I’m not a very active member of the community anymore and I haven’t been involved in it for that long, but from what I’ve seen, especially recently, it’s extremely toxic, both in and out of the game. I think that this issue can be boiled down to a few different things, but there are a lot of factors and factors to those factors that make this community so disappointing.
Please don’t make this topic yet another example of how toxic the community is. I don’t want to get a bunch of notifications of people flaming me for having different opinions from them, so please refrain from doing so.
The Platform
Roblox as a platform is unhealthy for the game. If it was on Steam, I would confidently say that the fandom would be less toxic.
Roblox players are a nightmare if you’re trying to make a good game. Look at the most popular games. You’ll end up finding four general categories of games that get any players, which are the Hypercompetitive Games, the Gambling Addiction Games, the Horror Games, and the Roleplay Games. AO doesn’t have any gambling aspects for the most part, it’s definitely not a roleplay game, and it’s not all that scary. That leaves it with only one kind of playerbase, the people who play fighting games. If you didn’t know, AO isn’t a fighting game. Despite what PvPheads will tell you, it’s not supposed to be Blox Fruits or TSB, it’s supposed to be like a Legend of Zelda game. The fact that I can’t think of an example that’s on Roblox should be enough to show that putting AO on Roblox was a terrible choice. But we all know that Vetex did it regardless, and he added PvP to the game to keep it alive. This spawned the next issue, PvPheads.
PvPheads
Edit: I forgot to add my definition for PvPheads earlier, so this is it: PvPheads are players who only focus on PvP to the point that it negatively impacts PvE players. Forgetting to define PvPheads and generalizing the community too much made this topic a lot more toxic, so I’d like to apologize to any non-toxic PvP players who were targeted in this post.
I don’t get involved in Game Discussion at all anymore because every topic is either related to PvP or it spirals into a PvP topic. The PvP community frustrates me to no end because they’re constantly complaining about balancing and forcing half of the updates to be balance changes when the game is barely even finished. I understand some of their complaints, but others are just kinda nitpicky and make updates slower, which tie into the one about Vetex.
PvP is also awful in its current state. Anyone is free to attack anyone as long as there’s no renown shield and both people are above level 50. That means that someone who’s still struggling with Lord Elius could get curb stomped by a level 140 Emperor of the Sea. Hell, even a level 140 who just wants to explore and play peacefully could get jumped by a sweaty metamancer just because they have a decent amount of bounty they naturally got from playing the game. PvP needs to be something that both people agree to. It would decrease toxicity by a lot.
Specifically for toxic PvPers
I want to keep this discussion as civil as possible, but I desperately need to say this. If this offends you, keep it out of this topic and private message me. With that being said: Fuck every single one of you. You are the most unhealthy players for the game by far. You forced Vetex to add and remove features that made the game completely different from what it’s meant to be just because you can only enjoy a game if you’re playing it against other people. If you want a PvP game, go play a PvP game. I’m tired of having to search player lists to see if I’ll get ganked or not, I’m tired of being afraid for my galleons every time I see another ship at whatever island I’m on, I’m tired of you all. I couldn’t care less about PvP, but you’ll be forcing me to do it because you’re obsessed with making the game less fun for casuals.
Vetex himself
(This part is 100% getting me suspended but I have to say it for this discussion. It’s been a good run, I’ll see you guys hopefully in the near future.)
Vetex hasn’t been great for the game. He’s actively harming it in a bunch of ways that he doesn’t realize are bad because he rarely interacts with his players. He’s too ambitious, but he doesn’t have his priorities straight yet. He’s pouring all of his effort into making everything perfect when the features he’s trying to perfect aren’t necessary sometimes. The game didn’t need jewelcrafting, brewing, cooking, or deckhands, but he added them anyway, making updates take way too long. His perfectionism also leaves the community with nothing to do, and communities get toxic when they wait for something for too long. He also refuses to let other people take major roles, especially with coding. He recently said that he doesn’t go outside because he works so much, and (assuming he meant that he was working on the game) that’s probably the reason for it.
If you (Vetex) end up reading this, I want you to know that this isn’t meant to insult you. I understand what it’s like to get nothing done because you want everything to be perfect, and it sucks. But please, if you can take one thing from this post, I want you to take a step back and think about the big picture. You might get perfect updates and complete balance, but the way you’re doing things is hurting both you and the game. We don’t want flawless, massive updates. We want consistent updates that give us something new to do. Focus on the story and exploration. That’s the core of the game. Try to take things one step at a time, too. Again, I’m not judging you or the way you do things, I’m just trying to share what would probably be better for you and the game. If I wrongly assumed anything, feel free to correct me.
I definitely missed some things that made the game end up the way it is right now, but I just want to get this out. I’ll come back to this some other time to add to it and/or quote people who bring up good points, but in the meantime, feel free to give your takes on this.
