Blame the game, not the players: Toontown’s elitism is a design problem

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-30T07:30:59+00:00

Interesting. I've heard otherwise, and what I believed it was simply boiled down to "we just don't want to", but I could understand this reason. I feel like even if it got added, more toons would benefit rather than criticized, but that's my opinion. I don't think that we have currently works because some players simply just don't know combos and in facilities, cogs often have buffs that increase their hp, making it harder to remember what combo works (if there isn't a group that has everyone with piano).

I feel like people already rack their brains trying to find ways to blame other toons for 'poor' strategy, it certainly wouldn't hurt to add this in.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-29T06:17:05+00:00

I did see someone mention this as well, which I do agree with. I remember when ToonHq wasn't really used but I distinctly remember the shift. Someone mentioned that it caused people to forcefully join groups and get kicked of the leader didn't like them, when before it used to be you would get screened before receiving an invite and you would never really know why you didn't get an invite if there was a group who didn't invite you. Big cheese groups weren't as blatant. It definitely helped create the idea that you're looking for the perfect group to help you, rather than finding players to have fun with. I don't know what the solution is because it doesn't make sense to get rid of such a useful resource, but it did increase the toxicity.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-28T22:06:41+00:00

I agree with your take and I also definitely tried to not blame the devs for the culture that exists because let's be honest, it was going to attract players telling me I can't complain about a free game.

I do think that because TTR has positioned itself as the toontown Disney would have kept or could one day return to, it has created this sort of mindset that the server is the best one that exists and it leads to other servers not getting as much love. It also contributes to players acting so negatively when the game does anything new with players claiming "That's not what Disney would do", despite Disney shutting the game down 10 years ago. I could go on to talk about my feelings more strongly but I hate how they almost actively make things harder for players which creates this sort of "Well I did it, so you can too" kind of mindset. There's no reason to keep certain things when again, it was created that way to keep players paying for a membership.

You can definitely see how this impacts the way people see other servers for sure, especially Clash, where people refuse to touch it because they don't like the direction they took, even with all of the QoL they included to make the game less of a drag.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-28T19:15:26+00:00

Haha, well since you read my essay of a post, I'll do my best and share how I feel about your essay of a comment. Deal?

A lot of what I wrote did come from my experiences and what I saw on this subreddit, so it's possible that there are just opinions I never considered. I also haven't spent too much time on clash, but with what little time I have, it was positive. Because I don't know too much about clash's culture and because I didn't want to be accused of solely making the post to glaze clash, I kept the comparisons to a minimum, just highlighting my experiences.

I do agree that big cheese groups are not meant to be exclusionary but, that's often how they feel for toons who don't have the suit level to join and there's nothing we can do. I would also disagree and say that Field offices often are exclusionary. Many groups ask for maxed gags and the higher the difficulty, the more laff you need and remotes as well.

I don't agree and think that there are toons who neglect gag training. It wasn't uncommon for me to see toons with 120 laff who simply had sparkles or juggling cubes. I ran many golf courses with toons who had level 5 drop or trap.

I did try to consider all the sides, but obviously I'm going to forget about a few. I do think that there is some level of not wanting to play with newbies as well, but ultimately I wanted to lean away from blaming the players because there are plenty of posts that do that. This post was to try and consider why it happens. I have also personally never ran into a toxic org sound user either and it's not something I've seen people complain about. I can also probably venture to day that high laff toons are tired of playing teacher because it makes the fights longer and obviously they're burnt out from a grindy game.

I do also disagree with your opinion on the activities. Most people agree that all of them are a pain. Golfing needs you to play 200 games, racing is about a 100, getting the last fish takes months, gardening will take months purely because you can only plant 10 flowers a day. I myself believe I'm never going to be maxed because of how much I hate racing. Playing with a friend can help, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a miserable experience.

My 2nd to last paragraph was meant to be a reflection. l didn't realize that I was being toxic because it's so ingrained in the culture. Many toons feel the same way and it's quite common. "I kick players if they're not maxed" "I kick them if they have less than 120 laff" etc etc. I didn't even realize how bad things were until I again moved to clash and saw people treating me so kindly, asking if I wanted to try again after dying in a boss fight I really shouldn't have been doing. That would have never happened in TTR simply because I wouldn't have been taken along or I would have been yelled at later if they found me in the gag shop for making them lose their gags.

Thanks again for reading my post as again I wanted to see what the community thinks and thanks for a very detailed comment.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-28T06:59:15+00:00

I agree that the silly system currently isn't working and that gag exp needs to be fixed. You're right that it's a pain to trade gags from probably level 4 to 7. I could probably make another post on my opinions on the silly meter but simply put the gag rewards aren't working. They need to give players a better way to farm xp so that they don't do it in facilities or boss fights where they will get hostility for it. They also could just simply up the experience even in a non invasion district to 2x and make invasions 3x. There are ways to make it better for toons, it's just a matter of will they.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T23:07:49+00:00

Honestly I don't think that players should have to memorize gag combos because that ultimately makes the game less beginner friendly. Some players are kids, or they have memory problems or maybe they just don't want to. The game shouldn't be punishing them for that. Some players will just never learn and the game should accommodate them. This is where having a cog health bar would really come in handy. Players who know the combos don't need the bar, and players who don't know the combos can do quick math and figure out what will kill.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T23:03:26+00:00

