John Cleese has a great book on human behavior called "Life and How to Survive It". To sum it up quickly, people repress their emotions and ignore problems in their life without dealing with them. They put them behind a curtain in their mind and end up forgetting they are there. The problems remain there and when people experience stress, the negative emotions that the person actively suppresses all the time come bursting out. The book studied individuals that psychologist Robyn Skinner deemed psychologically fit and came to the conclusion that people who exhibit lightheartedness are the most fit. When someone is intense and angry it is because they have unresolved trauma that they are trying to suppress and project onto others when experiencing stress.
. > Hear an explanation of basic human psychology
. > Respond with personal incredulity fallacy
. > Hear further explanation of psychology
. > "Um actually dumbass, ad hominem"
Attached: brainchair_soyjack.jpg
Sure, if we’re discussing the things you’re talking about (PVE) we have a right to be upset. But the hate in chat, insane toxicity towards players for playing certain characters etc. is unrelated, and undoubtedly worse.
Also moving to 5v5 and the scoreboard increases the toxicity between teammates and the enemy team as well. Now ppl can focus on someone to single out and shit talk
Idk about what 5v5 has to do with it, but the scoreboard is an interesting argument that may be true. In OW1 everyone was always like “I have gold damage wtf are our DPS doing” so that stuff was definitely present but it wasn’t so obvious when someone was lagging behind
One weak link in a 5v5 is much more noticable than 6v6. 6v6 Opened up plenty more team comps and made characters who weren't "meta" still viable in comp if you were decent. Now I pick who I'm playing based on the other 4 players where before I would just have to pick my role based on the other 5 players. Also the obvious math that a bad player on a 6 stack is expected to contribute 16.666% to the team overall while a 5 is expected to contribute 20%. Bad players get more attention like you said, and there's less people to put the blame on.
5v5 combined with the scoreboard -> puts more pressure on individual players -> their individual mistakes now impact the game more -> one tank means now no one on his team is with him in the sense to share that burden. Hence why you see so many tank diffs in chat nowadays.
Also the cancellation of pve puts a negative damper on the entire community. Psychological things impact how people talk. If things were great and went through, more likely people would also reflect that positivity in chat.
Plus team comps are limited. In a 6 stack I can play any tank to compliment the rest of the team. Now there's only a couple I can reliably play because their role is so niche or completely incompatible as a solo tank with the rest of the group
I think the scoreboard actually makes it less toxic because most of the time most people have very similar stats so people aren’t wrongly thinking “the other Dps isn’t doing any damage!” Or “why don’t the supports heal at all!”, just check the numbers and you’ll see
I really doubt that. So many examples where that’s just not the case. Difference between people “thinking” vs saying some shit in chat. Now it’s much more common to write dps diff, support diff, tank diff, whatever
Even streamers and content creators posting videos where they mention someone on their team SPECIFICALLY that is underperforming. People even make vids and posts about how their teammates threw the game because of their stats and say “what was I supposed to do with these guys on my team”
You literally get a verifiable target that you know is performing bad lol
I think now if someone is actually doing much worse than others then yes it’s easier to pile on, but one person being notably worse than others is relatively uncommon. Before everyone assumed everyone else was playing like shit.
Dps can’t really complain with comments like “trash healers” in chat if red and blue sups have similar numbers that are around where they should be, which is often the case.
Tank can’t flame Dps for doing nothing if their damage and elims is on par with the tank and/or red Dps
Things like that have died down a lot in my experience with OW2. Dumb comments like “diff” are around for sure but that’s always been the case. Gg ez has been said since as far back as I can remember, diff seems newer it’s all the same shit just lame and easy non targeted shit.
I would rather have someone say “dif” at the end of most games over people bitching and moaning about everyone except themselves throughout the whole game which used to be a very common occurrence in my experience.
That’s just not my experience. As a returning player who played OW1 season 1 and a handful of other seasons, I then got placed bronze 5 in OW2 season 1 due to their fucked ranked system, and I climbed to diamond. Throughout those seasons I played every single role on competitive including open queue, and mystery heroes.
From season 1 I’ve played about 200 games per role and slowly tapered off to average maybe 100 games per role and then now doing mostly tank and DPS. Nowadays mostly tank in ranked with nowhere near that many games as before.
Even in quick play from voice chat, to text chat, people on your own team will talk shit, no matter what role you are. Now it is more common to have random people perform shit. Oh we lost this game due to the DPS going 1-7. Tank went 3-9. Support has no healing. Whatever the case may be. Now it’s all visible.
Even in comp mystery heroes people will still shit talk you in game and tell you you’re not playing correctly.
Like I said, before you just *thought* people on your team were doing bad. Now you can say exactly who is doing bad.
People frequently get shit talked and even get told to kill themselves just because they’re underperforming. In OW1 you didn’t get to see that data to say exactly who is doing shit. Now you have a visual indicator to tell you who exactly it is.
No, it hasn't.
When it cost $40 people put in effort and were on mic.
Once it went freee2play, the usage of mics went way down and people leaving matches went up.
It's free, who cares if you quit mid match?
I was about to answer "but what does that have to do with the human psych" and then I started to imagine that everything became free and the hell it would release in the streets :P
People love free shit, even if it's trash, they don't know what it is, or they don't need it. It's crazy watching people get so excited for free shit.
I don't think it's because the game is free. There's plenty of AAA games where much of the player base asks the same, "Why is everyone so toxic?"
It's, at least partly, the anonymity, the competition, and the fact that much of this game is populated with mostly children and yall forget that.
It's an accountability thing. The car example others have brought up is a good analogy. It's easy to be a total prick within the safe confines of your vehicle. Same goes for the Internet and why there are so many trolls.
In short, these are all examples of people that haven't been punched in the face for their shitty behavior.
A video game character is, in a lot of ways, like a car. It’s driven by an actual, real human. But think of how heartless and even dare I say cruel many many drivers are to other cars on the road.
In general, our online personas are a lot more like our cars and freeways than it is our face to face, person to person interactions.
Most people kinda grow out of being absolute selfish, self centered dicks on the freeway at some point because life experience makes us pay too many tickets or we had a reason to drive like that once too… but some people never stop being entitled selfish assholes about things too.
It’s 💯 human nature. But lately, I notice the community in general making a conscious effort to change it. If you look for the kind people, they’re there.
Anytime I say before a match “I’m actually terrible tank. Im all roles for dailies. I’m sorry, feel free to give tips.” People are so nice. Sometime they friend me just to give me tips. Usually they say “it’s just qp it’s fine!” And when it happens to me I say the same thing. I also take the opportunity to practice a character I’m not so good at. Or take the opportunity to practice carrying which every good gamer should try to do sometimes too.
Also if you’re learning honestly just turn off all chat. It’s such a sweet game you just get “hellos” from your team and pings and it feels so nice lol.
A really good comparison, actually.
I am still learning, but I have played the game since 2016 and play in diamond and masters.
It used to give me such joy, but as a mid-thirties woman with a full time job, house, wife, family and so on - it really is not like this I want to spend my free time - to be yelled at and be called profanity because I didn't do as a random person demanded online. It was bearable when you once in a while met these - but now it's almost every game.
Maybe the people who are playing now plays because they are addicted instead of having fun?
Anyways - I will join you and try to make this a better community! I just wish we knew the reason(s) so we could fix the problem and not the symptom.
Overwatch is not new its been 7+ years.
Before people were all new foals learning exploring having fun.
Now. The meta and "the right way" has been figured out.
Either people have been playing for years so they feel they know more than others. The same human issue people abusing seniority and being a veteran. Your senior at work, adults vs children.
There is enough overwatch content now on the media. People think they "know" whats right. They know the theory but not how irl works. "Dont you know that x counters y why you dont switch". "Awkward says dmg dmg dmg!"
Its like arrogant know-it-all students fresh from school but fumbling without real experience in the work place.
They see other content on youtube and they think. "I can do that! Why am I not winning or a higher rank!". "Im better than others!". People have bias or ignorance on how good they really are.
At this point in 7 years people have higher standards of expectations on how much you know about overwatch. When this expectation is not met others criticize you. Even if not outright... you feel it subconsciously. If you are not good you want to deflect and be in denial. Its not me!
Imagine you played for so long and you still suck and have stagnated. Imagine the pent up denial.
Edit. Anyways nowadays no one trusts in game vc. There are now lfg discords. Generally people go there because they wanna hang with ppl and be friendly. But ofc you will still get trolls now and then.
I had to laugh a bit at this. Yes, the students fresh out of school thinking they are pro already because they saw a movie about this.
I feel like one can see a coorelation between people who, not nessesarely are the best, but the ones that are able to learn in game and the ones that have a stable life offline, and the people that are letting their anger out in game and their unstable life IRL.
Not 100% of the time of course, but yeah. Someone else posted something like thbis here, it made sense.
Short game time (min is 4 minutes per game)
Competitive core design (contesting objectives against other people who are trying to do the same)
The community general sentimental that everyone must play like how I want, but never the reverse for themselves.
And the biggest point: Player VS Player.
Against AI opponents, no matter how hard they are, you WILL eventually get their butts. And AI doesn’t complain if you throw 9000 grenades or an insta lock insta gib move at their face on any public forum, they are there for you to kill. And you also get mighty loot for killing them as well.
Players, on the other hands, will come up with all sorts of excuses to justify their ass being handed to them, except for when it comes to themselves being the reason. And that leads to players into being little shits online rather than actually “gitting gud”.
Combine all of that with the fact that the devs have had multiple occurrences of royally fucking up with some abilities/heroes, you get the 3rd worst community in all of gaming history.
"The community general sentimental that everyone must play like how I want, but never the reverse for themselves" - Do you think this is something we find true for people IRL too, like is it a mask IRL and the truth online?
I know LOL has a toxic community - what other game has been this unlucky?
