kaputt

Introverts, social anxiety and multiplayer games

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I don't really experience any social anxiety, but I also pretty much never want to engage with people that just want to shit all over other people. Luckily the only game I've really experienced that regularly is CS: GO. I avoided playing with people I didn't know for the longest time in DOTA because I just didn't want to experience that infamous toxic community, but luckily I've found that reputation to not really be the case anymore, and 99% of the strangers I've interacted with to be perfectly pleasant. Anyone that isn't you just report.

 

So I guess I would say don't let that anxiety hold you back from having fun. If people do turn out to be shitty just stop playing, and switch to something else, but most of the time people are okay. You could always play more co-op games as well, which is usually a friendlier environment. I've been playing the Red Solstice a bit almost exclusively with strangers, and that's been great fun.

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Pokémon.

 

 

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(semi-serious answer: I love multiplayer games that hinge on LACK of direct communication like Journey or Transformice)

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I go out of my way to do that in games.  If I see someone who's clearly new and not just purposely trying to be an idiot I'll try to fill them in on some of the basics without flat out telling them what they should be doing (unless it's a very specific thing like standing in a certain spot).  I always try to remember that at some point I was a newb and in general I just enjoy helping people.  It's not a new idea by any means, but if you're nice to other people, odds are they'll be nice to you too and everyone will have a better time.

 

That's really important. In WoW I played a Rogue, and used to do my "daily dungeon finder" before any of my friends would be on. You'd get a lot of newbie tanks in there wanting a fast queue so I would spend a lot of time coaching them in whisper chat so no one would know they were lost. Having an aggro redirect was incredibly useful when playing with newbies. 

Helping people new to a game is actually really rewarding. They generally appreciate it a lot, and you can make friends quite quickly like that. My WoW guild had a ton of people who were new to the game and even though we were a hardcore PvP guild, we'd all make time to help them out with questions or tasks. It also lead to some very funny situations with players who were clearly children, not realising they were in a guild full of twenty-to-forty-somethings. 

 

I think the key thing to remember is that sometimes people just have bad days and can get frustrated at you for what may seem like a stupid reason. Also if there's a group of people it's generally better to talk to someone rude one-on-one as it tends to diffuse the situation rather quickly once they realise you're a person like them, just trying to have fun with a game.

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I'm really glad that you guys pointed Guild Wars 2, always wanted to play that game, I'll look more into it.

 

If it helps, dataminers discovered that there's probably going to be a permanent trial implemented soon. They found that whenever they turned on free trials the gold spam was horrendous, and it slowly dies off over time.

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If it helps, dataminers discovered that there's probably going to be a permanent trial implemented soon. They found that whenever they turned on free trials the gold spam was horrendous, and it slowly dies off over time.

Yeah, I wanted to try GW 2, but it's a bit expensive right now (well, not exactly "expensive", it's just a high price for a genre I never tried before). A trial comes in handy.

I always thought this was just me! I'm not a shy person generally but I do find it difficult to talk online to people I don't already know in the real world as I have a terrible accent coupled with a speech impediment which makes me stand out our come across badly. I do love multiplayer games though but tend to gravitate toward those which don't need or even allow chat like Dark Souls, Street Fighter and big team games where I can be fairly anonymous. I am trying to work on this though as I do love the idea of playing the like of Destiny or The Last of Us with a small team working together.

There must be people on here you could play something with? The first step is playing with people you know not to be arseholes.

In my experience there aren't any specific games that are better than others, but I guess I prefer higher player counts as that puts less focus on each individual. Also, I much prefer meeting people in the game as opposed to outside of it, because then playing the game with them is already a natural thing. Arranging to play a game with say people from this forum would stress me out more than just playing with strangers. I get anxious playing new games even with people I've played other games with for years. I can't explain that, but it sucks because it makes me lose contact with people once they or I quit a particular game. I'll also admit that I get a little stressed out just by being logged into Steam friends, which is why I'm usually not.

I tend to feel the same way in multiplayer games. It's particularly bad in games where I feel like I can very easily screw things up for my team members, so no Lords Management games for me. Also, any game with a small but super hardcore community scares me, which is why I bought Spy Party but have only played it twice (in spite of having a good time and playing with people who were quite pleasant). Some games that seem to cause me less stress:

