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 Dr. Mills wrote:
But you seem to be fixated on me being the problem, while in fact the game was dominated by the same spells and gang builds, in which may not be toxic per se, but it certainly was boring as feth to experience. For a group trying to get more new people to play, they didn't do a very good job of doing nothing more than "use x/y/z as its the best" than grinding them into the dirt with OP builds if you dared to try something more exotic or wacky for fun.

You are the problem here. You joined a competitive group where the other players were perfectly happy playing normal competitive games and you're outraged that they won't sacrifice their own enjoyment of the game to play "wacky" builds like you want to use. That's really toxic entitlement and you should look in the mirror before judging them.

And as for the painting competition, no, I will stand by my words. Wanting advice, I talked to a couple of the commission painters (who I thought at the time were just very good painters who wargame) and honestly, I could had a nicer conversation with a drunk. I asked the best way to flatten transfers on curved surfaces and what gem colour would contrast well on gold armour, quite benign questions but it seemed like a mere pleb like myself was not meant to know such treasured secrets (unless I used YouTube). Yeah, not the best impression so I just stopped entering if that was how they were treating people wanting to improve. I was never envious of their skill, I was more taken aback by the fact they would enter a comp like that and act like they were above others wanting tips on how they did great things when asked.

Ok, that's a very different scenario than what you originally said. Being a condescending ass when people ask question is not ok but your original comment was a complaint that the mere presence of commission painters in the contest was inherently toxic.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Dr. Mills wrote:
But you seem to be fixated on me being the problem, while in fact the game was dominated by the same spells and gang builds, in which may not be toxic per se, but it certainly was boring as feth to experience. For a group trying to get more new people to play, they didn't do a very good job of doing nothing more than "use x/y/z as its the best" than grinding them into the dirt with OP builds if you dared to try something more exotic or wacky for fun.

You are the problem here. You joined a competitive group where the other players were perfectly happy playing normal competitive games and you're outraged that they won't sacrifice their own enjoyment of the game to play "wacky" builds like you want to use. That's really toxic entitlement and you should look in the mirror before judging them.

And as for the painting competition, no, I will stand by my words. Wanting advice, I talked to a couple of the commission painters (who I thought at the time were just very good painters who wargame) and honestly, I could had a nicer conversation with a drunk. I asked the best way to flatten transfers on curved surfaces and what gem colour would contrast well on gold armour, quite benign questions but it seemed like a mere pleb like myself was not meant to know such treasured secrets (unless I used YouTube). Yeah, not the best impression so I just stopped entering if that was how they were treating people wanting to improve. I was never envious of their skill, I was more taken aback by the fact they would enter a comp like that and act like they were above others wanting tips on how they did great things when asked.

Ok, that's a very different scenario than what you originally said. Being a condescending ass when people ask question is not ok but your original comment was a complaint that the mere presence of commission painters in the contest was inherently toxic.

They advertised the game sessions of Frostgrave for new players to come learn and take part in ongoing campaigns, and the people organising it were separate people from the competitive 40k crowd that I had not met and said nothing about being competitive from my communications with them. Unless I'm mistaken, running optimised gangs that will curb stomp other gangs of brand new players who don't know the wombo combos or the tricks like the Veterans did seems a bit naughty to me. I did not want to assume they were just for being in the same FLGS as the comp crowd (and none of them played 40k either.) I quickly realized all of the individual groups were competitive minded, so it was quite difficult to learn any system really unless you were prepared to go comp straight off the bat

Still, it taught me a valuable lesson in asking questions of any new group I plan to play with, to avoid situations like this in future.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Dr. Mills wrote:
Secondly, min/maxing in skirmish games, where the object is not really to min/max (Frostgrave). We had weekly sessions with a few lads who never really experimented or did unusual things, just the same old Elementalist wizard with max treasure hunter/Ranger gangs as possible. Literally you could end up with 4 out of 6 players xasting the same spells on the same turn, just urgh. I mean, I should have said something, but I doubt it would have made much difference (also, the game table was awful barren by choice of them to just make their lists even more obnoxious.)

So you joined a competitive group and, rather than go along with the rest of the group's play style, you decided that competitive play is "not how the game is meant to be played" and now you're complaining that they dared to have fun in a way that you don't enjoy? Sounds like you're the toxic one here.

