Toxicity: since last christmas i dont pvp anymore

[Deleted]

Toxicity, a phenomena usually understood as a hostile, explicitly negative atmosphere of interaction we all grow used to, be it ragekiddies, tradechat wars or pvp chat, toxicity is everywhere in game and mmoc.
indiviudal reasons may vary, but common demoninators like personal, abusive and generally destructive language indicate the psychological intentions of toxic behavior. triggers usually r stress, misinterpretations and maladjusted attitudes escalate to hypercompensation, toxicity is not just a channel for anger, but for negative control with the intention of not feeling as the victim. a hypercompensation is a psychological affect, not a rational intention. but no individuum is really individual (Simmel, Georg), as identity is a reciproke concept its also the environment that nurtures toxic behavior.

but how does WoW feed toxicity? (disclaimer: my intention is not to blame bzzd for abusive behavior (of mostly mature users), but to analyse the systems, environment and also the origins of toxicity to evaluate potential "optimisation")
competition is always (emotional) critical, esp. in an otherwise secure environment (like ur couch, where pl play in their living rooms) the risk of a (sometimes humiliating) loss is emotional crucial. surely most competetive pl understand this as a motivation, not an overall negative punishment, but at least a chance to improve, to learn, to progress. but some r just overwhelmed.

WoW doesnt promote quality behavior in special, there is no Honor System like LoL, there r no special rewards for social competence any other than the individual responses (which in most toxic scenarios will be negative anyways, see the next point). ofc quality leadership results in a BG win, a boss kill or a friendship, but sometimes even Mahatma Ghandi would be lost.

WoW doesnt sanction (socially) abusive behavior transparent, the report function just auto-deletes and auto-ignores the reported player. transparency even in sanctions is important, not to publically blame the offender, but for prevention and positive influence. Tyler1 as optimal example, Riot was smart enough for a brllant PR salto-mortale, he repented publically and the perma(!)-ban was lifted.
ToS clearly states abusive, racist etc. language (language filter is ez to circumvent) as a bannable offense, but those sanctions r not to be seen in game and there fore have not any further impact than to cut off the offender from the victim, what often leaves the victim helpless and incentivizes toxic behavior not just for the offender (, but the victim may conclude its better to strike before i get hit next time).
and thats a problem, cuz bzzd - being renowned industry-wide for its exhaustive PR - completely avoids the topic Toxicity in public, while bot-ban-waves r proudly fanfared as a triumph of swift justice.

PvP was my favority activity in WoW, but the last levels to prestige 25 became a catwalk tru a cesspool on christmas afternoon. i dont mind the 13 defeats (was my second losing spree in 10 years, #1 24 defeats in conquest gear times, losing is part of the game sometimes), dont mind the 2 RL Deaths Threads to me and my family (cuz u wouldnt dare to address my 95kg hardbody like that RL or would find urself deactivated by me until arrival of the police, cuz its a fellony leaving me nothing but the right the protect myself from physical harm like murder, its called citizens arrest in Germany), but iam finally done with this atmosphere. i dont want to game in a hostile environment. since Christmas prestige 15 i havent pvp, not even Seething Shore, and iam missing just 1 AV to Battlemaster Solo (Arathie 1600:0, which is a luck AV, so technically iam Battlemaster). and i wont, since there rnt any improvements on behavior promotion and sanction. or maybe i ll join a PvP-Squad, but at the current condition i will never pvp random bgs again - which is, as Riot proved this GDC a major problem, as it drives players away from participation. a loss of social quality is also an economical one, as players dont spend as much time with content they potentially would enjoy.

[lolpve]

I can't stand this word "toxic" because it's used by oversensitive crybabies to complain about anything. WoW isn't reddit and it's sad to see how the WoW community has degenerated so far that people have emotional breakdowns over being called a noob in a battleground.

[FelPlague]

No. What causes "toxicity" is not receiving rewards by your own merit. If you're fucking around and not trying to complete objectives, I'm going to call you on your shit. When you're fucking around you're wasting everyone's time. And if you complain, cry, and call me "toxic" I'm going to tell you not to swallow then.

