Do you feel the Doom Eternal community is becoming toxic?

[Mr. Duk]

SO much of online discussion these days is "toxic", aka mean-spirited, hateful, bigoted and/or filled with misinformation and blatant lies and personal attacks.

 

I've actually found that these Doomworld forums are some of the most *sane* messageboards around these days. I think it helps that not everyone posting here is American, so even if people are angry they're angry about different things. Also DOOM... DOOM is great and we can all agree on that at least.

 

EDIT: Also, I wrote a post criticizing the DLC and I listed out what I didn't like about it, and 85-90% of the comments were very reasonable, even those from people who loved the new DLC. Definitely a better ratio of "normal human response" vs. "insane anger response" that I'm used to seeing.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Mr. Duk

[Wereknight]

16 hours ago, HQDefault said:

Like they have this awful gatekeeping mentality where they lash out at anyone for saying that something is hard or even disliking one or two things.

Because there must be a way to defend themselves in a front of others when you had to swear to God Almighty himself this game is perfect while it's clearly NOT.

[BetaMarine]

1 hour ago, Wereknight said:

Because there must be a way to defend themselves in a front of others when you had to swear to God Almighty himself this game is perfect while it's clearly NOT.

I mean nothing’s perfect obv

[Super Mighty G]

18 hours ago, HQDefault said:

Like they have this awful gatekeeping mentality 

This kind of thing has existed since OG Doom. "If you don't play on UV you're not playing right". I haven't noticed anything particularly egregious with DE. If you're in an environment that is toxic *coughtwittercough* you might want to consider leaving it or abstaining from toxic discussions. 

3 hours ago, Mr. Duk said:

SO much of online discussion these days is "toxic", aka mean-spirited, hateful, bigoted and/or filled with misinformation and blatant lies and personal attacks.

 

I've actually found that these Doomworld forums are some of the most *sane* messageboards around these days. I think it helps that not everyone posting here is American, so even if people are angry they're angry about different things. Also DOOM... DOOM is great and we can all agree on that at least.

 

EDIT: Also, I wrote a post criticizing the DLC and I listed out what I didn't like about it, and 85-90% of the comments were very reasonable, even those from people who loved the new DLC. Definitely a better ratio of "normal human response" vs. "insane anger response" that I'm used to seeing.

Are you implying that Americans are generally unreasonable and overbearing? Because that's right. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Super Mighty G

[Dubbag]

nah

Edited November 2, 2020 by Dubbagdarrel

[D4NUK1]

The toxic opinions can be done also by the classic fan base. In reallity just now that we are talking about DE Fanbase because there it's a DLC going on with mixed reactions, that aim for the direcction of more of a difficulty spike than a linear difficulty.

But there's also Toxic harm in classic comentary stuff, as what style of wads or type of creator was better.

Also, people prassing Hugo should be equal a people prassing John Romero, or prassing nuId should be the same as people prassing oldId, but that's controversial for some partys.

[oCrapaCreeper]

The difficulty change was definitely part of it I think. The thing about Eternal is that to really enjoy it, you have to let the game break your ego a bit to learn the mechanics and how things you did in 2016 don’t quite work as well. You die, and die, but you eventually adapt and overcome and the game is satisfying that way as you let it push you to a better and more fun play style.

 

People just starting the game don’t understand that yet. We all remember the initial reaction to Eternal, some people played an hour and gave up or complained on forums before continuing. Yet people who have gotten farther, or learned to improve, know that the game doesn’t play the way those people say, because the game at the start plays differently from the midpoint on and the DLC.

 

so it’s an argument that boils down to “you’re an elitist” or “you just don’t want to improve” from either side. People eventually convert over but some people are very defensive about how they play, whether people are actually elitist or not.
 

I could still go on and on about how a lot of people still don’t know that the chainsaw refills automatically because they skipped the tutorial or something, and then hold that against the game for not giving them ammo, it’s annoying. Not trying to be an elitist, but a lot of the complaints are on the player, even with how noob friendly the game tries to be with pop ups or cameras showing where to go. People take it too far though and then start insulting, and that’s what we don’t want, I think this game just isn’t what some people came in expecting and that needs to be accepted from either side. Go to the Steam forums to see some of the worst of it.

