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If you're wondering what's breeding the toxicity in games...

For Carthage··4 votes·790 views

It's your ranking system.

Give me a couple minutes to break this down for you.

Currently, you have a mixed as fuck ranking system: you're placed in a certain rank but are then faced up against people based upon your MMR or ELO (who really gives a fuck which one it is anymore, point is that's who you're facing). Now, your MMR/ELO system is erratic, inconsistent, inaccurate at times, and - oh, you know what, it's going to be quicker just to say it's "stupidly flawed".

But that's just that single part of your ranked system. The other part - your ranked part - is even more backwards. Only reason I'm bothering right now is that a hot topic is getting rid of promos - and that's entirely right. Promos are hands down the stupidest things ever. Basically, you're saying that somebody could have made it to promos in a league, get trolled out of it, lose their LP, and now they're at zero LP. Suddenly the next game is life or goddamn death because it's only going to take a single loss to knock you down - but it's going to take 3 or 4 straight wins to get you back up to where one game dropped you from. And if that doesn't make you cringe when it happens, you're probably not a high enough rank to actually give enough of a shit about a ranked match.

That being said, the ranking system is actually what you should keep with some modifications - your MMR/ELO system is a piece of shit, and the reason is because it results in ranked games being luck. You can haul yourself up by your skill, but dear god if your luck deserts you and you're popped in with a bunch of unranked people who haven't played in two years who're only even close to your MMR/ELO because that's where they sat in season 2, I'd suggest you put on your chastity belt to try and protect yourself from the multitude of dickings you're going to receive.

And that example's not a joke. That's actually happened multiple times from Plat II - Plat mother-fucking-II. That's how haywire the MMR/ELO system is - it's a ranking number that's such an absolute crapshoot that it ruins more games than it improves for people. There've been people requesting to get rid of ranking and just keep the MMR/ELO, but ranked would get so much worse - with the limitations placed on only being able to play with others within a certain distance of your current rank (I.E., Silvers and Golds, Golds and Plats, Plats and Diamonds all only able to play in a single ranked game), that's the only thing stopping a Silver I from being placed with a Plat I just because the Plat I had a couple of bad games and the Silver I just happened to go on a winning streak - you can already see evidence of this kind of nonsense happening from Promos where people are thrown into games based on approximate MMR/ELO rankings (sometimes incredibly inaccurately even). This is not a good system as it is nothing but chaos.

The Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat, Diamond, Master, Challenger ranking system is better - it is. Cut out the promos and work it like this:

  • You'll receive LP by a fixed amount (say 15-18) + a small bonus based upon your performance - with some fixes to the mastery system to best measure your performance in a role, the ranking you get out of this system will dictate how much of a bonus you get (this bonus will not be excessive and shouldn't in theory exceed 10 for an S+).
  • Without MMR/ELO, you will be matched with players within your rank with an error margin of one rank above or below (Silver III, Silver II, and Silver I, or Gold IV, Gold III, and Gold II all being one game for example). This will ensure that there is not an excessively sparse player pool in each rank, but that you will not find yourself being placed in excessively lower or higher ranked games. What this does is ensures that the reason you are moving in or out of your rank is because you are (not) performing well within your own rank and that your games aren't negatively affected by the randomization of MMR/ELO. Basically, this truly removes the possibility of ELO/MMR hell because you will always fight people at your own level - if you belong higher at this point, you will be grouped with appropriate people who actually will enable you to climb and you will climb out if you have what it takes.
  • Without promos, you will level up your rank by just getting enough LP. Each time you level up a rank, you receive a small cushion (25 LP ideally, while skimming off the excess from the previous rank [sorry if you got 28 LP from a game and you were sitting at 99]) that ensures that you aren't immediately kicked out of a rank again. Alternatively, if you like bouncing between the two, you can just have it always add/subtract from each 100 (from 99 you'd have a cushion of 27 then with a 28 point game, and if you fall from 14 LP into the previous rank from a 20 LP loss you'll have 94).
  • Leveling up from a full rank difference (Gold to Plat) will take more LP total to make it - basically, you don't have to win 3/5 to jump to the next rank, you just have to perform well enough to ensure you are on a constant rise through ranks.

The benefit of this system is stability and consistency over fluctuation and luck. You can ensure that your rank is because of yourself and your own place if you are always playing against your own level. It makes all the fucking sense in the world.

