in addition to concerns about being used ironically i do feel like a sorry button could encourage people to self-deprecate, and i don’t think that’s something nintendo would want - both (hopefully) out of not wanting the players to hate themselves and the fact that i’d think most game decisions are made to make players feel better playing the game, not worse, so they’ll keep playing and recommend the game to their friends.
This is a perspective I haven't thought of before. I also have wished for some way to apologize to my teammates (outside of standing in the corner of the lobby, or flopping around in the trash pile in the locker room, lol), but I guess I can see how that might encourage self-deprecation. And realistically I guess from the other side of things I wouldn't really know how to react to a teammate apologizing anyway. Like I guess I can understand the desire to at least convey that you know you're not pulling your weight and that you're not just playing badly to troll or something.
There is kind of a whole tangled mess of things though when you get into what is essentially communication to try to to prevent people from thinking poorly of you or misinterpreting your intentions. And it's just kind of a losing game and probably not a healthy mental habit to be in/reinforce anyway, because most people are going to interpret things in either good or bad faith depending on the kind of person they are anyway and trying to control that most often just leads to higher worry and anxiety often to little avail.
A mild sidetrack to complain about how much I hate that ironic interpretations of signals are a thing. I remember learning about this when I was playing on voicechat and one of our rando teammates booyah'd just before the end of a losing match. I interpreted this as them saying, "oh well, we did our best, good job anyway!" but they interpreted it as a toxic/sarcastic "great going guys" sort of remark and got upset over it. Like, booyahing at the end of a losing match is the kind of thing I would naively, sincerely do, and now you're telling me I have to worry about people assuming I'm being toxic when I'm trying to be encouraging? Now I have to be careful not to show too much enthusiasm or enthusiasm at the wrong times or else someone else will interpret it poorly?? I don't know. I can only try to remind myself that people are going to interpret things however they want, and I guess if they want to interpret my well-meaning gesture as a personal attack, well, I guess that's on them. They're only getting upset due to their own interpretation and I can't control that. It's still frustrating though. And it's even more frustrating if the fear of possible ironic usage is keeping more positive forms of communication out of the game.
Personally I am just going to keep on interpreting all signals in good faith, both because it's what I would want people would do for me and because it's more fun and better for my mental health to assume the best intentions of everyone anyway.
....Anyway. More signals would be nice. "Charge!" and "Retreat!" or something similar would be short and convey a lot I think.
But I'm sure people would find ways of using/interpreting those negatively too grumble grumble grumble