  • Team Fortress 2: Generally the community is pleasant and doesn't require too much voice chat. You get the occasional annoying person, but little in the way of rage/hate speech.
  • Battlefield 4: Nobody seems to use voice chat in the game, which is great for me. I tend to play with a squad of people I know in real life, so we just run a Skype/mumble chat for us and ignore everyone else. The text chat is occasionally terrible (I've seen some racism, and quite a bit of "my team is the worst" stuff, but it's much easier to ignore, and the racists seem to get banned quickly).
  • Guild Wars 2: I'll just say that, like everyone else has said, this game seems to be populated with generally pretty nice people.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: I was initially pretty freaked out about grouping with strangers, but they all seemed pretty alright. It might have helped that I'm halfway decent at playing tanky roles.
  • Quake Live: I'll preface this by saying that I'm terrible at the game, but even the hardest of hardcore players of this game seem to be really good-natured. You might lose terribly, but you will probably have a good time doing it.
Another thing to keep in mind with games like DayZ and Rust is that it can help to play on servers populated with or run by people from communities you like. The Thumbs DayZ server was nice because the rule was "If you're going to be an asshole, at least be an interesting asshole." I got held up by a couple of guys playing there, but they were nice about it. I also played a fair amount of Rust on a server made up of people from Giant Bomb. Instead of being a kill-on-sight murder simulator, it ended up being a fun "let's build a town" game for a while. That was cool.

Also, the Multiplayer Networking sub-forum is great for this kind of stuff. I still don't play a lot of games online because of social anxiety and lack of free time, but when I've played with fellow thumbs, it has always been a good time.

Glad to see that I'm not crazy by having some anxiety with video games. I've always had that with sports, I remember that I used to play basketball way better with a group of 4 close friends, but when I tried to actually play for the school team I totally sucked. But I'm just realizing that I have this, at a lesser degree, with multiplayer video games as well.

About the games, Final fantasy XIV implemented a free trial, maybe I'll do that, the game always impressed me with its visuals (at least with the A Realm Reborn version). I'm thinking about trying Battlefield 3, as I have it in my library due to a humble bundle I think, just need to convince myself that the multiplayer is better than the campaign, which was awful for the very few hours I played it. I also really wan to play Destiny, I'm just not entirely sure if I'll buy a PS4 this year, have other priorities.

And yes, I'll definitely like to play some games with the people of this forum, you guys are very nice dudes :) I'll take a look in the multiplayer subforum to see how can I do that.

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I played WoW for years and the whole time I said my headset was broken and couldn't afford a new one. I chatted with the guild via text, but never voice once. These were people I'd met exclusively online but just never got the courage to speak to "strangers" with my voice. It was just the easiest way for me to play multiplayer games that required communication without tripping whatever switch it is in my brain that gets anxious in social situations.

 

Now I play LoL probably daily and if I don't have a friend in the game with me I communicate exclusively through pings and text. Even if the rest of the team has decided to get on a vent or skype call.

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It's interesting, I used to play online multiplayer games a fair amount when I was in high school and college, but over the past decade or so I've increasingly begun to avoid any experience that's subject to the expectations and whims of another. Even with Dark Souls, which has only a few pleasantly limited options for interaction, I stopped summoning friendly players after a couple forged ahead and killed the area boss more or less without me. It's only been Dark Souls 2, where player summons are an important way to get back humanity, that has seen me using multiplayer a lot lately, because all people can do is wave and shrug and bow in between helping each other with a game that's hard on everybody. There are still trolls who strip all their armor off upon being summoned or refuse to follow you into the boss room, but I think the low spectrum for expression means that the entertainment value of trolling is limited enough that most people don't bother.

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I've always felt like I was alone in thinking this, way so it's comforting to hear other people with the same issues. I tend to play any multiplayer games with voice chat muted and treat it as a single player experience.

Have had the odd good experience with Borderlands using occasional text chat, but the greatest online interactions I have had have been Journey and Mario Kart where there was no pressure to communicate.

Having recently played the Destiny Alpha and Beta though, I am kind of hopeful that this may be another multiplayer experience that I'll be able to have a good time with.

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I've had pretty good experiences with "Killing Floor". Reasonable co-op is possible and most people are only communicating via hot keys ("Get to the trader!", "Need money.").

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Interesting, I'm very introverted and anxious in real life but I've always found online games liberating in that regard. Specifically random match making in games like Halo, where there is no pressure to develop a relationship or impress anyone. I find that they let me relax and 'be myself' in a way that I never can in face-to-face situations.

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I generally hate getting on voice chat without my friends because that's an incredibly long time to talk to strangers. I don't know if it's social anxiety, but I just get either uncomfortable or bored. Also I get so accustomed to yelling things with my friends and saying offensive words that any other experience becomes weird 'cause then we gotta be polite around strangers.


When I was trying to do some of the harder stuff for Iron Brigade, the two separate guys I found on the Double Fine forums on voice chat both were very nice and polite but it was like an hour or two barely saying anything unless it pertained to the game.

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Interesting, I'm very introverted and anxious in real life but I've always found online games liberating in that regard. Specifically random match making in games like Halo, where there is no pressure to develop a relationship or impress anyone. I find that they let me relax and 'be myself' in a way that I never can in face-to-face situations.

