19 replies to this topic

[Nikkoru]

I like this game. I like it a lot. But, my circumstances mean that I can only Pug at the moment, and the pugging community is by far the worst part about this game.

Case in point. This morning I logged on to get in a quick game before leaving for work. My team was bad, and at times I really felt the urge to simply disconnect and watch some anime instead.

But, I stuck with it, and the game ended up with only me on my side, and three opponenets on the other.

Now, I'll skip to the end. I won the game for my team, took out all three of them, but it took a while, during which I had to endure a near constant barrage of insults and swearing and bullying from not only the enemy team, but my team as well.

I've never played a game before that allowed players to toss out insults to the other side at will like this, and I really honestly think there should be a way to toggle off chat so that you don't have to see it if you don't want to.




TL;DR I won the game, but the negativity of the other players sucked all the joy out of that game for me. There should be a "Turn off chat" toggle switch.




P.S. To anyone about to say "just don't look at it," I'll cut you off by explaining that the human eye doesn't work like that. Flashing and scrolling text is designed to make our eyes reflexively move to it.

[Koniving]

I confess, being able to hide the chat would be nice. There's Right Shift + F11, but it hides the entire HUD. I'd like one where I can hide the HUD but still have the crosshairs.

[Xeno Phalcon]

If they are especially nasty: Print Screen>Submit report>Harrasment

[Sug]

Nikkoru, on 10 March 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

P.S. To anyone about to say "just don't look at it," I'll cut you off by explaining that the human eye doesn't work like that. Flashing and scrolling text is designed to make our eyes reflexively move to it.

I must not be human cause I frequently miss entire conversations during matches because I'm busy playing : /

[fluffypinkbunny]

Just don't look at it, since it bothers you so much, there's this thing called a sticky note, stick it over your chat area.. BAMN! toggled off.

[Damon Howe]

Personally, I'm too busy being a bad*** to give a crap what anyone else thinks of me or my play style, which very often does lead to some situations similar to the one described.

But if it really concerns you, screenshot it and report it to the devs.

[Appogee]

A toggle to turn off chat would be a good idea.

[Edustaja]

Ignore/Black list or a toggle would both work. Although I rarely have actual problems with the chat some might want to turn it off f.ex. if you have a child playing.

[Void Angel]

The community gets better as you play matches in that weight class. Your Elo will rise, and the overall quality of person you see will rise as well. Still, we do need an ignore list, accessible from in-game. Completely turning off chat wouldn't really fit with the team game format - but you should be able to mute the All channel. Now that UI 2.0 is in, we can start poking PGI about adding some of this stuff to the game.

That being said, and not as a criticism of your complaint, I must say that I'm troubled by the recent fixation in popular culture (at least in the US) on the concept of bullying. Certainly it's not ok to mistreat other people, nor should we condone such behavior, but I fear that a culture of victimhood is developing - such that any harsh criticism can be construed as "bullying." Far better to focus on how we ought to treat others, but I digress.

Keep playing, study the game to improve your skill (Smurfy's is wonderful for this,) and don't give the jackasses free rent in your head. After all, they don't really matter. =)

See you on the battlefield.

[Petard]

Erm, sounds like this is a tad belated, but congratulations on your excellent performance, no small thing to win a 1 vs 3. Your teammates should be bloody ashamed of emselves, unfortunately there is no shortage of people who could do with some serious reeducation about their manners on the Internet....

Void Angel, on 10 March 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

don't give the jackasses free rent in your head. After all, they don't really matter. =)

See you on the battlefield.

Excellent reference from Void Angel there, not being American, I am not very familiar with presidential quotes, but that says it perfectly

[XX Sulla XX]

Yes the more matches you carry the higher you go in the ELO rankings and the better the players.

[SnagaDance]

I've never had it so bad as you describe but for me I simply rationalize it in these few simple steps:

1) I know the internet is full of immature people who think anonymity gives them a license to act like jerks.
2) The person(s) complaining are already dead so they must have played worse than me eh?
3) Of course they'll never admit it themselves, it's always their teammates, lag, hax, opposing cheese builds etc.
4) I know better.
5) Mental state of total ignore achieved.

[Dawnstealer]

Quick aside: anyone ever notice that the people that complain about how horrible their team is are inevitably the ones that score a whopping 17 points of damage before dying?

