So, the game seems like it would be fun and slower paced than the FPS games that are so popular, but this community… Wow. The toxicity is off the charts. Almost every game I have played has resulted in name calling and/or spamming pings, intentionally dying, not playing with the team, etc. I’m only 8th level, but I’ve played about 15 or so games so far and it isn’t getting any better.
6 Likes
Turn the team chat off in the options, there is nothing ever helpful said.
1 Like
We’re not as much toxic in high elo. Even if the average players are in low elo, I wouldn’t define the game by them.
4 Likes
The forums are kind of a net for toxicity. You get much more consistent discussion on the reddit in my experience.
You can usually tell when ingame chat is worthwhile. Most criticism is the gateway to a flame, so generally you can mute players who spend too much time looking at how others are playing.
This is important for enjoying anything but especially modern HotS: learn to pick your battles. In other words, muting inflammatory players is an easy policy to abide by.
Can I borrow your car, I need to a ride to GM so I can turn chat back on. 
1 Like
If you are completly new to this game and just jump straight into qm without having a clue what you are doing then ofc people get angry at you.
You would be better of playing in AI until you actually have at least basis knowledge of how this game works.
2 Likes
Quick Match is for learning though.
2 Likes
Most team based games will have toxicity, because it’s never anyone’s fault that the team is losing.
I suggest muting chat for a while.
1 Like
The OP probably doesn’t know there is no longer a “new player only” queue, so the OP is being matched with veteran accounts. The brilliant Buddy/Mentor system (and lack of player population) strike again.
There are simply more people on Reddit and the Devs actually post over there. From what I’ve read, I’m not sure how much useful discussion goes on over there. Any unpopular opinions are just pushed to the bottom, not always a bad thing, but it can be an echo chamber at times.
Yes and no. I’ve seen both sides to this particular story. I’ve seen skilled veteran players offering advice to new players, only to be abused by the new player. I’ve also seen new players abused. Meeting helpful people in games when you’re new is probably how you will make friends and start improving.
1 Like
Eh, everywhere on the internet has elements of an echo chamber.
2 Likes
When you are a new player, you get matched with other low level players.
I know, because of occasionally playing in the US. In QM, people are usually below 100. In SL, there are 2-4 people below 100 and the rest higher.
Thing is, a lot of people smurf because reasons, one of them being toxic and either being suspended or playing multiple accounts to avoid being suspended. So there is a fair chance that there will be someone in each low level match.
Then again, I don’t have so bad memories. Even had cutiepie teammates.
Players aren’t usually helpful because reasons, so you won’t miss out on much if you turn off chat. Sure, you can still be pinged, but that’s something you have to… well. Being a new player, single pings you should follow, multipings not. Ideally think about what people try to make you do. Most matches are the best if you play like a yo-yo, spread out to quickly depush, then group up for a burst of push or takedowns - or the objective.
This was once the case for QM, but they partially disabled the new player queue long ago as people were waiting up till an hour for games. For new players now they try to match for about a minute, then they just match them with veteran accounts.
1 Like
Dont be so soft. Its a multiplayer game so people will type to you. If you will tryhard every game to win, eventually, you will rise over others. Just need a strong mental and map awareness. If you missing people on the map or dont see why people died then you have a lot to improve. The map awareness is the key to ignore the rest, it will take all your focus so you will just dont care about chat.
1 Like
So what 7% maybe 15% of the community isn’t as toxic which would make the overwhelming majority pretty toxic. How could you not define the game based on them.
Let’s also remember your avg player won’t reach high elo so they will never see this promised land of kind hearted or slighltly less toxic HOTS players.
I normally agree with a lot of things you say but this just seems silly.
1 Like
Simply put, low elo’s attitudes define what we can see across all mobas. It’s nothing special.
If I remember, high elo LoL players were much more toxic than in Hots.
3 Likes
This is how every moba community is.
Players do not like to criticize themselve, so they blame others. And as the nature of a moba is that your mistakes get preserved (through things like xp, losing forts etc), it makes players angry about those mistakes. Add to that, that you must rely on your teammates, and it gets worse.
I would say the forums are generaly more friendly, except for the occasional dump thread of a 1post containing just his rage. And ofcourse trolls are generaly not banned early here (as it requires moderators to do so, these things happen a lot slower, reddit purges them as community).
Reddit filters these trash threads out, thats what makes it appear better, but reddits echo chamber doesnt make it any better than the forums. Any criticism to which people disagree is downvoted away, and this causes a lot of people to stay away from reddit.
Reddit on that is actualy a more toxic environment as its open to far less diffirent types of people. The only way to get accepted on reddit is being like them.
Thats why these forums are a lot better, people might sound more harsh in discussion though. But that the discussion happens is a good thing. You might not notice it directly, but its common that in 1 thread people heavily disagree, and in another thread they agree.
People can voice themselve about issues, and its taken serious unlike reddit where people dont interact at all, except for the downvote button. This interaction is what makes these forums good.
But yes, some do not see that as a positive effect and instantly think its toxic. The surrender button threads might be horrible, but they exist because there is definitely an issue. And sure, we have to teach people the reason on why the button is a bad idea. But the issue shouldnt be ignored though. The only issue is, that the thing that would fix the issue is a lot more complex to solve (it requires a change in MMR and how Afk’s/disconnected players are handled).
And at some point people will just respond with a short comment, where at reddit that would be the downvote button.
These communities differ. And to me a more open community is generaly the better one. Hence i consider reddit inferior.
Blizzard helped cultivate that kind of toxicity with terrible policy implementations.
If you keep trying to micro manage what people can say to ridiculous extents, create a very convenient and easy to report mechanism, and have automated account actions – you encourage griefing and toxicity. Prove me wrong.
The report system despite its alleged intentions causes far more harm than good.
1 Like
Well well well, what do we have here? A mysterious new player who has the absolute worst experience with team mates and is somehow quite knowledgeable on feeding and playing as a team, instead of, you know, being absolutely overwhelmed by everything. And who then for reasons unknown comes to the official forums, posts a single grievance thread is never heard of again.
The sad life of someone with a mission and spare time to make alt accounts just for trolling on the dead forums of a dead game.
How many of your accounts have been banned?
Two so far.
I will probably be banned more frequently with one or more individuals on the Blizz team suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I started putting Trump in my smurf names now just in spite of Blizz teams ludicrous policies and un-American behavior.
…but hey; feel free to put Hitler, Biden, or OsamaBinLaden as your gamertag. That’s okay by the CBP [Communist Blizzard Party]
My first account, which was my alpha account; was banned for saying “git gud”. Hah. Blizzard justifies smack talk / standard competitive rhetoric since the invention sports as a bannable offense.
That’s ok; I’ll just keep making more smurfs using domains on my private web server.
It does not bother me to lose progress on accounts anymore. I think of it as a fresh start to see how well I can do consecutively.