They can’t. There is nothing they can realistically do. Players like that will always exist.
EDIT: I see some people suggesting some wild solutions. Let me offer my opinions on them:
Someone suggests allowing players to block other players so they never get matched with them again
This is not healthy for a game with matchmaking to allow players direct control over its matching system like this. In a PvP game this would especially be a problem, but it has problems in PvE games as well. In this situation, meta players would just block other non-meta players, effectively lowering the matching pool to two different queues in a single large pool. In this scenario, it would be more efficient for the matchmaking system to just have two separated queues, which brings me to the next point.
Someone suggests having a toggle for players to pick between basically “Competitve/Meta Only” and “Casual/Social”
This would not be helpful either, because players will ignore these tags. They will queue into Social, and then procede to play like its Competitve. This is already a major problem in basically every other online game on the market. And its also one that realistically cannot be solved because it relies on trusting the player to behave, which is impossible.
Someone suggests to apply a penalty to a player if they have a certain amount of kicks within a short time period
While this is perhaps the best option, it still has its issues. There may be genuine cases where a player is repeatedly matched with disruptive or AFK players and chooses to kick in those cases. Those players should not be penalized. Sure, the number may be statustucally small or even insignificant, but as a PvE game its important that no legitimate player is penalized, or forced to play with disruptive players for fear of being penalized.
Someone likely has suggested or will suggest a system where players can report a player and after a certain amount of reports then the account is flagged/etc.
Mass reporting. Mass reporting is why these kinds of tactics aren’t great.
In the end, gamers can be simplified into two categories: Math Bois and Explorer Bois. Its very difficult for the two to get along because the way they derive fun is opposite to each other.
Math Bois: They like when number get bigger. They will avoid anything that isnt peak optimally efficient. They’re the players that play only meta playstyles because it is the peak, most mathematically efficient way to play. To them, its fun when the numbers are as big as possible and they’re able to abuse and exploit systems in a game to make the numbers bigger. These are the kinds of players to play hundreds of hours in games like League of Legends.
Explorer Bois: They like to explore. Usually, these players will take actions they know are mathematically inefficient, but it might take them to a more interesting location, or they may be able to play a build that is uncommon/new. Sometimes they will purposely avoid meta items or playstyles simply on principle that they are meta. These players tend to not care much at all about numbers, but rather derive fun from trying new things or new ways to play. These are the kinds of players to spend hundreds of hours in games like Skyrim, and will usually have the entire map explored.
Regarding your point on not being able to be matched up against blocked players:
This is not healthy for a game with matchmaking to allow players direct control over its matching system like this. In a PvP game this would especially be a problem, but it has problems in PvE games as well. In this situation, meta players would just block other non-meta players, effectively lowering the matching pool to two different queues in a single large pool. In this scenario, it would be more efficient for the matchmaking system to just have two separated queues, which brings me to the next point.
I would argue the opposite. Vermintide 2 employs this exact thing and it’s been working pretty well - it actually does punish people who get blocked a lot by other people, and if you’re being blocked by a ton of people, there’s probably more than just “skill issue” and “you’re not running meta” going on. You do get sweaty people who block non-sweaty people, yeah, but it’s not hampering the community of the game in the slightest - and that game is waaaaaay smaller in size than something like Helldivers where you can get blocked by a ton of people and still play with other people due to the sheer size of the playerbase.
My response to this is to mention how Xbox Live worked back in the early days of the Xbox 360, which had the Account Reputation System which basically was something similar but worked across multiple games that supported it.
Very skilled players or sweatys were being blocked and reported by a lot of unskilled players or non-sweatys, and because of that their Xbox account reputation was low. This caused very skilled players to have difficulty finding a match in matchmaking games, in some cases still searching for other players for more than two or three hours. Back then blocking a player blocked both their ability to message/invite/etc you as well as blocking them from being able to match with you in online games. The Xbox 360 had a monumental playerbase, especially in games like Halo 3 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Thats why it can still remain a problem. While Helldivers 2 is a PvE cooperative game, there is no reason that skilled players or meta players need to necessarily be so severely punished for playing the game in the way they like to play.
Its an issue where you basically have to create Competitve and Casual queues, and hide them from the players and automatically put them into the right queue based on the way they play the game for a few qualifying matches. The issue with this approach is if a player is inconsistent, or if an account is shared with multiple people, or if a player is a rare case of being a bit in both categories I mentioned previously.
I’m not sure that your two categories of gamers are necessarily mutually exclusive. I’d consider myself somewhere in both of those camps. For instance, I have hundreds of hours logged each on a range of open world games like Skyrim, BotW, WoW etc. but I also love to play incremental games which satisfies my mathy brain. I’m generally a min/maxer and completionist and in RPGs this often means exploring every location, killing every enemy and collecting every item before progressing the main story, so as to be maxed out at all points in time. I’m not a big PvP fan, but when I do engage in PvP I tend to find some balance between whatever the meta is and whatever my personal playstyle ‘feels’ is right.
I just think the game needs to tone down the insanity a just bit so one bad player, or even just two mediocre players, doesn’t spell imminent failure. Or just improve rewards for failures. 40 minutes is a lot of irl time to have completely wasted if you fail. A lot of people just don’t have that kind of time to burn.
