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Current meta of online communities being toxic diminishes personal accountability

L

LinkSlayer64

Member
I came into this thread expecting something like "labeling online gaming as usually toxic leads to people saying that is the norm, and letting others get away with it."
And instead it is about participation trophies.

What?
 
C

Canucked

Member
People need the right communication skills to give proper combat feedback. "Stop dying idiot" is toxic no matter how constructive someone thinks they are. Real construction is clearly communicating the problem and working on a solution.

So still toxic.
 
N

norm9

Member
Mute them the first few games and then give them a chance. Mute again if they're lame. Hasn't done me wrong, yet.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
rocK` said:
Honestly appalled that mods have such an attitude, especially when this has been nothing but inviting thoughtful conversation.

I'm so glad you can generalize all players and all advice given as useless and are able to minimize it.

You (and other like minded individuals that display this generalization) are exactly the close minded individuals that suffer from the inability to be introspective and take things like criticism/feedback as opportunities to learn instead of attacks on your person.

To judge "good" advice and "bad" advice in sweeping generalizations is just mind boggling.
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rocK` said:
Another mod with inflammatory comments - I don't get what sense of duty you have here.
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rocK` said:
I think you lack the self-awareness to even understand.
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Where did that thick skin go? Would you say the mods are being "toxic"? :p
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Mm, kind of.

Having played Dota for many years, as well as multiple MMOs, there's definitely a specific type of player that doesn't take criticism very well, or even advice. There's a meme for this in FFXIV: "you don't pay my sub".

However I think there's little overlap between this group of players and players who talk about toxicity in competitive games, and indeed the former might be contributing to the problems of the latter depending on your perspective.

fAUOr2c.png
 
L

Lord of Ostia

Member
rocK` said:
I think you lack the self-awareness to even understand.
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Holy crap OP. They've given you thoughtful responses on why they don't agree with you, and encouraged you to consider the perspectives of other players, and this is how you react? And you don't at all see how most people posting in this thread might assume that you are being a jerk when trying to 'give advice'? That's the kind of self awareness they are saying YOU lack.
 
D

Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
Don't worry OP, I'll be your care bear

very nice thread you got going here! :) don't you mind all those meanies, they just envy all that nice effort you put in, and wish they were able to create nice and thoughtful threads like this.
 
C

Canucked

Member
Roboleon said:
Don't worry OP, I'll be your care bear

very nice thread you got going here! :) don't you mind all those meanies, they're just envy all that nice effort you put in, and wish they were able to create nice and thoughtful threads like this.
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Yeah! Go team!
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Leafhopper said:
Reading that part of that post again you might be right. I wouldn't say I totally agree with that. More of the question of what you said in the bold is the angle I am looking at.
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The thing about any discussion of constructive criticism in a context like this (team activity with strangers you're unlikely to talk to ever again) is that the person offering up the criticism in the first place is generally making a lot of potentially unwarranted assumptions:

  1. That the person they're criticizing is even at fault. In something like a team FPS, individual players' info can be limited enough that they can't even necessarily draw correct conclusions about who's responsible for a loss just based on what they saw from their own perspective while playing. (This is why ongoing competitive teams in any game review tape to learn from mistakes instead of relying on in-the-moment observations.)
  2. That they've correctly identified the problem. Even if you know which player is dragging things down, you might not correctly identify why. (This is part of why "switch characters" is such useless advice -- someone's character choice is extremely unlikely to be the proximate cause of their problem.)
  3. That they can offer advice that actually addresses the problem. I've seen people correctly identify the player that's dragging and what the general issue is, but not know enough about their character or party role or whatever to actually help. (This is a problem you see a ton in MMOs where people are like "speaking as a person who only plays DPS, here's how you should heal better...")
  4. That they can actually communicate the advice. Teaching people is difficult and requires special skills and techniques of its own; most people who haven't practiced it aren't actually able to convey a skill to someone else through conversation. A lot of online game advice is something that could be useful presented in one way, but is actually just a smug low-content slam the way it's actually delivered.
  5. That the person can implement the advice. There's a lot of cases where someone's playing at their current effective skill cap, or as well as they can without learning a new skill or technique, or even they have some external issue like a physical control issue, etc. that means your specific advice isn't something they can actually do.
  6. That the person is interested in learning to do better in whatever you specifically poked them about. Unless you're playing in a medium-to-high-level competitive environment, there's a good chance the person is working on developing skills just by playing and maybe doesn't want to give up on what they're actually working on (say, learning to play their current character better) to work on what you want them to (say, fulfilling a totally different team role) instead.

