Open Letter to Riot and the Community: Troll Picks in Ranked Champion Select

tl;dr will be at the end of the letter

To Riot Games and My Fellow Summoners,

We all love League of Legends. However, there has been a pressing situation in the game which must be addressed immediately and directly interferes with most players’ ability to enjoy the game as intended. As this letter will later prove, any player who specializes in a particular role/champion is guaranteed to benefit from “trolling” his fellow summoners in champion select to incur queue dodges. In this letter, I hope to outline the problem, provide a mathematical argument of the severity of the issue, and propose a solution to patch the holes in the system.

Recently, I’ve noticed more and more that people who are last pick in solo queue who didn’t end up with a role they wanted to play will pick a troll champ to show their discontent with their role that game. Personally, I have no problem pressing that X on the top right corner and taking the -3 lp and 5 minute queue ban to restart my solo queue grind once more. However, what I am upset about is how the current system not only allows troll picks to happen in such a fashion, but encourages such behavior in ranked solo queue.

Let’s analyze the risk/reward outlook for such a player. Let’s say he ends up having to support, and because he doesn’t want to, he picks Clarity/Clairvoyance Ezreal. This is legal by the Summoner’s Code. I understand that off-meta picks are allowed in solo queue. In fact, I argue that not only should they be allowed in solo queue, but players should be encouraged to look for new options to play. Jungle Riven, Top Lane Shaco, and Support Heimerdinger all have legitimate win conditions in lane and out into the mid/late game phases. But picking Ezreal when they were asked to support and attempting to farm jungle and dying twice before level 3 is not, in anyway representative of that player’s ability to play the game nor does it reflect what ranked solo queue should be. 

Currently, the risk/reward system for the troll works as such: They forfeit the opportunity to win a game (and the ~ 40 lp difference with it) in order to persuade one of their teammates to dodge and thus, they get into another game to possibly play what they originally wanted to. The next bit will consist entirely of math and if you are not inclined to sit through all the gory details, feel free to skip to the Math Free Zone.

A Thought Experiment

From the perspective of the Troll: Cost of Trolling (Ct) = Percentage Chance of Going in Game (g) * Average LP difference (d) Ct = g*d Where 0 ≤ g ≤ 1 Assuming a 50% chance of winning a fair game and a 0% chance of winning the trolled game: d = (40LP * .5 *1) + (0LP * .5 * .5) = 20 LP Then, Ct = 20g Reward for Trolling (Rt) = Average LP Difference from Playing the First Game Assuming that they will get their pick (100x)% of the time with a (100y)% win rate Rt = (1 – g)(Average LP Gain from a Win – Average LP Loss from a Loss) Rt = (1-g)[(20 LP)(xy) + (-20LP)(x)(1-y)] Rt = (1-g)[(20 LP) (2xy – x)] Then, together, given that they are already forced to choose to go into an unfavorable role, where Tt = Net Gain from Trolling Tt = Rt – Ct = (20 LP) (2xy – x – g). - g[(20 LP) (2xy – x)] To understand the true tragedy of this however, we have to look at the problem from side of the other 4 players in the game. Cost of Dodging = 3 LP + t (first dodge), 10 LP + T (second dodge). This is taking the penalty of the 5:30 ban in LP as t and the longer bans as T. Reward for Dodging = 20 LP Saved Then, To1 = Ro – Co1 = 20 LP – (3 LP + t) = 17 LP – t To2 = Ro – Co2 = 20 LP – (10 LP + T) = 10 LP – T On average, assuming a fair player has a 50% win rate, t = T = 0LP. Then, the player should always dodge assuming there is no chance of winning the game. Since trolls can derive this as well, g = 0 or should be very close to zero assuming everyone wants as much LP as possible. Then, Tt = Rt – Ct = (20 LP) (2xy – x – g) - g[(20 LP) (2xy – x)] = (20 LP)(x)(2y – 1). Since x > 0 as long as y > .5, Tt > 0.

