Wouldn’t it be nice to hop online and be consistently teamed up with pleasant teammates? You know, the kind of people that like working together and going for the objective? Ah, if only.
Instead, it’s more likely that you’ll come across a wide variety of people that make multiplayer gaming difficult. You’re probably familiar with at least some of the more common ones, like those who like to rage or shit-talk in the game’s lobby. Oh, but there’s more. Enough to make a compendium of people you never want on your team. Let’s dig in, shall we?
The elite band of snipers
If the shooting world has a rockstar, without question that rockstar would be the sniper. Think about it: you have this powerful, deadly weapon at your disposal which you can use to cleanly take someone out with one shot from a huge distance. It’s a class that, in the right hands, is exclusively about headshots — and headshots are probably the most satisfying thing in any worthwhile shooter. For the sniper, landing the headshot is a powerful feeling — if the game is balanced, landing headshots isn’t easy — and for the receiver it can be frustrating or humiliating.
Most people agree that all of that is cool…and that’s kind of the problem. It means you’ll get into matches where there are players play as the sniper even if it means they’ll barely contribute to the task at hand, all for the elusive headshot. Worse, sometimes you’ll get into a match where an absurd number of people on both teams pick the sniper class for some reason — Battlefield is a game where this isn’t so uncommon, but I’ve seen it happen in games like Team Fortress 2. The “best” part is when you get so mad at the situation you go sniper too, just to get back at the jerk that last popped your head off. Ugh. At that point, matches feel like they come to a masturbatory halt.
The idler
All games should kick people out for not playing, and many do. But there’s always that one person that seems to go AFK long and often enough to be an annoyance, but not enough so that the game actually throws them out. This will happen even if the game has short timers. It’s like they know they’ll get kicked out if they don’t move, but they’re still not able to sit down and play the dang game. You’d think this would mean they’d leave the match, but no. It’s important to stay in it even if you’re not doing much, for some reason!
In TF2, ostensibly this can happen because someone is farming for hats, but most games don’t work like that. Some games do give you some bonuses for winning a match, although I’d think your chances are better if you actually helped out, no? And although more games incorporate a feature that lets you kick people out, it’s usually difficult to do. It has to be, else people would abuse it and just throw folks out of matches willy-nilly. This means the idler is probably not going away anytime soon.
The rager
This person is loud and obnoxious, no matter what the situation. Are they losing? You’ll hear about it. Are they winning? It might be hard to tell, because their joy sounds eerily like angrily frothing at the mouth, but yeah, you’ll hear about that too. It’s kind of impressive, actually, to think about how this person can angrily string together so many swear words, but boy, can they. It doesn’t even have to make sense, either (and it often doesn’t).
Closely related is the shit-talker, who may not always be in rage-mode but not exactly happy, either. Usually you only have to suffer these people in-between the matches, in the lobbies….unless they’re on your team. In which case, I’m so, so sorry. Better make use of that mute button!
Rage is not always audible, of course. This is where the infamous rage quitter comes in. This person will leave the game the first sign that things are going south for their team, sportsmanship be damned. This person is likely familiar with the ways they can disconnect without suffering consequences — even if this means faking what seems to be a legitimate disconnect from the game.
The hip-hop star
Some people use This Is My Jam to broadcast what they’re listening to the world. Other people like to get into lobbies and blast their jams on the mic — often loudly enough that, regardless of how amazing the song might be, you can’t actually make anything out. The song is usually a rap or hip hop song, because this means the person can casually rap while it plays. They’re never really good but, bless their hearts, they’ll keep rapping to static gibberish anyway.
The person that takes the game way too seriously
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve got people — like the idler — who don’t take the game seriously enough. But the other end of the spectrum is just as awful, as people who take the game waaaay too seriously can ruin the experience as well. At their most stereotypical, this person seems to be out of touch with reality, often using military terms and ideas to explain everyday things. If that wasn’t intense enough, they’ll insist that you play the game in a very specific way, because really, if they could, they’d be controlling everyone on the map. This person is a bit of a control freak, you see, to the point that they might even rage if you ever finish off one of their kills. You filthy kill-stealer, how dare you steal someone else’s digital points and glory?
The lone wolf
This player would make Ayn Rand proud, because they are ruled by the idea behind me, myself and I. Typically, a high kill-to-death ratio is the primary concern, although more and more you’re likely to get people who are only looking for moments to put into their montage. Despite these traits, luckily sometimes the goal of this player is the objective, and nobody else seems to be helping them out. Tragedy in the age of the FPS, people.
And sometimes, the lone wolf is none other than the camper. Sure, the camper is useful if they’re on your team and the gametype happens to be about kills, although it’s not the most “noble” way to win. But if the camper is on the other team? Then they’re a problem, especially if the gametype has nothing to do with kills.
The troll
The troll’s sole purpose is to get a reaction out of other players, and they’ll use a variety of tactics to accomplish this. A popular one, for example, is to pop into a game and only use a soundboard of a popular character to communicate with others. If the game lets you customise your appearance, chances are that the troll likes to roll with the most flamboyant, eye-catching loadout, like pink or rainbow outfit. And you’d best believe they won’t let you forget they’re dressed like that — often, they’ll chase after your corpse and teabag you because it’s supposed to be super humiliating or something. None of these are as bad as the troll who loves team-killing, though. These trolls can sabotage your entire match, rather than just providing a passing annoyance.
To their credit, even at their most stupid and juvenile, the troll is sometimes good for a quick laugh (if you aren’t the target). Observe:
This is far from an extensive list of unsavory characters you’ll find in online games, of course — so if you have any of your own to add, feel free to comment with more. God knows there’s no shortage of awful people online!