When you look over all that, the degree to which most advice offered up is useless should be pretty clear. Actually being able to say something that helps another stranger get better means your own skill, knowledge, observation, and communication ability all have to be pretty top notch. Most people who have good awareness will get that and be very careful about when and how they choose to offer advice; most people with middling to poor awareness won't get any of that and will think they can just shout at people to change their behavior, which means on average a person offering advice is far more likely to be doing a shitty job of it than a good one.
 
F

faceless007

Member
rocK` said:
?

has nothing to do about me - has to do about inviting open discussion - you'd think mods would play a role in helping move a discussion along (or moderate)
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Well, apparently the mods posting here don't think you made a very good argument in your OP, and are replying accordingly. Would you prefer we falsify praise, celebrate mediocrity, and shy away from issuing criticism?
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
First of all, "meta" has nothing to do with anything this thread is about. Don't use buzzwords if you don't know what they mean.

Second of all, most of the talk about toxicity focuses on the unmitigated vile spew that is so far removed from constructive criticism that neither is within the observable universe of each other.

Third of all, get the hell out with these assumptions:
rocK` said:
I also think you are precisely the person I am talking about - given your edit and response - likely too sensitive and just wants a casual game environment without anyone giving you grief about your ability to play.
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Fourth of all, by all means feel free to call me toxic, and indeed smile and nod to yourself in delight at so smart an use of irony.

Edit: Just read the mod posts, oh my god. :D
 
R

rocK`

Banned
Gotchaye said:
I can't say that I've seen a lot of this. In my experience people are generally quite receptive to constructive criticism after a loss, as long as you're the least bit diplomatic about it. Excepting people who are clearly just there to troll, I've really only rarely encountered players who wouldn't take advice in the middle of a game, as long as it's not like: "hey [slur] you're making us lose stop being [slur] and git gud".

On the other hand, what I see all the time are huge assholes who are I guess too socially or emotionally stunted to recognize that they're huge assholes. These people appear to genuinely believe that they are politely offering constructive criticism, and for some reason also that they are not garbage humans.

This is really just Dunning-Kruger, I expect. People with no ability to get good results interacting with others are incapable of telling that they're bad at interacting with others. This is compounded by another manifestation of something like the Dunning-Kruger effect -- often it is the case in competitive online games that people who ain't shit nevertheless think that they're the greatest. The only reason they're not Master tier is because matchmaking keeps screwing them by giving them horrible teammates. What you run into a lot is that someone who is mediocre at best relative to the rest of the team gets incredibly angry at other people on the team, who often actually are doing what they should be doing, but thinks of themselves as trying to responsibly "captain" their team and help their teammates play better.

When I used to play lots of League of Legends, sometimes on the forums one of the staff would have people request to have their bans reviewed. This was always fascinating. People would give every impression of genuinely feeling that their ban was unfair. They would tell their side of the story, how really all they were doing was responding civilly to someone being a troll or a jerk, or how they were only trying to help their team win, etc. And then the Riot staffer would produce chat logs showing them to be terrible people. This happened over and over again. And people didn't learn. They continued to genuinely believe that their ban was unjustified. And it's not like they were just misremembering what happened. Even after the chat logs would get posted these people would argue that, no, that guy really was being a [slur] and you have to do this or they'll never learn and you can't baby these people or else pretty soon we'll be calling teachers toxic for giving kids a C.

