Destiny had the right idea. Limiting player interactions

[Pseudonym]

I played a game called loadout for a bit. I really liked it. Good gameplay and I was above average at it with I believe something like a overall 1.5 K/D. Unfortunately the devs had chosen for a rather crude artstyle with large not too pretty looking men and women as playercharactars and gore and vulgarity. I don't find this unfortunate because I didn't like it but because it attracts a certain type of people. Whenever anyone used the voicechat it was to insult people and say awful things. It was pretty annoying. When I played halo 3 and mw2 online I used to straight up mute anyone with a microphone because I could ussually barely understand them due to the poor audio-quality and I ussually didn't want to either. I also played a game called demigod for a while. It was an early moba that tried, and failed, to compete with LoL. I liked it. I wasn't that good at it though. The game required teamwork and some communication and it showed me just how many people are pricks. Even if there were assholes in only one in ten games those assholes are the ones that stick out in memory. Most of the time people would have furious hissy fits over losing a game supposedly due to their allies. (me for example) Even if that were true, which it often isn't, you can still behave yourself.

Whenever I play online these days, which isn't very often, I just mute anyone if they annoy me in the least. Or I play with friends and just talk to them while I'm playing.

 

[Pax Romana]

Decided reply would just veer into an off topic debate. Deleted sorry.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Totally disagreed.

When player interaction is easy to do and actually needed in an online game, you see the quality of that interaction increase in my experience.

Games that feature groups where you won't ever meet the same people twice, like League of Legends or the current group finder thing in WoW usually encourage abysmal behaviour by the various players. That's because there is absolutely no consequence whatsoever to their asshatery.

I'm not usually one to don the nostalgia glasses. But on this issue I absolutely agree with the oldschool crowd: accountability and repeated chances at interaction with the same people are the fundamental building stones of a good community.

 

[sanquin]

I must be lucky, because I've barely encountered total asshats in online gaming. There are a few obvious trolls here and there, but nothing major.

 

[Something Amyss]

It is like going to a brothel to maintain your virginity.
If you do not like player interactions do not play online.
Hearthstone requires you to accept a friend invite before you can even get a chat message. There are no lobbies of any kind. People still annoy other people by forcing the full turn time limit.
Smite has an easy way to mute people where you get no messages from them. However, they can just ruin your experience by refusing to participate in team fights or dying on purpose making the enemy team tougher.
And finally, why bother reading lobbies? If it is not harassment, it is spam or memes or ascii penis drawings or w/e. It is like going to youtube comments and expect civil discussion.

Just to add to this, During the brief time where I owned Mario Kart (number here) on DS, people managed to grief on that. Even with Nintendo's infantilising policies, people still found ways to be jerks.

Personally, I want more communication. In my experience, it's always the one player without the mic that ends up going for the key position in GTA heists/setups, which means the person who is suited for it doesn't get it. If someone's trouble, I can mute them on XBL or PSN. I don't play much MP on PC, so I don't know the options for that, but I find it hard to believe there's no recourse. Annoying people can be handled or avoided, but lack of communication can make anyone potentially a problem player.

Alternatively....

Maybe what we need nowadays is not just a way of matchmaking by skill, but matchmaking by attitude.
A small set of questions indicating what kind of social experience you are looking for through your game that could funnel you towards similar gamers.
Of course, I'm already imagining ways it could be broken, and ways to counter said breaking, but that's a discussion for elsewhere I think.

This is the sort of thing I'd like to see, that keeps getting promised, and rarely implemented. And probably never well. I would love to see some sort of filtering for behaviour or the like. But I play with friends when possible. There are few games where I spend a lot of time with randoms these days. Of course, this is mostly because of how toxic online gaming can be. I'd just as soon not bother, but I'm not quite ready to give up on gaming, either.

Anyway, any system can be broken. That's part of the problem. I'd like to have a system that's more free if possible, so that I'm not being hampered from actually playing while the jerks are bypassing the system anyway.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I prefer having communication in team based games, but for MMOs where I don't really know many people/would rather solo than enter a party, I'll go onto a less populated channel or something similar, where I can still talk with players but I won't be annoyed by crowds.

But sometimes, I leave it on to hear the adolescents shriek sweet nothings at one another. Twisted, screeching music to my ears.