Math Free Zone

In other words, the troll’s preferred pick has a higher than 50% win rate, which will likely be the case, it is strictly favorable for the troll to take a troll pick that game, given that their teammates want to maximize their LP gain. Furthermore, the greater tragedy is this type of play favors the trolls as long as they never dodge themselves, the average pool of LP will get dragged down, but not their own. In other words, it is relatively favorable for a troll to play champion selection this way.

Solution

I understand it was never Riot’s intention for it to be this way, in fact, I believe (although I could be wrong) that this system was initially implemented so that players who frowned upon off-meta picks were punished for doing so. However, it is very clear that it is promoting a behavior which is unfavorable for the community and for game health as a whole. Ranked League of Legends shouldn’t be about abusing this game theory loophole, it should be about being able to play the game at a high mechanical, macro, and condition theory level.

Let me be clear, I am not trying to make ranked solo queue even more of a grind by saying you can only play 100% seriously in it and any non-optimal play should be condoned. However, I will say that for those players who desire to play the game seriously, it is the only option some may have and that should be respected. If you actually want to play in a way that does not reflect your true ability to play the game, League has tons of normal game options and custom game options for just that purpose: to have fun, unconditionally. Have I played troll picks and tower dive recklessly in normal games? Sure. But have I taken away an hour of 9 people’s lives just because I didn’t get exactly what I wanted? At least I can say that I have never done it intentionally, and I never intend on doing so. The Summoner’s Code is in place to give players a standard for acceptable behavior. That is undoubtedly true. However, why is that important? Because every single summoner in the game, whether Challenger or Bronze V, whether level 30 or level 1, whether 10-0 or 0-10 in the past 10 games, deserves to be treated like they are: a human being. And although I don’t speak for Riot nor the community, I think we can all agree that everyone deserves to be respected. Then as such, I believe that their time and effort into the game should be treated with respect as well. This is why I believe that there needs to be a change implemented to change the risk/reward system of troll picks.

I argue that there should be an additional system in place in ranked champion select to deal with this issue. Firstly, let there be a report system in champion select that players can anonymously report their teammates for unacceptable behavior. If 3 votes are casted on a player, that game is immediately disbanded and the potential troll is Leaverbustered for 5:30 as well as given a warning. If that player receives x number of warnings in a given number of champion selects (including those that were disbanded, but not including those dodged for other reasons), their reports go to an “Overwatch” board, either consisting of Rioters or consisting of players who have never been reported or reported few enough times in a given time period for them to vote on whether or not the player should be banned from ranked solo queue for the season. I understand that this is a harsh punishment, and of course, the punishment is flexible, however I want to emphasize that the risk must heavily outweigh the reward for trolling in order for it to have any effect. I will work on a fairer punishment in the meantime, but I want to emphasize the reason I’m writing this in the first place.

Firstly, I believe that trolling a game in such a way is extremely disrespectful to those players not only on the friendly team, but on the opposing team as well. It does not accurately reflect one’s ability to play the game and essentially wastes 9 peoples’ time in the meanwhile.

Secondly, I encourage everyone to spread this to every corner of the League community, whether it gets into the hands of trolls or fair players does not matter. The reason for this is that, trolls that have done this cost-benefit analysis understand that they can abuse the system to get what they want and that is enough to incentivize me to write this. However, in writing this, I want to incentivize Riot to do something as I am not a Rioter myself and hold little power in such regard. However, they must be responsive to the community as a whole and to player behavior as a whole. By letting everyone know that this is a system that can be abused, more trolls will be in your solo queue games than ever before until it gets fixed. However, that only puts more pressure on Riot to implement a solution as quickly as possible. In doing so, I want the end result to be a more honest ranked system and a healthier community of players. Please feel free to share this with your fellow summoners to help make a change in the community and please feel free to contact me if you have any thoughts on the issue.

Yours, Reverbe [email protected]

tl;dr: If you didn't get the role or champ you want in solo queue, currently, especially in higher elo solo queue, it is advantageous for you to pick a troll champion (ie. Heimerdinger with clarity/clairvoyance) to induce a dodge from a fellow teammate. The current system needs to be fixed to discourage such behavior as the game will become near unplayable if everyone takes advantage of this flaw.