Source
r/gamingsuggestions•
TheWomp

Alone and depressed: Looking for a game with active and friendly players.

This may be the wrong subreddit for this type of post. If it is, feel free to downvote.

Here's my situation: I used to have a great core group of friends that would game together pretty regularly, and it was amazing. I had to much fun, and have so many awesome memories from those times. We played anything from the Halo games on 360, the Battlefield games, to Diablo and Guild Wars.

Well, eventually everyone moved on from gaming and got married and had kids. For the past few years I've slowly sunken into depression and I think a lot of it has to do with losing my friends to adulthood.

This post is just me reaching out to you all in hopes you can recommend to me some games or some friendly "clans"/"guilds" that might welcome me. I'd like to have some people to game with again. Thank you, and again if this is the wrong place just let me know and downvote this post.

P.S. I am a male, 33 years old, and currently play Xbox One, PC (though my PC is not great), and Switch.

Posted May 3, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

309149
historically_insane•

You're definitely not alone in this. I'm 26 and have been looking for new PC friends. It's really difficult to find people who have casual sensibilities and are non toxic in the modern landscape. It's also been really difficult to get any relationships to stick.

108
scartol•

I'm in the same boat, and I've tried a bunch of remedies for this. Hell, I co-founded a podcast and gaming community in 2009. (We're still active and I love doing the podcast every week.) I've joined communities on Minecraft, Guild Wars, SWTOR, and others. I always have the same problem.

I want to play what I want to play when I want to play it. Years ago I was willing to play whatever my friends were playing; we kinda chose together. Now I'm in a Rocket League mood and I wanna play RL. When I'm ready for something chill, I jump into Minecraft. A friend invites me to RL when I'm playing MC? foh, I'm busy making this smelter.

When we make playdates for CoD or whatever, it's fun. But (A) that's another thing on my schedule, and after work and everything, I like to have an open schedule; and (B) there are so many games now and so many platforms, it's hard to get everybody together on one game. Cross-platform play is helping, but it's not advanced enough.

I wish I had something to suggest, but alas I do not. If you PM me I'll gladly share our gaming community links, in case you wanna join us for the show and the occasional playdate. Good luck to you and u/TheWomp ..

EDIT: There is, for the record, r/Playdate .. could be helpful.

9
Balla_Calla•

I'll be your friend buddy.

6
Woz83•

I’ll be your buddy guy

5
SerratedHumor•

I’ll be your guy pal

3
VorenRedden•

I'll be your pal, Amigo.

At least I can on PC for steam and games.

2
guitarstix•

Table top simulator has been great to me

1
Zehpar•

I’ll be your friend if that counts

1
cloud9167•

I am a casual gamer, hit me up on discord and we can see what games we have in common cloud1661#7774

1
XyberArk•

Haizz same...all my friends have either quit pc gaming, moved to console or stuck with csgo. Pls send friends thank you. Its getting rather lonely here. I was thinking, maybe we could all make a discord server for our lonely ass and start a game together?

1
Oberyn_Martell•

Final Fantasy XIV. Arguably the best MMO right now, with a generally friendly and inviting community. The game is getting a rework soon to make the early-level slog more streamlined.

62
Daeval•

I’ve played a lot of MMOs and never met a community as friendly as that on FFXIV. Pick up groups have all been fantastic and helpful, I’ve never once been nitpicked on rotation or gear choices, even as a tank with no clue what they’re doing. The big city gathering spots are always full of folks doing weird and interesting stuff, and most that I’ve engaged with have been great.

Strong recommendation for this one as well.

24
[deleted]•

[deleted]

8
Darkchaos•

I mean, in FFXIV classes have a real fleshed out rotation instead of about 6-10 abilities after ability pruning in WoW. Summoner for example has 20 just in their standard rotation. Last time I played WoW at about the start of Bfa.... I struggled to fill up 12 slots worth of abilities on most of the classes I played. The combat is slower than WoW... at the start, by around mid-game you'll have plenty to keep you casting, and by endgame you'll always be using some ability. If anyone tells you the combat is slow, they hadn't played past level 50 at best.

