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S3 Ep205: Salt Without Sanctuary
84 Plays4 years ago
do you like hurting other people?
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about that in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Join Dave and Jake as they talk about that in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Humorous Motivational Posters
00:00:51
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, who's always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I panicked and blanked. I panicked and blanked. I think you should have gone through the workshop of my mantra on the wall of, I am fine. I am awful. I am zesty. I'm just imagining, like, those are the motivational posters.
00:01:19
Speaker
that they have, it's just like confidence or influence or whatever. But the sign is just like, you are fine. And they just like hang it up above each cubicle. You are fine. You're all right. You're all right. But doesn't have a cute kid and it has like an older cat that's just kind of done. Uh-huh. Yeah. It just not has in it. Passable, passable. Well, at least you're not bad. So is any day that you can answer like neutral,
00:01:48
Speaker
to above neutral. Overall, a pretty good day, I think, but that's perspective.
70s Themed Party and God of War Incident
00:01:56
Speaker
You guys don't see, but Jake is wearing glasses while recording and they are rose tinted. I actually, I think rose tinted glasses would be pretty funny, but I don't think I could pull them off right now. I lose some weight and get some 70s gear, probably. What would your 70s gear be?
00:02:15
Speaker
I mean, bell bottoms, obviously. Okay. Yeah. You gotta have bell bottoms. Um, what would be a good, it's gotta be a jacket, right? Like a seventies jacket to fit the motif, but I'm not sure what that would look like. I have to look at it on top of a sleeveless shirt. Yeah, definitely shirt and not like bare chested because it's not one of those kinds of bars. I mean, it depends on how your chest is. Mm.
00:02:45
Speaker
It is, it is. Yeah. I remember the last time I saw you shirtless to really say it's probably been five years. It was, it would have been like land party. Like at the, uh, yeah, like a pool instance. But, um, yeah, other than that, I don't know. We'll have to have a, once everybody's moved in our, uh, there's no more illness in the world and everything's great. We can have, um,
00:03:16
Speaker
some seventies party or something like that, force people to pay exorbitant amounts of money to buy clothes that, uh, are not mass produced anymore. Maybe it gives it like a thrift store. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Or you gotta, you gotta improvise. Yeah. I was going to say that's actually, it would be less expensive, I guess, to dress for the seventies. Well, I'm not necessarily going to have it though. Cause that's granted clothing that would have had to have been passed around for, you know, another,
00:03:45
Speaker
50 years. Yeah. It is that old. It's weird. Yeah. Jeez. Man, I barely remember the 70s. Do you remember that 70s show? Yeah. That's the closest frame of reference I have. I remember the father's name was Red. Yeah, Red Foreman.
00:04:11
Speaker
That's, um, I feel like the son's name must've been George, but that could be wrong. Well, I won't care really about it. Uh, we try, we try. Um, as I'm going through the list of like, make these puns, I do like the idea of a theme party though. Like as cheesy as like toga party sound, I'm like,
00:04:35
Speaker
I like the idea of a theme and sticking with it. It's like a Halloween party, but throughout other times of the year. Force people to dress up, get in the spirit, and then have your food and drink just themed around that. Maybe do the music. And you're still really just there to get together and hang out.
Theme Parties and Gaming Frustrations
00:04:53
Speaker
But it's an excuse to just do something dumb.
00:04:55
Speaker
Like I know God of War, I think it was God of War 3 had like a launch party for all the executives and stuff like that. And they're like, Oh yeah, it's gotta be like God of War themed and all this stuff. And they had like, they like slaughtered a pig or something like that. Like, I don't know. There was like some really absurd stuff that they did. I'm actually going to look this up. Um, cause I remember I heard about it and was like, what is going on? It was a dead goat.
00:05:24
Speaker
There you go. Isn't any time you kill a goat or a pig slaughtering it? I guess that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I guess they're doing a more farm to table approach. Or just, you know, killing the goat in front of everybody, which I feel is like a weird, a weird play. All right.
00:05:50
Speaker
I don't actually know if I can read this. This is the description of the event. I mean, you're reciting factual stuff that's recorded. I know. And this is the OK, I'll just read it. So I apologize. I apologize listening. Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat's still warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach.
00:06:14
Speaker
At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal, procured elsewhere, and intended to resemble the goat's intestines from its stomach. They also threw knives at targets and pulled live snakes from a pit with their bare hands. Topless girls added to the, I don't know what this word is, luch, louch, losh atmosphere by dipping grapes into guest mouths while a male model portraying Kratos, the game's warrior hero, handed out garlands.
Technical Issues and Platform Gratitude
00:06:43
Speaker
What a party. I like how it's that one guy's job. I'm Kritos. Would you like a garland? Yeah, it's what it does in the game. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. That's why they needed the reboot after three. Yeah. Yeah. The mission invite boys to the point. I don't know. Maybe not. Yeah.
00:07:09
Speaker
It's weird though. I remember like reading that headline and this is old news. Um, so it was like May 2007, but, um, I still think about it sometimes, apparently.
00:07:25
Speaker
Well, you have a good memory. I don't... Nah, sometimes. I don't. Not long term. I mean, not short term. Oh, shit. I just realized I have two Elden Ring wallpapers. I knew that they were Elden Ring, but the one of my main monitor that I'm looking at you on is the castle in Lumgrave.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah. Stormvale. But then to the right, it's a view of the erd tree, but it's from limb grave. So positionally for where I'm sitting, it actually kind of, it kind of fits. Kind of goes together. That's good. It's not one of like, here's the map, but. Right. It's just a panorama. Um.