Edited November 2, 2020 by oCrapaCreeper

[thewormofautumn]

Nope. The only time I've seen angst is against dorks who think their memes are funny.

 

Keep that shit to reddit, where it belongs.

 

Otherwise, this is a cool discussion forum.

[Chezza]

I once thought Post Hell was removed. However it's simply relocated out of Doom World. Now it's integrated with all other social platforms.

 

This forum is my only Doom community, including Eternal. So in ways I live in blissful ignorance of the greater fan base, and it looks to be beneficial.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Chezza

[Mr. Duk]

3 hours ago, Super Mighty G said:

Are you implying that Americans are generally unreasonable and overbearing? Because that's right. 

 

Every culture/nation has its assholes, and there are intelligent, decent and rational people everywhere too.

 

HOWEVER... the United States is filled with an arrogance you don't necessarily see everywhere else. I mean, I live in the US, and we constantly refer to ourselves as the "greatest country in the world" without any irony. We never apologize for our horrific blunders (Vietnam, Iraq). We don't even have universal healthcare, and people DIE from lack of access to healthcare. It's a problem.

[CBM]

7 hours ago, Mr. Duk said:

SO much of online discussion these days is "toxic", aka mean-spirited, hateful, bigoted and/or filled with misinformation and blatant lies and personal attacks.

 

I've actually found that these Doomworld forums are some of the most *sane* messageboards around these days. I think it helps that not everyone posting here is American, so even if people are angry they're angry about different things. Also DOOM... DOOM is great and we can all agree on that at least.

 

EDIT: Also, I wrote a post criticizing the DLC and I listed out what I didn't like about it, and 85-90% of the comments were very reasonable, even those from people who loved the new DLC. Definitely a better ratio of "normal human response" vs. "insane anger response" that I'm used to seeing.

I am from Denmark

[thewormofautumn]

8 hours ago, Mr. Duk said:

I've actually found that these Doomworld forums are some of the most *sane* messageboards around these days

 

The main alternative, Reddit, sadly isn't a message board really.

I mean, for any subreddit, you'll get people starting new posts asking the same question every few minutes. Sometimes one thread will be ignore, other times it will have 100 comments, even though 10 minutes ago, the same question also got 50 comments in a different post.

 

"Traditional" forums like these are managed better; generally one thread per topic, which is a million times easier to navigate.

[Dr. Toboggan]

22 hours ago, TenenteZashu said:

honestly I've noticed a ''Oh this person doesn't like an aspect of Doom Eternal, that means they don't understand how the game's supposed to work'' kind of mentality, especially on r/Doom and with a ''big fish'' of the nu-doom community regarding the Marauder (if you know you know)

 

On the inverse side, there was a portion of the community that acted like absolute divas about the marauders. There were so many posts when the game first came out complaining about them and their "steep" and out of place learning curve. Now, low and behold, they throw two of them at you at once in the DLC, and I've seen "2 at once is not that bad" comments countless times on the sub. Talk about a turnaround

[Mr. Duk]

4 hours ago, CBM said:

I am from Denmark

 

I'm pretty sure Denmark usually ranks in the top 5 or even top 3 for "happiest" countries. Much higher than the USA, at least lately.

 

The closest I've been is the Netherlands, which was wonderful.

 

@thewormofautumn Random question: What is your profile pic?

 

 

[DooM Bear]

I think yes it is but think it will die down eventually.

 

I previously mentioned in another thread that I was worried about all the “git gud” people coming into the community but after thinking about it more, I am sure they will piss off somewhere else / calm down once someone else releases some stupidly hard game. In the short term though I think the DLC will probably pull more of these people in unfortunately.

 

Doomworld is good though :-) Everyone here seems pretty chill and friendly and figure that is cos most people that join up to Doomworld actually like DooM rather than just wanting to brag about how awesome they are at a game and shitting on everyone else.

