Every shooter fan could spend hours complaining about teammates they encounter in their games. Whether on PS5, Steam, or Xbox – you keep meeting the same annoying players. MeinMMO author Marko Jevtic tells you which 5 online shooter players he finds the worst.
No matter if it’s on Discord with friends or in the in-game voice chat with complete strangers – communication with teammates in shooters always pushes my limits.
Almost every popular shooter on the market puts you in a team. Together, you should devise strategies, support each other, and win. Team play is highly valued, from battle royales like CoD Warzone and Apex Legends to classic shooters like CoD Vanguard or Halo.
But in reality, things are usually quite different from the promotional trailers that marketing companies always come up with. Instead of coordinated team play, there are wild lone wolves, and where strategies should be discussed, curses are flown.
Therefore, I’m revealing to you the 5 types of shooter players who drive me completely insane. These people always make me want to turn the sound all the way down – or spend the evening with a book in bed instead of being frustrated in front of the PS5 or the PC.
1. The Rager
The Rager is the prototype of the bad teammate – the one and only original. Regardless of whether things are going well or not, the Rager screams, whines, complains, and blames everyone else. The insults are never creative or funny, but always below the belt.
Those who have the Rager on their team know that the mood is always miserable. A weapon that was unbelievably OP and bullshit yesterday is today a useless piece of crap – just when it’s in his hands.
Because the Rager himself can never just be bad or have a bad day. Everything is a conspiracy against him. Whether it’s the weapon balancing, the team members, or the opponents – who are always filthy lagging cheaters, of course.
And so the Rager runs off alone, ignoring all objectives from the game mode and dying over and over again in the same way. You lose more games; he loses even more control, and it becomes increasingly noticeable.
Here, even a Snickers won’t help, only the off button.
2. The Wanna-be-Pro
The Wanna-be-Pro is somewhat of a more demanding, refined evolution of the Rager. He also screams a lot and is never satisfied, but he approaches the matter with more finesse.
Every game situation needs a strategy, every little thing requires the exact right reaction, and if a teammate doesn’t play absolutely perfectly and ESL-worthy, there’s trouble.
There’s no fun with this team member, every match is as important as a pro league final. You can’t blame these players for not pouring enough passion into it or ignoring the tasks in the game.
But when every round of Team Deathmatch in Call of Duty feels like a military boot camp, teammates quickly lose the fun of the game itself.
Speaking of the military…
3. The Military Roleplayer
Realistically animated shooters like Escape from Tarkov, Insurgency, or even Battlefield attract these players like moths to a flame: the Military Roleplayers.
These people insist on clear hierarchies, want to be addressed formally, and call enemies “Tango”. Instead of saying “yes”, you say “roger that”. They themselves are always naturally Sergeant or Colonel – because why should one roleplay as an ordinary, interchangeable soldier?
This happens when someone wants to watch Full Metal Jacket and falls asleep after about half an hour. They now want to be exactly like the boot camp instructor from the movie in every minute of the game.
Unfortunately, these folks don’t realize that this character in Full Metal Jacket is an unbearable villain. But it’s better not to show them what happens to the drill sergeant in the film. They have too much fun barking orders, calling people “maggots”, and generally setting a rough tone.
4. The Chatterbox
The beauty of multiplayer games is that you can play them with friends and even meet new friends in matches. Small talk is part of it and can be fun. But some people take it too far.
It’s an intense situation in the match, it’s the last and crucial fight in the match. Every sound of footsteps can be important and lead to a hard-earned victory, but you don’t hear it. Because the random teammate is casually telling you in the voice chat about his walk in the park, where he saw a cute dog.
You’re desperately shouting in the chat for a healer to patch you up, but your supports are distracted. They’re only hearing the description of a wagging tail and the infinitely adorable picking up of a stick that’s at least three times as big as the dog itself!
An enemy soldier sprints into your hiding spot, you’re being asked, the whole enemy team teabags you, a big red “Lost” lights up from the screen into your eyes. Meanwhile, in the voice chat, they casually tally how many treats there were. You still manage a smile. That dog does sound incredibly cute.
5. The Microphone Abuser
A popular category on Twitch is ASMR. Here, people whisper into their microphones in a soft voice or let objects rustle a bit to calm listeners with pleasant sounds.
But in my shooters, there’s no such people. Instead, I hear gamers who apparently abuse a radioactively contaminated Pringles can as a microphone.
If you want to be such a nuisance yourself, you can do it in 5 very easy steps:
- Find the cheapest microphone in the world.
- Set it so sensitively that it can pick up the fly on the other side of the street.
- Position the microphone directly in front of your mouth and nose, as if it were an FFP2 mask.
- Keep the voice chat always active.
- Breathe like Darth Vader and talk as loud as you can.
Voila! Every word you say now sounds like an exploding atomic bomb on the eardrum of your teammates. You get bonus points if you also have a really loud keyboard, sit on a squeaky chair, and have the worst nu-metal from the early 2000s playing in the background.
But even if you are a kind-hearted soul who only talks about the nicest and smartest things in the world – everyone will hate you, and I will mute you immediately.
These are the 5 most annoying teammates in shooters for me. Do you agree with this list and the descriptions? Do you have another category that drives you crazy? Or do you even recognize yourself in one of these descriptions? Let us know in the comments.
If you’re still looking for more shooters where you can meet these people, we have an overview for you here:
The 15 best multiplayer shooters of 2022 for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox
