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

[Krimzin]

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.

[callipygoustp]

Every, EVERY, online community I've been part, all the way back to the first MuD I played in the mid to late 80s, has had a portion of the community that is toxic. The only time I've seen them controlled, usually in the form of a ban, has been on private (*wave* to the Standford and Berkeley teams that ran a tight cheat/toxic free community for CS players back in the early 2000s). Otherwise, I don't think its possible to control them - only to avoid them.

[Henako]

I've had nothing but positive experiences in FFXIV since I started playing a few weeks ago. It's actually been pretty wild. I've seen dungeon runs grind to a halt so the group can explain basic core class concepts to someone new, even. I think something as simple outlawing 3rd party damage meters goes a long way toward keeping people more or less on the same team.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Humans with little to no social constraints are toxic. The only way to control them is to create social constraints, which is a rather futile task online. Even if we had to use our real names, at the end of the day no one cares what some twat at the other end of the world thinks about them.

[ONCHEhap]

I've had nothing but positive experiences in FFXIV since I started playing a few weeks ago. It's actually been pretty wild. I've seen dungeon runs grind to a halt so the group can explain basic core class concepts to someone new, even. I think something as simple outlawing 3rd party damage meters goes a long way toward keeping people more or less on the same team.

damage meters are genuinely one of the worst things you can have in a MMO,as far as making the community worse goes

[Saltysquidoon]

What specifically toxic behaviour are you talking about? I mean if you choose to play with randoms you're going to get dabbed on by randoms.

WoW not being entirely lobby based and entirely lacking cross-faction talk is largely less toxic than the current crop of online games. You can effectively remove all toxicity by joining a quality guild, talking and playing exclusively with them.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I've had nothing but positive experiences in FFXIV since I started playing a few weeks ago. It's actually been pretty wild. I've seen dungeon runs grind to a halt so the group can explain basic core class concepts to someone new, even. I think something as simple outlawing 3rd party damage meters goes a long way toward keeping people more or less on the same team.

You clearly didn't run many dungeon queues then. There are quite a few toxic ones, certainly on the EU servers because of Fail players that can't communitcate. Not to mention impatient healers that think they are a gift from god himself. And the worst part is ignoring people in FFXIV doesn't actually prevent them from landing in your group.

[Henako]

damage meters are genuinely one of the worst things you can have in a MMO,as far as making the community worse goes

I couldn't agree more. I'm all in on optimizing and playing as good as I possibly can, but something as simple as removing the meter dispels a lot of the frustration that can form in groups. It's less about how I'M carrying MY weight and YOU need to step up and more about us getting through this together.

It also seems like things in FF are less... streamlined? Every part of that game is slower than its equivalent in WoW, which probably helps keep people chilled the fuck out, too. Or maybe it doesn't. I dunno.

[callipygoustp]

I've had nothing but positive experiences in FFXIV since I started playing a few weeks ago. It's actually been pretty wild. I've seen dungeon runs grind to a halt so the group can explain basic core class concepts to someone new, even. I think something as simple outlawing 3rd party damage meters goes a long way toward keeping people more or less on the same team.

I played one of the FF mmos after I got out of EQ, or maybe after DAOC, its been awhile, but, anyway I remember how strikingly friendly the over all community was. People wouldn't accept money for ports. People would give away gear. People would chastise other people if they were bitching about players in a group. I was pretty amazing. And then more and of the EQ player base was transitioning in and suddenly people were advertising ports, advertising gear, farming the AH (which was kind of hard to do in the game), etc. So, yeah, I forgot about that game and its genuinely nice community.

Edit:
Looks like it was FFXIV.

[Mirishka]

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.

You either didn't play in Vanilla, or are high on <insert thing here> if you think WoW didn't always have this problem. This is not new. At all.

[Reliek]

Look at what put you in that toxic environment and change that. You wont change the people being toxic but you can change the people you hang around. If your trying to do keys and you see more and more toxic players then try getting people with higher IOs, they will usually be more understanding and even the people from the servers of Rag***** and Aza***** are great players when at 2k in IO. At the same time if more and more people are flaming you in keys then you are probably doing something screwed up and need to fix it. Take it with a grain of salt, nobody is perfect but we can get better.

