Most toxic game possible thought experiment

[gooddragon1]

I was just contemplating it earlier so let's give it a try:

+Game timer of 1 hour
+32 players vs 32 8 players vs 8 players
+Players can reconnect if disconnected
+Each team has a limited number of total deaths allowed shared by all players on the team
+Players cannot join another game while their account is in a game
+No mute option for chat or voice
+Basically overwatch (and dota) except at the start of the match players pick from a draft of abilities (3 non ults and 1 ult) and then a hero
+Ults have 3 skill levels, non ults have 4, max level is 25 (just like dota), respawning players come back at the same level they died
++Players have 5 seconds to pick an ability on their side's turn to pick
++Each side picks 1 ability, so side 1 picks an ability in 5 seconds, side 2 picks an ability in 5 seconds
++The first player to click an ability is the one who gets the pick for that turn on their side
++Players on a team are in paired groups (4 groups of 2) and are all assigned the same abilities within that group
+Ammunition spawns at the start of the game on the map, but does not respawn normally. Supply drops happen every so often.
+Enemies and allies give equivalent ammunition to the one who killed them (even if by friendly fire)
+Friendly fire is on
+Both teams have an unguarded spawn room that anyone can enter.
+There is no upper limit on how much ammo a person can hold
+Healing packs can allow you to temporarily exceed your maximum hp by 50% and it ticks down by 1% per second continuously until it reaches 100%

I'll see if I can think of other stuff...

[warty goblin]

32 v 32 is too big to maximize toxicity. I mean that's basically a Battlefield game, and generally nobody cares too much if you play like crap in Battlefield, because there's so many people per team that it doesn't matter all that much. And it's not really worth picking on any one individual, because there's usually like 5 people with a k/d ratio approximating zero. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a reasonable amount of bizarre racist insults going around in chat, but it's usually in a sort of generalized 'I loathe the human race' sort of way and doesn't generally seem to be aimed at anybody in particular. Plus, in rando pick-up matches, nobody ever seems to use voice chat.

No, for maximum toxicity, I'd say 6v6 or 4v4 is about perfect. That way the trolls can easily figure out which player is tanking their side's chances of winning, and direct maximum venom accordingly.

[Rynjin]

-The player(s) with the lowest score(s) in each match receives no match experience/lootbox progress/rewards of any kind
-Dying removes a point, regardless of cause of death.

[Brother Oni]

Inspired by the 'World of...' series:

Rage quitting or disconnecting locks out the character used until the match is over.
You have to pay for repairs/healing/resupplying to the character and their equipment/ammunition at the end of each match.
The game has microtransactions that grant a measurable performance boost in your character, either in the form of character boosts or improved ammunition characteristics (more damage/better penetration, etc)

[Eldan]

*Lootboxes. All the lootboxes.
*Really loud cosmetics. Bonus points if they make it impossible to tell at a distance what your character is
*Hit boxes that are off all around. You can't tell if that missile coming at you will hit you
*Player with the worst performance in the group gets bonus XP so they can catch up
*Trading of rare weapons is possible, but only during a match, not in the lobby

[Cespenar]

After "no mute", and "friendly fire on", the rest is just for show, really.

[Eldan]

I'd actually take out the friendly fire. With friendly fire, this is just a free for all arena shooter. Without it, it becomes much more toxic, because people have to try other means of forcing their team mates to perform.

[Wraith]

- The rounds are scored both by team and personally; even if your team scores no points and loses abysmally, you personally can outscore the other players and "win" individually. You get better bonuses to your rewards if you win, than if your team does.

- Even though it's a team-based game, debuffs, heals and buffs affect everyone regardless of team. Friendly fire can't kill your allies, but it can give them a "Crippled" condition which slows their movement, blurs their vision and so on, on top of whatever other debuffs you can stack on them.

- When you die, your items remain on your corpse. If you don't reclaim them within a set time limit, you permanently lose all the items that you dropped. This includes the end of the round occurring.

- You can gamble currency (in-game gold and Real Life-bought "crypto" currency) and items on the outcome of matches.

- When friendly team-mates go into Last Stand mode, you can execute them with a melee attack. You get bonus points for doing this.

- You get bonus points if the person you kill - friend or foe - is using a character at less than half the level of your own.

- You also get bonus points if the player account of the person you kill - friend or foe - is less than half that of your own.

- There is one character who is just straight up better than all the others. More health, higher stats, does more damage, bigger AoE on his skills, gains XP faster, the works.

- You get him by scoring 1,000 Friendly Fire kills, or by unlocking him via microtransactions

- Only 1 person per game can use that character. If you try to queue up with him and someone else does too, you have to bid currency and items to "buy" the privilege of using him in that game. It's a blind bid - you have no idea what the other players have offered, so you have to guess as high as you dare. The 'loser' gets given a Joke Character who is nerfed to hell in every way.

- You automatically reconnect to any match that you disconnect from. If you D/C and do not rejoin a game before it ends, your account is locked for one hour and you may not play any other games until that timer is up.

[gooddragon1]

I'd actually take out the friendly fire. With friendly fire, this is just a free for all arena shooter. Without it, it becomes much more toxic, because people have to try other means of forcing their team mates to perform.

+Friendly fire can't kill, except as above, but it can bring an ally down to 1 hp.