So I gotta say, I don't think you make a convincing case and I come away feeling that it's pretty likely that you're a terrible person to play with and a pretty big jerk. To say that online gaming suffers from games having too much of a "care bear" attitude is frankly so disconnected from reality that I am not sure how you function in day to day life, and this should be obvious to all but the most socially stunted people who spend any real time playing or watching streams of high-level games in something like League of Legends. I would ordinarily be somewhat more diplomatic in my criticism, but, well, you are asking for it.
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Heh. I had just seen this - I'm not sure how you logically make the leap of 'I haven't seen this' to 'I don't know how you function in life', but likely due to the ad hominem argument, it's tough to even respond.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
faceless007 said:
Well, apparently the mods posting here don't think you made a very good argument in your OP, and are replying accordingly. Would you prefer we falsify praise, celebrate mediocrity, and shy away from issuing criticism?
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"this has nothing to do with me"

the thread can go on without me.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
Weltall Zero said:
First of all, "meta" has nothing to do with anything this thread is about. Don't use buzzwords if you don't know what they mean.

Second of all, most of the talk about toxicity focuses on the unmitigated vile spew that is so far removed from constructive criticism that neither is within the observable universe of each other.

Third of all, get the hell out with these assumptions:


Fourth of all, by all means feel free to call me toxic, and indeed smile and nod to yourself in delight at so smart an use of irony.

Edit: Just read the mod posts, oh my god. :D
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1. I'm using it colloquially:

"meta-
combining form
prefix: meta-; prefix: met-
1.
denoting a change of position or condition."

Online gaming community from the days of quake to now has certainly morphed into what I'm attempting (but poorly) to explain.

2. Did you read my post? I put in a disclaimer saying that's not what I'm referring to, and if you understood (like some have) the thread about understanding the fine line between criticism and personal attacks (like the mods are trying to incite) you'd see I'm talking about the former.

3. Ok.

4. Why would I do that, you almost had a reasonable point
 
J

jdstorm

Banned
Although in all seriousness, Whats wrong with giving participation trophies?

Some activities are hard and the effort required to simply participate is deserving of some acknowledgement or reward.
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
rocK` said:
"this has nothing to do with me"

the thread can go on without me.
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How can you be so incredibly hypocritical that you are advocating that everyone in the world listen to criticism from everyone else, yet you won't even entertain the notion that the criticism of pretty much everyone else in the thread including like four mods has a modicum of merit? How does a mind even work to wrap itself around such incongruity? This is so off the charts in terms of cognitive dissonance that it would need the formation of an entirely new discipline to be properly studied.
 
E

Eumi

Member
rocK` said:
"this has nothing to do with me"

the thread can go on without me.
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This... this has to be a joke, right?

You're complaining that no one in games takes personal accountability anymore whilst not taking personal accountability for your own thread.
 
R

Raylan Targaryen

Member
charlequin said:
The chance that the person lecturing you about your play at the end of a match is actually better and smarter (and actually has useful advice) is extremely small, though. A useful critique takes a very specific format, and requires a certain level of smart engagement from the person offering it, which you very rarely see in these pseudonymous random-group settings. You can even see some of the evidence of this in this thread: there's no context where "stop playing character X" on its own has any value whatsoever, but it's being suggested as the kind of "good" advice that people are ignoring. In actuality not only can you pretty much safely ignore this "advice," you can pretty much safely ignore any other advice from the same person.
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When I started playing CS I didn't even know simple stuff like optimal bomb planting positions. I had people explain why I should plant the bomb in some other position because it could be defended from multiple angles. If I was like most people in this thread I would have either a) had them muted from the beginning because I hate social interaction or b) ignored him because why would I listen to my peers, I know just as much as him since we're the same rank

In Gears of War, I've asked people to not use the last boomshot or torque bow unless the enemy is overextending because the other team has map control, and if those weapons respawn we'll lose. It's better to just hold onto them to prevent them from spawning instead of just getting 1 kill. I've had people listen (twice had them say they never thought about it and have kept that in mind ever since) and either the round ends in a stalemate or we win. I've also had the opposite, where people either chose not to listen or told me they knew what they were doing and we would lose, because what a surprise, we gave power weapon control back to the other team because someone desperately wanted that 1 kill.

