Should players be punished for performing too poorly?

Dispairado·1/7/2017, 5:28:51 PM·2 votes·1,697 views

I know this idea sounds crazy and outrageous at a glance but this is why I'd like to explore it with a little more depth before rejecting it outright.

Players who don't do well and fail to offer enough to the team to at least have decent winning chances and losing because of them can be just as anti-fun as having deliberate feeders/trolls in your team and perhaps even facing cheaters. Not everyone can be good at the game of course but there should be at least something to motivate players to meet a required minimum so as to ensure they don't hurt their teammates' winning chances too much and their fun. Even when you lose, if you know that you had teammates who genuinely tried to help and weren't doing too awfully it might not feel so frustrating because then you'd assume that it was just that the opposing team was better.

A system which does this should probably only work in Ranked because there should be at least something to act as a 'training ground' for players to hone their skills to be ably capable of meeting that required minimum when they play.

Criteria for this type system to punish a concerned player could be as follows; Player X:

  • doesn't coordinate/cooperate with his team
  • has too many deaths in comparison to kills (15+ more deaths)
  • fails to meet the required minimum of performance of his chosen role
  • being AFK for more than a total of two minutes

If a player is detected to be meeting some of the criteria, before finalizing a penalty it will notify the rest of the teammates and will give out an option to vote if they want to penalize or not the concerned player and the vote to be positive for a punishment must be at least three or more out of five. Due to the possibility of troll groups abusing this the system should not be implemented in Ranked/Flex where groups can be formed.

The penalty for doing poorly could be just a soft ban from Ranked for a small period of time ranging from as low as 3 hours to as high as 1-2 days depending on the severity of the situation.

Estimated Pros:

  • Having a risk of being punished for doing poorly can motivate players to try harder and think more carefully with their actions in the Fields of Justice and pay more attention to the team as a whole.
  • Troll/Feeding behavior can be mitigated more effectively due to the risk of more immediate punishment by teammates being present.
  • Players will be motivated to play with their best roles/champions and diversify their skills due to the champion bans to ensure they can play as good as possible.
  • More skilled teammates and less 'noobs' in ranked?

Estimated Cons:

  • It can be difficult to tell whether it's the enemy team being too good or the allied team doing too poorly because of inverse proportionality between the two. If Team A is skilled and does well it can/will prevent Team B from doing well and meet the required minimum.
  • The risk of being punished for not doing well can create feelings of anxiety and anger during the game to the point it's more like an 'obligation' rather than a game to have fun. There's a risk that the game itself will be completely de-casualized
  • If you do end up being punished by this it can make you feel like you're 'useless' and create a strong sense of negativity/low self-esteem.
  • Due to peoples' tendency to misjudge things or give in to their anger there's a risk that players who genuinely try to play well but just end up being 'unlucky' will be punished.

What are your thoughts on this? Would you really prefer a system that does this to be introduced or do you think this won't work?

3 Comments

Who Man1/7/2017, 5:31:50 PM1 votes

Everyone has games that don't go well for them - especially when their team constantly berates them for every little thing.

I might go 17-3-10 in one game only to go 2-6-4 in the next game.

It's just a game, you can't expect the same performance from everyone in every game especially when their opponents and their matchups are different.

Quit crying about it so much. I hate playing with people like you.

k wìx1/7/2017, 5:33:44 PM1 votes

**Rather than Punish players that perform poorly, I think the opposite should occur - we should reward players who outperform their peers in a game. **

Not by a lot, but if your one of the best players on the winning side, you get a bit more lp - and if your the best on the losing side, you lose a bit less lp.

Limmie1/7/2017, 6:20:13 PM1 votes

{quoted}

there should be at least something to motivate players to meet a required minimum

There already is, it's called victory.