Toxicity in team based games

[Cyborg]

If we are both on the team, and I want you to do what I say, and you want me to do what you say, how do you solve that? We are strangers, and if we are playing together, I can promise I don't give a flying rat's backside what your opinion is. I'm probably going to do whatever I want to do because I'm trying to have fun for my sake, not yours.

The only solution is to form your own team with the organizational structure that best represents your idea of fun.

See, there's the problem. They're not communicating at all. They're just going about doing whatever the crap they were doing. It would be one thing if they at least came with a motivation as to why they're making their terrible choices. But it's always just dead silence and they keep dying over and over because they, quite frankly, are making really bad desicions.


And I really fail to see how "fun" is getting repeatedly stomped.

I don't communicate often. I find that most people claiming communication are really just complaining and blaming other people for their own mistakes. And if I engage that kind of conversation, it just goes downhill. "Why did you do XYZ?" What kind of answer are they really expecting?

[Mánagarmr]

I've already told you about the level of communication I'm using. "We have to focus the damage dealers", "Tryo to avoid the tank" etc etc. If that's not friendly, I dunno what is.

[Cyborg]

I've already told you about the level of communication I'm using. "We have to focus the damage dealers", "Tryo to avoid the tank" etc etc. If that's not friendly, I dunno what is.

The answer is still meaningless. If I agree with you, then I will surely attack the damage dealers. If I do not agree with you, I probably won't. My reply doesn't change anything.

[eRe4s3r]

I've already told you about the level of communication I'm using. "We have to focus the damage dealers", "Tryo to avoid the tank" etc etc. If that's not friendly, I dunno what is.

Your failing is that you expect someone to listen to you in a pub mp game Sometimes in BF I see people running constantly the 1 path that the enemies are defending, nobody flanks. When I mention that we might want to flank, maybe 10% read that and act on it, most of the time these are always the top 5 players in the teams. So 10% are smart and realize that changing tactics might lead to more fun, the rest doesn't care and gets pwned, and because these are team games and squads are a thing, the team still loses unless the top 5 players are extremely good and push their own squads into victory strategies, and have no match in the opposing team (can happen). This is absolutely my experience in the real world as well. Very few people will take advice nowadays. Schools do not even teach that. However, everyone will give you their advice even if you didn't ask for it. And this is why nobody listens to advice anymore.

So what do you expect? That people follow your advice? I have to agree with Wingflier, welcome to the human race. This is literally not new, not just limited to MOBA's and the 2nd biggest disease of the human race after greed. (that is of course, egocentricism) which is and let's face it, affecting large parts of any F2P game due to their player base and age ranges.

You should never enter any team based MP game where coordination and tactics are needed with the mindset "I want to win" you will just go insane or get angry

[Cyborg]

So what do you expect? That people follow your advice? I have to agree with Wingflier, welcome to the human race. This is literally not new, not just limited to MOBA's and the 2nd biggest disease of the human race after greed. (that is of course, egocentricism)

I always found that people giving advice are just as egocentric. Really, assigning good or bad to following advice is not helpful. The real issue in this scenario is that you must have structure in order for there to be leadership. I am fully capable of following leadership- leadership of my choosing. For example, if I am playing with people and I know that Person A is a great strategist, I'm going to listen to them. Earlier this year, I played ai war with Kahuna, who is very good at the game. I was more than capable of listening to what he had to say about strategy because I'm aware of the difference between us in this game. However, if you put me in a situation with a bunch of random people, I'm going to assume that I'm better off directing the play than anyone else. Most people playing league of legends are not as smart as I am, and are not as good at the game as I am, and I'm not going to listen to them.


Briefly, it's not about the advice, it's about the structure that facilitates communication. A random game where I am supposed to be having fun, it's just not going to happen that I'm going to follow some random internet person into whatever they want to do,  when I don't respect them enough to follow their opinions.