[Fut]

Nikkoru, on 10 March 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

I like this game. I like it a lot. But, my circumstances mean that I can only Pug at the moment, and the pugging community is by far the worst part about this game.
[...]
Now, I'll skip to the end. I won the game for my team, took out all three of them, but it took a while, during which I had to endure a near constant barrage of insults and swearing and bullying from not only the enemy team, but my team as well.

When I'm on MW:O, I'm PuG'n. According to my stats, I've got about 30hours of game time in (since the site started tracking stuff like that), so I wouldn't say that I play very much - however, I can literally count on 1 hand the number of times I've seen "Bullying" in the chat. For those who are curious, the number of times is "2".

There have been 2 times when I've seen something uncalled for in the chat, and quite honestly, these occurrences were barely anything at all.

The first time was when a player randomly told another player that they "sucked". Nothing followed up, just a simple "Hey so-and-so, you suck".
The second time, was when some dude was hounding me because my name is apparently a curse word in some Northern European dialects, which is actually kind of funny.

Anyhow...
My point is, I've yet to see where the Pug Community is so terrible. I've yet to see all the hostility and bullying.

I don't believe it's even half as bad as some people claim it to be.

It's a bit cliched, but seriously - PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

Edited by Fut, 11 March 2014 - 05:02 AM.

[Itsalrightwithme]

Player attitude is better at higher ELO, and there is dependence on the time of the day, too. Very late evening in US timezones is probably the worst, since there are many more ****** who say ****** in English. Daytime US timezones they may be talking a lot of ***** but usually I don't understand them so it's OK.

[Modo44]

SnagaDance, on 11 March 2014 - 04:41 AM, said:

2) The person(s) complaining are already dead so they must have played worse than me eh?

Never think that. The first to blow up may be a bad/new player, but just as often someone good who was overwhelmed because the team held back too much. "My assault friends are *******" is the number one cause of death for medium and heavy mechs.

[Chrithu]

Nikkoru, on 10 March 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

I like this game. I like it a lot. But, my circumstances mean that I can only Pug at the moment, and the pugging community is by far the worst part about this game.

Case in point. This morning I logged on to get in a quick game before leaving for work. My team was bad, and at times I really felt the urge to simply disconnect and watch some anime instead.

But, I stuck with it, and the game ended up with only me on my side, and three opponenets on the other.

Now, I'll skip to the end. I won the game for my team, took out all three of them, but it took a while, during which I had to endure a near constant barrage of insults and swearing and bullying from not only the enemy team, but my team as well.

I've never played a game before that allowed players to toss out insults to the other side at will like this, and I really honestly think there should be a way to toggle off chat so that you don't have to see it if you don't want to.




TL;DR I won the game, but the negativity of the other players sucked all the joy out of that game for me. There should be a "Turn off chat" toggle switch.




P.S. To anyone about to say "just don't look at it," I'll cut you off by explaining that the human eye doesn't work like that. Flashing and scrolling text is designed to make our eyes reflexively move to it.

Had this before too. What I do in such situations where my team thinks it is OK to insult me is disconnect right away. My time is too precious to deal with morons.

[Fut]

People need to start grabbing Screen Caps when there's this insane bullying going on.
So far, it's just people saying it happened... I don't think it's as bad as people are claiming.

[Appogee]

XX Sulla XX, on 10 March 2014 - 10:01 PM, said:

Yes the more matches you carry the higher you go in the ELO rankings and the better the players.

...until you get to a high Elo, when you start having noobs put on your team to 'balance' your Elo back to average.

[Egomane]

The right procedure to act is the following:

Step 1 (optional): Start making screenshots. You can do so by hitting the print key. It will put those screenshots in numbered order into [installation path of MWO]\users\screenshots\.

Step 2 (optional): Remind the offending players about the code of conduct and rules they agreed to abide by, when they signed up for the game.

Step 3: If step 2 doesn't provide the positive result you hoped for, or if you skipped it, report the offending player to support@mwomercs.com. In this report please include the following informations, if available:
- Name of offending player
- Type of offense
- Map played
- Date, time and timezone
- Other players involved (witnesses)
- Screenshots (if you have taken them)
- Links to videos or other media that might prove usefull to the GMs


Closing this thread as a discussion about rule violations is seldomly very constructive. The forums also won't provide a solution to the problem, which is the offending players. The only ones who can do something about those are the GMs.