Seven Types of People You Never Want On Your Team

The idler

All games should kick people out for not playing, and many do. But there’s always that one person that seems to go AFK long and often enough to be an annoyance, but not enough so that the game actually throws them out. This will happen even if the game has short timers. It’s like they know they’ll get kicked out if they don’t move, but they’re still not able to sit down and play the dang game. You’d think this would mean they’d leave the match, but no. It’s important to stay in it even if you’re not doing much, for some reason!

In TF2, ostensibly this can happen because someone is farming for hats, but most games don’t work like that. Some games do give you some bonuses for winning a match, although I’d think your chances are better if you actually helped out, no? And although more games incorporate a feature that lets you kick people out, it’s usually difficult to do. It has to be, else people would abuse it and just throw folks out of matches willy-nilly. This means the idler is probably not going away anytime soon.

The rager

This person is loud and obnoxious, no matter what the situation. Are they losing? You’ll hear about it. Are they winning? It might be hard to tell, because their joy sounds eerily like angrily frothing at the mouth, but yeah, you’ll hear about that too. It’s kind of impressive, actually, to think about how this person can angrily string together so many swear words, but boy, can they. It doesn’t even have to make sense, either (and it often doesn’t).

The hip-hop star

Some people use This Is My Jam to broadcast what they’re listening to the world. Other people like to get into lobbies and blast their jams on the mic—often loudly enough that, regardless of how amazing the song might be, you can’t actually make anything out. The song is usually a rap or hip hop song, because this means the person can casually rap while it plays. They’re never really good but, bless their hearts, they’ll keep rapping to static gibberish anyway.

The person that takes the game way too seriously

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve got people—like the idler—who don’t take the game seriously enough. But the other end of the spectrum is just as awful, as people who take the game waaaay too seriously can ruin the experience as well. At their most stereotypical, this person seems to be out of touch with reality, often using military terms and ideas to explain everyday things. If that wasn’t intense enough, they’ll insist that you play the game in a very specific way, because really, if they could, they’d be controlling everyone on the map. This person is a bit of a control freak, you see, to the point that they might even rage if you ever finish off one of their kills. You filthy kill-stealer, how dare you steal someone else’s digital points and glory?

The lone wolf

The troll’s sole purpose is to get a reaction out of other players, and they’ll use a variety of tactics to accomplish this. A popular one, for example, is to pop into a game and only use a soundboard of a popular character to communicate with others. If the game lets you customize your appearance, chances are that the troll likes to roll with the most flamboyant, eye-catching loadout, like pink or rainbow outfit. And you’d best believe they won’t let you forget they’re dressed like that—often, they’ll chase after your corpse and teabag you because it’s supposed to be super humiliating or something. None of these are as bad as the troll who loves team-killing, though. These trolls can sabotage your entire match, rather than just providing a passing annoyance.

To their credit, even at their most stupid and juvenile, the troll is sometimes good for a quick laugh (if you aren’t the target). Observe: