as well.  I'd rather wait five minutes for a new tank than struggle for an hour with a bad one.

 

As the previous poster suggested, once you find some good players, put them on your friends list and keep in touch.  There's always a demand for tanks and healers, so in no time you'll find you don't need to do random groups to get your things done, especially with the capacity for others to down-level to help out a friend that is a few levels behind.

 

Also, don't take the jibes of bad players personally.  Bad groups can be an opportunity as well.  Several of the good friends I made in WoW came out of a bad group, and the two of us realizing that there was one other person in the group who actually knew what they were doing.  Usually with a fair amount of (/whisper Can you believe this tank?)

[FreelanceWizard]

Very true. I remember to this day all the crap I got as a WHM in XI because so often the tank charged in before everyone was ready and blamed me for not healing through it. I felt very much abused as a main healer and since then I never touched a similar class again. I'm thinking of trying healer classes again this time, but I hope to not come into the same type of toxic situation.

 

I've been playing CNJ since beta 1, and I can say that most groups I've been in have been very supportive, even when things go horribly wrong (or when people do dumb things, like stand in the cracks during Ifrit) and people die. So far, at least in beta 3, people have been very friendly to healers, though maybe that's out of desperation since there's only one class and it seems fairly uncommon past 15.

 

The only snarkiness I've encountered has been -- weirdly enough -- people getting unhappy when I don't heal lightly injured DPS or keep the tank at 100% all the time (which is pretty foreign to me; why would you want me to waste MP?). Even then, the snarkiness is rare and pretty light. It only happened in one group of the many dungeon runs I've done.

[Koninbeor]

Pretty accurate video. As Averis pointed out, there can be a great deal of toxicity across party roles. Healers have always seemed to take the most flak. While the tank is traditionally the centerpiece of a party, the healer is the arbiter of life and death. Anger your healer and you're openly inviting calamity in your future.

 

My introduction to party-style play in an MMO was in WoW as a resto druid. I was the only healer in my PvP bracket on my server for nearly two months. In both PvE and PvP I found my roll to be almost completely thankless. People were quick to give criticism for not being healed in time after breaking line of sight but would say nothing good if the healing was so spectacular that no one in the party ever got into trouble. I had a handful of players who knew to look for me and guarded me with their virtual lives but the majority drove me out of healing in all but the most dire of circumstances.

 

Now I prefer tanking roles and I go out of my way to let my healers know if they've done a good job. I also see it as my personal responsibility to stick up for a good healer if the DPS in my party starts ranting and raving because of a death due to pulling aggro or pulling a group of mobs before the healer is ready for battle.

 

While I am most certainly not a perfect player, even with the blame game, I do my best to own up to my mistakes. I like to give warnings to experienced players if I am new to a dungeon and let them know that I am open to advice. I apologize to the group when I run headlong into a group of mobs while the healer is still drinking, or completely overestimate my capabilities by pulling eleventy billion enemies at a time. And I am very forgiving of others who own up to their mistakes as well.

 

Toxicity cannot be avoided completely. Competition does not always bring out the best in people and we all want to win no matter how uncompetitive some of us may be. We simply have to chill out as much as possible and remember that the most important reason for gaming is for the fun. At least, that's the most important reason for me.

[Y'sehr]

Oh toxicity. I was in the LoL community from an early point, and it honestly was a great community back in the day. The mean stuff slowly built up. The worst part is that it grates on you. It is infectious because it still kinda hurts, and that hurt is what starts to make you want to lash out in your own right.

 

I think that part of the solution, as previously said, is to play with people you know. Play with those people that you know to be level-headed and supportive, and willing to look for whatever problem is happening in the group when something goes wrong, rather than blaming others.

 

The other part of the solutions is just paying attention, being that level-headed person, and setting an example for others. Diffuse situations. Stand up for people in a gentle way - and stand up for everyone equally when you can.

 

As long as we work at it, everything will just get better 

[Seohyun]

I've come to realize that there's always going to be issues no matter where you go. MMO's and the internet bring together so many different people, from different cultures, tastes, environments, and etc so you're bound to have people bump heads due to their different opinions. I think the worst is when someone is purposely going out of their way to make a negative impact on someones experience on the game. Trolling has gotten so popular and people know that they really can't be punished for what they do. Also the safe feeling of being anonymous makes a lot of people braver, and they feel like they can get away with anything. I mean, have you guys looked at youtube comments that place is like the scum of the earth and I'm sure no one would ever say those things IRL. 

 

As for the whole WHM thing, I totally feel your pain. I only ever play healers in video games. People think just because you have a healing spell that you have a god mode button, "THNX IM DEAD, GOOD JOB HEALER. -_-"  it's more like "How about trying not to stand directly infront of the highly worshipped crazy fire breathing demon and dance on his cracks next time?"

