First let’s really define what’s toxic. Just a few examples of each.
What is not toxic: Swearing in chat, getting angry when team is losing, yelling at people cause they aren’t doing basic things correctly (soaking, getting camps before objectives etc…). I mean all of these things are verbal. You can ignore it, mute them and even filter bad language.
What IS toxic: People who throw games, people who draft like crap (picking 2nd or even THIRD healers without even a tank on the team wtf?!), People that ban your hero you want because they simply don’t want you to play it, people that are AFK and don’t ban at all, people that are afk during a ranked game, people that constantly die over and over cause they’re just terrible, people that pick heroes they suck with in ranked.
The biggest overall complaint currently of ‘toxicity’ though is from players who get angry in chat. Honestly Blizzard is the biggest cause of this problem.
When I play ranked games in Guild Wars 2 I’d say a good 80-85% of them are fairly close. It’s a good competitive PvP game. Most times one bad move can cause the game to be a loss. It’s exciting and fun.
When I play ranked games in SWTOR it’s the same story. Probably a good 80-85% of them are close somewhat evenly matched games. Also take note in both of these games ONE player can make a huge difference and even 1v2 or 1v3 some fights at times when played well.
I could go on and on but you get the point. Of all the games I’ve played out there they are ‘mostly’ fairly even.
However for some reason in Blizzard games (Including HOTS, Starcraft and Overwatch) the matches seem almost always completely one sided and it’s either a huge landslide of a loss or a huge landslide victory.
Very few games are actually what we are looking for in ranked games. Evenly matched, exciting and fun. So when you end up with a team full of people who clearly do not belong in the same rank as you it gets very very frustrating.
And people aren’t actually frustrated with their bad teammates (knowingly or not) they are actually frustrated with Blizzards complete crap matchmaking system.
Just in the last week I’ve had at least 10 games where my team either won or lost with a kill count of something like 35-2. Heck I just had a game I played Nova and was 18-0, team was 32 kills to 3 kills. It was an utter joke. Complete garbage of a game.
And sadly that’s how MOST games are in HOTS.
BLIZZARD is the one at fault for this. NOT US. When people play ‘ranked’ COMPETITIVE games they SHOULD be getting angry when they lose. That means they actually CARE! Those are the people you should be hoping to help!
The people that hop into ranked games and don’t give af about winning or losing, never get mad when their team loses and are happy to just open another loot chest are the people who shouldn’t even be playing ranked in the first place.
So Blizzard in a sense what you are actually doing is suspending and banning the people who actually care, that want to put their best foot forward and WIN AT ALL COSTS… and letting the people who don’t give af at all keep on playing. All because you can’t seem to make a even decent matchmaking system.
Until personal stats start accounting for at least half of your rating points won or lost, not just based on winning and losing, I don’t see your system ever being fair and balanced.
How does someone in Plat 5 take a last pick as Uther when our team already has a Brightwing… and no tank yet. I mean hell if the guy went dps or bruiser hey OK fine whatever maybe he just doesn’t want to tank. But he goes Uther?! LAST PICK UTHER? Into a perfectly made opposing team of Johanna, 2 brusers, 1 ranged dps and a healer?
This crap is a complete and utter joke. Wonder why the game failed guys. Really wonder.