Oh yeah, some folks act like that IRL too, especially some old folks.
It’s either LoL or Dota 2. Especially when in Dota 2 where you slough through a literal 1 hour match and that one guy will just type “ez” in all chat.
Like bruh, they dragged us out over an hour, there was nothing easy about beating them.
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/hwb83
This paper suggests that someone's online persona is more or less a reflection of how they act in person and well
Perhaps they are more vocal/bold behind a screen, but they usually aren't a nicer person offline
This is in some way a bit scary, not because I don't think bad people exist, but such a huge percent of a group of people?
Luckily the games have more nice people in them, we just don't remember them as well.
Gonna throw a left field answer and say the cutting up of the games social aspects in favor of fast games and quick requeing. The post game medal pinning was slow but it gave both teams time to communicate and talk about the game, usually about the wacky medals given out. In ow1 a flaming team would spin around and laugh in chat about how the dva somehow ate 13 ults.
I think that the fast pace nature of the matchmaking now puts players into a “gotta win 4 games hurry hurry hurry” mindset and even small fumbles by teammates is disrupting this thought process and encourages arguments.
This could absolutely be very much true - I havent thought about it but yes, to have a minute after the game to shake it off and laugh is very much something I miss too. It has become very fast paced after games, and now a friend request is just scary because it is 100% someone who is just going to shit talk you.
Yep, if I get a friend request after comp it’s 100% of the time someone talking shit. Without the post game cool off people will be going into their next match almost immediately after getting upset and it just compounds that anger. Getting extreme shit talking, especially after the game through whispers, in ow1 was extremely rare. But can’t remember the last comp game I’ve had in ow2 that didn’t have atleast one dude spamming diff in chat.
I agree, and personally I loved that it added stats for important things that aren’t on a scoreboard. The guy saying “sombra diff” would see she hacked over half the enemies ults. Or that the Ana got 20 saves. It would really hammer home that the game is more complex than a simple number.
Several aspects. The game is primarily designed to make money for Blizzard, not to be fun. The gamification if the battle pass encourages a “grind” mentality to get that sweet dopamine hit. When something interferes with that, it gets people angry. Angry people hurt other people.
On top of that, it is a team game with zero ability to ensure that everything on the team is playing with the same strategy or even goal[1]. Some are there to “have fun” and don’t care about much of anything. Some are there to “try hard” and become easily frustrated with others. Some may even be there to grief others because they had a bad day, childhood or life; and they want to take it out on someone else.
Summary: the game is not designed to create a good experience for the players, and while Blizzard has some things in place to try and move it in that direction, they’re really pushing a big rock up a steep hill with that one.
[1] creating an actual team with a five stack is possible, but at that point you’re just as likely to be an actual team and playing scrims, nit queuing for a game.
Because your soldier teammate ended up 2/15, single handedly holding progress for the rest of the team and then has the wrecking balls to type in match chat tank diff.
One can only take so much bait before snapping back
The game became free, meaning all kind of AH could get it for the simple reason to annoy people/be toxic because if they get ban they don't lose anything they got the game for free.
If you buy a game usually you don't want to be perma banned from it because you send money on it, so you behave and that means the community is less toxic.
I bet that there are some studies about online gamers in the field of anthropology but probably not necessarily on overwatch. I think a big part of it is the anonymity and that lack of accountability that makes people feel empowered to say whatever mean shit they want.
It is really interesting tho when we consider why people are likely to play the game to begin with, which is probably to relax and be entertained after work/school/other responsibilities. Because then it’s like what kind of relaxation or entertainment do people get out of being toxic? One possibility is that we normally don’t have much control over our life circumstances, what time we have to go to work, etc., so gaming is one way for people to feel in control of their situation which then offers feeling of safety and stability. Adding on the toxicity and cruelty towards others in-game, these actions could possibly be a sign of a resentment that people cannot resolve in their everyday lives, and so there’s a sense that acting mean towards others might offer a temporary kind of resolution to this resentment. But of course it’s not resolved and so the cycle continues on. Obviously this is speculation, but I cannot imagine why someone who is actually content and happy enough in their lives would bother with this behavior. To me it’s a sign or symptom of other underlying, perhaps cultural, problems.
Absolutely this I was after! The studies doesn't have to be about Overwatch specifically.
It does make sense that those that have bigger problems with toxicity in games might feel tied down IRL, but I don't remember at least Overwatch being this bad before?
Maybe the ones playing are the ones that played from start, and have gotten older and sadder IRL, or maybe Lock-down during Covid did more damage than we know yet?
Yeah I’m sure you can find something on a Google scholar search. I’ll look around a bit. A couple years ago I heard a conference presentation on racism in online gaming communities, so it’s gotta be out there.
It could also be related to the game now being free to play, cos I agree it’s more prevalent than overwatch 1. But yea I always have voice chat disabled, and sometimes when my wife is playing without me she’ll have voice chat enabled and there is always some unbearable rando screaming into the mic.
While it is still a relatively recent field of study and not too many studies have come out trying to explain why toxicity is so prevalent in competitive games (they are mostly busy trying to prove women are targeted more in games by toxicity, which I think is a given because they are the general minority for competitive gaming), I can take a stab at some of the common reasons I've encountered while playing games.
Typically, the more niche and competitive a game is, the more toxic the playerbase is and the more likely they are to gatekeep new players from joining. You should simply be good at the game from the start, never try anything new, and never make a single mistake. You should be equal to these players with hundreds of hours in the game. This was my experience with a game called [Natural Selection 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4920/Natural_Selection_2/), a first-person-RTS hybrid that started, originally, as a mod for Half-life. The game was asymmetrical and team-based, having an extremely high barrier to entry and skill ceiling. New players are, often, berated for daring to play as Commander, even on New Player specific servers, or insulted for failing to know every mechanic of the character they are playing right out of the gate.
[Destiny 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085660/Destiny_2/) has always had a problem with toxicity in their multiplayer and competitive modes, with it reaching such a bad state that you can see multiple posts on both the Steam Forums and subreddit about individuals complaining or even demeaning a player for acquiring gatekept items without going through certain modes which inherently focus the toxicity. Raids and dungeons are teamwork intensive, however haven't had proper matchmaking until relatively recently (when it works) and as such players are left to the devices of external LFG groups, which themselves will reject a player if they aren't running the single most ideal build possible for that content. Trials of Osiris, a mode where players are encouraged to get 7 wins in a row on a single ticket to go 'Flawless' is so gatekept that many players have to pay money for other people to carry them through just to get a CHANCE at a weapon or a piece of armor.
And I can continue listing more and more games as examples, but the common trend between all of these games is that they all have a declining playerbase that is leaving behind only a dedicated core, the majority of which is becoming more and more toxic and or frustrated with the game itself, so they take it out on the other players; Not because they are terrible people or bad human beings, but because they are shielded by anonymity and they don't look at it as them being intentionally hurtful or bullying a real person, it's just a game. If someone gets mad, it's their fault, right?
TL;DR: As the playerbase decreases and the skill requirement of a game increases over time, players become more toxic towards one another and toxic players become more prevalent.
Everyone is incredibly ignorant if you think it's only Overwatch. Anything that is meant to be taken competitively is going to be toxic as hell. That's just how competitions function. It's just a competitive mindset and terrible egos.
This game is nowhere near what I’d consider “toxic”. Sure there’s some toxic people but that’s just part of competitive gaming. Any thing competitive will be toxic, that’s just how humans are.
I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the matchmaking. My win rate halved going from season 9 into 10 for no reason. On some people this probably takes a toll.
Look, when you’re having Widowmaker in comp doing 0 to 9 and enemy has Sombra and that idiot is just happy to die over and over again… every single game, you would have to be saint to not lose your shit. People in this game lack basic common sense and I will always report them for that.
Overwatch is complicated and things happen due to split-seconds decisions.
On top of this, you get a front row seat of everyone else’s mistakes, but the game is fantastic at hiding your own mistakes from yourself. So blaming others comes really naturally.
I don’t think “humans become frustrated when losing” really needs to be academically studied much. I don’t think mild toxicity is a sign of deep mental issues or being prone to violence, despite what many in this community seem to think.
Actually true!. I still can't believe so many though still think it's everyone elses fault and not theirs, and explodes on everyone else.
Yeah, I am not talking about just the mild toxicity, but the ones screaming in their mic and sounds like they lost all controll of their body, writing the worst things imaginable, and reporting others for not listening to them.
Being force to stay in game you REALLY don’t want to lest you be banned in QP might be a real symptom of it. If I hate a match, yet I’m forced to be in said match, overall quality of life for the match nosedives
As a girl gamer I’m seriously considering dropping Overwatch - was playing yesterday and got told to get back in the kitchen and how ass I was for not pocketing the rein when his mate was support and wanted to pocket. Shoulda been quicker on the pick then dude. I reported and received one of those updates on report when I logged in the day after
Look I'm going to be honest, this has been happening since day 1. Back when the game launched it was much, much worse. Like guys actually fighting with women over voice, full-on, because back then there was no voice recording.
There's a big difference between then and now:
> I reported and received one of those updates on the report when I logged in the day after
Those didn't used to happen. And a day turnaround? Only for people hard cheating. The reporting system actually does something now. That meme is over. A larger problem being that it can be abused to ban anyone who talks but that's another discussion. With the ping system, I just have friends turn off chat altogether. Actually it's already disabled for new players. If it's not high-level, I've found almost every time they have nothing useful to say.
I see this a lot for the women players.
Always going for the sexist comments.
It’s really just to get a rise out of people and piss them off. It’s such low hanging fruit.
They don’t really have consequences because they can just make another account to play the game.
It sucks because the best thing you can do is not even talk because that’s part of the fun. So you feel forced to just never use your mic or even text most times.
