How do you control a Toxic Community like World of Warcraft or most other MMOs have?

[Saltysquidoon]

I have a question, where are you seeing all this toxic behaviour in the first place? I don't think I've seen anyone interact with me in the open world beyond /wave in years. I admit I do 99% of my M+ gameplay with guildies and obviously all of my raiding with a guild. I assume that means this is happening in PUGs if that's the case, join a guild?

I mean you know if you're playing badly and no one says anything they're just laughing/raging at you on discord right? Not typing things doesn't make a community 'less toxic' it just makes a community silent.

EDIT: As I said previously WoW has a huge advantage over other online games that almost none of it's content is lobby based if you don't want it to be. If you guys think WoW is toxic because someone dabbs on you in a M+ 5 I would recommend steering clear of mobas and fps.

[Gaidax]

Control must be maintained, there must always be a Lich King...

*cough*

Anyway, the answer is simply to join a like-minded community. /shrug

[Tronski]

yeah,im one of those guys that cares to perform atleast well enough to kill stuff in an mmo about killing stuff,the audacity

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so im allowed to remove them,just not to inform them about their performance so they can improve?basicaly EXTREME TOXICITY,gotcha

Please explain how that is "EXTREME TOXICITY".
Also I did an edit that answered your question at the same time of your post.

[Toppy]

Yee, of course I can't back any of this up. I'm just giving my take. I'd be surprised if more people used the meter than didn't, but I'm just guessing. I still think the lack of a supported meter is a good thing to look at when it comes to the game's more positive community.

GW2 is in the same boat, and also has a very helpful, friendly community.

You saying there is a damage meter and blah blah is just moving the goal post, though. You literally used the lack of a supported damage meter in your own reasoning for being put off from the game. It's either a problem or it isn't. That's up to you.

As for the thing about optimizing my rotation and whatever: I don't need a meter to tell me that I dropped a global due to bad positioning, or I goofed and broke my combo. That's all I'm talking about. Obviously, if I ran a meter I could dig through parses and blah blah, which is a step further. I do that in WoW. There isn't a supported damage meter in FF, and it's honestly kinda nice to not have to worry about stacking myself up against others like that. If I do my job, we win. That's enough.

Out of the 5 years I've played FFXIV I've only met like, a dozen people, raiders included, who actively use a damage meter. Its often seen as something to laugh about.

They are all former WoW raiders, and aside for one of them, would turn into a big douche when using it.

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Well its not a coincidence because it isn't true. Most anecdotal "FFXIV is not toxic" posts come from People talking about low level dungeons and such. Savage and EX can be very Toxic.

Requirement to get into FFXIV high end content: Just have the minimum ilvl
Requirement to get into WoW high end content: Link your raider.io and be an overly high ilvl.

I doubt many people would say that FFXIV has no toxicity. Rather that WoW is on such a higher level of bullshit.

[LordVargK]

WoW is not toxic at all. Maybe your random groups are, but that's the problem of players who play WoW as a single player game.
Find a (nice) guild, chill with them on TS/Discord and you will never have to worry about having to play with toxic players again.

Except maybe in random BGs. But PvP is toxic by definition, there is nothing that can be done about that.

I have high hopes for the mentor system. I can imagine that not every new player wants to join a guild and that's where you might experience toxicity. Having Mentors guide you through the game and maybe introducing you to a guild should be helpful.

[Lolites]

I for one did not experience any toxic behaviour starting out in vanilla, so the fact is it must be server related. So each player will have a different experience hence it can never be compared truly. I for one might have choosen a server with lots of toxic behavour but luckily I didnt.

you dont need to compare, he said there was no toxicity back then, so even if it only was SOMEWHERE, its just incorrect statement...

[Dracullus]

To be honest, most toxicity in WoW community I see here. But I usually stay away from PUGs if content requires any serious coordination.

[Toppy]

WoW is not toxic at all. Maybe your random groups are, but that's the problem of players who play WoW as a single player game.
Find a (nice) guild, chill with them on TS/Discord and you will never have to worry about having to play with toxic players again.

Except maybe in random BGs. But PvP is toxic by definition, there is nothing that can be done about that.

