Looking for advice, how to avoid gaming with someone

[BigBiker05]

There's a group of players I've met playing CS:GO and I've been gaming with them for quite a bit now. In most games they're just your typical gaming buddies and I have no complaints. However, I've recently been getting into Blizzard's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, and they have too. The problem is they just haven't developed their skill and want to played ranked games with me. It's too the point where they've caught up in level, and been playing long enough where my coaching is no longer construction, but I believe comes off as annoying.

Currently, when they want to play with me, I try to sway them to play another game like CS:Go, or stick this non-ranked matches. However, this seems a bit awkward when they see me doing a ranked when they come online, and ask to join. There is one player in particular who becomes very toxic when playing Heroes. He's very bad at the game and carries a 'everything is someone else's fault' attitude. It has turned into a situation where I just stop gaming when he wants to play with me. I try and immediately ask to play a different game, or say I need to take a break. This becomes a bit annoying when we're in the same skype group together and if I want to continue playing.

At this point it has interrupted the enjoyment to the point that I'm typing this up and I don't know how to continue this relationship. They're good buddies to have in other games, but it seems silly and juvenile to have to avoid someone when they want to play a particular game. However, I don't know what else to do.

[jim beam]

Have you tired going offline on your friends list so they dont see you playing? It keeps everyone from doing that but you wont have to listen to them.

[John Doe]

Hey Biker, I feel your pain, I have been in situations not unlike this in the past with some games.

What ended up happening for me was that my down time, my relaxation time that I spend gaming with friends was getting to be unenjoyable and that defeated the purpose of gaming for me.

I dont have any great recommendations for you, I ended up avoiding playing specific games with specific individuals, and if asked I was honest and stated that I wasnt likely to enjoy the game they wanted to play but I wouldnt go into detailed specifics.

It was similar to what you said, there would be an individual who would make the game toxic and although the person would be great to game with in some games the one specific game was not enjoyable to play if this person was there. I just ended up not playing that game if that person was going to be involved, or I would suggest alternates similar to what you have done.

I guess you could try to talk privately with the person about the situation, or perhaps even in the group to explain your frustrations and concerns, but sometimes online gaming friends can be even more difficult to talk to than real people.

I wish I could give you some better feedback or advice but I was at a loss too as to how to make things better, and I wasnt smart enough to talk to the individual about the issue. The only saving grace is that new games came out, we all moved on, and its no longer an issue.


JD

[Boss Llama]

It sounds like there are two issues at hand - one is that there's a particular individual who is no fun to game with, and the other is that there's a larger group you do like playing with, but who are not at the same skill level in terms of a ranked ladder.

For the former, with the toxic player, that's a tough one. If it's just the one by themself, they can be ignored or avoided easily enough, but when it's part of a group it can be really tough. It may be something where you have to share your concern about that aspect of the player with the rest of the group at some point when that player is not around. If it's bad enough that you're not interested in playing with them anymore, chances are at least one or two others are as well. I don't know if any of them know each other in real life, but if so, it may even come to pass that one of their friends can help resolve the issue face to face with them. Either way, it would probably be best for the whole group to remove that individual unless and until they shape up.

For the latter, with ranking, the usual solution I see amongst friends of mine is to have multiple characters or profiles. One is the hardcore do-your-absolute-best character, and one (or more) that you play to match your less-advanced friends. I don't know if HOTS allows you to set up multiple characters, but I even if not, I bet you could create a second Steam account and use the friends & family lending policy to lend yourself the game and have a second profile that way. If you do that, you'll be able to keep your top ladder profile clean and doing its thing, and can still play for fun with this other group and not feel the pressure to game-manage them all the time. Perhaps with experience they'll even reach the point where you are comfortable using your main again! I see my real life friends do this all the time so we can play assorted games with each other, with spouses, and with people we randomly run in to. Everybody "get's it" in terms of why folks do that, and I've never seen anybody be offended by it. I think it's worth a shot.

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

I can empathize with your plight, mostly because I have been the guy who isn't on par with the others I've played with. I've been late to the party on 3 games in particular (TF2, L4D2, Borderlands2) where I had help from others in learning how to play, but was clearly well behind in skill. Over time I got better at playing, but would not consider myself on par with the better players around here. TF2 wasn't so bad given that I only played on Ville servers once I found this place and the general rule of thumb was being here to have fun. L4D was similar in that I was mostly playing with ville folk, but playing vs on that game can be frustrating when someone isn't very good and your group suffers as a result. I don't think I was toxic, but I know it must have been frustrating at times to play with me, especially for people with real high skill levels (Boss has always been very kind about playing with me given the gulf between our abilities). Had I been a problem to play with I hope someone like BL would have talked with me about how I played and I either would have taken the advice and played nice/stopped playing or raged and been dropped from someone's friends list. I think not talking about the problem allows it to fester and cause problems. Bringing it up should at least bring it to some sort of conclusion.

Online friends are great, but I think most, if not all, of us have had someone that was once a gaming friend and no longer is. I think the key is that your gaming experiences should be what you want them to be. One guy or group should not ruin that for you, and I hope that they can change their approach or understand that you may not always want to play with them. That's the understanding I have with my Borderlands friend. He has been a tremendous help and if I'm online he'll ask to join. If I see him online, I don't assume he wants to play with me. I may join the game, if he sees me on and wants to play with me he can drop me a line, otherwise we each play our own games.