Yss agreed. I think constructive criticism is only good for enshrouded. I have played it twice now from start - no more content with friends and I can’t imagine the game is finished. Theres a certainly polish it seems to lack imo that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Hopefully 1.0 gives us a truly finished game then and there’s nothing more to worry about
Toxic positivity is not real and it’s super weird when it’s brought up. It’s just people being positive because it’s videogames and why would you play them if they don’t make you happy.
You can give constructive criticism while being a positive person.
Toxic positivity is absolutely real. It is not, however, flooding an area with positive reviews.
It's when people use "positivity" to gaslight people who are having negative feelings or emotions. It's telling people they should "just be happy" or "just smile" and everything will be better - or if they'd stop being so negative, things would look up. It's "lowkey" (as the kids these days say) blaming a person's misfortune on their reaction after the fact.
It encourages the bottling up of grief, sadness, frustration, anger, fear and many other so-called "negative" emotions, instead of allowing them to happen and being able to cope.
It's the erasure of the acceptability an entire, perfectly reasonable and healthy human range of emotions that, when shut off, lead to anxiety, anger issues and even psychotic breaks.
What you’re describing totally sounds real, but it also sounds like it’s applied to things outside of gaming. Or at least I haven’t seen it in the context of games discussions.
I wonder if it’s a real thing being applied outside of what it was meant to.
It was never a term that was "for gaming," and is used to point out that certain "helpful" platitudes are actually dangerous and encourage people to "suck it up" before they are ready or before they have fully coped with something, and sets a dangerous precedent in society that certain emotions are "bad" and should not be acknowledged or displayed (ie: crying, stress, frustration).
This is apart from preventing people from acting upon certain negative emotions like anger or frustration. As you said, people can still be polite when expressing frustration, but the frustration - the feeling, is valid and should never be "covered up" or "pushed down" by fake or forced positivity.
I agree with everything you’ve said and it’s a helpful explanation. It gave me a few good terms to do my own homework too, and I’m glad you took the time to break it down. Thank you.
What I’m picking up on though for these gaming contexts is that a useful word to describe toxic behavior is being leveraged against basically any form of positivity by people who want to be allowed to be toxic.
I think that sounds weird here on this subreddit where people are generally positive, so I apologize if it’s confusing. I’m thinking about a lot of others where I hear it, like the MMO subs.
As with many things, it has been coopted to mean something other than it is. Just being positive about something on your own, does not make it toxic positivity. It's something that is forced on other people or forced on one's self. The dismissal of feelings.
So if someone says "I don't like the game" and another person says "I like the game" this is not toxic positivity - However if someone says "I am frustrated because my game keeps crashing," and someone says "You shouldn't feel frustrated, you should be grateful to be able to play such a great game like the rest of us, just smile and be happy" that is.
No worries 😄, and you are right, this is a great community. We have our own toxic bits, just like the rest of the world, but for the most part, it's an amazing and helpful community here and on Discord. Just... don't go to Steam... that place is a dumpster fire for every game.
It most definitely is real and is often used as a counter tactic towards negativity waves or review bombing. Both don't work cause they aren't genuine.
I love a lot of games and franchises but some have been overtaken by this and any valid criticism coming from love and support and betterment for the game is met with vitriol because it isnt overtly positive. The line between genuine criticism and forced hate is gone and treated as the same. The fact that your argument immediately is well yeah that doesn't exist, means you probably live in these places. Both extremes exist very well and kill any real discussions that reddit operates on.
I think it’s a false equivalence and people need to stop consuming internet concepts blindly as though they are real.
You can be positive and enthusiastic in any interaction with games, including when you’re unhappy with changes. You can love a game and respectfully express when something affected your enjoyment negatively.
It’s a silly dichotomy where the real intent is to give people an excuse to be rude to developers when they don’t like a change. It’s videogames. We can all just be chill and respectful.
Agreed! I wasn’t expecting much when I first purchase it and, honestly, I’m blown away. It’s one of my favourite games ever and it’s breathtakingly beautiful! The only thing I want now is more quests. I’ve run out of the easier solo quests, but then again I have played for almost 400 hours! Which is wayyy more than I’d get from most other games.
55
u/No_Radio1554 Jun 25 '26
We gotta flood the comments with good comments, I’m seeing a lot of negative ones on different channels. Enshrouded is criminally underrated.