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SWTOR community: What happened?


DaZeeZee

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I've played many online games. this includes WoW, and even a little LoL. yet SWTOR takes the cake as far as the sheer amount of toxic idiots one runs into regularly every day just by doing a random vet FP or two. idiots who cant interact with anyone at all without behaving like an 8 year old spoiled child.

 

What has SWTOR done to deserve this rot? what have the remaining decent players done to deserve this? this game is just no place for a mature, decent human being anymore, and its so sad.

 

I'm sure EA is partly to blame, communities in games fester most when a game is neglected or not developed right.

 

I'm saddened by how terrible random interactions are in this game. I can name at least 2 other games in which you could speak to random people for hours one after another and usually not run into even one rude and uncivil moron.

 

here its at least 2 a day assuming I try to pug FP at least 3 times a day. Maybe I should stop. clearly its a bad idea to interact with people when the majority just dont deserve notice.

 

I wish there was some way to keep that kind of immature child in need of better parenting off our game. :(

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What has SWTOR done to deserve this rot?

 

If 16-year-old boys with testosterone levels higher than they know what to do with had to pay subscriptions, they couldn't type out all that toxic crap behind the safety of their locked bedroom door, as well as the over-privileged ones using mamma's credit card for a subscription, and a subset of 25-year-olds who basically don't negotiate this world with any more maturity than the sixteen-year-olds.

 

Unfortunately, every game has the above. I only have a FTP account with ESO, and in two hours of playing ESO I don't experience a hundredth of the toxicity that I do in 5 minutes of playing SWTOR.

 

So it's a matter of culture, and that rests with Bioware. Relying on the rest of us to play maturity police has not, does not, and will not work. There's an element missing with SWTOR that allows this toxicity that I just don't see in ESO, STO, or EQ/EQ2.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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When I do non-story FPs or ops, I do with them with guilds for the most part. The few times I've run vet FPs as pugs since 6.0 dropped I noticed that the rate for HS and MR are quite high, so there's an unwritten rule that they are speed runs that should be done textbook perfectly.

 

That's not too much to ask perhaps, but the mentality continues even for FPs that don't pop as often, but have been around forever, like Athiss or Cademimu. The assumption there tends to be that they've been around forever, so you should know them, never mind the fact that new players won't have seen them or it might just have been awhile. I know I screw up KDY pretty much every time so need someone else to know what they're doing.

 

The only other thing that comes to mind as 'toxic' is endgame ninjaing objectives. That used to be mostly confined to starter planets, then Act 1 planets, now it's everywhere. When leveling was more of a slog, it tended to weed out ninjas, or at least train them out of that behavior. Not so much anymore.

Edited by Ardrossan
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I also believe SWTOR, as a game, rewards jerks. In Warhammer online, we fought back the orcs on the beach. Player versus player. But it was fun. Everyone was just concentrating on the battle. You didn't hear namecalling. You didn't hear anything else. We just fought.

 

The difference is that game didn't have a strong story granting license to immature people to behave as badly as they can:

 

The imp stories spin tales of deceit and sanctioned murder. Kill your master to progress. Take this piece of paper and run off and kill whoever's name appears on it. Channel your hatred to grow more powerful. The imp stories declared open season on all that is right and uplifting, and players enamored of that are rewarded in their playstyle for doing that, and there's nothing to say okay, you're done playing sith now, you're on general chat talking to real human beings, not NPCs, so bite it and be decent long enough to correspond in general chat.

 

The pub side is just as bad: corruption, deceit, murder, all the way through the story line, and it's just as welcoming of a premise as imp side to behave badly by selecting the I'm-going-to-be-a-complete-jerk option throughout one's class story, regardless of the story.

 

So the game itself invites bad behavior.

 

That said, the failing still rests with the player base. Those players who are either unable or unwilling to separate themselves from their character long enough to interact decently with other players in gen chat or while interacting with other players in a group situation infect every aspect of SWTOR with their toxicity.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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The stories have nothing to do at all with the actions of the community. if anything, it is the more intelligent and mature people who can appreciate the stories SWTOR has to offer.

 

the game is plauged however by huge bad design choices which allow easy griefing, and these are exploited to the fullest by the aforementioned teenage hooligans with no parenting and no life.

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The stories have nothing to do at all with the actions of the community. if anything, it is the more intelligent and mature people who can appreciate the stories SWTOR has to offer.

 

the game is plauged however by huge bad design choices which allow easy griefing, and these are exploited to the fullest by the aforementioned teenage hooligans with no parenting and no life.

 

Griefing doesn't address gen chat. I will hop onto one of my guild leader toons to pre-ban people who are vomiting at the mouth juvenile, racist, and vile messaging in gen chat. The toxicity comes at us from all corners.

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If 16-year-old boys with testosterone levels higher than they know what to do with had to pay subscriptions, they couldn't type out all that toxic crap behind the safety of their locked bedroom door, as well as the over-privileged ones using mamma's credit card for a subscription, and a subset of 25-year-olds who basically don't negotiate this world with any more maturity than the sixteen-year-olds.

 

Unfortunately, every game has the above. I only have a FTP account with ESO, and in two hours of playing ESO I don't experience a hundredth of the toxicity that I do in 5 minutes of playing SWTOR.

 

So it's a matter of culture, and that rests with Bioware. Relying on the rest of us to play maturity police has not, does not, and will not work. There's an element missing with SWTOR that allows this toxicity that I just don't see in ESO, STO, or EQ/EQ2.

 

I agree, and I have played ESO and STO, and those arent even what I'd call examples of a good community, its just the bar of SWTOR is so incredibly low.

 

Best community I've had the pleasure of playing with is FF14 community, and while of course they have jerks too, and some servers are better than others, there is just far less immature toxicity there and way WAY more helpfulness especially shown to new players.

 

in the end for the vast majority of people, the community is what makes or breaks a game. and that is why I am saddened to have to say, I will be happy when the new FF14 patch comes out this august and I can quit SWTOR again to go do something I can enjoy without running into toxic idiots every 10 minutes.

 

SWTOR has/had tremendous potential. if it had been in the right hands and not the WORST hands (EA) it might have even become BETTER than FF14 which now has its deserved place as number one MMORPG.

 

Sadly, EA got it. RIP.

 

Those players who are either unable or unwilling to separate themselves from their character

One of my good friends from another game was always at least half in character- his character was an alien king who treated everyone as his loyal subjects. no one I knew really hated him for it or thought he was out of line. we liked it and him.

 

It's not the RP which is a problem. If someone is clearly in character and says something in their evil imperial accent like "ALL TWIELEKS SHOULD BE CHAINED UP TO A GIANT BLENDER" then its clear they are just having in character fun. but when a Sith lord is complaining about trump or something, that is not the Sith lord that is a player.

 

A true Sith does not complain about a politician. a true Sith removes the problem. and we all know how well that would work out in real life lol.

Edited by DaZeeZee
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it is the more intelligent and mature people who can appreciate the stories SWTOR has to offer.

 

I agree. There are moments when I like sitting there, challenged over a moral issue, as to how to respond in a cut scene.

 

However, the overall package basically telegraphs to immature people that it's totally acceptable to be toxic in all aspects of the game, in all interactions with other people. What other game is out there with story lines so strong that say okay, be as hideous and demoralizing to other people as you can and you'll fulfill your story?

 

Immature people simply cannot separate the messages in the storyline from what constitutes generally accepted norms of decency in interacting with other players. They simply can't muzzle it. It's too easy.

 

Is it that ESO / TSO / EQ / EQ2 and other games have a stronger enforcement policy?

 

I don't know if we can ever zero down to just one reason why SWTOR is overrun with toxic players, but it's worth examining every angle.

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Is it that ESO / TSO / EQ / EQ2 and other games have a stronger enforcement policy?

dunno about them but in FF14, GMs are real and they act. usually on justified charges.

 

Players can and are banned for major violations. people who are reported get investigated within a couple days.

 

when a player submits a report, a GM contacts them within hours, and asks about the issue, then states their GM non disclosure rules (they cant tell you about the results) and will look into it.

 

People there know that being toxic enough too often is a sure way to be perma banned. also a sub is required to play, past the trial bits.

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The stories have nothing to do at all with the actions of the community. if anything, it is the more intelligent and mature people who can appreciate the stories SWTOR has to offer.

 

 

 

Agreed on the stories angle; I am very skeptical of the idea that playing Darth Eeeevil has some kind of behavioral impact on people. And if it does, my credits would first be on the altaholics with 80+ chars being unable to distinguish reality from fiction. Ahem.

 

the game is plauged however by huge bad design choices which allow easy griefing, and these are exploited to the fullest by the aforementioned teenage hooligans with no parenting and no life.

 

Can you give an example of griefing? I think swtor actually does a good job of anti-griefing, certainly much better than when they started. I liked playing on a pvp server but there's no getting around the fact that OWPVP is an invitation to grief. Restricting it to a toggle may have killed it [though it was dying well before that] but it ensured that the only people who die in the Rakghoul tunnels, for instance, signed up for that, rather than just being PVE players trying to complete their dailies.

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Can you give an example of griefing?
not talking about pvp at all I have barely touched that since coming back.

 

Ever notice how many times people decline when vet FP pops? sometimes it happens 8 times in a row before you get in. sometimes they wait the full time out and waste everyones time.

 

There is NO penalty for declining after the pop happens, and not even for letting it time out.

 

Letting it time out should earn a 20 minute ban from queue. declining should get a 5 minute lockout.

 

Make people queue only when they are prepared to take what they get. random groups are random. you cant expect to just decline til you like what you see. it was a mistake to even show the roles and levels.

