How people manage to play and chat online with random people?
This may sound dumb for some of you but I just can't play online, or at least I can't play anything with chat or a very social aspect. That's why I only play tekken on my xbox since that doesn't require socialisation but I have so many games and I feel half of them are worthless now that I finished the campaigns because I don't play them online.
People said "use discord" but that shit is so counter intuitive to use isn't like reddit, that just find a sub and connect. I don't like that you need invitations and that every game is subs inside subs and diverse chats... is too much.
You can play basically the entire game solo if you want. It would take you years to play all the solo material. They have mass battles to take down huge bosses. You can literally join without talking to anyone. As long as you cause at least 1 hit point of damage you get the chest at the end of the battle.
You don't have to do those mass battles (meta events) if you don't want to.
My guild has a discord server but no one is required to use it. You can use the in game text chat if you want. If you want you literally don't even have to talk to anyone.
There are multi players areas, but I just spoke to someone who played for 9 years only doing player vs enemy. He just started player vs player.
If at some point you want to use discord someone will help you, but again no requirement.
Just to get the mount called skyscale (if you wanted to go nuts could be done in a week) I've been working on it for a couple months now. Like I said there is a TON to do in that game.
I don't bother communicating. I just play silently and usually mute the chat if it is toxic. Even games like overwatch worked out ok playing without communicating.
The only time I had a decent experience playing with strangers was when I found specific gaming subs or Discord communities (e.g. casual gaming, gaming dads, etc) and played in a Discord voice channel. This was actually a really good experience in games like Street fighter or Apex legends. I could do dumb shit in game and they'd be completely chill and say "it happens" and carry on to the next game. Haven't done this for the last couple of years though.
There are thousands and thousands of discord servers you can join without any invite. Try searching disboard.org to find a server for your game, or check YouTubers descriptions, many have one you can join. You're not the only person I've heard complain about discord being difficult to learn. It does get easy, especially if you can find someone to help you join a voice chat or something.
Depending on the game you might have built in chat. I have made friends with random people I gamed with, and we continued for years.
I hate discord as much as the next lemming, but it's meant to be a quick chat style service, so lack of proper spelling and punctuation doesn't bother me like it does on most other social media. As long as the information you get from others is correct, who cares about the spelling tbh.
You can play everything solo, or join with random people without the need to ever talk to anyone.
After a while, if you feel like it, you can use the in-game chat, or not.
You can join a clan, or not (not being in a clan has it's downside though, nothing critical except the arch wing, which must suck not having)
Just play games you like, you can play most multiplayer games with randoms without chatting or talking.
You will probably miss some fun, but it's not a big deal I assure you.
Just play the game you want to play, you're not the only one who does it without talking online (like me).
This is what worked for me. Pick the game or games YOU like and just.. Go play them online. For me it's Squad which kind of forces communication so that probably helped, but overall just find something you like. As you start playing online you'll find some people who you don't click on with. Don't let them turn you off the entire thing. Just keep doing it. Eventually you'll find people who share your hobby and you get on with well. Then comes Discord or Teamspeak what have you. After a while somebody suggests another game. Suddenly you have friends what.
TL;DR Don't try to find friends to do what you like. Do what you like and make friends along the way.
I just use the VC feature of games, meet people and from there join a discord server with them. It's better to think of discord as mimicing friend groups, rather than gaming communities.
I tried playing PUBG with discord people and everyone ripped on me because I suck at it and I'm old and it messes up their ratio or whatever they're trying to do
I just saw that they launched a new MMO with PC / Android cross play called Tarisland. But that's literally all I have heard about it, I couldn't tell you if it's any good or not.
Just talk strats if playing a comp game, or get mad and flame in chat, or challenge a good player on the other team to a 1v1, or ask the whole lobby if anyone wants to queue for comp, or do the above but in vc.
Fighting games can be tough given the smaller community. If you are in a larger city then you might have access to a fighting game community. If not, I tend to message other players to see if they wanna play more after a ranked match. It may or may not turn into chatting but getting to play 10+ games with one person can be quite fun. If you're willing to travel, there are large events hosted for fighting games too. Most people show up to press buttons and have fun even if they lose in the tournaments.