bombarded with toxicity (a review)

(Kittenkawa11) #1

There’s no need to say much more than the title, but for the sake of explanation I’ll continue.

For the first time in a couple months I’ve returned to dirty bomb, finding the game otherwise enjoyable, (it’s a fun game!), however being bombarded with extreme toxicity from entire lobbies full of players is simply not worth the frustration and disappointment.

In many games, I encounter toxic players (usually in mass) I don’t think I have to name any of these, since we’re all aware of them. However, in those games there is value in playing because of friends, excellent mechanics, and/or the personal enjoyment overcomes the difference. The lack of even small group queues outside of ranked is… a severe disappointment, and there’s no reason a modern multiplayer game should be lacking this feature. (period). core mechanics and balance decisions also alienate new and returning players alike as they’re forced to ‘figure it out’ or as the aforementioned toxic players would say ‘git gud scrub, or quit and go kill yourself’ or something of the like.

The question I’d like to pose, is why on earth would i ever want to subject myself to seeing anymore of this game when I can’t play a single match without being overwhelmed with profane remarks about cheaters, scrubs, bad teams, or what any one individual did to another individuals immediate family? What does dirty bomb want to offer new playership to console them over the heinous hatecrimes against humanity they must endure through the long hours of indoctrinating themselves with the game?

we’ve seen effective ways to deal with the affectations of negative and otherwise toxic players from other games that allow a player to ease into the game mechanics before enjoying the thrilling experience of being hated by what feels like the entire universe bundled up into a few disdainful posts about how bad they are from the rest of their team, and if this game is going to thrive, it needs to provide positive feedback to players, encourage positive relations between players, and allow people to make friends and play with them without a hitch.

just because someone is an awful player, doesn’t make them an awful person, they are just as deserving of having fun and enjoying themselves. It is after all, supposed to be a game.

(Occult) #2

tab, right click player, mute.
trolls are everywhere sadly, just mute and don’t feed them.

(nokiII) #3

If you can’t handle the bants, get off the internet.

(ImSploosh) #4

I think you’re doing something wrong if people are insulting you directly…

That rarely happens to me, even if I’m bottom scoring or getting destroyed. :smiley:

(srswizard) #5

We’re not in Goldshire anymore.
It’s a frustrating game, and people will dump their frustration in the chat.
People need to pay less attention to the chat, and more attention to wising the hell up.

(jemstar) #6

There are max lvl 5 servers, try those or if you are returning and are above lvl 5 then get a thick skin heheh.

Not blaming you, and I agree there are alot of trolls. But I play alot of Enemy Territory and there are trolls in that as well. They are everywhere not just DB! My advice is just ignore them, if you bite it just encourages them.

GLHF!

(Jostabeere) #7

I’m toxic sometimes. My enemies or teammates are toxic sometimes. everyone besides @Faraleth is toxic sometimes. I’m wondering how you manage to land in games where everyone is constantly toxic? Aren’t you exaggregating a little?

(Ritobasu) #8

Is this OP’s first online multiplayer game? Lol

(Faraleth) #9

@Jostabeere I’m toxic when I play with those Rhino scrubs ;D

(Arjun) #10

Because its a game that has high value for teamplay , people just expects you to be good . I’m sort of a patient guy and can handle a few chickens in the team , but sadly everyone is not the same .
The same goes for snipers . Unless you are really good at it , people will be just rude to you . No matter even if your spotting ability gave them an Ace.
At the same time people just appreciate good team players ( especially the medics ) . So i guess you just need to adapt somehow with the toxicity or just do what you must .

(tominatorx) #11

Yesterday I had some games with a lvl 27 guy who couldn’t stop complaining. So what happened (fun story):

1st match: On trainyard, I try to revive him so I’m charging up my peddals as I’m running towards him. The moment I want to release the peddals I get headshotted by a Stoker player. The guy starts immediately complaining that I’m the worst medic he has ever seen and bla bla bla.

I’ve never said anything to that guy and ignored him (just like the rest of the team which I applaud them for) because I just knew he couldn’t stop complaining about the smallest things. I just played my game and that’s it.

Still we managed to get the first objective done. Then he’s complaining about how our first C4 on the train didn’t go off because it was defused by the enemy team. In the meantime he was also whining in the general chat that “his team couldn’t defend the C4”. Still we managed to get the second objective done… weird huh? :slight_smile:

The 3rd objective we couldn’t pull off. But during the time we we’re trying to do that objective, there was a bit less complaining. But suddenly there’s a vote to kick me from the team (I was 3rd best of our 8 player team). I actually would have loved to vote myself and say “yes” because I had enough of that guy… The fact that he does it right at the end of the game to let even more of my time go to waste, is just childish imo…

I stayed on the server though after the game on trainyard and played 3 more matches namely on Underground, Bridge and Terminal. I was medic in those games as well. The only reason why he wasn’t complaining then is because he never had to respawn because I could almost always revive him. Did I do any better in those games? A little bit. I was always second best of the team. But the only reason why he wasn’t complaining so much was because he never had to respawn unless the enemy had finished him off because I always revived him. He was still complaining on the rest of the team though…

I really hope he realised what kind of idiot he was after those matches… Maybe I made one mistake in those 4 matches while trying to revive people. It happened to be when I tried reviving him. So that immediately meant that he should insult me and complain about everything I did. + the bullsh*t of trying to kick me out of the game in the last 2 minutes of a 25 min game.

