I don't trust blizzard adding anti toxic systems to their games.

[Crimson Spears]

What I mean by that is their track record... This is the company that banned overwatch players for picking the wrong hero. Thought a shared xp bar in hots with no FF option was a good idea as well as the company who allowed LFG and Trade chat to be overrun with boosting services for years now but only got off their ass to protect whales who buy mounts.

I am worried that in blizzards reactionary move to try and scapegoat the playerbase for "toxicity" we are going to see harmful changes that effect play.

[Zaqwert]

The only way to ensure people never have negative interactions is to remove the ability to have interactions.

And if you'll notice that's been the trend in gaming the past decade or so.

[Wavebossa]

I think that's a fair concern. I don't think you are minimizing the impact of toxicity by simply stating that Blizzard may not handle it appropriately.

[Cæli]

Me neither, but what can be done anyway?
All we can do is let blizzard know of our problems
As long as they have a subpar customer service and automated bots that ban or silence you for arbitrary reasons it will be a disaster
One QA employee/GM disguised as a player that monitors real money boost spam wouldn't hurt either

[BreakerOfWills]

What I mean by that is their track record... This is the company that banned overwatch players for picking the wrong hero. Thought a shared xp bar in hots with no FF option was a good idea as well as the company who allowed LFG and Trade chat to be overrun with boosting services for years now but only got off their ass to protect whales who buy mounts.

I am worried that in blizzards reactionary move to try and scapegoat the playerbase for "toxicity" we are going to see harmful changes that effect play.

While a sustained culture of sexual harassment is abhorrent it doesn't mean that the WoW playerbase doesn't have its own pockets of toxicity.

The one doesn't excuse the other, and players yelling "but what about blizzard" doesn't excuse their personal behavior.


It's not often that there's such a blatant example of a company being utterly hypocritical but it still has little do with how players have gotten away with treating one another. Case in point the spitting debacle. There is no connection between holding blizz corporate to account for overmonetization and spamming spit on people in game.

[Lochton]

What I mean by that is their track record... This is the company that banned overwatch players for picking the wrong hero. Thought a shared xp bar in hots with no FF option was a good idea as well as the company who allowed LFG and Trade chat to be overrun with boosting services for years now but only got off their ass to protect whales who buy mounts.

I am worried that in blizzards reactionary move to try and scapegoat the playerbase for "toxicity" we are going to see harmful changes that effect play.

Well. You can't really use the trade thing as a topic, as they are permitting what has been always permitted. Services for gold. As for the LFG, it is not permitted, and they do take action, though slow - sadly.

As for the hero thing in Overwatch, never experienced that yet.

What systems are they talking about adding?

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Well if that will make Blizzard ban toxic and abusive players then sure. I don’t care much about visual changes as they are least upsetting.

[jazen]

Toxic behavior in game is largely the fault of players.

Blizzard royally screwed things up though when they eliminated so many gm's monitoring behavior. Automation/ai is just not good enough yet.

[catalystical]

The only way to ensure people never have negative interactions is to remove the ability to have interactions.

And if you'll notice that's been the trend in gaming the past decade or so.

Yup. Hence functions like /ignore are there, so I can remove the ability to see interactions I don't want to see.

And also why tools like group finder and raid finder exist, so we let the game give us the groups without us having to interact with other people to get into groups.

Toxic people will still exist, and are the main reason why people like me treat WoW as a single player game.

What else can Blizz do? Just work on giving us more tools to identify, ignore, and avoid toxic people. They can also stop encouraging gameplay that encourages toxic behaviours.

[LedZeppelin]

but /spit is gone so the game is saved!

[Maljinwo]

We approach Demolition Man language violations levels

[OrangeJuice]

I don't like whatever it is they plan to do with this. Toxicity is healthy for the game imo. I remember when I was just starting out in PvP and wanted my first achieves, I would only apply to groups higher rated than me and the people were extremely rude to me because, honestly, I sucked. It took me awhile to learn how to "read between the lines" at what they're saying to see that although their tones were toxic, what they were saying was actually helpful. Its exhausting when you're trying to achieve something, which is already stressful, but you also have to tiptoe around people's emotions. Its just not fun or healthy in fast paced scenarios such as PvP.