Also this is what it's like to play with you when you're being a fuck off.

And yeah the wow community is just massivly toxic i mean look at these forums.
and i have found PVPers to be the most toxic, when i bring up the idea of "Hey maybe you should remove time limits on things? Like, let people earn something instead of saying "Hey you didnt play during these 6 months? well you can NEVER get this reward, sorry not sorry fucker" and every time i do i get massively chewed out.


I dont want blizzard to spend dev times making these mythic raiding sets, then only adding TWO COLOURS to then remove 50% of them 6 months later cause "lol you are not in the 0.1%" meaning if you miss it, you miss it, you can never have the chance to earn it again.

[Heeresman]

it's sad to see how the WoW community has degenerated so far that people have emotional breakdowns over being called a noob in a battleground.

So what you are insinuating is that out of the millions playing the game and out of those millions, thousands that play pvp (pvp used as the thread is about pvp), that all of those have been at one stage mentally stable?

Unrealistic to have notions like that i would say.

I couldn't begin to imagine how far-reaching the spectrum is from one end to the other in relation to mentally 'sound', or more suitably 'stable', players playing this game.

The diversity would be huge.

To suggest and to expect it to be otherwise is wrong.

[nodq]

Toxicity, a phenomena usually understood as a hostile, explicitly negative atmosphere of interaction we all grow used to, be it ragekiddies, tradechat wars or pvp chat, toxicity is everywhere in game and mmoc.
indiviudal reasons may vary, but common demoninators like personal, abusive and generally destructive language indicate the psychological intentions of toxic behavior. triggers usually r stress, misinterpretations and maladjusted attitudes escalate to hypercompensation, toxicity is not just a channel for anger, but for negative control with the intention of not feeling as the victim. a hypercompensation is a psychological affect, not a rational intention. but no individuum is really individual (Simmel, Georg), as identity is a reciproke concept its also the environment that nurtures toxic behavior.

but how does WoW feed toxicity? (disclaimer: my intention is not to blame bzzd for abusive behavior (of mostly mature users), but to analyse the systems, environment and also the origins of toxicity to evaluate potential "optimisation")
competition is always (emotional) critical, esp. in an otherwise secure environment (like ur couch, where pl play in their living rooms) the risk of a (sometimes humiliating) loss is emotional crucial. surely most competetive pl understand this as a motivation, not an overall negative punishment, but at least a chance to improve, to learn, to progress. but some r just overwhelmed.

WoW doesnt promote quality behavior in special, there is no Honor System like LoL, there r no special rewards for social competence any other than the individual responses (which in most toxic scenarios will be negative anyways, see the next point). ofc quality leadership results in a BG win, a boss kill or a friendship, but sometimes even Mahatma Ghandi would be lost.

WoW doesnt sanction (socially) abusive behavior transparent, the report function just auto-deletes and auto-ignores the reported player. transparency even in sanctions is important, not to publically blame the offender, but for prevention and positive influence. Tyler1 as optimal example, Riot was smart enough for a brllant PR salto-mortale, he repented publically and the perma(!)-ban was lifted.
ToS clearly states abusive, racist etc. language (language filter is ez to circumvent) as a bannable offense, but those sanctions r not to be seen in game and there fore have not any further impact than to cut off the offender from the victim, what often leaves the victim helpless and incentivizes toxic behavior not just for the offender (, but the victim may conclude its better to strike before i get hit next time).
and thats a problem, cuz bzzd - being renowned industry-wide for its exhaustive PR - completely avoids the topic Toxicity in public, while bot-ban-waves r proudly fanfared as a triumph of swift justice.