00:08:07
Speaker
We also got the mandatory Elden Ring reference out of the way. Like I said, I'm burning through the list. Made two pawns. Mention Elden Ring. But we do have a topic for this episode.
Gaming Toxicity and Emotional Impact
00:08:25
Speaker
Fuck. And it's one that I know that I at least have done nothing but prepare for since it was brought up on Sunday. And then we didn't discuss it at all until literally right now. So should be good. Uh, I don't know what working, like what the title will end up being.
00:08:49
Speaker
I like Salt Without Sanctuary though. I think that's funny to me.
00:08:56
Speaker
Well, I think it's a good, good plan of words for the game. For him, he doesn't know salt and sanctuary is a dark souls like side scroller. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with the episode. No, it's also what I remember. It's I did not get a lot of enjoyment from the game. No, I think I played it for like two hours. I'm like, eh, I played it longer than you did, which is probably the only souls game in existence that that is true. True for, um,
00:09:26
Speaker
No, Dark Souls 2, what am I talking about? But yeah, we realized upon retrospective that we still have not had an episode on toxicity or conditioning of behavior in games or the feels outside of, you know, positive emotions, I think. We actually did have an episode, I think specifically on good feels, but
00:09:55
Speaker
That's not all we get out of first-person shooters or Call of Duty and stuff like that. It's the salt. It's the bad vibes. I literally played Dota before this recording to get myself in the spirit. Get ready. Do you have any anecdotes from the one specific game that you played? You could say like, here's a point where I could have been salty or maybe here's the point where I was reported.
00:10:24
Speaker
I mean, it didn't get bad. I still treat it as it's just a game. I was playing well, actually well, not like, I think I'm doing all right. I was playing sniper, so it really just comes down to me positioning well. But I want my lane, we're pushing, we're getting a lot of kills, rotating. And then it gets to that mid game where people kind of like fuck around and do their own thing.
00:10:47
Speaker
We should take the objectives before, you know, we give them all the farm and it's even again. Uh-huh type of stuff like that. And I said like, Hey, we should group because like we're ahead. We can take objectives. And every time we have like a five to five fight, we win. Yeah. And then good space to be.
00:11:05
Speaker
I drew on the map like, hey, let's go attack here. And then three people just went and attacked there. Meanwhile, somebody and myself were just TPing to roughly the location, but it'd take us another 20 seconds to get there. And then I was like, hey, we should group up. And you guys started the fight without us. It was like, well, I just want to try and get a quick, like, OK, but we didn't. And now we have to wait to regroup again. And we're giving them advantage.
00:11:30
Speaker
So at that point I was getting a little frustrated but not not salty I would say okay, but like I do At that point I was cognizant of I want to win Mm-hmm because like I've invested my time I've played well I wanted to end in victory and just call it a day. Yeah, instead of Losing for a dumb reason like maybe I misplayed or my team misplays. Uh-huh
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah. And that actually, that's such a, I think that's a really good intro into what I was hoping to cover. Like some of the questions here, like one of them is the definition of salt. So salt is, it has an actual definition. We're not going to be interested in that. Um, and gamer lingo, it's, uh, getting really frustrated. Um, tilting, which means, um, playing poorly because of your emotions are in the way. Um,
00:12:25
Speaker
and in general treating the people around you poorly.
00:12:31
Speaker
due to whatever factors are emotionally impacting you at the time. So some people are salty players, players that get frustrated easily. They take it out on those around them, and that's a living. And other people, I think, more occasionally fall into it. But it's a rare breed that never experience any type of that tear of frustration in the games that I think bring it out.
00:13:03
Speaker
I think you have no emotions if that's the case. And that's coming from me. It's coming from me. Would you categorize yourself as somebody who is more likely to be salty or tilted in games or not? I would be slightly positive to salt, probably moderately positive to salt, because I've literally had to quit games because of how it was impacting me emotionally.
00:13:31
Speaker
Dota was a great example, right? Like I was like, like a reach a part where I'm just like trash talking, actual real life friends, like not even just randoms on the internet where it's acceptable in a lot of game spaces. You're like, okay, let's make fun of randoms. Um, but like being frustrated with real life friends and not letting that go really easily. Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
I get it though, it's really a time of how much effort and investment you have in the experience versus
Dealing with Gaming Emotions and Relationships
00:14:07
Speaker
what somebody else does.
00:14:11
Speaker
So like if you care a lot and somebody's just like dicking around and you lose, you're like, I'm pissed at that person. They're not taking it seriously. And we lost because of them. They've essentially wasted my time. They don't respect my time or me. And then it compounds from there. Yeah. It's kind of like a really short term relationship where it's like, hey,
00:14:32
Speaker
I hope that we want the same things here. And if you don't, you're going to have a bad time because you don't have the same expectations. I think I have specific examples of that.
00:14:47
Speaker
There's been times I've been pissed off and overwatch and I disconnect and I reconnect like 20 seconds later because I just, it just drains out of my system. Um, or I become sane for a second, I guess again. I don't know. It passes quickly. Um, or, you know, you're having a bad run of, uh, matches in Dota and it's like.
00:15:12
Speaker
It just compounds. I think over time, if you, if you start down that path of like negative thoughts and negative reaction, it just builds up. Yeah. I don't know how to fix that outside of avoiding it because spiraling is super easy. At least that's how I typically will take things in a.
00:15:38
Speaker
day-to-day life. It's easy to have one negative thought and then not have something to balance you out. You're like, oh, so everything's terrible. Gotcha. But obviously, it's not logical thinking. It's just emotional spiraling. Yes, exactly. It's entirely irrational. I think a lot of times it does come down to
00:16:02
Speaker
Winning versus losing, you know, and just really wanting to win the match, like you mentioned. Um, but there can be other factors that impact it as well. Um, The other factor I think that can feed into, um, at least for myself, getting salty as if my own performance in the game is not where I think it should be. Right. Like oftentimes I get frustrated.