But, I also ran into toxicity in painting (really) in the form of 'better than thou' attitudes and a lot of the people entering the monthly painting challenges bring commission painters (which I felt was rather cheap) As there was no prize than your mini bring the Facebook groups Background for the next months, I stopped.

Sorry, but this is just plain ridiculous. If you have "too much" skill at painting you're expected to stay out of your local competitions because its "cheap" that your skill lets you win? WTF? Sounds like you're just salty that you couldn't win the supposedly irrelevant prize and envious of their skills. The toxicity problem here is you.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the points he made.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
You are the problem here.

No, you are. You immediately jumped to accusation in favor of trying to understand where he was coming from, you leveled judgement on his entire character on the basis of a few paragraphs with only a framework of context. Even if your point were entirely valid it would still be a toxic way to engage in discussion.

Forget toxic games, how about toxic threads?

I had some "fun" experiences in the gaming club I joined when I started playing tabletop games. I encountered the starter box of Dropzone Commander in a gaming store and was looking for opponents for my first games. This is about a year before 8th edition 40k dropped. Dropzone was fairly balanced so not having a well optimized list wasn't that much of an issue. The real issue with the club was that the members tended to jump games every 3 month. So aside from two other players, nobody played the game I cared for (wasn't too bad, I was allowed to use other people's armies in some instances). I wouldn't call it Toxic but it was a little annoying to find out that the regular opponents had shifted gears again. I didn't have the budget to keep up, and most games didn't interested me. Some club members became quite condescending to players not willing to keep up with the trend, though. Luckily one regular opponents turned into a good friend so we shifted to playing Dropzone at home.
Some years later, kill Team based on 8th edition was released and it was the big hype in the club. I liked kill Team but quickly learned that there were two groups of people in the club playing kill Team very differently. In this edition of kill Team, each player has a roster of 20 models from which up to 100 points worth of models were chosen after mission setup, allowing some tailoring to react to the opponents faction as well as the mission.
The first group completely ignored this and created perfect 100 points teams with no wiggle room. The second group used the roster of 20 models and heavily tailored according to mission and opponent. I don't think I have to explain that this stuff not go over well between the two groups. Especially as the intention of the roster in kill Team was very specific about tailoring to the scenario and opponent to prevent one sided games.
So year, TLDR:
Condescending players not understanding that a new game hyped in the club wasn't interesting/affordable.
Misunderstood rules/intentions creating a toxic environment around a game.

Brickfix wrote:
The real issue with the club was that the members tended to jump games every 3 month.

Unless you join a *insert game here* club, that is just how games clubs are. Have you seen many of our game collections...

Yeah I figured that this was pretty normal, I just found the behavior of some members around it pretty ... Interesting.
I might be a bit different because I hyperfocus on very few games. That said I'm open to new stuff as long as it involves sci-fi elements.

Cyel wrote:
MTG? Don't know what it looks like where you live, but here, the stereotype is of a guy who preys on younger players who don't know value of the cards by proposing unfavourable trades they are to shy to refuse.

I guess the predatory business model of the game itself (I had a laugh when a few years ago many countries' authorities put legislation against random loot boxes in video games, when MTG has been doing it for decades ) lends to it attracting people who are not really into perfecting skills at the game. P2W, brag, that's the stereotypical MO.

When I was living at Fort Campbell, at the time the ONLY "shop" where one could play warhams on a friday night was a card shop that hosted Friday Night Magic.

Hoooo Leeeee Feth, talk about toxic. 75% of the MTG players hadn't bathed in about a month, and usually you felt like you needed 2 showers as soon as you got home to get rid of the stink.

Ohh, not /that/ kind of toxic game


Using my own friend/former-gaming group as a reference point, I kind of see what OP is after. . . We had a friend who, when playing 40k or AOS, or even DnD was great. But he single-handedly ruined warmahordes for the group. That whole Page 5 thing reared its head in the most ugly way for the group.

And everything I've seen/read/heard about for games like Fortnite, new CoD and the like. . . yeah, there seems to be a lot of toxic behavior/toxicity in those communities. But, I don't play any competitive games online, so I cannot say I've experienced this myself. (well, I haven't since Battlefield 1, but I just played rando maps, and the amount of raging types in that game seemed lower, at least at the times of day I was playing). . But I suppose that in the case of CoD, that isn't so much necessarily a toxic game, but rather an expression of deeper symptoms

 Vulcan wrote:
I generally find it has nothing to do with the game, or type of game. It's the type of people playing the game.

