Concerning the recent influx of toxicity and negativity.


(Eox) #1

Hello everyone.

I couldn’t help but notice how since a few weeks the whole ambiant in the forums has been steadily going downhill. Constructive criticism is becoming less and less of a thing, users are more prone to make use of ad hominem, and fights between users has become much more frequent for reasons that could be as minor as a simple push on the disagree button. I won’t lie, it feels really disenhearting to see your own community tearing itself to shreds like that especially as the most active moderator here.

I do think that the major source of that toxicity is due to how negative we can be from time to time.

Negativity is a major reason about why DB has a hard time. Sure it’s not the only factor, but it does affects the game much harsher than you guys might think about. Negativity overall make the community much more gloomy, agressive and unlikeable, which will scare new players away by making them think that DB is a sinking boat while in fact we’re doing much better than most new FPS games on the market. It makes the dev team members dread the places where people are acting negatively due to poor overall reactions and how much it can affect them, which in the end can make them rather unactive among their own community and makes the communication between devs and users much harder. Due to dev inactivity, people are bound to become even more negative, which will draw even more players away.

In the end, too few participation from the dev team due to excessive negativity (which doesn’t make them feel welcomed at all) will draw the player to become incredibly toxic. Toxicity will scare the new players away even more which will prevent DB from aquiring its very needed fresh blood, which will definitely not help at fixing those ranked match you are so upset about since most of the issues are related to DB’s low player base. Sick of poor results and matchmaking in ranked, even more player will grow upset and start bashing the game with the same results described above.

Negativity is vicious circle, and it affects everyone : devs, moderators, beginners, normal users and veterans alike. And the fact that some of us are acting negatively when things aren’t going the way we expect is extremely counterproductive.

We all want to see that Dirty Bomb succeed : this is why we should focus on tuning down that negativity as much as possible in order to make DB a much more welcoming place for everyone. It will help communication, player retention and even ranked matchmaking in a much better way than what you might expect. Don’t make stuff blow much harder than it actually is, don’t focus on the bad aspects to the point of making it an obsession, keep your posts constructive and keep the feedback flowing. But most importantly, try to respect each other, and respect their opinions, because it all starts with the way how we treat each other.

Devs and moderators want to work hand in hand for a fun and thriving game, an awesome community and much more, but this is only possible with community support. SD is perfectly aware that having a stronger presence is needed on the forums and really wish to improve communication between players and devs. They have already started to work on that issue by becoming more active on the forums and answering feedback. SD truly wants to improve, but we have to improve as well if we want to make SD’s efforts meaningful. Tuning down all that negativity would be a very good start.

I hope we can all get along in the future and wish for a DB a brillant success. :slight_smile:


(JonBongNoJovi) #2

Maybe because the Dev’s ignore the “OFFICIAL” forum , we have to dredge thru FB ,Twitter and other shite sites for any answers , so basically it’s their own doing in my eyes .

No I don’t use Twitter, Redit or Instagram or Facebook , I use the “OFFICIAL” forums , time and time again our questions are left unanswered thus in turn making us feel like whatever we say won’t be addressed.


(Eox) #3

@JonBongNoJovi said:
Maybe because the Dev’s ignore the “OFFICIAL” forum , we have to dredge thru FB ,Twitter and other shite sites for any answers , so basically it’s their own doing in my eyes .

No I don’t use Twitter, Redit or Instagram or Facebook , I use the “OFFICIAL” forums , time and time again our questions are left unanswered thus in turn making us feel like whatever we say won’t be addressed.

If you check the lastest developper reply tab, you’ll be able to see that devs are trying to be more active on the forums. They do recognise they made a mistake about leaving the forums unattended for too long, and are now trying to be more active.

It is safe to expect that devs will try to reinforce their activity even more in the future : they should be encouraged. You hated that long period where devs weren’t active on the forums, right ? Now would be a good time to be less negative and encourage them to continue their efforts. :slight_smile:


(Ptiloui) #4

That’s (sadly) funny because yesterday, after roaming on the forum, i watched the New Dev Video: The Deal with this Update and i was asking myself “How does @stayfreshshoe can keep smiling and still be joyful every videos after all the complains i read ?”.

I guess it’s the sum of all the frustration stocking for 2-3 years that’s being released now we know when the full release will be ?

Anyway, good words here.


(SirOrionDrake) #5

Yup. The Devs should REALLY use the… erm… OFFICIAL forums more. As in, it should be their primay way to inform people about news and such. By the way, if this isn’t done yet, I’d like to suggest that whenever you guys take the game down (as has been done just a while ago, as of the writing of this), you should make an announcement here, warning about that.

I went looking for something related to it, and didn’t find a clue.

All in all, here’s hoping for more positivity. This game is awesome, it deserves way more than it already has achieved.
Cheers.


(ThePigVomit) #6

I gripe because i care. All the technical crap aside (I am simply a pub* and obj focused) I just want the game to satisfy my killing needs.

The game is fun. Keep it fun.


