This is why I don't play Call of Duty or other similar games.

Overwatch and its successor/patch Overwatch 2 have had less toxicity compared to other FPSes I've played. And I've almost never encountered a cheater.

> Overwatch and its successor/patch Overwatch 2 have had less toxicity compared to other FPSes I've played. And I've almost never encountered a cheater.

I've played OW off and on for years now, and have only seen two cheaters. One was using wallhacks (could see them tracking me back and forth behind a wall on the killcam) and one had incredibly blatant headsnapping (Genji with the worlds fastest sensitivity turning 180 degrees and landing a perfect headshot, repeatedly).

A pretty good track record. Unfortunately, the monetization in OW2 has put me off. Hopefully that gets fixed eventually.

The Modern Warfare and later Call of Duty games, in particular, made some really frustrating design choices that amplify the difference between players. The powerful rewards you get for success can turn a close-enough-that-everyone's-still-having-fun match into a not-even-close misery-fest for the losing side. It's a hell of a dopamine hit when you're winning (which is why people like it) but it really messes with the balance of the games.

My experience with Overwatch (1) is completely the opposite. In competitive queue there's blatant cheating about 1/20 games. Then there's the smurf problem where it might as well be considered cheating for about 1/10 games. Of course I report them and I see that thank you message about reporting but it feels like it hasn't done anything to curb reduce the numbers.

Toxicity is the the inverse where 1/10 games feels like it's a match filled with rational minimally behaved adults.

I pretty much stopped playing when Overwatch 2 came out.

That might be the difference between your experience and mine; I never play competitive, only open queue and arcade.

I am 100% resolute in my opinion that turning off comms in online games and treating your teammates as if they were really advanced bots improves every game. If I want to play a game with someone I will call my friends on Discord and ask if they want to play. nearly every game I play has a workable ping system so if I am playing with random players, that's how I communicate. Otherwise I don't want or need the validation or opinions of randoms.

The small funny moments of friendship you might get from that is drowned underneath a torrent of racism, sexism, spite, anger, and random nonsense that is draining and, maybe more importantly, seriously distracting. Nearly every serious player I know will full mute even their friends during intense moments requiring mechanical skill.

If you are 30+ and play competitive games to meet new people you are in the wrong place.

Yeah, I'm not looking for friends, just civil players.

When I've played I've turned off comms, but kind of hard to ignore the aim bots and chat if you're at least trying to work with your team.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but knowing that people are yelling at me but I just cant hear them feels weird.

The only game I play with any expectation of improving is League of Legends. In that community there's the concept of "mental," e.g. your ability to stay calm and think. Players will talk about "improving my mental" like they talk about practicing combos or learning more about game sense. As if they were Buddhist monks and not teenagers playing video games. I think this is because League is a uniquely frustrating game for the same reasons it can be uniquely rewarding: teamwork matters a lot. It is easy to get frustrated. It is very obvious that people who don't get frustrated easily perform better.

If you're upset at the idea of people yelling at you then you just have weak mental and need to improve. Alternatively, you just might not enjoy that kind of ultra-competitive game and should find another game to play. Either one is absolutely fine.

I'm sure the kids and the military thinks yelling at people improves outcomes, but I'm pretty sure we all learn that actually doesn't help anything.

I've watched competitive games and the teammates are in no way distracting and yelling at their teams. They are doing their most to work cooperatively and even minimize distractions by only speaking up when it contributes.

Absolutely correct, people are just thinking about themselves and not about winning. You have no idea how many times I see people with the attitude "You did something I don't like, now we both have to lose."

I definitely get the tilting aspect for League, I found it generally un-fun to play competitively without the right team. ARAMs however were generally more enjoyable for me as while people are still playing to win there's usually a more reasonable set of expectations. I suppose it does make the highs higher, but spending 30 minutes in a game with frustrated people isn't a very good time. Maybe that's part of the reason some people will /ff so early.

For me at least it stops being fun if people are legitimately upset about what's happening versus people enjoying playing the game together. In general esports seems to have really turned this dial for games in general towards competitive, with a shift in focus from moment to moment gameplay being fun to climbing ELO and completing battlepass tiers.

For what it's worth if this sounds like scrub salt I was GM in Overwatch for the first few seasons (back then people actually talked too) so I get the appeal, but long term it just feels like a second job after a while.

Now I feel silly, lecturing you about mental when you've obviously played the game. 100% agreed esp about it feeling like a second job.

No worries, I do think it's an interesting point that people talk about mental like it's reaching zen enlightenment. Though for what it's worth with roughly balanced teams, keeping your and your teams morale up and not getting mad seemed to be the biggest X factor a individual could bring, both in impact and because it seemed to be a fairly uncommon ability, which maybe ads a bit to the mystique.

I do this too and am 32. The only way I like to play games is auto muting everyone and pinging everything. I often used to have people get in chat just to yell or curse you out to vent frustration. Like, I couldn’t even mute these guys, almost always males, fast enough for them to not get in a quick little shitty jab if we were losing. No thanks. We may have run past each other and respectfully pinged some badguys. It would be different if people had anything interesting to say outside of they typical hey what’s up talk.

Play Squad or some similar game such as Arma. Games that are a bit more slow paced attract older and more patient players. I could never go back to playing Call of Duty or Battlefield after playing some of the more strategic slow paced shooters.

I second some of the recommendations here for "Hell Let Loose" or "Squad" as places with a more mature player base. People communicate and cooperate much better in those games. Slower more cerebral gameplay though with occasional chaos, but very rewarding.

For the more fast moving twitchy games these days I mostly don't care about my Kill/Death ratio that much. I like to just mess around and explore different tactics, try playing with only specific or unpopular weapons, outsmart other players, that kind of thing. It's easy to be a sniper and get head shots, much more fun to be a sniper and get sneaky headshots with a revolver. I'm much better at all that then twitch shooting. It's even more fun when some veteran pulls some clever tactic on you that you haven't thought of. Great opportunity to learn and pull it on some unsuspecting youngsters in turn. Much more fun then pure run-and-gun.

Big open world games like Battlefield are great for messing around like that because the environment is complex and varied, and frankly nobody cares if their team wins or looses. So most people experiment and laugh at their failures. As always though there's a minority that are just dicks but they're easy to ignore.

BTW, is it just me or is "Hell Let Loose" a direct descendent of the old Reality Mod in Battlefield 3? Some of the mechanics seem awfully similar.

Look for old school boards and websites ? I think there's a "dadgamer" reddit, maybe people ran into that problem.

Personally, I got lucky this year by randomly picking up a server named "old guys" and I have only been playing there for months now.