PvP was my favority activity in WoW, but the last levels to prestige 25 became a catwalk tru a cesspool on christmas afternoon. i dont mind the 13 defeats (was my second losing spree in 10 years, #1 24 defeats in conquest gear times, losing is part of the game sometimes), dont mind the 2 RL Deaths Threads to me and my family (cuz u wouldnt dare to address my 95kg hardbody like that RL or would find urself deactivated by me until arrival of the police, cuz its a fellony leaving me nothing but the right the protect myself from physical harm like murder, its called citizens arrest in Germany), but iam finally done with this atmosphere. i dont want to game in a hostile environment. since Christmas prestige 15 i havent pvp, not even Seething Shore, and iam missing just 1 AV to Battlemaster Solo (Arathie 1600:0, which is a luck AV, so technically iam Battlemaster). and i wont, since there rnt any improvements on behavior promotion and sanction. or maybe i ll join a PvP-Squad, but at the current condition i will never pvp random bgs again - which is, as Riot proved this GDC a major problem, as it drives players away from participation. a loss of social quality is also an economical one, as players dont spend as much time with content they potentially would enjoy.

The toxic behaviour is annoying for sure and reached an all time high. But what is more annoying is the attitude in general. YOu wait 7-10 minutes for a random BG, just to join a BG where 30% of the player are like: "ahh let them win, don't do anyhting, let's lose fast so we can queue again" etc. and therfor if none does that they leave which almost always leads to a lose anyway. Or, because of those morons, you join already started and running and 99% of the time already lost rounds, after you qaited in queue for 7-10 minutes. So you either leave this shit BG and get deserter even tho you did nothing wrong in the first place, you get even more punished for someone who wasted your queue time. Or you just sit there in this already lost BG and waste another 5-10 minutes afking or runnig around like an idiot doing nothing. Because most of the team doesn't even play anymore anyways and wait for the lose.

This bullshit made the random BG playing so annoying and unplayable since legion it is unbelievable. ANd the top reason for this is, NO REWARDS. Back then, people would stay in the BG they joined to get the honor at the end, because even a lose would contribute to your honor farming to get gear etc. today, there is nothing because of stupid templates and random meaningless drops. And Blizzard seems to dumb to see and understand this problematic.

[LoLcano]

No. What causes "toxicity" is not receiving rewards by your own merit. If you're fucking around and not trying to complete objectives, I'm going to call you on your shit. When you're fucking around you're wasting everyone's time. And if you complain, cry, and call me "toxic" I'm going to tell you not to swallow then.

Also this is what it's like to play with you when you're being a fuck off.

Man thanks for that pic , srsly its same in all fucking multiplayer game Hur dur i play for fun so i dont bother to do objective hur dur .

[alexchaos]

The toxic behaviour is annoying for sure and reached an all time high. But what is more annoying is the attitude in general. YOu wait 7-10 minutes for a random BG, just to join a BG where 30% of the player are like: "ahh let them win, don't do anyhting, let's lose fast so we can queue again" etc. and therfor if none does that they leave which almost always leads to a lose anyway. Or, because of those morons, you join already started and running and 99% of the time already lost rounds, after you qaited in queue for 7-10 minutes. So you either leave this shit BG and get deserter even tho you did nothing wrong in the first place, you get even more punished for someone who wasted your queue time. Or you just sit there in this already lost BG and waste another 5-10 minutes afking or runnig around like an idiot doing nothing. Because most of the team doesn't even play anymore anyways and wait for the lose.

This bullshit made the random BG playing so annoying and unplayable since legion it is unbelievable. ANd the top reason for this is, NO REWARDS. Back then, people would stay in the BG they joined to get the honor at the end, because even a lose would contribute to your honor farming to get gear etc. today, there is nothing because of stupid templates and random meaningless drops. And Blizzard seems to dumb to see and understand this problematic.

Well, other than prestige, getting honor doesn't do a damn thing now so people don't care about getting deserter debuff anymore since they'll just go do a few PVP world quest and get more honor they would've got in the time they did the BG.

Honestly, those WQ + templates and the fact that you can't buy gear with honor anymore is what broke the PVP system. I'm amazed they didn't revert that change at all during Legion as it clearly destroyed the whole PVP community.

