bullying, harassing, or even “criticizing” them is an entirely pointless endeavor that does nothing but make you feel superior to another person. having a “minimum standard” for random matchmaking is OK i guess, but not having that standard met is the developer’s fault for not having proper matchmaking, not the random shitty player just trying to play the game.
and it’s a game. it fundamentally does not matter if someone is so bad you can’t get your +0.2 second record or whatever. it does not matter if you can’t win the difficulty you chose. everyone starts somewhere, and in games where different difficulties tend to be almost like entirely different games, this is even more true. if you want a game where you have an 100% chance of everyone involved being at the correct skill level you want, than don’t play with explicitly random players. no one cares if you want to feel special because you can win more at some fictional game than other people. I respect skill, but if you think that’s a reason to bully people than you should leave every game scene ever to save people from your presence
if a player stumbles into something but doesn’t understand it it’s the developer’s fault 90% of the time. if a player doesn’t want to “git gud” it’s the developer’s fault 90% of the time. every single genuine criticism made about a game’s difficulty is inherently valid. every game should have an easy mode. players should default to helping new players rather than dismissing them. learning a game by playing it is always more intuitive than using google or reading blog posts.
So you’ve literally never played a souls game co-op with randos?
Despite how vocal the toxic parts of the souls fanbase can be, sunbros who engage in random co-op tend to have the exact opposite mentality
Never got hatemail for sucking in a souls game after over a decade of playing them online and I’ve played a lot of those on xbox too, so if anyone was gonna call me a slur for not helping them with a boss it was gonna be there but that never happened
I’ve had way more toxic interactions from so called teammates in far easier games
also every game should have an easy mode
Why every game? Should every book be rewritten to be at a child’s reading level?
Not every piece of media is for everyone and that is a good thing.
I do agree with 90% of what you said besides this point tho. I hate the competative “a lack of skill is rude” bs.
my friends are bad all the time and the people online talking about bad players are annoying.
oh yeah also i have experienced this in my distant memory. played co-op game event and toxic g*mers shitting on me for not being high enough level for an event that doesn’t even have progression in it. i would not have cared as it was a lobby i believe i missed the description of, but unfortunately this was a common experience for other people who played that same event. also lots of tiny weird comments made about misplays when i try to learn various games. its extremely toxic shit and i don’t know why people defend it.
i was referring to the “only play with friends” part when it comes to my recent life and what drove me to post this. i’m not posting this because i’m “salty” i’m posting this because I think people who take their frustration of a game out on worse players are doing a bad and toxic thing and shouldn’t treat it like a good thing