Are gaming communities too harsh on new players?

[CloudKiller]

Multiplayer games are enormous amounts of fun, I think we can all agree on that but whenever people play together elitism is inevitable. Nowhere is this more prevalent than when a new player picks up a game for the first time and is greeted by a torrent of losses, or in some cases abuse from over players, simply because they cannot play the game at same level of proficiency as its long standing community members. This is both annoying and disheartening.

I know what you're gonna say, "Of course they're gonna lose at first while they're learning the game but they'll get good eventually." Except that takes time and dedication that the new player would be less likely to devote to the game or genre if they believe that the game is too difficult for them, based on the artifical difficulty they're facing based purely upon the people they are facing, or that the community for that game or genre is toxic.

There are loads of examples of this in today's gaming communities. If you tell or team mates in a MOBA thats its your first time playing, will they be helpful and give you advice? I'm sure a lot of players are and do but i'm certain even more will just abandon that game immediately. How many people asking for advice on the forums for From Software games are told to basically "Git gud noob".

And yes most multi-player games do match people up based on their win:loss ratio or level or w/e but all of those systems get abused by those of us who are determined to fight only when we are certain of victory. Whether its tanking your ranking or to use a specific example Levelling only your gear in Dark Souls/Bloodborne and not your character level so you get match with someone who couldn't possibly stand a chance.

Hearthstone is the perfect example of a game where new players are treated harshly by both the players and the developer. A new Hearthstone player who completes the tutorial and is about to set of against other players is about to enter a world where not only can they not compete but cannot even improve. If you play the casual option for your first few games in Hearthstone you'll be annihilated by people you use legendary cards that you can't compete with. No matter, you just have to get yourself some legendaries of your own and if you can afford to buy the card packs then sure you can buy your way to victory and Blizzard has been kind enough to provide daily quests to earn currency for those who can't afford it. Great, except that the quests require you to win 2 games, doesn't sound like much but winning even one game is hard enough when you can barely compete.

So what, if anything should be done. Should people stop being dicks to other people, yeah but that'll never happen. Therefore as comunities are harder to change should developers change there designs so that the playing field is more even at all levels of play? Or are the current systems fine as they are and people just need to bare with it until they're competitive?

 

[FalloutJack]

No, communities are definitely not the developer's fault. It's all about the cursing and swearing, whining, griefing, trolling bag of dicks in the corner. Frankly, allowing them to chat is bad enough.

 

[Morgoth780]

Nope, the playing field should not be level in terms of skill, but it should be in terms of items/cards/guns/etc. available, at least in competitive games such as CS:GO. There is no reason that someone playing their first 30 minutes of CS should have a chance against me, having played over 1k hours. That said - they shouldn't be able to compete with me because of the skill difference, not because Valve decides that new players can't buy M4s or something equally dumb.

I don't have a problem with their existing games that are less skill dependent, allowing casual players to have a more equal playing field - but with what you described with hearthstone, it sounds like Blizzard is restricting access to cards that are key to victory. Which is, frankly, horrible free to play design.

I've played a lot of Battlefield 3 and 4, and while I consider the unlock system despicable for a competitive shooter, I don't think it's a problem for casual play. I mean, yes, you'll be disadvantaged if you're using a bad loadout, but it's still very possible to do well in a match. More than difficult than it otherwise would be, but not by any means an insurmountable obstacle.

 

[Lufia Erim]

I don't find them harsh on newbies. They are harsh on scrubs ( *cue TLC song here*). I see this all the time.

Back in 2011 I discovered the competitive fighting game scene. I knew very little about fighting games in general, and i set out to learn. Both online and local. Bow the FGC ( fighting game community are infamous for their poor teatment of newbies both online and offline. This frightened me. However, because of my willingness to hold my losses, be a good sport and willingness to learn, i was welcomed with open arms. Now i can hold my own online and offline and have even participated in a few tournaments.

However, if you come in as a new comer, thinking you are hot shit, kicking and screaming that things are cheap and quit after a few losses, refusing to accept that you are bad at the game and are unwilling to learn, these guys will kick your ass spectacularly, taunt you before during and after a match, and tell you you aren't worth their time. I've seen it happen, offline.

