"Toxicity": What does it mean to Riot?
In the Round Table Video they really never described exactly what toxicity meant, and they claimed that said toxicity was much less frequent with the implementation of Dynamic Queue. Toxicity can mean various things, but I don't know if they meant it to mean all levels of toxicity, one specific area, or multiple but not all areas. Just off the top of my head I can think of flaming (which has many subcategories), griefing, afking, amd refusing to cooperate with team. All of these can take various forms and can be interwoven, plus there are many more examples of toxicity that I have not covered.
Riot, at least from what I have gathered, lumps new champ select with Dynamic Queue; that is, when they talk about, say, players being less toxic over role selection, they contribute it to dynamic queue when really that is an effect of new champ select. Although they were implemented at the same time, they are two different things.
Riot continually mentions the "glorious data". In the video they said they need to be more open with the player base especially when there is a problem. Part of that openness should cover the reasoning behind the moves they make. When they say "toxicity has gotten better" what do they mean by that, and what was their scientific approach?
In order to properly gather data about toxicity, they would first need to define what toxicity is (you can't measure something without knowing what it is). Then they would need to test their hypothesis (i.e. toxicity is better or worse) on an ADEQUATE SAMPLE. If their findings come from PBE that is not an adequate sample as it is a limited-access player base. They could have possibly looked at the number of reports, and if they went down they could have said, "YAY! Toxicity is less frequent". But in that method they haven't properly defined what toxicity is; they are just looking at an arbitrary system which some people neglect to use because they don't have faith in it.
From the video it seems that Riot is less concerned about competitive integrity and more concerned with toxicity levels (whatever those may be). I am not surprised or angry that Riot went in this direction. The state of League was considered a cesspool of poor behavior and Bronze was frequently mentioned as a joke because of so-called toxic players. I don't know if it is still this way, but Riot feels that they have cleaned up a lot of the mess with Dynamic Queue. If you ask me, they went about it the wrong way. They addressed the wrong issue. They keep saying that players wanted to play ranked with friends, but again, what was their scientific method and did they have an adequate sample? Is this response just a red herring?
If player behavior is a real problem then increase punishments and let the players know it is not okay to act poorly. Riot needs to make money to stick around and perhaps they though that doing that would have cost them a lot of players. They instead decided to create a system that gave people an incentive to play with friends. People have equated this action to a bandage on a bad wound. It may make the problem disappear from eyesight for a while, but without proper treatment, the wound will become a major problem. I can't say if a lot of people will leave because of the decision to abolish soloq, but many people have voiced resenting opinions.
So now we have people that are angry because of the death of soloq, and there are still many toxic players out there that are still facing a relatively similar punishment system. Leaverbuster was enacted and there have been some changes to the punishment system, but the tribunal system needs tweaking if they want to lessen toxicity levels across the board. So Riot, please share the data with us, tell us how you got your information, and be open with the community. Or was this video just another way to calm the community down without actually doing anything? Because so far you have not been open but you keep saying you want to be open. What is it?
