As I’ve touched on in other pieces on this site, I’ve gotten my first real taste of anonymous online multiplayer with Destiny. The more I play, the more people I come into contact with. And while a large portion of folks are kind and respectful, I’ve begun to see more and more of the other side of that spectrum.

Last week I had an exotic bounty and a portion of it required that I do 25 strikes. The Devil’s Lair strike is easily the fastest, so I did that. Over and over. In doing so, I had a lot of time to notice certain trends.

In over half of those strikes, either one or both of the other people (strikes are three people, including yourself) didn’t participate at all. They stayed back at the beginning, and ended up getting credit for doing the entire strike when they didn’t do a single thing. The other frustrating factor is if there are two or three players, the enemies are exponentially harder. I don’t mind the difficulty, but I do mind people taking advantage. I also found it a little discouraging that it happened more often then not.

Darn.

I also started noticing other players who would shoot me or melee me, often, for no reason. They weren’t trying to show me anything, they weren’t mistaking me for an enemy, they were just being obnoxious.

Yay.

In a match of PvP, the other two folks on my team dropped out and I was literally the only person left playing on my team (only a minute or so into the match). Not only did the opposing team take advantage of this (and I don’t fault them for that part), but they made a repeated display of dancing on my corpse, and worse yet, tea bagging it. Now I’m all for certain types of juvenile humor, but this is something I will never understand. Nor will I understand their need to do this to my character every time they killed me.

Ugh.

The final kick in the ass was when I played through the Vault of Glass yesterday.

Please note, I actually just sighed out loud thinking about it.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Vault of Glass (VOG) is the only raid in Destiny and even on normal mode, it’s no cakewalk. It’s also the only mission-based situation that calls for a six person fireteam. A person I play online with fairly regularly had been trying to assemble a group to attempt it for a while now through the Destiny app. Yesterday, it finally happened.

Of the five others playing, I had played with two before. I had no issue with them and the three of us have been a reliable and efficient team in the past. There was another person who was a bit frustrated with various situations at times (and rightfully so), and I also had no issue with him. It was the other two who made the experience miserable for me.

Before attempting the VOG, I watched a full playthrough on YouTube so I knew what to expect. I felt about as prepared as I could without actually having done it.

I will skip all the boring minutiae of how it ramped up, but it got to a point where these two folks were blaming me for the lack of completion of the final stage of the raid. First it was the gun I was using. Then it was my speed. Then it was something else. And something else. I addressed it, however they kept at it.

Never mind each time the raid failed and we were sent back to the prior checkpoint, on the stat screen, I nearly always had more kills and assists then either of them. Of course that doesn’t mean anything.

I can’t think of a single time, prior to yesterday, that gaming online has made me cry. After I addressed their bossiness and rudeness and nothing changed, I clammed up. I didn’t even want to continue, however I didn’t want to leave the rest of the team high and dry, so I completed it in silence.

It should have been a great moment, finally completing this raid, but all I wanted to do was shut the game off. I know I shouldn’t let random people get to me, but it happened.

I will always admit my shortcomings, and they are many, but I was doing my best, and I was doing well. To be blamed for things not going well in a chaotic raid seems a bit of a stretch.

I know this was just a smattering of the folks out there playing online, but I think we could all benefit from trying to be a bit more respectful of each other. Playing the blame game gets nowhere fast.

I haven’t given up hope entirely on Destiny’s multiplayer aspects. But for a while, I’m going to stick with people I know. Maybe the vibe will be different when I return. Here’s hoping.