It's about attitude. Humble yourself, realise you are at the bottom of the ladder. And they will accept and help you. Come in cocky and you will have your ass handed to you on a silver platter.

 

[er910]

Trash talk is a part of all competative communities. I've been blasted on the basketball court, at Friday Night Magic and video games (online and in arcades). I grew a think skin, ignored it and got better. People can be jerks. Being online and semi-anonymous makes people bigger jerks.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Yes. Gaming communities can be very toxic to new players, and that's pretty shitty.

Now, that's not true for everything, but it still sucks. It doesn't help that most games have a crap-tastic unlock system, where time means more power instead of skill, so even if you're at equal skill, or even better then a older player, their gear will be enough that you'll lose due to numbers.

 

[MeatMachine]

Depends on the way players are tasked to play the game, usually.

Cooperative games are especially vulnerable; the more your success depends on other people, the less tolerant they will be of players who don't know how to play very well. Having teammates that aren't good can be a huge liability, and in some games, they can completely ruin the experience (like PAYDAY 2).

The repeated frustration of having teammates that are inexperienced and don't have the intuitive know-how to perform well when being challenged by another team that DOES can quickly erode anyone's patience and create an incredibly 1-sided steamroll that really isn't fun for anyone. That certainly doesn't excuse sour and hateful behavior towards new players, but when that kind of unfair instability happens so frequently to your favorite games, it can be difficult to keep your composure every time.

EDIT: I'm interested in hearing if anyone here has any ideas how to minimize the jarring gap between new and veteran players. Every game is different, but are there any design ideas to better bridge that gap between players that you guys can think of?

 

[vallorn]

Depends on the community, just playing TF2 I have run into everything from trolls to helpful veterans to pubstomers on Valve servers, community servers who mostly jeer at each other or who laugh and get along, and competitive players who help out new players or ones who rage at the medic for getting headshot (don't do that guys, I don't have a telepathic link to the enemy sniper.)

In the end it's just a part of life, some games attract more assholes than others (CoD, MOBAs, etc) but if you don't like it then there are always sub communities that are welcoming. OR! You can git gud and rub the assholes faces into the dirt. Either works.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

EDIT: I'm interested in hearing if anyone here has any ideas how to minimize the jarring gap between new and veteran players. Every game is different, but are there any design ideas to better bridge that gap between players that you guys can think of?

Call of Duty, or at least a few versions, has boot camp. Basically, you play in that area until you reach level ten, then you are kicked out. I believe you had the option of skipping this and jumping right into the masses, but I had much more fun playing with new people who were learning just as much as I was. You will only play against other new players, and the few times I tried it, it worked pretty well for me.

Anyway, yeah, I believe communities are way too mean. Not just to new players, but pretty much everyone. It's why I tend to stay away from multiplayer in general. When I do go online to actually play with other people and it's co op, I'm always nice and help as best as I can, which catches a lot of people by surprise.

 

[RaikuFA]

Yes. And that shit needs to stop. If it were up to me, I'd have multiplayer removed altogether. Every online game I've tried was full of nothing but rude as hell people that wanted me dead just because I'm not playing how they want me to play.

 

[Bat Vader]

Yes. And that shit needs to stop. If it were up to me, I'd have multiplayer removed altogether. Every online game I've tried was full of nothing but rude as hell people that wanted me dead just because I'm not playing how they want me to play.

That seems just as bad though. Many people like the multiplayer in a game. Removing it because you had a bad experience isn't fair to the ones that like it.

Besides MMOs I don't play the multiplayer in a game unless it is with friends. I hate having to deal with people I don't know and I don't care to get to know them.

 

[cleric of the order]

I know what you're gonna say, "Of course they're gonna lose at first while they're learning the game but they'll get good eventually." Except that takes time and dedication that the new player would be less likely to devote to the game or genre if they believe that the game is too difficult for them,

Do you think everyone was this good to start?
It took me 2000 hours to get as good as I am in tf2.
that was time wasted, same with everyone else.
you have to learn.
You have any Idea how much I sucked before? a fuck ton, barely could get a kill, wm1ed and this is back before the Uber update and f2p

based on the artifical difficulty they're facing based purely upon the people they are facing, or that the community for that game or genre is toxic.

