Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Toxic players

    • 90 posts
    November 15, 2019 12:28 PM PST

    Doford said:

    I find EU PVE servers to be pretty benevolent in the games I play so I don't experience much at all toxicity. It's a non-issue for me. 

     

    You would be suprised what people consider Toxic these days, which is why I asking for them to clearify what the considered Toxic? Is it going to be the same old arbituary non specific rules that changes day to day on what current mod/GM finds offensive that day? This is very common these days. 

    • 3852 posts
    November 15, 2019 4:43 PM PST

    Doford is right - EU servers in almost all MMOs seem far more civilized. Not 100% perhaps but far more.

    • 66 posts
    November 15, 2019 8:04 PM PST

    dorotea said:

    Doford is right - EU servers in almost all MMOs seem far more civilized. Not 100% perhaps but far more.

    Roleplaying servers and other special ruleset servers (barring PVP probably) benefit from this phenomena as well sometimes. I loved my community on Rift's Faeblight (RP) server for the first year or so, until they allowed server transferring at will. Saw a huge uptick in jerks breezing through after that.

    • 159 posts
    November 19, 2019 6:04 PM PST

    This thread has me a little concerned on how the community (or at least a few people on this thread) define "toxicity in MMOs" and how it should be regulated. My concern is that the community will want the game to be highly censored and people should only be able to play the game in a way that the majority / vocal majority want it to be played.

    > In a nutshell I break actual toxicity down into two main categories:

    1. Abusing, exploiting, or using game mechanics to intentionally grief others.

    2. Harrassing players via chat or other forms of communication, or through character interaction (emotes/stalking/character blocking).

    I'll start with #2 as it is a little more cut and dry. More often than not, a simple /ignore command takes care of #2. Harrassment and innappropriate comments are subjective (usually). My intentions vs. your interpretation don't always align - this is when a simple /ignore works wonders. If you don't enjoy someone's comments, criticism, trash talk, or spamming (advertising services, begging you for trade / currency, etc.), then /ignore. Only when that behavior is extreme (sexual harrassment, death threats, unrelenting with efforts to bypass /ignore, etc.) should GM's get involved and possibly pursue diciplinary action.

    As for #1, I saw a lot of examples of "toxicity" in this thread, that I personally think are fair game.

    Example A.

    There is a named mob, chest, or resource located at the back of a camp. Player Y is hiding out watching player X clear 5+ mobs in order to be able to get to said resource. Once player X is in combat with the last mob, player Y walks in and loots said resource.

    I think we go down a slippery slope trying to say this behavior is against terms of service and therefore warrants GM involvement. Is it shitty? Yes. But does player Y have the right to play the game in that way? Yes! Absolutely. I think this is fair game, and although very slimey, it is not greifing.

    If you disagree with me, I ask, at what point do you argue player X had rights to that resource?  When he/she saw it? When they pulled the first mob? When they engaged the last mob?... I argue they never had the right to it, until they looted it into their inventory.

    Example B.

    There is a camp with mobs grouped in 3's. Player X can fight 3 mobs at a time with relative safety and without sacrficing speed (cleave or aoe) and pulls groups of 3 to do so. Player Y consistantly waits for player X to pull and "steals" one mob off his pull at a time.

    Are we really calling player Y toxic for this, and therefore deserves investigation from a GM? To me that is insane. There is nothing wrong with this behavior. And let me be clear, it may be wrong to you or I, but not all behavior that I think is rude or goes against an unwritten rule should be put into the ToS and subject to punishment via GM. I absolutely do not want to play a game that would be this highly censored in the player behavior department.

    Example C.

    A group of 6 higher level players are farming a camp where all the mobs drop a certain resource. Player X is on a quest to kill a named mob that spawns every 5 min in the middle of said camp. Player X asks the group of 6 if they don't mind leaving the named mob for him when it spawns, and in return he/she will avoid tagging any of the other mobs so they can gather there max resources.  The group of 6 think it will be funny to deny the player of completing the quest, so they purposedly camp the spawn point and instantly attack it for multiple spawns in a row. Player X tells the group that he thinks they are "what's wrong with the MMO community" and goes on to another quest for the time being. The group of 6 follow player X and continue to make it near impossible for him to complete any other task/quest he is trying to complete.

    This is toxic. This behavior warrants a report and GM involvement. The difference to me is, in the first two examples, players were advancing their character and getting personal value out of their behavior, despite the fact that most would agree it was rude, selfish, and a shitty way to make friends. In this last example, the players were getting no value out of greifing that player and denying him advancement of the game. They were playing the game with the SOLE purpose of ruining another players experience - that is the kind of toxic behavior that I want to see addressed.

     

    TL:DR

    I think we go down a slippery slope drawing hard lines in the ToS for every type of rude or jerkish behavior. I want to play a game where jerks are allowed and the players/community handle that kind of behavior internally. Intentional griefing and harrassment should be reported and delt with, but jerks should be allowed to be jerks.

    People throw around the term "toxic" way too much in my opinion. If a party member tells a dps in my group "I could face smash my keyboard and do more dps than you, you're horrible". I don't define that as toxic. That is just turd of a person, and I can easily handle that by kicking them out of the group. 


    This post was edited by Kass at November 19, 2019 6:13 PM PST
    • 3 posts
    November 20, 2019 8:32 AM PST

    How to deal?

     

    /ignore