[Cespenar]

+Friendly fire can't kill, except as above, but it can bring an ally down to 1 hp.

Ooh, that's a nice compromise.

+Also, if friendly fire can't kill, let's make the player hitboxes (or walkboxes, if that's a thing?) roughly 1.5 of the seen size, so that everyone blocks each other all the time.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Bethesda seems to be going through a similar thought experiment, if Fallout 76 is any indication.

But here's one for your list:

* Once, per 24 real-time hours, a player may use a super-ult maneuver which produces a unique resource that cannot be obtained in any other way, not even though paid content, that is required for the highest tier skill unlocks with permanent stat boosts, and requires a small amount of this resource every time you run a map from that point on. When used, this super-ult hits both friend and foe, and immediately drops everyone else's game level to 1, and causes them to lose any equipped items they might have obtained.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think the hardest part may be designing a game that goes super toxic every single match that people will still play. A disaster with empty servers doesn't get anybody angry.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the hardest part may be designing a game that goes super toxic every single match that people will still play. A disaster with empty servers doesn't get anybody angry.

It's not that hard.

All you need is:


A team game (so other people's performance affects your reward).
A low barrier to entry (Free to play and low system requirements).
A reasonably high skill floor (so it's possible to clearly do it wrong)
Open chat (so you can let them know about it).


Job done. Toxicity guaranteed.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Job done. Toxicity guaranteed.

Just like with the 200 other good design tips in this thread. But how many of those can you put in one game fr maximum toxicity while still gaining a healthy (for certain definitions of that word) player base?

Getting people mad is the easy part. Getting them mad but addicted is the evil part.

[Tvtyrant]

-Matchmaking requires an entrance fee.
-You get your opponents entrance fees if you win.
There, now you can make money if you are l33t enough.

[GloatingSwine]

Just like with the 200 other good design tips in this thread. But how many of those can you put in one game fr maximum toxicity while still gaining a healthy (for certain definitions of that word) player base?

Getting people mad is the easy part. Getting them mad but addicted is the evil part.

Those four components drive League of Legends, DoTA, and World of Tanks.

Three of the most notoriously toxic games going, with actual hundreds of millions of players between them.

Make it free, make it competitive yet team based, make it slightly more complicated than put dot on man and click, and every ******* with an internet connection will show up and pour dumptrucks of salt in chat.

[Kitten Champion]

Those four components drive League of Legends, DoTA, and World of Tanks.

Three of the most notoriously toxic games going, with actual hundreds of millions of players between them.

Make it free, make it competitive yet team based, make it slightly more complicated than put dot on man and click, and every ******* with an internet connection will show up and pour dumptrucks of salt in chat.

That would just make it as toxic as a current MOBA. To get more toxicity you'd need to...

- Add some stealthy pay-to-win mechanics. Ya'know, where it could be argued that if you played a lot you could get the same benefits of the paying player. Like with most card games, and I think World of Tanks. Just enough to be unfair without being community breaking.

- Put little effort into game balance. I think like World of Tanks.

- Put little effort into stopping hackers.

- Russians. Preferably teen-aged Russians. Just make sure they're there.

Done.

[spectralphoenix]

-Matchmaking requires an entrance fee.
-You get your opponents entrance fees if you win.
There, now you can make money if you are l33t enough.

The trouble here (besides the fact that it would probably get shut down by electronic gambling laws) is that the credit card requirement will keep out some of the kids, the risk will keep out casuals, and the incentive to win will keep out trolls.

What you need to do is make the buy-in optional. Say each team has a stake of 500 premium currency, and anyone who wants can buy an equal share. At least one person on each side has to ante up to start the game. After the game, 1000 pc is divided among the people who bought in on the winning team. The result: in any given match, some people have money riding on the outcome and some do not. For added sadism, give a bigger share to the player with the most kills, and include classes like medics and buffers who really help the team as a whole but don't get many kills personally.

[NeoVid]

-Character 'customization' that is just a Randomize button, with no way to save or go back to a combination.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

* Award something like premium currency or more 'experience' or whatever to the fellow with the most kills. Friendly fire kills count to this total.
* Award a humiliating title (such as 'n00b of the Game') to the one with the least kills, even if that character is a support class that isn't supposed to rack up kills.
* At the start of each match, the statistics of how many 'n00b of the game' awards a player, regardless of class played, has attained is on the loading splash screen for the entire group. - This lets them preemptively start the salt before the match plays. "OMFG, n00b over a dozen times? I'm outta here!"
* If one player quits the match early, his team automatically loses the match, even if they were strategically poised to win even without his help, and the rest of his entire team earns a 'n00b of the game' point. This includes disconnect due to connection issues. No one else on his team will have the ability to quit after the first one does.

[Tvtyrant]

The trouble here (besides the fact that it would probably get shut down by electronic gambling laws) is that the credit card requirement will keep out some of the kids, the risk will keep out casuals, and the incentive to win will keep out trolls.

What you need to do is make the buy-in optional. Say each team has a stake of 500 premium currency, and anyone who wants can buy an equal share. At least one person on each side has to ante up to start the game. After the game, 1000 pc is divided among the people who bought in on the winning team. The result: in any given match, some people have money riding on the outcome and some do not. For added sadism, give a bigger share to the player with the most kills, and include classes like medics and buffers who really help the team as a whole but don't get many kills personally.
Make the buffers over powered mechanically but difficult to play so everyone wants a good one on their team but harasses the people stuck as them.

