Community degrading - toxicity on the rise

[Phlogistoned]

(Posting this in 'gameplay' since this is the place where I've seen it the most)

 

Hi all

 

It seems to me the community has degenerated into a bunch of nit-picking know-it-alls who NEVER pass up on an opportunity to bash or make fun of other posters or their opinions.

 

Any post with a question or concern (legitimate or not), invariably degrades into 'L2P' and 'I wouldn't worry about that with _those_ stats in Kagero' etc.

 

And by nitpicking on a minuscule detail of the OP's text, inconsequential to the actual question, the thread is effectively derailed as long as the nitpicking is provocative enough to evoke an answer.

 

This is a surefire way to make this forum obsolete and not rebuild playerbase.

 

Especially if said playerbase comes to the forum with questions or concerns because they have just been sealclubbed.

 

Read this again; Player is sealclubbed. Player posts in forum. Player is ridiculed. Which is more likely: Continue or quit?

 

This is not a long-term effective way to build a community. 

 

However, it isn't just new players that get the stick. People like Skybuckflying get bashed for _everything_, even when posting sane stuff. Basically he gets bashed because he got bashed before. This is bullying. There's no other way to put it. It's pure and simple bullying.

 

What do you say we try to improve and, for example, not look at other people's stats before answering their questions?

 

I know I can improve too, so I promise to try to do so. Will you too?

[Azalgor]

 Those blessed by RNGesus and MM, that get over 55% winrate and high average damage, care to say L2P all day long to those whose stats are lower than theirs, because they think they have acomplished something great in their thoughts....in a game....

 When a person starts playing the game, he learns to lead the target, maneuver and tryes to cap (fulfils the objective) gets punished for it as his team doesnt support him in that last role, his well lead shots land only around his target or bounce/overpen because RNGesus and dispersion say NO, he ask a question in forum - why? and get the standart reply. The person tries again, but everything is the same, low win rate and no damage, and the enemy team and himself seem to be the only sane people there, because their group takes the objective and defends it, as my team hugs a corner. Must i hug a corner with them, or get punished for trying to do something? You get to die one of the first and called a noob by the rest of the team, while as you ask whose the noob - the person who tried or those who didnt even care? The higher you get in tiers the more common it becomes - enemy team is full of pros, whyle you get the trash. Sure sometimes you make mistakes, but since its supposed to be a team game (which is not, most of the time) you play a 12v12 not 1v12, you go to forum once more with the same question - people remember you from the first time, your stats didnt improve - you suck is what you get.

Sertainly it becomes frustrating with such behavior, but that is standart game community, where those who made it stomp on those who couldnt, and its your choice, to try and get some fun out of the game you enjoy and close your eyes on stats or just quit.

 I get to rage a lot in games, because people i mentioned are the ones i play with in the same team like 90%, 0 caps, borderhuging, as it just gets to me, and i need to let it all out at some point after it repeats it self counless times in a row. I know its wrong, but the steam must be relieced at some point, and i dont care if someone replies or not, as long as i get to put my thoughts out i get to feel better, so yes, just ignore the ones that rage.

[venderbomb]

ARE YOU CRAZY!?!?!?

 

How on earth are the keyboard warrior, elitist 'Get guwd kid' community going to feel any sort of elation if they can't ridicule the general warship populace?

 

What's wrong with you!?!?

[OldGrandad]

Unfortunately you are focusing on a very small percentage of the community with your concerns. No matter where you go in life you will always find those that are only happy either complaining, degrading others or anything other that creates a negative impact. To improve, you/we need to focus on those that positively contribute and ignore those that are only here to antagonise. They seek attention with their comments, hoping for reaction in the way that you are pointing out. Ignore them, they hate to be ignored and the more they fail to get a reaction the less they will comment.

 

You picked up on particular forum regular (you really should not have named them) that does receive a little heckling, but in all fairness the sort of reaction that poster gets is more lighthearted due to the content of their posts. New posters with questions will get much better treatment on the whole, I see many posts/threads for help and I see a more overwhelming degree of support rather than the 'toxicity' you describe.

 

Believe me, the forum now is much better than it was a while ago, and with more new players visiting, as long as they prove to be worthy, this community will only get better and not worse.

[ajappat]

My experience is that anyone asking honestly advice, is usually given the advice in proper manner. Then there's these "OMg cheaters everywhere, and tryhards!!11", if the one "asking" for advice is obviously not even considering he's the one doing something wrong, the replies will mirror his first post.