[TheVampire100]

I'm not playing MOBA games because they aren't my type of game but I've played L4D and L4D2 a lot which still has one of the worst communities I've ever seen.
The problem ist that people except other players to be full professionals.
A lot of people seem not to know that there can still be a lot of new players. The game is pretty old but it gets regulary into sales and attracts this way new players. New players that have to learn the game.

But older players except other players to be exactly like them, kicking everyone that does a single mistake. It's always the same,you are i a team, something bad happens and one player accuses the other for being such a bad team. At first he attempts to kick a single person, his scapegoat. If he succeeds but the team still fails he will search for a new scapgoat. If he does not succeed or the team still fails afterwards he will most of the ime exit the game after cursing the entire team, the world, god and all what's left.
It gets really disgusting fromt ime to time. People even started threads int he forum when L4D2 got free for a short time wherethey said the "noobs" shall stop to play because they ruin all the fun.

I don't know who of you have played L4D but it's a team based shooter where you cannot succeed alone because of the gameplay. As human player you can fall or get grabbed and hold by mutants and you cannot break free with the help of other players. And as infected you cannot win without the team because you need to combine your powers or otherwise the human players will always break free.

L4D has a singleplayer mode but this does not show the true L4D gameplay and a lot of "profi" players shout that newer players shall play only singleplayer. In my opinion this is totally rubbish. You should help a player to understand the concept of the game. It has a team chat so the opposite team does not even know what you are saying. You can explain important parts of the game, strategies and tell them that they shouldn't run ahead alone (especially if they are new to the game). If the new player still insists to do his own thing, well, if he dies, he dies and THAT'S a reason to kick him because he puts the whole team on danger with his actions. But not trying to communicate properly is a fail from all the older players.

[eRe4s3r]

So what do you expect? That people follow your advice? I have to agree with Wingflier, welcome to the human race. This is literally not new, not just limited to MOBA's and the 2nd biggest disease of the human race after greed. (that is of course, egocentricism)

I always found that people giving advice are just as egocentric. Really, assigning good or bad to following advice is not helpful. The real issue in this scenario is that you must have structure in order for there to be leadership. I am fully capable of following leadership- leadership of my choosing. For example, if I am playing with people and I know that Person A is a great strategist, I'm going to listen to them. Earlier this year, I played ai war with Kahuna, who is very good at the game. I was more than capable of listening to what he had to say about strategy because I'm aware of the difference between us in this game. However, if you put me in a situation with a bunch of random people, I'm going to assume that I'm better off directing the play than anyone else. Most people playing league of legends are not as smart as I am, and are not as good at the game as I am, and I'm not going to listen to them.


Briefly, it's not about the advice, it's about the structure that facilitates communication. A random game where I am supposed to be having fun, it's just not going to happen that I'm going to follow some random internet person into whatever they want to do,  when I don't respect them enough to follow their opinions.

What you describe is group-think, and imo much worse than egocentric behavior You should think about what you just wrote by the way, and what that means in practice, you basically just said "Because I don't know you, and you are not part of GROUP, anything you say I will disregard even if it is sound advice". That kind of circular logic is how cults happen.


Ps.:

I'm going to assume that I'm better off directing the play than anyone else. Most people playing league of legends are not as smart as I am, and are not as good at the game as I am, and I'm not going to listen to them.

And that is the text-book definition of egocentrism It doesn't mean you are only caring about YOURSELF, It means you do not assume someone else (that you don't know) might have better skill at something than you and thus you automatically disregard advice. That does not mean you should accept all advice, but by your argumentation you are essentially doing the opposite of critical thinking. You are delegating the act of judging an opinion/advice on some external thing (Leadership, Group), instead of doing it yourself, based on argumentation and logic.

If Mánagarmr says "attack the dudes behind the TANK, otherwise they are going to constantly wipe us" after everyone did their own thing and everyone wiped 3 times in a row, then you should listen to that advice, not by value of who gives it or his skill, but by value that whatever you did before clearly didn't work. By not doing that, by claiming "leadership" structures are what you need, and only when you choose them, you are not evaluating advice properly and thus, you are setting yourself up to lose a match.