[Azthran]

As MMO players this is definitely something that most of us have experienced in some for or another. My first experience was after I started playing WoW but unlike other examples given where the player getting blamed was a tank or healer I was a DPS being blamed by the tank. It was my first dungeon run, one of the SM wings, and the tank kept losing threat to the mage then started yelling at me saying it was my job to keep mobs off the mage.

 

That experience completely pushed me away from doing anything more than soloing and it wasn't until near the end of BC and after I had been lvl 70 for quite a while that I dived back into dungeons and then eventually pvp.

 

Before that I had played FFXI where I found most people to be friendly and freely offered helpful advice and also where noob wasn't used to insult someone. So the community attitude was quite a shift, I also feel like I'm rambling on now so yeah... *shushes*

[ArmachiA]

I'm gonna post from the other side. >

 

I'm a yeller. It's a terrible habit, but after awhile my patience just goes away when it comes to end game and I end up yelling. I have not done it in a long time, but I still feel bad for my antics in WoW.

 

In WoW, we were a light RP guild with a heavy, heavy emphasis on Endgame and, as everyone has to start somewhere and this was the Burning Crusade expansion, we started our Endgame in Karazhan (I don't really consider Heroics "endgame" and NEITHER SHOULD YOU BIOWARE) Karazhan was really really fun when it was level appropriate and, honestly, if Blizzard had introduced level sync I would have ran it forever. Our first week we couldn't get passed the first (optional) horse boss. It was maddening, but it was fine and very very fun to try and get these bosses down. Eventually though, we made it all the way to Prince.

 

Once we made it to Prince, I expected no less than excellent (not perfect) execution of my guildies (I was merely an officer of the NB though, as the endgame focus made me not want to be lead) because, if I do say so myself, I was really really good. I know that sounds cocky, but I was very good. As a Beastmaster hunter I was always 1st or 2nd on the damage charts, not just in my guild, but in any other run we did with other endgame guilds (You tend to make friends with other endgame guilds and run with them as well, it's very very social in endgame, but it can be fuuulll of drama. We had... 4 other endgame guilds we ran with). Anyway, because I was good, I expected older member of the guild to be good, and stuff like this happened:

 

1. During one of the weeks we were running newer people through Karazhan for gear, our usual Rogue wouldn't kick when he was supposed to for some reason and ended up wiping us. 5 times. It was the 6th time I FLIPPPEDDD out on Vent and yelled in front of everyone - newbies included. And when I mean yelled, I screamed and cursed and called him all the names in the book. Poor newbies.

 

2. My irl best friend played a hunter along with me and had a horrible problem of Feigning Death (A hunter ability that wipes all threat) instead of just taking the death. We were at Maiden (3rd boss) and we wiped. She feigned instead of just dying with us, so Maiden agroed her again since she was in range and she pulled Maiden to the front of Karazhan, wiping us again. GUESS WHAT I DID? To this day she still says I was the biggest bitch that day, though we do laugh about it now.

 

3. I made fun of EVERYONE who couldn't do Little Red Riding Hood correctly, to the point where the guild prayed they didn't get that boss fight (It was one of 3) because of my behavior.

 

These are just the ones I remember. I'm sure there are worse stories from when we got further than Kara.

 

The guild put up with me because Ellion was the Leader and I was his girlfriend, but I really had the tendency to be quite toxic.

 

I'm not like this anymore I promise ><

 

Once Wrath of the Lich King came out I started to chill out because I realized I was scarring people away! The roleplayers stuck around, but the endgamers thought I was too extreme (LOL). Running Nax, I was perfectly calm.... 98% of the time Also, I was able to admit my mistakes starting in Nax, instead of just blaming everyone else (There's this fight with this big ol dog that the hunter has to use a calming shot on to keep him from Frenzying... guess who forgot to do that the first 8 times? *raises hand*)

 

I was the problem at one time, is what I'm saying. I'm happy now a days to be part of the solution to Toxic behavior.

[Seohyun]

At least you took the time you evaluate yourself and try to change. Many people wouldn't do that. A lot of people walk around with a, "I'm right and you're wrong so you deserve this." attitude. Takes a lot to try to adjust yourself because you're observant and understand the damage you're doing. So mucho kudos to you! *Thumbs up.*

[ArmachiA]

Yeah, I'm able to look back now and be ashamed. It's funny because now everyone makes fun of ME about it, because I was such a self righteous little twit. Endgame brought out the worst in me and I really really needed to learn to reign that in. It's just a game!

[Azthran]

Yeah, I'm able to look back now and be ashamed. It's funny because now everyone makes fun of ME about it, because I was such a self righteous little twit. Endgame brought out the worst in me and I really really needed to learn to reign that in. It's just a game!