This but there's also IMO something to be said for certain games or design 'questions' drawing the worst kind of people, or worst bringing the worst out of people. PVP games with a serious divide between casual and competitive styles of play for example can be insanely toxic. Card games can have this especially bad as the kind of decks that constitute the playstyle of a casual 'just having fun with cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player are practically two different games.

I feel anything inherently online is, well, not more likely to be toxic as such, but to lead to encountering Sad Little Edge Lords who take advantage that it’s all anonymous. As with TTG and TCG, that’s not necessarily something inherent to a given game, just a Hazard Of The Hobby.

I’ve encountered it less in TTRPGs, simply because the players tend to be hand picked, rather than a set of random participants from the locally available pool. But even there, you can end up with a player not necessarily toxic, but not exactly in-step with the other players.

For instance, the three partaking in my Vampire chronicle are well into the atmosphere I’ve created, so all is well. If a hypothetical 4th player specced purely into Combat, and insisted on picking fights wherever possible? With the other three not been specced to combat, preferring to think their way out, then whilst there’s nothing inherently wrong in running the tanky combat character, the desire of one player affects the enjoyment of the others, and could even lead to character deaths.

Still tempted to see if Chaos Cards will let me run a parallel session, as I do enjoy Storytelling, and seem to have a knack for it.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
I generally find it has nothing to do with the game, or type of game. It's the type of people playing the game.

This but there's also IMO something to be said for certain games or design 'questions' drawing the worst kind of people, or worst bringing the worst out of people. PVP games with a serious divide between casual and competitive styles of play for example can be insanely toxic. Card games can have this especially bad as the kind of decks that constitute the playstyle of a casual 'just having fun with cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player are practically two different games.

I find that any game where there's a sharp divide in skill can create such a situation and that sometimes even very basic games without the intentional design element can create that effect. The issue then is less of a thing the game created and more simply the fact that two players have very different skill levels.

I know I earlier said its people not games, but I was more thinking only of real world games, for digital....

I would say that many MMO games (esp moba style games) do encourage a type of gaming you don't typically get in the real world as often, which is target play.
That is the game encourages you to hit certain targets each day for your daily reward and grinding. Even if the game hasn't got time-attack features, this element of grind means that a lot of people playing want to win as best and quickly as possible to jump into as many games in a period of time to grind up as much as they can. This creates a very stressful situation and mentality for a lot of people. Throw in random teams; throw in almost no team plan; no team structure (no one and everyone is in charge) and then random skill pairing and you've a hotbed of conditions that can create toxicity.
You're stressing people out, putting them on edge and then pairing them up in a team setup that heavily rewards selfish personal play over team play. Add in the fact that the game encourages advance even if you lose, so you can have very unskilled players still ranking high enough to play with the mid-range

Not to mention for those of us with full time jobs and other non-work related commitments, we can be rapidly out skilled by the more, shall we call them time fortunate, making it just not a lot of fun.

I’m tempted by the new Ghostbusters game, as I know enough PS5 owners to get a nice wee group going. But….none of us really have the time to Git Gud Scrub, so we’re super wary of spending damn good money on it just to get our collective arses kicked.

Yep that's very true, if you don't have time to "Git Gud" plus a lot of these games have regularly shifting balance metas so when you learn how to get good you can suddenly find that the tactics and ideas you've got are outdated as everything shifts and changes.

A lot of good points being made and discussion had here, IMO.

I'll toss in that the US in particular has some very ubiquitous and very strong cultural threads which create a tendency toward toxic behavior. It goes beyond simple competitiveness into a trend of soft-defining an individual's worth based on their ability to win (particularly for men). There are innumerable subtle implications that only people who win are worth something, and that there needs to be some sort of competition to sort out rankings so it can be known who is best.

I mean we are the country* that quite literally gives individuals a number (credit score) to represent their worth. It isn't even optional; everyone gets it whether they want it or not. While not directly relevant to gaming it speaks to a mindset that not only CAN people be evaluated based on numerical rank, but that such is a critical feature which NEEDS to be enforced.

