I get that communities for popular games can be a bit hit or miss, but communities for single player games are pretty chill. Competitive team games like the Source games you mentioned, League of Legends etc. are on a whole different level of toxic. They can’t even be compared.
For something like Genshin the real problem is content creators. Much of the so called toxicity has little to nothing to do with the game itself and is more an issue with huge cults of personality clashing with each other. I think every popular game is going to fall victim to this going forward and you just have to learn to ignore it.
It’s been years since I ever played CoD but my experience was that it is basically a racial abuse simulator with an FPS in it.
Nowhere near as bad, but I was shocked how intensely elitist and gatekeeperish Hollow Knight’s community can be. I’d already finished the game when I found the sub on Reddit but damn they are mean to beginners!
I’m surprised to see FFXIV in the OP because I’ve had the opposite experience. But to stay on point, Pokémon has one of the most toxic communities I know of. It’s nearly impossible to say anything semi positive about a game without getting a barrage of hate
100%. I stopped playing a decade ago, but when I played I was always amazed at the behaviour it brought out in people. I would watch people who I considered friends IRL turn into abusive jerks when I played with them. It’s this weird prisoner’s dillemma of a game where the psychology of the game appears to encourage ganging up on the weakest player.
I think you’re on to something here. I play all kinds of games with friends, and DOTA was the only one where I’d actively get shit on for my lack of skill. And that’s from real life friends too.
I’m convinced that some of the toxicity is tuned to your own contributions. I’m almost 40 and I still play League 8-10 hours a week.
Almost all of that is tipsy ARAM games, and considering I got my toxicity out years ago I find that, given I’m always positive and having a fun time, I solely fun into others that are positive and having a fun time.
People might underestimate how much self sorting that game does based on behavior in their algorithms.
Reporting players for in-game behaviour rarely did anything.
And there was no reporting mechanism at all if they decided to continue harassing you through DMs after the game was over - all you could do was block them.
I agree. But I want to give them some credit. I report people for being toxic or for afking. Recently the client tells me almost after every game that someone in my previous game was punished after my report.
Now, I can never easily validate this. But if its true it seems riot is taking a much more active role with automated punishment.
League of Legends is pretty fun. Just “mute all” every game and it’s a lot more tolerable. Don’t let the people that tilt after one or two deaths get to you. Recent comeback changes make the game playable until your nexus explodes
League was the poster child for toxic communities a decade or so ago when I played. It must have gotten better (it certainly couldn’t have gotten worse!) if this isn’t the top comment by a mile.
I bought a Rust ages ago, back when the development basically had it turning into a new game every year. Maybe I just got lucky back then, but never had a toxic interaction.
Cut to last year, when a group of guild members went to Rust so I redownloaded it after 5 years. Most of us only lasted a few hours and we tried half a dozen servers lol.
Yes, it’s crazy to me that people would think another game is more toxic because in rust most servers (I’m talking main/officiall servers) are really popular for at least half a week being Thursday wipes and Monday, if you build next to toxic you deal with them that whole wipe and then monthly servers same thing. It’s not one match and done with them I’m talking days and hours of just straight toxic gameplay.
League of Legends is toxic in the way of people getting too emotionally invested in a game, but Counterstrike (in the old days, pre Source and GO) was toxic in a casually bigoted way almost completely detached from the state of the current match, which I think is worse.
FFXIV for sure. Endgame players who have tryed this game understand how much is toxic be actually part of challenges. All the time FFXIV is advertise as happy place with happy community but no one talks about the toxicity of making groups for raids. I don’t regret to have quit and I don’t looking to returning as well.
What changed? I quit maybe 2-3 years ago, but at the time it was one of the most helpful and friendly communities out there. Maybe not in the hardcore-endgame-bubble, but the feedback from saplings was always positive.
I quit 1year ago after 5y of dealing with it. Helpeful in random content, sure, daily and stuff. But if we talking about extreme, savages, ultimate, then the toxicity spill like diarrhea. Friendly community ends as soon you step in a serious fights, and becomes a game you want to play only with close friends because of this.
I mean id understand endgame players but 90% of the people you will see in game are nice people who are just playing the game, like ive learned so much about xiv just from talking to other players.
Heroes of Newerth was the most toxic community I’ve ever been apart of. Nothing comes even close. It was rotten from top to bottom and made me quit a game I otherwise loved to play. I’m talking “The CEO frequently calls people slurs in all chat” level of bad.
As a FFXIV player, your experience or understanding of the game sounds like an outlier… I’ve played for 2+ years, it’s the most positive, welcoming and lively community I’ve ever come across!
Totally agree. I’ve been in some dailies where we keep wiping over and over due to new player and usually everyone is super understanding and gives pointers and help. I’ve rarely had a toxic pug in FFXIV. One one of the reasons each expansion brings me back.