 

Endgame seems to do that to a lot of people. Like you I was a successful hunter topping the charts through most of the content. (After I dived back into doing content late in BC.) Also like you I felt that if I could do so well then others should too. I never lashed out at people but I would make comments about things in private from time to time and depending on who you talk to that's just as bad if not worse than lashing out as I never offered any constructive criticism.

[ArmachiA]

That's the worst, isn't it? When your like "Well I'm good, and I don't make any mistakes (Note: You do make mistakes you just blocked them out you hussy), so what's everyone else's excuse?" *Haughty laugh of derision*.

[Eva]

Good post Nel.

 

I remember sometime a couple years after FFXI launched I withdrew from the larger gaming community forum sites because somewhere along the lines snide sarcasm became trendy and putting other people down became a norm. I sort of decided at that point that such behavior was detrimental to my enjoyment of the game and I would only go back once in awhile to read/lurk if there was something relevant to my interests - but never to post.

 

Those who know me know that I am a pretty big fan of Jeopardy. Alex Trebek, a survivor of two heart attacks, was recently on an episode of The Talk and was speaking a bit about life in general after the passing of James Gandolfini and had a few really simple, but really profound words to say. I think it's highly appropriate to share, what with some possible underlying bitterness over things as menial as RP server selection, the changing of appearance or race in a game, and the various other polarizing arguments here that would appear to have spurned bitterness for whatever reason. Even more recently I've heard some pretty awful things said for reasons I simply cannot comprehend, but some may notice I haven't been posting here quite as often.

 

Alex's words - and I cannot agree with them more - are as follows: "It's just as easy to be nice as it is to be nasty, and the rewards are far greater."

[Black]

Alex's words - and I cannot agree with them more - are as follows:  "It's just as easy to be nice as it is to be nasty, and the rewards are far greater."

 

It is a good sentiment and I would agree, however knowing human nature, my first reaction to it was, "Weeeellll....sometimes."

 

In my experience, it is easy to launch out criticism and not frame or think about it. Constructive criticism is good, but it also is the way one presents it. Basically, one "keeps one in check" or their speech. You don't want to "hurt" a person.

 

For some people, it is not so easy; they have to think before they say anything. Let's look at an example: I don't like "Family Guy" and I can pick apart the faults of it all day long if I need to, however, there ARE people who DO like that show and sometimes it is as simple as, "I like it."

 

Now if they enjoy it, who am I to point and say, "This is wrong!" ? If I stop a moment and see them laugh and smile, why not let them continue? And really, maybe I have a different view on things. The crux is, I am "cursed" with self-realization and while the majority may not have this "curse", it is not out of their reach to comprehend at times. But enlightenment sometimes can't be forced and is best when someone realizes it on their own after a period of reflection.

 

That requires patience and I would "argue" that that would be the "nice" thing to do...and not everyone is patient or understanding. Again, from my experience with people, I see it is easier to criticize than compliment in most any situation (and heck, read ArmachiA's posts to see an example of this).

 

Being "nice" takes some extra effort. Any two-year old can throw a tantrum but to think and empathize is a mark of society in general IMHO.

[Asyria]

Toxicity in gaming.

 

What I expected:

 

 

But yeah, I never did raids despite all my years of mmo because I was cared of raid drama. My roomie's raiding nights were like a bad drama show with people yelling all the time (he used ventrilo on speakers, no headphones...) and on top of that he kept telling me all about it because he needed to let it out I guess.

 

So yeah, that scared me too much and I never tried raiding.

 

EDIT: Fixed typo

Also I did try once and it was good, no bitching no complaining, even though we wipe. But that was ONE guild in ONE game and only after a LOT of hesitation. Never tried again despite it being a good experience. Didn't want to spoil it with bad ones.

[Y'sehr]

Toxicity in gaming.

 

What I expected:

 

 

But yeah, I never did raids despite all my years of mmo because I was cared of raid drama. My roomie's raiding nights were like a bad drama show with people yelling all the time (he used ventrilo on speakers, no headphones...) and on top of that he kept telling me all about it because he needed to let it out I guess.

 

So yeah, that scared me too much and I never tired raiding.

You are amazing <3

[Freyar]

This kind of behavior is exactly why I don't put myself in a position to play any sort of MOBA in a multiplayer environment. I stick to Demigod at most, and that is a singleplayer affair to me. Overall, I  have a very basic rule for my behavior. If I'm getting frustrated to the point where the game isn't fun, I'll stop and do something else.

 

I used to get frustrated and grumble an awful lot, complain about mechanics, about how they were "stupid" and "unfair" but over time I've gotten to the point (partly due to having seen so many different games and being able to see what works and what doesn't) where I can see merits for design decisions I didn't think about before.