We used to get 1-2min queues or even instant ones from time to time and now it's always a 7-15min queue. No one PVPs anymore.

[Flarelaine]

No. What causes "toxicity" is not receiving rewards by your own merit. If you're fucking around and not trying to complete objectives, I'm going to call you on your shit. When you're fucking around you're wasting everyone's time. And if you complain, cry, and call me "toxic" I'm going to tell you not to swallow then.

Also this is what it's like to play with you when you're being a fuck off.

Thank you for the illustration in case anyone was wondering what toxicity is.

[onesBronson]

I see more fighting among our own faction than against the enemy faction. My advice for those players is: You're doing it wrong, fight enemy faction first.

[Servasus]

No. What causes "toxicity" is not receiving rewards by your own merit. If you're fucking around and not trying to complete objectives, I'm going to call you on your shit. When you're fucking around you're wasting everyone's time. And if you complain, cry, and call me "toxic" I'm going to tell you not to swallow then.

Also this is what it's like to play with you when you're being a fuck off.

You are word for word verbatim what is wrong with the gaming community. I hope you find happiness in real life eventually, because no one currently happy with themselves or their lives in real life would speak that way to other people.

[Rotted]

I agree we need something in pvp to reduce toxicity, maybe adding something like vote cards or thumbs up / down on the scoreboard at the end.

But you can't tell me you think league is less toxic? WoW you can go into a BG and it's silent or some muppet saying let them win, league you get cancerous pieces of shit for multiple reasons before the game even starts, masteries, summoner spell choices even champion selections

[Mlz]

You are word for word verbatim what is wrong with the gaming community. I hope you find happiness in real life eventually, because no one currently happy with themselves or their lives in real life would speak that way to other people.

Or maybe you have so low standards irl that you are happy with whatever life throws at you and that reflects in game where you have no standards either.

[Micronetic]

Going to play Counter-Strike now!

[glowpipe]

Riot's first point on their company manifesto is "Players First", Blizzard's equivalent is "Gameplay First".
I think that probably should tell you all about the differences in mindsets these companies have and how they approach us, the players.

One can ignore shitty players and join a guild with decent folks. You cannot ignore a shitty game and gameplay.

[Servasus]

Or maybe you have so low standards irl that you are happy with whatever life throws at you and that reflects in game where you have no standards either.

Look, I know you'd love to believe that, but I was a heroic/mythic raider from SoO till about Halfway through Legion. I got rank 1 All-Star for fistweaving back in SoO and was top 200 for MW frequently during the time I hardcore raided. I know how to be "elitist," and I have had many times in my life over my years of gaming where I let my ego turn me into a cynical, demanding asshole; thinking I was better than a person simply because I could outrank them.

I had a moment during Legion where we had recruited a group of guys from an off server guild who were extremely racist and sexist, and over a few months time I began to realize how awful these people were and how many types of these people play this game. They took all the fun out of raiding for me. I was tired of hearing their shitty, demeaning comments every raid night, and I asked myself one night how staying in that situation was benefiting me as a human being. It wasn't. The point of playing a video game is to have fun. If you let your drive or your elitist attitude tell you it's okay to put up with people's shitty, toxic attitudes, you end up becoming like them yourself and then you just become a shitty, secretly unhappy person yourself.

Since retiring from raiding over a year ago, I've been playing WoW still quite a lot but on a very casual level where I can play whatever class I want, whenever I want, and don't have to worry about min-maxing for the sake of pushing a top 200 US guild rank, which at the end of the day is pretty meaningless by itself. On top of that, I have time to branch out and try other games I normally would not have time for and it's been a blast. I've become a happier person because I can surround myself with a crowd of people who play a game because it's a game, and not because they think it's a second job or a NECESSITY to dominate. I USED to be that person. I've been that person that has called people names because they aren't min maxing something, or are messing up a mechanic. That person I used to be was NOT a good person. That person was an asshole who felt a need to prove himself to people who at the end of the day were just as toxic and wrong as he was, and ultimately were not benefiting anyone around them in a positive way.

