There are plenty of multiplayer games I adore. However, it seems like every community has these “brain dead”, patronizing, or out right toxic elements that are just nasty. I’d rather debate politics than make suggestions in some gaming communities because the responses are just so … annoying.
As an example, I once dared to suggest that a game developer implement a mode to prevent crouched status from rendering on death cams so that players that are bothered by t-bagging could avoid it (after a match where a friend rage quit because someone just kept head shotting him – possibly with cheats – and then t-bagging). This post got tons of hate, and like -50 upvotes on reddit because of course someone should be forced to watch someone t-bag them.
Another example on a official game forum… I made a forum post suggesting Bungie use Mastodon (or really just something else being my intent)… The response I got was some positivity but mostly just “lol nobody uses that sweetie” and other patronizing comments.
Meanwhile studios themselves often seem to be filled with developers that understand this stuff is a problem, and the lack of sportsmanship (or generally civilized attitudes) does push away players. It just doesn’t make sense to me that no studio is saying “get lost” to these elements or implementing anti-toxicity features. I just want to play games with nice normal people, is that really so much to ask?
Sure but the only way games can actually solve it isn’t by policing chat but by giving you control over what chat you see. Mute options and features like in League of Legends, a full chat ‘off’ button. Additionally Incentives for sportsmanlike behavior which grant relevant rewards seem to serve as good positive reinforcement.
A lot of people just get emotionally invested in games. It’s not always a mind game or strategy, it’s often times just someone who is more invested in the outcome than maybe you are. Hell, sometimes it feels good to make your opponent rage.
I just don’t want to leave it up to game deva because they almost always over correct:
Those “turn X off” buttons are fine; they’re great actually, that’s exactly what I’m advocating for (at least in the in game portion of things). There should be more of that, and they should be standard options.
e.g. it took Quake Champions years before they finally decided to add a mute chat button … and when I suggested it almost a year before they implemented it, the discord chat lit into me “get tougher skin”, “lolololol”, etc kind of comments.
Every time it’s brought up people take it personally like it’s their right to be a dick in the game you both paid for… just because developers didn’t implement an option to allow people to shut them up. Even here there are some pretty obnoxious takes (I’m not talking about yours) insisting I just need to get over it because “it’s just a game.”
I’m not saying anybody should be prevented from having a competitive rage baiting game where they trash talk left and right … but some people do not enjoy trash talk regardless of whether or not they can “handle it” and I am one of those people.
Edit: For forums, I think non-constructive criticism/disrespectful comments/personal attacks should be “punished” by disabling forum/comment access though. There’s no benefit to “mind games” or “trash talk” there… if you don’t have anything constructive to say… I don’t think you should be on, e.g., a suggestion forum. It’s not helping the poster or the developers, it’s just outright spam.