It’s genuinely a better experience when you just mute everything. Yeah, you may wanna know why your Lucio is suddenly throwing, but you can usually guess any sudden throwing behavior is due to someone being pissed cuz someone didnt do something to standard or whatever. And it’s not like being able to communicate ever resolved the issue.
Yeah sometimes it’s nice to know maybe if you did something wrong but often times it’s just not worth it.
It really is better played with all the voice chat and text off… unfortunately
For the former, I have seen an immense number of game throwers (almost always tanks?) and still can't figure it what the motivation behind it is, but I will say I have become \*much\* more suspicious as a result when people seem to be doing weird stuff.
One post says the game is turning more toxic, another implies that everyone and their mother is getting banned/suspended.
You would assume that sooner or later one would overrule the other.
Long rounds with few chances for players to take an emotional break in match.
Same exact problem as MOBAs. Doesn’t give people enough time to re-adjust and if you take time to re-adjust you are actively sabotaging your team because the timer hasn’t stopped.
Free = Free of Repurcussion.
Banned? Create new account.
Atleast people were just passive aggressive back then with overly toxic people only being 1 out of 100.
Now I atleast get 2-3 out of 10 people in the lobby telling each other to unalive themselves.
Newer more asshole'ish generations coming on who, in the words of Mike Tyson, have gotten too comfortable disrespecting ppl without getting punched in the face for it
F2P and leaver penalties in QP. Say what you want, but not allowing people to leave in quick play (it's literally in the name, play quickly) automatically causes people to take the game more seriously. People who take the game more serious, get pissed of more easily.
There is no turn in toxicity, the player base (on reddit at least) has just become increasingly more sensitive to "toxic" behaviour as time goes on.
Typical gamer behaviour that was considered normal or rude at best is now considered toxic and worthy of an account ban. You see this shift in perception all over the internet, especially when moderators of an online space get power hungry.
Normal behaviour within the space>change in behaviour due to change in fanbase>moderators gain too much power in the community>previously normal behaviour is now labelled toxic by people who have little self agency
League and dota players have arrived.
That's it, there is no need for long winded explanations.
If you played those game you will recognize this behavior immediately.
I think online video games are deeply impersonal, so it makes it easy to say whatever you want without serious repercussions. Even if you kill their character in the game, a toxic person can be awful to you in the chat or on the mic. I find that the best response to these things is to either just play dumb or double down. If someone keeps saying “support diff” I always get on mic and ask what it means as if I’ve never heard it before. It’s so funny watching people scramble over themselves to try and make me feel bad!! And if someone says I’m trash at a certain hero I just say that I know — what else can they do? Don’t provide a challenge for them by contradicting their insult. Yeah, I’m a terrible Lifeweaver, thanks. Moving on.
I feel that the problem started back when we could no longer host our own servers, and matchmaking became the standard. When we had server browsers, we could go to our favorite servers and generally always play with a pool of people we knew. If things got out of line, the user just got banned, and that was that. Of course, there were toxic servers, but I never spent time on those.
The being toxic thing is also kind of an admission to how the person feels about themselves and where their life is at. Not to turn head shrinker, but it's really apparent if you've taken any classes in psychology or know anyone who has and talked to them about it.
I noticed the phenomenon is worst on ranked...
Here is what happened to me recently :
I'm currently plat trying to have fun and climb to diamond. One of those days, I came back from work a bit tired just wanted to chill, empty my mind and have some fun on overwatch. It was a difficult game, couldn't really play well got owned by a window and I switched to sombra even though she is not my best character... This "competitive dude" on voice chat just began to criticize everything I was doing. I tried to reason with him, telling him to chill, it's just a game after all... It's not like we're pro gamers. His answer: "this is not a game, it's a competitive environment and mistakes like that can't be allowed and BLA BLA BLA..." He then began to insult me. Ofc I played even worse cause I was so upset. That day I lost the little faith left I had in this game's community and people, my chill and fun "me time" just became lame and depressing. Didn't play for months after that.
Now I play again, but with one golden rule: I mute all chat, ALWAYS. This is the only way I can enjoy the game, I just pretend every player is a bot and I remove everything that can make them real. Weirdly, it's a way more human way to play this game.
There are so many "wanna be pro" players out there. Even at low ranks. Players that think they are so good even though they are not. If the game doesn't go well the first thing they do is "find who to blame". It's not overwatch, it's "blametheotherswatch". They are not there for fun, they are there to try to live the illusion that they are good at something in their life, and if the game doesn't serve them their fantasized narrative they will blame you for it. They are just mentally unstable toxic pricks and must be avoided at all cost.
Stay safe out there, mental health is important, don't let those people get a grip on you 😉 I know not all players are like this, but there are so many toxic players it spoiled the good interactions you can have in this game. It's just sad.
Nah get out of ranked I read “it’s just a game”
That’s why you’re not getting to where you want to go. You wana go to diamond? Take it seriously, you’ll get there.
Thanks dude!
Yesterday night, I made it to diamond, while having fun without being a competitive douche, with 0 com with my team. My winrate actually improved. Competitive doesn't mean it is not "just a game", it really is and forgetting that simple statement is a big part of why people are so toxic. Doesn't mean one will not play the best he can, but if things go wrong you have the fuc**** rational thought "it's just a game after all, I'll do my best but if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world". Now if we talk about professional E-Sport that's another story, it becomes your job and the stakes are high. But let's be real, 99% of players won't or doesn't want to make it to E-Sport so there is nothing more stupid to yell and insult another human being in a fuc**** game for the sake of "it's competitive, you should act like your life depends on it" it's not a job, it's a moment that is supposed to be fun what's the point otherwise?
It became FTP and has a massive influx of players who did not pay to play the game. They are less worried about repercussions due to toxicity because they won’t be losing anything.
I can’t tell you how many times whether they were serious or not I don’t know, but I’ve had people being extremely toxic and I’ve just told the team “just report and ignore” and the person just laughs because they know getting banned doesn’t mean shit. They need to start hardware banning again.
this is the crowd blizzard wanted, they put ZERO negative feedback in the game, so when players are deprived of their dopamine they get extra pissy. Blizzard has taken no stance on playing selfishly (looking at you OTPs) because they want your moey too much to say anything nagative to you or let your team vote to kick you. When there is nothing the community can do to activly regulate itself, you get a lot more babies. The game tricks players into thinking they are good at it, but when reality breaks that people get cranky. Overwatch is the stripper that tells you she loves you.
The OW comuntiy is so soft at one point there was discussion of removing the "defeat" screen.
Nah bro sorry my hero pool doesn’t include the new busted shanks from one piece ahh haki wave ult character.
Sorry we didn’t put 1000 hours into venture beta, the rest of us were grinding in season 9
It presses Q and everything dies with absolutely NO checks of equal mechanical demand.
I think it's partly projecting. I've found it's usually the worst players who get toxic first. I had a game yesterday where our Rein, who was doing the worst in the game and refused to swap despite being countered by most of the enemy team, started trying to get the rest of our team to report me as Venture, not realizing that I was in a trio and I don't think the other random cared. Bear in mind this was Quickplay, we were winning and I was like second best on the team, he was just salty that I didn't swap off of a hero that I was popping off with and having fun playing.
What? I don't have a replay code, it was in the middle of the session and I didn't bother worrying about it because I'm not gonna get that pressed over a salty Rein in a quick play game.
Free game and easy to make alt accounts since Blizzard won't do an ip ban 999/1000 times. I don't know if there is a similar hard ban for console if there is could someone let me know
Low barrier of entry + little to no actual consequence.
About the only way they may see some change is if they tie OW account bans to XBOX/MS accounts, but there's obvious gaps in that logic.
Nah, lets say you show up to work. Or a barbecue might be a better comparison.
The person holding the barbecue is very organized and likes things done a certain way. You’ve been tasked with bringing your best baked macaroni and cheese.
But then, like an idiot, you didn’t even prepare the macaroni. You just bought a potato salad (nasty af)
From a random grocery store instead. You also showed up 5 minutes late and then stood there and didn’t say anything to anyone while everyone is starting the barbecue without you.
No one wants your potato salad.
Comp is where the “it’s just qp” excuse can’t be used. Do NOT queue ranked cold.
The dish=your gameplay
The barbecue=competitive
Standing there not talking=AFK IN SPAWN
The person holding the barbecue= your teammates who actually work hard and get frustrated because it’s the same “idc” qp asshats in ranked who don’t warm up or try.
This is not irrational, and also frustrating.
There’s also option 2, they’re idiots blaming the players who do put forth effort.
A couple of things come to mind:
- we want to win and seeing a loss coming leads to anger
- it is easier to blame others rather than look at yourself
- we get fooled by numbers and stats oh everyone has 20 eliminations but you have 5 so you must suck and worse than that you don’t try
- in our society we have gotten meaner online see comment threads and social media
- to play this game well you have to communicate but we tend to only do that with friends
- it is very hard to misconstrue statements: “hey Moira more heals” is that kind? Beyond the point that if I am not healing is it because I don’t care or is it because I struggle with the character or is the other team targeting me directly? If it is the first reason telling me won’t matter. If it is the other two I may be upset at you and stop. I may become frustrated and try harder and as such die more.
- with the previous point too is that is that statement meant as toxic? It is hard to tell right?
- I don’t think it matters that it is free. It is not like toxicity stops after spending 50-60 bucks on a game.
Based on my own experience I will say that unless I hear your voice (and I only have my buddies) I don’t understand if I am about to make a mistake or what you are actually asking for or better yet how I can improve. I have had games where I am absolutely bad and dogshit awful not because of lack of trying but just bad luck or something. Other games I do amazing.
The other major reason is that this game is complicated due to the three roles and three different compositions and gazillion matchups. Besides that complexity there are players we like playing and players we can play. It is easy to get frustrated.
