How journalist view modern gamers

Mog Spawn@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 571 points –
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Toxic sweaty players are the bane of internet gaming. Can't beat each other so they go to smurfing. Fuck it up for everyone.

Yup. It's why the only time I play online games now is with friends or not at all. Even then it's pretty much just co-op against the game rather than against other players. I only have so much energy for gaming and am willing to spend zero of that energy on toxic nonsense.

Check out Deep Rock Galactic. I've been playing for 5 years now and have never ran into a toxic player. The community is known for being pretty friendly.

I knoooooow, I've had like three people ask me to get that game lol

It's on the list!

Tried that one. Wasn't fun for me sadly

Its intense at harder difficulty and better weapons. The game shines at around Haz 4 & 5 missions.

I play with my wife, and it's over of the few games that has stuck around over the years.

But yeah, I get it.

Me too. The only two games I have been playing in the last 2 years are insurgency, division 2 and payday 2. All PvE. Fuck competitive players. The little time I have available to play, I want to have fun.

You mean competitive games right? Cause it sounds like you should avoid competitive games and game modes. The competitiveness is the point on of competitive games. Which is fine, not everyone needs to enjoy every game genre/mode. Just don't think it's the players fault in your outlined situation.

I’m waiting for some age verification system so that us older gamers can enjoy playing games without having to compete when we don’t want to. I don’t need to feel elite, I need to feel an enjoyable gaming experience without feeling like I’m not doing something right.

I don’t want a guide to tell me the best build for my character, or tell me how much damage I’m doing. I want to figure shit out without having some kid berate me for not “taking it seriously”.

Bring back games for enjoyment, not achievement farming to brag. No one fucking cares how “good” you are at -any- game when you’re my age.

We need full time job only servers or something.

Upload your W2 for verification to access this server.

Why aren't you working in the video game industry? Missed your calling.

I really like games that have a separate "competitive" section of gameplay....then I avoid it like the plague. I'm a "filthy casual".

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It's not just journos that feel that way.

Not entirely wrong though, that's why I don't play Fortnite anymore, and it's why I mostly play online games in bot-only mode

Dude I'm not exactly a casual gamer, and yet I still get my ass kicked by smug hardcore gamers in every single online multiplayer game i play. Among friends, there's a more even and more fun level of difficulty, but online it's a constant steamroll.

I loved shitting on people in CoD and League when I was 11 through 17. Tried to play league now as 25yo and I can see that the noobs that I loved to make fun of just didn't have the time to read guides and study the game 10 hours a day. Anyway, I get shit on nowdays

Uh, yeah, no, that's the experience. It's what I only play TF2 on custom servers, matchmaking is just not worth it.

They're right though. I'm into Battlebit Advanced at the moment and while it's a refreshing take on the Battlefield formula of combined arms gameplay, its also so much sweatier than the old Battlefields I came up on were.

Aw man, Battlebit is sweaty? That's surprising and disappointing

2 days ago, i ticked off a player (probably had been called a loser at least like 6 times) just because i went around killing prople with a C4 vest in battlebit

I agree. I picked it up a few days ago and have been playing, man do I ever get smoked, people are insanely sweaty. I thought maybe it was due to me not playing a ton of FPS games lately and getting a bit older... I decided to play a round of battlefield and did much better. People are sweating their ass off, I'm sure it also doesn't help that I don't know the maps yet.

I went straight into it from playing a lot of BF4 recently and it really took me aback. Weapon balancing is pretty awful as well, SMGs are much too powerful- the Vector has no recoil and a high fire rate so people can kill you in less than a second with it.

I get it's a meme, but it should be "Toxic gamers".

A competitive game, in a competitive mode usually attracts competitive people. These people want to win, are playing to win, etc. This is the enviroment made for that. People complaing in non competitive modes are just toxic people.

But it's also toxic to enter a competitive mode as a casual, cause a loss for your teammates, then blame it on " I just play to have fun XD".

Bad sportsmanship = toxic

Competition != toxic

I want to argue a nuance that toxic overcompetativeness is a meta issue in gaming, not a direct issue with competitive games. Like it's just as toxic to be like overly competitive with casual shit, though you're more likely to be called out as the insane person you are if you're being toxic over say something like animal crossing than if you're playing league.

I do agree with what you're saying though, it probably should just say toxic gamers to cover all of that because this is the internet and nuance has no transmission ability here.

(Tldr; yeah, it probably should)

Sounds like someone isn't one of the people that play for fun

Game devs do try, but it's hard when the problem are the losers with superiority complexes who lack control over their own lives.

I really don't get most of these comments. There's so many games out there you can play that aren't competitive. So why waste your time on a competitive game and complain that people try hard? That's the whole point of competitive games.

I might actually be able to answer that: toxic overcompetetive players can't be kept out. As soon as a game is of a certain genre, size, design, they flood the game and complain about it being too easy and having no endgame, therefore being dead. Since toxic overcompetetive players dominate all online channels by sheer time spent alone, they raise the impression of being "what gamers want" while actually like being less than 10% of a playerbase.

So far, every single game that started out as casual has become a playground for toxic overcompetetive players over time thanks to this mechanic. Funnily enough, the usual "you can just play something for casual" is usually being used after invading the casual game and demanding it turning more toxic and overcompetetive.

Yeah I've noticed this in ESO as well. I've been playing since the beta and people have constantly complained that the endgame content was too easy. Cue some cycles of power creep where your character can get progressively more powerful with better gear followed by more difficult dungeons, and now there is content that the average player just can't do anymore without min/maxing. I was in a Vet dungeon with three other experienced players and couldn't complete it after around 7 hours worth of attempts, and our gear/setup was good and we understood the mechanics of the bosses.

