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Toxic Community, My Chat Restriction, Plans For Coping

Live for More·12/26/2014, 10:36:25 PM·1 votes·788 views

Everybody knows this game is full of terrible people. I'm not talking bad players. I'm talking just outright mean, toxic, rude, despicable people. I should know it as well as anyone. I've been in Bronze and Silver, and never higher. There are so many people that just pick on their teammates when they make a mistake. I get it, you want to win. But if you're not being constructive, then what are you trying to do? You're just being a dick in that situation. What amazes me is that chat restriction is a thing, yet these people haven't been hit by it hard enough to actually stop being toxic. There's also the trash talking. Oddly enough, the trash talking always seems to come from the same people.

Riven Katarina MasterYi Tryndamere

I myself have been toxic in the past. There are occasions where I will say something snarky to somebody who is trash talking me first. I rarely, if ever, begin to call someone out first. Oftentimes, I will poke fun at people, and people get offended and thing I'm being serious. It's something I need to work on. I can't convey my sarcasm or my humor through text only as well as I can with my voice and my body language, especially to the socially-unqualified twelve year olds that patrol the rift (violating the Terms of Agreement, I'm assuming) so commonly. As of right now, I am chat restricted for 9 more of my 15 matches. It is my third time being chat restricted (first time: 30 matches, second time: 1 match, third time: 15 matches). I don't really understand what I did to put me in this situation, as I don't entirely understand the process behind chat restriction. I know I've been reported quite a few times. Usually it's for unconventional picks: AP Pantheon, AP Nasus, AD Soraka. Often times, I get reported for Negative Attitude in these situations, even though I am maintaining a highly positive attitude. When my team is toxic towards me, I point out that I am doing well and ask them to leave me alone. I'll point out their mistakes and tell them how they can fix them (constructive criticism). They swear at me at this point, and I mute them. Afterwards, I'll often get a popup about a Negative Attitude report, which absolutely bewilders me. Surely Riot can't be legitimately trying to suggest I did something wrong? I consistently have among the highest scores, turrets taken, and damage dealt in these many troll games. My legit games are much the same. Yet still, I've managed to get myself chat restricted, and Riot has yet to make it so that I know just what I did to end up in this situation.

Questions I have:

  • Is there a review system, where chat logs get read? Or is it just sheer report numbers? I think I could understand automatic chat restrictions based on report numbers leading to my account being chat restricted. In a chat log reading situation, I simply cannot begin to understand how I could have gotten chat restricted.

  • Are reports weighted? I don't know if reports from certain players mean less than others based on their community standing, but I've found that I usually end up reporting at least one person per match. I end up with a lot of four man premades, and if just one of them gets upset for any one thing, then I end up getting reported four times (and frequently voted Honorable Opponent in these matches).

  • How do I avoid toxic players without muting everybody? Surely muting everybody is not a good solution. At the start of the match, you have no way of knowing what players have something helping to say. You may make good friends with a friendly player who knows how to Lulu like a boss, but you're losing the opportunity when you mute them.

  • As ranks go up, how does toxicity improve? Though I'm sitting with a single win and no losses in my promos to Silver 5, I play against Silver 4 and Silver 3 players, and they are easily among the most toxic players I've ever seen. Worse than any Bronze players by far. I've also played Silver 2, and they are just as awful as the lower Silvers. When does toxic behavior get better, if ever?

  • Are the statistics deceptive? You know the ones. In the loading screen, you see text like: "Players who do not flame their teammates get 64% more booty than their little brothers," or, "Toxic teammates are 73% more likely to get peed on by R Kelly." More accurately, text that says players who flame their teammates lose more games. I feel like maybe the correlation is actually backwards. Maybe it isn't the toxic behavior that causes losses, but rather the losing matches that makes players flame their teammates? Not to say that toxic behavior has no negative effect on teams, or that it's justified, but more accurately that it's a deceptive trick meant to imply that you're more likely to win if you don't say mean things.