 

I do think "hyper-competition" is a core component of why we have this kind of behavior. We see people who argue that if they aren't winning, it isn't a good game. I believe a close game is a good game, there have been spectacular losses that were a blast to play through to the end and I just wish more people could see those in the same way.

 

Hearing and seeing people play League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, DOTA 2, and other hyper-competitive games almost every day, I watch as they get frustrated over time, I can hear them get more and more angry each time they happen to have a loss, or something didn't go right. Rarely do I hear someone owning up to a mistake they made, with over three quarters of the time, problems get blamed on other people.  I've had some people even threaten each other with violence (to which has resulted in one or two people being thrown out and told to cool off), I've actually witnessed a physical fight as a result of certain people taking these hyper-competitive games too seriously.

 

Have fun first, win when it works. The drive for "World" and "Server" firsts has only thrust this issue into the MMO spotlight. The constant focus on min-maxing and perfect execution always causing some sort of commotion.

 

Call of Duty has the same problem with that hyper-competitive streak. People do stupid human things (which is to be expected since they're human), and they explode in frustration since what they expected to happen didn't come to be. They explode over latency problems, they get angry over randomly assigned teammates who may or may not work well with them.  I constantly try to argue to people who play Call of Duty, or any game that uses matchmaking, that part of their game is indeed chance. Bullet Spread, Latency, Teammates. These are all random elements added to the game.

 

We had this strange explosion of focus on personal performance, KDR KDR+A being the pedestal that people focused on all the time. What's strange is that people don't actually remember that for every kill you make, that's a death for someone else. 1.0+ is a good ratio for non-objective games, yet some players are SO uptight about getting more than 3.0 in each match (otherwise they're horrible.)

 

This whole post has kind of gone to a bunch of different topics stemming from this, but they all culminate into what makes it hard for people to actually play in multiplayer games these days.

[Koninbeor]

As MMO players this is definitely something that most of us have experienced in some for or another. My first experience was after I started playing WoW but unlike other examples given where the player getting blamed was a tank or healer I was a DPS being blamed by the tank. It was my first dungeon run, one of the SM wings, and the tank kept losing threat to the mage then started yelling at me saying it was my job to keep mobs off the mage.

 

I can say with 100% certainty that you weren't running Scarlet Monastery with me, then. If a DPS class wanted to pull aggro from me on a consistent basis and was making my job overly difficult then I would just sit back, let them die, and then grab aggro back so that the rest of the group wasn't screwed. And if they decided to gripe at me for not drawing aggro away then I'd explain how we'd have to wait all of 30 seconds to replace them while replacing me would take 30 minutes or more. That usually cooled their jets. For some reason, I found asserting myself was much easier as a tank than as a healer.

 

I'm not like this anymore I promise ><

 

I've got my eye on you...

 

This kind of behavior is exactly why I don't put myself in a position to play any sort of MOBA in a multiplayer environment. I stick to Demigod at most, and that is a singleplayer affair to me. Overall, I  have a very basic rule for my behavior. If I'm getting frustrated to the point where the game isn't fun, I'll stop and do something else.

 

Exactly my philosophy. If the game ceases to be fun then unplug. Life is too short to endure frustrations when you're trying to unwind.

[Lren]

These kinds of attitudes is why I get wary of being placed into groups. It's always nice to bring at least one friend along, least then you can kinda joke or something to help... Brighten the mood.

 

Sometimes see quite a bit of this when playing fighting games too. The amount of rage messages I've gotten from Street Fighter and the few from Marvel vs Capcom is staggering. The brightside is, you only see those people for a few minutes at most... MOBAs or MMOs, you're generally stuck with the toxic behavior for at least fifteen or more minutes.

[Rinh Hallani]

I saw so much atrocious behaviour in WoW that it put me off the game entirely. It wasn't so bad before LFG; if someone was a raging jerk in a dungeon, you'd notify the rest of the server and they wouldn't get another group again. LFG erased any sense of accountability or community so it became a free for all. The toxicity wasn't usually directed at myself but seeing a new player be abused for being new made me very angry. Everyone starts somewhere.

 

One of the last dungeons I ran, the druid had just dinged 85. His dps wasn't great but we were doing fine. The tank voted to kick him. I asked why and he said his dps was shit. I reminded him that he'd just dinged and was trying to gear up. The tank said he "wasn't here to help people". I asked him how exactly did he gear up then and left the group.

 

For those reasons, I was incredibly wary of duty finder but so far my experiences have been quite pleasant. Someone always asks if we've all been here before and if anyone says no, they go through the tactics. We shrugged off any deaths, picked ourselves up and tried again.

 

I can only hope it stays this way.