I have high hopes for the mentor system. I can imagine that not every new player wants to join a guild and that's where you might experience toxicity. Having Mentors guide you through the game and maybe introducing you to a guild should be helpful.

I mean when people talk toxicity they are typically speaking about experiences with the community at large rather than individual small groups.

Other MMO arent near as toxic in their random interactions with other problems.

[deenman]

Please explain how that is "EXTREME TOXICITY".
Also I did an edit that answered your question at the same time of your post.

its extreme toxicity,because butthurt baddies can just get people banned who are just trying to help them,also the devs supporting and enforcing such a policy breeds an extremly toxic situation,if it rly is as you say and no an exageration

[T-34]

It's always seemed to me that Blizzard games are uniquely toxic. I'd say a lot of other games and gaming communities are pretty toxic, but there's something about the way Blizzard designs for casual players, yet gets a large swath of players who aren't casual and hate casuals, while playing these casual experiences that causes some sort of mental crosswiring mismatch. I mean, hell, MOBAs, the most toxic community of all, were born out of Blizzard properties.

I'd say WoW specifically has things that were designed from the ground up to encourage toxicity, like making group leveling non-advantageous, same-faction enemy stealing, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of gatekeeping and stuff. Some of it has been softened over time. But I also feel that the more accessible they make things, the harder and more restrictive the community gets in kind. To the point that I don't think there's anything Blizzard CAN do that wouldn't be a radical redesign of the entire game.

You are seeing it from the bottom, from what you call "casuals". Unfortunately there is a big subset of players among the "casuals" that are unable to recognize/accept that they are bad and they refuse to do anything to get better. What I call the wilfully bad. Those players expect better players to play with them and carry them.

And those wilfully bad players of course don't like when the good players, the players that strive to become better, develop systems to find like-minded people - damage meters, Raider IO etc.

So "toxicity" is not a problem for a good and self-aware player. He easily finds people of similar skill and mindset.
"Toxicity" is also not a problem for the non-skilled but self-aware player. He will also easily find a nice guild with people of similar skill and mindset.
"Toxicity" is only a problem for the bad players that refuse to accept their lack of skill and expect better players to play with them.
Blizzard, understandable, does everything to make the toxic bad players think that they are "good". They would lose customers otherwise.
Any game that tries to reach a big player-base must do its best to make all the players think they are "good". It is also true for any game that the good players will find ways to play with other good players. It is a never-ending battle.

[deenman]

Out of the 5 years I've played FFXIV I've only met like, a dozen people, raiders included, who actively use a damage meter. Its often seen as something to laugh about.

They are all former WoW raiders, and aside for one of them, would turn into a big douche when using it.

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Requirement to get into FFXIV high end content: Just have the minimum ilvl
Requirement to get into WoW high end content: Link your raider.io and be an overly high ilvl.

I doubt many people would say that FFXIV has no toxicity. Rather that WoW is on such a higher level of bullshit.

i highly doubt people in ff14 just accept the bare minimum people in raids,pretty sure they also want decent geared players for content to go smoother,no1 likes to burden themselves,unless these ff14 players are some kind of aliens

[Toppy]

You are seeing it from the bottom, from what you call "casuals". Unfortunately there is a big subset of players among the "casuals" that are unable to recognize/accept that they are bad and they refuse to do anything to get better. What I call the wilfully bad. Those players expect better players to play with them and carry them.

And those wilfully bad players of course don't like when the good players, the players that strive to become better, develop systems to find like-minded people - damage meters, Raider IO etc.

So "toxicity" is not a problem for a good and self-aware player. He easily finds people of similar skill and mindset.
"Toxicity" is also not a problem for the non-skilled but self-aware player. He will also easily find a nice guild with people of similar skill and mindset.
"Toxicity" is only a problem for the bad players that refuse to accept their lack of skill and expect better players to play with them.
Blizzard, understandable, does everything to make the toxic bad players think that they are "good". They would lose customers otherwise.
Any game that tries to reach a big player-base must do its best to make all the players think they are "good". It is also true for any game that the good players will find ways to play with other good players. It is a never-ending battle.

Translation: I yell at people and rub it in their faces how terrible they are. Its not toxic.

