Fans of the Rainbow Six series were relieved when Siege first launched back in 2015. The last entry in the series was released seven years earlier in 2008, and between then and 2015 a game titled Rainbow 6: Patriots was announced and subsequently cancelled. It was a rough couple of years, but thankfully the wait paid off, and Rainbow Six Siege is still going strong four years after its initial release. Unfortunately, while the game itself has only improved with time, the same can’t be said of its online community.
Growing Pains
Back in 2015, the online community was about as friendly as can be expected for a multiplayer shooter. People were, for the most part, supportive of their teammates as they tried to learn about Operator abilities, map layouts, and all the new systems introduced to the series. Of course, you had the occasional troll or angry teammate, but nothing out of the ordinary.
That’s not the case anymore. It’s not uncommon to come across players exhibiting toxic behavior towards others, whether this be constantly exploiting glitches, team killing, or harassing someone who doesn’t know the game as well as they do. It’s bad, even by today’s standards.
Why The Hate?
So what happened? Why has the game’s community grown so toxic? If you ask members of the community, they will give you a dozen different reasons, but the one that comes up the most is this; teammates are more valuable in this game than many others.
They’re right, too. Teammates are critical to your success in this game. Sure, in other FPS titles such as Call of Duty and Battlefield it’s important to have good teammates, but you can still win a match and put up good stats with a team that isn’t composed of all-stars. That’s not the case for Rainbow Six Siege. If you have bad teammates, they will almost certainly impact your performance. Since you only have one life per round, the gameplay is high stakes and every moment counts. Every player counts too, and one bad member of the five-person team can make for a rough couple of rounds. Does your teammate refuse to communicate with you? If so, good luck putting together a plan of action; they’re likely to go at it as a lone wolf, a role that rarely finds success in Siege.
For example, if you and your team plan to move into the objective, but the “lone wolf” decides to play as Fuze and bombard the objective with explosives, they could effectively team-kill your entire squad. If they decide to reinforce a wall that you were going to use as a viewpoint into another room, you’ve now lost out on an advantage against the attackers. Does your teammate not understand how to use their Operative’s gadgets? Then you’re missing out on some serious benefits and only assisting the opponent.
Teammates are important in this game, and players become frustrated when they encounter bad ones that impact their ability to win a round. To make matters worse, there is a massive skill gap between many of the players. Some have been playing for years, while others just picked the game up a week ago. The skill ceiling is incredibly high in Siege, and there’s no such thing as “beginner’s luck” in this game. Unless you know what you’re doing, you aren’t going to do well. The tension between these groups is palpable in some matches, and often creates an unnecessarily hostile environment for newcomers.
What Has Ubisoft Done To Combat This?
To its credit, Ubisoft has done a decent amount to combat negative behaviors in game. The developers have made it very easy to report players who are abusive, but it’s hard to say how effective that has been at curbing the toxicity from spreading. It’s also difficult to monitor in-game behavior, and not many games have had success at fostering a positive online environment. Ubisoft could improve the situation by enhancing the matchmaking process to ensure gamers of similar skill are lumped together, even in the Casual mode. This way, “pro” gamers won’t be annoyed by “bad” players.
However, when it comes to ruining the game by exploiting glitches, a recent ban has been rolled out that took aim directly at abusers. Players who had taken advantage of a bug or glitch more than ten times have been banned from the game.
Rainbow Six Siege is a fantastic game, but it’s plagued by a toxic community. Only time will tell if this trend continues, or if Ubisoft will implement a feature that can put a stop to the hate. In the meantime, everyone should just try to have fun and relax a little. That’s what it’s all about, right?