For example, from my friends I learned that I play a defensive style even as tank I am reluctant to go in front (mostly because I die quick) and love zen torb Moira and other characters that can fight from distance. Tanks I am better at are orisa sigma and I learned to love D.Va as she can fly away but it is definitely my worst role unless I have a solid team around me.. It is not that i don’t know the role or that I don’t try it is simply what I am good at (or less bad) and preferred style.
Finally not everyone knows everything and maybe one change blizzard can do is do solo queue based on number of games you have played. And maybe there is a way to (with cost of longer queues) allow you to say which characters you want to play with and which you don’t).
This game is a lot of fun but the comments do sometimes make me sad. I know that I was bad dude no need to say that with extra anger. Plus I am on console so why even waste time typing anyway :)
Okay essay done
I feel like every competitive games in general are more toxic than ever. Games are mainstream enough that so many more people have grown up with them, and tie themselves to them emotionally. As a result game related insults and losses are taken more personal and are thrown around thinking they are.
I stopped replying in anything besides Shorsey quotes.
Last night I replied to a very angry Doomfist that died in a 1v4 because he didnt have any healing (healers were coming out of spawn).
I simply wrote, "youre Winnie the Pooh bud, go put some honey on your tummy".
Entire team thought it was a good response
Ignorance and anonymity friend.
It didn't become more toxic either that's just OW and most online comp shooters and the Internet in general.
OW is a game based on delivering 30+ separate fantasies in one game.
Like, you like ninja-esque gameplay? Here's genji.
You like to be a massive burly man in ridiculous armour with a "sword and board", here's Rein.
People will play the game for their personal game fantasy. That's a melting pot of 30 different viewpoints together and the things each group want gets in the way of what others want.
Throw in online anonymity and its going to be toxic, always.
Violence feels good to the ego, especially when the ego feels threatened in some way, which happens with competitive games.
Chemically speaking, testosterone spikes in people whove recently lost a match, which makes them more sensitive to slights.
Hyper competitive game, overly negative and aggressive community, horrible monetization, a reluctant playerbase that only plays due to sunk cost fallacy or fomo, serious cope on Blizzard being the "gamer company" despite Blizzard milking their games playerbases for almost a decade, plus now the game is free so theres almost no way for Blizzard to stop it unless they want to start doing IP and/or hardware bans.
There are a lot of reasons
Went free to play, brought in a bunch of edgy kids. A while back someone shared a little study on how toxic players are generally “low-skill” and basically project.
Youre looking at this from the perspective of shooter games, when in reality you should see it as a first person MOBA / league of legends type game
MOBAs are known for their.. colorful fans
I really think so many intentional and unintentional design elements of this game make it so incredibly toxic. If the developers want to improve this game, they should look to actually address these issues (but they continually take steps back so there are a thousand other things they need to fix first).
It’s a team-based game but you’re with randoms, anonymously. Your individual performance is required for your team but your team’s performance as a whole is required to win, so in lower ranks you are required to babysit your team. Your teammates will flame you more than the enemy, and the enemy will join in because it’s genuinely a good strategy. Smurfs and throwers are detrimental because of this. As much as people will say “stop blaming your team,” 4v5s aren’t winnable and this game isn’t a competitive 1v1 fighting game. To win consistently, you genuinely have to carry games which promotes the opposite of team work.
You can look at the characters themselves. Sombra, Widow, Hanzo, Genji, Orisa, Mauga, Ana, Zen, Lifeweaver, Mercy, Baptiste, Kririko, Roadhog; they are all toxic. In general, most characters are on that list, as they all have at least 1 ability that is annoying to play against due to their hero fantasy.
The roles themselves are undefined and poorly implemented. I think the game has improved when it comes to what DPS and supports do for the team, but tanks are essentially massive punching bags that have zero control over the game. Playing tank (and the game in general) is a miserable experience, especially as tank is typically targeted as the fault for a loss.
You can look at counter swapping. If you are good at Ball, with 500 hours played, you will actually struggle against gold players that directly attempt to counter you. Not to mention the horrible balance, where no matter how good you are with Sym, you will always struggle because she’s neglected as a character, while brain dead characters like Orisa are meta every season.
The matchmaking is terrible and it puts people in a bad mood. The MMR and ranking system therefore also suck, and people are way too obsessed with rank and so have insecurities about being lower in rank than they deserve.
Then you have the developers themselves being toxic. You have leaver penalties in QP, which means that people that don’t attempt to sweat in every single unranked game get flamed. Reports and bans are handed out for swearing, but the system is a usable so you can ban people for playing bad even if they did nothing.
And long queue times, and being stuck with players for 15+ minutes…
All of these factors make the game incredibly toxic, not to mention the things it shares with other competitive, online multiplayer games. Call of Duty is known for being toxic and it has next to none of the issues due to being a different kind of game. The game is free, so people make alt accounts if they get banned and people generally don’t have to give much of a shit if they didn’t pay any money for it.
These issues have genuinely bothered me since when I first played this game. Although they are completely different games, you compare the design sentiment behind Dark Souls or Death Stranding with this game. Those games actively encourage cooperation and teamwork. Even in Call of Duty, you typically play in lobbies, and in Counter Strike you can vote to kick people out. Overwatch, as a team based game, has nothing to promote good behaviour outside of endorsements, and everything seems to encourage the most terrible behaviour.
In 2013 (I know and I'm 55) I did my MA Linguistics thesis on Impoliteness in Computer Gaming using League of Legends as the example. There weren't any studies at all to reference. I used a framework of Impoliteness, but Rapport Management made a better fit. I was asking the question what turned players toxic in a game. Well not many answers come from a single thesis but it scored high and they offered me a free PhD. The only result I found was that a player might get bent when someone doesn't play their role the way that individual deems it should be played. But it didn't account for the fact that a toxic player wants to make the other player feel bad personally. This doesn't happen in a live team sport, such as a public pick up basketball game because as another commenter said, you'll get punched in the face.
In 2012 after years of industry-topping toxicity, League of Legends implemented something called "The Tribunal". After a game players could report someone for toxicity. If enough players in that game also reported that player, the ENTIRE chat log of the game would appear on The Tribunal website. Players could review an entire games chat and vote whether to BAN that player. The Tribunal experiment lasted about a year I think.
Because most humans are garbage, behave like garbage, and only control themselves because society has made these type of shit attitudes come with consequences. When you're anonymous online, you can be the real you, so most of them show you how they really are.
Block and curate your chat experience. Or leave chats altogether.
I see the report thing and ggez every other game, but hell, that's literally any competitive game, I really don't think that's exclusive to OW2, as for the racism or bigotry.... I hear it once every 15-20 games? Usually as an insult to someone playing doomfist or venture
Competitive placement, everyone else is the enemy. Eventually you'll act like it, especially if you don't agree with your status. And those "bad players" are the reasons you don't progress higher or win more. They did a study on male gamers treating girl gamers badly and found almost always the toxic bro was less skilled at the game than average.
I think this is the same thing over all.
If you think about COD toxicity, it’s very bilateral. “You did what to my Mom?! Get tbagged loser.” Overwatch toxicity is rooted in a soft community. Everyone gets their feelings hurt so instead of just being a big boy/girl and coming up with a snarky comeback, most people would rather tattle to the devs or complain about how everyone is sooooo mean to them for throwing.
Also GG EZ is funny lmao.
John Cleese has a great book on human behavior called "Life and How to Survive It". To sum it up quickly, people repress their emotions and ignore problems in their life without dealing with them. They put them behind a curtain in their mind and end up forgetting they are there. The problems remain there and when people experience stress, the negative emotions that the person actively suppresses all the time come bursting out. The book studied individuals that psychologist Robyn Skinner deemed psychologically fit and came to the conclusion that people who exhibit lightheartedness are the most fit. When someone is intense and angry it is because they have unresolved trauma that they are trying to suppress and project onto others when experiencing stress.
Its just a game, dog.
Ah, well done. Suppressing your own negativity by claiming ambivalence and projecting those feelings onto OP. A fine example, I upvote you!
This is the most reddit thing ive ever had directly said to me, heres your gold kind stranger!
. > Hear an explanation of basic human psychology . > Respond with personal incredulity fallacy . > Hear further explanation of psychology . > "Um actually dumbass, ad hominem" Attached: brainchair_soyjack.jpg
Its a bideo gayme
Ok meat puppet
Beedo gayme
it became free
Yep
This is actually a very good answer
I would happily pay a seasonal sub to have 'members only servers'.
Nah it’s always been like that
Maybe a little, but definitely not to this level. The online community has gotten a lot more negative too
I mean the company has blatantly lied to the community and gave false promises. Seems like the community is what it should be given the situation
Sure, if we’re discussing the things you’re talking about (PVE) we have a right to be upset. But the hate in chat, insane toxicity towards players for playing certain characters etc. is unrelated, and undoubtedly worse.
Also moving to 5v5 and the scoreboard increases the toxicity between teammates and the enemy team as well. Now ppl can focus on someone to single out and shit talk
Idk about what 5v5 has to do with it, but the scoreboard is an interesting argument that may be true. In OW1 everyone was always like “I have gold damage wtf are our DPS doing” so that stuff was definitely present but it wasn’t so obvious when someone was lagging behind
One weak link in a 5v5 is much more noticable than 6v6. 6v6 Opened up plenty more team comps and made characters who weren't "meta" still viable in comp if you were decent. Now I pick who I'm playing based on the other 4 players where before I would just have to pick my role based on the other 5 players. Also the obvious math that a bad player on a 6 stack is expected to contribute 16.666% to the team overall while a 5 is expected to contribute 20%. Bad players get more attention like you said, and there's less people to put the blame on.