[AgarwaenME]

My experience is that anyone asking honestly advice, is usually given the advice in proper manner. Then there's these "OMg cheaters everywhere, and tryhards!!11", if the one "asking" for advice is obviously not even considering he's the one doing something wrong, the replies will mirror his first post.

 

Exactly. Not rebutting people like this will get you the "community" you have in wot.

 

And then you have people like some above, who recreates reality to where it's just luck that others perform better so they can pretend to be elite and generalize the playerbase (where they're very much part of that group), while also making fun of those that are far better for stating that fact. Hilarious projection that.

[JiksTBS]

I do wish the atmosphere here could be a bit nicer but the community is made up of people and any group of people will contain some who you would not want to go have pint with.

 

If a poster is complaining about some aspect of the game I personally think it is useful to look at their stats before replying. If they have only played a few games the reply needs to be pitched at a different level to one with 6000, for example. Also, if someones WR is utterly diabolical after many, many games it's clear they are doing something terribly wrong. In this case, ideally we would constructively try to identify what that is so they can fix it - I'm sure no one enjoys losing. However, often the OP does not want to hear and instead will blame RNG, bad teams, some sinister plot by WG, etc and this is when the mud slinging starts.

 

Like Ajappat says, constructive questions usually lead to constructive replies. Not always but none of us are perfect.

[ghostbuster_]

this is not an issue at all. if there is something illegal in a post, just report it. probably that person will get banned and will not be able to post anything for a while. if he does it again, report again and he will get banned for a longer time period.

[ColonelPete]

Depends on how you post. Emotional rants are answered in kind.

Objective matter of fact questions get useful answers most of the time.

[robihr]

i havent seen any legitimate question or forum thread that gets bashed. it usually gets very good response from community and people help.

 

"toxic" are usually threads like:

• "this game sucks, i am quitting"
• "i lose all the time, so MM is rigged"
• "people play better than me, CHEATERS!!!"
• "weekend warriors again, i am on losing streak"
• "i play only one class, and other class is OP against me, nerf the other class"
• "insert random whine thread"
• "any skybuck thread"

 

see the pattern here? when people come to whine on forums they get bashed. all whine threads except skybucks threads which usually contain so much stupid ideas that people cant resist posting sarcastic comments there (i suspect he is masterful troll considering his years of service, check google for more info).

 

so no i dont see community as toxic, just people dont like whinny babies. if someone sincerely asks for help, he will most likely get it, but if he only came to whine he will get...

[Zed_Von_Toza]

I feel what the OP is saying, I'm not a hard core player and only really started out in Jan this year.

 

I don't mind admitting I'm a potato, but I am trying to improve and explore all the ships in the game. But grinding some nation class combinations is just hard work, and of course some ships just don't suit my play style. I've got to work thought the pain to find the good ships that work for me, and that I like. As a result my stats suffer. There are a couple of ships I have a lot of success in. If I choose to play them more often at the moment, my stats would improve.

 

As other people have commented it takes all sorts to make the world go round, so you will get different responses from different people. I've asked some, what I now realise are dumb questions, but hell we all have to start somewhere.

 

What I find irksome, are the people who resort to stat slinging, when you try to express your point of view in a constructive manner. What I can't help wondering though is how many of them maintain there UNICUM status by seal clubbing, those of us trying to slowly grind our way up the tiers. There are also the trolls, but I'm beginning to see who they are. And then there are the people who actually give constructive feedback or comments. Big thank you to them.

 

In the beginning everybody was a little fish in the WOWS pond. A group has grown up together to be big fish. Little fish join the pond, and ask little baby fish questions, and get beat up by some of the big fish. Other big fish actually give constructive advice and feedback, and some even take little fish under their fins to teach them the way forward (SGWA). Sounds just like the school playground and life in general.

 

What I hope the big fish remember, is that they all grew up together in this pond, and that life for us smaller fish is hard if you constantly beat us up. There is a point at which some will just run away and not come back. The big fish are always saying they want good games and a large player base. Well take us small fish under your fin from time to time and don't beat us up all the time, and you will get that.

 

As for the player the OP mentioned. No matter how hard you try to be positive and give constructive feedback, he has to want to have the conversation, and take on board other peoples viewpoint, and not assume every good player or lucky shot is because somebody is cheating.

[gr0pah]

 Those blessed by RNGesus and MM, that get over 55% winrate and high average damage, care to say L2P all day long to those whose stats are lower than theirs, because they think they have acomplished something great in their thoughts....in a game.....