Agree. I’ve been playing the game for the last year and am now almost at the end of the MSQ and I’ve basically encountered zero toxic people and plenty of people that went out of their way to be helpful. If anything, a few BLM players were trying a bit too much to help pointing out issues with my BLM rotation, which isn’t helpful when you’re still below LVL 50 and getting new spells every other level. Haven’t seen anything like that since switching to RDM, so it may just be a BLM thing.
I don’t think other players can see your rdm bar, so they have no way to judge what your next move should be, since there is really no rotation, it’s more of a reactionary class depending in what procs.
Tbh the genshin community isn’t necessarily toxic, genshin is so large that it’s genuinely difficult to pin down an entire genshin community. There’s the twitter genshin community, the tiktok community, different content creator’s communities, etc. It’s not a monolith just because the game is so gargantuan. The social media communities tend to be horrible but like, i watch a small genshin tiktok-er and theorycrafter and his discord and related communities around that have been genuinely lovely and actively elevated my experience with the game. I think it’s important to look at how, past a certain point, specific communities dont really exist? and that’s not just a genshin thing that goes for anything, different communities sort of splinter off and it’s hard to hold the whole thing to task ig
In any case, FFXIV is a weird pull because in my time playing GW2 I have many friends that have gone to ffxiv and come over to guild wars from it and almost always I hear nothing but good things about the broader community. It might have a bit of a toxic positivity vibe to it at times but I think the broader community seems to be pretty good? But uh. Valorant’s gotten pretty bad. I love the game and the people I’ve met through my time with the game, and the community was quite good around the beta but it’s just at a point where it’s just. fueled by ego and weird horny tiktokers, it’s not a great time lol
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I get that communities for popular games can be a bit hit or miss, but communities for single player games are pretty chill. Competitive team games like the Source games you mentioned, League of Legends etc. are on a whole different level of toxic. They can’t even be compared.
For something like Genshin the real problem is content creators. Much of the so called toxicity has little to nothing to do with the game itself and is more an issue with huge cults of personality clashing with each other. I think every popular game is going to fall victim to this going forward and you just have to learn to ignore it.
Yeah cults of personality + ipad kids on social media tend to be the large problem with genshin imo
Eve Online where, as long as you’re not telling your victim to use real world money to buy things before you scam them, anything goes.
I always thought that part was interesting. I personally never had a downright toxic interaction in Eve Online and I used to multibox 7 accounts.
It’s been years since I ever played CoD but my experience was that it is basically a racial abuse simulator with an FPS in it.
Nowhere near as bad, but I was shocked how intensely elitist and gatekeeperish Hollow Knight’s community can be. I’d already finished the game when I found the sub on Reddit but damn they are mean to beginners!
I’m surprised to see FFXIV in the OP because I’ve had the opposite experience. But to stay on point, Pokémon has one of the most toxic communities I know of. It’s nearly impossible to say anything semi positive about a game without getting a barrage of hate
LoL
100%. I stopped playing a decade ago, but when I played I was always amazed at the behaviour it brought out in people. I would watch people who I considered friends IRL turn into abusive jerks when I played with them. It’s this weird prisoner’s dillemma of a game where the psychology of the game appears to encourage ganging up on the weakest player.
I think you’re on to something here. I play all kinds of games with friends, and DOTA was the only one where I’d actively get shit on for my lack of skill. And that’s from real life friends too.
That’s what happens if you design a game in a way that makes it worse to have a bad player in your team than no player at all.
maybe ten years ago, but it’s a lot better now. still there’s toxicity but nowhere near as bad
I’m convinced that some of the toxicity is tuned to your own contributions. I’m almost 40 and I still play League 8-10 hours a week.
Almost all of that is tipsy ARAM games, and considering I got my toxicity out years ago I find that, given I’m always positive and having a fun time, I solely fun into others that are positive and having a fun time.
People might underestimate how much self sorting that game does based on behavior in their algorithms.
Reporting players for in-game behaviour rarely did anything.
And there was no reporting mechanism at all if they decided to continue harassing you through DMs after the game was over - all you could do was block them.
I agree. But I want to give them some credit. I report people for being toxic or for afking. Recently the client tells me almost after every game that someone in my previous game was punished after my report.
Now, I can never easily validate this. But if its true it seems riot is taking a much more active role with automated punishment.
League of Legends is pretty fun. Just “mute all” every game and it’s a lot more tolerable. Don’t let the people that tilt after one or two deaths get to you. Recent comeback changes make the game playable until your nexus explodes
League was the poster child for toxic communities a decade or so ago when I played. It must have gotten better (it certainly couldn’t have gotten worse!) if this isn’t the top comment by a mile.
maybe ten years ago, but it’s a lot better now. still there’s toxicity but nowhere near as bad
They clamped down so much that I get a 3 day chat ban for saying “sex”
Its cleaned up chat a lot but the people quitting as soon as the game goes down hill are still there
Can confirm- playing that game, if you don’t have enough friends online to make a full team- is painful… Very painful.
