Most toxic game possible thought experiment

[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....

[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.

[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.

1. 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.
   
2. Corollary to #1, make sure suspensions and bans are inconsistently and capriciously handed out for this.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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.
   
6. 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.

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.

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?