Should WoW adopt a tougher stance on Toxicity in-game?

[ResentfulUK]

Toxicity sure, but it can be subjective.

I'd like to have the games and their audience be mature enough to be told; "Oi, stop being a fucking idiot and do your job" without it being seen as an attack. Games can get frustrating, people should be allowed to vent, but when it starts turning into homophobic, racist or otherwise disgusting behaviour that person should be dealt with.

[Deadite]

In all my time play i have found the ignore option to be ample defence against toxic people.

[Daish]

Yes, but not in the form of more automated systems or algorithms, but in the form of GAME MODERATORS, AKA actual human beings hired and trained to keep the peace. Otherwise, it's fucking worthless.

without the word "Toxic" or "Toxicity" existing Blizzard would of never been able to add the current auto ban system that will ban a players account after 10 reports within a 24 hour window


with the word "Toxic and "Toxicity" Blizzard do not have to give people a reason to why they were banned
with the word "Toxic and "Toxicity" existing its the only reason why almost all GM's were fired

without giving a "real" reason for actions taken they can protect themselves
its a mess

[KOUNTERPARTS]

If anything there isn't enough negative toxicity to balance out/counter the surge of positive toxicity.

[Tehalbino]

Alternatively you can either stay within your scope or the game or get good and the 'toxicity' problem magically disappears

[Sucralose]

If anything there isn't enough negative toxicity to balance out/counter the surge of positive toxicity.

What do you mean? If I pug a low level mythic key on an alt and the leader doesn't threaten to murder a family member because I leave after they wipe a dozen times am I even playing WoW at that point?

[OokOok]

Anyone who says yes is just a liberal snowflake
I've played WoW since 2005 and i've played ffxiv since 2019

The biggest flaw in ffxiv is that everyone is afraid to say anything because of the games tough stance on toxicity. It's not that people are toxic it's that the blue hair snowflakes report everyone for anything, if enough people report you a GM will consider whatever it is you're being reported for, toxic as well.
It's a really sad world at times, imagine in real life if free speech didn't exist and you could go to jail for sharing an opinion or speak your mind, would you want that?

[kaminaris]

Anyone who says yes is just a liberal snowflake
I've played WoW since 2005 and i've played ffxiv since 2019

The biggest flaw in ffxiv is that everyone is afraid to say anything because of the games tough stance on toxicity. It's not that people are toxic it's that the blue hair snowflakes report everyone for anything, if enough people report you a GM will consider whatever it is you're being reported for, toxic as well.
It's a really sad world at times, imagine in real life if free speech didn't exist and you could go to jail for sharing an opinion or speak your mind, would you want that?

Thats not a problem, thats a solution.

What sad is that people equalize free speech with shittalking other people.
Newsflash, your "free speech" ends where the right of others begin.

Imagine a real life that you could flame and swear on random people and get away with it.

Sharing opinion in civil manner won't get you banned in XIV, shittalking will. And in automated group nobody cares about your opinion on specifically other people.

[Miriamel105]

In general:

PEOPLE should try to become less toxic, sure.

What shall the company do? All they can do in the end is not act toxic themselves, sure, but regarding other people, the player, community, it's of course about to not allow certaing things like racism - but beyond that? It's not like you change reality by putting a cover over it. It's not like you make your community better by enforcing 'nice' behaviour via violence. In contrary, when you for example shut down any kind of criticism or discussion, because those can heat up and just don't 'feel nice' (= toxic?), you just create an echo chamber, a circle jerk and in the end enforce another kind of toxic behaviour, that of a cult, since you simply stomp anything else.

Look into sects. In a way the facade of those are often if not always very welcoming, charming, alluring. It seems to be a place of happy people who all got a deep understanding of each other, who care about each other, who are all so supportive.

But the simple reason for that is, no other behaviour is even allowed.

Also: being called names for sure does not feel nice, but at least you know how things are.

What is good about forced = fake good behaviour?

Not sure if you ever got this problem in your own life, but think about a friend for example, who acts all nice all day, but in reality he DOES think you are an ass****, he simply does not tell YOU. Is this better or worse?

When it comes to PvP:

Well, PvP is about that someone must lose so others can win. It's kind of the whole point to be 'toxic', to make others feel bad, to make others lose, to take the fun of success away from them. And of course when (you feel like) someone of your own team ruins your success, that won't lead to happy feelings, either.

It's absolutely no surprise, that it pushes the whole community in a 'toxic' direction.