Reread that.
It's a multiplayer game it cannot be artificial difficult if you are playing with others that are better than you.
The answer is to find different groups learn not to suck and suck it up.
If people are that dumb well they can give it another shot later

There are loads of examples of this in today's gaming communities. If you tell or team mates in a MOBA thats its your first time playing, will they be helpful and give you advice? I'm sure a lot of players are and do but i'm certain even more will just abandon that game immediately. How many people asking for advice on the forums for From Software games are told to basically "Git gud noob".

don't ask on forums, get friends, watch pros, learn either experience or otherwise.
Also the mute button is a thing yo, more importantly given your incoming comment, new people are picking on new people.

And yes most multi-player games do match people up based on their win:loss ratio or level or w/e but all of those systems get abused by those of us who are determined to fight only when we are certain of victory. Whether its tanking your ranking or to use a specific example Levelling only your gear in Dark Souls/Bloodborne and not your character level so you get match with someone who couldn't possibly stand a chance.

In mobas smurfs are a thing, in fps some people just want to feel good and in souls games refer to this.

more importantly consider thematic, there is a reason why that exists in souls games.
More importantly you can do what I did when I was new, stay hollow

So what, if anything should be done. Should people stop being dicks to other people, yeah but that'll never happen.

actually it can, play it forward, help new players, don't over emphasis the bad aspects there are good people too.

Therefore as comunities are harder to change should developers change there designs so that the playing field is more even at all levels of play? Or are the current systems fine as they are and people just need to bare with it until they're competitive?

 

[MHR]

The only way to fix it is to cut interaction. Do what Hearthstone does and allow no chat at all. What a stupid way to design your game. Some casual mobile trash like Hearthstone is one thing, but you'd be insane to remove interaction in any real game.

People need to grow thicker skins. What happens when you have no skin, like you're a giant water balloon? Some prick gets to you, and your bleeding heart bleeds out and makes a slick mess all over the floor.

Nothing's stopping you from disabling all voice and chat. Take some accountability for your online experience. Or do you want mommy to pick through your food for you and weed out every little bad seed?

 

[LostCrusader]

I think that it just has to do with your attitude when approaching online games. I get the feeling that a lot of people go in with the attitude that they are amazing at a game after going through the single player, and then get angry when they lose. There are other examples though like twink characters in Dark Souls that are absolutely experienced players taking advantage of matchmaking systems to target newer players.

Hearthstone is the perfect example of a game where new players are treated harshly by both the players and the developer. A new Hearthstone player who completes the tutorial and is about to set of against other players is about to enter a world where not only can they not compete but cannot even improve. If you play the casual option for your first few games in Hearthstone you'll be annihilated by people you use legendary cards that you can't compete with. No matter, you just have to get yourself some legendaries of your own and if you can afford to buy the card packs then sure you can buy your way to victory and Blizzard has been kind enough to provide daily quests to earn currency for those who can't afford it. Great, except that the quests require you to win 2 games, doesn't sound like much but winning even one game is hard enough when you can barely compete.

The Hearthstone example is something different I think. There isn't a way to really target newer players in the matchmaking systems, so its not that the community is picking on new players, just that the new players don't have the tools to compete with the existing player base. The real problem is that the only way for a new player to get better is though winning matches to earn gold or throw money at the developer. I got the impression that Blizzard realized that it was a bad reward system when I saw that their daily quests in Heroes of the Storm were mostly for games played rather than just wins. That system is better for newer players by letting them learn from their losses while incentivizing them to continue playing and earn the tools to compete. Now if only Blizzard would take that reward system and apply it to both games.

 

[babinro]

Yes gaming communities are too harsh on people.

If you go and play Magic at Friday Night Magic you probably won't have people trolling you and mocking you all night long. Most magic card players I've seen are happy to give advice or simply wish the player well. It's made to be a relatively positive environment regardless of skill level.

Put those same people online and they deem it socially acceptable to be racist homophobic heartless trolls.

I don't see how you can fix the community beyond decades of campaigns preaching awareness on internet ethics. Being anonymous doesn't give you permission to treat people like garbage, harass them, ect.