8
Scribbinge•

That's the worst part of it though. Level 50 is a whole game's worth of terrible terrible gameplay. I keep hearing how great it is post 50 but god damn, those 50 levels really suck.

I've tried twice and havent made it through once

3
Daeval•

It’s been probably a decade since I played WoW, so it’s hard to make a modern comparison, but in general it feels a lot more free and loose. The game sorta encourages you to do whatever you want. Other stuff...

You can switch classes at will outside of combat situations. They level separately, but if you’ve been playing Warrior and want to give Black Mage a try, you can do that without losing access to things like your mount or your grand company perks. You also get an XP boost based on your highest class, to encourage experimentation.

Gear doesn’t matter AS much outside of the super endgame raids and stuff. In general, as long as you’re wearing something level appropriate, you’ll be fine. This means grinding for specific gear isn’t as big a deal at all.

Crafting is actually kind of fun. There’s a sort of mini game for it that isn’t quite mind blowing, but has some stakes in that the most success means a high quality item with better stats.

Combat is actually kinda interesting? I never could really get into WoW combat but FFXIV adds these telegraphed AoE attacks with visible attack areas that you have to physically move away from, as well as two different kinds of interruptible ability. This was just enough to keep me interested, as it’s much less “stand in place”. You’ll still have combat rotations but there’s at least some interactivity there.

XP comes at a decent rate just doing the main and side quests, and especially if you do the once-per-day leveling dungeon. The game gives you a ton of optional stuff to do.

If you’re being super reductive, you could say they were essentially the same, but I don’t feel that’s an honest representation. Yes, it’s still an MMO and that means certain things, but it doesn’t feel like the same game.

For more comparison, I’d give this one a google, or check out some threads like this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/851nc9/differences_between_wow_and_ffxiv/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_title

4
ohstylo•

The gcd is 2.5 instead of 1.5, but most classes have a good number of off-global skills they weave between. This is what people mean when they say "slower".

There is no build diversity (no perks, talents, etc), but any given FFXIV job has more depth than any given wow class (I haven't played since legion so maybe things have changed, but I doubt it).

Old content is never really retired because most of it gets incorporated into daily roulette queues and the transmog system is fairly robust. The stuff that doesn't can be ran for transmog or drops like rare mounts

3
caseyjonesone•

It doesn't except for minor tweaks here and there.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
Dardlem•

Combat is much slower. You don't have any build diversity at all since there are no skill trees or talents. You don't need to have multiple characters since you can switch classes on the fly.

1
Peauu•

The kindness of the people is almost strange. You just never see it online like that these days.

2
Jkard•

I was gonna say the same thing. The community in FF14 is overwhelmingly friendly and the game itself is great too, imo

12
lostnumber08•

Everyone I’ve met on this game has been really nice. I normally can’t stand weebs but the 14 community is fantastic.

3
MoreLlif3•

Aw lmao let them weebs live they don't harm anyone

12
GoProOnAYoYo•

not everyone who plays XIV is a weeb... some just like it as an MMO

5
ThenThereWasReddit•

When is the rework happening?

2
Oberyn_Martell•

The next patch (5.3), which was expected to be June, but will likely be delayed to July due to COVID-19 impacts to development.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
hritter•

Get Tabletop Simulator and join the TTSClub Discord. Play boardgames with people everywhere.

61
prncsrainbow•

I wish I could upvote this more. I owned a game store for 9 years and sold it back in 2016, but I met my person and so many friends there. Even the ones that have gotten married generally marry awesome people who also like to do awesome things. Since in person gaming isn’t easy right now, this is absolutely the next best thing. The best board games make it fun to play whether you win or lose, so less aggressive people tend to play.

7
hritter•

My heart goes out to OP because this is exactly me. I'm 33. My friends have moved on getting married and moving away. And gaming is my bread and butter keeping me afloat. We used to use TTS when we still kept in touch, now I wanna use it to teach games to people.

2
DiiGiiTAL•

Sounds like an awesome suggestion.

3
Scribbinge•

Really great suggestion. I've never grouped with anyone outside of my circle of friends but every time I log on to set up our weekly gloomhaven game, the little chat box down at the bottom of TTS is absolutely buzzing with people looking for another person for their game, and often people offering to teach others their favourite game. Seems like an amazing community.

2
hritter•

One thing I realized getting into this hobby is that I absolutely love teaching over playing. And TTS allows me to express that more than actually finding people IRL unfortunately. Fortunately.

1
Scribbinge•

I know that feeling! I'm that guy in our group who has the unfortunate task of being "the rules guy" haha! I've sunk gracefully into the role i think :D

Any favourites or tips for games to try on there? I got TTS out of necessity with the pandemic but realized i probably should have already bought it with all the games available on the workshop!

2
hritter•

I would go for the scripted ones on your first game. Clank has a nice scripted version that simulates the Dragon Bag very well without the accounting.

If you'd rather do the work, there's just way too many of them to just play. Trickerion, Feast for Odin, Barenpark. It depends on you.

1
guitarstix•

Yuuuuup I'm a dealer for poker games and the community is awesome.. I've been on pc for a couple years now and have made so many friends on tts and almost none anywhere else

2
ihs2•

Is there a good one for iPhone?

2
hritter•

I'm not an expert on that. Try asking in r/boardgames

1
Kevin1056•

You might enjoy and meet some very fun people in Monster hunter world

25
Mahoganytooth•

I agree with MHW. In 800hrs of play I can't recall a single toxic experience, and I've met quite a few cool people through it

12
Kevin1056•

I'm just 40 hrs in and I'm loving it, everything about it is amazing, the monster design, the weapon animations and the helpful online community too, I'm stuck on Elders Recess rn, I've only played Monster hunter Freedom 2 and 3 before but that was a long time ago

8
IkeaFroggyChair•

what do you play on?

4
Kevin1056•

Xbox

3
baronmatanza•

Yes, this game is super friendly. Beating up giant iguanas together brings the best out people.

3
joeykipp•

I haven't played in ages but ESO (elder scrolls Online) really seemed to have a fun and really nice community if you have lots of time. Ohh and my friend just recommended Warframe it seems pretty fun. :) Stay strong brother

19
InfectedPlace06•

ESO has a kickass community, you can find awesome randoms literally just hanging out around the landscape and with the Greymoor expansion due for release next month it’s likely that the player numbers will increase. Best of luck finding your niche 😊

11
joeykipp•

Yea the community is great, when I was younger I got it for my birthday and was infatuated by becoming a vampire for years but couldn't do it. I posted on Reddit about it and a guy embarked on a faint quest to help me become a vampire. The community is great

3
InfectedPlace06•

That’s awesome! It’s amazing how good some of your online experiences can be 😊

3
TheWompOP•

I have played both in the past. ESO was awesome, but it felt like a single player game filled with real people, none of whom interacted with each other. The few actual interactions I had were mostly with complete douchebags. Maybe I just had poor luck. As for Warframe, I had absolutely no idea if I was doing anything right in that game, lol. It's huge and I was so lost.

7
lexiodactyl•

I’ve put over 300 hours into ESO since quarantine started (I have a problem). It felt singleplayer at first, but once I was at a higher level and joined some guilds, it became a much more social game. As long as you find a good guild, it’s much better.

6
Hamroids•

If you do feel like getting back into ESO (and are on PC), let me know! The guild I'm in is very casual and social, and usually just hang out chatting on discord while playing. I'd be happy to invite you. Absolutely fine if the game isn't your thing, but thought I'd mention it in case!

2
joeykipp•

Yea I'm the same tbh with both of them a little bit. The other games I play are Apex legends, Terraria, Rainbow Six Siege, Division 2, Minecraft if any of them tickle your fancy :)

1
spagett_finder•

Maybe animal crossing? Community should be pretty friendly. Hard to find many pc games that can guarantee that

17
Brock1120•

Holdfast nations at war. This game is 99 times out of 100 filled with great people and you’ll always get hell of a laugh. You can also work on your French accent

13
WarMonkey88•

This is indeed a great game with a lot of funny and silly players. The music periodically blasted by the self-appointed djs is usually pretty good

3
Brock1120•

And the occasional Frenchman. Or people like me who scream so much they lose their voice

2
Mezurashii5•

Deep Rock Galactic is the only non-toxic multiplayer game I've played.