In short if you want to play the game seriously then find others that want to do the same. Try to increase you IO score, start getting normal raid parses above 75% and then heroic parses to get you into mythic guilds. Get mythic raid loot to help you pvp better. The toxicity of your surroundings is your choice, improve or stay in that pit of self hatred.

[Mirishka]

damage meters are genuinely one of the worst things you can have in a MMO,as far as making the community worse goes

Couldn't agree more. I have actually pitched to Blizz, via email, that they should remove the game's ability to display them.

[Mozu]

I couldn't agree more. I'm all in on optimizing and playing as good as I possibly can, but something as simple as removing the meter dispels a lot of the frustration that can form in groups. It's less about how I'M carrying MY weight and YOU need to step up and more about us getting through this together.

This is an interesting take because it is essentially saying not knowing how to improve is better in an mmo that is all about iterating your character for improvement.

FF not having a supported damage meter was a huge turnoff for me for that reason alone. I think the absence of one only works in single-player games because your contribution is obvious. In group-play, it isn't (without a damage meter).

[Henako]

This is an interesting take because it is essentially saying not knowing how to improve is better in an mmo that is all about iterating your character for improvement.

FF not having a supported damage meter was a huge turnoff for me for that reason alone. I think the absence of one only works in single-player games because your contribution is obvious. In group-play, it isn't (without a damage meter).

I'm not sure I agree. Even without a damage meter, I can still see the holes in my rotation, and the mistakes I make in fights. Like I said, I'm very much into squeezing as much out of my personal performance as possible. Still, I see your point.

I'm not sure your second point holds water, though. The lack of a supported damage meter clearly works, because FF has a strong community which is way more helpful and tolerant of mediocrity than WoW's community.

[Cosmic Janitor]

This is an interesting take because it is essentially saying not knowing how to improve is better in an mmo that is all about iterating your character for improvement.

FF not having a supported damage meter was a huge turnoff for me for that reason alone. I think the absence of one only works in single-player games because your contribution is obvious. In group-play, it isn't (without a damage meter).

It's not like it matters alot anyway, you can still get a chatlog parser. Even if they are kinda forbidden, as long as you don't advertise it to other players Squenix won't ban you for it either. I've seen plenty of flaming that was clearly based on such usage as well, the people doing so just get away with it as long as they won't directly state their usage.

[Mozu]

I'm not sure I agree. Even without a damage meter, I can still see the holes in my rotation, and the mistakes I make in fights. Like I said, I'm very much into squeezing as much out of my personal performance as possible. Still, I see your point.

I don't know how you can simultaneously be for squeezing out as much performance as possible while being against data you can analyze and iterate on. You being able to "see the holes in your rotation" seems to me like saying "I know if I'm wrong or not, no need to grade tests in school."

I guess agree to disagree here.

I'm not sure your second point holds water, though. The lack of a supported damage meter clearly works, because FF has a strong community which is way more helpful and tolerant of mediocrity than WoW's community.

Correlation != Causation

Besides that, FF does have a damage meter that is widely used (just unsupported) so this point is doubly moot.

It's not like it matters alot anyway, you can still get a chatlog parser. Even if they are kinda forbidden, as long as you don't advertise it to other players Squenix won't ban you for it either. I've seen plenty of flaming that was clearly based on such usage as well, the people doing so just get away with it as long as they won't directly state their usage.

Well yeah, and there are ranking websites like warcraftlogs for it as well. Which is why I'm kinda surprised to see FF used as an example in this thread..

Still, it was a turnoff for me personally because I'd rather not have to risk getting banned for such important information.

[Saltysquidoon]

There's nothing wrong with damage meters, in fact that they are called damage meter's at all really shows the problem is the user (you know since they have multiple other functions).

I'm not sure your second point holds water, though. The lack of a supported damage meter clearly works, because FF has a strong community which is way more helpful and tolerant of mediocrity than WoW's community.

I'm sure that's more to do with the fact saying anything negative at any point for any reason can get you temp banned.

I almost guarantee anyone who plays FFXIV for the PvE content and not web dress-up is running a meter and if you're playing badly you're still getting laughed at/called out on discord just not in the chat.

[Toppy]

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.

Haha "Most other MMO"

WoW is leaps and bounds ahead of other MMO in terms of toxic communities.

[Henako]

Correlation != Causation

Besides that, FF does have a damage meter that is widely used (just unsupported) so this point is doubly moot.

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.

[Malikath]

With yourself, by leaving.