(Da_Mummy) #7

Okay so this might sound weird and dumb but I’m going to say it anyway: maybe the devs should listen less to the community.
Now before you flag my post as unfriendly to the community or something hear me out…
The SD Team is very active there is no denying that: weekly ask the devs, new updates and game tweaks every two seconds and this is all good but if can give you guys a well thought out advice: sometimes you have to ignore certain people. Which does not mean you should abandon the forums heck no but let me give you an example: the P2W debate
Ever since DB was released the Loadout card system was a thing and it was good. Sure crafting wasn’t really the cherry on the icing but whatever. It was a good thing and never in my long time playing this game did it feel unfair. A veteran of the game with only stock cards could always outplay somebody using cobalt there was no problem. And then the complaint started. I still don’t get it why so many idiots cried about a system that didn’t even involve money. The ONLY thing I can think of were the bronze cards in the shop but if you put more than 5 minutes into this game you can get one of them for free. But THOSE people that kept complaining about a fair and balanced mechanic eventually got their will and pissed of the entire veteran playerbase and now they are upset understandably because the progression to finally get a bronze out of an equipment case is gone now.
In the end there is only one thing I hope that the devs are taking to heart: You ae doing good work and keep it up but don’t be irritated by a new player of the game that is constantly complaining about every one of his lost games and not giving any kind of constructive advice.
Trust me those are not the type of people that you want for your game.
You can’t satisfy everyone.


(Muddy Muddy Mud Nade) #8

I was actually gonna make a post about this, concerning the whole hate mongering thing. It seems like it’s almost wrong, according to the forumgoers, to actually enjoy the game. As if having fun and admitting it means you aren’t paying attention, or you’re a… “gambling addict” or a “whale” to quote a certain forumgoer who has since gone by.
I never made the post because I felt like I was being too whiny, sounding like “Wahhh, stop saying something I like isn’t perfect”.


(Your worst knifemare.) #9

The fact that Eox (or anyone for this matter) had to make this kind of thread is almost sad.
Keep up the good work SD


(Nail) #10

@JonBongNoJovi said:
Maybe because the Dev’s ignore the “OFFICIAL” forum , we have to dredge thru FB ,Twitter and other shite sites for any answers , so basically it’s their own doing in my eyes .

No I don’t use Twitter, Redit or Instagram or Facebook , I use the “OFFICIAL” forums , time and time again our questions are left unanswered thus in turn making us feel like whatever we say won’t be addressed.

but it’s not the Official SD forum, that was a name the Nexon types called it to try be cool

SD has always maintained social media was the way to stay informed, and don’t lay any blame on the devs for the toxicity in here, that’s ALL on the forum dwellers


(nokiII) #11

@Nail said:

@JonBongNoJovi said:
Maybe because the Dev’s ignore the “OFFICIAL” forum , we have to dredge thru FB ,Twitter and other shite sites for any answers , so basically it’s their own doing in my eyes .

No I don’t use Twitter, Redit or Instagram or Facebook , I use the “OFFICIAL” forums , time and time again our questions are left unanswered thus in turn making us feel like whatever we say won’t be addressed.

but it’s not the Official SD forum, that was a name the Nexon types called it to try be cool

What is that then? (It links to this forum here.)


(Eox) #12

@Nail said:

@JonBongNoJovi said:
Maybe because the Dev’s ignore the “OFFICIAL” forum , we have to dredge thru FB ,Twitter and other shite sites for any answers , so basically it’s their own doing in my eyes .

No I don’t use Twitter, Redit or Instagram or Facebook , I use the “OFFICIAL” forums , time and time again our questions are left unanswered thus in turn making us feel like whatever we say won’t be addressed.

but it’s not the Official SD forum, that was a name the Nexon types called it to try be cool

SD has always maintained social media was the way to stay informed, and don’t lay any blame on the devs for the toxicity in here, that’s ALL on the forum dwellers

The area we are posting into is actually the official forums, as @nokiII also pointed out. As far as I can tell, devs also call this place the “official forums” as well. It will very likely remain like it unless SD decides otherwise in the future. If this ever happens, you guys will get notified.

I appreciate your faith into SD @Nail, but I think @JonBongNoJovi’s reaction was understandable. Those forums were indeed quite kept aside for a long time while Reddit earned most of the dev support for some reason. Putting myself at the place of another user, I can see how the absence of devs on their own official forums can be frustrating to deal with.