 

I found that I'm the same. In games with matchmaking the actual interaction between the different players is so minimal to the degree that you could pretty much just be playing against bots. I've never had anyone in the games of Halo or Battlefield 4 even try to use voice comms or communicate in any other way. The only difference really is that I get far more annoyed when a human player named "xXxFireSkullShadowBladezxXx" kills me for the third straight time. 

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That applies to me too. I miss the days of people constantly talking in multiplayer games. Of course the trade off is now we have less kids screaming obscenities.  

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Yeah, it's sort of bittersweet. It's nice for someone with my anxieties but it's also something that I feel hinders the creation of communities. If no-one's talking no one is connecting. I guess on the PC people are still using text-chats to a certain degree, but on the console side of these shooters there is little to no communication.

 

Of course, if the alternative is someone screaming expletives at me then I don't mind if no-one speaks in a MP game again :P

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I seriously feel like it's a negative overall though. I can deal with someone calling me a faggot every 5 seconds or telling me they're going to rape my mother (both real world examples from about 6 years ago), however making genuine friends heavily outweighs the name calling in my opinion. Not to mention being able to tell people they're doing something wrong.

 

I've recently tried Warframe (scratching that Destiny itch until it comes out), and on one boss I revived people about 25+ times because one dude kept trying to melee the boss only to be instantly killed every time. I had to pause the game, type out with a PS4 controller "dont melee" and then get back in. It just kills the flow and really makes tactical play difficult. If I, and everyone else had been using mics, it would have been so much simpler. Didn't help that my PS4 mic doesn't seem to work on Warframe, or I'd have just quickly plugged it in.

Even in WoW PUG groups for raids, it was mandatory more often than not to enter a mumble or ventrillo server, even if you couldn't talk, just to hear orders/updates. 

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I was unaware of this trend that discourages mic usage! People talk all the time in Dota 2, and every time I peek my head back into TF2, it's the same. 

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I think the message has gotten out among pubsters (like me) that using the voice comms for 'missing' and 'such and such power is on cooldown for 15 seconds' work a whole lot better than using your mic. The same thing has happened in TF2 over the years. The voice chat ends up being used for socializing more than coordinating, and tactical elements like 'sentry ahead'/'uber'/'spy' are better communicated using the in-game prompts.

 

I suspect that half the Dota people I play with auto-mute everyone, which is an impulse I understand. I'm sure the dynamic is different when you queue with a regular group.

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I'm not experiencing that at all, though, that's what I'm saying. It's the complete opposite when I play.

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Really? I'd say more than half the Dota games I'm in have no voice chat (on my side) at all. I assume some of that is because you get matched up with a party who are all on mumble/skype together.

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I usually group with at least one other person and we are in Mumble together (who uses Skype, bad people, that's who), and we still get the other people on our team talking on voice more often than not.

 

Of course I sometimes mute them because they are assholes, but that's a separate issue.

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I tend to auto mute people in any new multiplayer game i play by default. Playing on PC means keyboard is still pretty efficient way of conveying info when hotkeys, & macros are taken into account.

 

Honestly there are days when just the thought of having to be on the same team as or play against some asshole is enough to put me off playing a game where i can't do it. 

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If the OP is still interested, Guild Wars 2 is half off right now and I maintain is a good MMO introvert entry point - http://buy.guildwars2.com/store/gw2/en_US/html/pbPage.buyguildwars2

 

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 lately, and it really is ideal for people who have anxiety about grouping up with people. Since a majority of the group content is just happening in the game world without needing to form a party or anything like that, you can help people out or get helped just by people walking by, or take down a huge world boss without needing to do much talking to other players.

 

Then again, I say this as I'm coming up on the game's last quest, and it looks like I'm going to need to form a group for that, something I'm kind of dreading. 

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Well, would you look at that? I've been eyeing it for a while now, so might nab it up while it is discounted!

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I've had similar experiences with anxiety (both social and performance anxiety) when playing online video games. Much more so since I am an introvert and I feel more focused when I don't mind what other people think of what I'm doing.

 

I overcame this was when I was when I played World of Tanks. It's 15v15 with randomly matchmade players on each side so nobody gets to choose who they end up with (except if it's a platoon where you can bring with you 2 of your friends). I'm not sure about the community here in NA since I play (or at least before I immigrated here) on the Asia server but the fact that at the lower tiers you fucking up or the potential of you fucking up doesn't really matter in the long run slowly made me confident in playing the game and eventually got me to loosen up.

 

It worked because at the lower tiers, you don't really lose anything so nobody really cares if you're doing well or screwing up or making the team lose. It's just stupid fun.

 

I eventually got real good at the game and I rarely feel nervous when playing in the higher tiers where losing really means wasting resources and annoying other people.

 

It also probably helped that I couldn't understand the trashtalk because it's in a different language and everybody is struggling with some form of broken english to communicate so it was also amusing. All MMO Asian Servers are like that. Nobody can communicate hostility well and everybody's communicating awkwardly. It takes a lot of the edge out. XD

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