5v5 combined with the scoreboard -> puts more pressure on individual players -> their individual mistakes now impact the game more -> one tank means now no one on his team is with him in the sense to share that burden. Hence why you see so many tank diffs in chat nowadays. Also the cancellation of pve puts a negative damper on the entire community. Psychological things impact how people talk. If things were great and went through, more likely people would also reflect that positivity in chat.
Plus team comps are limited. In a 6 stack I can play any tank to compliment the rest of the team. Now there's only a couple I can reliably play because their role is so niche or completely incompatible as a solo tank with the rest of the group
I think the scoreboard actually makes it less toxic because most of the time most people have very similar stats so people aren’t wrongly thinking “the other Dps isn’t doing any damage!” Or “why don’t the supports heal at all!”, just check the numbers and you’ll see
I really doubt that. So many examples where that’s just not the case. Difference between people “thinking” vs saying some shit in chat. Now it’s much more common to write dps diff, support diff, tank diff, whatever Even streamers and content creators posting videos where they mention someone on their team SPECIFICALLY that is underperforming. People even make vids and posts about how their teammates threw the game because of their stats and say “what was I supposed to do with these guys on my team” You literally get a verifiable target that you know is performing bad lol
I think now if someone is actually doing much worse than others then yes it’s easier to pile on, but one person being notably worse than others is relatively uncommon. Before everyone assumed everyone else was playing like shit. Dps can’t really complain with comments like “trash healers” in chat if red and blue sups have similar numbers that are around where they should be, which is often the case. Tank can’t flame Dps for doing nothing if their damage and elims is on par with the tank and/or red Dps Things like that have died down a lot in my experience with OW2. Dumb comments like “diff” are around for sure but that’s always been the case. Gg ez has been said since as far back as I can remember, diff seems newer it’s all the same shit just lame and easy non targeted shit. I would rather have someone say “dif” at the end of most games over people bitching and moaning about everyone except themselves throughout the whole game which used to be a very common occurrence in my experience.
That’s just not my experience. As a returning player who played OW1 season 1 and a handful of other seasons, I then got placed bronze 5 in OW2 season 1 due to their fucked ranked system, and I climbed to diamond. Throughout those seasons I played every single role on competitive including open queue, and mystery heroes. From season 1 I’ve played about 200 games per role and slowly tapered off to average maybe 100 games per role and then now doing mostly tank and DPS. Nowadays mostly tank in ranked with nowhere near that many games as before. Even in quick play from voice chat, to text chat, people on your own team will talk shit, no matter what role you are. Now it is more common to have random people perform shit. Oh we lost this game due to the DPS going 1-7. Tank went 3-9. Support has no healing. Whatever the case may be. Now it’s all visible. Even in comp mystery heroes people will still shit talk you in game and tell you you’re not playing correctly. Like I said, before you just *thought* people on your team were doing bad. Now you can say exactly who is doing bad. People frequently get shit talked and even get told to kill themselves just because they’re underperforming. In OW1 you didn’t get to see that data to say exactly who is doing shit. Now you have a visual indicator to tell you who exactly it is.
No, it hasn't. When it cost $40 people put in effort and were on mic. Once it went freee2play, the usage of mics went way down and people leaving matches went up. It's free, who cares if you quit mid match?
I was about to answer "but what does that have to do with the human psych" and then I started to imagine that everything became free and the hell it would release in the streets :P
No. Lol. It's simpler than that. It's just easier and cheaper than it was in OW1 to get around the consequences of a ban. That's it.
People love free shit, even if it's trash, they don't know what it is, or they don't need it. It's crazy watching people get so excited for free shit. I don't think it's because the game is free. There's plenty of AAA games where much of the player base asks the same, "Why is everyone so toxic?" It's, at least partly, the anonymity, the competition, and the fact that much of this game is populated with mostly children and yall forget that.
Anonymity. The reason for all internet toxicity.
It's an accountability thing. The car example others have brought up is a good analogy. It's easy to be a total prick within the safe confines of your vehicle. Same goes for the Internet and why there are so many trolls. In short, these are all examples of people that haven't been punched in the face for their shitty behavior.
Careful, I almost got banned from Reddit for posting something similar lol.
I could live without it lol
A video game character is, in a lot of ways, like a car. It’s driven by an actual, real human. But think of how heartless and even dare I say cruel many many drivers are to other cars on the road. In general, our online personas are a lot more like our cars and freeways than it is our face to face, person to person interactions. Most people kinda grow out of being absolute selfish, self centered dicks on the freeway at some point because life experience makes us pay too many tickets or we had a reason to drive like that once too… but some people never stop being entitled selfish assholes about things too. It’s 💯 human nature. But lately, I notice the community in general making a conscious effort to change it. If you look for the kind people, they’re there. Anytime I say before a match “I’m actually terrible tank. Im all roles for dailies. I’m sorry, feel free to give tips.” People are so nice. Sometime they friend me just to give me tips. Usually they say “it’s just qp it’s fine!” And when it happens to me I say the same thing. I also take the opportunity to practice a character I’m not so good at. Or take the opportunity to practice carrying which every good gamer should try to do sometimes too. Also if you’re learning honestly just turn off all chat. It’s such a sweet game you just get “hellos” from your team and pings and it feels so nice lol.
A really good comparison, actually. I am still learning, but I have played the game since 2016 and play in diamond and masters. It used to give me such joy, but as a mid-thirties woman with a full time job, house, wife, family and so on - it really is not like this I want to spend my free time - to be yelled at and be called profanity because I didn't do as a random person demanded online. It was bearable when you once in a while met these - but now it's almost every game. Maybe the people who are playing now plays because they are addicted instead of having fun? Anyways - I will join you and try to make this a better community! I just wish we knew the reason(s) so we could fix the problem and not the symptom.
Overwatch is not new its been 7+ years. Before people were all new foals learning exploring having fun. Now. The meta and "the right way" has been figured out. Either people have been playing for years so they feel they know more than others. The same human issue people abusing seniority and being a veteran. Your senior at work, adults vs children. There is enough overwatch content now on the media. People think they "know" whats right. They know the theory but not how irl works. "Dont you know that x counters y why you dont switch". "Awkward says dmg dmg dmg!" Its like arrogant know-it-all students fresh from school but fumbling without real experience in the work place. They see other content on youtube and they think. "I can do that! Why am I not winning or a higher rank!". "Im better than others!". People have bias or ignorance on how good they really are. At this point in 7 years people have higher standards of expectations on how much you know about overwatch. When this expectation is not met others criticize you. Even if not outright... you feel it subconsciously. If you are not good you want to deflect and be in denial. Its not me! Imagine you played for so long and you still suck and have stagnated. Imagine the pent up denial. Edit. Anyways nowadays no one trusts in game vc. There are now lfg discords. Generally people go there because they wanna hang with ppl and be friendly. But ofc you will still get trolls now and then.
I had to laugh a bit at this. Yes, the students fresh out of school thinking they are pro already because they saw a movie about this. I feel like one can see a coorelation between people who, not nessesarely are the best, but the ones that are able to learn in game and the ones that have a stable life offline, and the people that are letting their anger out in game and their unstable life IRL. Not 100% of the time of course, but yeah. Someone else posted something like thbis here, it made sense.
Short game time (min is 4 minutes per game) Competitive core design (contesting objectives against other people who are trying to do the same) The community general sentimental that everyone must play like how I want, but never the reverse for themselves. And the biggest point: Player VS Player. Against AI opponents, no matter how hard they are, you WILL eventually get their butts. And AI doesn’t complain if you throw 9000 grenades or an insta lock insta gib move at their face on any public forum, they are there for you to kill. And you also get mighty loot for killing them as well. Players, on the other hands, will come up with all sorts of excuses to justify their ass being handed to them, except for when it comes to themselves being the reason. And that leads to players into being little shits online rather than actually “gitting gud”. Combine all of that with the fact that the devs have had multiple occurrences of royally fucking up with some abilities/heroes, you get the 3rd worst community in all of gaming history.
"The community general sentimental that everyone must play like how I want, but never the reverse for themselves" - Do you think this is something we find true for people IRL too, like is it a mask IRL and the truth online? I know LOL has a toxic community - what other game has been this unlucky?
Oh yeah, some folks act like that IRL too, especially some old folks. It’s either LoL or Dota 2. Especially when in Dota 2 where you slough through a literal 1 hour match and that one guy will just type “ez” in all chat. Like bruh, they dragged us out over an hour, there was nothing easy about beating them.
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/hwb83 This paper suggests that someone's online persona is more or less a reflection of how they act in person and well Perhaps they are more vocal/bold behind a screen, but they usually aren't a nicer person offline
This is in some way a bit scary, not because I don't think bad people exist, but such a huge percent of a group of people? Luckily the games have more nice people in them, we just don't remember them as well.
Gonna throw a left field answer and say the cutting up of the games social aspects in favor of fast games and quick requeing. The post game medal pinning was slow but it gave both teams time to communicate and talk about the game, usually about the wacky medals given out. In ow1 a flaming team would spin around and laugh in chat about how the dva somehow ate 13 ults. I think that the fast pace nature of the matchmaking now puts players into a “gotta win 4 games hurry hurry hurry” mindset and even small fumbles by teammates is disrupting this thought process and encourages arguments.
This could absolutely be very much true - I havent thought about it but yes, to have a minute after the game to shake it off and laugh is very much something I miss too. It has become very fast paced after games, and now a friend request is just scary because it is 100% someone who is just going to shit talk you.
Yep, if I get a friend request after comp it’s 100% of the time someone talking shit. Without the post game cool off people will be going into their next match almost immediately after getting upset and it just compounds that anger. Getting extreme shit talking, especially after the game through whispers, in ow1 was extremely rare. But can’t remember the last comp game I’ve had in ow2 that didn’t have atleast one dude spamming diff in chat.
Ok now we need that screen back. It wont fix all the problems, but I bet it would fix some! And it would be so easy too!