I don't think this is the right approach by Blizzard. They need to stop trying to manipulate behavior, and instead direct that attention towards stuff they have control over such as bots, boosts, win traders, account sharers, etc. They could also make the game more interactive so that people get a better understanding of where they are in terms of skill. Some of the most vile people are the ones who've PvP'd for 10+ years and have only gotten Glad in either BFA/Sl. These are the "toxic" people that need to be purged imo. They're usually awful, old, and really dumb and have a decades worth of pent up aggression over failing but now think that because they have a Gladiator achieve that they can immediately turn that aggression on other players. They don't even offer help or guidance, they just rage over losses. These people hardly existed prior to the Gladiator change, and I feel thats where this all stems from.

[Kokolums]

Theres also a dispute over the term toxic. Introverts will say people keeping it real are toxic. Extroverts will say authority figures acting like little dictators silencing discussion is toxic.

[Crimson Spears]

Well. You can't really use the trade thing as a topic, as they are permitting what has been always permitted. Services for gold. As for the LFG, it is not permitted, and they do take action, though slow - sadly.

As for the hero thing in Overwatch, never experienced that yet.

What systems are they talking about adding?

So far it is just the talk of adding more since the removal of spit and to be fair that was from a tweet not an official post. I simply wish they wouldn't even make the attempt given their track record. I can understand why some people see it as a positive but I am skeptical human nature can be blunted so easily myself. Take league of legends. The most toxic player I ever saw in that game and admittedly one that amused me only ever said positive things. Whenever a teammate died he would say " Nice play", and variations of that until they team started cursing him out and he would report them for punishment.

You can't stop people from being assholes. You just give assholes new tools to use against their targets.

[Silverware]

What do you mean, OP? You're not excited at the prospect of losing your decade-old WoW account for something you said in a private conversation on another platform?

[Kokolums]

The only way to ensure people never have negative interactions is to remove the ability to have interactions.

And if you'll notice that's been the trend in gaming the past decade or so.

Blizzard once removed lfg chat and swore it would never return. They were going to release sc2 and d3 without any chat whatsoever, you do not talk to others, just play solo with others and use automated matchmaker.

This isnt healthy gameplay. This is failure to moderate correctly. When people suck at moderation, they resort to banning all chat or just banning all extroverts until the place is filled with grumpy introverts.

[Lochton]

So far it is just the talk of adding more since the removal of spit and to be fair that was from a tweet not an official post. I simply wish they wouldn't even make the attempt given their track record. I can understand why some people see it as a positive but I am skeptical human nature can be blunted so easily myself. Take league of legends. The most toxic player I ever saw in that game and admittedly one that amused me only ever said positive things. Whenever a teammate died he would say " Nice play", and variations of that until they team started cursing him out and he would report them for punishment.

You can't stop people from being assholes. You just give assholes new tools to use against their targets.

Well. The /spit is on Classic servers because people act like idiots, and thus it is currently under test to be disabled to be used on players.

And it is true that sadly valid tools get used by the wrong people a lot.

[muto]

It’s all a pr stunt.

[Varitok]

Maybe Trade Chat can return to being about trade. Just give me a crude language filter and I'm good.

[Zaqwert]

Negative interactions are indeed an important part of the MMO experience really, just like they are in real life. It makes you appreciate your friends and the good guys more. It also makes the world interesting. You never know who you're going to run into. Friends and enemies, heroes and villains, angles and assholes.

Trying to sanitize everything will ultimately makes everything feel sterile, generic, and boring, which is pretty much why WoW is the way it is these days.

People are really child like when it comes to how they want to experience gaming content these days. They largely don't want challenge, they don't want the unknown. They want ensured "victory" and ensured "progression" and nothing but "positivity" the entire time. It's not even really playing a game at that point, it's pretend playing.

It's like when you pretend to play a game with a 4 year old and you let them win or pretend you can't catch them or something, they're having the time of their life while you just sorta roll your eyes and play along.

Only now it's 30-40 year olds who demand that treatment.