I ignore them, not with a feature.. but just in general. If someone starts getting directly abusive.. ignore list. Done. :) - I don't petition abusive players... as a I believe in freedom of expression/speech.. doesn't mean I have the listen to it though.
Griefings a whole different story. I'll petition if it comes to it.
I like to play on PvP servers. Toxic players...yeah, I've met a few. Really, they're probably bored and just want attention. So, I'll give them a bit. If they're messing with me personally or with my group, one of my go to tactics is to reply by sending them sweet messages, /hug them, RP a little, be funny, make jokes, stuff like that. Pretty much the opposite of what they are expecting/wanting as a reaction. I've found that it catches them off guard and they're not exactly sure how to react to me. It almost always shuts them up or gets them in a nicer frame of mind...at least towards me/my group. If they won't stop being a**hats, I'll kill them, all the while still sending the nicest messages imaginable. It's hard for them to stay mad and mean when they're being killed by someone super nice to them. :)
As weird as it sounds, I've actually made a couple friends this way. Of course, I'm not one to take my games too seriously, (it's just pixels, people!) so it's really hard for these type of people to get under my skin too deeply in the first place. Toxic people thrive on players who take their games super seriously.
Now, if these guys are just completely oblivious to my charms, or are out actually griefing people by camping lowbies, training, etc., and won't stop, then they just get killed. As soon, as harshly, and as many times as possible. No more sweet words, just silent justice. :) They get their name on the guild kos list. They get blacklisted. They get shamed. I don't think I've ever actually had to report a player for spewing toxic words. And they rarely go on my ignore list. I've found it doesn't take too long before they have lost interest and are a non issue.
If none of that works and they really are super, duper toxic, or if I don't have a PvP option, that's when they go on ignore. If it really becomes necessary to report them, I will, but I do that as a last resort and rarely has it ever come to that. The sweet talk usually gets them. <3
*edit: a couple words. and a clarification.
Marilee said:I hope I'm not taking this discussion off course with my answer.
If I complain about a certain public channel being full of toxic chat I don't think the answer is for me to just turn off that chat channel. I play MMORPGs because I enjoy a living and vibrant community. Turning off chat channels and shrinking the MMO part of the community I've joined is simply bullsnot.
My expectations of a civil community does not make me thin-skinned. Racism, xenophobia, misogyny and any other ignorance that toxic players want to spew in public channels should be nipped in the bud. Hopefully in Pantheon the community will be able to curb such behavior by not welcoming those who practice such behaviors into groups and the like. If it doesn't I want GM intervention. I want people to feel welcome when they join Pantheon and feel free to ask questions and not be attacked in channel for daring to appear less than knowledgable about the game.
I really hope we can return to an era where people want to help each other--where no question is a dumb question and will be answered with respect. I don't want to have nothing to do until my guildies log on because I'm afraid to join the community at large because of excessive toxicity.
I hope that the community works together...like they did in the old days...no room for hate speech, mysogyny, racism and the like. It seems to be pretty prevalent on the 'net over the past few years, and I realize a lot of it has to do with being "anonymous".....which is cowardly really, but hey some are like that. As for sweet talking them...that will be the day. If they can't be civil ..and need to spew, I don't have time for them...hence my /ignore list. Which means the culprit becomes invisible to me..for my groups for anything else I do, for eternity for all I care. I pay for my game, and I expect to be able to enjoy same. I am a friendly person...but don't step on my toes. :)
One more thing I rarely petition about players, but I do petition about bugs, exploits and things like that. If the person wishes to apologize (yes that has happened a few times) I'll be willing to open up the channels. But if its just more of the same poisonous behavior...*poof* that's it you had your chance. Not going to waste much more time than that ..and give them the attention they are seeking. Time to go back to Momma and Poppa for retraining as the first set didn't take. :D hehe
Honestly you just need to /ignore people because in the end if that toxic player is amazing and plays a class guilds need it doesnt matter because he will find groups and raids. Playing EQ2 I could do and say anything I wanted (some of it was really really bad) and as soon as I said I was looking for group i would have a dozen invites easy.
The only thing you need to avoid toxic players is a /ignore list
Kilsin said:Have you ever encountered a toxic player in an MMORPG and if so how did you deal with the situation? :)
I can tell you.. that just logging off during the encounter will piss them off more than anything. Or, take it further & pretend during the encounter they are not even there.. or insignificant to your interests... Or babble on about hearing crickets... usually boils them over real good. (then gate and go about your way... etc).
Hieromonk said:Kilsin said:Have you ever encountered a toxic player in an MMORPG and if so how did you deal with the situation? :)
I can tell you.. that just logging off during the encounter will piss them off more than anything. Or, take it further & pretend during the encounter they are not even there.. or insignificant to your interests... Or babble on about hearing crickets... usually boils them over real good. (then gate and go about your way... etc).
Exactly, this is usually the tactic I use if I encounter someone that is being hostile or trolling, which thankfully isn't very often.
Ingame you can simply ignore them.But I think its a cancer much deeper than that.Player toxicity ties in with player priorities ingame too,as most of the masses are toxic and have caused MMO to gain anti social mechanics as devs just pick up on what triggers majority of players.
And the toxic masses pushing for all kind of changes and patterns that have caused MMO to be in the poor state they are now.
So will it ever be the same?Will they ever gain that magic again they once had?
If these forums are any indication I fear the worst,and we must indeed conclude that we only have ourselves to thank for the poor state MMOs are in
Chat issues = /ignore
Cheat and/or exploit = /report
KS, training, other issues immediately interfering with my gameplay... sadly I try to find something else to do.
My playtime is usually limited, therefore too precious to waste on waiting for GM/Guides to respond.
