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Riot's attitude towards feedback and criticism is pretty childish

Anatera·7/26/2019, 7:48:22 AM·189 votes·21,252 views

There's only really two places they can get lots of feedback from, here and the subreddit.

Their activity on these boards may as well be non existent. And if you say that it's because people are "mean" to them, then might I recommend you try to be less selective in the posts you click on. There are plenty of threads that can be counted as "constructive" by their standards as well. Don't be a policeman if you can't deal with criminals. Don't be a psychiatrist if you can't deal with depressed people. Don't make an online game if you can't deal with people yelling at you over the internet.

The subreddit, however, is presumably the only place they really go to for that sort of thing. Coincidentally enough, it's so heavily moderated (by bots and mods) that it's virtually impossible to make any thread criticizing them. Go ahead and try to make one. So the only threads that exist are the ones that talk about what a great job they're doing.

Sorry, this is what children expect from people. An adult understands that there are different people who want different things and when you make a piece of media, you are opening yourself up to criticism. If you want only positives, go ask your mother for that.

And people wonder why the balance team haters only come here. Uh...maybe because this is the only place where you can have a voice?

129 Comments

Midg3t7/26/2019, 8:07:37 AM91 votes

I said this in the past and I'll say it again- they need to start doing devstreams where they will select couple of hot topics from the Boards, read them and give their opinion. For example, talk about Pyke. People think his rly bs to play, and the recent change to the "Cut" he gets from his ult made him opressive. Collect some nerf suggestions and talk them out. Or talk about autofill, discuss why you think it's an okay feature and stuff like that.

One devstream per week would be more than enough. It would be efficient, and it would encourage people to voice their opinion on Boards.

SEKAI7/26/2019, 8:33:43 AM23 votes

At least there's one, sort of

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/chr3sd/unofficial_vote_what_would_you_like_to_see_get/

.........

Just so you know, Riot used to be pretty active on Boards, and not like today you see like 2 Rioters occasionally on meme posts and at most they browse the Story & Art section.

Guess what happened when they reached out in good faith to Boards' community in terms of game balance.

I'm not saying Riot ignoring their literal official forum platform is remotely a good thing, because it's not and stupid. But let's not pretend Boards' community is without blame.

ModThe Djinn7/26/2019, 1:09:19 PM20 votes

There are plenty of threads that can be counted as "constructive" by their standards as well.

Now watch what happens the moment a Rioter steps in and discusses issues, and makes some statement or voices some opinion that people disagree with. It gets nasty, speaking as one of the people who moderates it.

You're right that criticism should be allowed and received, which is why we allow it here. People need to understand, however, that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to criticize something, especially if you want results and especially if you want to start a dialogue with the people you seek to converse with.

Jennifer4207/26/2019, 1:53:30 PM20 votes

theres a simple reason why riot only goes to lol reddit. because that place is full of yes-men. no matter what happens, lol reddit always defends riot. (well like 90% of the time). i mean think about it, imagine you have 2 places you can spend your free time in. in one place people critizie what you do. you could use that to become better at what you do, but meh. in the other place, you are the king. everyone bows before you and they see you as the god. im sure most of us would go to the 2nd place.

Wimbleh7/26/2019, 5:50:14 PM9 votes

This is how nearly all major game development studios with a hand in online multiplayer operate because_ they can._ Take a look at nearly any of them. Shady business practices via gambling a.ka "loot boxes", "Release it now, fix it later". Hell, Blizzard and Activision both have a team dedicated to figuring out the best ways to exploit human mentality for money consisting of economics majors and even a psych.

There is the old saying "vote with your wallet" but that's no longer applicable nowadays because most of the revenue comes from China and whales. You'll never have a voice and nothing will ever change because even though a hand full of you are unhappy, business is booming. You are either a minority or expendable among their consumer-base and they have all the analytics to prove it. You're way better off steering clear of big studios and sticking to small ones...until they become large that is and then they'll follow suite.

hewhodoesnotcare7/26/2019, 5:03:59 PM7 votes

We wouldn't be criticizing them if we didn't love the fucking game but riot doesn't care. they need more $$$ because they are turning into a greedy sjw company like ea and activision and only pull out shit from their asses to save face when the sjw are pissed.

Eybdoog7/26/2019, 6:49:31 PM6 votes

Glad to see this not get auto downvoted. Surprised to be honest. Well said OP

5050BS7/27/2019, 5:08:46 AM6 votes

Riot is owned by a Chinese corp. Its just like China. Delete anything that makes them look bad. They Lie the same too.