Anyway, there’s no point talking about this anymore since SD is now back at the conquest of their own “official forums”. :stuck_out_tongue:


(Nail) #13

fair enough


(Mischievous_Mac) #14

@Da_Mummy said:
Okay so this might sound weird and dumb but I’m going to say it anyway: maybe the devs should listen less to the community.
Now before you flag my post as unfriendly to the community or something hear me out…
The SD Team is very active there is no denying that: weekly ask the devs, new updates and game tweaks every two seconds and this is all good but if can give you guys a well thought out advice: sometimes you have to ignore certain people. Which does not mean you should abandon the forums heck no but let me give you an example: the P2W debate
Ever since DB was released the Loadout card system was a thing and it was good. Sure crafting wasn’t really the cherry on the icing but whatever. It was a good thing and never in my long time playing this game did it feel unfair. A veteran of the game with only stock cards could always outplay somebody using cobalt there was no problem. And then the complaint started. I still don’t get it why so many idiots cried about a system that didn’t even involve money. The ONLY thing I can think of were the bronze cards in the shop but if you put more than 5 minutes into this game you can get one of them for free. But THOSE people that kept complaining about a fair and balanced mechanic eventually got their will and pissed of the entire veteran playerbase and now they are upset understandably because the progression to finally get a bronze out of an equipment case is gone now.
In the end there is only one thing I hope that the devs are taking to heart: You ae doing good work and keep it up but don’t be irritated by a new player of the game that is constantly complaining about every one of his lost games and not giving any kind of constructive advice.
Trust me those are not the type of people that you want for your game.
You can’t satisfy everyone.

Pretty much how I feel. The “listening less” part, not so much the loadout system changes.


(D'@athi) #15

Probably just more and more people than before having opened-up their eyes to reality and stopped dreaming about some unicorn-future for this game. And whith all this sadness comes the toxicity to this forum, we all get, when we play this game nowadays.


(TheStrangerous) #16


(Eox) #17

@Deathi said:

Probably just more and more people than before having opened-up their eyes to reality and stopped dreaming about some unicorn-future for this game. And whith all this sadness comes the toxicity to this forum, we all get, when we play this game nowadays.

If you think Dirty Bomb is a sinking ship and lost all kind of hope about it, you should have already left the boat since a long time. :wink:


(StIwY) #18

Devs have to play very carefully their cards. I came from another competitive game (Evolve) which died slowly within two years (sadly, the most beautiful coop and original game ever made), because of the high learning-curve and other problems. In the meanwhile from time to time, i played also DB, and i remember toxicity was also high, so nothing changed basically since mid-2016.

When the game Evolve became f2p, 55k people where online for one month, then the playerbase dropped hard again to 2k-1k, because of same problems (slow patches, very bad matchmaking…and such a thing), until now with 300.

So at launch if DB will be not polished enough…you know. Official release is the last chance, BUT this is not an excuse also to delay over and over again the release.


(D'@athi) #19

Nah Eox, it’s still a nice f2p-timesync, always has been. But it really changed, when the “et-people” left in numbers and got replaced by “cs-kiddies”. And that’s, imo, where the toxicity came in you where wondering about in your starting post.
For me, I have lost confidence in it getting better, but for the time beeing, I think it’s a nice game you can play on the side while waiting for stuff, or taking calls.


(Eox) #20

@Deathi said:
Nah Eox, it’s still a nice f2p-timesync, always has been. But it really changed, when the “et-people” left in numbers and got replaced by “cs-kiddies”. And that’s, imo, where the toxicity came in you where wondering about in your starting post.
For me, I have lost confidence in it getting better, but for the time beeing, I think it’s a nice game you can play on the side while waiting for stuff, or taking calls.

Oh I see : a community related toxicity issue. I didn’t got it the first time. Sorry if I sounded cold. :confused:

However I wouldn’t be too quick to bash the behaviour of new players. From my own experience, the major source of toxicity actually comes from comfirmed players that either get too involved into an argument or got fed up of a situation in the game to the point of having no filter. Actually when you think about it, abusive behaviour made on purpose like bullying isn’t one of the rarest reasons why I have to act in any social places I have a moderation task (so basically here, on the official Discord, and yes : even in the Warframe forums).

In game, it’s another story, but if there’s one thing I noticed, it’s that toxicity in game very rarely comes from single digit players. Most of the time when I spot someone being toxic, he’s mostly an average level player who is either doing poorly or stuck in a stomped team. Toxicity against high level players also comes from those average joes. As for flat attempts at bullying for no reason, it’s an issue at all levels, but kinda rare from our learning players.

Those new players aren’t some kind of pure childrens, but if anything is sure is that the fact that new players are always toxic (because they might come from X or Y) is false. Most of the cases of abusive behaviour from my experience come frome more average players with already several hours spent in the game (usually above level 20). What’s dangerous however, is that like childrens, most new players would be very tempted to take exemple on the players they see. If they see one of those average joes in their team insulting that one low level Proxy stuck at the bottom of the scoreboard, it is safe to bet that some of them will be very tempted to reproduce that behaviour much later. Monkey see, monkey do.

This is why I would like to encourage any user to report any kind of toxic behaviour by using either the support or the in game report system. New players might not be innately toxic, they usually end up becoming toxic due to the influence of other players. As a reminder for everyone, this is how you can trigger the in game report system :

  • Hold Tab.
  • Use right click once to make the mouse appear.
  • Select a player by right clicking on him.
  • Select “report a player”.
  • If the issue is for something else than cheating, use “offensive name” as a motive (this is normal : SD accepts all kind of tickets coming from that motive as the report system is not developped enough).
  • Don’t forget to fill up the justification.