If you want to make it really annoying you have a number of lives equal to 3+ the number of shares you pitch in, so paying game coins is good for the team but you personally don't benefit much.

[LCP]

No timer on matches, the game runs until one team is wholly eliminated. Lots of abilities that let players run and hide (e.g. teleportation, invisibility), and maps with very difficult to find hiding places.

[Cespenar]

Also, put some kind of worldwide or regionwide ranking system so that there will be enough people taking it too seriously.

If it resets in certain intervals, even better.

[gooddragon1]

Also, put some kind of worldwide or regionwide ranking system so that there will be enough people taking it too seriously.

If it resets in certain intervals, even better.

It resets, but the rankings average for each player is recorded in one that doesn't...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/16/Drevil_million_dollars.jpg/200px-Drevil_million_dollars.jpg

Rank 1 + rank 6 + rank 5 results in 4 (lower is better)

[deuterio12]

I get the feeling somebody from EA must be lurking in this thread collecting ideas for their next games.

-A single loss/disconnect resets your rank to zero along with all your items and in-game currency, which are looted by the one that killed you. Even by friendly fire.



- You automatically reconnect to any match that you disconnect from. If you D/C and do not rejoin a game before it ends, your account is locked for one hour and you may not play any other games until that timer is up.

Any mechanic that outright stops the player from connecting will reduce toxicity since it means the player is being less exposed to the game.

Specially if it means it locks all games in your computer and you must either use it to work or go away from it. :smalltongue:

[Knaight]

There's more openings for toxicity that can be smuggled in under the guise of player expression or character customization. Specifically, I'm talking about custom messages - whenever you get a kill on somebody, they get a message you write and an image that you select. Said image selection also needs to include a lot of stuff that deliberately ranges from highly controversial to incendiary. Whenever anyone kills you, they get a different custom message and selected image. Whenever anyone gets a kill on a target you've done by far the most damage to so far (maybe 80% or so), they get a different custom message and selected image.

Then there's ladders - team ELO ratings are basically optimized for pissing people off, so those need to be in. That said, these calculations are a bit opaque, so to make things convenient for the players there needs to a a breakdown on how much it changed, why it changed, and how the ELO ratings of your specific allies affected that change. This needs to happen before post-game chat.

Speaking of post game chat, that should be mandatory. In the interest of fostering community, cooperation, etc. every game ends with two minutes of obligatory chat. Whatever rewards you get for the game, you only get them if you stick around for two minutes afterwards, where there's chat open (team and general). That way people can talk about the games they've been in, set up in game friends, so on and so forth. Sure, it's probably going to mostly get used for blame assignment and vitriol, particularly with everything else designed to encourage it, but that's just going to get ignored here.

Coming back around to those aforementioned bribes to stick around, I'm thinking they shouldn't be just assigned by the game. Instead of getting, say 100 points for playing a game you get 100 points to distribute among the other players on your team, during those two minutes. The current assigned distribution is publicly visible during those two minutes.

[GloatingSwine]

That would just make it as toxic as a current MOBA. To get more toxicity you'd need to...

- Add some stealthy pay-to-win mechanics. Ya'know, where it could be argued that if you played a lot you could get the same benefits of the paying player. Like with most card games, and I think World of Tanks. Just enough to be unfair without being community breaking.

- Put little effort into game balance. I think like World of Tanks.

- Put little effort into stopping hackers.

- Russians. Preferably teen-aged Russians. Just make sure they're there.

Done.

So what you're saying is World of Tanks is peak toxicity then.


Speaking of post game chat, that should be mandatory. In the interest of fostering community, cooperation, etc. every game ends with two minutes of obligatory chat. Whatever rewards you get for the game, you only get them if you stick around for two minutes afterwards, where there's chat open (team and general). That way people can talk about the games they've been in, set up in game friends, so on and so forth. Sure, it's probably going to mostly get used for blame assignment and vitriol, particularly with everything else designed to encourage it, but that's just going to get ignored here.

Nah, because that lets people get it out of their system and calm down.

You want people cycling back into games whilst they're still worked up and frustrated so they can be *******s in chat to a new set of people.

[Knaight]

Nah, because that lets people get it out of their system and calm down.

You want people cycling back into games whilst they're still worked up and frustrated so they can be *******s in chat to a new set of people.

I could see that being counterproductive to our purposes. The easiest way to do this is to mess with the "new set of people" bit. Trying to keep partial team composition through games is ideal. I'm thinking the two people who get the worst collective ratings from the team are kept together reliably. Dropping a pair of people likely to snipe at each other into games just sets the right early tone.

[Brother Oni]

There's more openings for toxicity that can be smuggled in under the guise of player expression or character customization. Specifically, I'm talking about custom messages - whenever you get a kill on somebody, they get a message you write and an image that you select. Said image selection also needs to include a lot of stuff that deliberately ranges from highly controversial to incendiary. Whenever anyone kills you, they get a different custom message and selected image. Whenever anyone gets a kill on a target you've done by far the most damage to so far (maybe 80% or so), they get a different custom message and selected image.