Don’t play this game solo. Don’t play it with strangers. You will have a bad time.
So you’re saying it’s a game community? ;)
CSGO can be pretty toxic but I’m glad I don’t have other reference points to compare it to tbh.
I played a game and a girl talked then someone said “is that a girl” then threw up a vote to kick and it passed. This was in ranked.
Rust
deleted by creator
The game or the programming language?
The game.
Told someone I played rust and they asked if I was racist or suicidal because those are apparently the qualifiers.
It really does bring the worst out of humanity, but at the same time I’ve met and known people for years who were my neighbors or even rivals
Same people I game with today I meet on rust. Only a couple of us still play as we are all older now and have real jobs but great friends.
Was looking for this lol.
I bought a Rust ages ago, back when the development basically had it turning into a new game every year. Maybe I just got lucky back then, but never had a toxic interaction.
Cut to last year, when a group of guild members went to Rust so I redownloaded it after 5 years. Most of us only lasted a few hours and we tried half a dozen servers lol.
Yes, it’s crazy to me that people would think another game is more toxic because in rust most servers (I’m talking main/officiall servers) are really popular for at least half a week being Thursday wipes and Monday, if you build next to toxic you deal with them that whole wipe and then monthly servers same thing. It’s not one match and done with them I’m talking days and hours of just straight toxic gameplay.
Those people just have not had the misfortune of playing Rust.
Yes, I say all that with love though I have some of my best gaming memories on rust.
League of Legends is toxic in the way of people getting too emotionally invested in a game, but Counterstrike (in the old days, pre Source and GO) was toxic in a casually bigoted way almost completely detached from the state of the current match, which I think is worse.
FFXIV for sure. Endgame players who have tryed this game understand how much is toxic be actually part of challenges. All the time FFXIV is advertise as happy place with happy community but no one talks about the toxicity of making groups for raids. I don’t regret to have quit and I don’t looking to returning as well.
What changed? I quit maybe 2-3 years ago, but at the time it was one of the most helpful and friendly communities out there. Maybe not in the hardcore-endgame-bubble, but the feedback from saplings was always positive.
I quit 1year ago after 5y of dealing with it. Helpeful in random content, sure, daily and stuff. But if we talking about extreme, savages, ultimate, then the toxicity spill like diarrhea. Friendly community ends as soon you step in a serious fights, and becomes a game you want to play only with close friends because of this.
I mean id understand endgame players but 90% of the people you will see in game are nice people who are just playing the game, like ive learned so much about xiv just from talking to other players.
Heroes of Newerth was the most toxic community I’ve ever been apart of. Nothing comes even close. It was rotten from top to bottom and made me quit a game I otherwise loved to play. I’m talking “The CEO frequently calls people slurs in all chat” level of bad.
As a FFXIV player, your experience or understanding of the game sounds like an outlier… I’ve played for 2+ years, it’s the most positive, welcoming and lively community I’ve ever come across!
Totally agree. I’ve been in some dailies where we keep wiping over and over due to new player and usually everyone is super understanding and gives pointers and help. I’ve rarely had a toxic pug in FFXIV. One one of the reasons each expansion brings me back.
Agree. I’ve been playing the game for the last year and am now almost at the end of the MSQ and I’ve basically encountered zero toxic people and plenty of people that went out of their way to be helpful. If anything, a few BLM players were trying a bit too much to help pointing out issues with my BLM rotation, which isn’t helpful when you’re still below LVL 50 and getting new spells every other level. Haven’t seen anything like that since switching to RDM, so it may just be a BLM thing.
I don’t think other players can see your rdm bar, so they have no way to judge what your next move should be, since there is really no rotation, it’s more of a reactionary class depending in what procs.
Escape from Tarkov
Tbh the genshin community isn’t necessarily toxic, genshin is so large that it’s genuinely difficult to pin down an entire genshin community. There’s the twitter genshin community, the tiktok community, different content creator’s communities, etc. It’s not a monolith just because the game is so gargantuan. The social media communities tend to be horrible but like, i watch a small genshin tiktok-er and theorycrafter and his discord and related communities around that have been genuinely lovely and actively elevated my experience with the game. I think it’s important to look at how, past a certain point, specific communities dont really exist? and that’s not just a genshin thing that goes for anything, different communities sort of splinter off and it’s hard to hold the whole thing to task ig
In any case, FFXIV is a weird pull because in my time playing GW2 I have many friends that have gone to ffxiv and come over to guild wars from it and almost always I hear nothing but good things about the broader community. It might have a bit of a toxic positivity vibe to it at times but I think the broader community seems to be pretty good? But uh. Valorant’s gotten pretty bad. I love the game and the people I’ve met through my time with the game, and the community was quite good around the beta but it’s just at a point where it’s just. fueled by ego and weird horny tiktokers, it’s not a great time lol
OSRS high level PvM or deep wild pking.