I've gotten plenty of good advice through the games I play, I've also gotten a ton of shitty advice such as the "stop playing X" but that doesn't mean I'm just going to be dismissive of everything. Even in a situation like that, I'll think to myself why did this person tell me that? Maybe I'm usually great at playing Genji, but for some reason this time I had an awful game. Was it the enemy comp? Did I overextend? There's always something to learn or something you didn't consider. It doesn't have to come from someone better or smarter than you either. Maybe it's just me and my desire to always improve, but too many people seem set in their ways, content with being the same player after 500 hours of game time that they were during their first 5 hours. If you clutch a 1v5 in CS no one is going to say "hey dude, next time do this" so if they're telling you something, it's for a reason.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
Weltall Zero said:
How can you be so incredibly hypocritical that you are advocating that everyone in the world listen to criticism from everyone else, yet you won't even entertain the notion that the criticism of pretty much everyone else in the thread including like four mods has a modicum of merit? How does a mind even work to wrap itself around such incongruity? This is so off the charts in terms of cognitive dissonance that it would need the formation of an entirely new discipline to be properly studied.
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What? Are you following the thread? Are you serious? They are saying "I haven't seen it" "I don't know how you function day in and out"

I agree, most people may not have seen it - I am opening up a discussion to see if there are people who do.

Perhaps it's just me, some in the thread have.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
Roches said:
When I started playing CS I didn't even know simple stuff like optimal bomb planting positions. I had people explain why I should plant the bomb in some other position because it could be defended from multiple angles. If I was like most people in this thread I would have either a) had them muted from the beginning because I hate social interaction or b) ignored him because why would I listen to my peers, I know just as much as him since we're the same rank

In Gears of War, I've asked people to not use the last boomshot or torque bow unless the enemy is overextending because the other team has map control, and if those weapons respawn we'll lose. It's better to just hold onto them to prevent them from spawning instead of just getting 1 kill. I've had people listen (twice had them say they never thought about it and have kept that in mind ever since) and either the round ends in a stalemate or we win. I've also had the opposite, where people either chose not to listen or told me they knew what they were doing and we would lose, because what a surprise, we gave power weapon control back to the other team because someone desperately wanted that 1 kill.

I've gotten plenty of good advice through the games I play, I've also gotten a ton of shitty advice such as the "stop playing X" but that doesn't mean I'm just going to be dismissive of everything. Even in a situation like that, I'll think to myself why did this person tell me that? Maybe I'm usually great at playing Genji, but for some reason this time I had an awful game. Was it the enemy comp? Did I overextend? There's always something to learn or something you didn't consider. It doesn't have to come from someone better or smarter than you either.

Maybe it's just me and my desire to always improve, but too many people seem set in their ways, content with being the same player after 500 hours of game time that they were during their first 5 hours. If you clutch a 1v5 in CS no one is going to say "hey dude, next time do this" so if they're telling you something, it's for a reason.
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oh

my

god

a breath of fresh air.

thanks for this - you are explaining exactly what I'm trying to convey. I do not understand the 'mute randoms they have nothing useful to say', especially in ranked based games.
 
H

HeeHo

Member
jdstorm said:
Although in all seriousness, Whats wrong with giving participation trophies?

Some activities are hard and the effort required to simply participate is deserving of some acknowledgement or reward.
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I find that people are often overly passionate about their dislike for 'participation' awards. Give people some credit, it's not like people, even kids, mental reasoning shuts down the instant they receive one of these. I'm pretty sure almost all participation awards recipients know the difference between their shitty award and what the folks in 1st, 2nd and 3rd get. If a little false praise prevents people from giving up, or gives them motivation to do better, where is the harm in that? Anecdotally, I've seen people give up way faster after receiving unwanted criticism.