Anyway, I don't play such team based games exactly because of this. COD AW is small and fast paced enough that it doesn't matter... but in BF4 it is extremely infuriating to lose a 60 minute match because 5 dudes in your team camped on a hill and didn't cap flags and 4 dudes played lone-wolf without squad, and thus always spawned god knows where, but never in the actual fights.

Either way, I am not saying you should change, I am just saying that to me, it sounds like a better idea to listen to advice that is sound, no matter who gives it, than not.

[Cyborg]

What you describe is group-think, and imo much worse than egocentric behavior You should think about what you just wrote by the way, and what that means in practice, you basically just said "Because I don't know you, and you are not part of GROUP, anything you say I will disregard even if it is sound advice". That kind of circular logic is how cults happen.

  Groupthink is when you go along with the group to keep harmony or conformity. It does not have anything to do with choosing appropriate leadership. For example, if I want to fix my car, I'm going to defer to a mechanic. If I need medical treatment, I'm going to defer to a doctor. So on and so forth. We choose proper leadership in so many scenarios. Choosing when and how to trust an expert is something we do all the time, and nothing I wrote has anything to do with just following the group for the sake of the group.


If you can't tell, I don't get along with groups very well.


I don't know if it's your desire to contradict me or that your language barrier is showing, but either way,you just made my point for me of why I don't tend to listen to random people on the Internet. 

[eRe4s3r]

Actually, let's get a bit philosophically... but how exactly do you say, judge whether a medical person is an expert? Aren't you just willing to follow their advice based on CREDENTIALS only, I mean you don't know them personally.... you don't know their graduation scores or case history.....  .

If you can't tell, I don't get along with groups very well.

Which is perfectly fine but obviously not 100% true, otherwise you'd not play team games or write on a forum. Also if you play COOP games and you confer or claim leadership, then you are not as averse to groups as you might think. I have to admit, I was being sarcastically and got lazy making that clear. If you defer leadership or are only willing to lead people you know then you are of course not engaging in group think rather that is directly mixing with greed and egocentric behavior. "You are following for your own benefit only" etc. (not you, I mean a metaphorical someone ,p)

I don't know if it's your desire to contradict me or that your language barrier is showing, but either way,you just made my point for me of why I don't tend to listen to random people on the Internet. 

It's actually even worse, I was extrapolating a thought without making clear where and when I am no longer talking about something you said at all and then got lazy quoting because that's a pain to do here



When it comes down to it, my post more or less relates to community toxicity MORE than what you wrote. Egocentric, greedy and group think behavior patterns are what causes toxicity. Group think in case of "elite players" vs noobs. Egocentric patterns in case of "1 vs everyone" and greedy behavior patterns especially in games where sharing of resources is vital (not so much in MOBA games, but in Anno 2070 I've seen very greedy people they would take all the resources ASAP and then complain when the other 3 players declare war together ,p).

Furthermore, the more skill requirement a game has, and the more time investment a game requires the more toxic the community will be. Because secondary psychological effects apply then.

What mana... described in first post is not something I call toxicity, that's just human stupidity and sadly so common in MP games that wondering about it seems like a very alien concept to me. Hence my sarcastic reply ;p If I'd be angry over everyone doing something stupid in a MP game I'd never actually have fun. I mean.. battlefield and transport helicopters.. need I say more? If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity. BF has a training mode where you can learn flying, there is NO EXCUSE. None, Zero Argh ;P

[keith.lamothe]

If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity.

Mountains OP, please nerf.

[Misery]

I mean.. battlefield and transport helicopters.. need I say more? If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity. BF has a training mode where you can learn flying, there is NO EXCUSE. None, Zero Argh ;P

See, I wouldnt actually want them to learn to stop doing that.  It'd be too completely hilarious to want it to stop.