*Obviously credit scores aren't unique to the US, but as far as I have been able to tell (correct me if I'm wrong) the US takes it to a completely different order of magnitude.

My impression is the US Credit Score has more impact because the US has much bigger push toward people living in debt. Ergo hire purchase, loans, etc... All of which mean your credit score comes into play.

 Overread wrote:
Yep that's very true, if you don't have time to "Git Gud" plus a lot of these games have regularly shifting balance metas so when you learn how to get good you can suddenly find that the tactics and ideas you've got are outdated as everything shifts and changes.

Yeah, and for other readers I should stress I’m not accusing anyone with the time to Git Gud as toxic. But when it’s some teenage scrote kicking my butt, and confusing offensive remarks are witty trash talk, it’s just not gonna be my bag, and I’ll find something better to do with my time.

Overread wrote:I find that any game where there's a sharp divide in skill can create such a situation and that sometimes even very basic games without the intentional design element can create that effect. The issue then is less of a thing the game created and more simply the fact that two players have very different skill levels.

Yeah. Why I choose to call it a design question rather than a flw.

In a lot of ways, the game's that tend to do the best and reach the widest audience have certain qualities that are hard to qualify. Take Pokemon games for one. The video games have very simple mechanics, but there's a breadth to them that has created a competitive environment that is quite accessible for a casual game. Much of that complexity comes from player choices about the game rather than the game itself. Compare to Magic, where things are a bit more straightforward in terms of many players (myself included) love the idea of monsters bashing monsters, but competitive play is more often about initiating card interactions that win rapidly, a style of play that wins well but negates combat more casual players like about the game.

Sometimes, these design issues aren't even choices at all.

They're byproducts of the style of game and the way people choose to play it.

That is the game encourages you to hit certain targets each day for your daily reward and grinding.

For sure.

Sandbox games where what you do is more open-ended and how you 'win' is more defined by the player are not common anymore. One of the few standouts is EVE and EVE is a very competitive and cutthroat game past a certain point.

This creates a very stressful situation and mentality for a lot of people.

Agreed and I find this to be a serious problem with online games. It's ironic too, because developers could probably afford to tone down or design how many of these systems work, but they often find themselves catering to a hardcore crowd who does nothing but game and heavily defines the conversations around the games we all play. The more time has gone on the more I wonder if that's not an enforced error. People who chew through a game's content and are often used as an excuse for how that content is gated and arranged I think should be ignored from the developer side of things. They're not typical players and systems designed to try and slow down their ability to eat through a game in rapid order are often some of the most frustrating, and toxicity-inducing, aspects of modern games.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Not to mention for those of us with full time jobs

Yeah. Compared to how I thought about this as a high school or college kid, I look at a lot of games and groan at the sheer unadulterated time investment they take. Even very casual games almost become a second job just to progress. And I like grinding! I'll grind away at a game for hours if I'm having fun with no complaint, but then there are aspects of these games that can be poorly explained, mechanically complex, or force me to work with donkey-caves who hurl insults at you for not having 16 hours a day to throw at the game and it really makes the environment worse.

It's even worse when *glares at Destiny 2* the game seems rather blatantly designed for those people and not for someone like me who just wants to kill a few hours having laughs with friends.

I think this is partially to blame for the rise of more casual smaller package games. Stuff like Phasmaphobia, which is very simple in every aspect but very fun and something you can just screw around in for an hour or two with no issue.

I have never played a game of monopoly with a family member or friend, and liked that person after the game was over. Monopoly makes people turn into their polar opposites.

Monopoly is loads of fun!

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
I generally find it has nothing to do with the game, or type of game. It's the type of people playing the game.

This but there's also IMO something to be said for certain games or design 'questions' drawing the worst kind of people, or worst bringing the worst out of people. PVP games with a serious divide between casual and competitive styles of play for example can be insanely toxic. Card games can have this especially bad as the kind of decks that constitute the playstyle of a casual 'just having fun with cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player are practically two different games.

But even there, you made exactly the same point I did. That it was the difference between the "casual 'just having fun with the cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player".

 Overread wrote:
Monopoly is loads of fun!

Monopoly is fun when people actually read and play by the rules. Which is about 1% of the people that have ever played.