If you really want to do something against that - well, then abolish PvP and make it coop (and then you still would have the problem with team mates being able to ruin your success). Everything else would just enforce fake positivity. And that's just toxic all on itself.

What every company of course should do is doing something against bot and hacks, against every kind of cheating. Beause it's cheating.

[Sucralose]

Thats not a problem, thats a solution.

What sad is that people equalize free speech with shittalking other people.
Newsflash, your "free speech" ends where the right of others begin.

Imagine a real life that you could flame and swear on random people and get away with it.

Sharing opinion in civil manner won't get you banned in XIV, shittalking will. And in automated group nobody cares about your opinion on specifically other people.

I can't say I agree. The second you can't call a shitter a shitter you have lost something vital to any game. It is that little extra spice that makes it extra nice.

I don't see how the ingame world filter isn't the perfect solution to toxicity combined with ignore.

All the power IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND!

[Garymorilix]

Thats not a problem, thats a solution.

What sad is that people equalize free speech with shittalking other people.
Newsflash, your "free speech" ends where the right of others begin.

Imagine a real life that you could flame and swear on random people and get away with it.

Sharing opinion in civil manner won't get you banned in XIV, shittalking will. And in automated group nobody cares about your opinion on specifically other people.

I don't know where people get this from, but you will absolutely not be punished in any way shape or form if you "flame and swear" on random people.
People don't do it because nobody cares about others until they are a nuisance to you.

Road rage is a good example of people flaming each other yet in the end absolutely nothing will happen.

It's the same thing in WoW. Nobody will talk shit to you just because.
Shit talking starts when you start being a nuisance. Some people will not mind it, some people will not say anything just leave you, and some people will call you out.
That's how it is everywhere.

I don't where this "right of others begin" bs comes from, but there is literally nothing that I could say that would strip anyone of their legal rights anywhere on the planet.
Simply saying shit or calling someone a piece of garbage will not magically transport them to my basement dungeon to mine coal illegally. Not that I have one ofc.

[Gimlix]

I just talked how i always talked in the 12 years of playing this game and i just got banned 2 weeks from it.
And i even simped for Blizzard for weeks straight defending against the "Copium" haters.

[Yarathir]

Imagine trusting nuBlizzard with the task of curbing something as nebulous as "toxicity" and as pervasive as bad behavior.

They'll just make some shitty third-rate algorithm that blanket bans anyone that it detects without consideration for nuance.

[rogoth]

Question is simple--would you like to see a stronger toxicity control team installed within WoW.

Personally after watching DoaG yesterday it's pretty clear Blizzard has a track record of not taking toxicity seriously (I mean...they did hire Alex). But while watching the video it was clear that Blizzard with OW had no intention of trying to make sure players who were harassing others over performance ever saw any type of accountability for their words/speech. Which ultimatley drove OW into the ground it's in now, because without those actual toxicity control measures sponsors were pulling out which started the downward spiral for OW.

As I watched I started thinking to myself the problems that Kaplan faced with OW isn't just an OW issue, this is culture issue at the company. There's no real desire to try and create a welcoming space for everyone inside of their games.

BTW: Here's the link to the video. It's not dude who opines about things, but DoaG only does games that have gone into maintenance mode, or vanished.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53ZFo8jpDfI

they can't afford to ban those people, they already have next to no 'real' playerbase left, if they got rid of these people they would have nothing lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Imagine trusting nuBlizzard with the task of curbing something as nebulous as "toxicity" and as pervasive as bad behavior.

They'll just make some shitty third-rate algorithm that blanket bans anyone that it detects without consideration for nuance.

as we saw with the metoo thing, context and 'evidence' don't matter anymore these days.

[Edward Wu]

Any company that utilizes an automated reporting system does not give a shit about curbing any kind of real toxicity within their game or fostering an actual community.

It's sad, but it's true.

[McNeil]

It depends how you look at it. You will always face toxicity and a huge online game like WoW is destined to have some, its been this way since vanilla. There is no real way to change peoples behaviour either, but what Blizzard should attempt is to ENCOURAGE people to behave. Having proper group content for people to progress their characters where it helps a lot to be kind to others worked out great while leveling in Classic. M+ is like the complete opposite despite also being group content, its encouraged to bring out the worst out of people who don't perform exactly like they expect. Its good for Twitch viewers to watch (who also like drama) unlike watching someone do casually quests, but in a game like WoW it should prioritise having people interact and have fun with each other. But content like this is not something that is easily found these days. Alternatively they should just hire more people to actually keep an eye on the game and react to reports immediatly when someone gets harrased, but Blizzard basically fired most of their staff who used to do these kind of work.

[ResentfulUK]

Any company that utilizes an automated reporting system does not give a shit about curbing any kind of real toxicity within their game or fostering an actual community.

It's sad, but it's true.

I don't think an automated system itself is bad, it's how it operates.

If they just take X reports as a need to ban someone, that's a terrible system, but more reports should flag that person higher in the queue for review by staff. Equally, as long as the game developers have built proper tooling, everything should be taken into consideration. Was the person trolling, being rude and abusive in ways that go beyond just saying something in the game.

I wouldn't want to ever have a game where you couldn't swear at / or call out people for being stupid, but honestly most of the time people are being ridiculous in their concerns or complaints. If you're trying to tell someone; "Oi, will you fucking move that mob it's healing in that puddle!" that should be absolutely fine, but turning around and sending a barrage of abuse, racist or homophobic crap to someone just isn't on.

[Sucralose]

Imagine trusting nuBlizzard with the task of curbing something as nebulous as "toxicity" and as pervasive as bad behavior.

They'll just make some shitty third-rate algorithm that blanket bans anyone that it detects without consideration for nuance.

I mean everyone should know how it would play out... the players they want it to hurt top end ones they have an axe to grind against for whatever imagined slight they have now. Will simply stay in guild groups or refuse to type in highend keys as they scream and ban each other in their nightmare level 12 and under keys.

[Adamas102]

So are we just to just remove the strengths of Warcraft because of this? I agree there are issues that need to be solved, but to remove the content that a lot of players enjoy like Mythic +, Mythic Raiding, and competitive PVP shouldn't be the answer.


I play Warcraft because its provide these features, and I deeply enjoy them. Challenging Raiding has been something I've been doing since TBC. Mythic + while initially not something I had any interest in, quickly became one of my favorite activities. If these were removed, I'd likely stop playing.

There can be solutions to these problems without removing what a lot of players find fun from them.

The solution would be to either NOT funnel everyone into those particular systems (have more options for full character progression) or do away with all systems except these particular ones (and in doing so only attract gamers who want to participate in these particular endgame systems). The former would be the best solution but unfortunately there's a very vocal segment of the WoW playerbase that feels insulted by the idea of "lesser" gamers acquiring the same pixels as them, and the latter solution would decimate the player population and Blizzard certainly won't do that. So we're stuck with a game that entices causal players early and then shuns them by locking endgame rewards and progression behind systems that are generally unappealing to most players.

[odamienskii]

No, they should make brackets like it is meant to be and not just funnel everyone into the same bracket so hopeless players are running alongside people who actually care about how well they do, this is what breeds toxicity.

player a) doesnt care, its just a game
player b) cares deeply and doesnt think its ok to have his time wasted by player a

if you keep these 2 players apart like they used to be in old wow then toxicity would shrink. what ive noticed as a toxic player myself is im not the only one that explodes with rage when someone does something retarded, then is nice as pie with good players when they make a mistake. i used to run with good players sometimes, they would not fail for 4 dungeons, then they would make a mistake, this is ok, everyone is human, whats not ok is to fail 10 times every run while also doing low dps and bringing nothing in terms of control, ie being boosted.

Toxic players know that everyone makes mistakes (unless they are just pure aholes) because every player in the world makes them, what "toxic" players cant take is players that fail on the most fundamental of things which cause all the time thats been spent to be a complete and utter waste, an example would be someone joining a key with way below whats required in output. to player a) its just a game, its ok, oh well we didnt time, to player b) if that retard wasnt in the party we would of timed, now i have to go backwards a level where there is possibly another retard to take me further down again, best case scenario i will be back where i started in an hour.....BEST CASE SCENARIO

Friendly players who are bad are just as much to blame as toxic players, because they are the reason why the toxic player will explode. problem is blizzard has masked it by giving everyone gear and providing retardedly overpowered class balancing so you dont find out whos good and whos bad untill the dungeon begins, by which time its too late to replace and your time has already been wasted.

I have absolutely nothing against someone who wants to learn and is learning, i wouldnt riddicule someone learning in m+5 i would take time to help them, what i cant stand is those same players stepping straight up into +20 for the portals, you dont belong there, the worse you are the more you strain the party.

why is level 17/18/19/ keys COMPLETELY dead? what is the need for them? same as taughast levels 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 what is the need for them? just to allow EVERYONE to complete it including the really bad players so they can feel good too?

Be harsher on toxicity? no, if they want to fix the game they need to put things in place that seperates the good players from the bad by a wider amount.