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Why does Riot focus so much on Negative Attitude?

Morior Invictis·7/19/2015, 8:28:40 PM·7 votes·973 views

We all know how frustrating it is to play with someone who complains all game (especially when they're the reason you're losing). I totally get that dealing with people with negative attitudes are important, but I fail to see why that seems to be all that is being punished lately.

Riot focuses so much on punishing the symptom in solo queue instead of some of the underlying problems. How many times have you had someone intentionally feeding because they got their panties in a knot? How many times have you had some top laner AFK farming and refusing to talk to the team? How many times have you had people AFK after you misplayed something?

Yet why does it feel like the only problem being punished are the people that get upset at forementioned problems? I for one have been punished by the tribunal before (for flaming) - and I deserved it. Do you know who hasn't been punished by the tribunal yet? My previous friend who feeds on purpose when he gets mad and AFK's matches when he doesn't like people in champ select (I don't play with him anymore, but he's still always on and always feeding).

I understand that Riot wants to include everyone in the game and therefore "unskilled" players aren't punished for being unskilled, but when you're playing a ranked game and someone is going 0/20 and refusing to group, you gotta wonder how that person is still not being punished.

Riot tells us that there is a very small percentage of the population that is reported consistenly, yet almost every game after solo queue someone is calling for another's head (and typically rightfully so).

But why is the crusade to fix solo queue directed at negative attitudes and verbally abusive people? Don't we have a button that disables the cancer coming out of their mouths? On the other hand, I have no button that disables bad players or AFK'ers - yet this isn't being dealt with on the same level of negative attitudes.

Why?

11 Comments

Morior Invictis7/19/2015, 9:18:47 PM4 votes

I just don't understand why someone having a bad attitude is worse than the person who AFK's/feeds/refuses to group.

In my experience, people who are getting reported for negative attitudes only developed that attitude in game once someone else started trolling.

67chrome7/20/2015, 1:32:58 AM4 votes

Riot focuses so much on punishing the symptom in solo queue instead of some of the underlying problems.

I don't know man.

I'd say negative attitude is more the problem, and all the other things you listed are more symptoms.

Last season 1 went on something like a 10 game winning steak after just getting everyone in my team to talk to one-another before the match started. Got everyone on a champion they wanted, took suggestions for bans, ran support, and tried to promote a friendly atmosphere. Despite being ranked and bronze, those were some of the most enjoyable, friendly games I've ever played.

Also - with actually knowing a lot of people in RL that play LoL, I kind of picked up on 2 major thins:

trolling isn't a 100% or 0% thing a person always or always does not do. Sometimes, people gotta troll.
AFK/Trolling is often a result of negative behavior being directed at someone.

Anyways - what I'm trying to get at is the idea of AFK/Troll/Feeders needing to be punished because they cause negative attitude is pretty counter-productive. It's more an eye-for-an-eye and the whole world's blind kind of deal if Riot ignores negative attitude. Bad attitude and snide remarks are usually what push people into doing those things in the first place.

Also - if everyone is encouraged to have a better attitude, actually trying out off-builds could be an enjoyable experience and add to the game's health and longevity. Loosing matches also sucks a lot less when everyone has a decent outlook, which I find extremely important in a game where the average person is going to loose 50% of the time. And, of course, LoL is a team game that heavily favors teamwork to win. If everyone's positive they're more likely to communicate, share important information, and carry out strategic plays as a coordinated group - where negative Nancy's often don't say anything/say nothing of use, and either refuse to work as a group or try to outright sabotage any coordination on their team's part.

Positive attitude encourages a better overall experience than addressing anything else, which is probably why Riot's gunning for it ATM.

Erockandroll7/19/2015, 8:56:15 PM3 votes

I think Riot should just Reliable the Tribunal and let the community solve it's problems.

Riot Promised that the Tribunal would return. But offered no time line, No ETA, no proposed plans for how it would be implemented, and no Status updates. For all I know, the whole plan got scrapped, while they become more reliant on the automated systems that were only suppose to a temporary measure/working along side the tribunal.

Baby Ghoul7/20/2015, 12:06:53 PM1 votes

It's a lot more difficult to sort out who is trolling and who isn't than it appears I would imagine. I actually have rarely come across the person that runs down mid lane and under the enemy turret each time. They're rarely that obvious. I get champion select trolls far more often. The ones that don't respect the pick order and lock their role regardless, the ones that pick things like Singed ADC. I've seen a few troll builds like 6 boots too.

Another thing I noticed is after the heat of the moment passes, I sometimes wonder if the person in my game was trolling, or genuinely struggling in some way. When I'm in the game, I almost always tend to think they are. I usually get people who end the game with like 3/15/4, who rarely communicated, and I can't tell if that's just because they are super bad, or not playing their best. It's even harder for a system to accurately determine if that is trolling or not because so many different factors could play into that.

When it comes to harassment and negative attitudes it is simple. It's right there in the chat, and much easier to punish. I think the system does an excellent job at punishing people who have repeated instances of toxic behavior, and that is important to sort out. I can mute you, but there goes teamwork and communication. Good luck winning the game without that. Another thing I see that's a big contribution to people going AFK is when people give them a hard time when they already feel bad. I've also seen them claim they will troll or something like that in rare cases. It just doesn't pay to act that way in any situation.

If someone is trolling in the game, then stop and think, what is their motive behind it? It's most likely going to be that you get so mad you crap your pants and start throwing it all over the in game chat and into the post game lobby. It's never pretty, and when people act like that even I forget how awful it is having a troll because of such terrible behavior. We're all most likely young adults, we can behave better than that, and getting a troll is no excuse to act that way. You're responsible for your own behavior. Tons of us do not turn to verbal abuse when we get trolls.