00:16:29
Speaker
I'm more chill if other people are struggling, but I'm hitting my own personal-ish goals. What do I want to accomplish? But if I know that I'm dragging people down or I make a mistake, it's really easy to fall into a negative emotional feedback loop. Yeah, I feel that. Do you remember Wall-E-Wall?
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. Every time that I would like play that with not the work group, but like the people who played like five times a week group, even though I'm with them once a week. For me, it was meant to be like, that's where I'm actually getting some exercise. And it was a game I was decent enough at. But every time I messed up, people are the type to call out like, hey, you fucked up. But in my head, I'm thinking, oh, I can definitely improve here.
00:17:17
Speaker
So I would always make a mental note of like, Hey, you're doing this thing. If you can't stop it, try, try better next time. But I think everybody's more likely to beat themselves up than other people. But also because you are beating yourself up and you don't want people to be mad at you, you're like, Oh, Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And everyone else like doesn't care typically. Um, but I'm very much that person where at least with video games,
Gaming Dynamics, Friendship, and Emotions
00:17:47
Speaker
I don't know if we had some technical issues, a little bit of bandwidth problem. Not exactly sure whose fault that is. Could be mine, could be Dave's, could be Zencaster, but I'm loath to blame them because we don't pay them any money and they host all of our recordings for some reason. So shout out friend of the show. You bitch. Why isn't it perfect?
00:18:13
Speaker
But yeah, I think you're talking about personal, personal factor on assault or tilting or a negative emotional feedback loop.
00:18:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah, if I'm playing with friends, friendlies, like I know when somebody fucks up, but I don't really get a benefit from I don't think they get a benefit from me calling them out saying like, hey, you fucked up. They probably know. They probably know. So you drawing attention to it just makes them feel worse about. I guess more reluctant to try because you're only getting negative feedback.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah. And if people are playing for the goal of getting better, so like specific example, Overwatch is a great example. Like sometimes you know, right? Like you know that the reason you died is because of your own fault, right? Maybe it's like out of position, but
00:19:14
Speaker
It's not like one of those ambiguously out of position type situations. You're like on the wrong side of the map and the enemy team is just there. You're like, wait a minute, hold up. I don't think anyone's going to save me here. Or like you're playing Cassidy and you miss every single shot.
00:19:33
Speaker
And they haven't turned around and seen you yet, but you continue to miss every single shot until they do. It's like those are the situations where like crap in that moment, I knew I could have played better. And anyone calling it out, my initial response is going to be to shield first, shield myself emotionally. And then if I have the
00:19:57
Speaker
introspective capacity to think about it in the moment. Be like, okay, they're right. Shouldn't take it personal. Dial back and just try to do better. Um, but that's a really freaking hard. Yeah. I, I find because words and emotions, my emotions,
00:20:24
Speaker
If I'm playing with friends, we're doing friendly stuff. I will become usually vocal as far as like, Oh, fuck him. Oh, what the fuck? I died. Bullshit. But like in my head, I'm running calculations. Like, was it actually fair? Was I out of position, blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. But it's like kind of flashing the pan, just messing around with friends. Again, I'm not going to ever be really pissed after a game or something.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's like. So I'm going to continue with them. But like in real life, if somebody is just like. Doing like playful ribbing stuff, it depends, it depends who it comes from, I think, because if somebody I can truly know and love and like I know who they are as a person fully, they can say whatever they could talk about my dick and we'd be OK. Right. And it's encouraged.
00:21:15
Speaker
Please, please. Daily periodical. Every day, Jake texts me at 8 AM with it. What's the dick doing? How did I dick, dude? I like if somebody was trying to just follow along with like, oh, what is Dave trying to actually finally string a sentence together? And then we're talking about dicks, like, immediately gone off the rails.
00:21:43
Speaker
But if I don't know and fully trust that person, my instinct is either, like you said, to become very defensive and be snappy, but I want to be that person. So I default to the fall on the sword type. So either just absorb it completely like a slime from D&D, or just be like, yeah, I do suck.
00:22:04
Speaker
Like I don't think like witty to retort. I want to be like snappy back saying like, like, fuck your mom. But it's just like, it's my my way of dealing with it and diffusing to a degree. But I don't know if that's necessarily the best approach either. I mean, I would argue it's not perfect. Yeah, I guess it depends like how you actually feel in the moment, because I've definitely done that, too.
00:22:28
Speaker
Where I was just like, Oh my gosh, you're right. I did screw up. And so you're just like, I am. It depends on the intent, right? If you're like, I screwed up. Um, I'll try to do better or something like that. Like that's a positive twist on, you know, a negative outcome. If you're like, I'm garbage at this game in response to like someone calling you out, then like, that's just self-deprecation. Yeah. Probably if you mean it, it's like not a great place to be.
00:22:58
Speaker
Fucking fuck won't culture my right cuz Let me give the context of
00:23:08
Speaker
I could see myself, let's say, 10, 15 years ago, both for myself and for other people, not having an issue just calling out stuff like that in game. Yeah. But, granted, I probably cared more about the game than personal relationships and emotions than I do now. Whereas now, I'm much more cognizant of that, and I don't want people to walk on eggshells around me, and I don't want to necessarily walk on eggshells around people. But there are times where something will happen in a game. Maybe it's like a team wipe or something. It just gets quiet.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yep. You get what's going on. The room is collectively looking down a little bit down. Yeah. GG goes next is a, uh, it's a strong and powerful reaction to situations like that. It's definitely easier in games that don't take as long, but.