On the game development side of things you just need to work on adding more tiers of play based on performance. Hearthstone's matchmaking system in Casual play is atrocious. They could assign hidden values to every card in the game for every class. Add up those values for the class being played and assign the player a secret rank based on that result. Then match that player to similar ranked players. Adjust this result further based one win/loss ratio's and streaks.

Minimize in game communication or simply removing it entirely. Give players tools to customize their own chat filters and make that process as user friendly as possible. There's no reason any MMO player should EVER see gold seller spam right now. It's a super easy fix but game devs refuse to let their playerbase filter chat individually.

Allow for positive reporting of players that can denoted and seen by other players in game. Kind of a like a thumbs up in a forum post. The game could specify what actions are typically worth of a positive report and players could be given in game titles or ranks based on this.

 

[Morgoth780]

Give players tools to customize their own chat filters and make that process as user friendly as possible.

This.

Although communication is essential to certain games, filters and the like should be available to mute/avoid toxic players.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So what, if anything should be done. Should people stop being dicks to other people, yeah but that'll never happen. Therefore as comunities are harder to change should developers change there designs so that the playing field is more even at all levels of play? Or are the current systems fine as they are and people just need to bare with it until they're competitive?

No, developer should not change their designs to make it easier for new people to compete, because that fucks with the long term balance of the game and makes it more range inducing for other players. You don't want to cater to the people who might play the game, you should cater to the ones who do and will continue to.

Let me give you an example: Call of Duty

In every call of Duty game there is some mechanic, or weapon, or perk which is meant to make the game easier for new players and in every game it is completely reviled by the community. Take for example death streaks. The idea of the death streaks is that if you die a bunch of times without getting any kills the game takes pity on you and gives you a buff that makes it easier to get your next kill. The idea is that it's disheartening for new players to get steamrolled, and this would let them get some easy kills, even if it's only 1 kill for every 5 or 6 deaths.

Here's the problem with this thinking - because kills are so fast and easy to get in call of duty getting a single kill is not satisfying. What's satisfying is going on streaks, earning kill streaks and surviving for as long as possible is the most fun and exhilarating part of call of duty gameplay. New players don't get to experience that if they're dying 5 or 6 times before getting a kill off their death streak because it's only a single kill, but what does happen is that someone who is on a streak and having fun ends up dying and losing that because someone less skilled was given an unfair advantage, which causes them to rage. At that point no one is having fun, not the guy who just lost his streak, nor the new player who can't get past one kill.

What happens when developers decide to give new players a fighting chance is that the gameplay ends up being unsatisfying because it screws over people who try hard to get good at the game while not actually doing much to make the game satisfying to play for the new people who are just starting out.

 

[RaikuFA]

Yes. And that shit needs to stop. If it were up to me, I'd have multiplayer removed altogether. Every online game I've tried was full of nothing but rude as hell people that wanted me dead just because I'm not playing how they want me to play.

That seems just as bad though. Many people like the multiplayer in a game. Removing it because you had a bad experience isn't fair to the ones that like it.

Besides MMOs I don't play the multiplayer in a game unless it is with friends. I hate having to deal with people I don't know and I don't care to get to know them.

Why should I care about them? They don't care about me. They see someone getting harassed and just act as if that person deserved it. That persons crime? Being new.

 

[Bat Vader]

Yes. And that shit needs to stop. If it were up to me, I'd have multiplayer removed altogether. Every online game I've tried was full of nothing but rude as hell people that wanted me dead just because I'm not playing how they want me to play.

That seems just as bad though. Many people like the multiplayer in a game. Removing it because you had a bad experience isn't fair to the ones that like it.

Besides MMOs I don't play the multiplayer in a game unless it is with friends. I hate having to deal with people I don't know and I don't care to get to know them.

Why should I care about them? They don't care about me. They see someone getting harassed and just act as if that person deserved it. That persons crime? Being new.

You're generalizing though. How can they care about you if the vast majority doesn't know you exist? When I used to play Call of Duty 4's MP mode I muted everyone in the lobby. How could I have known if someone is getting harassed because they are new? I'm sure there were players that treated you kindly. Why ruin their fun? Perhaps some people just didn't want to get involved. You can't fault people for that.

Why should you care? Because ruining someone else's fun would make you just as bad as the people you were speaking about. Why sink to their level?