There's no way that Meemaw who picked up this game to casually play as a cute Khajiit and questing would be able to beat it.

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It's so weird playing games like CSGO and seeing two completely opposite sides of the same toxicity. You have the "try hards" that are toxic to the lesser skilled players, and the toxic players that talk shit about people who "try hard." They're not even necessarily talking to or about each other. A player just playing the objective and doing well will be called out as a tryhard, and a player who is doing pretty well and makes one mistake can be berated by his team for being a noob.

Having spoken with so many gamers who behave like this, I have found one common theme among them: They never played sports or team games IRL. Which leads me to believe the real root issue is a complete and total lack of sportsmanship, since video games do absolutely nothing to promote or teach good sportsmanship.

I've always thought the same thing. I grew up playing a few sports and there was never room for toxicity, even the one or two times I played in a somewhat competitive league. Now I'm playing casual esports and I gg after every match, win or lose. I don't really get why that's hard for some people, and they have trouble focusing on the win condition.

It's especially frustrating to see people give up in a 4v5 or something like that too. Like yeah it's not going to be easy, but it's not impossible. And when you end up coming out on top against the odds, you feel like a god, and you remember that match forever. I think people just want the high from winning without actually needing to try. It explains why there's so many people who make smurf accounts too 😐

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nothing is wrong for having a competitive mindset and therefore beating weaker casual player. The toxic part there is blaming the casual player for being bad like most (not all) tryhards in some communities. What they didn't know, with such a behavior they actively prevent newer player to access the game cause todays casual gamer could be tomorrows competitive player.

Cue PUBG. The only ones left in the subreddit are the sweats. Telling them it's a bad experience for a beginner to be matched with a high ranking tryhard in their first games is met with a response how you should suck it up and get good.

Without exception.

Back in the days before SBMM became the norm, you could have fun playing a competitive game without everyone being sweaty. My best gaming memories are of Halo 3 social games. It was still competitive but you rarely got ruined by full teams of hyper-sweaty no lifes. Even if you got put with people a lot better than you, most times they wouldnt just ruin your game, you could communicate through teabagging and just hang out. But now that CSR and loot box rewards etc are on the line, everyone is a hyper sweat and will just continue to dick on you so they can get their next lootbox faster.

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A real answer is my spouse plays them. I occasionally try to get into a game they are playing to spend more time together, but it's so toxic it never lasts more than a few nights.

Well I think there are enough games which attract both types of players and there is a lot of friction. Most Blizzard games fall into that category.

World of Warcraft and Overwatch attracted a lot of casual gamers and it is a shame some competitive players give them a hard time.

Taking World of Warcraft as an example, it would actually make more sense for competitive players to play with their guilds only. But many want to use the random dungeon tool additionally, out of lazyness in most cases, and than go ballistic on casuals.

If you can't deal with players being in a dungeon the first time or doing LFR, than don't use the tool...

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How'd you get a picture of me getting hosed in every pvp game I've ever tried to play?

I think the core fault with most PvP games is that you can only really play for fun in the first month or so. Everyone is kind of new, so there's not really a lot of getting stomped, and there's enough actual really bad players (like some of them must be five year olds and people who've never held a controller before) that even people of very mediocre skill like me can win.

After that it's just sweats left, and people who want to be sweats. Anybody else making the mistake of joining in will find very little enjoyment to be had.

I just stick to single player games most of the time.

I have never bought games upon release, so maybe this explains why I have never enjoyed multiplayer games.

Yeah... The times someone dismissed me in World of Warships because my win ratio was too bad... Yeah, I've been playing the game for ages and was very slow to get better at it, so my stats overall are bad, so what?

Besides, it's a game. Go get your self esteem somewhere where it matters, not in a fucking video game...

This is why I can't enjoy most new games, especially since I am exclusively on smartphone games with limited time and no interest in paying for anything. All the multiplayer mobile games set up this scenario to push you to buy power ups to get that guy back who just wiped you off the map with a $5 item. Nah, I'll just uninstall at that point.

I tried playing league of legends for the first time a few months ago. I haven't done any gaming in easily a decade or two and figured why not.

Like many (most, all?) games are now it was so damn complicated. There's hundreds of characters, infinite matchups, all these different potions and powerups etc. I thought I had the basics down but the other players told me very clearly how much room for improvement there is in my game. I feel like every game I've seen and heard of lately is like that.

Back in the day we'd get the guy from the left side of the screen to the right, and sometimes you had to jump over something to get there. Where are those games now? I'm busy and don't have time to get a phd in your game's lore, I just want something simple and mindless to unwind.

LoL is a esport competitive game, so it definitely breads a competitive player base. Not every game is made for every single person to enjoy. Which is fine.

Plenty of games are released daily that you could instead play that match your wants. If you give more insight outside of "just wanting an easy game", I could sort out list of reccomdations and send them your way.

I think the last new game I played was Mario Wii in 2012. It was challenging and engaging but easy to learn with a good walkthrough easing you in with the basics.

I still play C&C Red Alert now and then. Just dusted off my joystick and installedX-Wing alliance (upgrade at least, not the OG version from 1999). That's pretty much it. All the other games I've seen recently are either way too complicated (LoL) or just not engaging enough (Mario Kart for Switch for example, it's fine for a bit with friends but I just don't see myself playing it a lot.)

Oh, and I've been playing a lot of chess lately, currently rated around 1600 ELO.

I think it's very possible I'm just not a gamer..

I personally love being "overly competitive" in games. I want a mode of the game to do that in. That's why I play ranked mode in league, where ARAM and Normal games are for the forfun players.

Same. I like that League has the options for both. There's a lot I dislike, but I'm also a glutton for punishment.