[CBM]

4 hours ago, Mr. Duk said:

 

I'm pretty sure Denmark usually ranks in the top 5 or even top 3 for "happiest" countries. Much higher than the USA, at least lately.

 

The closest I've been is the Netherlands, which was wonderful.

 

@thewormofautumn Random question: What is your profile pic?

 

 

true

 

despite danish politicians have been inspired by dictatorships ever since 9/11

 

we used to be nr 1

 

also my countrymen are so mellow that they will blindly accept anything the politicians decide to do without question

Edited November 2, 2020 by CBM

[xdarkmasterx]

I don't feel that way at all, rather that it's always been this way. You would have gotten eviscarated if you'd come on here years before the new Dooms came out and said "Doom is too hard, and therefore poorly designed" or something similar. That's just the way anonymity and anything slightly competitive tend to intermix, unfortunately.

Edited November 2, 2020 by xdarkmasterx

[seed]

22 hours ago, DooM Bear said:

I think yes it is but think it will die down eventually.

 

I honestly doubt it, not anytime soon, and probably not until the developers and moderators on various platforms decide to finally step in and keep those losers with their elitism and gatekeeping attitude in check. If you can't have a civilized discussion about something and just have to resort to insults then you should probably not be allowed to participate until you cool your head off.

 

This may have always existed, and in a way classic Doom suffers from the same issue, not too dissimilar from other games, where if you don't play the game on UV only and rely too mufh on saves, then you're playing the game "wrong".

 

But from my observations, I would say that things have definitely escalated since the last decade with the advent of all those competitive games, Souls-like releases, Battle Royales, etc, to the point more and more gamers have radicalized themselves. Smug comments like "git gud" or "noob" are no longer said half-seriously or ironicly, it's gotten to the point where they'd cut each others' throat if they were in the same room, too many have started taking them too seriously and being bad at them is now almost seen like a crime against humanity, and it seems to be getting only worse. Criticizing them is also dismissed instantly and earns you hate. It's ridiculous.

[DooM Bear]

7 minutes ago, seed said:

Smug comments like "git gud" or "noob" are no longer said half-seriously or ironicly, it's gotten to the point where they'd cut each others' throat if they were in the same room, too many have started taking them too seriously and being bad at them is now almost seen like a crime against humanity, and it seems to be getting only worse.

 

Ah I really do miss the days where you’d jump into a forum and “noob” meant “someone new that probably needs some help”. Can remember people joking “bloody noobs with their basic questions” for forever but am now genuinely curious when it turned into an insult.

 

I think you are probably 100% right the change probably came out off the competitive shooter (CS, COD) and souls community (although I have heard apparently the souls community are actually really nice and welcoming so maybe it’s just a surface Internet issue - like Doomworld vs DooM subreddit?).

[seed]

38 minutes ago, DooM Bear said:

I think you are probably 100% right the change probably came out off the competitive shooter (CS, COD) and souls community (although I have heard apparently the souls community are actually really nice and welcoming so maybe it’s just a surface Internet issue - like Doomworld vs DooM subreddit?).

 

It is possible, I've heard that too, multiple times.

 

Perhaps it's just a vocal part of the Souls community that is so full of vitriol and hatred, but big emphasis on vocal. As for when "noob (and "casual", for that matter) became insults, likely after the advent of all these competitive games, when these people started to marginalize and gate keep their precious games against what they perceived as threats to their experience, as nonsensical as that is. And we see the results of this quite clearly in essentially all multiplayer games these days, which are playable only with friends.

 

I miss the times when these were just harmless jokes too...

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Noob didn't mean newbie in online or Lan play ever. If someone is a newbie people will call them newb. Noob is always shit talking. If someone is telling you it isn't after calling you that they are just circling around it. 

[DooM Bear]

37 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Noob didn't mean newbie in online or Lan play ever. If someone is a newbie people will call them newb. Noob is always shit talking. If someone is telling you it isn't after calling you that they are just circling around it. 

