An Idea for a System which Manages Trolls in Champion Select

Riot, I propose a system to help deal with Champion Select trolls.

Forgive me in advance for writing a lot on the subject, but I wanted to be thorough.

Previously, discussion on trying to attack trolls in champ select would revolve around the idea that if you made an automated system for removing trolls, you could give people the tools to penalize those attempting to choose something off-meta.

I believe there is a solution to this dilemma.

Firstly, add a button that flags the lobby, with a title along the lines of "Flag for potential abuse."

When a troll announces that they are going to feed, players upset about this behavior can click this button.

With a plurality of 2-3 players, the button enacts its function.

What is its function? This hypothetical button would not kick the player--it would flag the game lobby as containing an abusive player, and delay creation of the game for that team.

The opposing team, assuming that their champ select proceeds without incident, will be moved to another game lobby.

The team with the offending player will be temporarily moved out of the game creation queue while they are flagged for intervention. Once the lobby has been flagged for abuse, the players who flagged the lobby would select the abusive player from a series of buttons that would appear next to the players' names. This would highlight any chat the player made in the champion select for review.

Ideally, a functional automated system could measure the behavior by key phrases in the chat.

Until then, a real person could, as their primary duty, monitor the chat of flagged games. It could take them seconds to remove a troll from the queue after reviewing the chat. Their job would ideally be a temporary one, as they would be accumulating the statistics necessary for an automated system. After that, they could be safely reassigned, and the automated system activated. I do not imagine it would take very long to accumulate relevant statistics.

Obviously, this idea requires the chat as evidence. If a player simply picks something off-meta, without explanation, and players flag them for abuse, where there is no clear evidence that the player intends abuse, the player is not punished at all, and the team re-enters the queue.

However, if it is determined that a person intends to troll, they are removed from the queue and given a small penalty that begins to escalate for subsequent champ select trolling. If the player has other penalties from other toxic behavior, the existence of these penalties can increase the size of the penalty for the champ select trolling.

To prevent abuse of this feature, make clicking the button work similar to rerolls in ARAM matches. By playing games, you will accumulate "charges" of button presses.

The button charges would also make people hesitate to report an off-meta pick as abuse. If someone in earnest wants to try something non-standard, and they are first flagged for abuse then subsequently found to not be toxic, the players who have made the report have wasted a button charge, and must take the time and effort to accumulate another charge to replace the one they have wasted.

Modifiers for good behavior could accumulate more charges, so that players with a record of good behavior could actively monitor the community simply by playing. For example, a player that is marked with a ribbon by the honor system as Friendly or Helpful could perhaps have a multiplier that lets their button charges accumulate faster, so their good behavior has a more tangible reward.

In fact, making the accumulation of charges slow without evidence of good behavior would mean people who do not have any modifiers for good behavior - with perhaps the honor system ribbons as an example - would have to legitimately think before deciding to report, and waste their opportunity to punish a toxic player. Conversely, the people who are consistently beacons of good behavior - hypothetically with honor system ribbons - can be more free with their judgment, as that judgment has already been demonstrated reliable.

This would encourage and incentivize people to play with good behavior, as it would enable them to more regularly police the community, before the game even starts.

In conclusion:

All too often do people announce in champ select that they will be intentionally ruining a team's experience. I believe there is a way to combat this with minimal abuse towards players simply trying new things.

With a button to flag the game lobby and pinpoint abuse using the chat as evidence, tied to a charge system for the use of that button, there could be a method for handling this brand of toxic behavior quickly and fairly.

This idea, I believe, would go a long way to helping the community improve their League of Legends experience, before a player ever enters onto the Rift. :)

Thank you for reading.