Expectations of the competitive community

I've played league now for quite a while, IIRC Xin Zhao came out the week I started playing, and I've been a diehard league player since then for the most part. To say the least this game is addictive, fun, and what I'm about to talk about I don't want to have anyone believe should be the nature of how things are handled in normal games. I do believe there is such thing as casual gaming and I've been a gamer in both casual and competitive aspects, I think that to have one community or the other look down on the other isn't what we should be doing. But the thing is there's something that goes unsaid but also unanswered: What is the expectation of competitive (ranked) playlist?

Most, if not all of you would state (and I believe this is the answer) is to see how skilled you are at the game. That's the major separation between the two communities/queues. But to see how good you are at the game, you have to have a tangibly balanced system. There's a lot that goes into this and we see it with balances with patches, bug fixes, all the while they keep the game fresh with new content so we don't get bored and the meta doesnt get stale. But what the major problem I see is that Riot has let their competitive community down by failing to address the wants of the community, and yes they do have the right to make their game how they want it, this is true. But this is not good consumerism on our part for allowing that, nor is it good stewardship to have so little resource pooled into fixing a broken wheel system.

As it stands now, riot's stance on ranked play has been, and continues to be very hands off. They have addressed pick order vs call order here: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3449932&page=1

But they admit that they do not enforce it. What Riot appears to have been trying to do was appeal to the masses by saying that we won't infringe upon your right to pick Caitlyn when your team already had an ADC and you really needed a top with some magic damage considering your jungle and mid were AD. Now this is all good and all, but from a ranked play perspective AND an experience perspective that bad customer service to let things like that happen. Realistically riot has done a fairly good job at trying to punish AFK with leaverbuster and what not, because their common stance is that they want the best experience for the collective 10 players. This is how society works as well. 1 person should not be able to ruin an experience for 9 other players who are in the same game.

But they do. Riot bans players left right and center for toxic speech, because it's harmful to the environment they want to maintain. But What I havent seen in any season, or even a modest attempt, was never made at solving these problems by looking at the root cause. Is toxic speech relative to troll type behaviors really the greater of two evils? I know this is a fine line, and I'll be honest I've been on the receiving end of the tribunal, and It's always been for my speech. Using the file explorer method my logs state I have just a bit over 6,000 games. 6,000. I believe it's fair for me to say i've had plenty of experience playing ranked, because my normal mode wins are at 1001 right now, I rarely play normal anymore. Out of those games though I have never intentionally thrown a game. I've lost, done bad, done worse, and sometimes just let my team down.

The main thing I'd like to see out of Riot is them address the community as to what their expectations for ranked play is. I think that ranked play at heart is based on the sole purpose that you want to win and will try your best. Anything beyond that is decided in the game and open to interpretation.

Some things I think at lot of the community would like to see is changes to how riot addresses player ACTIONS not just their speech. Yes hate speech is not alright, but I think these changes would make a difference in the games and community for the better. You punish people for saying X or Y without addressing WHY they said that. Dunkey touched on this subject in his farewell to league video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzgbZL12VI

and he makes good points, not all of which i agree with but the community can be improved and its a failure to accept it as bad and not strive for improvement, nor do I defend his statements, but use it as a vehicle for how the community could be better.

I believe that Riot could start by enforcing player behaviors counter to ranked play spirit for solo queue:

1. Playing a champ you have not played before for the first time in ranked. -This is alright if you're doing this premade and your party is ok with it. This isn't a bad thing in act, but it goes against the intent of ranked play, to do your best and try to win. That starts with playing champions you know how to play. This diminishes players who are playing champs they know how to play and actually WANT to wins experience.

2. Highly experimental builds -That time you went Runaan's on urgot, Crit build teemo, AP Yasuo that was also diminishing your team mates experiences. Yes it may have worked that one time that ended with 14/0 and you won, but that is with the admission that it wasn't the best route to a win. I know there's odd cases of itemization for situations and I don't want to see Riot force a meta, but this is for solo queue only.

3. Significant feeding

• This is really open to interpretation, but I feel like it would be safe to say when your team is all even with -1 to -4 KD, and one player is down 4 deaths, not dying for sacrifice play type situations, AND they aren't recognizing this as a problem and modifying their behavior in that game by playing more defensively, that's hurting the game for these other players.

4. Refusing to work with the team -This sounds like a catch all but it's not. This should be WELL defined and WELL enforced. I think this category would be refusing to group late game. What's late game? When is splitting a good idea? This should be defined with the understanding that games have a trend, and the goal is not to enforce a meta, the reality is for solo queue, the meta needs to be more or less the guideline, unless a whole team agrees on something, and in that case, if you have a team that feels like you should be doing something off-meta, that's what ranked teams are for. That's a strategy. That's teamwork. That's cohesion. But we have to have rules and standards for ranked play that is specific to the context in which the gaming occurs in the solo queue where you are expected to not have great cohesion but be working toward the common goal of winning by means of fair play and intentful DECISIONS. Winning starts with a mindset, I will pick champions im proficient with, I will play them ways likely to play to that champions strengths with the consideration of enemy team weaknesses.

The sad thing I have to say is that this is already being done in other games, most of which have much less problems with behaviors. I feel these improvements could decrease the verbal toxicity, and improve player experiences in the game. The further thing I can't fathom is how does Riot clearly see a problem with toxicity and address verbalization of such but to do so little to change the actions. Actions do speak louder than words. Actions are important. Realistically Riot has essentially treated the community like what they say matters but what they do doesn't really, and that's a poor model for success as a community.

Here's to hoping riot will address behavior on a more direct level and to continued games with better enjoyment.

Also put in a poll to see if anyone else felt like I do.