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the reason why league is considered more toxic than other games

IDontMainKindred·2/14/2018, 9:00:41 PM·2 votes·1,356 views

I dont feel this topic has been addressed in that great detail unless i've just missed it

League of legends is notorious and generally recognized as having one of the most toxic gaming communities out there. I've ran into my fair share of toxic players on all ends of the spectrum from flaming to just down right racist players but you will run into those people in almost every competitive game there is. The biggest contributing factor to why league of legends has such a "toxic community" is because you can make infinite numbers of free accounts. While this stops a lot of the toxics from ever reaching ranked play, it floods low level games with toxic players who flame. I have my fair share of smurf accounts and i run into far more toxic players than in ranked. Now to get into how this affects peoples view on the game

New players get harassed and flamed for not understanding how to play league of legends. they get put up against smurfs who know how to play the game completely ruining the match for them and a lot of the time results in toxic players to flame them. People who don't actively play league to get to a higher level get a terrible first impression of the game and that impression sticks. Its understandable that league has this reputation. Why play a new game if 90% of the people you meet flame you for not knowing how to play?

The more you level up, the less likely you are to get hard flamed and the less likely to find people using racial slurs because the accounts being used have a lot of time put into them, possibly even money. With so much effort put into an account, people are less likely to risk being banned as opposed to a level 10 account that got leveled to that point in 2-3 hours.

Overall not much can be done to fix this problem but its a noteworthy topic. Personally I find games like rust to be far more toxic due to there being almost no admins and almost no customer support. League for sure does not deserve the most toxic game title but thats what new players take away from the game

11 Comments

Chermorg2/14/2018, 11:26:58 PM4 votes

League of legends is notorious and generally recognized as having one of the most toxic gaming communities out there.

You know, I see this parroted around... yet it doesn't jive with what I see. While some articles do rank League as "number 1", if you read their analysis it's clear that it is not number 1. Many articles such as this one use a very poor definition of toxicity - they define toxicity as "requir[ing] the most team cooperation"... which doesn't make sense. The bottom line is that people claim League is the most toxic, but if you dig into why they claim it as most toxic, they're really just parroting the common misconception that League must be toxic because it's the most toxic.

Regardless, I agree that there is toxicity in League. I also find that it's much less prevalent in League than it is in other games - CSGO, Runescape, DOTA, Overwatch.. all of those come to mind, and when playing all of those myself and most people I know have the same experience - constant flaming, constant threats and insults flying, even if you haven't made a single mistake. Some of those games even have players whose only goal is to scam people out of items worth real money. Yet apparently League is more toxic?

The solution to toxicity is pretty simple - give people a warning (or few), and then remove them from the community if they do not wish to improve their behavior. I think Riot's punishment system is responsible for the large improvement in the community I've seen between Season 1/2 and now. I further think it's not a coincidence that Overwatch, other Blizzard titles, and other games altogether are copying Riot's tiered punishment system to reduce toxicity in their games.

It'll never be perfect, but it's hardly the worst and it's not all that bad honestly.

TwitchInMyPants2/14/2018, 11:32:06 PM2 votes

As long as Overwatch exists League is never going to take spot #1 for most toxic game lmao

League actually bans people that int and flame. There was a guy who got over 2000 reports from different games before getting banned doing the same shit over and over and it took him saying to Jeff Kaplan on the forums "Your report system is shit I just got chat restricted" before it got investigated at all that he was worth banning. Like it was a funny "smited" moment but that speaks to how stupidly lenient that game is. You can flame, blame, and int for over a year and still only get the most minor punishment. League wouldn't let you get anywhere near that shit before you're banned... unless you're that Tahm Kench + Anivia duo in Korean bronze.

Trollmanship2/14/2018, 11:35:27 PM2 votes

I find the toxicity in league frustrating (when I'm tryharding, not when I'm just dicking around) because I have no way to respond while still playing seriously. I get flamed in like half my games and reported in probably a fourth of them, but if I go on a 10 game loss streak, putting up with people spewing racial slurs etc all game long, and dare to get heated and respond to them even a fraction of the amount they've thrown at me, I'll be the one who gets hit with a chat restriction. Heh, one of my smurfs got chat restrictions for a string of 5 games in a row where I said nothing in chat all game long besides "fuck off" (which I said about 30 times because my teams were going nuclear over the stupidest shit) because I knew I was tilted and making myself not throw insults.

Meanwhile none of my reports ever mean shit because I've never gotten a report feedback notification on the NA server even though I have 5 lvl 30 accounts. And before anyone accuses me of being toxic, I've never gotten more than a chat restriction, I have all those smurfs because I'm a plat level player who would rather kill myself than play with other plats.

PrismalDawn2/14/2018, 9:02:44 PM1 votes

No, the reason why it's so "toxic" is because you allow it to be. Other games out there don't give a shit about what you say, so long as you play by the actual game rules.

ADC Bard2/14/2018, 9:11:52 PM1 votes

It's not, it just happens to have more players. In terms of %, league has the same toxicity level as any other game

Bard