00:24:02
Speaker
I think that like one of the things that can help in theory, and I'm not, I'm not the best at implementing this is actually getting analytical with it and saying like, like particularly there's a whole bunch of toxic, um, mindset and behavior and things like that. There's a, uh, you know, the term Elo hell. Mm-hmm.
00:24:24
Speaker
How would you define ELO hell for the audience? ELO hell is where your MMR is fairly low and everybody you're playing with is also fairly low MMR. That's how matchmaking works. But because of their low MMR and their shitty gameplay, you can't progress out of that MMR because you're always being bad teammates. Exactly.
00:24:46
Speaker
it's basically like um what is the uh johning yeah johning from sash bros is gonna a good way to put it i was gonna say like one of the logical fallacies um because you're like crap why are my teammates so bad like how am i ever supposed to win when my teammates are so bad
00:25:04
Speaker
as opposed to like a rational approach to it, which is just like, if you have any impact on your games. I literally had to like spell this out on, I've almost never made Reddit posts on like anything or Reddit comments on like anything. And at one point I literally was just like, I have to argue on the internet. I can't help myself. Jesus, take the wheel. And I was like, if you play a statistically significant number of games,
00:25:33
Speaker
and your impact matters in the game arguably it should if you're you know better than your teammates you'll you'll rise in those situations right like particularly if this is any type of game where you can carry and
Inclusivity and New Player Challenges
00:25:49
Speaker
I'm defining the term carry as like pop off, you know, take basically significantly contribute to the winning potential of the team, which I think is like all games that people actually get salty about. Um, then like blaming your teammates isn't helpful because you can't change them, but you could be better, right? Like, why would you take the path of least of most resistance?
00:26:15
Speaker
Um, instead of, you know, trying to be better yourself. People don't want to hear that because that requires introspection. It's, it's additional work basically. And nobody likes to do that.
00:26:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm myself included. Yeah, we actually had a dota game the other day where the only thing that really frustrated me about me about the game is That it was like five or six minutes into the game that somebody said like hey, this is my first game. I
00:26:47
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, well, why did we give you this role of responsibility? If you said like, hey, I'm new, be nice, give pointers. We'd be like, yeah, a hundred percent. Let's do it. Right. But it's just that like they didn't say that up front. So like they're kind of like making some dumb plays like, hey, what's up? Right.
00:27:04
Speaker
Not really getting any last hits. You're running into your death. You all right? What's going on? Do you need help? See the thing is, they just needed a babysitter and they just needed to say like, hey, I'm new. And we're like, OK, like we've been there. Cool. Yeah.
00:27:20
Speaker
But at the same time, like I don't know what their situation is. And I could totally see that when they started playing Dota, they were like, they did open with, Hey, I'm new. And then people immediately opened up on them, right? Like immediately started flaming them. Cause if there's anyone that hates new players, um, and then to an equal degree complaints that their game is always dying, it's mobile players. Um,
00:27:47
Speaker
Like, it can be really tough being a new player because you get, I don't know, sometimes the best reaction you can get is nobody responds if you say that you're new, you know? Yeah. There's all the times I've been newer in something and people have not been so nice. Heroes of New Earth being a great example. One, don't play that game. And two, if you do, don't tell anybody anything that would expose weakness. Yes. Yeah.
00:28:19
Speaker
I think that one is based off of my knowledge or what I've heard in the MOBA sphere, the most toxic MOBA on the market. 100%.
00:28:31
Speaker
Like I think even the developers of the game were known to like ban people that they didn't like or be really racist, homophobic, sexist, just like really shitty people on the internet. Oh, this is the community. Yeah. No, it's, it's pretty messed up. MOBA's have it. MOBA's have it pretty rough though. I think like.
00:28:54
Speaker
I already talked a little bit about Call of Duty, which is an FPS, which I think is one of the genres that can definitely have toxicity, but like nothing even holds a candle to MOBAs. You don't need like a top 10 countdown of toxic genres. I think everybody basically knows that off the jump.
00:29:16
Speaker
It's like the Stanford prison experiments because you have X amount of people over a period of time. Shit's going to go bad. Yeah. That was a classy reference. Thank you. I tried.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's pretty rough. I guess to move past some of the issues of toxicity obviously can take place in harassment, singling people out like you mentioned based off of weaknesses they've exposed within themselves. Like God help you if you used voice chat and your voice is high pitched.
00:29:55
Speaker
Um, there is, it doesn't matter if you're a girl or not, actually, there's no escape, right? If you're in a toxic environment. Um, I, for like another very small side anecdote regarding Dota, I play like a solo game where I play with like one other person and there was a girl in voice on our team and it just went by without a hitch. I'm like, wow, we've really progressed this community. So like, Oh my God, a girl plays Dota.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah, I actually had a group of friends I played with many years ago now because it's time distorts and it's hard to keep track of it, but it's a long time. But I actually remember their handles because they, well, they're still on my team's friends list, but I just haven't talked to them in forever.
00:30:44
Speaker
Prove gaming enemy of fate and bear and prove and enemy of fate were both girls and We would just like roll up as a stack of you know, four plus people maybe maybe we get all five but
00:31:03
Speaker
If you've played MOBAs, you probably realize like how weird it is to not just have a girl in the game who is willing to use voice chat, but like multiple. Right? Yeah. Statistically, very unlikely.