Guns of Icarus was mostly okay, Left 4 Dead 1 was pretty good ages ago. GoI and L4D1 are dead and L4D2 is toxic though.

13
baronmatanza•

ROCK AND STONE, BROTHER!

1
Kneita•

Try Warframe, it's free and incredible, but very complex. You're more than welcome to join a Youtuber's clan that I'm in, we highly value civil discussion and being nice to one another.

​

Warframe may look visually intense, but I assure you it's one of the most well-optimized games out there, you shouldn't have any problems running it.

​

If you need help getting started in the game feel totally free to DM me and I'll teach you all you need to know, as will most other people in the community ♥

9
ArthriticPotato•

Hey there, looking for some friends, came back to Warframe after a couple year hiatus.

What clan are you in?

2
Kneita•

The Trouser Consortium, it's the home clan of youtuber XandyPants. In my honest opinion he's the most logical and reasonable Warframe content creator with a focus on buildcraft and discussion of buildcraft. The way he thinks about things is incredible. Though the community is very small, it's very intimate and friendly, and we'd love to have you ♥ You can DM in-game at LilyPaddington if you ever need any help or advice, and if you wanna be in the clan, we can talk about it more next time you're on, it's really just a matter of making sure you want to be part of it.

2
ArthriticPotato•

Thanks, I'll get in touch!

1
GamingTurtles•

Bro I got An Xbox if you wanna game&chat hmu

8
TheWompOP•

Sweet, what sort of games are you into?

5
GamingTurtles•

Lots of stuff , for easy multiplayer I go for rocket League, for storyline games I go for Witcher 3, Skyrim etc . Recently I bought subnautica and it is awesome!

3
GamingTurtles•

Subnautica I got for pc btw

1
ConjugateTheVerbs•

You can add me too! Message me for gamertag. I'll play anything, i'm a casual.

1
Hamburglar28•

I love this

0
kodaxmax•
  • Guild wars 2 is still pretty well populated for it's age and getting new content as regularly as always.
  • The dark souls (PC) community is always super friendly and veterans actually go out of their way and enjoy co-oping with newbies. Of course in game communication is limited and co-op is more limited the older the game.
  • Warhammer vermintide 2 has a pretty good community. Though you will get the odd person who gets angry at dying in a video game.
  • killing floor

​

It might also be worth looking at tabletop RPGs, which ironically are very easy to play online these days, but can be a bit of a time commitment.

6
nerdscreate•

I'm in the sameish boat. I battle with depression, don't really have any friends to game with (only know 2 friends who are gamers and they both play Xbox, which I don't have), 38 year old bloke (UK) with switch and PC, and am looking for interesting games. Main difference is I have a wife and kids so all my gaming is at night when everyone else is in bed.

I tried destiny 2, but it all felt samey very quickly, so knocked that on the head. I'm now playing ESO. My first ever MMO (got my first PC in 20 years at Christmas).

I'm enjoying it, but at the moment it's more of a single player experience with players who pop up at the same time as me on a quest making life a bit easier. I do try to help out any people I see in a battle too.

Not sure if it'll get more multiplayer as it progresses, but it is fun. I'm sure that you can make it more social by looking to interact with people.

I'm open to playing games with others, so happy to add you if you match the rough sort of time-frames.

Games I tend to play: ESO, Skyrim, no man's sky, can go back to destiny 2 and have a huge amount of others as I slowly catch up on 2 decades of gaming I missed out on!

6
JoyWizard•

Have you ever played Splatoon 2?

I just got it and I’m having a ton of fun! It’s very active right now due to Splatfest, and there is even a free demo to give it a try!

