What the word toxic does not mean

[Lilija]

The specific reason why someone is a cunt doesn't matter to me. They're one person out of thousands I'll interact with. I'm not interested in spending time out of my day to fix every person I come across.

No one is asking you to do that But the attitude many gamers tend to have is "simply remove toxic behavior from my games" is rather naive because it's not simple. However, devs might have some interest in solving the issue since it causes people to leave their games - especially the competitive ones. I guess it will take time for them to notice that simple bans do not solve the problem.

So yeah, I understand your angle here. But in practice it doesn't change anything, and I still don't see any solution, be it simple or hard. So I'll stick with just writing off toxic cunts and moving on with my life. It's the most pragmatic solution for me, and the least stressful.

It is the only thing any single gamer can do. Personally, I find mute/block option that also makes it impossible to match you again with blocked person, to be the best solution from the point of a single person. Even tho I have some interest in psychology and human behavior I don't have will or energy to solve everyone's issues either - especially when I play to relax. And since I have little power to make someone to stop being a douche I would like an option to never play with them again. This seems to be the case in WoW - either due to matchmaking (tho I have no way of knowing if it actually works that way) or huge enough player pool that makes it close to impossible to play again with someone who you wanted to punch thru the monitor Tho I do remember in Vanilla/TBC I did stick to playing with guild only because pugs were infuriating. Nowadays, I don't get as annoyed while pugging in WoW. I guess there might be a lot of reasons why my experience has changed to much to the positive but I doubt WoW players suddenly became better people than they were 10 years ago So if that could happen in one gaming environment, maybe some lesson is to be learnt here for the devs.

[Fitheach]

You cannot do a single thing to reform people. People can change only if they really want to change. You can give people suggestions but beyond that you cannot force them to change.

Proper education, workshops and curating content people see can go a long way towards helping us progress as a society.

[Lilija]

Proper education, workshops and curating content people see can go a long way towards helping us progress as a society.

No it doesn't.

[Fitheach]

No it doesn't.

Except that is the point of education, to socialize and condition people into correct citizens, otherwise we would not have an education system.

[Lilija]

Except that is the point of education, to socialize and condition people into correct citizens, otherwise we would not have an education system.

Most important socialization process ends when we reach 2... so yeah. This social engineering stuff you believe in doesn't really work that well. Human nature always wins. That's why certain social experiments simply do not work.

[downnola]

Because unlike other "social behaviour experts" on internet I don't know the viable solution? I just point out what doesn't work.


Well, when it comes to really competitive games it seems that when you do it with random people there will always be problems. As I've said before, when there is conflict of skill level and gaming goals there will be negative emotions. People dislike to feel that their time is being wasted and that is when they act out. And more often than not the actions are not intended but simply acted out on an impuls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor). Those who intend to be assholes are minority and will do that no matter what.

So if we take into account that people most often do stupid things out of frustration, what do you think punishment will cause them to feel? More frustration -> more stupid behavior.

Yesterday I've listened to interesting thoughts of one of Polish youtubers (an older guy) about toxicity in Overwatch. He pointed out that it is an issue but actually had some really interesting proposals because instead of focusing on how to punish people he tried to understand why people act in certain manner. The baseline was that the game stops being enjoyable (and causes frustration) when your personal effort means little for you personal progression and you are constantly punished by how bad other people in your team are. And while he personally doesn't act that frustration out in game he noticed he is acting it out on his family. And therefor he doesn't play OV much anymore. This is just one opinion but I find certain validity in it because it tries to tackle the whole picture and our own flaws as human beings instead of just pushing the blame "on those evil people over there". Imagine that people are not assholes without a reason. If you really want something to change in that manner it would be good to understand that reason instead of looking for the easy solution that doesn't require any work. Those generally don't exist.

This is the main issue of random matchmaking. The only way players can influence it on their own is by playing with friends or other organized groups. It's the same reason why no one pugs the hardest content in WoW until it can be heavily overgeared - it would be so frustrating that no one in their right mind would be willing to give any effort.

Playing with friends and organized groups is the only way bad players can influence the game. Good players will determine the flow of most games just by playing properly and doing what they can. Bad players, however, look for outside factors to blame their loss on, and random people on their team make good scapegoats.