00:31:20
Speaker
But part of the reason it worked is because you had that support group of Literally, you're playing with friends. So if someone's like a douchebag online, you're like, hey You're never gonna be outnumbered really in that situation. You can kind of like
00:31:36
Speaker
You know, take support from your, from the people who are with you who are just going to be like, you're dumb. Stop it. You know, stop being sexist or whatever. It feels nice to shoot down somebody being shitty with like very simple things like didn't ask or things you're just muting or, uh-huh. Instead of, you know, jumping onto the train of like, again, talking about how you fucked their mother. Uh-huh.
00:32:04
Speaker
Hey, you don't need to know the details. It have retribution. I feel like it's so much less entertaining than like diffusal and the most hilarious way possible. Um, like those are the types of responses I would love to see, you know, um,
00:32:24
Speaker
No, it's it's good stuff. It's it's kind of like tilting in the game will also happen like against your teammates or the enemy team. Yeah. Or you'll just do like really dumb things, whether it's like, oh, I need to win this argument with a rando online or I have to get a kill to make sure the five deaths have already had this game. It's like the.
00:32:51
Speaker
I guess the sunk cost fallacy of like I've invested so much I gotta get the payoff. Otherwise it wasn't worth it. Yeah. Yeah. So you just make really dumb decisions because you want that. It's
Handling Toxicity and Fostering Positivity
00:33:04
Speaker
gambling. It's emotional gambling. Emotional gambling would be a good alternate title too. That would be at least be provocative clickbait. Do people click this?
00:33:15
Speaker
I don't know, I don't know, maybe. Theoretically, someone did once. I actually, you mentioned like people getting involved in these arguments and I recall, so like I still play hots occasionally. You can kind of tell when the enemy team is tilting. Like in some MOBA's it's obvious because like
00:33:39
Speaker
They just run at you and then die, like obvious feeding, right? Um, but sometimes you can also just tell them like hots if their characters take too long to show up, like that they're, they're like keyboard warrior in between fights. Um, I've been on the side of that with them on my team.
00:33:58
Speaker
you know, where people are standing there typing stuff out on their keyboards. And I'm like, I'm thinking, you know, that doesn't count for APM, right? Like, that's not, you know, not on top of anything tactically here, so. Your QWNA will actually do stuff if you don't have enter previously typed. Right, yeah. Just adds up. Yeah.
00:34:21
Speaker
But it's sometimes a tough sand trap to avoid when you want to respond to what someone's saying online, but you know that nothing good will come of it. Although other people are better at humorously diffusing, like you mentioned. I'm not so great at that. I like flaming my own team instead when I know them.
00:34:51
Speaker
Let's say one of our people has to disconnect because they have a power outage. They text the group, like, hey, sir, are we back? Can you pause for me? And go, yeah, sure thing. And then we'll pause and immediately be like, can you report this guy? You fucking just rage quit. Not like that. But I feel like that's an angle for actually not just being a dick to your friends versus diffusing, per se.
00:35:16
Speaker
But a lot of times in IMOVA or Dota specifically, people will do that keyboard warrior business that you're talking about where someone will blame someone else on their team from the enemy team and be like, no, I think they're doing fine. Maybe work with them. I don't know. You sort your own shit out. We're trying to win on our side. Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
That's actually funny because I recall a time when, because I think it's good to do that. If like the enemy team is dog piling on one of their own guys, like there's the evil path and there's the good path and the good path is usually to some degree to defend the person who is being harassed.
00:36:02
Speaker
I think that's the morally correct path and I've tried to take it and then I recall at one point in Dota teammate was literally like stop it, they're tilting, just let them tilt. This is the evil path. This is exploit the advantage.
00:36:20
Speaker
I feel like Slacks might have had a video on it at some point where it's just like, if you find the person that is being trash-talked on by the enemy team, you just psychologically get in their heads to either amplify it or redirect it to your own benefit.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, cause basically if you have the enemy team tilting, that is an advantage for you. And some people like, this will be my default strategy. I'm going to pick just a harassment character and then also be a Dick and chat. Or usually they don't have the cross team voice for a lot of games. Yeah. Cause that would be awful. Think of maybe proximity chat. I don't know. It's,
00:37:08
Speaker
Again, I get so much more enjoyment from teasing or harassing people who I know because that's part of the joys of friendship is I can say something heinous to you and you won't get mad and will laugh about it versus doing it to a complete stranger and then hoping that they have a shitty day.
00:37:31
Speaker
I don't know. There's tons of people who I don't like, but I know them to a degree to know that I don't like them versus played a game with this person and they didn't perform as expected. Right. You'll be hearing a strongly worded letter from my lawyers.
00:37:47
Speaker
I think that can be useful as a mitigation aspect. And I do want to talk about like toxicity mitigation effort in some ways too at some point, but like what you're describing, I would categorize it as like a mitigation effort, is if you think about
00:38:07
Speaker
In your case, you're reluctant. I don't know if you put any thought into like why you're more reluctant to just like dig into randoms on the internet, but like for me, they don't know me, but I also don't know like.
00:38:21
Speaker
They don't know me, so they shouldn't weigh what I'm saying heavily, but I also know that people don't work that way. It's easy to say someone random called me something on the internet, and I shouldn't care about that, because there's a lot of crazy people on the internet, and there's a lot of jerks on the internet, so why should I care? But I know that there are people that do care, and I don't know where they're at.
00:38:46
Speaker
It kind of helps you could just have a shit day. Yeah. And you're again going to video games to say, Oh, this is my unwind. Let me get rid of stress and just relax. And then it goes badly and your team or the enemy team is flaming you. Yeah. So it just, it doesn't help. Yeah. Thinking about those hypotheticals, I think can help people to show restraint in the moment.
