Toxicity: Game vs Gamers

(Toxic Dr. Mundo, Property of West Studio)

You might have seen some of Tyler1’s rage compilations, showing his frustration with a random teammate, or the many League of Legends inting trolling videos on Youtube. Players want to win. Players don’t like to make themselves accountable for mistakes. Some even enjoy the chaos, wanting to lose on purpose. Once these different sides crash, It is no surprise why games like League of Legends, Dota 2, Valorant, or Rainbow Six Siege generate so much intense hatred within their communities when people interact. So what’s the issue with these team games? Is it merely a people’s problem? Or is it the games themselves that cause toxicity? Let’s examine 2 popular games, League of Legends, and Rainbow Six Siege.

League of Legends: Essentially, it is a game of information first, mechanic second. What items to build? Is this a good match-up? Where are the enemies? Where should you focus at this moment? These concepts are already hard enough for you to learn, how about having 4 other people in your team? When the game requires different roles to work together, problems arise. Sure, you might be able to master these aspects. Yet your teammates are wildly varied. You can perform at peak level on the Top Lane, yet your Mid or Jungle could suck and drag the whole team down. Because you are but 1 in 5 of a team, it is not always in your control how much the others feed. League is a game of snowball, so if your team keeps intentionally (or not) feeding the enemies, your team gets weaker as they get stronger, like a snowball that rolls downward.

Why toxicity happens

1. (Knowledge Problem) Someone buys the wrong or niche item, others get angry, thinking they’re trolling or not taking the game seriously

2. (Conflict of Interests) People have different skillsets and conflicting expectations, some might be a pro gamer who wants to win, or an 8-hour office worker who only wants to relax or try new champions.

3. (Trolling) Because League of Legends is a free game, anyone can create a new account just for the sake of messing with other people, feeding, and causing anger.

4. (Morale) Once the enemies are fed, they are too strong to take down. The game can become very hopeless. So people start to feed or go AFK, making the team rage to get a surrender vote, not wanting to play any longer.

Methods of expressing toxicity come in ways such as inting (intentionally feeding), running down mid to get killed by towers, going AFK, or insulting others on team chat. Team chat isn’t much of a problem because you can mute it. But the following issue is that you can’t communicate with anyone. Like me, I choose to mute everyone to not see any toxicity, but I sacrifice information and communication in the process.

I’d say League of Legends is still enjoyable for casuals. There is only one static map with some variations. Champions have 4 abilities and some passives. People can pick up knowledge by playing and experiencing how the game works naturally by starting with simple champions before moving to more complex ones. As long as you stay clear of Ranked, not fixating too much on always winning, I can recommend it. Mechanic proficiency does play a large role, but I think knowledge of the game contributes more to victory.

(Rainbow Six Siege Official Steam Store Cover. Property of Ubisoft)

Rainbow Six Siege (I will call it R6 for convenience) requires you to know the maps down to the core. You better study them like getting ready for exams fast because the game keeps getting new maps and reworks that change layouts. You can try to be good mechanically like playing Call of Duty, but if you’re not aware of that tiny gap peek hole, breakable wall, or traps, you’re already dead. The game is “hardcore” in the sense that you only have one life per round. Once you’re headshot out of nowhere, you’re locked to spectator mode, only able to observe your teammates awkwardly navigate the map and die. Your inability to act causes frustration, then you lash out anger towards others for not doing what you think they should be doing.

Why toxicity happens

1. (Knowledge Problem) Someone might not know the map’s layout as well, thus they can’t cooperate as effectively.

2. (Hardcore Gameplay) You will not respawn until the next round. So once teammates make mistakes, you’re unable to prevent it, only watch, or yell at them.

3. (Trolling) Someone might think it’s funny to kill their teammates. Teamkilling is a thing in R6, no one is protected from their teammates’ bullets to keep the game hardcore.

4. (Conflict of Interests) Different people play for different reasons, when someone is not as serious as the others, conflict happens.

5. (Newbie Unwelcomed) People are too serious about winning, they will vote to kick anyone who shows incompetence, has a too low level, or has a slow computer. People who load into a match slower due to not having an SSD will get kicked most of the time.

I don’t recommend anyone to play R6 without friends. It would be like joining a real-life swat team but all of you are blind or mute. One person can’t succeed in this unless you have crazy map knowledge, map awareness, and pro-tier mechanics. The steep learning curve mixed with the randomness of other players can cause a massive headache that will cost you your sanity. Sure the game has added a ping system for an easier communication method, but if you play with random people, they rarely use those.

As shown in these two examples, the players’ inability to control the situation by themselves causes the community to be toxic. This is a truth that no multiplayer game could escape, only minimize issues by implementing mechanics like team-chat, smart ping, or game-specific systems. League of Legends allows players to have their main roles selected before going into the match so that players are not forced to play the role they’re not comfortable with, also a smart ping like R6. But in the end, toxicity boils down to the players. Game developers could have invented the most advanced system ever, but if the players refuse to use them due to the lack of tutorials or pure ignorance, these things won’t work.

From my rant above, you might think the players are the only problem. But the issue isn’t a clear-cut answer. Many game tutorials don’t teach the player to be a team player at all. League of Legends only shares how to attack things, but never how to control minion waves, itemizations, or roles. When the fundamentals could only be found on Youtube, the game already sabotages itself by feeding into the players' laziness. Games can’t expect the players to seek outside information. Some might buy the wrong item because they’re not aware of what it does instead of trolling. R6 has the same informational problem. The game could use a tutorial that highlights key strategies, advice on which paths to take, or tips for new players instead of booting them straight into the fray, making them frustrated. When the games only teach players to be selfish (kill, or attack objectives by themselves), how could they expect the players to somehow work as a team?

Boiled down to their cores, competitive games will always have winners and losers. You either win or lose, that’s just a statistic you can’t change. What games can do is to make losing less anger-inducing is to provide information to the players upfront, so when they lose, at least they gain knowledge instead of butting heads against the wall repeatedly for how many hours. Provide them tools instead of punishing them when they don’t know key information. I don’t advocate for games to sacrifice mechanics or dumb down the learning curve, but they need to make the learning part smoother to lessen the anger. But like I said, game systems won’t work if the players refuse to use them. As a player, you should not take the game too seriously. Winning and losing are natural. If you want to take it seriously, then making friends and forming your own team is ideal to minimize the losses. Think of it this way, if you start by not being a troll yourself, then you already decrease the chance of having trolls in your team by 20% (in a 5vs5 game).