Frankly, someone so incapable of being non-toxic that they have to pay another player to do it for them is someone that should be banned by Valve, and probably every other online game out there. This is just not a human we want to be interacting with.

Sadly, the increasing vile and hate on the internet seems to have convinced some people they have the innate rite to be as toxic as they want; it has become normalized.
 

The main issue I see is the lacking ability of communicating strategy in MOBAs.
There are (probably) dozens of valid strategies that would win you the game but the majority require full commitment from all players. You can't hesitate or question a move or the strategy will fail.

It's the choice of going in guns blazing or stealth but executed by 5 players that pick at random what "works/ed" for them. Winning feels good because you executed the strategy (and mostly because the other team failed to) and losing is devastating because "this strategy wins and you all ruined it!". Losing also looks bad from both sides: the player rushing in is the idiot not waiting for the opportunity to ambush, the stealther is the idiot not participating in the element of surprise and just hiding somewhere.

Now there are multiple moving parts in the game where this repeats and it is "never" your fault but the others not following your strategy which you can't communicate but expect them to know by telepathy or something.

Yes, there are pings and chat but you can't write an essay with dozens of conditional elements based on the reaction of the other team. Sometimes baiting the other player into an ambush is correct, sometimes it's rushing a weak spot - and sometimes either is what the other team wants you to do and counters you in which case "if you only...".

And you don't have the time to reflect, analyse and discuss. You weren't even on the same page to begin with. But the last thing you do is questioning yourself. Of course the others are wrong.
It is a flaw that comes with the game and it eats away at your sanity.
 

As if I didn't dislike most streamers enough to start with. "I need a behavior boost so I can get away with being a complete dick when I actually play" signals such a poor example of a human, or perhaps a genre that is fundamentally broken in some way that they need to put in this system that works against the natural social engineering intrinsic in the game.
 

Wow thanks for this post. I never played a MOBA but this post is the clearest explanation I have seen for toxicity in MOBAs. I do not know how much this is true, but I can relate at least when comparing to battlefield 3 or team fortress 2 - where the issue is far less prevalent.

So thank you for sharing your wisdom as clearly as you have.
 

Tobold: "Either I am getting old, or the world of internet gaming is getting weirder every year."

Why not both true? :)

But this article was news to me. I don't play multiplayer games much anymore so I wasn't aware that they started to incentivize good behavior. Doesn't sound like a bad idea on paper.