So, why are there so many snobby, toxic players?

[CinderShots]

I used to play this game a lot on Xbox 360 many years ago. I finally picked this game up in the recent Steam Summer Sale. I'm so glad I got it, and to this day, I don't regret getting it.

However, there are so many times where (especially in Versus) there are so many toxic players that have the mindset of "If you miss one Hunter jump, or Smoker pull, or if you keep missing shots, you're being kicked.".

I'm not the best player, but I wouldn't say I'm the worst. However, what made me want to make this post is something that happened just a few minutes ago. I was in a Versus match, playing the second part of Dead Center. I started as a Hunter. I jumped towards the survivors and missed, but by just a little. I corrected and jumped towards them again, but I got dead stopped by a survivor, shot, and killed.

For this, a kick vote was done against me

Now, the annoying thing about this is that, there wasn't just one vote. The first vote kick went 2/2, so it didn't work. But then, another kick vote was started by another player on my team instantly after that one, and the votes ended in 3/1, kicking me from the game. All because of a life as a Hunter.

I get this almost all the time on Versus, and I haven't seen a community this toxic since I started playing SMITE. (I still play this game though, don't know why. xD)

So, I leave a couple of questions:

To those who get this on a regular basis, what do you do to deal with it?

To those who kick people instantly for doing something slightly wrong, why do you do it? Do you not understand that not everyone is a pro at this game?

[Happy Cookie]

There are so many toxic people because it's a game everyone can run, mods & workshop, full Steam integration and stuff like that. It's an awesome game for no money during the sale which attracts toxic little ♥♥♥♥♥.

You can't really prevent getting kicked since Versus is a kick fest. Even when you do everything right, there's a chance that some idiot doesn't like you or doesn't like you being better than them, initiating a vote kick and other idiots in your team go "Oh a vote kick, that person must be bad and is on my team, so I vote YES without even knowing why".

The Left 4 Dead 2 Versus community is a pure toxic, cancerous pile if stinking crap.
My best advice would be playing with at least 1 friend (to prevent kicks) or talk to your team before the match starts in order to get to know them. If you get no response or everyone goes cyk4 bly4t, just leave.

Hope you find some better games with these tips :)

[Shaelent]

Left 4 Dead 2 had always been like this for a few years now, before then the community was actually fairly nice and you could easily make friends even if you were a new player to the game.

I just stick with playing in private matches with my friends because they're much better than the amount of self-centered toxic players you'd find in matches, because the reason you were kicked for is exactly why I don't join public matches anymore. I was already furious at my brother being kicked out just for missing a charge and never had I had a fun experience or enjoyed playing with other players ever again.

I've recently got back into L4D2, so I'm all up for meeting new people to play with because majority of my friends have different timezones, so if you need someone to play with just toss me an add and I'll play some matches with you. (You'd normally find me playing on addon maps such as Tank Yard or Silent Hill).

[Laut]

It's typical for games on sale to get toxic players, that often will leave very soon. I agree with Kat on their solution; to play with your friends! If no one you know IRL plays it, you can always find like-minded people through groups and community discussions like this. (feel free to add me :])

// Edit, 2021: Someone necro'd this thread, so I took the opportunity to edit out cringy parts in this comment lmao

[Jack]

Yeah, I did the exact thing OP did. Played it originally on Xbox several years ago, then bought it in the Steam sales. You find so many horrible people online.

I do suggest striking up a convo early on to try and seek out the jerks in the group.
But don't let it distract from the game, and don't be pushy about it, because people are impatient and impatience breeds scumbaggery.

You'll often come across wallhackers or aimbotters, or just plain modded servers with unfair damage ratios or speed or whatever. Those you can just leave immediately.

However sometimes it's just bad luck and you'll come across a group of pricks who decide that you're not good enough and vote to kick you. You know what? Good riddance. Those guys are selfish and unfriendly anyway, so why humour them at all?

You're better off without those vile ballbags anyway.

Just keep playing the game, keep chatting to people, and keep being you. Every game has a cancerous community, but don't let it put you off the game.

Just try to enjoy it while you can. n_n

[Iron Horse]

Never play Rust, then. That is single handedly the WORST, most TOXIC community of elitist, entitled ♥♥♥♥♥ I have EVER seen.

And I absolutely adore the game. So you have to take the bad with the good.

[Happy Cookie]

BTW, if you block players on Steam, it won't put you into games with them ever again. It's basically impossible to meet these idiots again. Good thing about it is that you will avoid them. Bad thing about it is that if they're in a lobby with other (maybe even nice) people, this lobby will not be shown to you when you're searching unfortunately.

Can only recommend this function for REALLY toxic players who are just ruining everyone's experience by trolling, griefing and so on. Otherwise you'll end up finding no lobbies cause in all of them is at least one you blocked.

[Restless]

It is extremely rare for someone to get kicked because of a single missed SI attack. What is more likely is that you attacked at the wrong time, at the wrong survivor, by yourself, or you made a series of mistakes prior to the final one that got you kicked. You just have no idea what the errors were because you are still unfamiliar with the game and its decade old meta.

If you record videos of your gameplay, the veteran players here could help dissect what happened and explained just exactly what you did wrong. However, making posts like these where you are just stating what happened from your perspective without providing context will not help you improve nor prevent you from getting kicked again in the future.

XBOX players have a completely different mindset, playstyle, and skill level compared to PC players. XBOX is focused on a casual couch co-op experience whereas PC has always been about competition. The skill ceiling is much higher on PC because of the use of a mouse and keyboard and the lack of aim assist. The PC L4D2 community has been like this since even the first game launched. You can find threads like this one whining about the votekick feature dating back to 2010 or even earlier. On PC, we don't care about your XBOX experience, because we've heard it from a thousand noobs already. Unless you were competing in Confogl tournaments, none of that experience will help you much here. And even the top XBOX Confogl players will agree that PC is an entirely new ballgame.