Suddenly, the game just became seven times less toxic - now you know for certain that yeah, if you've been in a single place for a while, it may be something you're doing. All the people you're playing with? They must have gotten there somehow the same as you - no, they couldn't have had that lucky of a winning streak because it'd be like 6 straight games just to go from one rank to another if they weren't always performing highly. And that loss at 0 LP? Ah, well - you can make back those points within a game and be fine. If somebody is a higher rank than they belong in? Well they're always playing against people in or close to that rank - so duh, they're eventually either going to shape up or ship out. If they belong in a higher rank? They're probably going to outperform and gain more LP from performance than they'll ever lose from a game.

Now there's no guesswork. Now the game's suddenly not fucking stressful. Now everybody can have goddamn fun. Now if somebody trolls your game big whoop, you can feel like the damage won't actually have a lasting impact. And if you encounter a whole string of trolls (which happens a lot thanks to Riot just being terrible at identifying this)? Well, you don't have to worry about your MMR/ELO being tanked to several ranks below yours, so you'll just wind up against people who you're better than and then you move back up because you fucking can. And you're not incredibly delayed by it. Wow, gee - it's like shit actually makes fucking sense.

But I don't expect Riot to do this - they get better publicity by saying they're working to remove toxicity rather than just curing it altogether - after all, how can there be a news story about it if the subject never exists?

11 Comments

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

For Carthage1 votes

Provide evidence or argument. You've basically only made statements.

Jamaree1 votes

[{quoted}](name=For Carthage,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7oViAyNg,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-07-28T09:20:54.771+0000)

Provide evidence or argument. You've basically only made statements.

Wouldn't you also need to provide proof that the system does cause toxicity?

For Carthage1 votes

Well, let's try this:

Part of the toxicity is from being grouped with people wildly out of place in ranked by the MMR/ELO system.

If toxicity has actually decreased since the implementation of the promotion system, then there's a large chance that it may be caused by MMR/ELO, and I've given a psychological reason as to why people would feel stressed or angered by it. Hell, if the promotion system actually decreased toxicity, then logically moving to exclusively it should also decrease it more.

Do you not still have to provide proof that the system isn't the cause? Because so far there's even less in the response, which sums up as, "Toxicity doesn't have any relation and it's because I have asserted it doesn't."

There's also no provided reason for why the MMR/ELO system is the best system. You'd need an actual example to back up the claim, or a reason for why any others would be ineffectual. So far, it's just that everybody uses it and nobody's actually tried another method.

Jamaree1 votes

[{quoted}](name=For Carthage,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7oViAyNg,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2015-07-28T09:34:11.117+0000)

Well, let's try this:

Part of the toxicity is from being grouped with people wildly out of place in ranked by the MMR/ELO system.

Yeah, and that wouldn't change with the system you suggested, people would still be toxic but for a different reason if your solo based system, now people get pissed about people caring more about their own KDAs rather then playing to win games.

If toxicity has actually decreased since the implementation of the promotion system, then there's a large chance that it may be caused by MMR/ELO, and I've given a psychological reason as to why people would feel stressed or angered by it. Hell, if the promotion system actually decreased toxicity, then logically moving to exclusively it should also decrease it more.

That doesn't mean it is true without proof, perhaps ragers have been getting banned more thus people raging less, there are a plethora of other factors that could be leading to the decrease/increase of toxicity, not just ranked.

Do you not still have to provide proof that the system isn't the cause? Because so far there's even less in the response, which sums up as, "Toxicity doesn't have any relation and it's because I have asserted it doesn't."

Well, I'm not the one stating a claim, I'm asking the question on where is your definite proof that the ranked system is causing the toxicity, you have currently provided nothing but conjecture.

There's also no provided reason for why the MMR/ELO system is the best system. You'd need an actual example to back up the claim, or a reason for why any others would be ineffectual. So far, it's just that everybody uses it and nobody's actually tried another method.

I never said it was, I was asking where your proof is that the system was the cause of all the rage, because as someone who played back with the earlier ELO system, the rage is more or less the same, and a system where you get lessen of a blow for doing well yourself will incentive less team play and more solo play which is the opposite of what this game is trying to strive for.