Plans for the future: I really can't remember the last time I had a game where the entire match was positive energy. It's either a teammate insulting the rest of the players, or it's an enemy ADC blaming their teammates for lack of peel while they charge into the full team alone. I just don't understand these people. For the upcoming season, I'm going to take notes on all of my reports. Every match, I will write down the number of toxic players/reports, the team they played on, and how well they performed. I will also track outstanding players that have earned an honor. Also, I hope to be a more positive influence in the future. Maybe cut down on the troll builds, even if it has helped improve my understanding of the inner workings of the champions I play.

8 Comments

Jubbinaut12/26/2014, 11:53:05 PM2 votes

I'm going to restrict myself to answering the specific questions you asked. So here ya go:

{quoted} Questions I have:

  • Is there a review system, where chat logs get read? Or is it just sheer report numbers? I think I could understand automatic chat restrictions based on report numbers leading to my account being chat restricted. In a chat log reading situation, I simply cannot begin to understand how I could have gotten chat restricted.

There is a review system, yes. Sufficient reported games (I'll come back to this later) results in a case being built against the player. That case is reviewed, either by Rioters directly, or by a very sophisticated chat-detection algorithm. The number of false-positives from either of these review steps is ridiculously low.

  • Are reports weighted? I don't know if reports from certain players mean less than others based on their community standing, but I've found that I usually end up reporting at least one person per match. I end up with a lot of four man premades, and if just one of them gets upset for any one thing, then I end up getting reported four times (and frequently voted Honorable Opponent in these matches).

There are two aspects to this question, so I'll start with the question itself. Yes, reports are weighted. As a player issues false reports (i.e. reports that result in Pardon verdicts), the weight or value of those reports is lowered. It is possible (but I imagine very difficult) to have a report weight of zero. Players who abuse the report system in such a way are banned, but it's rare, as there simply aren't many who do so regularly enough to actually be detrimental.

Second: Because of the way cases are built, the number of reports in a game is largely irrelevant. Specifically, the system only cares about how many games a player is reported in (compared to their total number of games), rather than about how many individual reports were issued per game. This is specifically to combat what would otherwise be an overbearing strength held by premade groups.

As a note, I'm uncertain about the specific way these two systems interact, but I suspect that the game is given a value dependent upon the highest weighted report issued in the game for the player in question.

  • How do I avoid toxic players without muting everybody? Surely muting everybody is not a good solution. At the start of the match, you have no way of knowing what players have something helping to say. You may make good friends with a friendly player who knows how to Lulu like a boss, but you're losing the opportunity when you mute them.

Muting everyone works, but I prefer to be able to communicate. My personal method is simply to mute players at the first sign of toxicity beyond what I'm able to brush off. For example, while "[all] this bot fuckign sucks" is toxic, it's something I can ignore, so I wouldn't mute that player. On the other hand, 5 minutes of systemic verbal abuse heaped on a specific player in group chat is beyond my personal threshold, and I would mute it.

  • As ranks go up, how does toxicity improve? Though I'm sitting with a single win and no losses in my promos to Silver 5, I play against Silver 4 and Silver 3 players, and they are easily among the most toxic players I've ever seen. Worse than any Bronze players by far. I've also played Silver 2, and they are just as awful as the lower Silvers. When does toxic behavior get better, if ever?

I don't play ranked myself, but it's my understanding that toxicity doesn't change much across the ranks, or at least not until the very high end. I have no personal experience, however, so take it with a grain of salt, and as always regarding subjective matters, your mileage may vary.

  • Are the statistics deceptive? You know the ones. In the loading screen, you see text like: "Players who do not flame their teammates get 64% more booty than their little brothers," or, "Toxic teammates are 73% more likely to get peed on by R Kelly." More accurately, text that says players who flame their teammates lose more games. I feel like maybe the correlation is actually backwards. Maybe it isn't the toxic behavior that causes losses, but rather the losing matches that makes players flame their teammates? Not to say that toxic behavior has no negative effect on teams, or that it's justified, but more accurately that it's a deceptive trick meant to imply that you're more likely to win if you don't say mean things.

