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Trolling- How to Deal with it, and was I Wrong?

AlphaRaptr·1/21/2015, 2:17:39 AM·3 votes·817 views

So I get that since S5 hasn't started people are going to be relaxed in Ranked. However, I just had what I would call my first real troll. Kind of venting here, but I also want to know, did I do the right thing?

So I see I'm second pick, then ask how everyone's doing and what I prefer to go. The person above me says "stfu", and then says something like "Get ready to lose", so I ask why he's already being negative, and he says, "I'm trolling you waste of space". Ouch. He then says nothing as I politely ask him not to troll. Here was my mistake (I think): I asked if anyone wanted to dodge.

Now, hear me out. I'm serious about ranked; I play when I want to win, and I'm trying to climb out of silver. So, I really don't want to lose, and when someone admits they are trolling then insta-locks Brand with smite/clairvoyance, I don't usually give them the benefit of the doubt, since it is ranked.

Now, we start game, and Brand (the self-proclaimed troll) proceeds to walk up each lane, dance around the turrets, and feed kills. He also insulted me a few times. However, our top laner (Teemo) sides with him- and then says that he'd rather play with someone who trolls then someone who asks people to dodge. I apologized- after all, I did kind of panic in champ select- however, I'd just like to know, was I wrong? Should I have just sucked the loss up (yes we did lose) and not say anything?

The enemy team did all report Brand, who also said afterwards that he was trolling to get to Bronze, and other than the dodging part, I think I handled it really well. I was nice to the enemy team, I was nice to our team, and I tried to apologize to Teemo. Idk, it just made me want to not play League again. :(

Anyway, as my first actual troll I was pretty upset, and I hope this doesn't happen again. Also congrats if you read to the end. :p

TL;DR: We had a Brand who trolled and I asked people to dodge; was I wrong? How do you guys handle actual trolls?

4 Comments

Cale0171/21/2015, 2:34:20 AM3 votes

Honestly, you handled that marvelously provided that you weren't instigating any arguments with him during the match.

Expecting others to dodge isn't really the best way to go about it, but it IS a valid question. I know if I'd been in that champ select with you and saw that, I'd have offered myself up to take the hit and dodge because I wouldn't want to deal with it personally, and I very rarely dodge games, usually only if there's an obvious troll (as here) or if a friend gets on that wants to play with me, and even then I'll usually tell them to wait until the end of the match.

There shouldn't be any penalty levvied against someone who dodged during champ select, and Riot took a step in the right direction when they began including the post game lobby chat in reports but they need to go a step further and include the champ select chat logs as well, that way if you dodge you can have them go look at the champ select match, see that there was someone blatantly trolling, and remove the penalty placed on you. But this would also require a lot of personal attention on Riot's part, and I have half a mind to assume that the Leaverbuster system and the new chat bans were put in place to automatize the reporting systems so that they could focus more on reworks, rebalances, and the new Rift being finished up. I highly doubt Riot has either the want or the ability, whichever it is, to spare enough people to make a dedicated internal judgement system.

Although they should certainly get to that point, and do it quickly. Leaverbuster and the chat bans are helping, but only barely, and without the human touch many are being punished unfairly.

More to the point, no you did nothing wrong. You not wanting to play a match with someone who was blatantly a troll is a pretty natural reaction. While it might not have been the best solution, it certainly wasn't the wrong one. You're aware of what happens if you dodge a queue, and if the risk is worth avoiding the problem for you then you've every right to do so. It's sad to say that the best option (i.e. the one that puts you in no way at fault) in these situations is to play the match, suck up the loss, and report them afterwards for it hoping that Riot will come down on them for it, but if they're already trolling then they don't much care about being punished.

Take heart in the fact that this person was trolling to purposefully try to get to Bronze. It likely means that they had reached a point they couldn't get passed in solo queue at some point in the past and instead decided to take out their lack of progression on those lower than they are skill-wise in order to make themselves feel better.

AetherKingdom1/21/2015, 4:20:44 AM1 votes

Yea, don't ask anyone to dodge for you. If you don't wanna play, you dodge.