14daysuspensionk7/26/2019, 6:53:01 PM5 votes

''Nerf Vayne!''.

Riot: Oh, you want us to buff her E from 100 to 150%? Ok then!

Modl Ryden l7/27/2019, 12:33:06 AM4 votes

From any programmers perspective:

"You put childish feedback in

Expect to get childish feedback out"

What pertinent information can be parsed from the following, "JESUS FUCKING RIOT STOP KILL ING YOUR OH MY CHRIST! WILL SOMEONE DO SOMETHING???? HELLO?"

Like what room does Riot have to step in and give feedback?

Nothing. Absolutely none.

The unfortunate reality of this phenomenon is that posts like I have mentioned are the ones that garner upvotes and the attentions of the players of this game.

Meanwhile there are well documented posts that get favored for just 1 day, trying to compete with the hundred of mean-spirited and hateful comments that manage to farm 72+ upvotes a day.

A great example:

Someone poured their heart out into proposing very promising changes to Twisted Treeline:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/E2ikbKET-proposal-twisted-treeline-gameplay-update-new-game-mode-more-riot-mort-meddler

And that only stayed hot on the boards for about a day.

Now checkout the boards daily and look at the posts that stay hot. They're rage posts. And the occasional posts such as OP's that bring it around full circle.

I guarantee you that Riot is more likely to open the boards, and by first impressions, see that the first 15 posts are baby rage posts about 'Riot not doing any work' and close out and visit the LoL subreddit.

Now you wonder why they don't much care for the posts here because it's not worth digging through the piles and piles of shit people complain about on the daily.

It's not hard to gather your thoughts and write a well written post. It does not have to be an essay. It also doesn't mean it can't have foul language. It just needs to have some thought and effort as well as bringing up points that may generate discussion. Otherwise it's a rant and as such belongs on that board specifically.

ProExpertKing7/27/2019, 3:04:21 AM4 votes

I actually noticed that if you talk to a rioter directly and give them feedback on what they actually work on "I don't like really this, I would like this", they do tend to send a reply out explaining why x is x and not y. It could just be that it's a bit harder to talk to a faceless company and a hell of a lot easier to talk to a person directly. Riot KindleJack is someone I sent a tweet to about how I prefer Fiddlesticks as a kinda doofy character. One who doesn't excatly appear to be a threat but still is and they told me that they feel the same, it's just that Riot had told them that a more serious and grim character is what was ordered so that's kinda what they gotta go for. It was super cool honestly that they responded since I'm so used to being ignored with stuff like that, even with really small scale people, especially since they got back to me on the same day lmao.

mack91127/26/2019, 4:56:47 PM4 votes

This board is not full of feedback or criticism it is full of hate.

Gamer Life7/26/2019, 8:26:22 PM3 votes

Totally agree. They dont listen to any feedback yet are still happy to take money I think there need to be a boycott of league of legend or everyone need to get to geather and not give Riot anymore money untill they start listening / fixng the problems

so that mean no more getting RP or buying merch, because i dont see Riot listen atm

C9 Scott7/26/2019, 9:54:11 PM3 votes

Tell me about it. I made a post critiquing the current state of gameplay saying that the game is no longer fun and that damage is too high. It was removed because it "doesn't belong in the gameplay section."

FrancesbSmAt7/27/2019, 4:36:52 AM2 votes

Fkn victims. They can't even bear mean words on a screen.

Ulmus08NA7/26/2019, 10:52:08 PM2 votes

Literally all of the responses I've got from the Riot team on these boards can be read as "that's the way it is, it's your fault for getting upset by it". It's really really sad to see League of Legends get treated so badly. It's an amazingly well made base game with fantastic systems in it. Unfortunately, all I see as a player of the game are endless skin lines being released and little tweaks to things that actually break their game.

I used to commend the public face of Riot, but now I'm questioning whether they really have a public face that isn't heavily doctored to seem 'cheerfully optimistic', while avoiding (or worse making jokes about) serious issues. To hear that the subreddit is heavily doctored too is disappointing, but ultimately unsurprising. My fear is that their attitude and behaviour suggests that they know one day they can just turn off the servers, lock the door and walk away with that juicy skin line money.

MegaHuff7/27/2019, 6:35:27 PM2 votes

I like the stream idea. And take questions from chat too, so they can't ignore burning questions that didn't get selected.

Either way, personally already lost hope 100% in Rito. They maybe could change my mind if they did a 180 but I'm not going to keep false hope any longer.