Look at it like this. You have two players, yeah? Player A and player B. Assume that every other player in each of their hundred games is the same (same sides, same lanes, same champs, same overall skill level), and that player A and player B are of equal skill. The only difference is that A tends to range from neutral to positive in his approach to his team, and B tends to be negative in his approach to his team.

Assuming that they're at an appropriate MMR for their skill, we can follow some assumptions. Both players are bound to lose about 50% of their games. Some of those are going to be really unfortunate sweeps (some of their wins will be, too... it tends to balance out), some are going to be hard fights that are ultimately unwinnable, and some could go either way.

Player A is going to win more of those "either way" matches than player B. Because player A encourages his team - or at least does nothing to discourage them, while Player B goes out of his way to destroy his team's morale and desire to continue to try to win.

So in a real sense, both correlations are true. Losses can inspire toxic behavior, and toxic behavior can create losses.

NIEKUH12/26/2014, 10:43:51 PM1 votes

Just delete game and run for the hills!

D0nC12/26/2014, 11:01:43 PM1 votes

There is an inch of truth in not insulting your team mates increasing your chances at winning but that is because discouragement takes place. Who knows what really happens, I have tried being an asshole and not saying a word, I win and lose the same, nothing changes.

Sometimes, it feels as though the system looks for bad players on purpose when you talk too much or get reported, that I can attest for being true.

The only solution to "toxic" is mute, Lyte can make it his career's goal to find another way and he will never find it because he simply trades one problem for another.

Global chat ignore, FFS QUEUE IGNORE if you thought one of those people who played with you sucked, the sheer amount of INFINITE POSIBILITIES not having to do with controlling someone's behavior but no, you are going to play with whoever they want you to play, not leave, not be an asshole and you are going to like it.

Rewards affect behavior more than punishment, ignore works wonders on verbal harassment, player queue ignore works wonders when you did not like the way that player played.

Come the tribunal in 2015 group trolling/reporting is back on the table.

Eleshakai12/27/2014, 2:26:22 AM1 votes

I'm not going to break down the whole thing, because I think you're just trying hard to find excuses to justify something. Not quite sure what that is, but I'll give you my best statement on the subject of toxicity and hope that it helps you find the real answer you're looking for.

First of all, I disagree with your opening ascension. I don't 'know that the people are terrible', I KNOW that the majority of this community are perfectly ordinary people capable of being nice or of being jerks. And I think this includes you and me as well.

I have made so many friends over my years with this game, and I've also had some pretty negative experiences... but I'd say that on average around 1% of people I run into are toxic. To put that in numbers, that means that I estimate I run into a toxic individual once every 10-15 games.

Here's my stance on the subject of toxicity:

No matter what you go into the game expecting, you'll rarely be surprised.

I go into games ALWAYS expecting that the 9 other players in my game will be nice individuals that I'll want to interact with. And, I am rarely disappointed. Most people I talk to on these forums go into every game expecting that someone is going to be a jerk... and they are also rarely surprised. How can this be?

Simple... the way you treat others is dependent upon how you EXPECT they will act. Let me be clear here, I'm not claiming you go in flaming people because they're going to be jerks. What I am saying is that if you expect that people are going to be jerks, no matter how good your intentions, you are going to treat them differently than if you expect them to be nice... and you probably won't even notice it. It's subconscious, and almost everyone does it. And, those people subconsciously react to that as well... and this brings out the worst in them.

Remember what I said before? Everyone's capable of being both kind and a jerk... and it doesn't take much to switch from one mode to another in most people. So if they, subconsciously, notice that you think they're a jerk... they're going to - probably without even realizing it as well - show the side you want to see... which then cements, further, in your mind that the community is full of jerks... so you then go into the next game expecting it, and then you see it more, etc.

It's a vicious circle, and it's all started by as harmless a thing as an expectation.