You can call me a carebear or w/e buzzword twitch insult you'd like, but at the end of the day, I've been on both sides of the fence, and I know it's possible to change, and I'm happier now than I ever was trying to be better than everyone else at a video game. And to clarify, it's OKAY to be great at a video game and beat everyone else. It's been you start acting like an entitled asshole, demanding perfection from everyone else around you, tossing the word casual around as if it's an insult, when all your credibility is lost and all I can see is a sad person who hates themselves and hates their life.

[Eazy]

I love that image... though it's like five years old or more.

Or maybe you have so low standards irl that you are happy with whatever life throws at you and that reflects in game where you have no standards either.

Ouch.

No. What causes "toxicity" is not receiving rewards by your own merit. If you're fucking around and not trying to complete objectives, I'm going to call you on your shit. When you're fucking around you're wasting everyone's time. And if you complain, cry, and call me "toxic" I'm going to tell you not to swallow then.

Also this is what it's like to play with you when you're being a fuck off.

Couldn't agree more.

[noladrew]

Look, I know you'd love to believe that, but I was a heroic/mythic raider from SoO till about Halfway through Legion. I got rank 1 All-Star for fistweaving back in SoO and was top 200 for MW frequently during the time I hardcore raided. I know how to be "elitist," and I have had many times in my life over my years of gaming where I let my ego turn me into a cynical, demanding asshole; thinking I was better than a person simply because I could outrank them.

I had a moment during Legion where we had recruited a group of guys from an off server guild who were extremely racist and sexist, and over a few months time I began to realize how awful these people were and how many types of these people play this game. They took all the fun out of raiding for me. I was tired of hearing their shitty, demeaning comments every raid night, and I asked myself one night how staying in that situation was benefiting me as a human being. It wasn't. The point of playing a video game is to have fun. If you let your drive or your elitist attitude tell you it's okay to put up with people's shitty, toxic attitudes, you end up becoming like them yourself and then you just become a shitty, secretly unhappy person yourself.

Since retiring from raiding over a year ago, I've been playing WoW still quite a lot but on a very casual level where I can play whatever class I want, whenever I want, and don't have to worry about min-maxing for the sake of pushing a top 200 US guild rank, which at the end of the day is pretty meaningless by itself. On top of that, I have time to branch out and try other games I normally would not have time for and it's been a blast. I've become a happier person because I can surround myself with a crowd of people who play a game because it's a game, and not because they think it's a second job or a NECESSITY to dominate. I USED to be that person. I've been that person that has called people names because they aren't min maxing something, or are messing up a mechanic. That person I used to be was NOT a good person. That person was an asshole who felt a need to prove himself to people who at the end of the day were just as toxic and wrong as he was, and ultimately were not benefiting anyone around them in a positive way.

You can call me a carebear or w/e buzzword twitch insult you'd like, but at the end of the day, I've been on both sides of the fence, and I know it's possible to change, and I'm happier now than I ever was trying to be better than everyone else at a video game. And to clarify, it's OKAY to be great at a video game and beat everyone else. It's been you start acting like an entitled asshole, demanding perfection from everyone else around you, tossing the word casual around as if it's an insult, when all your credibility is lost and all I can see is a sad person who hates themselves and hates their life.

Like said before, YOU personally are content with someone being useless while you make an effort. One of the main points being discussed here, the tic-tac-toe image in specific, is that there are MANY people that "play their way", that legitimately ruin the experience of people making effort towards the goal of whatever bg, raid, dungeon, etc the group is partaking in. I'm all for being as respectful and polite as possible to people, you get what you give, but where is the line drawn? Isn't it equally disrespectful to go into a bg and purposely play against the goal of the game? I'm not referring to someone who may just legitimately be bad at the game, I'm referring to people that won't take any kind of advice or suggestions, and in turn come back with some edgy reply and mention they rather play the way they want to play. It gets really fucking old for people making an effort to be successful. Some of these things are result of game design and some of these things can be fixed by changing or adding new features. Make a TDM bg for people to queue into that only care about face smashing and not working towards a goal. I'm not really sure how or why there isn't a large scale either FFA or team based bg that awards points for kills only.

