Can you please start focusing on toxicity?

General Discussion
182

What you need to do is lighten up. Take it like an early Eminem album. None of the actions are going to be done in real life. Acting outrageous and trolling to make you mad. I have an OW account named “BackTheBlue” and I don’t even engage in chat. I just get a kick out of seeing all the suckers go wild without even having to type a single letter in all chat. At the end of the match I just type “GG. Support local PD.” It’s like fishing in an over stocked pond. God help any of these people if they get an email from Nigeria about a prince needing a bank.

At the end of the day, with ANY GAME, you mute, and move on. It’s as simple as that. You aren’t going to be the internet police. You aren’t going to change people’s behavior. You can only control what comes through on your side, so use the mute function. The issue arises when that’s not good enough for some people. They don’t wanna change the dial, they want Howard Stern completely taken off the air. Those are the people that I have an issue with.

Telling you to learn to ignore it, mute and move on isn’t “defending” it. You live in this black and white world when there’s about 99 shades of grey in between.

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183

I’ve learned not to be that literal. I’m only spelling it out for others similar to Izzy.

  • Neurodivergents have a tendency to be too literal

Correct…. But until you can start getting all the 10-75 yro gamers to being accountable for their online behavior, let’s save the toxicity complaints for ACTUAL toxicity.

The OP and the original guy I was arguing with have both admitted to poor behavior on their own part.

  • Unless you’re prepared to equally and equitably distribute punishment to all toxicity, I’d say scale and severity are crucial here (clearly the devs feel the same)

Okay sure….

But someone getting upset and calling you bad at the game because you made a terrible mistake that costs the round/game, while uncouth, is far from cause for execution.

Now compare that to someone berating you for sex, sexual preference or ethnicity…. That’s a different conversation. And even then, you still have to level appropriate actions against transgressions.

There is :100: nothing wrong with this approach!! The problem is people straight up refuse to do it and would rather engage in unnecessary conversations.

Every time I’ve experienced toxicity in Overwatch, I’ve muted the aggressor and continued to be active in VC and people are always willing to cooperate with someone who removes the problem.

  • 99/100 that it happened, and the other person is still popping off at the mouth, the other gamers will tell them to stop because it’s not productive

The sheer fact that you can mute someone and continue to participate in voice chat combined with the fact that the person you muted is now forced to listen to you while you don’t hear a word they say is honestly well above gratifying.

I’ve had significantly greater results in getting toxicity actions against through this method. Because people will always side with the (ACTUAL) nontoxic gamer.

  • playing the game of who can drop the bigger insult is complicit behavior and deserves equal punishment
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184

Stop being so cringe bro, some pathetic loser telling someone to k*ll themselves in chat isn’t Howard Stern.

Don’t just mute and move on. Report it and move on.

It has no place in video games. Those people will get banned.

Simple as that. If you disagree 1. You’re a horrible human and 2. It doesn’t matter because it’s against TOS, so Blizzard disagrees with you.

185

I don’t tell any one to kill themselves. Mute the person and move on with your life. Just because I don’t start a forum campaign about it doesn’t mean I “agree” with it, it means I know it’s probably some other smart a** on the other side trolling and being a nuisance. Its literally out of my head within the next 8 seconds because I know it’s just someone screwing off 99% of the time. If simply ever seeing that and trying to wipe the entire game of every person who would say that is your goal? Like I said, play with the bots.

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186

Yep. Horrible human. Nice bro.

Legitimetley you’re a terrible person and I’m not joking.

I’m going to mute you now so I don’t see your bigoted brain dead takes anymore.

Don’t have a good one.

187

HEY GUYS, HE FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT. What a perfect ending to this thread. It was like a Saturday morning cartoon. He had some trials along the way, made some new friends, met some new people, and at the end, he got the message.

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188

Being toxic on a forum post about toxicity simply because he doesn’t agree with your perspective.

You’re complicit in the behavior and equally guilty.

GG No Re

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189

You just exposed yourself as a troll which I called from the beginning.

God, you’re actually so pathetic… Jesus.

190

Because I told you to use the mute function of the game? The same function that’s been in games since like the 90’s? It’s almost like they develop that because you’re not going to entirely control what people say in a game. I would love to see this world you live in where someone types one “naughty word” in the chat and then they get IP banned immediately.

Someone probably styled on this guy with Doomfist, trolled him all game, and now he’s here on the forums typing up this short novel.

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191

I swear I think there’s some kind of hidden toxic queue or something similar to what other games have, where if you leave or get reported a lot you end up there.

I can’t confirm this. But I just … don’t experience the level of toxic behavior that’s complained about on the forums. I know it exists - I’ve seen videos. And it’s obvious not all the people making threads about it are lying.