Hopefully the image will be from a pre-approved in-game list, else you're not going to get anything but detailed genitalia pictures, resulting in the FBI getting very interested in your game in a professional capacity.

[Kitten Champion]

So what you're saying is World of Tanks is peak toxicity then.


Possibly. World of Tanks will only ever be niche though and skews to a slightly older demographic, you'd need something with more MOBA-esque simplicity and tween appeal to get to lethal radioactive levels.

[warty goblin]

Hopefully the image will be from a pre-approved in-game list, else you're not going to get anything but detailed genitalia pictures, resulting in the FBI getting very interested in your game in a professional capacity.

If I'm not being bombarded by lolicon tentacle porn, insinuations that because my K/D ratio is poor various people have had sex with my mom, and horrifying racist epithets it's just not the internet, amirite?

[Knaight]

If I'm not being bombarded by lolicon tentacle porn, insinuations that because my K/D ratio is poor various people have had sex with my mom, and horrifying racist epithets it's just not the internet, amirite?

This is basically what I was trying to facilitate with that mechanic, yeah. Though the lolicon tentacle porn is inevitably going to be just one flavor of dubious image - I was actually thinking of people sticking swastikas everywhere and other similar iconography. I'd also expect close up photography of horribly infected wounds, snuff imagery, and other such nastiness.

It would probably take a while to get that bad, but the whole structure seems like it's set up well to consistently drive off the best parts of the community, cause it to get worse overall, then repeat the cycle. It's like evaporative cooling, except for instead of getting colder it gets douchier.

[Otomodachi]

Pretty sure it already exists, and is called World of Tanks. :P

[ShneekeyTheLost]

* Have achievements for poor performance metrics, and have these achievements visible prior to the match beginning for all teammates.
* Free to play, Pay to Win metrics, with some characters objectively superior and only available for purchase with real cash
* All ults behind paywall
* Quality of Life upgrades behind paywall
* Run the game on an open-source engine whose code is publicly available, and while TAS and hacks are officially prohibited, *NEVER* look into any reports of using such programs, and never ban anyone for using them.
* Permit paid bot accounts. Monthly fee accounts that will permit the account to have a bot accompany them. Claim that because bots are inherently inferior to players, give the bot aimbot and warp hacks to 'compensate'. This way you can never know for sure if that was a bot account or someone using hacks

[Eldan]

This is basically what I was trying to facilitate with that mechanic, yeah. Though the lolicon tentacle porn is inevitably going to be just one flavor of dubious image - I was actually thinking of people sticking swastikas everywhere and other similar iconography. I'd also expect close up photography of horribly infected wounds, snuff imagery, and other such nastiness.

It would probably take a while to get that bad, but the whole structure seems like it's set up well to consistently drive off the best parts of the community, cause it to get worse overall, then repeat the cycle. It's like evaporative cooling, except for instead of getting colder it gets douchier.

One of the funnier ones I've seen was that for a while, people would spray-paint very carefully cropped screenshots of snipers into the windows of buildings to distract opposing players.

[Wraith]

One of the funnier ones I've seen was that for a while, people would spray-paint very carefully cropped screenshots of snipers into the windows of buildings to distract opposing players.

In a similar vein, my favourite was always in TF2; someone played the Spy class and changed their spray to a large image that read "Actually, I Am A Spy".
They'd spend a few minutes hiding within "their team", place their spray, and while everyone stood around to read what it said.... :smalltongue:

[Cespenar]

One of the funnier ones I've seen was that for a while, people would spray-paint very carefully cropped screenshots of snipers into the windows of buildings to distract opposing players.

Wow, that's crafty. Back in the glorious CS 1.6 days, we used the spray paint to only communicate humiliation after a kill, much like the teabagging of today. :smalltongue:

[Kaptin Keen]

You need to be able to do something worse to other players, besides just killing them ingame. Most prominently featured would be the ability to loot them. Or the option to tag them, so for a minute after respawning, they have some sort of insulting logo or message hovering over their toon.

[Greg_S]

There's a lot to cover on the dev side too. Oh, sure, the game can be toxic on launch, but how can we keep things from ever settling down? The answer is to foment chaos.


Patch often. Be sure to introduce small odd bugs in your releases. Don't hotfix them, but let every class/hero have their periodic infuriating exploit. Patch at random times and disconnect games with little to no notice. Display your "patch incoming message" only in-match, or anywhere else where quitting is a loss. Don't show this during matchmaking or other lobbies.
Bonus points if you can mistime a patch due to a bad daylight saving conversion.

Corollary to #1, make sure suspensions and bans are inconsistently and capriciously handed out for this.

Identify your top streamers. Be sure to ban one of them every ~6 months, ideally mid-match during peak hours, onstream. Bonus points if it's for exploiting bugs you introduced and patched out months ago, not for current problems.

Your frequent patches should also contain lots of balance fixes. Make sure to playtest these using your least competent players. Document these changes. Don't be too specific; say "rebalanced weapon damage" or "lowered some heroes' health". Provide just enough info to let your players try to create a meta, but not enough to allow them to optimize it.

When documenting these changes, be sure you don't post changes in the same place every patch! Post one set of notes in your forums, another to social media, have some only appear in the app/steam store description. We want it to be hard and frustrating for the player to learn mechanics.