Your biggest gripe about why you changed your environment was a group of individuals that nearly everyone i know would hate to play with. There are plenty guilds that dont deal with that kind of bullshit behavior and it was the guilds fault for allowing them to act like that in the guild. Like you said, surround yourself with like minded individuals.

[glowpipe]

Sure. Tell me about all the fantastic things the game does to direct new players towards joining guilds? (or even clarifying to them what a guild is?). How many UI pop ups or info-boxes have you seen the game provide around this?

It actually does a pretty awful job at telling new players what a guild is and why they should join one.

But it does a really good job at directing people towards various random, automated queue systems that put you automatically together with bunch of randos.

My point still stands You can ignore toxic players and fix that issue yourself. If the game is toxic free, but a rather crappy game. you can't do shit about it.

[Servasus]

Like said before, YOU personally are content with someone being useless while you make an effort. One of the main points being discussed here, the tic-tac-toe image in specific, is that there are MANY people that "play their way", that legitimately ruin the experience of people making effort towards the goal of whatever bg, raid, dungeon, etc the group is partaking in. I'm all for being as respectful and polite as possible to people, you get what you give, but where is the line drawn? Isn't it equally disrespectful to go into a bg and purposely play against the goal of the game? I'm not referring to someone who may just legitimately be bad at the game, I'm referring to people that won't take any kind of advice or suggestions, and in turn come back with some edgy reply and mention they rather play the way they want to play. It gets really fucking old for people making an effort to be successful. Some of these things are result of game design and some of these things can be fixed by changing or adding new features. Make a TDM bg for people to queue into that only care about face smashing and not working towards a goal. I'm not really sure how or why there isn't a large scale either FFA or team based bg that awards points for kills only.

Your biggest gripe about why you changed your environment was a group of individuals that nearly everyone i know would hate to play with. There are plenty guilds that dont deal with that kind of bullshit behavior and it was the guilds fault for allowing them to act like that in the guild. Like you said, surround yourself with like minded individuals.

I get what you're saying, but the guy who linked the image originally was not acting civil about it. That's the toxic part. There are ways to help a person become a better player than calling them names and harassing them about it. People who purposely throw Overwatch matches and say "lol it's just a game," are also an issue and are another example of toxicity in itself. But even then, it doesn't excuse you being an ass back at them. This is like kindergarten etiquette here. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. I'm sure you wouldn't want a brain surgeon calling you a useless fucking moron who can go kill himself because you don't know how to perform brain surgery. Likewise, if a player is not great at a game, or doesn't min-max or w/e, it's not okay for anyone to berate them for that. If you genuinely want them to play better, there are more tactful ways to approach them and help them improve. Successful Mythic level guilds typically practice this behavior. They realize a person's weaknesses can first be worked on before that person has to step down as a raider. If someone makes a mistake and the first thing you do is lash out at them, the problem is you and your leadership/sportsmanship, not them.

[Servasus]

Yeah sadly I didn't make the image, but god damn does it hit the nail on the head.



If you can't handle a dose of "real talk", here's some advice. Life's tough, get a helmet. Also if you think it's cool to waste 4+ others time because you're too busy jerking off, then you're verbatim what's wrong with the gaming community.

Literally nothing you've said so far has been "real talk." Your version of "real talk," is simply "I get to be as big of a dick to people as I want without repercussion because they're doing something incorrectly/not the way I would like them to do it."

It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing or saying. Your behavior and your attitude is your responsibility and yours alone to pay for. That said, if I see someone being bullied or abused (verbally or physically) for not playing a video game "correctly," you better damn well be sure I'm going to step in and stand up for that person.