 

Well there you go! I genuinely didn’t know that and always thought they were interchangeable :-P Figured n00b was just the updated 1337 version when that was kicking off in the old CS 1.0 - 1.5 days :-P

 

Am now imagining those people back then must have been thinking “why is this dude so chill after we have just spend the last 3 matches bagging him out?!?” XD

Edited November 3, 2020 by DooM Bear

[Cruduxy Pegg]

They are one of those cases where words seem interchangeable in theory and definition but their use is completely different and splits them apart :P.

[seed]

3 hours ago, Pegg said:

They are one of those cases where words seem interchangeable in theory and definition but their use is completely different and splits them apart :P.

 

Maybe so, but I have never seen, not even once, anyone actually say "newb". Only "noob".

 

That word is never heard from those people.

[GraphicBleeder]

On 11/1/2020 at 12:30 PM, Doom64hunter said:

r/Doom in general is just absolute trash. Nothing but meme shitposts, zero intelligent discussion going on.

"Don't feel bad for playing Doom on I'm too young to die, Doom is meant to make you feel powerful"

 I don't care what difficulty you play Doom on, but come on, "meant to make you feel powerful"?

[whatup876]

Come to think of it, the "git gud" part of Doom's new fanbase probably used to be casual players who felt ashamed on playing on easy, so their hardcore gamer behaviour might be overcompensation and trying too hard to overcome what they used to be.

That's probably why it feels forced: it's like they're trying to impress someone or pretending to be something they're not.

I also think Souls' reputation of being hard might be more of a thing from game journalist site and not really the fanbase.

 

Something i also remember is Hugo Martin in some QuakeCon 2019 stream going "i love reading all the comments, even the mean ones because that means you're passionate" which reminds me of Henry Cavill in some interview about the Netflix Witcher show talking about how the people upset at the show liked the games and just didn't agree with the show's direction or something. (from what i recall, he wanted to play a more traditional Superman but Zack Snyder wasn't into that i think)

Might need some corrections or proper takes on this part.

 

1 hour ago, seed said:

Maybe so, but I have never seen, not even once, anyone actually say "newb". Only "noob".

A lot of "gamer talk" feels so old and forgotten, you might as well believe it was made up in sitcoms and cop shows, when they reference or parody videogames.

It feels like a case of stereotypes being ran to the ground to the point they feel artificial or made up.

Right now, you have people ironically type "XD" or make fun of cringy 2000's Deviantart/Newgrounds/random humor but even "pwned" feels so old and cryptic.

Probably because some portions of "gamer culture/identity" might be created by the industry and some sites, as opposed to actual game fans.

The "become a gamer and consume Mountain Dew" sort of thing.

 

1 hour ago, GraphicBleeder said:

 I don't care what difficulty you play Doom on, but come on, "meant to make you feel powerful"?

It's kinda funny to see how Doom is even associated with "power" nowadays because, by studying the history of the series and its fanbase, you can trace that to some odd sources, whether it's a fan interpretations originally started as a joke or just how people compared Doomguy to Master Chief.

The Doom comic doesn't feel like the main source outside "rip and tear" being used a lot and the glory kill mechanic.

I guess that's the thing about the new Doom games: it's not a bad direction but it feels so "responsive" to some outside factors.

Both these games and 3 feel like focusing on specific parts of Doom but 2016/Eternal in particular have some interesting outside sources.

Is it how people fell about 3 or modern shooters during the PS3/XB360 era? Is it the Doom comic and some inside jokes and memes around fans? Is it people hyping up Doomguy's power level and upset that Master Chief was more popular or beat him in some shitty ScrewAttack animation?

Because as far as "evolution" goes, it feels less "species that changed overtime" and more "scientists genetically modifying a species with changes that wouldn't otherwise happen naturally".

I like that these games exist but i feel like the Doom comic is only mentioned as the main inspiration because it'd be harder to explain what the true source might be.