Top image via the Team Fortress Wiki.
The Multiplayer is a weekly column that looks at how people crash into each other while playing games. It runs every Monday at 6PM ET.
Comments
28 responses to “Seven Types Of People You Never Want On Your Team”
Lone Wolf here….. because of the other 6 types….
EDIT: ESPECIALLY in Chivalry…. My god if I get decapitated by another team mate derping in with a vanguard and a broadsword while 50% of my team unsuccessfully try to crossbow/longbow to an objective…. I go all Phoenix Wright bad guy….
Its funny because on my tf2 server last night some of us were team killing and we all had a similar discussion…..
‘TF2’ ‘team killing’… You guys would have had to turn that on; it’s off by default, and for good reason – spychecking would be nigh-impossible otherwise.
+1
Which would be a good thing. Spy checking is the silliest thing ever.
Yes and no. It makes it harder but collisions still exist. So not impossible 😛
And yeah thers nothing worse then that lone wolf vangaurd in mass effect 3, he steals all your kills and then your left saving him.constantly.
I’m surprised that the BOOSTER didn’t make it on the list. Those glorious players that deliberately split up so that the can be deliberately shot by their friends to improve one players score / KD etc to get specific rewards, badges, emblems or in BOII the high scorestreaks.
THIS!
We usually made a side mission to hunt those guys
I go in and out of TF2 and try to play fairly evenly across the classes but I must admit to having a soft spot for snipering. I thought there was a limit per side of players in each class though? Either way I rarely see more than 3 or 4 snipers at one time on each side and people usually change quickly once they realise the match is going nowhere.
Only if it’s enabled by the server mods. I’ve been on (non-serious) servers where the entire team has been playing as spy.
the reson for that would be “(non-serious) servers”
PUG’s and pub matches, tend to be better controlled, if you are keen to play more seriously try to find a 6v6 or highlander server.
I end up lone wolfing the objective in battlefield all the time. So often I’m the highest points in the game with barely any kills, while the lone wolf KD’ers have a shit tonne of kills and are only half way up the leaderboard.
I’m with you, man. To me, a win is better than a kill, so I will sneak around the battle to wreak havoc in the backfield to win a match rather than die for glory.
Considering I’m usually stuck playing 24/7 Metro 2000 tickets Melbourne, I mostly play Medic. Same deal, little kills high scores.
I’m a lone wolf in BF3 mainly because the squad/team are more concerned with sitting on a hill or in a bottleneck and taking pot shots, rather than flanking the other team or going for the objectives. More often then not I’ll be the top scorer for our team, if not MVP1.
In TF2 I hate the TRADER. That person who is more worried about swapping items rather than playing the game.
“Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey! HEY! HEY. Accept my trade request, bro. Trade with me. That shit you’re wearing – I want it. Trade with me bro. Hey. Hey. Accept it. Accept, beyotch. Come on. Don’t be a d-bag. Hey. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY. HEY. Trade. Trade with me bro. Trade! Just do it already, JESUS.”
I know the feelimg i only JUST got a botkiller scatter gun and got spammed with them.
And then they treat you like you’re the jerk for not giving them what they want, and just wanting to be left alone.
“In TF2 I hate the TRADER”
Agree, thats why they have trade servers. But if you are on 2fort-instaspawn-24hr server or something similar you can’t really complain.
Lone-wolfing in TF2 seems like the only way to get a win half the time in CTF. It seems like players don’t realise that the goal in Capture the Flag is to, uhh, capture the flag.
All on all snipers is brilliant fun if you can handle the class with reasonable skill.
TF2 has been pretty good to me with players. I’ve mostly been on the games.on.net servers, and the GamersUN servers (though their ads are frustrating..), which tend to have fewer cheaters or exploiters.
You still find the lone-wolf scouts, the sniper-exclusives, and the powergaming demomen with 10,000 kills per weapon, but it’s still got a better community on those servers than any other I’ve played.
On TF2 open servers games I normally try to fill a requirement.
Heavy or two, I go medic.
Needs offense, Soldier, Demo or Pyro.
Needs defense, Engineer, Demo or Pyro.
No Hit and Run, scout.
I’m terrible at Spy and Sniper and rarely choose those classes.
With regards to the “Lone Wolf” I am reminded of a quote from Wendell Sailor
“There is no I in team, but there are 5 in INDIVIDUAL BRILLIANCE”
Lone wolfing the objective is a great way to MVP in BF3. Do it all the time.
And as I’m terrible with sniper rifles – I prefer to use the recon class as either SOFLAM/motion sensor support/spawn beacon support. Running around with SMGs you can rack up a lot of kills.
The Ayn Rand reference is lost on an Australian audience……
Government doesn’t like our school curriculum exposing us to objective thought and ideas which question the status quo….
Rand’s philosophy is nothing more but childish selfishness. Why would any school bother teaching that? Almost all teenagers already go through a stage where they believed they’re god’s gift to the planet, know and are entitled to everything. I know I did. It took me years to grow out of that.
It’s shocking that anyone outside of their teens would still think in such a manner.
Geez…. that was not what I was expecting, lol.
I never said I supported Objectivism, nor did I actually mention any opinion one way or the other on anything.
I simply stated that Ayn Rand is obscure in Australia, where many literary works [those of Orwell, Huxley, Rand, Bradbury, Heller, to name a few] are no longer in the curriculum. Works which challenge you to look at the world objectively, even if you don’t necessarily agree with the message.
I mentioned this as it’s in contrast to the US [where the article was written], where such works are still in the curriculum and are thus recognisable in everyday conversation.