When rebalancing, stay inconsistent. One release cycle, powercreep everything. Find the topic your players are complaining about most, then buff it because something your internal metrics say. Next cycle, reverse course and nerf everything. Leave an overpowered option or two, of course, but go crazy on the nerfs. We can't have the playerbase getting comfortable here. Instead, we'll generate more venom from the playerbase towards the devs, and let that frustration spill over into matches.

[Bavarian itP]

Force the player to choose a nation. That nation is always shown next to their nickname. The only available nations are Israel and Palestine.

[warty goblin]

I think there's also a lot of mileage to be had from a Play of the Game sort of system. The algorithm for determining it needs to be mostly inscrutable, but seems like it favors one or two other underpowered classes doing something they're really not built for - racking up kills as a medic or stuff like that. Make sure that getting PoTG comes with some sort of player reward as well, like exclusive character skins or something. Try to make them skins that cater to your already most problematic elements; I'm leaning towards scantily clad anime ladies here, because most unpleasant players on a server invariably have scantily clad anime lady avatars (assuming swasticas are not allowed). You can get scantier costumes the more PoTGs you earn with a character.

The upshot of this should be that for any rando public game, at least one person on each team should be playing already bad classes in a really stupid way. If you do the targeted marketing right, these should also be your absolute most toxic players in the first place. This should go very well.

[Tvtyrant]

Instead of fixed team sizes it uses fixed team ranks, so you can have a small team of people with high K/D versus a huge team of bad K/D ratios. New players are therefore always thrown in with the best players.

[Evoker]

The game is Free to Play, but after each match you earn points towards a month of "Tier 2", giving a ton of quality of life stuff, as well as strong in-game benefits. Emphisise that this cannot be bought with in-game money. 1000 points are distributed to the members of the winning team through a byzantine algorithm that gives the most points to whoever did second best. The losing team loses points based on how close the match was, the closer the match, the more points lost.

There, throws in the fact that if a team starts losing, anyone who wants Tier 2 will start throwing the game so they lose less points, as well as people on the winning team getting angry about people "Stealing" the points they feel they deserve.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Set up in your match algorithm that you cannot be paired with anyone within a certain band around your own skill level, you will always end up with someone either lower scored by a significant margin, or higher scored, by a significant margin. This will do several things for your toxicity:

* The whipsaw swing from 'pwning n00bz' to 'getting pwnzord' can happen at any time, and there's no real agency involved. One minute, you're taking out people well beneath your skill level, then suddenly you get totally and completely owned. And make sure the matches are best four out of seven, just to rub it in his face. So he's good and hopping mad when he gets owned, but will start feeling superior after fragging a couple of newbies, only to get fragged himself again. This maintains a level of salt which is palpable and guaranteed that he will vent vitriol to anyone he encounters, but not so much that he will feel the need to quit.

* The highest scored players will be unable to compete against each other, because they will be within the same score range. This actively prevents the meta from advancing as rapidly, because all they have to work on are people less skilled than they are, which won't need an advanced or developed meta. This keeps the established strategies current, and the game goes 'stale' with the most commonly used tactics working.

* This works even better if you have one weapon or category or character option which is mechanically and obviously superior so everyone will use it. And everyone killed by one will call it a 'crutch'.

[Eurus]

This is like the video game equivalent of the Vaults from Fallout. An elaborate social experiment disguised as a service. :smallamused:

Forums that are moderated enough to keep out the bots (otherwise they'd die completely), but otherwise have absolutely zero rules. And are set up like reddit, where downvoting posts enough hides them and getting upvotes accumulates karma. Then tie your forum statistics to in-game benefits.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And are set up like reddit, where downvoting posts enough hides them and getting upvotes accumulates karma. Then tie your forum statistics to in-game benefits.

Isn't that going to breed super polite forums with just a rare few super angry people who go full angry guy? Can't we find a way to get more people to explode?

[Slayn82]

I see most ideas here are for MOBAS.

I say instead have the game also be an MMO, with a very intense PVP that only runs at certain days of the week.

Then introduce a few maps where the Best gear for PVP drops with 0.001% of chance from a boss monster, and all the rest of his drops are either trash, or fundamental to the progress of quests other classes more focused to PVE, that they have to kill personally to get, and the PVP items auto bind and can't be sold.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

This is like the video game equivalent of the Vaults from Fallout. An elaborate social experiment disguised as a service. :smallamused:Pretty much.


Forums that are moderated enough to keep out the bots (otherwise they'd die completely), but otherwise have absolutely zero rules. And are set up like reddit, where downvoting posts enough hides them and getting upvotes accumulates karma. Then tie your forum statistics to in-game benefits.

Flip that on its head...

Like Youtube, upvotes and downvotes both count as 'traffic' and the post gains karma for the total combined.

[DataNinja]

I see most ideas here are for MOBAS.

I say instead have the game also be an MMO, with a very intense PVP that only runs at certain days of the week.

Then introduce a few maps where the Best gear for PVP drops with 0.001% of chance from a boss monster, and all the rest of his drops are either trash, or fundamental to the progress of quests other classes more focused to PVE, that they have to kill personally to get, and the PVP items auto bind and can't be sold.