[eRe4s3r]

I mean.. battlefield and transport helicopters.. need I say more? If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity. BF has a training mode where you can learn flying, there is NO EXCUSE. None, Zero Argh ;P

See, I wouldnt actually want them to learn to stop doing that.  It'd be too completely hilarious to want it to stop.

I was actually sad they fixed that you could "team" kill your own dudes by jumping out of a driving vehicle of course, while it was aimed and driving towards your target ;P It was the only way to annoy the bush people (ie, campers on hills hiding in bushes) and I have to admit I did that more than once, and because it's not a TK in game logic (you are not IN the vehicle after all) they never saw who did that either ;p

Wait.. does that make me part of the problem, or part of the solution?

[x4000]

If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity.

Mountains OP, please nerf.

I mean.. battlefield and transport helicopters.. need I say more? If someone who can't fly flies a 6 person helicopter with 6 people in it, and manages to back-flip it into a mountain, then that is stupidity. BF has a training mode where you can learn flying, there is NO EXCUSE. None, Zero Argh ;P

See, I wouldnt actually want them to learn to stop doing that.  It'd be too completely hilarious to want it to stop.

Dear lord, you guys crack me up.

Back in college I used to play Counterstrike and Day of Defeat, and those are of course team-based but a lot more embryonic than the modern stuff today.  My roommate and I would mark our usernames with a fake "clan" name, which at least noted to other people that we were working together.  And was hilarious when people mistook us for some much larger clan and claimed that someone else on the clan had been cheating or whatever.  Anyway, I digress.

He and I would basically use our own strategies and work through the levels on our own, keeping an eye out on what the rest of the insane people were doing but taking it a bit slower and not being the meat in the front of the grinder.  It made us really effective, because everyone else was for the most part uncoordinated with one another, and any cooperation between those strangers seemed to be incidental (the best maps in both games were conductive to accidental cooperation).

To me, that was really fun, and we were able to enjoy our experience while our teammates enjoyed theirs.  They did their thing, we did ours, and I didn't really care if we overall lost or won, it was more about how we personally handled the encounters we were handed.  Winning overall is nice, but it really didn't register all that much.

With a MOBA, which I should note I've never played, it seems like everything REQUIRES teamwork if you are facing a competent opposition, and in fact it's strategy-game-level teamwork, for the most part.  Which is super cool in a lot of ways, but it seems like trying to organize soccer/football teams out of groups of people who have never met.  Any sort of team sport like that.

I mean, pickup games in team sports are a freaking mess if it's anything other than just for fun.  There's no organizational structure, people don't know each other's skills, etc.  You always have one or two really hardcore people out there trying to boss everyone around, and everyone else is really frustrated with them because it's just a pickup game and what does it matter and who put them in charge.  And then you have the people who are shockingly inept a lot of the time, who you're not sure know the rules of the sport, etc.  Possibly they are wearing sandals to play.

Team sports are super fun, and team games are super fun.  But when every match is a pickup match... holy smokes, that does not sound in any way fun to me.  Unless I'm the guy in sandals.

[Cyborg]

Actually, let's get a bit philosophically... but how exactly do you say, judge whether a medical person is an expert? Aren't you just willing to follow their advice based on CREDENTIALS only, I mean you don't know them personally.... you don't know their graduation scores or case history.....  .

I don't know old you are, but once you start choosing your own doctor, it's not all that uncommon to go through a few of them before you find one you like. Or more than one. Choosing a doctor is about more than their degree. And as you might someday realize, there are doctors with technical skill, doctors with innate skill, and various levels of will behind it. I have never found a doctor with all three.

If you can't tell, I don't get along with groups very well.

