On Toxicity - Is There A Solution?
So, as I mentioned in another thread recently - the #1 thing getting me down about this game at the moment, more than the balance issues, more than my MMR gripes, more than frigging Dead Hard and CoH combined - it's just how absolutely meanspirited some players tend to be.
You'll play as fair as possible despite it being a rough matchup, or at times even let people farm, only to get teabagged from the exit gates or flicky flicky'd until your photosensitivity issues send you to bed with a splitting headache and laughed at in postgame. Or the final two just play hide and seek until you AFK because they let you get a 3gen.
It's one thing to lose. Everyone loses. But when you have to eat the gloating of the other team being gigantic prolapsed anuses at you on top of it - yeah, that gets under your skin. I don't care how 'tough' you are, or how much of a brave face you put up...it wears on you after a while.
It actually makes this game a bit of a tough sell to my wife and the folks I play other games with - because the 'how is the community?' question tends to come up and I'm not going to lie to them. It...sucks.
Suggestions
Back in the day, League of Legends had a similar reputation, and it was strangling growth. So Riot stuck a Tribunal system in and it was a massive success. Something like 80% of toxic players reformed after their first warning, and more than half of the remainder reformed after their first short ban.
Now as much as I'd like a LoL style Tribunal system to find these people a new game to play, that's probably too much overhead.
So...it got me thinking.
What if those Thumbs Up things in postgame actually did something?
Say, after a game, you could choose to vote an opponent from the other side up and give them BP. It doesn't have to be much - maybe 10,000 or so. This would encourage people to not be jerks, because they'd be losing out on BP.
Hell, if I was in charge I'd look at punishing survivors for BMing but...yeah. That's likely just because I'm annoyed. And have a headache from the strobing.
TL/DR:
Is there a way to persuade people to manner up in DbD, be it via punitive actions or a reward system?
Comments
Law
Laws are upheld and people are punished. I've never said being a dick shouldn't be punished. Just that since it's not, you need to handle it yourself
It's not an issue of being too pc or not. It's a matter of learning to handle your problems by yourself and not expecting constant hand holding. If the devs won't punish people for their rude actions, you should do what you can to handle it yourself instead of just complaining. Complaints without action do not solve anything at all.
Again, I agree that it shouldn't be a thing. As a player, you shouldn't have to ignore things being spewed at you from dickish players. But the fact is, as it stands, they aren't being punished, so take care of the situation yourself instead
Nothing changes if nothing is tried.
Ok. Sure.
But the same can be said of doing the same thing over and over And expecting something to change. IE telling people that being rude isn't nice, coming to the forums to complain, and then going back to the game to do it all again.
Like, I'm literally trying to tell you to do something different to change the situation. You said it yourself, no matter what people are going to express some form of harassment. So instead of just complaining about every little thing that bothers you, ignore it and move on with you life because you will never have a solid solution otherwise
The second someone starts using the 'lol triggered' or 'get off the internet if you don't like toxicity' type tag-phrases, I immediately see culture-war crap and sigh.
I've taken the actions I can.
However, you can't just make yourself numb (I honestly think that's unhealthy) or immune to people being jerks, and - yeah. Take a look at my post earlier regarding my first match of the day. Survivors stall game out to be jerks, you can either just feed into it or AFK and get reported for not participating. How do you avoid that without just not playing?
All I can do is try to get the developers to at least dialogue with the playerbase on this stuff and see if we can't find a way of decreasing it. Because I'm very much at the end of my rope and it won't take more than a few more incidents like this before I just quit in frustration.
Sometimes the community you get is the community you deserve.
Yeah, you kind of are. You are shifting the blame from the jerks to the people who are getting frustrated with the jerks. You can't have it both ways - either people just need to become numb and disconnected so that the jerks can do their thing, or steps need to be taken to encourage the jerks not to be jerks.
Laluzi is correct on this. There are multiple ways to approach this problem.
Apathy is the enemy of solutions.
The thing is - nobody is telling people that being rude isn't nice. Again, in League of Legends, the vast majority of toxic players reformed the second they got a warning notification saying 'you've been reported a bunch recently, please keep an eye on your behavior'.
Also - it's amusing how often you are resorting to strawmanning and ad-homs here. 'You'll never eliminate people being jerks online' doesn't mean 'you shouldn't try to reduce toxicity'.
No. Don't strawman, I've been pretty clear on what I'm suggesting.
That's...not how people work (or should work). What you are describing is disconnection, which is another step on the road towards becoming numb and apathetic, or simply losing passion for whatever it is that you are doing.
Thing is - I have a pretty thick skin. That doesn't stop it from just wearing away at you over time, when it feels like you played a match out fairly and in a manner designed to be fun for both sides, and then get BMed for it. Over and over and over again.
Just wanted to give props for the Simpsons quote, I lol'd. Thanks for the laugh!
...I don't get it. Nothing changes if nothing is tried, ergo, this thread is petitioning for something to be tried and brainstorming what that may be while positing a few initial suggestions so that it's not just empty platitudes. There's a difference between whining about the state of the game and going "this sucks; maybe we could try A, B, or C to mitigate this."
Like I do see your point, but in the same breath I don't think it applies here. Again, I've been in plenty of other PVP games that managed to have better communities than this, and a few that didn't, and my lifespan in the well-mannered ones lasted way longer than the unpleasant ones. Just because a problem can never entirely be excised doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be treated. To go back to your law analogy, you'll never get rid of criminals, but you can reduce criminal activity through a mix of accurately hunting down perpetrators when crimes are committed, harsh punishments for being caught, and mindful economic reform/welfare to address high-risk populations before they get desperate enough to commit crimes. Or you can just go 'lol anarchy, can't deal with human nature' and shrug whenever crimes happen. I'm not saying getting tbagged is akin to criminal activity, but I am saying that combining a lack of punishment, a lack of accountability, and an already bad environment breeds bad behavior like crazy.
Bingo.
I mean, aside from LoL, my best example would be WoW versus Final Fantasy.
WoW has a...pretty meh reputation right now, in part due to it's incredibly elitist, 'go go go' playerbase. It's not the only issue it has, but it's a big part of why people get frustrated. If you aren't part of a great guild, the game can be outright obnoxious.
On the other hand, people are flocking to FF due to it's genuinely friendly, funny and close-knit community. I can attest to this too. It was so refreshing to go from tanking in WoW to tanking in FF, because people aren't constantly acting like bags of armpits because you took a different route through a Mythic dungeon than the one they are used to.
I wonder if somebody from devs read this discussion.
They should remove chat for PC players. But the t-bagging and stuff you can't be that sensitive playing this game just start to laugh at these people when they do it. You will change your mindset about it when you laugh at them being so childish
Did you even read what the others wrote here? You to just take the blame from the jerks and put it at the bullied ones.
This strangely reminds me of these parents that defend their son who bullied and punsht another kid or gets a bit to touchy with the girls with boys will be boys just grow tough
This has nothing to do with bullying its just a game and people crouching up and down, or standing close to a hook hitting at a character who can't feel pain. Just laugh at it come on.
But on some days I can't laugh about it cause maybe it's the tenth game in a row this happens and I mean we talk about he really nasty guys that do it all day cause they just happen to be better then you.
I often read in the forum if I get hard tilted by those guys I have a problem with my self but it's not just about getting tilted and raging it's also about the player that enjoy the game but one day just have enough and go.
Lösung in a game just happens and you need to live with that even if it frustrating when it's cause the game and the mmr aren't that well balanced but getting taunted on top of that constantly is just a thing that should not happen. No one is doing that cause they gain anything from it other then the hope to make someone's day a bit more miserable and that should just be prevented