Have it where the person who gets the last hit on an enemy gets 90% of the EXP. Healers? Supporting classes? Who cares about those. No, the important people are the ones who actually deal damage. There's no way that could breed resentment. Or competition.

[gooddragon1]

Have it where the person who gets the last hit on an enemy gets 90% of the EXP. Healers? Supporting classes? Who cares about those. No, the important people are the ones who actually deal damage. There's no way that could breed resentment. Or competition.

You have to make sure that the item has a time delay on death and will drop in a certain area circle. Then anyone nearby can pick it up. Then turn friendly fire on during that delay. Or make it so the person with the most damage dealt who is still alive receives it.

It's just that with mmo's people aren't penalized for walking away before the timer is up. There's the grind and this, but you can't experience the salt that is a snowballing loss with enough time to rage at the team as it gets worse. Also, on the forums, allow players to link any game another player has played and search games by stats.

The objective here isn't to make players explode, or ignite, but to produce enough smoke from their ears to routinely set off the fire detectors. Sustainability is the future.

[Velaryon]

1. Allow ready access to items that an aid in griefing:

-grenades that slow/stun/blind those hit, and work on allies as well as enemies.
-impassable barriers that can be put up instantly (i.e. Mei's ice wall in Overwatch) so that you can block teammates into the spawn room or off the objective
-attacks that can push allies into pits/off cliffs/etc.

2. Make spawn camping really easy:
-predictable spawn locations
-large hitboxes for head shots
-convenient sniping locations near enough to spawns

3. Throw in plenty of low/no skill attacks that are likely to kill through blind luck rather than skill (ricocheting projectiles, inconsistent homing missiles, massive AoE attacks with blast areas difficult to see, and so on).

4. Announce awesome-sounding content, then either miss your release date or simply don't tell people when it's coming out. When asked, provide nothing more specific than "really soon." Bonus points if you promise features that aren't there when the content is actually released.

5. Start off with no dedicated servers - make all matches P2P. And make sure all disconnects count as a loss. You'll have to remove this after a month or two, or else the player base will erode quickly, but might as well take every temporary advantage you can.

[Tvtyrant]

1. Allow ready access to items that an aid in griefing:

-grenades that slow/stun/blind those hit, and work on allies as well as enemies.
-impassable barriers that can be put up instantly (i.e. Mei's ice wall in Overwatch) so that you can block teammates into the spawn room or off the objective
-attacks that can push allies into pits/off cliffs/etc.

2. Make spawn camping really easy:
-predictable spawn locations
-large hitboxes for head shots
-convenient sniping locations near enough to spawns

3. Throw in plenty of low/no skill attacks that are likely to kill through blind luck rather than skill (ricocheting projectiles, inconsistent homing missiles, massive AoE attacks with blast areas difficult to see, and so on).

4. Announce awesome-sounding content, then either miss your release date or simply don't tell people when it's coming out. When asked, provide nothing more specific than "really soon." Bonus points if you promise features that aren't there when the content is actually released.

5. Start off with no dedicated servers - make all matches P2P. And make sure all disconnects count as a loss. You'll have to remove this after a month or two, or else the player base will erode quickly, but might as well take every temporary advantage you can.

I don't think the spawn camping is that much of a problem. TF2 was one of the most popular FPS games and you could spawn camp with autoturrets.

[warty goblin]

I don't think the spawn camping is that much of a problem. TF2 was one of the most popular FPS games and you could spawn camp with autoturrets.

I mean if your maps are well designed/the spawnpoint rotation is solid, it's not really a problem. But getting fragged upon spawning ten times in a row is frustrating as hell, particularly if there's absolutely no counterplay available. Some jerk with a sniper rifle, a ten zillion DPI mouse, and fifteen hours a day to game is camped out on a ridge right at the edge of draw distance, and is going to introduce your face to a 7.62mm round every time you spawn like clockwork.

And if you allow some sort of artillery ability, it's even worse.

[cha0s4a11]

MOBA/Team Shooter suggestion:

Have the game give a super-ultimate (potentially game breaking ability which requires high technical skill and/or planning ability to properly utilize, randomly selected from a list about 20 or so) to whatever player is responsible for giving the opponent the most kills/XP from feeding/other quantifiably poor behaviors. Continually and publicly update and announce who has the ability. Only one player in the match (not one per team, only one in the match - if their worst guy sucks more than your worst guy, your team gets nothing) has this ability at any one time.

MMO Suggestions:
Bias loot rolls for any rare monster drops so that they are heavily weighted towards whoever contributed least in the group/party/raid (as measured by some formula accounting for damage done/healed/buffs/debuffs/etc) in proportion to their level.

Automatically kick and timeout ban for an hour anyone who causes the profanity filter to activate. Give anyone who was in communications range to the player making the offending remark token "anti-toxicity bonus exp/gold" as compensation for being potentially subjected to such profanity. Also, crank up the detection heuristics for the profanity filter to maximum so that players need to be careful not to talk about such things as "assassins" or "assistance" or "grapefruit".

Edit: Heh, an example about a certain type of mushroom tripped the wire here. Turns out I was spelling it wrong anyway, so fair cop.