From a veteran player's perspective, the newbie is just as toxic and cancerous. New players prevent veteran players from having a fun co-op experience because they are forced to babysit you the entire time. The franchise is a decade old, and the skill ceiling in this game is higher than Overwatch or CS:GO. The skill floor is set by the AI bots, so you have to be better than them or else you will get votekicked. We don't have skill-based matchmaking so if you are not up to par to the rest of the team you may be removed.

[Shaelent]

Actually, it was quite common for someone to get kicked back a couple years ago just for missing an attack at a SI. I've joined multiple hosts and had encountered tons of players being kicked because of toxic players having high expectations for something so inhumane to do. It's physically impossible to not make a mistake, like accidentally friendly-firing or missing an attack as an SI. These are all just things that happen with an average L4D2 player, it's not something that you can exactly stop with all of the members in the community because it's not human to not make a mistake at least once.

Far as I know LukeElite missed a pounce as a hunter which can be likely because survivors tend to move around in zig-zag directions, left, right, all over the place. It's challenging to directly hit a survivor if they kept moving around. That doesn't necessarily mean that he has to improve all because of one minor mistake. He was just in a host with toxic players, is all.

Plus, most new players aren't toxic or cancerous, you've used those terms incorrectly. That new player is obviously just inexperienced and needs guidance on how to play and should have just started with single-player first.

[CinderShots]

Just to clarify with people:

1) I'm not 'new' to this game, so to speak. I've played this game plenty of times before, just on a different platform.

2) I'm not new to PC gaming. I have used the PC platform for many years now.

3) I did state in the original post that I'm not the best player, however I'm also not the worst. I know how the game works, and I know and aceept that I simply got outplayed. The players who were the survivors in the instance I explained were good players. The concern I have is that, simply because I was once beaten in one SI life, I was kicked. That is what annoyed me the most.

I greatly apprecaite the responses and conversations that this post has brought, and it's very interesting to see everyone's point of view.

[Shaelent]

And that's fine, not everyone are experts at L4D2. It's also fine to be annoyed for getting kicked just after dying as an SI because they haven't actually given you another chance which makes it unfair for you because you just wanted to have fun and play the match.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

You know what, its probably the new guys that are kicking for simple stuff like that. Vets know you can miss 1,2 even 3 attacks in a row just down to good survivor play. So they can be a bit more understanding of a single mistake :)

[CinderShots]

It's weird too, in the sense of I can kinda understand why people would get annoyed. I know that if I was in a situation where someone kept easily dying over and over again, I wouldn't be that happy with them. But to kick over one death? That's what baffles me the most.

[Restless]

Originally posted by LukeElite:

Just to clarify with people:

1) I'm not 'new' to this game, so to speak. I've played this game plenty of times before, just on a different platform.

2) I'm not new to PC gaming. I have used the PC platform for many years now.

3) I did state in the original post that I'm not the best player, however I'm also not the worst. I know how the game works, and I know and aceept that I simply got outplayed. The players who were the survivors in the instance I explained were good players. The concern I have is that, simply because I was once beaten in one SI life, I was kicked. That is what annoyed me the most.

I greatly apprecaite the responses and conversations that this post has brought, and it's very interesting to see everyone's point of view.

1. If you were trying to play a game of baseball with adults, do you think they care if you played little league for a summer when you were 7 years old? If your XBOX experience meant anything, it would speak for itself. You are new to PC L4D2, which is a completely different game compared to XBOX L4D2. This has been said time and time again from the best XBOX players who have made the switch to PC.

2. Every game is built on a different engine, and follows different laws of physics. You are basically comparing golf to hockey. (Insert Happy Gilmore reference here).

3. If you can admit you're not the best player, can you also admit that there are aspects of the game that you don't know, that you don't even know that you don't know? You *think* you were kicked for a reason, but the reality is likely very different. Like I said, if you want a good answer, upload video footage. Cherry picking anecdotes will not help you. Your teammates are under zero obligation to teach you how to play in Versus. While it was annoying to you to get kicked, it was likely equally as annoying to your 2 or 3 teammates to play with you.

[Conker]

Restless is just mad because mummy didn't give him a cookie after dinner tonight.
His arguments are plain whack and I'm not sure why you're giving him your time Luke.

1) Lukes main point is that he isn't new when it comes to games, your response to this was to say all games are different. Sure, if you're comparing a MOBA[oce.leagueoflegends.com]to an FPS game you're going to need to change how you play in order to be good. If you are good at a game architype then regardless of the platform you play it on those mechanics will stay with you. Thus, making your point irrelevant.

2) You don't know much about games, do ya Restless? When making a game it doesn't really matter which platform it's on because most of the time it's going to be the same mechanics and mathematics behind it, A video highlighting the differences in both games shows that 'side from graphics the games don't have any major differences. Simply put, take your PC-Elitist attitude out of your ego and study a bit before you make a stupid point.

3) Half of this precious argument is you trying to be witty, don't hurt your increased chromosome count trying to look smart. Unless you're Korean[upload.wikimedia.org] there isn't much hope of you being the best in a game, same goes for the worst. Everyone has games where they just do badly, but those are the games we realize and learn from our mistakes. Even if his team got annoyed at a few minor mistakes, would a kick really be necessary?

I'm not sure why you're making an argument over someone trying to figure out why he was kicked, a bad lobby is a bad lobby...

Left for dead 2 is best played when with a group of friends. Otherwise you play with people like this this.

[Shaelent]

preach @Queri