00:39:13
Speaker
Um, which is, I mean, it's better not to be toxic in the first place, but if you can be internally toxic instead of like externally toxic, that's still improvement in my book. Um, Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Um, good dragon and dark souls reference.
00:39:38
Speaker
Um, terrible reference in general, but it was a good Dark Souls reference. Um, uh, but I was going to ask you what types of, um, uh, mitigation efforts or things have you found over time to help, um, stay focused or not be toxic in games. The biggest thing I think anybody would jump to is just taking breaks from stuff. It is so fucking wild to what
00:40:08
Speaker
you can experience mentally by just being outside of the exact space you're in. Have you ever just gone on a walk or gone out for growth? It's basically you're experiencing a whole separate world and you realize, oh, this one microcosm of video games is but a drop of sand in the ocean of life. And yes, I did mix solid and liquid there. But
00:40:33
Speaker
It really gives you context for, oh, these are other people who are just taking a break from their life to do video games. Right. So that of it mattered. Yeah, it doesn't matter in the long run. It's things that you're doing for fun. Right. With other people. Yeah, I would I would extend to that for a second and say like I'm taking a walk, obviously really good, particularly if you get pent up a lot. But like literally looking away from the screen for a second.
00:41:02
Speaker
can kind of be all it takes sometimes. Like usually the games that have high rates of toxicity are games that people get very invested in. And that's honestly why we love the games. Like one of the titles I was thinking of, going back to the titles topic for a second, was like Salt and Why We Love It or something like that. But like some of the games I've really enjoyed playing, whether they were good games or not,
00:41:30
Speaker
or the reason I got invested was because of this moment by moment emotional attachment to it. Like even Call of Duty, which I don't know. Like when I was younger and I was playing it, that was like one of the most frustrating games. It's a game where people literally spawn behind you and you just shoot you. And that's the game playing, right? How can that be good? But I played it a ton. And like Dota was the same. It's a game where
00:41:59
Speaker
On the tail end of it, I can be like, my life is in shambles. Like, why did I
Gaming Improvement and Emotional Management
00:42:05
Speaker
do all of this? I could have done anything other than an hour of this. And then I could queue up for another match, right? Yeah, it's going back to the sunk cost fallacy after it. Exactly. But like looking away for a second, you're like, wait a minute.
00:42:23
Speaker
There are literally, I could play Skyrim more or I could do anything else more and it would be better for me and it would be more enjoyable. Or I could continue to do this, but like mentally take a step back for a second and ask, why am I so pissed off about something that doesn't matter if I look away for three seconds?
00:42:48
Speaker
I'm going to save everybody a lot of time right now. Call your dad and ask why he didn't hug you growing up. This is also only applicable for men in the audience. I'm sure that there's probably women out there who just never got hugged either. Distant fathers. I think at least from a lot of people who I know, a lot of fathers were not super close. Right.
00:43:18
Speaker
I'm still trying to get my dad to like, call me like, uh, I can call him and be like, Hey, how's it going? And like, we'll talk and stuff. I'm like, you know, you can reach out at any point too. And he's like, Oh yes, I keep forgetting to do that. I'm like, all right. But I don't, I don't need him to, but I also, I wouldn't mind if we had a closer relationship. I'm never going to like go to him for deep emotional advice. Cause we've not had that history. I'm not trying to build that now, but just like,
00:43:48
Speaker
Maybe I can recommend to him something on Spotify one day. I don't know. How do you think that would improve your gameplay? Yes. No, I'm just kidding. I do. Something I was going to ask you as tangential to Skyrim. What do you do about if you're getting salty or tilted in a single player game? Gotcha. So these are games like Super Meat Boy.
00:44:17
Speaker
I can never remember the name of it. Runner. It could be anything really. Ghost runner. If you're really struggling on a section. I would love to say stop. But for some reason, more often than not, it's like beat my head into the wall until the wall collapses or I like just literally give up.
00:44:43
Speaker
Sekiro actually was kind of like that for me because I was bad at the game. I've been massively humbled by watching other people play Sekiro once it was done and I was like, sure to block a lot of attacks and it sure does seem like you can parry everything. I will say going back, it's so much easier. Yeah. Because I went through and like, oh,
00:45:11
Speaker
That definitely had like some difficulty spikes. I was like, let me just do like a new game plus. And then on the first hour I killed three bosses. I'm like, dear God. Yeah. Because like you're building the tool set over time. And they're like, Hey, here you are. You have the tool set by the way. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:45:28
Speaker
So it's easier to go back. Yeah. But I understand the frustration with something like that, where it's just, it feels very one sided. Like the monkey fight for me was my big sticking point of like, I'm getting my ass beat. Yeah. Yeah. I distinctly remember the first night. I feel like it was, I was playing a lot of sec. We were all playing a lot of secular, I think when it came out. Right. But, um,
00:45:52
Speaker
I got to like Sword St. Yixin in the early evening and I did not beat Yixin that night. And that was something for me, right? Like I didn't give up until it was like time to go to bed. And it was a very, very tough time, but it was one of the situations where I should have stepped away, right? Like if I would have gone for a walk, I could have cleared my head.
00:46:19
Speaker
I could have started just mentally processing the moves that he's throwing out and how I should react to them. And honestly, if you want to get better at games, spending anything that has reaction time or situational awareness, spending time thinking about it outside of the moment is just about as valuable as it is inside of the moment, particularly for Dark Souls, which is why
00:46:47
Speaker
You could actually just not fight a boss the first time and just let it do attacks at you. And that would probably help you beat the boss way faster than I did. Right. Like, um, patience is key and lack of patience is unfortunately a side effect of tilting.
