More attention needs to be focused on cleaning up the community

TheRealKappy·Jan 3, 2014·4 votes·186 views

I will cut straight to the point here: not enough is being done about the toxic parts of our community and it's slowly becoming worse, in my opinion. I understand that Riot is "doing its best to come up with effective and creative solutions" but it is not enough.

It's unacceptable that I come across more people who tell me to kill myself than people who actually know what the Tribunal is, let alone how it works.

Improving the community needs to be a top priority, not a side project. I would be fine with not seeing another new champion until changes are made to cut down on toxic behavior.

We, the community, need to see that Riot is making this the top priority. In my time playing this game I have seen only a few, poor attempts at increasing awareness (Teamwork OP!) but even that has degenerated into a joke, a sarcastic remark.

I'm begging here, please put forth more effort into cleaning up the mess in our community. And fellow forum browsers please help bring this to attention.

Thank you all.

23 Comments

Icy Hot ShotoJan 3, 20144 votes

No offense but this is how all games are. You can't avoid it. It's like a 3-headed Hydra. You cut off one head, two more grow back.

And if I may ask, why get rid of Trundle ? He's a nice champ, he never did anything to you.

SunDipFunnyJan 3, 20142 votes

They implemented a mute button for a reason. If someone is being extremely toxic or annoying, just mute them. Then report them in the match report screen. You can't ask Riot to change something that they have no control over. What can they do? Delete the entire chat system. That's crazy. They would never do that. Stop crying about stuff Riot cannot do anything about.

TheRealKappyJan 5, 20141 votes

Don't comment on a post about toxics and rude behavior and then be rude yourself. Troll a different post.

NoonsJan 3, 20141 votes

I have made endless support tickets complaining about the community's overall toxicity. I've given endless feedback and suggestions on what might be able to fix it but all I get in return is an automated response from their shit tier Support Team. The richest game company in the world and they rather look for more ways to earn money then to help the community. The only ways I see them helping the community is when they pour all their money into hosting LCS/Worlds. They are more concerned about the pro-players so they don't realize the toxicity and negativity swimming around in non-professional gameplay. +1, this needs to be looked at.

IzbizJan 3, 20143 votes

I challenge you to come up with an idea on how to tackle this. I don't expect a pool-proof plan, but just suggest something.

In my opinion, it's the community's responsibility to improve.

NirvanaBunnyJan 4, 20141 votes

I find it should be a responsibility for both the community *and *RIOT. Yes, we ourselves need to put forth the effort into changing and fixing ourselves.

Though I must admit RIOT has tried, we have mute buttons for a reason and we are able to report people for various things. I, myself, have used the report many times for people.

Also, this problem won't go away completely. For every one person gone, two more will appear and that sort of thing. This is just how the game works. RIOT doesn't want to get rid of players willy-nilly, and I have started to see a difference in the people I play with/against. I have found ones who are jerks and stuff, but for the most part it's been pretty fine for the past month.

But I think no matter how hard we try, this problem will never go away, we just gotta start using what we have more, and learn to not pay attention to the jerks of our community

IzbizJan 4, 20142 votes

My point is that it's only a problem if the community makes it a problem. We as a community need to start muting WAY before we currently are.

The trolls will die off from lack of food.

NirvanaBunnyJan 5, 20141 votes

I have to agree with that Since I started LoL for the third time (This is my third account, I've been here since season one but I forget things a lot) I have started to mute people I don't like in game more often than not, though I will unblock them after the game because there is a really small chance in getting the same person again.

TheRealKappyJan 5, 20141 votes

I certainly agree that muting people needs to be implemented more, and my personal ignore list is growing ridiculously large, but it's impossible for us in the community to police ourselves without help from Riot.

NirvanaBunnyJan 25, 20141 votes

Well what I do is I mute them for the game then I un-ignore them because what are the odds of playing with them ever again?

GuardOfTheRiftJan 3, 20141 votes

So where are your suggestions on how to stop this toxicity for the community? Don't just go on these forums to complain. Give examples and things to support it. Then you might actually get somewhere.

TheRealKappyJan 5, 20141 votes

It seems pointlessly time consuming to list my suggestions; all that would do is incite arguments and inevitably lead to a group of people calling each other stupid because of their ideas.

WEREW0LFJan 3, 20141 votes

First of all only some 3% (?) get banned, and that is like, for a day or a week or something. That should increase with each offense. That really should be higher. If you pretend every single report was real, only 3% were punished. Also I think if more than one person ont he team reports, it should weigh heavier, and even MORE so again of a member of the opposing team takes the time to report you for ruining a game.

Of course a game does not want to ban people that might pay to play. I am sure their argument is that these players are frustrated and will pay to have a better gaming experience. Game developers can not possibly imagine why someone would intentionally ruin games... I have to assume, since nothing serious is done about it.

In HoN the ranking was not just a ranked tier. You log in, you were ranked. You were held accountable for your account. If you were a leaver, for example, and flagged as such you had to play in a 'leavers' queue until you cleared your indiscretion. You could play, but only with other leavers. After you played a few (I dont know the math) it would clear. Usually like 5-10 games.
We can report, and flag people. Have it display like wins/losses. I guess i feel reporting people does next to nothing, and yes, ive set judgement. Then why is it not doing anything? If anything I think now its like fuel for the trolls. If you flag them, All that goes back to the fact you need another tier or the ability to kick (even from lobby). But again, you flag them, it does something.

I think the problem here is un-ranked, and lower ranked is riots leaving, trolling tier / queue. If they allow it to happen, that is exactly what they are saying, by not saying, to us. I am tired of people telling me to calm down, or not be upset. I am tired of making excuses for horrible players that are level 30. People say its free, but its 45 minutes to an hour+ of my life. I can not get that time back. If you think like that its one of the most expensive things you can do. And then trolls say 'then you should have fun' well, we cant... because of trolls and leavers.

I get it, you can make a free email and free league account in minutes. They could IP ban, they could do a lot. they dont.

MackleDogeJan 3, 20143 votes

You actually have any evidence to back up your citation of only three percent being banned? Because I happen to think that's absolute rubbish, the majority of cases in Tribunal result in a punish vote (from my amount of cases done its at 92 percent punish, 8 percent pardon). And the punishment for violating the Summoner's Code does increase based off of number of times banned or punished by Tribunal. And while having multiple reports from one game doesn't necessarily increase the punishment received (and it shouldn't, that opens up huge exploitation issues by premade queues) it does often draw attention in Tribunal and influence the opinion of those voting.

While there isn't a "leaver queue" strictly speaking, that sort of behavior will be linked to their MMR and be an overall reflection of how they play, which means they'll be more likely to be matched with lower skill level players who theoretically are less interested in a more competitive and serious play style.

Being reported or flagged should not be shown on someone's account. That goes off of the same reasoning as removing a player's ping from the loading screen, it encourages differential treatment and toxicity towards certain players and creates a pregame bias that will negatively impact teamwork and the tone of communication. As far as your personal feelings, you actually should calm down, you are choosing to spend your time on this and no one is forcing you. If it bothers you that severely, go play a different game. It's one thing when someone is being racist, homophobic, etc and that is why the report function exists (and does work according to all statistical evidence) but it's another when someone is learning or playing and they are at a different skill level. You don't get to persecute them just because they are playing for fun or at a different skill level.

WEREW0LFJan 6, 20141 votes

I did put a (?) in there as i was uncertain to the exact number. It is 1.4% ...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/25/over-one-percent-of-league-of-legends-players-have-been-banned/

It seems the system is a huge success according to this gaming page. But the problem is still rampant or posts like this would not exist. Why should I play another game, why dont the trolls? I feel that attitude is skewed. The regular, non abusive players should be a little mad, they should want to fight for the community. Thats like saying if you live in a neighborhood with drugs and violence you should just move away.... Maybe you should care about your community and fight for it.

"The system went live earlier this year, and Riot has now revealed how incredibly successful the system has been with the publication of some very interesting banning statistics. The biggest shocker is that a whopping 1.4% of LoL's over 15 million players have been banned with the system, a workload that far exceeds the capacity of a traditional GM team. Ninety-four percent of players submitted to the Tribunal are punished, with about 50% of them never reoffending."

MackleDogeJan 6, 20141 votes

So what's your point then? The Tribunal works, it does it's job. The reason there isn't much impact felt overall is because of the sheer size of the community and the fact that those who are truly negative and toxic are petty enough to just make multiple accounts to continue their offenses on. Sorry, but if my choice is between having to pay to play League or dealing with a toxic player every now and then (I find that the more positive you are the less often you run into them, I don't encounter it much at all despite being in bronze) then you're just going to have to get over it. It's not worth taking away the free to play model just to make people feel better.

By the way, small side note, thank you for posting that link, good article.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. The article demonstrates the effectiveness of Tribunal system. What it doesn't demonstrate however is the efficacy of personal action in the game. It can't account for surrounding yourself with the positive summoners you encounter. It doesn't account for issues avoided by just staying positive or muting the offending party. It doesn't demonstrate the statistical relevance of improving your own gameplay to the point where your MMR or rank places you with more serious or mature players that behave more like decent human beings.

I'm not saying we should just say hell with it all and allow toxicity to exist, but I am saying that we shouldn't go ban crazy and militant because at that point people have to play in fear that one of those toxic players is going to get a few friends and false report, leading to all that strictness hurting the community instead of helping. I do agree that some IP banning could be used for serious repeat offenders, but if we are honest with each other on this, those people that are petty and immature enough to behave that way in a game are pretty likely to just go on Google and get their little script kiddie IPs changed.

Tess GreymaneJan 3, 20141 votes

Twitch Toxic Eh?

ÐèviLJan 4, 20141 votes

I agree that there are FAR to many ppl that enjoy annoying everyone on this game. Every single game I have played since I can remember had at least one or more troll. Some people playing this game are just beyond help. I think offer a reward for getting good feedback from players like friendly or teamwork honor. To make people want to get the honor from other players besides this lame ribbon. Offer something that people actually want and strive to get from being a better more friendly player. Just a thought.

One Of DeathJan 4, 20141 votes

Honestly the higher your elo is in normals and the higher your rank is, you'll see little to no toxic players. Otherwise yeah people with less wins, there's at least one toxic player every game.

Dragonheart NAJan 5, 20141 votes

That is good to know One of Death. I see so much toxic behavior and a lot directed at me as I am not that great yet, but I am doing my best. Hopefully by season 5 I can elevate my game to rank play and higher elo so I don't have to deal with some of this nonsense.

TheRealKappyJan 6, 20142 votes

I think this is a big issue though, because players climbing through the ranks become discouraged when they encounter all the toxicity in low elo and aren't apt to continue striving to reach the point where it becomes better.

One Of DeathJan 6, 20141 votes

I have multiple rl friends that only play bots because they hate the "pressure of doing normals." You're right.