 Vulcan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
I generally find it has nothing to do with the game, or type of game. It's the type of people playing the game.

This but there's also IMO something to be said for certain games or design 'questions' drawing the worst kind of people, or worst bringing the worst out of people. PVP games with a serious divide between casual and competitive styles of play for example can be insanely toxic. Card games can have this especially bad as the kind of decks that constitute the playstyle of a casual 'just having fun with cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player are practically two different games.

But even there, you made exactly the same point I did. That it was the difference between the "casual 'just having fun with the cards' player and a competitive all-out-to-win player".

Neither approach is in itself toxic. Rather, toxicity and poor behaviour when someone decides their approach should be followed by everyone, regardless of where on the casual-professional player spectrum they land.

For instance, someone demanding every single game every single opponent plays against them must adhere to the House rules of whichever tournament they’re practising for. Seeking tournament practice is of course fine. But when either party demands their preference takes precedence, it becomes problematic.

Hence my advice to anyone running a GW or FLGS to be wary of allowing Customers to dictate policy, as it can rapidly become an unwelcoming environment. By all means balance that against the ultimately more important need to fill your till, but never lose sight of the simple fact it’s your store, and your word is law, not that (lazy stereotype for effect alert) Neckbeard over there, no matter how overpowering their stench. And with seven days in the week, you can absolutely dedicate different days to different games and play styles. Just….keep to it and police that fairly rigorously.

I think it's an issue though when games fail to properly segregate styles of play.

This is something I've noticed when you compare Magic TCG to Yugioh. Magic has largely adopted the loose notion of power tiers in deck design and, especially in Elder Dragon/Commander circles, it's become proper that everyone play a deck in roughly the same sphere. No bringing your hyper-competitive turbo combo deck in to a match where everyone is running clunkier 'just for fun' decks. It's looked down on as quite rude and poor sportsmanship (milage may vary based on local but I've seen this in several different regions now and it's widely discussed online). This is helped by Magic's design to be fair, as less powerful decks can still have cool interactions they hinge on so people from across the spectrum can find decks they enjoy playing at multiple tiers of play.

Yugioh on the other hand has not done this so you get people playing their nostalgic anime-inspired decks versus actually competitive Yugioh decks that turbo out four boss monsters in a single turn off a 1 card combo and that creates an incredibly toxic play environment. It doesn't help that Yugioh kind of has a screwed card economy dynamic, but the difference between casual and competitive play is massive and the player base has largely developed no culture of separating styles of play.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Monopoly is loads of fun!

Monopoly is fun when people actually read and play by the rules. Which is about 1% of the people that have ever played.

It really isn’t. The whole point of the game is to be frustrating and inform the players of the evils of the landlord economy.

Some of the worst games were played against hardcore rulebook lawyers who turned into hardcore sociopaths the moment dice hit the board.

I never saw that sort of behaviour when playing Monopoly - although I last played it about 25 years ago as a teenager. Usually we just got bored and gave up.

The house rules thing does have a grain of truth to it - they tend to keep money circulating (i.e. fines into Free Parking, or our habit of forgetting to auction off unpurchased properties), which drags the game out longer.

I've been lucky, I think, to avoid the worst behaviours being discussed here. The worst I've had is the mismatch between what I wanted and what the local community as a whole wanted when it came to Warmachine and X-Wing. I got a bit sick of being the tournament practice dummy towards the end of Warmachine Mk1 and I've not really payed much attention since.

I've been friends with, and played against, plenty of people who think they're fluffy narrative gamers like me, but really aren't; perfectly decent people to hang out with, but as soon as minis hit the table, it's all sorts of cheesy combos and devious force lists. So I just leave 'em to it, and everyone's happy.

I would say that unfortunately some people are just pricks, plain and simple. There's a good portion of people out there that take a real glee in trying to make someone else suffer. I think online that is down to a lack of true interaction, so if you can actively make someone else suffer emotionally through your actions you have control over their lives. I think trolling in general is a huge part of that. The overarching aspect of it to my mind, is time-wasting. As a troll you're basically goading someone into actively putting a part of their life into dealing with you and thus interacting. You take a conflicting stance because someone will react to it. And that's not limited to games, there's plenty of times on this forum or twitter or whatever where people do the same thing and try to hide it behind "reasoned debate". Yes, you certainly can have interesting debate between two opposing ideas but there is a limit. And it doesn't excuse someone that is inherently an unpleasant person.