00:47:07
Speaker
for anybody who is paying attention to Jake's story about sword saint Isheen, you know that he is wrong and hesitation is defeat. Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. That's what he says, but. I mean, you can kind of just like go to town on him. All right, so phase two. You can cheese him by baiting him out at certain ranges, so he'll throw out one move that has a reliable punish. I think it's like a lunge.
00:47:35
Speaker
Um, and it's one of his moves that just has a lot of punishable frames after it. So like he's trying to bait you by saying hesitation is defeat. Hesitations actually might beat the boss or you're good. And you just kill the boss, but like, I wasn't.
00:47:53
Speaker
I mean, you definitely like with anything smash included, like it's good to have a bit of restraint to see what's going on and kind of assess the situation. Dark Souls bosses included a great example, because if you know the move state, you're like, OK, here's where I have time to do my thing instead of just.
00:48:12
Speaker
Charging like you know in movies where you see the one guy he's like I'm just gonna charge in you know that guy's fucked You know he's fucked cuz he's not planning preparing. He's just gonna like I'm gonna do my thing and hope for the best Yeah, and then the person just like Kills him or deflects a thing stabs him
00:48:31
Speaker
But if you have time to like react to a situation, it works better. Yeah, I'm actually like that back in is take time to think about things, whether it be video games or other stuff. Mm hmm.
00:48:48
Speaker
It goes a long way. I was imagining the picture of like the first grunt and like the the pack of grunts that runs across hero the hero the story whatever maybe it's James Bond or something like that and you're the first guy through the door there has to be that realization I am a grunt there's like 16 other guys here some of them are better geared than me
00:49:12
Speaker
I'm probably not gonna survive this, right? Like, am I the first guy? Am I the one that takes him down and then everyone else was completely unnecessary?
Emotional Responses in Gaming and Life
00:49:20
Speaker
Probably not, right? Yeah. Analysis is also like a good part, I think, in combating toxicity, particularly if it's just like, okay, emotions aside, what could I have done better here?
00:49:40
Speaker
And how should I address that in the future? And then not running that analysis against your team, honestly. Because you shouldn't really be looking out for everyone else's mistakes. If you are a really good player, you can probably mitigate mistakes that your team is making. And sometimes that's not the case, and that's OK too. So taking a moment legitimately
00:50:07
Speaker
say like overwatch after every death, be like, why did I die there? And then answering that question. As long as your answer isn't like tilted, you're already tilted and you're like, it's always my teammates. Maybe a better question is what could I have done to not die there, right? Framing things like that in like a more positive outcome way can be really helpful and I'm bad at it.
00:50:33
Speaker
It comes down to positioning for a lot of things. In video games at least. And sex.
00:50:42
Speaker
How do I win? Why do I keep losing? I was gonna quote Dota and then I was like, nah, this actually sounds really bad in context. I'm not gonna do that. I was gonna say technically I've only lost at sex once and that was the first time. Usually it's a draw. Oh, did you not? I was implying I lost my virginity. Ah, gotcha. That's a good joke, too.
00:51:10
Speaker
But I like yours, too. It seems more wholesome and romantic that both people get off simultaneously. Or neither, too. We'll get them next time. Mission failed.
00:51:24
Speaker
No, it's, uh, I don't know. There's, there's, we've reached the point of, um, I would say development and like video games are so prolific that there are literally papers about toxicity or how it makes people do violent games, make people, um, angry. Uh, yeah, yeah, actually, uh, they do.
00:51:49
Speaker
And if you have problems at home, it's a lot worse. If you don't have problems at home, it basically doesn't matter. And it's very, very short lived. It's almost like the video game itself is not the thing. Yeah, exactly. Right. It's just like alcohol or anything else that can have an effect on your mood or mental state.
00:52:14
Speaker
It itself is not the problem. Just like saying guns don't kill people if people kill people. Granted, the weapons are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but at the end of the day, it's the person and their situation. You know how you'll have happy drunks or you'll have belligerent drunks? Right, yeah. That's emphasizing their current mood.
00:52:39
Speaker
Like if you have like a really shitty week at the office, imagine like a movie or TV context where you're like, yeah, we're going to O'Hannigan's to drink. Um, you're trying to drink your week away, right? Yeah. It's not gonna, you're not going to turn magically happy and have everything be fixed.
00:52:57
Speaker
You're going to spend your time drunk bitching about the week and focusing and dwelling on that negativity. And it's just going to be shit. Whereas I've definitely been in the good mood and had alcohol and or other things and it's just, ah, that was even more pleasant. Hooray. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:18
Speaker
A lot of it is about state of mind going into it. Trying to take a deep breath and return to a balanced state, regardless of whether it's a stressful work week or you're having a bad match of Dota or Overwatch or what have you, can be really helpful. Also, it's a good personal development practice.
00:53:46
Speaker
Again, I'm not good at doing any of this. I also need to practice. I feel like, I mean, granted, I don't play games with you anymore, but not since the incident. I can't think of any recent incidents where I've noticed it really.
00:54:09
Speaker
Like I do remember a time when we were playing Overwatch and you just kind of like dropped after the game. And I was like, Oh, yeah, clock that. Um, that was a good bit ago. Yeah, it's been a long time. I think part of it is like perspective. Like I've been doing a lot in the work week. And so I find it harder to be like.