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Agreed on the stories angle; I am very skeptical of the idea that playing Darth Eeeevil has some kind of behavioral impact on people. And if it does, my credits would first be on the altaholics with 80+ chars being unable to distinguish reality from fiction. Ahem

I can recognize a back-handed insult when I see it, thanks for the toxicity, and as a fiction writer, a priori I must know the difference.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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Letting it time out should earn a 20 minute ban from queue. declining should get a 5 minute lockout.

.

 

Sure, I can agree with that. That seems like a new interpretation of griefing though. But if you notice the same player always doing it, then yes. You should at least be able to report it.

 

I can recognize a back-handed insult when I see it, thanks for the toxicity, and as a fiction writer, a priori I must know the difference.

 

See, when you say things like 'toxicity' it makes me wonder what your personal definition is, because what I said wasn't toxic. OTOH, arguing that the weak-minded and immature [classy] fall prey to...what, exactly? roleplaying but not roleplaying Sith behavior in chat? So the MAGA trolls are the way they are because Darth Nox? It doesn't even make sense, but it does make sense from the "GTA videogames turning kids into monsters" trope.

 

If you think the story corrupts, then it follows that people who play the story obsessively, to the exclusion of all other kinds of activity, are the most likely candidates. I'm just following the internal logic of your argument. As for the rest...try googling "crazy fiction writers" and see how many results you get.

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The problem with random FP is that a player can be toxic, and the other nice players can only 1) tolerate the toxic player 2) kick the toxic player. Doing 2) didn't punish the toxic player enough. They can keep being obnoxious until they get a group that does 1). Ideally, there should be a more severe penalty for players being kicked, but it might punish players who simply have a server lag, which happens quite often. Or toxic people might exploit the system and kick people who actually do the hard work before looting for lol.
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Poor or zero moderation from Bioware and no deterrent means these idiots can fester and breed more idiots.

It’s been happening in the game since launch and only getting worse as more “normal” players leave and you get a concentration of idiots left.

It will keep snow balling like this because Bioware have terrible policies towards bad behaviours (toxicity, cheating, abuse, trolling, etc) and unless it’s exploiting their precious CM, they really don’t care.

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Poor or zero moderation from Bioware and no deterrent means these idiots can fester and breed more idiots.

It’s been happening in the game since launch and only getting worse as more “normal” players leave and you get a concentration of idiots left.

It will keep snow balling like this because Bioware have terrible policies towards bad behaviours (toxicity, cheating, abuse, trolling, etc) and unless it’s exploiting their precious CM, they really don’t care.

 

Yeah, so shortsighted they can't see the steady gushing stream of players leaving by their mismanagement.

 

I wouldn't blame Bioware though. Bioware has been nothing but a hollow puppet since the satan EA bought em out.

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Yeah, so shortsighted they can't see the steady gushing stream of players leaving by their mismanagement.

 

I wouldn't blame Bioware though. Bioware has been nothing but a hollow puppet since the satan EA bought em out.

 

Bioware are the people who work there. So yeah, it’s their fault ;)

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Perhaps in part. but you can't deny the blame EA has for taking them over and having control of their funds.

 

That was over 12 years ago now. You can’t keep blaming EA for what the staff at the Austin Bioware development team have been doing since then and have kept doing.

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Recently returned to SW:ToR, it's kinda hit and miss for me, same as before I left. I mostly run veteran FP pugs and my experience so far:

 

-Though the game has 23 flashpoints, the amount of athiss, hammer station, taral V popping is nonsensical.

-Ppl running through this flashpoint like they want to break the world record, skipping all mobs, even bosses when possible and oh boy if you screw up one time and pull a group because You did not fit into that 1 cm line you are supposed to go through, then hell is unleashed upon you in chat.

-Lots of leavers. One wipe -> they say something like (omg...) and leave.

-If someone don't immediately skip all the cutscenes, then spam "SKIP SKIP OMG SPACEEE". Like their life is so busy and important , that extra 2 minutes is no way..

On the positive side though, I had my share of fun runs as well, there was one where we were helping 2 newbies and carried them through a flashpoint as intended (no skipping 99% of the mobs ) and also met a lot of friendly veterans / newbies who understands that the purpose of flashpoints is to have fun.

 

Let me say pugging a WoW M+ is way worse, but in all mmos if You want to avoid toxicity try to get friends / guild to run group content with. If You know any mmo where all the players are friendly even if you scr** up, please let me know ...

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A three page thread over your feelings getting hurt in game? I get it, people can be jerks when they're behind that firewall but c'mon. You getting all worked up only serves to continue working yourself up, the person that was rude to you will never read any of this and it will always continue.

 

Make like Elsa and let it goooooooo, let it goOoOoO

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A three page thread over your feelings getting hurt in game? I get it, people can be jerks when they're behind that firewall but c'mon. You getting all worked up only serves to continue working yourself up, the person that was rude to you will never read any of this and it will always continue.

 

Make like Elsa and let it goooooooo, let it goOoOoO

 

Complacency is what's gotten us into this mess. Bioware needs to hear the noise.

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