Player Toxicity

I quit the game when the Invention System was first in beta. At the time, CoH was well regarded in the mmo community for it's friendly and welcoming playerbase. That was CoH's greatest appeal.

I came back to the game in April to a very different atmosphere. I have played 9 (that I can recall) MMOs besides CoH and the current playerbase seems to be the most toxic of the bunch. Just a quick browse of these forums is a testiment to that - a horrendous amount of posts contain personal insults between peers. This isn't something that was particularly common prior to my leaving CoH.

Is this a consequence of the Invention and Incarnate systems and a shift to a system more prone to power-gaming?
What as a community can we do to bring CoH's atmosphere back to it's former glory?

I haven't really noticed any issues, certainly not ingame where I've seen loads of new players commenting on how helpful and welcoming the game is compared to most other MMOs.

As for the forums, the only time I really see anything even approaching animosity is when people do really dumb things, like posting the same thing over and over again worded slightly differently in the hope that people won't notice, or who ***** and moan about something that's been in place for months but that they hadn't noticed until today, or - as we've had recently - cry that the end of the world is coming on the basis of some beta patch notes which a) aren't final and b) most of the time they haven't even played yet, or who make inflammatory posts that are basically designed to wind people up.

Even in the context of all that, the worst that this game has to offer in terms of community is still leagues above the kind of childishness and abuse that you get in a lot of other MMOs and, indeed, regular online games.

We're kind of like a giant old married couple now.

I don't play on Freedom, but I would imagine that it is by far the "worst" server for that sort of thing due purely to the number of players and the law of averages.

The invention system has been in place for 4.5 years, so either the decline is so slight that it's doubtful you could link it to the introduction of the Invention System in any meaningful way or I've really missed something, because I've rarely come across anything that matches what you're describing.

And I wasn't just referring to WoW, but any online interaction between people (which in this context is primarily MMOs as well as other online games but frankly could be extended to things like Facebook and Twitter quite easily), for which I present to you [Link removed. ~Mod13] by way of explanation. CoH is still miles above the majority of other experiences in terms of maturity and general behaviour.

I have played most of my time on Freedom, and I had few bad experiences, all a long time ago. I can say I had different but equally bad experiences in Virtue. Both were few, like 2 or 3 times each server so I can't say the community is worse or anything. On the other servers I played too little to have decent feedback, on Champion I joined people I 'met' on the forums so it's been a good experience there.

The help channel on Freedom seems okay to me, it's actually a help channel focused on help (or at least ingame discussion), I haven't seen trolling. The Virtue one is the only one I turn off, not because of player attitude, but people tend to chat about *anything* in that help channel (and by that I mean taling about Transformers, Pokemon, etc, not only ingame stuff), it's more annoying than the freedom broadcast imo because the farm/pl broadcast is only in Atlas and some in Cap nowadays. That doesn't mean I see 'toxicity' in any of those (Virtue's help channel or freedom broadcast', I played a lot tonight leveling a lowbie through Twinshot's arc in Freedom (wanted to check it out after doing sewer trials on my other toons to get them to SOs asap) and people were nice as they usually are.

Sure I got the crazy TF leader who decided to kick two people for some nonsensical reason and then ragequits, and the player who wants everyone to obey his tank like it was a Mostf and kicks the blasters who aggros before him, but that's rare and bound to happen, especially in those two servers where there are so many people. But I don't think it has changed and if there were so many bad things in the community, you'd certainly see a lot of 'horror stories' posted here in the forums. They appear once in a while, but it's not often. And not more frequently than three years ago.

As a new player myself, I adore this game's in game community, as well as the forums (though there a few people I can pick out already who just seem... not very nice)

For the most part, this game's community is brilliant, definitely one of the friendliest I have ever been a part of (of several hundred MMORPG's I have played)

However, when a game implements free to play functionality, it also opens it's doors to the "internets", where trolls fester. Some of those dwellers of the dark parts of the net will naturally come here and attempt to stir things up. In my opinion, however, CoH is largely unaffected by this

I've played CoH almost since the beginning and have (mostly) loved it primarily for the player community. I do agree that over the past 2 years or so, the player community has changed. Perhaps it is just perception because the loudest gets heard more often. Even so, it does seem to me that things are changing over to be more focused for power gaming and on "the things" rather than the people and interaction. Not to say that there aren't any good stories, there certainly are but we're talking community and player focused here.

I'm at best a casual player and I've never been one for end-game or for "the things" (yes, I include the whole Incarnate process as one of "the things") and it is getting harder and harder to have fun with anyone other than our own SG.

On the note of other games, I happen to have reactived my sub for that other "really big" game. Frankly, no matter which server I have been on, the community has been FAR more helpful that anytime on CoH in the last 6 month. That's discouraging.

I think what they do have in common is that (from my perspective) most of the playerbase doesn't go to the forums for the same reasons - toxicity. I think that even without a significant amount of the playerbase participating on the forums, it accurately reflects the playerbase but on a smaller scale: a few very good and genuinely helpful players who take the time to listen and actually give *constructive* criticism but the bulk being very toxic with the MO of slap first, talk second.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giant2005 Thanks for the replies guys. Judging from the responses, I am going to consider my quoted paragraph to be the reality of the situation. I have to ask though, Rapthorne... Several hundred mmorpgs?

As with rl you are going to run into some *********, I think perhaps you might be dwelling too much on the negatives. Sure I have had some blowouts with some folks, but, all in all I have made some great friends in game and out.

IMO get off the help channel, in all the instances I have "attempted" to use it has been a lark at best, too much junk floating around in there, too much bs.

Get into a good sg, make some globals, and get out and team is the best advice I can give you. As far as the forums are concerned, different people different opinions and sometimes people go head to head. For the most part it is a good community.

I have not really noticed things. I find this community much nicer in general than others I have played on, and as for toxicity...Id say more personality rather than Toxic.

People can get fired up, but for the most part it's not that bad.

Let me put it this way. This is the only game community where I post pretty actively on the boards. Also where I am more on the forums then in the game. And I have played/play a lot of MMO's.
This has to do with how people post and sure sometimes there are trolls or players who take things to far even for my taste but that happens everywhere and I would hardly blame the entire community for that.

Ingame I cannot even remember any incident...mind you I play mostly on Union and now also on the Exalted server. Never any other server so I don't know how it's over there. Help chat I generally ignore.

The recent trend seems to be to complain about everything that is or is not in the store and whether it should be or not...that can be tiresome and can get pretty hostile.

This seems like projection - they assumed that adding phat lewt to the game would change the community in a bad way, so they left - and when they came back, they projected that belief onto the community they came back to, even though it hans't really changed.

I don't notice that the forums or the game have become any more obnoxious or rude. I do notice that people are less willing to suffer fools gladly.

When the OP has in the last few days used phrases like

"They are punishing us for running too many BAFs and Lams and not enough new content. Whether they follow through with the punishment or not, they have already threatened to punish us for our actions. "

"Does it even matter?
They can cancel their changes and even announce a public apology if they like.
It still doesn't change the fact that they threatened us in the first place."

I don't think they are in any position to talk about toxicity in speech from others.

I understand the OPs concern and I suspect it's due in large part to the proliferation of the Poison set.

There's a lot more toxicity around now that more people are able to play poison toons, not simply MMs where were never the most popular AT anyhow. But now corruptors & trollers have them, the poison in the air is truly mind blowing and this is having an inherent effect on player behaviour.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Heck it took me until this year to decide to post at all because I was so averse to the thunderdome atmosphere of forums past. Thank goodness we can all now post in perfect harmony and... well, uh, it has improved a lot.