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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2980 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Gotta disagree. I played DOTA2 for a while and I would have kept playing if I could have the same challenge without having to interact with actual strangers. So that'd mean either running with a regular crew or playing only with bots.

I play a bit of fighting games too, and to me the ideal with them is the challenge of multiplayer with none of the social interaction.

In some sense this proves the point though. You stopped playing. It's not that social validation is the only thing these games could provide in theory, but that due to selection effects people who like the social validation and the joy of destroying someone who was just trash talking you are the people who play obsessively play these games, while people who find it toxic and unenjoyable stop.

I guess it's true that people who insist on interactions have run me out of MOBAs, but that's just because effective teamwork requires more interaction than I'm comfortable with, but that doesn't address the point with fighting games, another competitive genre, which I still do play online as long as I can disable text/voice chat.

The problem is that in team games, you can't destroy the teammate who was just trash talking you without throwing the game.

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