So the “toxic queue” is the only logical thing I can think of.

I mean it could also be that I defuse things pretty regularly before they start. I guess I can give tips for that and maybe it might help.

So, it really helps if you don’t get hot headed and instantly react at the first insult slung your way, and if you can poke back (in a light-hearted, unbannable way, to be clear XD). This often lightens the mood.

Or if you can just let the aggressor have their first hit win and not cave into fighting with them (which is what they want).

So like:
“Omg you’re so bad at this game. Do you even hit half your shots?!”

You can either be like, “Yeah, sorry man. I know I’m not that great. I’m trying though.”

Or be funny and be like “How do you know what I’m aiming at? I’m hitting 100% of my shots aiming at the wall.” etc.

I know some people don’t like to do this because it looks like a hit to their ego, or they’re “letting someone walk all over them / letting the bad guy win.” But if you can turn away from that one minor slap on the cheek, it very, very often leads to the situation not escalating further, and thus not being a distraction in your game.

Some people cannot be talked down, of course, but I’ve played this game for 7 years, and I’ve had … I don’t know, less than 10 actual toxic interactions where this method did not work.

I’m not implying I’m “better than you” or have a “thicker skin” or anything like that. I’m just saying understanding basic psychology and manipulating the vibe can cut the fuse before the explosion.

I’ve posted this type of thing a lot before, I know, but I think it can be helpful advice so here I am posting it again. :sweat_smile:

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192

… you’re literally all over this thread…

I mean uhh… ok this is just getting sad now. Yeah, it’s time.

193

Bro I would pay a premium to be in that queue. Just a lobby of 10 people talking the most uncensored trash to each other, while game raging with tasteless Battletags? Charge me $5 a month and I will be the first one in line.

You’re supposed to mute/block me. Then you have come full circle in your teachings and ready to graduate to black belt.

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194

Fair. I’m autistic and have had to learn to navigate through conversation to not take things too literally all the time haha.

To me both are toxic and are inappropriate behaviors. One is clearly much worse than the other though. If someone tells me I’m bad, 99% of the time I’m moving on with my life after muting. I still think they are toxic and probably will eventually escalate but muting and continuing to communicate or just play the game is how I handle it. I might report if for some reason it becomes obvious they are ruining the experience for others as it crosses the line from someone being frustrated and kind of a jerk to being actively detrimental to the team. I’ve reported one or two who have sent friend requests after a match to try and harrass me lol.

Basically if you’re just being a jerk, I take it into my own discretion as to whether or not you deserve a report. If you’re being racist / sexist / truly awful in some other manner that I’m missing right now, that’s going to be an auto report from me.

Fighting or arguing back is not something I choose to partake in regardless. I feel like not only would that frustrate me without being productive, but also it’s not very pragmatic if I want to win (which I absolutely do).

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195

Honestly, I’d like to test the waters in there too just to see. Sometimes the rage is pretty hilarious. lol

Bet I could still come out of that lobby with a friend too. lol Rageful people aren’t even usually bad people. Usually just folks with no chill and a short fuse. Or just people who enjoy trash talk. XP

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196

I almost never participate in chat (so it would be hard to “shadow ban” me for toxicity) but I can definitely see what OP is talking about. Negative messages are very frequent but usually don’t use as strong language as in some other games with unmoderated chat - however, the intentions behind them are just as bad.

The introverted nerds playing these video games usually aren’t the kind of extroverted communication experts you recommend them to be. Why would an introverted player waste resources on engaging in an unintelligent conversation?

IMO the advice you usually see on forums (like turn off chat, be nice) are useless. You can change things globally (in this case “global” means “across the whole playerbase”) only with systematic changes. The level of toxicity will always be as high as allowed by the system.

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197

I stand by my original statement:

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198

Would you perform better if you had:
HEY BUTTHOLE YOU SUCK! GO PLAY THE SIMS OR MINECRAFT! YOU DON’T DESERVE TO PLAY THIS GAME!!!

Or

Hey, try [x,y] instead. It worked for me, it might help you.

in your head constantly during every match?

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199

Because it depends from your reactions. Player with cold mind and steady nerves can calm down most toxicity.

This forum gives me impression, that many people complaining about toxicity simply didn’t learn to mind their business and get caught in something they could easily not be part of.

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200

Of course I’m not. I had a vasectomy about 3 years ago. Wife and I do our own thing happily.

Lighten up. Get a sense of humor.

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201

I’d wager that a controlled but present amount of toxicity actually keeps players invested, continued exposure to the game naturally means some players will pay money, thus making yacht man happy.