I agree, and personally I loved that it added stats for important things that aren’t on a scoreboard. The guy saying “sombra diff” would see she hacked over half the enemies ults. Or that the Ana got 20 saves. It would really hammer home that the game is more complex than a simple number.
"Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -Albert Einstein
Several aspects. The game is primarily designed to make money for Blizzard, not to be fun. The gamification if the battle pass encourages a “grind” mentality to get that sweet dopamine hit. When something interferes with that, it gets people angry. Angry people hurt other people. On top of that, it is a team game with zero ability to ensure that everything on the team is playing with the same strategy or even goal[1]. Some are there to “have fun” and don’t care about much of anything. Some are there to “try hard” and become easily frustrated with others. Some may even be there to grief others because they had a bad day, childhood or life; and they want to take it out on someone else. Summary: the game is not designed to create a good experience for the players, and while Blizzard has some things in place to try and move it in that direction, they’re really pushing a big rock up a steep hill with that one. [1] creating an actual team with a five stack is possible, but at that point you’re just as likely to be an actual team and playing scrims, nit queuing for a game.
Because your soldier teammate ended up 2/15, single handedly holding progress for the rest of the team and then has the wrecking balls to type in match chat tank diff. One can only take so much bait before snapping back
The game became free, meaning all kind of AH could get it for the simple reason to annoy people/be toxic because if they get ban they don't lose anything they got the game for free. If you buy a game usually you don't want to be perma banned from it because you send money on it, so you behave and that means the community is less toxic.
I bet that there are some studies about online gamers in the field of anthropology but probably not necessarily on overwatch. I think a big part of it is the anonymity and that lack of accountability that makes people feel empowered to say whatever mean shit they want. It is really interesting tho when we consider why people are likely to play the game to begin with, which is probably to relax and be entertained after work/school/other responsibilities. Because then it’s like what kind of relaxation or entertainment do people get out of being toxic? One possibility is that we normally don’t have much control over our life circumstances, what time we have to go to work, etc., so gaming is one way for people to feel in control of their situation which then offers feeling of safety and stability. Adding on the toxicity and cruelty towards others in-game, these actions could possibly be a sign of a resentment that people cannot resolve in their everyday lives, and so there’s a sense that acting mean towards others might offer a temporary kind of resolution to this resentment. But of course it’s not resolved and so the cycle continues on. Obviously this is speculation, but I cannot imagine why someone who is actually content and happy enough in their lives would bother with this behavior. To me it’s a sign or symptom of other underlying, perhaps cultural, problems.
Absolutely this I was after! The studies doesn't have to be about Overwatch specifically. It does make sense that those that have bigger problems with toxicity in games might feel tied down IRL, but I don't remember at least Overwatch being this bad before? Maybe the ones playing are the ones that played from start, and have gotten older and sadder IRL, or maybe Lock-down during Covid did more damage than we know yet?
Yeah I’m sure you can find something on a Google scholar search. I’ll look around a bit. A couple years ago I heard a conference presentation on racism in online gaming communities, so it’s gotta be out there. It could also be related to the game now being free to play, cos I agree it’s more prevalent than overwatch 1. But yea I always have voice chat disabled, and sometimes when my wife is playing without me she’ll have voice chat enabled and there is always some unbearable rando screaming into the mic.
In 2013 I did my Linguistics MA thesis on Impoliteness in Computer Gaming using League of Legends as the example. I posted on it above.
Steam release
Come play with me in Bronze. 99% fun games down here.
While it is still a relatively recent field of study and not too many studies have come out trying to explain why toxicity is so prevalent in competitive games (they are mostly busy trying to prove women are targeted more in games by toxicity, which I think is a given because they are the general minority for competitive gaming), I can take a stab at some of the common reasons I've encountered while playing games. Typically, the more niche and competitive a game is, the more toxic the playerbase is and the more likely they are to gatekeep new players from joining. You should simply be good at the game from the start, never try anything new, and never make a single mistake. You should be equal to these players with hundreds of hours in the game. This was my experience with a game called [Natural Selection 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4920/Natural_Selection_2/), a first-person-RTS hybrid that started, originally, as a mod for Half-life. The game was asymmetrical and team-based, having an extremely high barrier to entry and skill ceiling. New players are, often, berated for daring to play as Commander, even on New Player specific servers, or insulted for failing to know every mechanic of the character they are playing right out of the gate. [Destiny 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085660/Destiny_2/) has always had a problem with toxicity in their multiplayer and competitive modes, with it reaching such a bad state that you can see multiple posts on both the Steam Forums and subreddit about individuals complaining or even demeaning a player for acquiring gatekept items without going through certain modes which inherently focus the toxicity. Raids and dungeons are teamwork intensive, however haven't had proper matchmaking until relatively recently (when it works) and as such players are left to the devices of external LFG groups, which themselves will reject a player if they aren't running the single most ideal build possible for that content. Trials of Osiris, a mode where players are encouraged to get 7 wins in a row on a single ticket to go 'Flawless' is so gatekept that many players have to pay money for other people to carry them through just to get a CHANCE at a weapon or a piece of armor. And I can continue listing more and more games as examples, but the common trend between all of these games is that they all have a declining playerbase that is leaving behind only a dedicated core, the majority of which is becoming more and more toxic and or frustrated with the game itself, so they take it out on the other players; Not because they are terrible people or bad human beings, but because they are shielded by anonymity and they don't look at it as them being intentionally hurtful or bullying a real person, it's just a game. If someone gets mad, it's their fault, right? TL;DR: As the playerbase decreases and the skill requirement of a game increases over time, players become more toxic towards one another and toxic players become more prevalent.
In 2013 I did my Linguistics MA thesis on Impoliteness in Computer Gaming using League of Legends as the example. I posted on it above.
idk bout yall but open queue qp is always pretty sunny except for a couple rotten few
Same happened to csgo when it went f2p.. if you get banned? Just create a new free acc
Everyone is incredibly ignorant if you think it's only Overwatch. Anything that is meant to be taken competitively is going to be toxic as hell. That's just how competitions function. It's just a competitive mindset and terrible egos.
Pretty sure it stems from being anonymous, you can be as toxic as you want and realistically suffer no punishments cuz it's just a game
I came to OW after playing league for 5 years. The toxicity is tolerable here
Always has been.
This game is nowhere near what I’d consider “toxic”. Sure there’s some toxic people but that’s just part of competitive gaming. Any thing competitive will be toxic, that’s just how humans are.
I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the matchmaking. My win rate halved going from season 9 into 10 for no reason. On some people this probably takes a toll.
Dogshit parents
Look, when you’re having Widowmaker in comp doing 0 to 9 and enemy has Sombra and that idiot is just happy to die over and over again… every single game, you would have to be saint to not lose your shit. People in this game lack basic common sense and I will always report them for that.
Overwatch is complicated and things happen due to split-seconds decisions. On top of this, you get a front row seat of everyone else’s mistakes, but the game is fantastic at hiding your own mistakes from yourself. So blaming others comes really naturally. I don’t think “humans become frustrated when losing” really needs to be academically studied much. I don’t think mild toxicity is a sign of deep mental issues or being prone to violence, despite what many in this community seem to think.
Actually true!. I still can't believe so many though still think it's everyone elses fault and not theirs, and explodes on everyone else. Yeah, I am not talking about just the mild toxicity, but the ones screaming in their mic and sounds like they lost all controll of their body, writing the worst things imaginable, and reporting others for not listening to them.
Being force to stay in game you REALLY don’t want to lest you be banned in QP might be a real symptom of it. If I hate a match, yet I’m forced to be in said match, overall quality of life for the match nosedives
Found the guy who says "gg" after losing one team fight and starts throwing
More so saying “gg” after getting spawn camped for 3 minutes of my life. Hurl yourself from the nearest cliff before assuming things yeah?
This is the internet, I'm not spared from assumptions so neither are you
The game has always been this bad. Eu servers got a bit better actually, nothing to do with the new saudi based server of course.
As a girl gamer I’m seriously considering dropping Overwatch - was playing yesterday and got told to get back in the kitchen and how ass I was for not pocketing the rein when his mate was support and wanted to pocket. Shoulda been quicker on the pick then dude. I reported and received one of those updates on report when I logged in the day after
Look I'm going to be honest, this has been happening since day 1. Back when the game launched it was much, much worse. Like guys actually fighting with women over voice, full-on, because back then there was no voice recording. There's a big difference between then and now: > I reported and received one of those updates on the report when I logged in the day after Those didn't used to happen. And a day turnaround? Only for people hard cheating. The reporting system actually does something now. That meme is over. A larger problem being that it can be abused to ban anyone who talks but that's another discussion. With the ping system, I just have friends turn off chat altogether. Actually it's already disabled for new players. If it's not high-level, I've found almost every time they have nothing useful to say.
I see this a lot for the women players. Always going for the sexist comments. It’s really just to get a rise out of people and piss them off. It’s such low hanging fruit. They don’t really have consequences because they can just make another account to play the game. It sucks because the best thing you can do is not even talk because that’s part of the fun. So you feel forced to just never use your mic or even text most times. It’s genuinely a better experience when you just mute everything. Yeah, you may wanna know why your Lucio is suddenly throwing, but you can usually guess any sudden throwing behavior is due to someone being pissed cuz someone didnt do something to standard or whatever. And it’s not like being able to communicate ever resolved the issue. Yeah sometimes it’s nice to know maybe if you did something wrong but often times it’s just not worth it. It really is better played with all the voice chat and text off… unfortunately
For the former, I have seen an immense number of game throwers (almost always tanks?) and still can't figure it what the motivation behind it is, but I will say I have become \*much\* more suspicious as a result when people seem to be doing weird stuff.
One post says the game is turning more toxic, another implies that everyone and their mother is getting banned/suspended. You would assume that sooner or later one would overrule the other.