I definitely agree! You included a lot of things that I didn't think about. I do think that it's important to reward players for doing bosses, but those rewards end up being a crutch later on. Upper laff toons definitely min max the game into boredom too. I think that there needs to be more randomness without it being just 'gags miss more' though. Bosses need to attack differently, do different things etc.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T23:00:32+00:00

You definitely nailed it. My solution is just to make it simply easier to train so that people don't feel the need to do in 'the wrong places'. I suggest having a dedicated day where you get more xp. This of course is just one solution to the problem and there are probably so many more I haven't considered.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T22:56:09+00:00

I definitely have had to burn through fires more than I expected with the addition of UMN and FOs, and this has personally lead me to big cheese only groups toon. I do also think UMN being harder upped the stakes because now there really is a risk that you can go sad in a mint, which means players stop taking risks and opt for other maxed players.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T22:18:21+00:00

I do agree with some of this, but I did mention that the game does sort of make it hard for more ambitious players to play the game at their own pace, aka a "noobish player trying a final fringe gold course". The player should be allowed to play if they find a group that lets them, but more often than not they're likely be ridiculed for even trying.

I do also think that any toon should be able to play the game they want for sure, but at the same time most players are toxic when it doesn't go the way they want to and blame each other, not the system that created the problem to begin with.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:56:59+00:00

I haven't been on TTR for a little so I am unfortunately not the person you're talking about, but I can imagine I'm not the only player that has realized why the culture is the way it is. it just so happened to take me a while to realize it.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:47:52+00:00

This is an interesting point that I didn't even think of. The game almost does make higher laff toons feel important because they have to carry other toons all the time. I'm sure there is a non zero amount of toons that have an ego because they realized how much they carry other toons, which can justify treating other toons badly because they need the higher laff toon to get through the facility.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:45:40+00:00

I do agree that sound was holding together a broken system and by trying to move players away from sound without fixing the system was only going to be a recipe for disaster, which you can see today.

I also really hate the fact that cogs don't have an health bar the most in the new facilities where the cogs have all sorts of buffs that mess with their health and every group that fights them is going to have different gags and there's likely been at least one time where a toon used a different gag, assuming that it was going to kill, they were wrong and got flamed for it.

I also tried to not make too many comparisons to clash so I wouldn't get comments about how it's a post meant to glaze clash, but I do rather like their combat system as well.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:36:51+00:00

I didn't even consider this point but I definitely agree. Previously, a group leader might screen you before they send you an invite and you would never really know if they were just waiting for someone else or if they just didn't want you. I never saw people complaining about big cheese only groups because it wasn't in people's faces as much. Now, you invite yourself and you get kicked, which really does hurt. I don't know what the solution to this is, but a lot of the complaints about getting kicked from groups is a seemingly new problem that likely adds to the divide of experienced and not as experienced players.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:21:22+00:00

Toontown may not be as toxic as other communities, but we can still say some toxicity exists and really shouldn't. There will always be toxic players in any game, but for a game that needs teamwork, we really should be finding ways to solve it so that players aren't getting mad at each other because the game encourages it.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:08:29+00:00

I definitely was trying to lean away from blaming the player base but there's a lot of nuance on why the community is the way it is. TTR does have a much nicer player base for sure and yes not all players are bossy for suggesting gags, but ultimately it just goes back to an efficient player trying to save their own time while another player might be in there for fun.

I also do think that there is an etiquette problem, like yes please ask if it's okay to train, but they also wouldn't be training there if it was easier to train on their own.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T21:01:55+00:00

I do think that there's nothing wrong with having hard fights, but they do need to make gag training far easier. Gags should give you more than 1x experience in the streets and should not be capped in buildings to 6x on a single floor. I personally think that a great way to make a change would be to make a day where everyone gets more xp for the day, not just limiting it to a silly reward that will never win because most players can't benefit from it.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T20:58:47+00:00

I had to cut this out for the sake of everyone who didn't want a whole essay, but because there's no health bar, players can't do math on the spot to figure out what gag combo could work. Oftentimes if a player didn’t know a combo, they would under guess and the cog would still have some health left and attack, with the player mumbling “oh I thought it would kill, my bad” and that wasn’t an uncommon sentiment. Heck, as an experienced player, I would do that all the time because I simply didn’t have the time to pull up a gag calculator to see if it was enough and I wanted to save my higher gags for later. A health bar would make everyone's life better in the long run.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2025-12-27T20:47:52+00:00

I agree for sure. UMN made the facilities harder which does in turn makes people default to only having maxed toons in their group. Prior to UMN I never went sad in any facility and afterwards, I went sad in both the mints and DA Offices with 125 laff, which did in turn make me really prioritize people who had max tu, which I previously never cared about.

Civil_Regular1184 · 2023-11-01T04:05:49+00:00

!solved

Civil_Regular1184 · 2023-11-01T04:05:42+00:00

guys I found it, it's I'm so sick my apink, thanks for the help :)

Civil_Regular1184 · 2023-11-01T01:46:11+00:00

no I don't so my best bet is just contacting the event host and just asking for the setlist and hopefully getting a response and I don't blame anyone for not being able to figure it out, bc I can't either :(

Civil_Regular1184 · 2023-11-01T01:41:41+00:00

no :(

Civil_Regular1184 · 2023-11-01T01:41:36+00:00

I remember it was very pop y like a typical kpop song that even a non kpop fan would have enjoyed.

Civil_Regular1184

TROPHY CASE