[Lex Icon]

i mean how often do you see the damage meter proponents offer friendly advice vs flinging insults at whoever they deem not good enough?
can't say i've seen any other scenario but the latter so where exactly are these helpful people?

[Toppy]

i highly doubt people in ff14 just accept the bare minimum people in raids,pretty sure they also want decent geared players for content to go smoother,no1 likes to burden themselves,unless these ff14 players are some kind of aliens

As someone who has on multiple occasions grouped for current content, pugging, with just barely over the minimum ilvl for the content.

Its a little harder, but it happens. And people are more open to you learning too. Learning groups are actually pretty common.

[Itori]

i highly doubt people in ff14 just accept the bare minimum people in raids,pretty sure they also want decent geared players for content to go smoother,no1 likes to burden themselves,unless these ff14 players are some kind of aliens

yeah, you're not walking into a raid in FFXIV with the bare minimum unless that content is on farm, it may happen in the casual laid back free companies that raid because they have nothing else to do that week, but serious and even half serious players won't take someone who's fresh 80 and no experience, people usually start learning groups for that.

[Accendor]

Wow has been toxic for a long time, but it wasnt always like this. I believe that when Name changes and Server transfers began, it gave players the ability to escape their reputation. Is there a way to encourage less toxic behavior or punish toxic players?

Just curious what people think.

As somebody who was with the game from the beginning: There were two factors that greatly increased toxicity.
1. Name changes and servers changes + Levelboosts. As soon as your deeds started to not matter anymore, the assholes started to appear.
2. Accessibility. The easier the game got and the less community you actually needed to play the game, the more people started to become antisocial. LFD and LFR were the biggest offenders here, as suddenly not only yourself could become totally anonymous at any time (name changes, server changes) also everybody around you was suddenly easily and in most cases instantly replaceable. Why bother with relationships when you can just kick somebody and get a replacement?

Some people will say thats rose tinted glasses or whatever, but they are wrong. I was there, I remember perfectly well how it went down.

[deenman]

As somebody who was with the game from the beginning: There were two factors that greatly increased toxicity.
1. Name changes and servers changes + Levelboosts. As soon as your deeds started to not matter anymore, the assholes started to appear.
2. Accessibility. The easier the game got and the less community you actually needed to play the game, the more people started to become antisocial. LFD and LFR were the biggest offenders here, as suddenly not only yourself could become totally anonymous at any time (name changes, server changes) also everybody around you was suddenly easily and in most cases instantly replaceable. Why bother with relationships when you can just kick somebody and get a replacement?

Some people will say thats rose tinted glasses or whatever, but they are wrong. I was there, I remember perfectly well how it went down.

also the introduction of rdf and lfr simply exposed these players and you to them,as in the past people just had their guild and were kinda in a bubble,and bad or toxic people simply didnt have acces to you,these people always existed,but ease of acces to pugging just exposed them to the light

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I think, in some cases, somebody who is quite sensitive to any sort of criticism or any slightly negative interaction directed at them will consider it toxic.

[Accendor]

also the introduction of rdf and lfr simply exposed these players and you to them,as in the past people just had their guild and were kinda in a bubble,and bad or toxic people simply didnt have acces to you,these people always existed,but ease of acces to pugging just exposed them to the light

While you might be correct, you met some of those people even before LFR and LFD existed, because even if you had a guild, you often had 1-2 slots to fill for a dungeon or whatever. However, once somebody stepped massively out of line, you just let your friends and guildies know and after a while that dude simply did not find groups as easy anymore as before, because even with name change and server transfer, server reputation mattered somewhat.

The combination of anonymity and "replacability" however completely destroyed it.

[RedBrood]

yeah, you're not walking into a raid in FFXIV with the bare minimum unless that content is on farm, it may happen in the casual laid back free companies that raid because they have nothing else to do that week, but serious and even half serious players won't take someone who's fresh 80 and no experience, people usually start learning groups for that.

We playing the same game? Cause with the way you post about it I don't think we are.

FFXIV's Toxic play came in the early game from EU players for me, it was we either pull 99% of the dungeon or your garbage. Got to endgame and people are so patient and willing to assist in improving peoples gameplay. Perhaps i've been lucky, perhaps you been unlucky.