The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
To appease the folks who wanted to express that they were using a curse word, you can also send "$#@%!". It's really satisfying to be able to express a curse when you accidentally send the ball flying towards your own team's goal, for instance.
Of course they also have straight up text chat where they asterisk out curse words and anything that might look like personal info such as phone numbers. If you're on a console, it's unlikely you even have a keyboard hooked up. And the text input system for controllers is just too slow to type anything worthwhile in the limited time you have during goal-replays. Typing anything more than a few words means you're not helping your team which is naturally shamed and can lead to a server kick.
It drastically reduces the toxic bigotry that usually pops up on extremely popular multiplayer games. The only exception is that people sometimes have bigoted usernames which are tougher to censor for the reasons mentioned in the article.
Anyway, while I do think it's an arms race of sorts, Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.
> That reminds me of Rocket League's approach. The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
Dota has that, and it didn't work.
People just used the nice phrases sarcastically, and repeatadly.
When you miss an actions for the 3rd time and your team mate congrats you everytime with a "nice one", it's equally infuruating. Even more, because it cost so little to be an ass.
> People just used the nice phrases sarcastically, and repeatedly.
As an avid player of rocket league, this happens. For example, if one team scores a goal, if they want to be mean they can spam "What a Save!" quick chat. Making fun of the other team for not saving the ball. The same for "Nice Shot!" when the opposing team misses, or "Great Pass!" if the other team makes a bad pass.
But it is still a decent system. People who abuse it are always gonna find ways to abuse things.
Is there a timeout on repetitive chat? In RL you're temporarily blocked from chat after repeating the same phrase three times. Solves the repetition issue.
As for sarcasm, yeah that can be used to harass people but only mildly. I consider that about the least toxic possible form of chat in a competitive video game where people want to engage.
If someone hits the ball into their own goal at least someone from the team that got the goal will say "Nice shot!" sarcastically. Mildly toxic but everyone's done it at least once before and so there's usually someone else chiming in with "No problem." Ultimately works out really well. Sometimes people quit but it's rare and it's usually due to embarrassment than anger.
Edit: just to be clear, I agree with the premise that it's an unsolvable arms race with the community. I just meant to say that RL's implementation was pretty good considering that fact.
Rocket League's approach to this is very good.
The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
To appease the folks who wanted to express that they were using a curse word, you can also send "$#@%!". It's really satisfying to be able to express a curse when you accidentally send the ball flying towards your own team's goal, for instance.
Of course they also have straight up text chat where they asterisk out curse words and anything that might look like personal info such as phone numbers. If you're on a console, it's unlikely you even have a keyboard hooked up. And the text input system for controllers is just too slow to type anything worthwhile in the limited time you have during goal-replays. Typing anything more than a few words means you're not helping your team which is naturally shamed and can lead to a server kick.
It drastically reduces the toxic bigotry that usually pops up on extremely popular multiplayer games. The only exception is that people sometimes have bigoted usernames which are tougher to censor for the reasons mentioned in the article.
Anyway, while I do think it's an arms race of sorts, Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.
> That reminds me of Rocket League's approach. The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
Dota has that, and it didn't work.
People just used the nice phrases sarcastically, and repeatadly.
When you miss an actions for the 3rd time and your team mate congrats you everytime with a "nice one", it's equally infuruating. Even more, because it cost so little to be an ass.
> People just used the nice phrases sarcastically, and repeatedly.
As an avid player of rocket league, this happens. For example, if one team scores a goal, if they want to be mean they can spam "What a Save!" quick chat. Making fun of the other team for not saving the ball. The same for "Nice Shot!" when the opposing team misses, or "Great Pass!" if the other team makes a bad pass.
But it is still a decent system. People who abuse it are always gonna find ways to abuse things.
Is there a timeout on repetitive chat? In RL you're temporarily blocked from chat after repeating the same phrase three times. Solves the repetition issue.
As for sarcasm, yeah that can be used to harass people but only mildly. I consider that about the least toxic possible form of chat in a competitive video game where people want to engage.
If someone hits the ball into their own goal at least someone from the team that got the goal will say "Nice shot!" sarcastically. Mildly toxic but everyone's done it at least once before and so there's usually someone else chiming in with "No problem." Ultimately works out really well. Sometimes people quit but it's rare and it's usually due to embarrassment than anger.
Edit: just to be clear, I agree with the premise that it's an unsolvable arms race with the community. I just meant to say that RL's implementation was pretty good considering that fact.
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well, it's different games, in dota (relatively to RL) your teammates have all the time in the world to harass you.
> Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.
To be fair, it was Tribes that solved that issue, and Rocket League just implemented it.
I was just about to post this! It's such a good set of examples.
Ha, that's pretty great.