These days, online public lobbies are almost always hostile. Doesn't matter the game, either. You can ban words, phrases, etc. The hostility is also through actions and not just insults.

The only way to have actual fun gaming is a private group of friends. Think lan party, and definitely not public.

We have support for a variety of ways to limit who can join you (passwording lobbies, locking lobbies etc). I get a lot of value playing with a regular group of friends on a Sunday night in part because of it.

I don't think that's true at all. I mainly play Rocket League, and while you do have bad games, I'd say at least 80% of them are fun.

It does benefit from:

1. Limited coms (nobody seems to use voice chat, perhaps partly because it was completely broken for years), and while you can type, it's too fast paced to write much so mostly people just use quick chats sarcastically (What a save!)

2. Games are really short (about 7 minutes). You're not losing hours of your life if you get stuck with an arsehole.

3. People play a lot of games because they're so short, so the matchmaking is very accurate usually.

Matchmaking is a real problem in most games because of smurfing.

BAR has very sophisticated anti-smurfing, so many bans to out to people who thought they could trick the system.

You occasionally get smurfs in Rocket League but it's like 1 in 10 games so not a big issue IMO.

this is completely ignoring the botting issue that was so bad lately it pushed pros out of ssl and severely messed up MMR. this season is the first one that is remotely playable in a while

Oh yeah to be fair I stopped playing for that whole period (not because of it).

That varies VASTLY depending on what skill you're at. At D3 where I am, I'd say maybe 2 out of 3 games have at least one person showing banners or skins that are exclusive to Grand Champ tournament winners.

Trackmania (in all of it's online incarnations) seems to have mostly avoided toxicity.

But I think that's because you can't really impact other players. Everyone's racing their own lines, just sharing a chat room while doing so.

What if hostility is a feature? They have a culture that works for them. Many organizations do not survive massive influx of new members - numbers inflate quickly, community adapts rules because you cannot manage a big community the way you'd manage small community, old members leave, new members get bored and also leave, the community tries to manage a small community the way you'd manage a large community, whole thing collapses. Meanwhile if you're hostile to new members you avoid unsustainably high expansion and complete collapse of the organization's management structure because there is no expansion. Expansion is not a measure of success if it sacrifices maintaining current culture. Asian societies famously function like that.

Hostility might be a feature for someone who is (or views themselves as) in an "in" clique. But it's poison for the long term health of the game, because it discourages most participation. The only ones attracted are those who view vitriol as a pleasant environment.

"Hostility as a feature" has been tried many times, from the old newsgroups of the late 80s to Quora and Stack Overflow. It tends to herald the death of the platform.

There's not much hostility in Beyond All Reason outside of certain "newbie" lobbies. Occasionally somebody has a conflict, but people who take game seriously avoid offensive words as they don't want to get banned.

There is a trend in online mobile game design, that the best interaction between players is through limited-option emotes and solo gameplay masqueraded as 'multiplayer'. That's saying something. People don't know how to give feedback that doesn't tilt someone else. They'd rather label others names instead.

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to comment here and for offering constructive support too.

Does BAR have chicken maps?

BAR offers some 'hold the fort' maps, where there is a strong/fortifiable area and then the 'outskirts'. These are catered to offer great gameplay for battles against Raptors (previously known as 'chickens') and Scavengers.

yeah been away from a while. thanks!

what do you mean you have no way? chats private and/or encrypted? lobbies are public. Use AI to identify harassing comments and take action.

This is not a commercial game, and tokens cost money.

I quit over a year ago when one of your moderators banned me for reclaiming an allied unit that was attacking ground on my factory (he was mad at me).

Hey PtaQ, I appreciate the comment and that BAR is putting effort into improving the community, but I raised a pull request to edit the community code of conduct to clarify that players shouldn’t be banned simply for allowing a game to run its natural course, and virtually every dev disagreed with me and favoured the idea of kick banning a player who won’t surrender immediately after front is lost because “the game is clearly won”.

If you want to make the community better, delete all the rules that encourage players to gang up on other players for subjective reasons. These kinds of rules punish non-verbal players, who easily fall prey to verbal players (I’ll just call them bullies) who can use the rules as a justification basically to harass someone whilst getting branded a hero.

Also, a large majority of players have fun, even when they’re losing. Asking those players to accommodate a hyper-competitive few who want the tightest loop possible to winning and restarting is anti-fun. Both from the perspective of the person winning (I get so disappointed when I win front and they just surrender before I get to blow up their base) and from the perspective of the non-front players who are pressured to quit as soon as front is lost.

Won plenty of games in more casual lobbies (kind of rare) where the front player, after dying, was happy to just receive T2/3 units to control, and due to being able to focus on just controlling a few units, won the game.

I can appreciate this sentiment. I am someone who favors a resign vote over a let it play in 8v8, and when i was thinking about why i think its that in a lobby based system like bar, where there are few games I value staying in a lobby rather than skipping around. Thus when a game feels lost to me, id rather play a new game (even to another loss) with a good lobby then play a slow inevitable losing struggle, or worse yet watch someone else play a losing struggle (even if they enjoy playing that loss out).

Something im trying to lean into in my games is to ask the players who are voting no what their win condition or what they think they can make a go of is.

I think what ive said above could make me sound like one of the folks who "want the tightest possible loop to winning and restarting", so to add some nuance there, I think playing a game where the conclusion is foregone lacks agency, and in a game where one team eventually loses of course there is a blurry area where the team agrees that they are in fact never going to win, and then another question on whether they lie to play regardless. Because of the variation there, i like the vote, and i am in favor of coms around why someone wants to resign or stay.

I actually think it is up to players in an open loby system to communicate their intentions and reasons, and while it is true that it means people who spam coms trying to push folks around are possible, i would echo ptaqs sentiment to use that report function! and on a softer level, i really like the mute. if someone is too much, mute them and continue to enjoy your game.

Yes if people don't want to play they can just do a resign vote, majority wins. No need to kick ban anyone.