[Knaight]

Have the game give a super-ultimate (potentially game breaking ability which requires high technical skill and/or planning ability to properly utilize, randomly selected from a list about 20 or so) to whatever player is responsible for giving the opponent the most kills/XP from feeding/other quantifiably poor behaviors. Continually and publicly update and announce who has the ability. Only one player in the match (not one per team, only one in the match - if their worst guy sucks more than your worst guy, your team gets nothing) has this ability at any one time.

Make it a blue shell of some sort as well, just to evoke some choice memories. Better yet, implement this sort of mechanic heavily, Mario Kart style, but with way more swing and chaos.

[Kish]

Have it where the person who gets the last hit on an enemy gets 90% of the EXP. Healers? Supporting classes? Who cares about those. No, the important people are the ones who actually deal damage. There's no way that could breed resentment. Or competition.
That would simply result in healing and support classes ceasing to exist in practice as everyone played the damage classes. In fairly short order, you'd have a more simplistic but less toxic game; being all damage doesn't put you at a disadvantage to another all-damage team.

[Tvtyrant]

That would simply result in healing and support classes ceasing to exist in practice as everyone played the damage classes. In fairly short order, you'd have a more simplistic but less toxic game; being all damage doesn't put you at a disadvantage to another all-damage team.

That is why I said earlier we need to make the support classes the strongest ones by far, so the team bullies members to play them.

[Calemyr]

One thought comes to mind: an automated highlight reel.

AI picks the moments of optimal awesomeness and humiliation from matches and places them online for mass consumption, with a social media element to like and/or follow players. Popular players get additional advantages that others might call "unfair". Add on to this an obtuse YouTube-like algorithm for what people are shown to make everyone go completely mad trying to figure out how to succeed until the actual gameplay becomes a tertiary concern.

[GloatingSwine]

One thought comes to mind: an automated highlight reel.

AI picks the moments of optimal awesomeness and humiliation from matches and places them online for mass consumption, with a social media element to like and/or follow players. Popular players get additional advantages that others might call "unfair". Add on to this an obtuse YouTube-like algorithm for what people are shown to make everyone go completely mad trying to figure out how to succeed until the actual gameplay becomes a tertiary concern.

If you want to maximise toxicity from the "play of the game" system, make sure that the things it shows are orthogonal to the victory condition and award a significant progression reward, equal to or greater than actual victory.


That is why I said earlier we need to make the support classes the strongest ones by far, so the team bullies members to play them.

Whilst making sure that they are in no way fun to play. Give them damp and unrewarding animations and clunky mechanics.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

After every three minutes passes, there is a brief period called "The Waaarp Zooone" that lasts randomly between 13.5 and 27 seconds. All characters gain No-Clip, x3 movement speed, and projectiles are not stopped by objects/walls (but you still can't see through them). Yay spamming into the darkness.

At the end of this period, anybody stuck inside of an object/wall goes /explode, no matter how small. Also, fall damage is ramped up to x10, so if you're too far up when it ends you die. Even being a normal jump's worth off solid ground could do some damage. Don't get too close, else you might clip into the ground, and it'll explode you.

I think the concept is incredibly toxic, but also provides some high moments, stakes, and thrills (which keeps people coming back).


Oh yes, and crit. How have we gotten this far and nobody's talked about crit mechanics and damage variance of weapons?

[Rynjin]

Oh yes, and crit. How have we gotten this far and nobody's talked about crit mechanics and damage variance of weapons?

Because IME as a former regular on the Team Fortress 2 SPUF forums (R.I.P. my lost friend...) bringing up the facts that crits and random damage/pellet spread are terrible mechanics that add nothing of value to the game save the vague idea that "crits allow players who suck to get a lucky kill on players who don't every now and then, which is somehow satisfying to the player who got the pity kill" tends to lead to toxicity in the THREAD even more than the game.

[Jackaccount]

1. Give each player a job that must be completed to ensure victory. Ex: an engineer has to fix a bridge for their team to win.
2. Make it so that enemies can undo progress on these objectives.
3. Add inane achievements that cripple the team. Ex: stand still for 50 seconds in 12 consecutive matches.

[GloatingSwine]

After every three minutes passes, there is a brief period called "The Waaarp Zooone" that lasts randomly between 13.5 and 27 seconds. All characters gain No-Clip, x3 movement speed, and projectiles are not stopped by objects/walls (but you still can't see through them). Yay spamming into the darkness.

At the end of this period, anybody stuck inside of an object/wall goes /explode, no matter how small. Also, fall damage is ramped up to x10, so if you're too far up when it ends you die. Even being a normal jump's worth off solid ground could do some damage. Don't get too close, else you might clip into the ground, and it'll explode you.

I think the concept is incredibly toxic, but also provides some high moments, stakes, and thrills (which keeps people coming back).


Oh yes, and crit. How have we gotten this far and nobody's talked about crit mechanics and damage variance of weapons?

Neither of those things increase toxicity really.

If a game includes significant randomness it's unlikely to become toxic as people will simply blame RNGesus for their failings instead of their surviving teammates.

Remember, toxicity in games is a measure of how much players hate each other (especially if they're ostensibly on the same side) not the game mechanics.

[Arutema]

For MMO toxicity, have you played EVE Online?

The best resources spawn only in PVP zones. Any ship destroyed is lost permanently. After a PVP kill, the winner may loot any modules which were fitted to the loser's ship.