Which is perfectly fine but obviously not 100% true, otherwise you'd not play team games or write on a forum. Also if you play COOP games and you confer or claim leadership, then you are not as averse to groups as you might think. I have to admit, I was being sarcastically and got lazy making that clear. If you defer leadership or are only willing to lead people you know then you are of course not engaging in group think rather that is directly mixing with greed and egocentric behavior. "You are following for your own benefit only" etc. (not you, I mean a metaphorical someone ,p)

Greed? I might accept egocentric behavior. But yes, when I am playing on the Internet with random people, I am 0% concerned about anyone else's fun except for my own. Right or wrong, good or bad, I really couldn't give a rat's behind what someone else feels about their level of fun. The Internet is a cold place- especially league of legends and other MOBA's. I do not care even in the slightest. It's all about me. And most of the time, if you are on my team, it's going to work out for you because my KDA is reliably stingy, spectacular, and I push for objectives. However, I don't play the meta, and that often means getting harassed despite my near 100% silence when I play these games.



And as harsh as it sounds, no one else cares about my feelings, either. People are routinely toxic, stupid, and sub-average human beings in these games. So we are not all that far apart.


The solution is, play with people you know who you have some kind of social contract with, where other people's opinions and feelings actually matter. Anything else is just frustration due to unrealistic expectations.

[Misery]

Greed? I might accept egocentric behavior. But yes, when I am playing on the Internet with random people, I am 0% concerned about anyone else's fun except for my own. Right or wrong, good or bad, I really couldn't give a rat's behind what someone else feels about their level of fun. The Internet is a cold place- especially league of legends and other MOBA's. I do not care even in the slightest. It's all about me. And most of the time, if you are on my team, it's going to work out for you because my KDA is reliably stingy, spectacular, and I push for objectives. However, I don't play the meta, and that often means getting harassed despite my near 100% silence when I play these games.

And as harsh as it sounds, no one else cares about my feelings, either. People are routinely toxic, stupid, and sub-average human beings in these games. So we are not all that far apart.

The solution is, play with people you know who you have some kind of social contract with, where other people's opinions and feelings actually matter. Anything else is just frustration due to unrealistic expectations.

Yeah, I pretty much am the same way much of the time.

One way or another, there's just no viable way to determine if someone telling me to do something ACTUALLY knows what they're doing.  Because there's always a pretty darn high chance that they dont.  I'll at least read the advice given, and weigh it against my current situation and options, but in the end *I* will make the decision on what to do.  Typically, as this is more of a tactical thing for me rather than overall strategy (I sure as heck dont want to be the one giving orders at any point), I can usually do well with this.  And I tend to play support roles alot in mobas, so half of my entire function is to save my teammates from themselves when they do something bloody stupid.  Since my reaction speed is stupidly high, I am good at this.  But doing that often means not being in the places where the others think I should be.  That I just prevented the enemy from getting a kill.... and possibly also gave that teammate the chance to get a kill on them.... never seems to matter.  So often, the complaining starts.  But I'm stubborn, irritable, and used to getting what I want, so I'll bloody well do as I choose.

And yeah, I dont like worrying about the meta so dang much either.  I mean, I can learn some stuff for it, sure.  But one thing I always notice is that NOBODY EVER AGREES ON IT.  The idea of a "meta" tends to suggest that, okay, for THIS character, there is a definite best setup, with definite best choices of items, and this is the way you use them.   But it doesnt work that way.  There's always theorycrafting and arguing, people never fully agreeing on what really IS the best.  And if you watch the best players, they're good at IMPROVISING.  They choose what they need at the time based on their own knowledge and logic, for THEIR playstyle and what they want to accomplish.  And I tend to play that way myself.

Like with fighting games, those have a meta too, which I usually consider to be bloody stupid.  All them tiers and blah blah blah.  In that case, I tend to just do whatever the reverse of the meta is.   Find out who is at the bottom of the list, and use them to crush those at the top tiers.  Because hahaha.  Such fun and very satisfying.  If I were just doing like most players, well, it wouldnt be entirely MY skill and knowledge, I think.  But people will still chuck insults my way for not playing the "right" way.  Even if I just annihilated them. So it's another example of it being completely pointless to worry too much about what others think I should do.  I want to do it MY way, as that way is what works for me, and most importantly, that's the best way to actually have fun with it.

Not having fun is a waste of time.  Got that quote from Twitch somewhere, and it sums up my view pretty well.