I think at the core, people want to be individual and that can lead to them being reactionary. With so many people being online, you suddenly find out that there's thousands or millions of people just like you. So people try to break the mould and be different. Unfortunately, that determination seems to have led some people into all sorts of weird, idiotic stuff. And once they find themselves in that position, it's difficult to break away from it. And then you have groups who actively seek to co-opt that for their own purposes.

I find one thing that's definitely come with age is the ability to say "sod that for a lark" and do something else. There's zero reason to interact and waste your finite moments in this world with some little prat who is desperate for attention that they can't get otherwise in their own life.

For instance, I still play FPS games but I'm much more willing to simply quit out once I reach a point where it's just not fun.

People complain about balance in games but I do not put the blame on developers for that. It's down to players to say "hey that's overpowered" let's not use it. As @LordofHats says, if a community comes together and more or less self polices their community then it has benefit. The Mordheim community is much the same.

So often the worst attitudes I’ve seen around games are when you get a situation or fans of one game being vs it’s competition. The way the Pathfinder players would hang out and tell people how terrible D&D was. The attitude of Warmachine players vs Games Workshop, right down to referring to it as the Game That Shall Not Be Named on their forums. And then the way Guild Ball in turned treated Warmachine. And of course not just gamers, some of the Marvel vs DC and vice versa I hear is just as bad. The human nature of tribalism and needing their choices and preferences to be the only correct one.

 AduroT wrote:
So often the worst attitudes I’ve seen around games are when you get a situation or fans of one game being vs it’s competition. The way the Pathfinder players would hang out and tell people how terrible D&D was. The attitude of Warmachine players vs Games Workshop, right down to referring to it as the Game That Shall Not Be Named on their forums. And then the way Guild Ball in turned treated Warmachine. And of course not just gamers, some of the Marvel vs DC and vice versa I hear is just as bad. The human nature of tribalism and needing their choices and preferences to be the only correct one.

Sunk cost fallacy is the worst. I fundamentally get it. People get legitimately burned. They don't have the funds to invest in multiple games, spend what they have on one and end up with no one to play with. It stings hard and leads people to demand undo loyalty to the choices they're locked into. Locally, I started pushing a culture more centered around playing anything built around a group of players that play a bunch of different systems so that if someone is limited in what they can play, there's usually someone who can cover as an opponent.

 LordofHats wrote:
It's even worse when *glares at Destiny 2* the game seems rather blatantly designed for those people and not for someone like me who just wants to kill a few hours having laughs with friends.

Been playing Destiny since D1 launch and at this point I waive people away from it. The shear grind for things has only gotten worse over the years. Exotic weapon catalysts* are a great example of the grind plus the FOMO. Each seasonal exotic has a quest to unlock the catalyst that included a crazy amount of grinding such as 200 kills and 200 strikes/crucible/gambit, and that just unlocks it after which you have to get 500 kills with the weapon to actually upgrade. Of course if you bought the season pass there is a seasonal boost that gives you 4 times the progress but that is only for that season. If you come in later you need to do everything for previous weapons with no boost and if you don't have the season pass you also have to do the full amount. I believe one of them required 400 strikes from the vanguard playlist. Now you also have weapon crafting which requires a whole different set of grinding to just unlock the pattern to be able to craft the weapon th3n you have to grind it to level it up to give the perks you want. For your light level you have to get pinnacle drops each week once you hit the soft level cap to go higher. This season the soft cap is 1560 so once you hit that there are limited number of ways to get items that are 1 (if lucky 2) points higher and you need to get 1561 in all slots to start working toward 1562, and so on until 1570. Oh, and new exotic armors can only be gotten by soloing high level difficult content and is not a guaranteed drop for the run.

What I am saying is that unless you want a second job it is very time and new player unfriendly.



*an exotic weapon catalyst modifies an exotic weapon. Sometimes it doesn't make a huge difference but for some it makes the weapon radically better. Trinity Ghoul, an arc combat bow, becomes charged if you get a kill with arc abilities and will chain lightning when it kills something. With the catalyst any arc damage from any source will charge it with chain lightning. It is all lightning all the time.