Personally, I would welcome people being supportive even if I'm playing like absolute poop. like a poster said earlier, don't be a dick about it. Say something like 'it's all good, next time just try to do ____"
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
rocK` said:
"this has nothing to do with me"

the thread can go on without me.
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Translation: I will cherry pick the posts I want to reply to.

rocK` said:
1. I'm using it colloquially:

"meta-
combining form
prefix: meta-; prefix: met-
1.
denoting a change of position or condition."
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Hilariously, you even quoted the wrong definition of meta. Don't you realize it has nothing to do with either its normal use or your wrong use? The one relevant to gaming is this.

adjectiveUS
1.
(of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.
"the enterprise is inherently ‘meta’, since it doesn't review movies, for example, it reviews the reviewers who review movies"

"Metagame" is the game around the actual game, which has nothing to do with your argument. If you were sincere about your argument, you would now accept this criticism, admit you used it wrongly, and move on. Bets on the actual outcome, anyone?

rocK` said:
Online gaming community from the days of quake to now has certainly morphed into what I'm attempting (but poorly) to explain.

]2. Did you read my post? I put in a disclaimer saying that's not what I'm referring to,
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Did you read our posts? We put disclaimers that's what everyone but you is referring to with the term.

rocK` said:
and if you understood (like some have) the thread about understanding the fine line between criticism and personal attacks (like the mods are trying to incite) you'd see I'm talking about the former.
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No, you're talking about the supposedly widespread use of the word "toxic" to describe actually constructive criticism. Everyone else is just scratching their heads at the strawman.

rocK` said:
4. Why would I do that, you almost had a reasonable point
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I don't claim to know why anyone would do that, indeed. I only know that you in fact did.
 
R

rochellepaws

Member
I hear the argument a lot with regards to constructive criticism vs toxic behaviour and I think it's very important to remember the context of where the comments originate from to determine. Specifically in the case of random matchmaking where you are playing with somebody else you have never met before and will likely never meet again outside of the 10 minutes or so you're playing together. In that scenario the only criticism which is constructive is something directly relating to current performance in the match which impacts on future performance in that same match. A post game critique is never constructive unless it's requested, nor is offering very general nuggets of advice which apply to the game as a whole rather than match specific.

To give some examples with Overwatch: I would consider "stick to the point more" or "Ana, save your next ultimate for Reaper instead of Mei" to be constructive criticism as it relates to performance in the match in question. They are comments which are goal focused towards winning the game and not focused on criticising a player.
While "Mercy, why didn't you use your ultimate??", "Your aim sucks too much for windowmaker" or "Why did you switch to Bastion?? He's useless in this meta" are toxic comments as they are reactionary venting and not focused on winning the match.

I think in general the constructive criticism label is used too much for people to hide behind who wish to offer others unrequested critique, evaluation and advice. Ultimately if nobody has asked for your opinion on their performance and it doesn't directly relate to the current game being played at that very moment then it is rude to offer it.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
In fairness esports has kind of muddled the definition of metagame and it just means "dominant paradigm" now to a lot of people.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
Weltall Zero said:
Translation: I will cherry pick the posts I want to reply to.



Hilariously, you even quoted the wrong definition of meta. Don't you realize it has nothing to do with either its normal use or your wrong use? The one relevant to gaming is this.

adjectiveUS
1.
(of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.
"the enterprise is inherently ‘meta’, since it doesn't review movies, for example, it reviews the reviewers who review movies"

"Metagame" is the game around the actual game, which has nothing to do with your argument. If you were sincere about your argument, you would now accept this criticism, admit you used it wrongly, and move on. Bets on the actual outcome, anyone?



Did you read our posts? We put disclaimers that's what everyone but you is referring to with the term.



No, you're talking about the supposedly widespread use of the word "toxic" to describe actually constructive criticism. Everyone else is just scratching their heads at the strawman.



I don't claim to know why anyone would do that, indeed. I only know that you in fact did.
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I can't reply to everything, but alright.

1. uh, there are many definitions of this word, especially when used in games. For example, playing the meta in hearthstone could be trash talking before a big match or playing a deck that is strong/a counter to a strong deck. Both are acceptable to use, and neither is "wrong".

to use your definition (which I didnt use, youre using metagame specifically) then yes, it could even still work because communication is a game around the actual game - a team can perform better with better communication that isn't about the actual game.

