Is toxicity actually common?
This question is being purely asked out of anecdotal experience and the lack of messeges I receive while playing the game.
My definition of toxicity is less in-game behavior, and specifically offensive and hateful messages sent after the game with negative intent. For console this especially includes individuals who have to go out of their way to convey that negativity through direct profile messages.
Something to note is that I am a console player, so I don't see an end game voice chat where its far easier for people to air their negative thoughts and move on.
Despite that, its still possible for players on the same console platform to message me directly which happens almost never. Most times I actually receive a gg more often than I ever receive anything negative. Otherwise its nothing from roughly 80% of everyone I play against. Another thing to keep on mind is that main killer so the chances of receiving a hate message is higher minus pc/different consoles.
On my platform, I do hear about players receiving hate messages fairly often, but even in games like COD were its a far more common occurance, I think its been a few years since I've received legitmate hate for the way I play, and for winning. No one has ever really gone out fo their way outside of specific instances I can count with my fingers across my entire time gaming online. Am I just lucky? Is being on console a significant factor or is the toxicity not present the way most people assume it is?
Comments
It happens, most of the talk about it is historical when everybody was on Steam getting messages after a match. Some players would use tools to get into your every lobby. (Happened to me before). Players will be as toxic as you let them. That's why we have anonymous mode now.
Not in my experience. I don't think teabagging and hitting on hook or such is annoying. Only stuff that gets done beside the game like post-game chat or steam comments and such.
Toxicity is not a very well defined term so everyone with a different definition than yours will inevitably think that its occurence is different.
in general, especially on PC with in-game after chat but also steam profiles, toxicity isnt rare at all. I would also count streamers and content creators insulting someone openly on their streams and videos and also some in-game behaviours, when its not just your typical teabag/headnod (which may or may not be intended to be toxic) but players going out of their way to make sure someone else has a worse time playing while not being actually beneficial for the players game itself to be toxic but thats just me i guess..
Keeping it to non-BM, intentionally toxic things like gameplay sabotage or communication abuse… Yeah. It happens. It happens at a higher rate than other games I've played. It doesn't happen as much as people say it does.
I play in anonymous mode just because that's more comfortable, so I don't tend to get harassed outside of the lobby, but I've certainly gotten abuse in the lobby. Most of the time it's because I either played poorly or tried too hard, and those ones I just ignore as people being salty. Outside of that, the most common one I get is my charms, specifically the trans flag. I'm not trans myself, but people presume I am because of that charm and man oh man, do people get very upset over that idea.
It was pretty common on Playstation before Crossplay. I even disabled messages for a year or so (2018-2020).
But from my experience, toxic behaviour is more common for mid-experience player (1000-2000 hours). When i was a new killer they could beat me and spam ez afterwards, after a while they just lost. If i lose now, the people are more civil, maybe bc they are better/older/more mature? But if i try out new killer, sometimes people get cocky quickly. Cant really compare it to my early days bc im now on PC with crossplay on.
Depends on your playstyle I suppose, I was insulted before a few times for being german, also for tunneling, sometimes people say that they want to report me for hacking - I wish them luck most of the time lol, some people insult you for writing ggs when they lose, I was also insulted for slugging someone at the top of ironworks of missery because he had boild over.
People find a lot of reasons to insult you in this game. That being sad I usually collect bad comments on steam but it feels like people don't really write them anymore, not even in the endgame chat - this goes for I think 1-1 1/2 years now xD
the game sure as hell didnt gain its reputation overnight. Its a tilting game which means people will start flaming each other about 60% of the time. Thankfully us console people dont have to worry about end game chat.
I think a lot of it is negative reinforcement and also people reaping what they sow. I'll never be actively toxic to someone through gameplay or message. I'll ping people ggs after matches and I have a lot of good interactions, probably because I give a lot of people hatch/let them go. But yeah I tend to have more positive interactions than negative.
When I'm playing hardball I tend to encounter more toxicity. So i guess play nasty and get more toxicity.