 

What's also funny is that the comic portrays Doomguy in a direction that i think suits him (except maybe the talking part) and doesn't really come up in either the Slayer or the D3 marine.

It sort of feels based on how you play Doom, but i don't even think the comic was written/drawn by someone that familiar with the games.

[Chezza]

4 hours ago, GraphicBleeder said:

"Don't feel bad for playing Doom on I'm too young to die, Doom is meant to make you feel powerful"

 I don't care what difficulty you play Doom on, but come on, "meant to make you feel powerful"?

 

I actually agree with this term. The game is very challenging but when you master its gameplay you do end up feeling like a powerful bad arse. Furthermore, Eternal's cutscenes has people shaking in their boots when the Slayer is around and some voice logs claiming he is a God.

[GraphicBleeder]

13 minutes ago, Chezza said:

 

I actually agree with this term. The game is very challenging but when you master its gameplay you do end up feeling like a powerful bad arse. Furthermore, Eternal's cutscenes has people shaking in their boots when the Slayer is around and some voice logs claiming he is a God.

Yeah but r/Doom treats Doom as if it was just a power fantasy game, when it's not.

Edited November 3, 2020 by GraphicBleeder

[KainXavier]

Like others have stated, I think all fandoms have a certain degree of toxicity to them.  I also think there's some truth to there being an uptick in the DOOM community.  That said, the world has become a much smaller place since 1993.  There's more people, and we're more connected to each other than ever.  Not only that but gaming has become a part of everyday culture for most people.  (That's still weird and amazing to me btw.)  Unfortunately, cultural acceptance also means the shittiness of humanity rears its head more often.  I also feel like gamers, or at least those who strongly identify that way, still cling to that social outcast mentality of old.  (Hell, I find myself doing it too.)  Or it could even be that people find it so hard to stand out today that they desperately cling to whatever they're good at and decry any attempts to change it.  That said, that said, I don't really feel like the direction of DOOM Eternal and its DLC is helping the matter.  In fact, it seems like id is doubling down on the gate-keeping by continuing to increase the game's difficulty and tie in-game rewards to it.

[AtimZarr1]

When I think of toxicity, I think of competitive team-based multiplayer games where some users insult, harass, berate, or grief others out of maliciousness or frustration. Even outside of that gaming context, generally a toxic user's attitude makes an experience worse for others, if not for everyone else too.

 

Across the Doom Eternal community on Reddit and YouTube, I personally haven't encountered many instances of toxicity. Most newer fans are an easygoing crowd as far as I can tell. Rather, it sounds like this thread is instead describing elitism / gatekeeping or suggesting that Doom Eternal being a challenging game is attracting hardcore purists or that the difficulty promotes elitist mindsets.

 

Just like with any other game, there are fans that take their games too seriously and lash against any form of criticism. Doom Eternal's community definitely has those too, you can easily find Reddit posts or YouTube videos making fun of Marauder criticisms or just negative reviews about the game in general. However, I don't think Doom Eternal's "gatekeeping" is any more prominent than in other games. Most gaming fanbases have these sorts of people that blindly defend the game design or are exceptionally rude to anyone who dislikes or criticizes the game. But in regards to the Doom Eternal community specifically, I believe it's only a minority that speaks and believes in these extreme mindsets.

 

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For example, if you want a "majority opinion" from the Doom Eternal community, this is the third highest rated post on the Doom subreddit:

 

 

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If that weren't convincing enough, here are upvoted examples from the Doom Reddit within the last two weeks that are criticizing the game:

 

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And here are also a few examples of people being supportive of less skilled players.

 

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From the above images, we see that (1) a large number of Doom Eternal players support playing at lower difficulties, (2) many Doom Eternal players can criticize the game without being downvoted/buried, and (3) many Doom Eternal players aren't criticized for playing on lower difficulties. Of course there are going to be toxic defenders or elitist gatekeepers like with any other gaming community, but there isn't strong enough evidence to claim that Doom Eternal's community is specifically "becoming more toxic", let alone that the difficulty is promoting gatekeeping or elitism among a significant number of players.