First of all, the RIGHT way. The VAST majority of you Veteran and fellow new players have been AWESOME and very patient with me and my son ("Kaotic_Beaver", by the way. On a side note, don't expect our son to "chat" much, because we're overly protective parents and limit his in-game chat to things like emotes, "gg", "lol", etc.)
Almost all of you have been great at OFFERING advice (key word "offering"), saying things like "Do you have any more questions?", helping me tweak my settings, inviting me to various game modes, "friending" me, keeping the language clean, etc. But most of all, you have been PATIENT with me even though I'm a pretty bad player, usually getting more deaths than kills if not in co-op. In other words, you understand that I'm trying to get better, that I don't have a lot of credits to buy the stuff that others have, and that it will just take time for me to improve.
And then there are the others - those "poison pills" who can ruin an entire gameplay experience and make my son and I question if we can keep playing. These types of players have done, and continue to do, the following:
1) TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Not "offer advice", but instead say "Kittens, DO this", as if I'm somehow accountable to you. I don't have time for this, and I will leave a battle where it happens.
2) COMPLAIN, not just to me, but to the entire team, about how badly we are doing (in your opinion). Things like "I kept calling out and none of you ever came. Do I need to do everything myself?!" Again, I won't play with players like this. Take a "chill pill" and please realize this is just a game.
3) SINGLE ME OUT to the rest of the team as a bad player. Things like "Kittens, get better or just leave.", or "Kittens is sitting over here doing nothing!" Fine, you got your wish. I'll leave.
4) MAKE FUN OF MY CHOICES in robot, tactics, weapons, etc. It's called LEARNING, silly.
5) Finding sneaky ways around the PROFANITY filter. Congratulations on your cleverness, but I clicked that filter so that I don't see that kind of language, and I don't want my son seeing it either. Be aware that I will mute you after you do this, so if you never got a response to something you said to me, this is likely why.
6) Specifically seeking me out as an "easy kill" for the entire match, especially when bombarding me with endless items I can't even buy yet. Congrats, you found a seal to club. In fairness, this one bothers me the least, because if I'm on the map I am fair game. I get that. But it is certainly annoying and discouraging.
7) Accusing my son, who has gotten quite good at this game in a short amount of time, of cheating! Seriously? Which is it? You want us to get better, and then when my son DOES get better (had a TDM with 18 kills yesterday, and another with 16), a couple players accuse him of having a "hack"?
I really like what another new player was told last night, as he asked a lot of questions and got a lot of good advice. One of my "friends" added, at the end of the exhaustive list of suggestions, "AND HAVE FUN". That's really what its all about, and its why my son are here (for now). Unfortunately, just as in real life, a few negative experiences carry more weight than all the positive ones. Its not fair, but that's just the way most of us are wired. So if we're trying to get a bunch of new players, and most importantly KEEP them, I humbly offer the preceding warnings on some of the quickest ways to LOSE them.
And again, to end this on a positive note, most of you are NOT like this, for which we are so thankful.
Thanks for reading.
Edited by harmless_kittens, 03 February 2016 - 08:07 AM.
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