They might want to level gate higher difficulty missions. You can pull your own weight not playing meta, I personally don’t play meta and do fine even on 8 and 9 difficulty. It is frustrating when a low level player uses inappropriate orbital/eagle strikes on targets which wastes time or does not know the general size of a strike causing friendly fire. I don’t mind that on lower levels, people got to learn somehow but it sucks when a level 13 eats up all your reinforcement budget then causes an extraction failure because they decided to throw out a danger close 120mm barrage causing the loss of that missions super samples.
They can’t. There is nothing they can realistically do. Players like that will always exist.
EDIT: I see some people suggesting some wild solutions. Let me offer my opinions on them:
This is not healthy for a game with matchmaking to allow players direct control over its matching system like this. In a PvP game this would especially be a problem, but it has problems in PvE games as well. In this situation, meta players would just block other non-meta players, effectively lowering the matching pool to two different queues in a single large pool. In this scenario, it would be more efficient for the matchmaking system to just have two separated queues, which brings me to the next point.
This would not be helpful either, because players will ignore these tags. They will queue into Social, and then procede to play like its Competitve. This is already a major problem in basically every other online game on the market. And its also one that realistically cannot be solved because it relies on trusting the player to behave, which is impossible.
While this is perhaps the best option, it still has its issues. There may be genuine cases where a player is repeatedly matched with disruptive or AFK players and chooses to kick in those cases. Those players should not be penalized. Sure, the number may be statustucally small or even insignificant, but as a PvE game its important that no legitimate player is penalized, or forced to play with disruptive players for fear of being penalized.
Mass reporting. Mass reporting is why these kinds of tactics aren’t great.
In the end, gamers can be simplified into two categories: Math Bois and Explorer Bois. Its very difficult for the two to get along because the way they derive fun is opposite to each other.
Math Bois: They like when number get bigger. They will avoid anything that isnt peak optimally efficient. They’re the players that play only meta playstyles because it is the peak, most mathematically efficient way to play. To them, its fun when the numbers are as big as possible and they’re able to abuse and exploit systems in a game to make the numbers bigger. These are the kinds of players to play hundreds of hours in games like League of Legends.
Explorer Bois: They like to explore. Usually, these players will take actions they know are mathematically inefficient, but it might take them to a more interesting location, or they may be able to play a build that is uncommon/new. Sometimes they will purposely avoid meta items or playstyles simply on principle that they are meta. These players tend to not care much at all about numbers, but rather derive fun from trying new things or new ways to play. These are the kinds of players to spend hundreds of hours in games like Skyrim, and will usually have the entire map explored.
Regarding your point on not being able to be matched up against blocked players:
I would argue the opposite. Vermintide 2 employs this exact thing and it’s been working pretty well - it actually does punish people who get blocked a lot by other people, and if you’re being blocked by a ton of people, there’s probably more than just “skill issue” and “you’re not running meta” going on. You do get sweaty people who block non-sweaty people, yeah, but it’s not hampering the community of the game in the slightest - and that game is waaaaaay smaller in size than something like Helldivers where you can get blocked by a ton of people and still play with other people due to the sheer size of the playerbase.
My response to this is to mention how Xbox Live worked back in the early days of the Xbox 360, which had the Account Reputation System which basically was something similar but worked across multiple games that supported it.
Very skilled players or sweatys were being blocked and reported by a lot of unskilled players or non-sweatys, and because of that their Xbox account reputation was low. This caused very skilled players to have difficulty finding a match in matchmaking games, in some cases still searching for other players for more than two or three hours. Back then blocking a player blocked both their ability to message/invite/etc you as well as blocking them from being able to match with you in online games. The Xbox 360 had a monumental playerbase, especially in games like Halo 3 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Thats why it can still remain a problem. While Helldivers 2 is a PvE cooperative game, there is no reason that skilled players or meta players need to necessarily be so severely punished for playing the game in the way they like to play.
Its an issue where you basically have to create Competitve and Casual queues, and hide them from the players and automatically put them into the right queue based on the way they play the game for a few qualifying matches. The issue with this approach is if a player is inconsistent, or if an account is shared with multiple people, or if a player is a rare case of being a bit in both categories I mentioned previously.
Yeah, I don’t really see the downside to those kind of players walling themselves off
I’m not sure that your two categories of gamers are necessarily mutually exclusive. I’d consider myself somewhere in both of those camps. For instance, I have hundreds of hours logged each on a range of open world games like Skyrim, BotW, WoW etc. but I also love to play incremental games which satisfies my mathy brain. I’m generally a min/maxer and completionist and in RPGs this often means exploring every location, killing every enemy and collecting every item before progressing the main story, so as to be maxed out at all points in time. I’m not a big PvP fan, but when I do engage in PvP I tend to find some balance between whatever the meta is and whatever my personal playstyle ‘feels’ is right.
Yes, it is possible to be a little bit of both. However, in general, most players are in one or the other.
I just think the game needs to tone down the insanity a just bit so one bad player, or even just two mediocre players, doesn’t spell imminent failure. Or just improve rewards for failures. 40 minutes is a lot of irl time to have completely wasted if you fail. A lot of people just don’t have that kind of time to burn.
They might want to level gate higher difficulty missions. You can pull your own weight not playing meta, I personally don’t play meta and do fine even on 8 and 9 difficulty. It is frustrating when a low level player uses inappropriate orbital/eagle strikes on targets which wastes time or does not know the general size of a strike causing friendly fire. I don’t mind that on lower levels, people got to learn somehow but it sucks when a level 13 eats up all your reinforcement budget then causes an extraction failure because they decided to throw out a danger close 120mm barrage causing the loss of that missions super samples.