For Carthage1 votes

Well, this would be a fair argument if it wasn't solo-queue. This also directly goes against the argument that you yourself are the reason why you may or may not be in a certain rank or MMR - if the game is meant to be team based and is designed to be team based, then clearly your team would then have a drastic effect on your placing. This system would clearly have less effect on a full team game, in which it'd just be a removal of MMR/ELO.

I'm willing to say the ranked system is the cause of much of ranked toxicity and strike it from the cause of all toxicity - that was an unfair generalization. But if your primary goal is to win now instead of having fun, then you would be considerably more bothered by things stopping you from winning. If losing has a larger impact, then logically you are going to be even more upset. You'd be more inclined to be toxic. Are you going to trashtalk your teammates the entire time in a normal game? More than likely not - there's no reason to unless your sole aim is to be a dick (or, given the benefit of the doubt, you're having a bad day and needed a pick-me-up that you didn't find there). Your mentality is, "I can lose this game. No big deal, nothing's affected." Five games with trolls in a row in norms and, while you're probably irritated at this point, nothing's wrong because no damage is done. Suddenly you go to ranked and the same thing happens; now you've lost a rank, your MMR/ELO has plummeted, and you now have to deal with people who are even more likely to do such actions as they're lower in rank/MMR/ELO. Now if you can honestly say, "Nah, that wouldn't cause me to be more toxic/stressed/upset", then by all means, maybe I'm wrong. But chances are, this causes more toxicity where there normally wouldn't be any.

And to top it off, it's downright goofy to say that this system would implement a more solo-play aspect when it's solo-queue. Isn't that the point? You're not trying to get the other people to a higher rank, you're getting you to a higher rank. Yeah, you're supposed to focus on teamplay because it's a team-game, but if the theory is that people will stop playing as a team in order to serve their own interests, then the people who would realize that teamwork is the only way to win would dominate - now you've enacted Darwin's Law and the people truly fit to play the game as it's supposed to be done are moving up.

Even with that frame of logic, the point still stands that it's solo-queue. If the argument is that you're where you are because of yourself, then enacting a system that judges you largely on you yourself would then just make logical sense. And if you're able to ensure that you're not getting so harshly punished from your team losing due to you yourself still doing decisively well in a solo-queue game - a queue meant to place you based upon your ranking and your performance - then how would that not relieve some of the toxicity of teammates? Suddenly, that feeding top and mid doesn't bother you so much because they'll fall, don't worry - but you're not about to go plummeting with him because you still just about demolished bot. No, you're actually safe because of your own merit. You aren't being dragged down.

SO. Accuse me of conjecture, but I've ensured everything makes logical sense. So either I need a logical argument against any of it or I need actual evidence to disprove it because search the boards high and low but all we have currently are theories, and until tested and actively dis-proven, theories stand. And there's no active disproof of what I've said besides an approximation of what the toxicity was between now and back then with two different records of what it was like from two people on the same side, which hardly warrants a reasonable case against.

Luis Sc1 votes

I could almost swear ( from a couple decades under my belt on multiplayer games ) that toxicity comes from a mismatch of personalities, cultures and education being thrown onto a random group with misguided expectations of synergy, leading to poor chemistry.

When it works there's rainbows and the best praises come out-- when it doesn't, there's flaming and the worst insults come out.

For Carthage1 votes

Okay, how about I change it to "ranked toxicity". Norms are a whole different anomaly where it's just a clusterfuck.

killerchenzeto1 votes

Everything said here is incorrect. You're simply stuck at a certain elo where you belong and not improving.

  1. There is no way you get kicked out of a new division after 1 game.
  2. You are placed in your exact skill group, that is thanks to MMR. Never anything other than your own skill group, never. Remember this well.
  3. You don't receive fixed amount of LP you can skip tiers. You are simply stuck.
For Carthage2 votes

  1. No. But your MMR and ELO both fluctuate heavily based upon streaks leading to unpredictable spikes that can shoot you where you don't actually belong. This actually affects your games immensely, meaning you can be grouped with people outside of your division leading to further MMR damage or to further division damaging.

  2. See number 2. Honestly.

  3. That was a suggestion of a new system, not a statement on how it's currently working.

  4. Do you actually bother to read? Or logic? Or put down the coloring books? Or haa or hmm or ehh?

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