2. Yes, I did, but it's not just me - others are talking about the fine line between toxicity and criticism - which i said is exactly where I want to talk about.

3. Again, read #2, talk about the fine line in this thread, I don't know why you and others (the mods, especially) feel the need to talk about where I can function in real life?

4. If you didn't realize this was done in tongue in cheek, my apologies - but it was a sarcastic joke.
 
deadscreensky

deadscreensky

Member
Affeinvasion said:
There aren't a whole lot of real masters at anything that go around giving unsolicited advice and the people that do usually aren't masters.
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That's a great point. I'll take it a step further and state that people in general are terrible at judging their own abilities. "You're not as good as you think you are" is effectively universally true, that's just how we work.

That said, I've been gaming online since the 90s and I don't think I've ever seen what the OP is talking about. Obviously you'll get people who can't take criticism of any sort, but they don't hide behind any sort of buzzwords like toxic, and you'll also see plenty of players who accept constructive criticism and advice. Maybe complaining about nonexistent toxicity is becoming a new thing -- it seems ideal for trolls -- but I haven't personally seen it.

(And while it's easy to laugh at participation trophies and that sort of mindset, I'm unconvinced it's genuinely a problem. That always seemed like -- ironically -- too easy an excuse to me.)

Gotchaye said:
On the other hand, what I see all the time are huge assholes who are I guess too socially or emotionally stunted to recognize that they're huge assholes. These people appear to genuinely believe that they are politely offering constructive criticism, and for some reason also that they are not garbage humans.
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Now that is something I've seen a ton of in online games.
 
drotahorror

drotahorror

Member
Kind of on the same subject but not really. Sometimes, even when I do well, I might talk a little bit of friendly trash. The opposition will say I'm salty, even when I won and did well. It's always salty this, so salt that, it irritates me. Salt used to be a word famous in the fighting game community. Now it's migrated to be one of the most popular words to say in an online game when someone shows the least bit of emotion. fuck salt

Affeinvasion said:
There aren't a whole lot of real masters at anything that go around giving unsolicited advice and the people that do usually aren't masters.
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True but you don't have to be a master to dole out common sense.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
drotahorror said:
Kind of on the same subject but not really. Sometimes, even when I do well, I might talk a little bit of friendly trash. The opposition will say I'm salty, even when I won and did well. It's always salty this, so salt that, it irritates me. Salt used to be a word famous in the fighting game community. Now it's migrated to be one of the most popular words to say in an online game when someone shows the least bit of emotion. fuck salt
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I think it's actually more similar than you think.
 
H

Huge Succeeded

Banned
drotahorror said:
Kind of on the same subject but not really. Sometimes, even when I do well, I might talk a little bit of friendly trash. The opposition will say I'm salty, even when I won and did well. It's always salty this, so salt that, it irritates me. Salt used to be a word famous in the fighting game community. Now it's migrated to be one of the most popular words to say in an online game when someone shows the least bit of emotion. fuck salt
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not even just in online games, lol

If this thread were a dumpster then that first salt post was the kerosene AND the match.
 
R

redcrayon

Member
wamberz1 said:
Like most things, offering criticisms in online games comes down to those 6 magical words -

Don't be a dick about it

While I generally just play silently in most team based games, there are some like FFXIV where offering criticisms is basically mandatory to progress. As long as you offer advice in a way that makes it clear you're not doing it for yourself but for them then it works 90% of the time. Way too much I'll see someone go "Hey dickwad, don't stand in the fire". Great critique there buddy. Which fire? What can you do the help them pay attention more? And most importantly, how do you word the critique? This is what goes through my mind when I try to help others, and for the most part the results are great.
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This. For some reason a good chunk of those that offer advice after a match seem to think that being a colossal dick about it will make the lesson they are imparting stick, and that a complete lack of social skills when talking to someone you're playing a game with for the evening is something to be proud of as a grown adult.
 