I hate these kind of people tbh. 1 mistake = worst person in the world for them. And they are perfect in every way. Yeah right… that’s why I had to revive his sorry *ss multiple times… Once even because he died of fall damage when he tried to jump to the containers on terminal. :smiley:

But yeah that’s unfortunately how most online MP games are. Whenever someone is complaining or whining in my team without any reason to do so, I just try to ignore that and play my game. These people will always be a part of MP games unfortunately. :frowning:

(Backuplight) #12

My initial reaction is the same as others have put: “Is this your first multiplayer game?” But then I actually gave it some thought - more often than not, I’ve ended up having some decent chats with people in the lobby. The only toxicity I see is when a game ends and almost every time someone (usually in the lower region of the scoreboard) takes it upon themselves to type in caps about how terrible their team is and leave.

Best advice you can get right now is to stop letting it get to you. People are sometimes dicks on the internet, but who cares? Enjoy the game. If you can’t enjoy pugs alone, then play with friends, or find a community to play with if you don’t have any.

(Quiet) #13

I haven’t experienced much toxicity, atleast not much in objective/stopwatch. Execution on the other hand is full of cs go ragers lol.

(Ballto) #14

whenever i see someone being toxic to me or someone else i target them and teabag them, and anytime they kill me i K out. They get super fucking salty and 9/10 they ragequit.

You can make toxic players actually fun to have in your lobby if youre smart about it

“BALLTO YOU FUCKING HOMOSEXUAL SLUR MINE PLACING SHITTER”

“TOXICMCTOXICSON YOU FUCKING BLACK SLUR DONT SAY HOMOSEXUAL SLUR ITS NOT PC” also works well for just a bit of a dumb response with no substance for a small laugh

find other ways to be a dick to them too. They rage at your fucking stoker noob class fag teammate? Pull your own stoker!

its okay to be a dick to dicks

(BerylRdm) #15

its okay to be a dick to dicks

Not really. They are successful if you argue with them. The best thing to do against dicks is to ignore them.

(mirthfulPicture) #16

Baiting them into a mental breakdown is funnier though.

(Amerika) #17

@Faraleth isn’t toxic but this happens to him sometimes!

(Amerika) #18

Most of the toxicity sent my way is due to my level because people who started two weeks ago can’t fathom that a player who has played for a year has a higher level (I’ll never understand that). And of course there is the guys who claim you’re cheating and such but that’s nothing new for most of us. And then there are min10 servers that seem to host some of the saltiest people in Dirty Bomb who appear to have a much higher opinion of their own play than they have actual skill and get upset when they are shown to not be as good as they thought.

Most of this is typical across any game you play online. I mostly just ignore it or roll with it depending on my mood.

(Rjsto) #19

Heyyy today was actually the first time that someone actually started bullying me over my level! Sadly for him, I’m such a silver tongued charmer that he just felt a need to friend me on steam :kissing_heart:

(bontsa) #20

Rant Ahoy. Adviced to follow GSoCO protocol (Grab a Snack or Carry On).

The thing is though, while thick skin is good to have and there is good muting option to ignore said behaviour more easily, this subject matters and should be dealt with. I’m not meaning only developer sided actions but actions we as a playerbase can do as well.

Call me idealistic daydreamer (or the more subject-fitting term “that idiot without sense of reality”) but this Extra Credits video from couple years ago made me start re-thinking how I interact and how others interact in online enviroments. It’s not long and has couple magnificent points, do check it out!

[spoiler]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9A8VJBh_Yc[/yt][/spoiler]

What can players do then? Well, first of all obviously not feeding these persona’s. They have something gone wrong in their life, mind or both so bad that they simply attempt to get attention in any means necessary. Negative impact often hits stronger and is remembered better in the long run, sadly. How many fantastic ads for example you remember from seeing from TV? And how many horrifying waste of screentime you can list from the top of your head? Most propably (least in my and most of my friends/relatives case) latter list is much greater, since it’s less thought and effort requiring to leave annoying/negative impact than positive. In case of idiotically behaving players, muting offers us tool to ignore them. Not to forget some people do this kind of “trashtalk” for letting off some steam or attempting to be humorous. Whenever or not that is even remotely sane, smart or acceptable is for a completely other debate itself though.

However does it do any good for the overall situation if ignoring is all we do? They are still out there, they face absolutely no consequenses even if said behaviour, flaming/trolling/insulting/spewing overall just crappy stuff is their routine course of action instead of occasional bish-bosh. This lack of consequence can be somwhat compensated by lack of reaction at all, but does work only so far. I don’t personally think we should tolerate these actions with just only repeating the “get thicker skin and mute”- catchphrase.

We should start from ourselves. Rethink twice before saying “f*cking noob” for that bottomscore Vasilli crounchwalking all over and watching approximately 1x1x1 cm cubic area through his scope 24/7. How about guiding him to “try out other mercs instead, you’ll learn the game’s phase better thus making sniping easier to grap” or point them towards maxlvl5 servers and tutorial etc. What good does the option 1 do to anyone anyways, despite it being true? Most of us are at least annoyed by these players, some being complete d!cks to them and I can raise my hand honestly that I’ve been harsh on them too sometimes. Regretting it afterwards. Biggest issue is however the persona’s that are idiotic towards everyone without almost any trigger.

Which is why I bring up the next point.

Video I linked offers couple of developer sided functions as well. For example, how about adding “Toxicity” option to report function? This doesn’t, by any means, need to result in ban even if there are multiple reports for single player (and specifically not from 1-2 times). But rather once certain threshold is reached, player would be instant-muted for everyone else once joining on a server. Sure he could be un-muted by anyone willing to listen to them, and for example for ones on their Steam friendlist. This way others on the server would be saved from his/hers most propably unwanted crap-spewing, but anyone willing to give a chance would still be able to do so.

Just letting some of my steam off from the subject. Thanks for staying.