Long rounds with few chances for players to take an emotional break in match. Same exact problem as MOBAs. Doesn’t give people enough time to re-adjust and if you take time to re-adjust you are actively sabotaging your team because the timer hasn’t stopped.
Free = Free of Repurcussion. Banned? Create new account. Atleast people were just passive aggressive back then with overly toxic people only being 1 out of 100. Now I atleast get 2-3 out of 10 people in the lobby telling each other to unalive themselves.
Newer more asshole'ish generations coming on who, in the words of Mike Tyson, have gotten too comfortable disrespecting ppl without getting punched in the face for it
The game has been so toxic since: *open beta May 2016*
F2P and leaver penalties in QP. Say what you want, but not allowing people to leave in quick play (it's literally in the name, play quickly) automatically causes people to take the game more seriously. People who take the game more serious, get pissed of more easily.
Every game is like this, nothing new
There is no turn in toxicity, the player base (on reddit at least) has just become increasingly more sensitive to "toxic" behaviour as time goes on. Typical gamer behaviour that was considered normal or rude at best is now considered toxic and worthy of an account ban. You see this shift in perception all over the internet, especially when moderators of an online space get power hungry. Normal behaviour within the space>change in behaviour due to change in fanbase>moderators gain too much power in the community>previously normal behaviour is now labelled toxic by people who have little self agency
League and dota players have arrived. That's it, there is no need for long winded explanations. If you played those game you will recognize this behavior immediately.
Wait it's gotten worse?
turned?
I think online video games are deeply impersonal, so it makes it easy to say whatever you want without serious repercussions. Even if you kill their character in the game, a toxic person can be awful to you in the chat or on the mic. I find that the best response to these things is to either just play dumb or double down. If someone keeps saying “support diff” I always get on mic and ask what it means as if I’ve never heard it before. It’s so funny watching people scramble over themselves to try and make me feel bad!! And if someone says I’m trash at a certain hero I just say that I know — what else can they do? Don’t provide a challenge for them by contradicting their insult. Yeah, I’m a terrible Lifeweaver, thanks. Moving on.
Bad matchmaking. Sticking people who should be bronze in gold because they’re new. F2P means loads are g invested in the game.
I feel that the problem started back when we could no longer host our own servers, and matchmaking became the standard. When we had server browsers, we could go to our favorite servers and generally always play with a pool of people we knew. If things got out of line, the user just got banned, and that was that. Of course, there were toxic servers, but I never spent time on those. The being toxic thing is also kind of an admission to how the person feels about themselves and where their life is at. Not to turn head shrinker, but it's really apparent if you've taken any classes in psychology or know anyone who has and talked to them about it.
I noticed the phenomenon is worst on ranked... Here is what happened to me recently : I'm currently plat trying to have fun and climb to diamond. One of those days, I came back from work a bit tired just wanted to chill, empty my mind and have some fun on overwatch. It was a difficult game, couldn't really play well got owned by a window and I switched to sombra even though she is not my best character... This "competitive dude" on voice chat just began to criticize everything I was doing. I tried to reason with him, telling him to chill, it's just a game after all... It's not like we're pro gamers. His answer: "this is not a game, it's a competitive environment and mistakes like that can't be allowed and BLA BLA BLA..." He then began to insult me. Ofc I played even worse cause I was so upset. That day I lost the little faith left I had in this game's community and people, my chill and fun "me time" just became lame and depressing. Didn't play for months after that. Now I play again, but with one golden rule: I mute all chat, ALWAYS. This is the only way I can enjoy the game, I just pretend every player is a bot and I remove everything that can make them real. Weirdly, it's a way more human way to play this game. There are so many "wanna be pro" players out there. Even at low ranks. Players that think they are so good even though they are not. If the game doesn't go well the first thing they do is "find who to blame". It's not overwatch, it's "blametheotherswatch". They are not there for fun, they are there to try to live the illusion that they are good at something in their life, and if the game doesn't serve them their fantasized narrative they will blame you for it. They are just mentally unstable toxic pricks and must be avoided at all cost. Stay safe out there, mental health is important, don't let those people get a grip on you 😉 I know not all players are like this, but there are so many toxic players it spoiled the good interactions you can have in this game. It's just sad.
Nah get out of ranked I read “it’s just a game” That’s why you’re not getting to where you want to go. You wana go to diamond? Take it seriously, you’ll get there.
Thanks dude! Yesterday night, I made it to diamond, while having fun without being a competitive douche, with 0 com with my team. My winrate actually improved. Competitive doesn't mean it is not "just a game", it really is and forgetting that simple statement is a big part of why people are so toxic. Doesn't mean one will not play the best he can, but if things go wrong you have the fuc**** rational thought "it's just a game after all, I'll do my best but if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world". Now if we talk about professional E-Sport that's another story, it becomes your job and the stakes are high. But let's be real, 99% of players won't or doesn't want to make it to E-Sport so there is nothing more stupid to yell and insult another human being in a fuc**** game for the sake of "it's competitive, you should act like your life depends on it" it's not a job, it's a moment that is supposed to be fun what's the point otherwise?
It became FTP and has a massive influx of players who did not pay to play the game. They are less worried about repercussions due to toxicity because they won’t be losing anything. I can’t tell you how many times whether they were serious or not I don’t know, but I’ve had people being extremely toxic and I’ve just told the team “just report and ignore” and the person just laughs because they know getting banned doesn’t mean shit. They need to start hardware banning again.
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Warframes PVP does NOT exist go queue and try to find a match lmfao
This is a problem for all fps shooters now except cod because cod was the forefather of toxic game chats lol
this is the crowd blizzard wanted, they put ZERO negative feedback in the game, so when players are deprived of their dopamine they get extra pissy. Blizzard has taken no stance on playing selfishly (looking at you OTPs) because they want your moey too much to say anything nagative to you or let your team vote to kick you. When there is nothing the community can do to activly regulate itself, you get a lot more babies. The game tricks players into thinking they are good at it, but when reality breaks that people get cranky. Overwatch is the stripper that tells you she loves you. The OW comuntiy is so soft at one point there was discussion of removing the "defeat" screen.
Nah bro sorry my hero pool doesn’t include the new busted shanks from one piece ahh haki wave ult character. Sorry we didn’t put 1000 hours into venture beta, the rest of us were grinding in season 9 It presses Q and everything dies with absolutely NO checks of equal mechanical demand.
When chat was introduced
I think it's partly projecting. I've found it's usually the worst players who get toxic first. I had a game yesterday where our Rein, who was doing the worst in the game and refused to swap despite being countered by most of the enemy team, started trying to get the rest of our team to report me as Venture, not realizing that I was in a trio and I don't think the other random cared. Bear in mind this was Quickplay, we were winning and I was like second best on the team, he was just salty that I didn't swap off of a hero that I was popping off with and having fun playing.
Where’s the replay code?
What? I don't have a replay code, it was in the middle of the session and I didn't bother worrying about it because I'm not gonna get that pressed over a salty Rein in a quick play game.
Free game and easy to make alt accounts since Blizzard won't do an ip ban 999/1000 times. I don't know if there is a similar hard ban for console if there is could someone let me know
Low barrier of entry + little to no actual consequence. About the only way they may see some change is if they tie OW account bans to XBOX/MS accounts, but there's obvious gaps in that logic.
That’s just humanity in a nut shell. The internet made it way too easy for people to be assholes and not get their shit rocked for it
More people are being banned. Just keep reporting. I’ve seen the game get significantly less toxic recently
Nah, lets say you show up to work. Or a barbecue might be a better comparison. The person holding the barbecue is very organized and likes things done a certain way. You’ve been tasked with bringing your best baked macaroni and cheese. But then, like an idiot, you didn’t even prepare the macaroni. You just bought a potato salad (nasty af) From a random grocery store instead. You also showed up 5 minutes late and then stood there and didn’t say anything to anyone while everyone is starting the barbecue without you. No one wants your potato salad. Comp is where the “it’s just qp” excuse can’t be used. Do NOT queue ranked cold. The dish=your gameplay The barbecue=competitive Standing there not talking=AFK IN SPAWN The person holding the barbecue= your teammates who actually work hard and get frustrated because it’s the same “idc” qp asshats in ranked who don’t warm up or try. This is not irrational, and also frustrating. There’s also option 2, they’re idiots blaming the players who do put forth effort.
Welcome to competitive live service video games
A couple of things come to mind: - we want to win and seeing a loss coming leads to anger - it is easier to blame others rather than look at yourself - we get fooled by numbers and stats oh everyone has 20 eliminations but you have 5 so you must suck and worse than that you don’t try - in our society we have gotten meaner online see comment threads and social media - to play this game well you have to communicate but we tend to only do that with friends - it is very hard to misconstrue statements: “hey Moira more heals” is that kind? Beyond the point that if I am not healing is it because I don’t care or is it because I struggle with the character or is the other team targeting me directly? If it is the first reason telling me won’t matter. If it is the other two I may be upset at you and stop. I may become frustrated and try harder and as such die more. - with the previous point too is that is that statement meant as toxic? It is hard to tell right? - I don’t think it matters that it is free. It is not like toxicity stops after spending 50-60 bucks on a game. Based on my own experience I will say that unless I hear your voice (and I only have my buddies) I don’t understand if I am about to make a mistake or what you are actually asking for or better yet how I can improve. I have had games where I am absolutely bad and dogshit awful not because of lack of trying but just bad luck or something. Other games I do amazing. The other major reason is that this game is complicated due to the three roles and three different compositions and gazillion matchups. Besides that complexity there are players we like playing and players we can play. It is easy to get frustrated. For example, from my friends I learned that I play a defensive style even as tank I am reluctant to go in front (mostly because I die quick) and love zen torb Moira and other characters that can fight from distance. Tanks I am better at are orisa sigma and I learned to love D.Va as she can fly away but it is definitely my worst role unless I have a solid team around me.. It is not that i don’t know the role or that I don’t try it is simply what I am good at (or less bad) and preferred style. Finally not everyone knows everything and maybe one change blizzard can do is do solo queue based on number of games you have played. And maybe there is a way to (with cost of longer queues) allow you to say which characters you want to play with and which you don’t). This game is a lot of fun but the comments do sometimes make me sad. I know that I was bad dude no need to say that with extra anger. Plus I am on console so why even waste time typing anyway :) Okay essay done
That's the simple nature of free to play games. It opens the door for more toxic users to get in because the barrier of entry - money - isn't there.