R

rocK`

Banned
deadscreensky said:
That's a great point. I'll take it a step further and state that people in general are terrible at judging their own abilities. "You're not as good as you think you are" is effectively universally true, that's just how we work.

That said, I've been gaming online since the 90s and I don't think I've ever seen what the OP is talking about. Obviously you'll get people who can't take criticism of any sort, but they don't hide behind any sort of buzzwords like toxic, and you'll also see plenty of players who accept constructive criticism and advice. Maybe complaining about nonexistent toxicity is becoming a new thing -- it seems ideal for trolls -- but I haven't personally seen it.

(And while it's easy to laugh at participation trophies and that sort of mindset, I'm unconvinced it's genuinely a problem. That always seemed like -- ironically -- too easy an excuse to me.)


Now that is something I've seen a ton of in online games.
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Obviously could be bias, but I certainly see a lot more people ignoring/rejecting advice/criticism then truly asking others on how to be better. Then again, I've heard there are numerous communities (destiny, speedrunning) that are super helpful - I don't know too many of those.

Question though - you see this thread unfolding and a good portion of people saying "I constantly mute randoms, they dont have useful advice to me". What do you think when you see / here that?

before spreading information was so prevalent, especially in Q3 days, I was certainly around more people interested in learning how to get better than disconnect and say the games too hard, etc.
 
L

link4117

Member
Think about it in the real world, would people be as abrasive with criticism in real world sports? And I'm not talking at the pro level because we're not at the pro level. My experience is when people wanna give you criticism they just say "Hey you could do x better, I'd suggest doing y" or "I noticed you're doing x, it'd help you out if you did y". Not "You're a fucking idiot why can't you just attack that guy" or "No wonder you're stuck in x league when you can't y". Very few people online actually give constructive criticism without feeling the need to insult the person as well.
 
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rocK`

Banned
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charlequin

Banned
deadscreensky said:
That's a great point. I'll take it a step further and state that people in general are terrible at judging their own abilities. "You're not as good as you think you are" is effectively universally true, that's just how we work.
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Also, the people who are the least skilled are also the people who most over-estimate their own skills, so someone who thinks they're really good and have great advice to offer is much more likely to be a terrible player with poor awareness than an actual good player.

Roches said:
When I started playing CS I didn't even know simple stuff like optimal bomb planting positions. I had people explain why I should plant the bomb in some other position because it could be defended from multiple angles. If I was like most people in this thread I would have either a) had them muted from the beginning because I hate social interaction or b) ignored him because why would I listen to my peers, I know just as much as him since we're the same rank
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Look, I've played thousands of hours of Counter-Strike in my life and I know exactly how useful and applicable the median piece of advice a randomly matched player from an arbitrary Counter-Strike server will be. I don't think anyone in here has been an advocate of "don't learn, don't ever listen to anyone," but the reality is that especially if your sole goal is to improve the very first thing you want to do is filter out 99% of the advice given to you in-game, because it's coming from other bad players, from people who don't know how to contextualize it, from people who think they know how to do certain things better than they actually do, or people who think they can explain complex ideas better than they can. Useful, actionable advice will look different enough from the rest (in particular, it's only ever going to come as part of an actual conversation) that you can pretty safely expect to notice it on the rare occasions it appears.

link4117 said:
Think about it in the real world, would people be as abrasive with criticism in real world sports? And I'm not talking at the pro level because we're not at the pro level. My experience is when people wanna give you criticism they just say "Hey you could do x better, I'd suggest doing y" or "I noticed you're doing x, it'd help you out if you did y". Not "You're a fucking idiot why can't you just attack that guy" or "No wonder you're stuck in x league when you can't y". Very few people online actually give constructive criticism without feeling the need to insult the person as well.
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And, like, in particular, people playing random pickup basketball at the park or whatever rarely care so much about winning pickup basketball games with strangers that they feel the need to shout criticism during play instead of just offering advice to people who seem receptive afterwards.
 
