There are plenty of multiplayer games I adore. However, it seems like every community has these "brain dead", patronizing, or out right toxic elements that are just nasty. I'd rather debate politics than make suggestions in some gaming communities because the responses are just so ... annoying.
As an example, I once dared to suggest that a game developer implement a mode to prevent crouched status from rendering on death cams so that players that are bothered by t-bagging could avoid it (after a match where a friend rage quit because someone just kept head shotting him -- possibly with cheats -- and then t-bagging). This post got tons of hate, and like -50 upvotes on reddit because of course someone should be forced to watch someone t-bag them.
Another example on a official game forum... I made a forum post suggesting Bungie use Mastodon (or really just something else being my intent)... The response I got was some positivity but mostly just "lol nobody uses that sweetie" and other patronizing comments.
Meanwhile studios themselves often seem to be filled with developers that understand this stuff is a problem, and the lack of sportsmanship (or generally civilized attitudes) does push away players. It just doesn't make sense to me that no studio is saying "get lost" to these elements or implementing anti-toxicity features. I just want to play games with nice normal people, is that really so much to ask?
Maybe try a different game? Some communities are just way more toxic than others.
Battle bits is a good example of what a mostly non toxic community is like.
Bf2042 isn't toxic because you can no longer communicate with the other team, so no one even talks in chat at all. Squad and Arma are filled with mature gamers and practically no toxicity.
Or you can just mute everyone at the start like I do in Apex. They never use the mic for communication, only to bitch and moan after they die doing something stupid. So it's no loss. Or you can get friends, hook up on discord or similar and ignore everyone else
Yeah, this is basically what I've done. Hunt I've been pretty happy with. Destiny is the one that triggered this post, and the one that keeps catching me off guard.
I mostly play PvE stuff with friends and feel at peace with the game and how Bungie presents themselves ... then I get total culture shock when I engage outside of my friends group.
Appreciate you looking out for my mental health though ๐
I also recommend Deep Rock Galactic, that community is mostly amazing. And you can usually spot the assholes just by the way they name their server.
Also, another amazing community that I wholy recommend giving a try - Neverwinter Nights EE. The largest RP servers are so much fun, and the people there are really amazing to interact with, assuming you respect and play by the rules.