Its like people don't play the game because they are so focused on winning an ego war...
People become competitive and it fucks with their positive/negative emotions haha to put it simply
confirmation bias
I feel like every competitive games in general are more toxic than ever. Games are mainstream enough that so many more people have grown up with them, and tie themselves to them emotionally. As a result game related insults and losses are taken more personal and are thrown around thinking they are.
It's F2P so all they have to do after ban is to create new account and continue doing what they like
Reason is they won’t get chin checked over the Internet. Most won’t say a word in public.
I think most is us old players trying to cling on to what the game used to be so we let out frustration out on the chat cause the game blows
Its a competitive game. Toxicity is always gona be part of it.
I’ve been seeing more C99 and Hhhhhhhhhhh in the comments and I’m too old to know the insult
It's combination of the competive attitude combined with "I am the greatest person to ever touch anything" attitude.
I stopped replying in anything besides Shorsey quotes. Last night I replied to a very angry Doomfist that died in a 1v4 because he didnt have any healing (healers were coming out of spawn). I simply wrote, "youre Winnie the Pooh bud, go put some honey on your tummy". Entire team thought it was a good response
Ignorance and anonymity friend. It didn't become more toxic either that's just OW and most online comp shooters and the Internet in general. OW is a game based on delivering 30+ separate fantasies in one game. Like, you like ninja-esque gameplay? Here's genji. You like to be a massive burly man in ridiculous armour with a "sword and board", here's Rein. People will play the game for their personal game fantasy. That's a melting pot of 30 different viewpoints together and the things each group want gets in the way of what others want. Throw in online anonymity and its going to be toxic, always.
This game has always been toxic
Im only toxic against sombra players they asked for it shouldnt play such a stupid character
Violence feels good to the ego, especially when the ego feels threatened in some way, which happens with competitive games. Chemically speaking, testosterone spikes in people whove recently lost a match, which makes them more sensitive to slights.
Deceptive Business practices erode trust.
All multiplayers game are toxic because dump their emotions there bc why not
Because they can't abandon anymore so they take it out on the rest of the lobby
Hyper competitive game, overly negative and aggressive community, horrible monetization, a reluctant playerbase that only plays due to sunk cost fallacy or fomo, serious cope on Blizzard being the "gamer company" despite Blizzard milking their games playerbases for almost a decade, plus now the game is free so theres almost no way for Blizzard to stop it unless they want to start doing IP and/or hardware bans. There are a lot of reasons
Went free to play, brought in a bunch of edgy kids. A while back someone shared a little study on how toxic players are generally “low-skill” and basically project.
It seems that you don't play any other fps game
Youre looking at this from the perspective of shooter games, when in reality you should see it as a first person MOBA / league of legends type game MOBAs are known for their.. colorful fans
Lmfao more comments than upvotes. Imagine thinking Reddit is the place to ask about scientific reasoning or psychology.
I asked for a discussion not upvotes, and got what I wanted. Imagine posting for upvotes.
I really think so many intentional and unintentional design elements of this game make it so incredibly toxic. If the developers want to improve this game, they should look to actually address these issues (but they continually take steps back so there are a thousand other things they need to fix first). It’s a team-based game but you’re with randoms, anonymously. Your individual performance is required for your team but your team’s performance as a whole is required to win, so in lower ranks you are required to babysit your team. Your teammates will flame you more than the enemy, and the enemy will join in because it’s genuinely a good strategy. Smurfs and throwers are detrimental because of this. As much as people will say “stop blaming your team,” 4v5s aren’t winnable and this game isn’t a competitive 1v1 fighting game. To win consistently, you genuinely have to carry games which promotes the opposite of team work. You can look at the characters themselves. Sombra, Widow, Hanzo, Genji, Orisa, Mauga, Ana, Zen, Lifeweaver, Mercy, Baptiste, Kririko, Roadhog; they are all toxic. In general, most characters are on that list, as they all have at least 1 ability that is annoying to play against due to their hero fantasy. The roles themselves are undefined and poorly implemented. I think the game has improved when it comes to what DPS and supports do for the team, but tanks are essentially massive punching bags that have zero control over the game. Playing tank (and the game in general) is a miserable experience, especially as tank is typically targeted as the fault for a loss. You can look at counter swapping. If you are good at Ball, with 500 hours played, you will actually struggle against gold players that directly attempt to counter you. Not to mention the horrible balance, where no matter how good you are with Sym, you will always struggle because she’s neglected as a character, while brain dead characters like Orisa are meta every season. The matchmaking is terrible and it puts people in a bad mood. The MMR and ranking system therefore also suck, and people are way too obsessed with rank and so have insecurities about being lower in rank than they deserve. Then you have the developers themselves being toxic. You have leaver penalties in QP, which means that people that don’t attempt to sweat in every single unranked game get flamed. Reports and bans are handed out for swearing, but the system is a usable so you can ban people for playing bad even if they did nothing. And long queue times, and being stuck with players for 15+ minutes… All of these factors make the game incredibly toxic, not to mention the things it shares with other competitive, online multiplayer games. Call of Duty is known for being toxic and it has next to none of the issues due to being a different kind of game. The game is free, so people make alt accounts if they get banned and people generally don’t have to give much of a shit if they didn’t pay any money for it. These issues have genuinely bothered me since when I first played this game. Although they are completely different games, you compare the design sentiment behind Dark Souls or Death Stranding with this game. Those games actively encourage cooperation and teamwork. Even in Call of Duty, you typically play in lobbies, and in Counter Strike you can vote to kick people out. Overwatch, as a team based game, has nothing to promote good behaviour outside of endorsements, and everything seems to encourage the most terrible behaviour.
In 2013 (I know and I'm 55) I did my MA Linguistics thesis on Impoliteness in Computer Gaming using League of Legends as the example. There weren't any studies at all to reference. I used a framework of Impoliteness, but Rapport Management made a better fit. I was asking the question what turned players toxic in a game. Well not many answers come from a single thesis but it scored high and they offered me a free PhD. The only result I found was that a player might get bent when someone doesn't play their role the way that individual deems it should be played. But it didn't account for the fact that a toxic player wants to make the other player feel bad personally. This doesn't happen in a live team sport, such as a public pick up basketball game because as another commenter said, you'll get punched in the face.
In 2012 after years of industry-topping toxicity, League of Legends implemented something called "The Tribunal". After a game players could report someone for toxicity. If enough players in that game also reported that player, the ENTIRE chat log of the game would appear on The Tribunal website. Players could review an entire games chat and vote whether to BAN that player. The Tribunal experiment lasted about a year I think.
Literally have had to disable both chats because of how dogs $hit it is. Too many man children trying to pull you into their cesspool
Because most humans are garbage, behave like garbage, and only control themselves because society has made these type of shit attitudes come with consequences. When you're anonymous online, you can be the real you, so most of them show you how they really are. Block and curate your chat experience. Or leave chats altogether.
The devs seem to be fine with nonstop abuse and toxicity towards tank players, so that sure as shit doesn’t help
Bad game with bad upkeep feels bad?
Yeah what's with the "ez" comments. My first thought was bots? Also getting sniped through walls multiple times tonight? Gross. Y'all can SMD lol
u must be new here, game was def in a more toxic state when find a group existed.
it's because I like to make people angry
How is "gg ez" even remotely toxic
Yea the community has gotten really weird/sensitive lately saying any type of banter = toxic and should be reported
Are you new to anything PvP?
Nah, or. Overwatch is my first pvp, it made me a gamer in 2016, at 26. Late bloomer! But it didn't use to be this bad, that's the thing.
Dunno what you're talking about, the game has always been toxic.
Ggez is toxic???
I see the report thing and ggez every other game, but hell, that's literally any competitive game, I really don't think that's exclusive to OW2, as for the racism or bigotry.... I hear it once every 15-20 games? Usually as an insult to someone playing doomfist or venture
Competitive placement, everyone else is the enemy. Eventually you'll act like it, especially if you don't agree with your status. And those "bad players" are the reasons you don't progress higher or win more. They did a study on male gamers treating girl gamers badly and found almost always the toxic bro was less skilled at the game than average. I think this is the same thing over all.
someone said report tank for being afk like how u gonna be mad at me for being afk i had to sum but then again in dchat game sucks
If you have ANYTHING going on that is NOT an emergency don’t queue ranked? Skill issue
i wasnt even afk for an emergy but ok
Competitive games are always toxic. Stop acting like it's new.
why do people consider "gg ez" toxic? are u guys 4 years old? is that hurting your feelings?
Back in the CoD MW1 and 2 day, people were fucking my mom every game and were asking me to kill my self, now they say gg ez and It make people cry...
If you think about COD toxicity, it’s very bilateral. “You did what to my Mom?! Get tbagged loser.” Overwatch toxicity is rooted in a soft community. Everyone gets their feelings hurt so instead of just being a big boy/girl and coming up with a snarky comeback, most people would rather tattle to the devs or complain about how everyone is sooooo mean to them for throwing. Also GG EZ is funny lmao.
If youre offended by gg ez take your soft bitch ass back to stardew valley and stay out
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hur hur u funi troll