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rocK`

Banned
charlequin said:
The thing about any discussion of constructive criticism in a context like this (team activity with strangers you're unlikely to talk to ever again) is that the person offering up the criticism in the first place is generally making a lot of potentially unwarranted assumptions:

  1. That the person they're criticizing is even at fault. In something like a team FPS, individual players' info can be limited enough that they can't even necessarily draw correct conclusions about who's responsible for a loss just based on what they saw from their own perspective while playing. (This is why ongoing competitive teams in any game review tape to learn from mistakes instead of relying on in-the-moment observations.)
  2. That they've correctly identified the problem. Even if you know which player is dragging things down, you might not correctly identify why. (This is part of why "switch characters" is such useless advice -- someone's character choice is extremely unlikely to be the proximate cause of their problem.)
  3. That they can offer advice that actually addresses the problem. I've seen people correctly identify the player that's dragging and what the general issue is, but not know enough about their character or party role or whatever to actually help. (This is a problem you see a ton in MMOs where people are like "speaking as a person who only plays DPS, here's how you should heal better...")
  4. That they can actually communicate the advice. Teaching people is difficult and requires special skills and techniques of its own; most people who haven't practiced it aren't actually able to convey a skill to someone else through conversation. A lot of online game advice is something that could be useful presented in one way, but is actually just a smug low-content slam the way it's actually delivered.
  5. That the person can implement the advice. There's a lot of cases where someone's playing at their current effective skill cap, or as well as they can without learning a new skill or technique, or even they have some external issue like a physical control issue, etc. that means your specific advice isn't something they can actually do.
  6. That the person is interested in learning to do better in whatever you specifically poked them about. Unless you're playing in a medium-to-high-level competitive environment, there's a good chance the person is working on developing skills just by playing and maybe doesn't want to give up on what they're actually working on (say, learning to play their current character better) to work on what you want them to (say, fulfilling a totally different team role) instead.

When you look over all that, the degree to which most advice offered up is useless should be pretty clear. Actually being able to say something that helps another stranger get better means your own skill, knowledge, observation, and communication ability all have to be pretty top notch. Most people who have good awareness will get that and be very careful about when and how they choose to offer advice; most people with middling to poor awareness won't get any of that and will think they can just shout at people to change their behavior, which means on average a person offering advice is far more likely to be doing a shitty job of it than a good one.
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Thematically, I agree with you - I've found (and felt it was much easier) that the burden of advice is actually on the receiver to actually see if what they are saying is at all helpful.

Let's take something simple:

"get the fuck off genji you arent doing anything"

now my post is suggesting (and responses to this thread) that many people will be like "guy is being toxic, ignore him"

where others - especially those focusing on self-improvement would say

"let me look, am I actually doing nothing - hmm, my damage seems low, and I don't seem to be taking down their healers/picking off low health heroes - he might have something here" or conversely - realize the guy actually doesn't know what he's talking about (this is usually rare)

and make the necessary changes.

to the poster before me - I see a far more of the former than the latter.
 
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rocK`

Banned
charlequin said:
And, like, in particular, people playing random pickup basketball at the park or whatever rarely care so much about winning pickup basketball games with strangers that they feel the need to shout criticism during play instead of just offering advice to people who seem receptive afterwards.
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I actually was going to bring up pick up sports as a good parallel, as someone that does play pick up basketball I find that more than other things, people are really helpful about giving advice - but it's certainly with a more inviting tone than online video games.

I wonder if its what you're saying (about not caring about winning) or just the human element (not being hidden behind a computer).

probably both.
 
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RollerMeister

Neo Member
OP you want to give people advice without them getting mad, but you get mad the moment people disagree with you and refuse to listen to advice and chooses to only focus on others being "toxic"... and the only thing you really seem to want to hear is people agreeing with you... you are exactly what you talk about in your OP.

Maybe you should do some self-reflection on how you personally communicate with others online?
 
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rocK`

Banned
RollerMeister said:
and the only thing you really seem to want to hear is people agreeing with you... you are exactly what you talk about in your OP.

Maybe you should do some self-reflection on how you personally communicate with others online?
Click to expand...

I just spent the last 10 minutes talking to people who disagree with me - are you reading that or not?
 
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