He may also shoot down the loser's escape pod, even though escape pods do not drop any loot.

[BannedInSchool]

Okay, so if someone has accepted the point of the game being to grief other players, can you still make them miserable too and keep playing?

[Tvtyrant]

Okay, so if someone has accepted the point of the game being to grief other players, can you still make them miserable too and keep playing?

Your resources decline when you aren't playing. Make it slow but noticeable so you have to keep playing constantly to not fall behind.

[ross]

graphics and audio are behind a paywall

defeating a player gives you access to the credit card info for their account, including sec code and billing address

[Kish]

graphics and audio are behind a paywall

defeating a player gives you access to the credit card info for their account, including sec code and billing address
The only question I see, is whether the game would shut down for lack of people playing it before or after the feds came to lock you up for deliberately leaking confidential credit card information.

Either way, no, that would not create a toxic game--just no game at all.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It's an official Star Wars game.

[ross]

The only question I see, is whether the game would shut down for lack of people playing it before or after the feds came to lock you up for deliberately leaking confidential credit card information.

Either way, no, that would not create a toxic game--just no game at all.

Feds can't get you if your server's on the moon

[warty goblin]

Feds can't get you if your server's on the moon

I'm sure the 2 seconds of latency will attract millions of players.

[Lord Raziere]

It's an official Star Wars game.

The options are intentionally unequal, but no tells the players this. If players complain, fix it by making the options more unequal, and proclaim their complaints have been addressed.

one of the abilities has "midichlorians" in their name. if people complain, fix it by giving them more midichlorian named abilities.

Ray is the default player character and you must unlock all the others with her first. the second character you unlock is Jar-Jar. the third you unlock is 1337. and the last you unlock is your favorite character.

[Kish]

Ray[sic] is the default player character and you must unlock all the others with her first.
Yeah...

Somehow, I think instantly repelling all the people who rant at length about how awful it is that the sequel movies have a female main character would drop the game's toxicity level massively.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah...

Somehow, I think instantly repelling all the people who rant at length about how awful it is that the sequel movies have a female main character would drop the game's toxicity level massively.

....yeah your probably right. hm.

[warty goblin]

....yeah your probably right. hm.

But you can get all that sweet, sweet toxicity back by just making her subtly but definitively overpowered.

Then you can keep the flamewars alive and well by suggesting that anybody who thinks she shouldn't be so powerful is a raving sexist. If the community ever manages to stop flaming each other long enough to reach a consensus, I recommend a series of drastic nerfs to Rey, along with a press release designed to convince people that this is being done on behalf of the sexists. Not only will this cause massive toxicity in the community, but you'll get a giant outcry from the gaming press as well. Then a week later release another patch restoring her to 99% power, along with patch notes designed to piss off the sexists again.

[Rockphed]

If you want to maximise toxicity from the "play of the game" system, make sure that the things it shows are orthogonal to the victory condition and award a significant progression reward, equal to or greater than actual victory.

Things like "do a basket-ball animation so it looks to a teammate like you threw the sun" or "find the 1 bouncy rock in the back of dino-acres!" And when I say "back", I mean like a 5 minute in-game run away from the part of the field where the actual objectives are.

[Knaight]

Feds can't get you if your server's on the moon
Unless you're on the moon this doesn't actually help you.

Yeah...

Somehow, I think instantly repelling all the people who rant at length about how awful it is that the sequel movies have a female main character would drop the game's toxicity level massively.
On a similar note unlocking Finn first would probably be helpful.

[Luftwaffle]

For MMO toxicity, have you played EVE Online?

The best resources spawn only in PVP zones. Any ship destroyed is lost permanently. After a PVP kill, the winner may loot any modules which were fitted to the loser's ship.

He may also shoot down the loser's escape pod, even though escape pods do not drop any loot.I'll up that if you don't mind.

Smartbombing escape pods in transit as they arrive on gate before they have the chance to do anything, purely on the off chance they might have $0-$100+ worth of implants.
All in the name of laughs, glorious killmails, and considerable anger/tears.

:biggrin:

[Darth Tom]

So what you're saying is World of Tanks is peak toxicity then.

Seconded.

The thesis that teenage Russians increase toxicity is illustrated by ARMA3. This is quite a hardcore simulator in most guises, and even in multiplayer I would say a lot of players take it seriously without being obnoxious. Except on any server frequented by Russians, which quickly spiral into vicious trolling, teamkilling, blatant hacking, and all-around poor behaviour.

[Dragonexx]

1. Give each player a job that must be completed to ensure victory. Ex: an engineer has to fix a bridge for their team to win.
2. Make it so that enemies can undo progress on these objectives.
3. Add inane achievements that cripple the team. Ex: stand still for 50 seconds in 12 consecutive matches.

Better yet, make some of these goals and achievements mutually exclusive between members of the same team. Allow friendly fire, or some means of hindering your teammates, and watch the fireworks.

[Evoker]

Very low chance every game for one person to be told to make the team that he/she is on lose, and gain a special achievement. Greater, but still low chance that they will get the achievement if their team loses, but they are not told that.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Include a tedious mechanic that gives a considerable advantage, so that hardcore players get attracted by the promise of mastery and being able to beat less dedicated people.

They can then turn around and berate teammates who haven't achieved the same dedication.