I’m not sure how friendly the player base is because I just started, but it doesn’t seem unfriendly! You could even go on some forums and find a team to play with

5
XBunnyLebowski•

If you play shooting games, I love KillingFloor 2 and would gladly buddy up if you're on! Steam: XBunnyLebowski ^_^ Maybe we have other games in common, too, you can check my library. I'm a hermit and am usually online since, well, I don't have many IRL friends and the ones I *do* have live kinda far away. Hooray for the internet! I'm in the Philly area, am on almost all weekend/usually a bit during weekdays, and the same age as you - Maybe we'd have fun playing together!!

5
RMoCGLD•

If your PC can run Minecraft, it's a very good shout. There are thousands of smaller communities on that game that have servers dedicated for less than 100 people. New ones start everyday and it's always easier to make friends in a smaller group of people than servers with thousands imo.

5
WhiskeyCorridor•

Team Fortress 2

5
AwooRuffArf•

No Man's Sky has a super wholesome player base. There arent traditional clans or guilds due to the nature of the game but that doesn't stop us from organizing our own through Reddit and discord (there's multiplayer/voice through the game). Travel to the Hub and document planets and visit other people's bases. The nerd in you can help chart all the black holes in each Galaxy, which is an impossible task but fun nonetheless. The rp person in you can go for one of the guilds or corporations through NMS Federation. Check out r/NoMansSkyTheGame and the related subreddits for more info as to what you can do!

5
NoLootboxesPlz•

I second Awoo, the game it’s quite therapeutical for me, where you can spend hours immersed, either by yourself or with other interlopers. The community is awesome, people are way more inclined to form colonies, I haven’t personally heard of players griefing of being toxic. It’s just a chill game to enjoy while listening to a podcast or something. I definetly recommend it.

2
AwooRuffArf•

Ahhyou just reminded me that I have to check out that tiny home planet!

1
stoicforyou•

I played Guild Wars and I have Guild Wars 2 and I believe it’s free now. Also World of Warcraft, been looking to get back into an MMO just so dull without someone to grind with

I have a Switch as well but not many games yet, mostly a PC guy, feel free to reach out

4
TheWompOP•

I was considering WoW. I played many years ago before any expansions were out yet.

5
CormacMettbjoll•

I got back into WoW when Classic launched and for a couple of months the community was amazing. Everyone was so excited and happy to have decent WoW again. I quit after a few months because the community became so toxic. Just tons of drama no matter how many guilds I tried and people being assholes in general chat. Wouldn't recommend it if you're wanting a friendly community.

4
stoicforyou•

I’ve been playing PC games for years now, no community is good if you want my opinion, you may get lucky and find some randos and you guys role together for a week or two but it never lasts.

Most online games have a shit community PC wise, Rainbow Six Siege, league of legends, call of duty, idk what others think but MMO players are non existent from what I can tell. I guess WoW is doing okay but I haven’t looked at any numbers.

You hit the nail on the head, the most fun anyone has gaming is with irl friends 90% of the time. I got lucky and I got some good friends who are no life shut ins like me and game, especially since quarantine. If you pick up an MMO let me know, I’ve been itching to get into one but none of my friends wanna do the grind.

I recommend finding a small Twitch community, those are usually the best for interactions. Personally I watch a guy named BitterBits, small variety steamer who gets on at night so I can tune in after work. I can put it on as background noise or participate and chat if I want, makes me feel less lonely I guess.

1
xd-Harvey•

Overwatch, minecraft etc, good communities there

1
kodaxmax•

Tend to have a few to many people who get angry at failure or who enjoy ruing other peoples fun in the case of minecraft.

1
stoicforyou•

Oh yeah Overwatch has some good people if you can find them, still a lot of trolls but that’s every game

1
-im-blinking•

Wow classic is still pretty great, the guild I am in has zero drama, the server im on has very few horrible people. (at least in my experience)

1
Scribbinge•

I'd recommend skipping this expansion, it wont grip you at all compared to the others, although levelling is more streamlined now. Next one looks more promising for endgame stuff.

1
deixi•

Warframe by far! It may be difficult to get into but I loved it so much and the amazing community makes it even greater I've made quite a few friends on there even though I'm not very social myself

4
josepriro•

Destiny 2 has one of the best communities and it is probably the best coop game I have played in my life! You can find a decent clan and meet people. If you want to play feel free to send me a DM

4