00:54:33
Speaker
Okay, Overwatch, let's get super invested and pissed off if this doesn't work. I'm just like, I'm moving my mouse and I'm clicking things. I get to hang out with friends and no matter how I cut it, this is like some of the least stressful stuff I've had to deal with today. That perspective helps.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yeah, if you just go in with the soul thing, like, I just want to have fun with people. How can I make it fun? Oh, do people have dumb character names in game? Let's talk about that. Was there a silly interaction where you accidentally jumped off the ledge and got booped? Let's talk about that.
00:55:13
Speaker
Focusing on the the entertaining or the fun versus We're losing this game Yeah, you have be mad. It only came it is only game They actually specifically that like a boop off map thing made me think of So Both Jenny and I were watching the twitch streams to get into like the overwatch 2 beta
00:55:40
Speaker
and we were watching a streamer Emile Laith. I don't know. That's not Googleable. Maybe it'll be figured out. I don't know. I don't know how their SEO is, but we'll leave that in their hands. But she had...
00:55:54
Speaker
a funny overlay where it was like days since she last jumped off the map and it was like on four and she had a counter there for it. And I thought that was like the most hilarious thing. Like that's the attitude I would love to have every time I was playing Overwatch. And a lot of times people think like, oh, if you're playing for fun, you also, maybe you're not playing as much as you could be competitively. And sometimes that's true.
00:56:23
Speaker
But like I was watching her clip, I was like, she's really good. I was talking to Jenny and Jenny's like, oh, yeah, she's she's in Masters. I was like. This person is like in the top, like 4% of players of like the entire game, and she also has this, you know, hilarious times jumped off the map counter, like what a healthy attitude to have, right?
Competitive Culture and Mental Health
00:56:50
Speaker
So yeah, it's not keeping you back. If anything, I think getting upset can hold you back compared to keeping a positive attitude, which helps keep you limber and fresh and able to adapt to situations.
00:57:07
Speaker
And if any of these stories and anecdotes don't really click with you and you're like, what are they talking about? Go back and rewatch Karate Kid. Let me know how that turns out for you. Who is who is common one? Motherfucking Daniel got his shit together. Yeah. That even sweep the like could could take him out. The forbidden technique. There was a crane just wait for just waiting for him. Yeah.
00:57:35
Speaker
Um, do you have any I was gonna ask um, because we play smash a lot i'm still trying to get you to shit talk a little bit Because I like it back and forth You made a statement and it was just yeah something like that. I was like, okay Um, what are your thoughts on ribbing in general? I think it can be fun amongst friends. I I think you got to read the room a little bit like say
00:58:02
Speaker
Say we're playing Smash and it's kind of like a grudge match. Usually we go for like best of three, best of five, something like that. And I'm just like, my Sephiroth is garbage and I have to do better. And it's been 10 games since I last won. If at the cusp of the 10th game, you're like, wow, you really suck at Sephiroth. I'm going to like probably like
00:58:28
Speaker
like rip my headset out of the laptop and like quit the game. Right. Um, for the record, I do pick up on that and I try like when, when, or I'll be like, I'll complain about one of your side Bs being bullshitting, always catching me and you're not like, yeah, suck it. Uh-huh. I appreciate that too, but I get that. Yeah.
00:58:52
Speaker
Um, it's, it's sometimes better to read the room there, but I mean, if you're playing with friends, then you have the advantage of hopefully you can pick up on some of that, right? Like I get quiet if I'm not comfortable with how much I'm winning or how much I'm losing, right? Like I, cause again, I don't want to like trash talk or rub it in or anything like that. Um, and.
00:59:14
Speaker
I'm very disappointed in myself if I'm losing, so I'm not comfortable talking in that situation either. But it is a fun game.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's really good. I just like the personal improvement aspect. Yeah. I don't need to win all the games, but if I lost all of the games, I would definitely practice in the week on a new character and be like, Hey, Jake, want to see my banjo? And you're like, you never play banjo. And then I would destroy you. Uh-huh. Yeah. I just like reloaded and you're like, what's that, uh, what's that masked Kirby with the sword there? It's like, I do he's got a cape.
00:59:55
Speaker
Be like, oh yeah, we're ready. It goes back to brawl. Yeah, yeah. It is, I don't know though. I think it can be fun. A little playful ribbing can be fun as long as you both are. Nobody's at a low, right? No one's at an emotional low.
01:00:22
Speaker
So then it's more fun. I literally was watching a Smash. It was MKLeo versus Spargo. Is that his name? Spargo.
01:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, the two top Mexican players probably in the world. Yeah, probably the two top players in the world who happened to be Mexican. And Spargo took the set and the announcer was like, pop, pop, Spargo, pop, pop. And Spargo just like reaches over for the fist bump. MKLeo just smiles and gives the fist bump because MKLeo was like the chillest person in existence.
01:01:01
Speaker
And Spargo just calmly collects his things and walks off while he announces, just like, pop off, Spargo, come on, what are you doing? And it was just really funny to me. Because in that moment, it was incredibly overly respectful to the point where it's harder to make it into a YouTube moment if the guy's just calmly collecting his things. And you couldn't tell if he won or lost based off the departure.
01:01:31
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's good. This would be the purpose of episode to have a sponsor for like better help.com. Right? Yeah. There's something online mental health institution.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah,
Final Remarks and Listener Engagement
01:01:45
Speaker
if you are an online mental health institution, I would honestly say reach out to us. We need the help. So we can get those ad bucks. Yeah. And if you do want to give us those ad bucks, you can do so, I guess. There's not a PayPal, so don't try to send the money there. Start with a message. Soapstonepodcast.gml.com.
01:02:09
Speaker
Or you could join the ad discussion on Facebook. I feel like the, it's kind of falling apart. Facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Don't be a cunt. Have a good night.
01:02:47
Speaker
of this.