It's actually irrelevant how bad one's teammates are; if you focus on playing well you will win more than you lose and gain elo. Ask any good players in Dota/League/CS that climb their respective elo ladder and you'll hear the same thing: focus on yourself and play the best you can; you can't help how bad your teammates are. Bad players look for flaws in the system to justify why they're stuck in the elo bracket they're in because they refuse to consider the notion that they're not as good as they think they are. They don't focus on ironing out fundamental skills like farming effectively, communicating with teammates, and not taking unnecessary risks. I forget what game it was, maybe Dota 2, where a pro would watch replays of players complaining about the unfair nature of the ladder and 90% of the time their own mistakes had more impact on their loss than their teammates. Bad players are bad because they don't see their weaknesses and the vast majority of toxic players I've encountered over the years fit that description perfectly.

Toxic players share some common features. They have horrible sportsmanship and social skills. Punishing them provides a negative feedback loop that they should have had as children. Act like an asshole? Take a 3 day break from the game. Will it ultimately change their behavior? Most likely not, but it's not meant to be a perfect solution. The feedback is there, now they have to make the choice to change their behavior or face the consequences. Their shitty attitudes shouldn't be allowed to run amok in these games just because the solution isn't perfect.

[Ol Scratch]

Given I was mostly asking questions, I really wonder, what kind of reprehensible thoughts did I present to get the label "you people" and few other epithets that were thrown my way.

No, that's just the ridiculous tactic people like you use to try to obfuscate matters. Anyone who paid attention to the conversation from the start know exactly what was going on. The fact that you think you're so incredibly clever just makes the whole thing that much more sad. Hilarious, but sad.

I can't help it that it made me smile (hey, I'm just a human) tho I really am against banning people for words. And I really wanted to carry on with the discussion cause it was fun. But I see you want to fill in the empty spot

Pssst. This would you being "toxic." Just saying, oh self-believed enlightened one.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Toxic is basically anything any fragile alpha male cries about whenever being called on their obnoxious bullshit. People don't know what words mean on purpose by those that are ignorant or stupid and pollute knowledge, and then the same types try to redefine what it is or isn't on behalf of everybody, just like trying to speak on behalf of other men.

[Lilija]

It's actually irrelevant how bad one's teammates are; if you focus on playing well you will win more than you lose and gain elo. Ask any good players in Dota/League/CS that climb their respective elo ladder and you'll hear the same thing: focus on yourself and play the best you can; you can't help how bad your teammates are.

I personally don't play OV but I've heard many comments that no matter how good you are you won't be able to carry a bad team.
Also in WoW at mythic level (both raids and 5mans with higher m+) if someone is really bad, it doesn't matter how good you personally are, if that person fucks up, you will not complete your task. There are instant wipe mechanics that whole raid has to do correctly.

So while yes, bad players tend to not see their own flaws (that's the main reason why they are bad and cannot improve) but that's not the whole picture. Yes, people's perception is flawed but that's also not the ONLY reason people can act out. You are oversimplifying focusing on only one aspect of the issue.

Toxic players share some common features. They have horrible sportsmanship and social skills. Punishing them provides a negative feedback loop that they should have had as children. Act like an asshole? Take a 3 day break from the game. Will it ultimately change their behavior? Most likely not, but it's not meant to be a perfect solution. The feedback is there, now they have to make the choice to change their behavior or face the consequences. Their shitty attitudes shouldn't be allowed to run amok in these games just because the solution isn't perfect.

Who says it should be allowed?

The thing is banning people isn't really proper feedback due to cognitive dissonance. It mostly enforces their behavior. While muting/blocking people is the more natural way of interaction between human beings. In real life if you don't like someone's behavior you stop dealing with them. You don't run to authority every time someone is being an asshole. This not only makes you stronger as an individual cause it gives you social power when it comes to your personal interaction but also sends a much better message.

There is also other thing. Different people tolerate different things. Different people see slightly different things as toxic (for example I don't really care for words people are using while for someone else certain language might be hard to deal with and they should be able to chose to avoid it). If assholes play with assholes then maybe it's what they want? Who are we to judge? Why ban them from the game? Why not let people who are alike be naturally put together? This is how human interaction works in the real world.

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No, that's just the ridiculous tactic people like you use to try to obfuscate matters. Anyone who paid attention to the conversation from the start know exactly what was going on. The fact that you think you're so incredibly clever just makes the whole thing that much more sad. Hilarious, but sad.

It's nice how the only thing you can do is generalization without any facts. Funny

Pssst. This would you being "toxic." Just saying, oh self-believed enlightened one.

If you payed attention you would notice I've said everyone has it in them to be "toxic".