Why are the boards so negative?

Electro522·Dec 5, 2017·18 votes·3,483 views

There's a post on the front page right now essentially saying that Riot doesn't converse with the playerbase as much anymore.......by only using examples from the boards. Poor Cactopus and Sparkles have been trying their damndest to try and properly inform everyone, and explain Riot's side to this, but they're getting blasted left, right, and center.

And in the past few months, it seems to have gotten much worse than usual. People comparing Riot to that of EA, no one taking any Rioter comment seriously, and just angry post after angry post after angry post. Everyone seems to be in this mindset of "Riot hates us, lets hate on them."

No wonder Rioters only read, and don't comment.

I mean, even M&G has lost it's top spot as the most famous board. At the time of writing there are only 3 threads from M&G on the front page......whereas this time last year, there would be nearly 2 dozen.

And what's worse is that........I have no idea on how to fix this. It's become such an echo chamber, that if you don't post something that pleases the circlejerk, you get downvoted into oblivion. Those of us who support Riot on here can't say anything without an army yelling at us.....in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets it's fair share of downvotes since I'm going against the circlejerk.

I've been on the boards ever since they started, and I don't think I've ever seen it as bad as it is now.

Shout out to Cactopus and Sparkles for braving the storm. They deserve a hell of alot more credit than they're being given right now.

13 Comments

oOBestEveNAOoDec 6, 20174 votes

This is what happens when low level players take control. When the pros and streamers stop posting and then riot stops posting and high level players state the issues and say it's why they stopped posting...

Allowing the prevelant attitudes, rudeness, and general inexperience of the new player and low level player community is what ultimately culminates in where we are today.

That may sound elitist, but it's not.

The commonplace and wrong was put on a pedestal and allowed while the extraordinary and constructive were allowed to be drowned out in the sea of madness due to apathy mostly.

I started actively attempting to reverse this trend about 3 years back and have had to do a number of distasteful things to get certain parties to start moving the boards in the direction it has been moving these last 6 or 9 months. It's probably way too little way too late, but I did give it the full effort.

SalsonDec 5, 20172 votes

Simple, for the last couple of years Rito has been enforcing 'teamwork' in the form of stronger botlane, early game jungle and weaker solo lanes. Players who likes the game before hate these changes.

Why, well see MOST OF US DON'T HAVE FULL TEAMS. One person will statistically always be an idiot, flamer, drunk, Tyler1, Teemo supp, Talon jungle, first time Zoe...you name it. And then 'teamwork' means you loose because fuck it, someone got autofilled and tried to force a dodge.

So, either the Balance team changes their policy, or people leave and are replaced by new players who like the changes.

Edit: still +1 for talking about an important topic.

Electro522Dec 5, 20174 votes

I'm talking about the boards.....not the game.

If you look at Reddit, you hardly see any negativity in their posts, and apparently Twitter is nothing but a positive echo chamber. Then, Facebook and YouTube is nothing but a bunch of memers.

Why do all of the people looking to do nothing but complain come here to the boards?

SalsonDec 5, 20173 votes

Reddit is filled with eSport things, front page has like one gameplay post a day. Twitter is different because we aren't anonimous, it makes people act differently.

So you end up here, where people are salty Rito is 'ruining their idea of League'.

MyozthirirnDec 6, 20171 votes

All whats left here are newbies (forum newbies, not game newbies), they join here for the first time, they complain about whatever happened to them last couple games and then they dont come back ever again. Did they fed a yasuo 25 kills? --> ysauo op, Did they had bad luck with a capsule? -> wtf rito lvl up only 70 BE, Did they disliked new lore? -> omg wtf varus 2 gay, im not homophobe but gay is bad i dont like therefore 99.99% people dont like either.

Its too late for this boards, reasonable people migrated to reddit, riot slowly migrated to reddit. We, the last people who want some serious talk, should migrate too. At this point they should just remove the boards and redirect all the trafic to reddit.

Edit: Ohh and please dont forget the legenday "whoever made insert random reasonable thing should be fired and killed by a car accident with a trashtruck driven by 3 sad clowns."

MyozthirirnDec 6, 20172 votes

· Its not simple · We are not talking about that here · You are whats wrong with this place

Teriyaki BukkakeDec 6, 20172 votes

Because the nature of the boards is negative. It pretty much has the mentality of the echo chamber that is facebook:

"I don't agree with this so I don't like it/want to see it" DOWNVOTE

"I agree with this post so I will upvote the post and anyone that agrees with it" UPVOTE

And it's a lot easier to disagree with something than it is to reason, and so people see things they agree with and upvote, OR, they see things that they don't agree with and downvote. And so all the angry rant topics and circle jerks get sent to the top of the list thus people see it and circle jerk some more, and posts that would be positive or constructive get sent back down to nothingness because it doesn't follow the peoples opinions or ideas.

Im sure that your post has a fair few downvotes because people think "the boards are so great right now though!" And even if you take away the downvotes it won't have many more upvotes despite it being up for 6 hours because a) if they disagree then they just prove you right, so instead they just ignore it b) your post is constructive and requires effort to discuss because it poses a question that doesn't have a simple answer, rather then just going I AGREE and smashing the upvote/downvote button and finally c) it doesn't follow the beloved circlejerk, meaning that not only does this not follow topical discourse, but you aren't crying out about anything either; you're actually thanking people and trying to understand something rather than "know" what it is or why it is.

I'm going to upvote your post, despite knowing the irony that I will possibly be the last one to upvote the most constructive post ive seen in months.

Thank you for being reasonable

Mr Meat

Electro522Dec 6, 20172 votes

Well....thanks.

It's just how I write, honestly.

EDIT: Also, I'm one of the few that supports Riot through and through. I've disagreed on some things, but I don't go accusing them for ruining the game.

NekoniClawsDec 6, 20172 votes

Talking about issues and things that upset you is a healthy coping mechanism.

And league is a very upsetting game sometimes. Now especially, it's a really fun game for 50% of players, whilst the other 50% just play target-dummy every game. So opinions are polar, and heated.

About the circlejerk though... Can't be helped. Sometimes a correct opinion requires genius, clarity, expertise, or (gag) a good head for math. If your opinion is too difficult for John Average to think of himself, it's probably too hard for him to grasp atall.