This leads to, and is toxicity. 

 

The higher you get in tiers the more common it becomes - enemy team is full of pros, whyle you get the trash. 

 This is both false, and a fallacy. Unless you are the special snowflake that always gets the bad team.

[Spellfire40]

1, Welcome to Internet gameing comunitys

 

2. Negative tends to stick more to the mind than positiv Things.

 

3. Bashing or having high doubts of someone with 1k plus games describing a " Problem" when ist really part of the games "Balance" especally when after a look at the Posters stats of said Player indicates that he is highly biased toward his Topic and cant acept statistical Facts over his gut Feelings is somewhat normal. If you see a Troll hiding behind a thinly waverd camo of a tocpc there is nothing wrong with decunstucting that. generally someone with a few 100 games posting something unresonable in the Newcomer section is more likely to get a helpfull Reply than someone posting Torpedos suck agist my BB and [edited]should all be deleted for the 3rd time a week in the General gameply Forum with a signature of 3k games and a Overall winrate of 42%

 

4 We konw our Regulars and what to expect. If i start reading a SBF Torpic i dont expect anything but an excuse to gets his posting Count up. There were others before there will others after him. I read other Posters i answer when i feel something off and there is a Point to discuss. Sometimes you come to the Point were someone agrees to it sometimes you never see each others Point like some of mine and ghost´s for example but thats ok too and human nature in the work. only shows that each is pasionate about the game. 

[aboch]

My experience is that anyone asking honestly advice, is usually given the advice in proper manner. Then there's these "OMg cheaters everywhere, and tryhards!!11", if the one "asking" for advice is obviously not even considering he's the one doing something wrong, the replies will mirror his first post.

 

Exactly my thoughts.

 

There are players coming to the forums and honestly asking for advice, honestly asking what they do not understand, honestly describing where their own problem is. These people get absolutly proper and good advice, answers to their questions and a lot of tips and hints how to improve. I did not see a single fun thread about such players, even if they are 30% winrate like.

 

Than there are players that make alwas other responsible, from WG up to hackers and cheaters, from god to devil. Often these people overrate their own or post lies in their  threads. Just some recent examples that come into my mind are 2 cases: One player stating he kills in nearly every game 3 ships but in his stats we see that his kill ratio is way below 1. Next one claims to carry his teams in ranked and gets in 90% the high calibre, but checking we see that his high caliber amount is just about 1 of 100 games in average.

 

This said, i imo the bigger problem is how an topic starter begins his topic, how he explains the problem and how someone asks for help or shares his views.

[Phlogistoned]

My experience is that anyone asking honestly advice, is usually given the advice in proper manner. Then there's these "OMg cheaters everywhere, and tryhards!!11", if the one "asking" for advice is obviously not even considering he's the one doing something wrong, the replies will mirror his first post.

 

Explain how OP in this thread, posting for the first time ever on the forums, deserved the immediate bashing he got;

http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/57783-yellow-submarine/

 

[ajappat]

 

Explain how OP in this thread, posting for the first time ever on the forums, deserved the immediate bashing he got;

http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/57783-yellow-submarine/

 

 

Wouldn't say deserved, but when I checked the topic, I had no clue what he was on about, and dismissed it in my mind as useless spam.

[mtm78]

 

Explain how OP in this thread, posting for the first time ever on the forums, deserved the immediate bashing he got;

http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/57783-yellow-submarine/

 

 

 

He was hugging the blue line when the battle was just started and there was only one ship sunk in the game, and it's a domination battle... so someone made a joke that if you push that line hard enough you might break through and reach the ocean map. 

 

Yes, bashing right  

 

According to you we should only post if we agree with the notion of the OP? And only if we also think it's 'funny' and nothing else on his screenshot is worth pointing out? Sorry, that is just not how it works. 

 

And again, I think you need to work on your definition of bashing. 

 

edit:

 

The irony in this thread is epic...

 

The guy didn't ask a question, he tried to get some laughs out of people and he did.

 

Mission successful, but it has NOTHING to do with this thread. 

 

 

[Ast3lan]

The irony in this thread is epic...

 

[Cosseria]

Considering that the average user here should be quite young, I don't find this community toxic at all. It may not be the heaven of good manners and purposefulness I find on modelwarships.com but, as has been said, ask for advice here and you'll always find helpful users willing to share their knowledge. Ask for trouble and you'll equally get it, and rightly so. I personally can't stand whine threads and nerf calls unsupported by stats, skybuck-like threads for the best idea ever to dramatically improve the gameplay (really, how on earth is it possible that WG never thought about it?) and kids coming here to beg for gifts, so I'll gladly join the bashing in such cases.

In the example being discussed above, all I can see is a fast battleship hugging borders, I had to look twice to find the sinking wreck underneath. Nowithstanding, a fast battleship owner hugging borders denounces lack of gameplay understanding and/or willingness to engage and deserves all the scorn the forum may express.

[mtm78]

There was a time when threads from _x_Archeron_x_ ( or one of his alts ) got those replies as well. But that had nothing to do with his name, but his content.  Now he posted a topic which actually has good content, as in a very valid mention of certain recent gameplay affecting stuttering, and no one has bashed him in that thread.

 

http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/57744-excessive-stuttering/page__fromsearch__1

 

There is no 'toxic community', well ofc there are people who like to be negative more then positive just as in real life but I don't see many of them posting.

 

ps: seems that in the 'other thread' the guy posting isn't in the BB but in the CA ( Buddy ) beneath it. Not that that changes anything though

[lup3s]

Considering that the average user here should be quite young

 

time for a poll?

 

 

ot:

if I get a devastating strike with torpedoes and that enemy says something in chat that's not really salty (e.g. "wtf", "damn those torpedoes", "uh, DDs :/" ...), I'll usually reply something like "try to be aware of your map", "maybe use Vigilance if this happens often", "turn into the torpedoes and kill your speed" (i.e. I try to help him)

 

however, if the enemy is really salty in chat about it (e.g. "[edited]DDs, noob no-skill class", "omg torpedo noob", "play real ships you DD noob" ...), depending on my mood atm, I might not reply (or say something 'funny' and try to aggravate him, e.g. "seems like you ate a lot of torpedoes.. not really good for your health tbh") or I might reply something .. bad

[Ferry_25]

IMO the forum isn't that toxic. Vuk and Rog are doing a great job filtering out the crap. although sometimes I don't really understand the reason they do that. Guess there's a thin red line between a fierce discussion/ giving an opinion and trolling...

[Tugnut]

If you see it in the forums use the < report option on the threads post.

 

In game well no point reporting as i think it does very little.  Only advice i can give is rise above it, dont bite or take it to hart ( then the troll wins )  and if your like me have a little fun with them... remember they are the ones bashing the keyboard geting high blood pressure for a mistake you may or may not have done ( some times they just got to blame some one other than them selfs)

 

Agree with them have fun with it make stuff up make them even more salty and you move to your next game with a smile or not even thinking of the sad troll

[AnotherDuck]

Well, at least the actual game is less toxic than the forums. Probably because people just talk less, and people are more concerned with actually playing the game.

 

Regarding checking up stats, that's probably the worst common offender for people around here. It's one thing if the stats are completely off the rocker, but I've also seen people dismiss arguments because the poster isn't unicum level, have hidden stats, or has less than a hundred battles in a particular ship. I've also seen people who do that kind of thing complain about stuff like Shima torps, despite not having played the ship at all, which is outright hypocritical, since they used the same kind of argument for other things. Those things are just pathetic. Is it so hard to come up with an actual argument against what's actually written, rather than going for the poster?

[mtm78]

Well, at least the actual game is less toxic than the forums. Probably because people just talk less, and people are more concerned with actually playing the game.

 

Regarding checking up stats, that's probably the worst common offender for people around here. It's one thing if the stats are completely off the rocker, but I've also seen people dismiss arguments because the poster isn't unicum level, have hidden stats, or has less than a hundred battles in a particular ship. I've also seen people who do that kind of thing complain about stuff like Shima torps, despite not having played the ship at all, which is outright hypocritical, since they used the same kind of argument for other things. Those things are just pathetic. Is it so hard to come up with an actual argument against what's actually written, rather than going for the poster?

 

I dismiss anyone's opinion regarding game mechanics or class balancing when they hide their stats, and for good reason. That has nothing to do with stat bashing, but someone  who only plays BB's for instance can not comment on other classes being OP ( omg nerf fires they kill my BB!!@#!111eleven ). Or someone who comments on game balance on high tiers, but who only has a tier VI. Or people who just don't understand the current game mechanics, how can I take those serious when trying to 'introduce new more fair mechanics'?

 

Everyone is entitled their own opinion, but how serious I take that opinion is for me to determine.