I know this lets the toxic person “win”, but I don’t have the luxury of time to stand on principle to prove a point.
I once put someone on ignore and as was my habit forgot about them. To put this in context , my ignore list totalled less then 10 people. Anyway we were raiding hate , and being the wizzy I was doing the ports , rogues and monks were in place and I was taking the groups in , was the only wizzy l;ol , was early days. Being early days , communication was text , and I ported only on group leaders go , was a simple system , but it worked. Long story short , second group up and everyone is shouting ( CAPS ) sweet for f sakes go. My wizzy was sweetdreams. I am like when such and such calls it. 10 minutes goes by and guild leader is like check your ignore list........sure enough. End result was an appology for an incident I had long since forgotten and from memory a very successful raid. I love moments like that , silly as they are , they make the game.
Grayel said:My playtime is usually limited, therefore too precious to waste on waiting for GM/Guides to respond.
I know this lets the toxic person “win”, but I don’t have the luxury of time to stand on principle to prove a point.
great point, you just have to enjoy the time you have and make the most of it in whatever circumstances you find yourself.
You can always focus on different things and move on. Maybe its most healthy to just let go,even if they might feel they won; its their own delusion
because in truth they are worth 0 of your energy and time and you might have already given them too much . means more time gaming,less on forum for me now
It depends on how one defines toxic. I've met lots of rude people, obviously intentional ninja loots/pulls etc. but in those cases I usually /ignore them or, if on a pvp server, try to kill them.
I can't recall being harassed, stalked, threatened or anything to that effect but in that case I suppose I'd report them to a GM.
The worst I can remember is from a pug raid for Molten Core on a vanilla wow private server where I, a druid, was told by a rude priest "You WILL watch my mana and when it is low you WILL innervate me." I told him I innervated whoever I pleased and because I got pretty salty I also told I didn't think he was a good healer anyway. Afterwards he would send me links to his healing logs from raids using the in-game mail system. It went on for several weeks. Tbh it was quite funny so I never put him on ignore or anything, I'd just read his CAPS letters to my guildies on discord and have a laugh.
It was in Karnor's Castle. Zone was empty and a group from a guild with the worse reputation came in. Did the usual train mobs to our camp then FD'd. We just moved on else where. Couple years later it was members from this guild LFG at zone in that would be skipped over. Groups just wouldn't offer them a spot. I still remember getting accepted into a Planes of Power era PUG and that's what they were discussing. Actually their discussion was how this guild made guilds from their part of the world suffer in reputation also.
I've known a few guild leaders who had a physical binder with player names (and their alts when it was found) never to : Anything. No grouping, no res's, no help with Corpse retrivial, quests ... nothing.
I know I would check my ignore list before sending an /tell inviting someone.
Honestly when it comes to MMORPGs the number of toxic players that I have had the misfortune to experience tend to be far and few in-between at least in a PVE aspect. I think that from the 20 years of gaming experience that I have under my belt I can count on two (maybe three) hands- the number of people who were truly toxic in the PvE aspect. As a healer for the last 20 years, I have gotten use to everything being my fault... cause blame the healer. Honestly, it's to the point that most arguments tend to roll off of me and in these situations I chose to ignore and move on if at all possible. You can't argue with stupid and its a waste of energy and effort to try.
Now that being said I have been put into situations where the abuse was extremely relentless and there was no exit. I am not the type of person who will suffer through relentless abuse quietly, but I'm also not the type to report people by opening tickets. All I can say is that in the very few situations that got this bad, there is nothing worse than a healer refusing to heal, pulling everything in the vicinity, and zoning while people are in the process of dying. It's even worse when there are consequences to death.
HemlockReaper said:I’ve encountered lots of Toxic players, probably from the same guild. They’re always screaming “Get off my lawn”, and “Back in my day kid”, and my favorite “One time in EQ”. Really quite amazing.
Grognards is the term I have seen used in the table top gaming circles but I can see it working here just as well.
Have encountered lots of toxic players over the years. Sometimes whole guilds that got their kicks griefing other players.
/ignore and /report are only successful with 'casual' griefers. Anyone more determined to be unpleasant will find ways to do so.
I sincerely hope VR will not rely too much on 'community policing' in Pantheon. In PvE it's not really possible and even in PvP not really desirable. The 'police' can often be the 'griefers'.
Simples said: First off I want to state that these days everyone is micro monitoring everything. Players these days are running their screen capture programs to capture people in the act of what ever they believe is wrong. Let's not jump the gun and start banning what seems to be toxic play. Give leeway because not all instances where someone pisses you off or bend/break the rules is the others intentions. Accidents happen, KSing happens, you need to get over it most of the time. Now if it's blatant obvious, then I'd like a GM to step in and hear both sides of the story. /report and /ignore should be in the game. I'd like to see ignore used most often though. You'll never escape the ass hole in any game. I'm sure hello kitty online has 5 year old DBs.
This.
I won't even /ignore unless they are spamming my chat. I'm a dad of 2, I have a built-in ignore mechanism for annoyances and minor inconveniences lol. With that said, I find that the thing I have very little tolerance for in an MMO is the botspamming (which is created by people that indirectly create a toxic environment). I can deal with toxic "players", its the toxic bots that pose as players I have issues with because there is seemingly nothing that can be done about them as the players ourselves when they generate random names, log in and spam, delete the character and repeat. In this case, I will give the devs some lee-way in finding a solution to banning them (hopefully without false-positives impacting legitimate players). A reasonable time for me would be a couple of weeks depending on the severity of the interferrence.
Pretty much everyone that played any MMO (or spend time on internet ... scratch that - had some interactions with other human beings) encountered someone toxic. I just laugh them off, chill and do whatever I've been doing. In an MMO I'm also permablocking them on my chat when I have such option .
