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Between Two Turrets - Chat with research manager Davin! [COMPLETE]

RiotA Small Man··16 votes·67,310 views

http://i.imgur.com/07lc1jY.jpg

Welcome to the latest installment of Between Two Turrets, a new Q&A series from the NA Community team in which we'll connect you with various Rioters to chat about League, life, and anything in between. You can expect an installment every couple weeks or so, with Rioters from all over jumping in to spend some time with you on the boards.

This week, we’ve got research manager davin!

EDIT - Thanks for coming out to chat guys! Gonna go catch my bus, but I'll try to check back later for any new questions. Take care!

Hi friends! My name's Davin Pavlas, and I'm a Research Manager at Riot Games. I work as part of the team at Riot that studies player experience -- examining behavior, attitudes, wants, needs, psychology, and so on! My background is in Human Factors Psychology, I got my Ph.D. studying games, play, and learning. As a whole, research at Riot tackles how to make things fun, how to ensure players' needs are being met, and in general figures out how we know something is good or successful.

In the four years I've been at Riot, I've done research on a bunch of things, but my favorite work has been on champions (including Thresh, my favorite skellington), features (like Team Builder), and player behavior.

I'm a huge nerd for games of all kinds, and really believe in the power of play in people's lives. Naturally, I love the hell out of games, whether it's playing them or making them. Beyond games, you'll usually find me talking about comedy, diversity in tech, and mental health.

So, that's me. In some brief paragraphs. I'd love to answer any questions you might have, and to get to know you all as well! Let's chat!

312 Comments

Hufflepuff14 votes

Are there any updates on a homosexual Champion? Riot has mentioned it several times, but with all the various champion backgrounds (void, shadow isles, etc) I'm wondering if it will ever be a thing.

Will it be a thing? Thanks sir.

Riotdavin12 votes

We haven't told stories talking about explicitly gay characters yet, but Runeterra's a world with all sorts of folks in it, just like ours. I'm obviously not part of the narrative group, but if you ask me, gay characters are already part of the game. There's a lot of potential stories waiting to be told :)

deadshotturtle19 votes

[deleted]

Habitz5 votes

Teemo Think about it.

gainzs7 votes

teemo is straight lol,,,,

Habitz2 votes

Nah he's just still in the bush...

Hufflepuff4 votes

Oh - that's what I meant, sorry. I forgot where I saw it, but I believe I saw a Rioter post something involving an upcoming Champion's lore involving a same-sex relationship.

MexiSmuggler696911 votes

[deleted]

Hufflepuff12 votes

{quoted}

I vote to keep sexual orientation out of the game.

This is a game, there is no reason to openly incorporate sensitive topics that could make people feel uncomfortable or offended -- just to appease a minority.

If there are gay champions, let them be gay in silence. We don't need to know, and we don't care.

If anything, please put it to a vote, to gauge the community's response before releasing any such information.

MexiSmuggler....6969... Lucian had a wife, ashe and trynd are married, MF and Ahri are seductresses. Sexual orientation is already part of the game.

If there are gay champs, there are gay champs.

The Alpha Gay7 votes

Who is this "we" you speak of? And the way you're phrasing this is that only gay people should be silent about their orientation. You also want to put it to a vote to keep virtual characters from casually mentioning who they may be attracted to? This has so many parallels to real life oppressive behavior its saddening. Gay people have and always will be a minority in society, but that doesn't mean they aren't present. I know plenty of homosexual gaymers, and its never a demand, its just a suggestion to represent a community that has been told to suppress their identity for so long. As a homosexual man myself, I am never really "offended" by the lack of gay characters. I am just excited to see when a game company tries to incorporate one. Countless young people are coming to terms with their sexual identities, and I think seeing a gay character in a game they adore, that has many characters, offers some feeling of inclusion. Maybe even making them feel a little more comfortable in their skin in a world and internet culture that considers their homosexuality a matter of opinion. TL;DR WE'RE HERE! WE'RE QUEER! AND SEEING A LITTLE REPRESENTATION IS NOT ONLY REALISTIC, IT IMPACTS PEOPLE IN A POSITIVE WAY YOU MAY NEVER UNDERSTAND. The Alpha Gay OUT.

ProAsToss1 votes

[deleted]

The Alpha Gay7 votes

LOL Being gay is not a mental illness. This is not the 70's. The only cure that is needed, is for people like you who view something as harmless as homosexuality as a problem. Please support your "opinion" with proper scientific research. Otherwise, if we continue to throw out the phrase "mental illness" loosely, I'd like to document my experience with the illness. It has not prevented me from establishing confidence, falling in love, developing a promising monogamous relationship, becoming a doctor, or establishing a healthy relationship with my friends and family. All of which have been goals in my life. In fact, my worst years were pre-18 or pre-coming-out, where I didn't show my "mental illness". However, I am just one person so perhaps you should try meeting the diverse group of people who are living with this particular illness. In fact, many of their symptoms I've come to learn are quite similar to heterosexual people. However, gay people have something different... strangers like you who tell us its wrong, tell us it is an illness, and tell us we need to be fixed. Which, as valiant as you are with your efforts, preaches doubt, self-hate, and may lead to depression and suicide in young and old people. People who would have otherwise lived without this uselessly negative environment.

SO until you have proper evidence to label homosexuality as a mental illness, or have real practical reasons for why it should be fixed, do not EVER label it as a problem. Do not contribute to the environment that has made gay people hate themselves for so long. When people like you stop, everyone else will stop glorifying being gay as there will be no reason to have pride in it anymore.

ProAsToss1 votes

[deleted]

The Alpha Gay5 votes

I'll be honest, I'm little confused with your view, so I'll just say we are most likely going to agree to disagree. I have a feeling some sort of religion or strong philosophy is getting in the way of us mutually determining what a "mistake", "sexual relationship", or a "functioning society" is. I agree with you on the confusion of sex and love. However, I believe that that is a very general human problem. I would like to think most mature people see love and sexual attraction as being foundations, at the very minimum, for a life long relationship. Anyway, I appreciate your view. I just get frustrated with people thinking they have the answers to an experience they can't completely relate to. Spreading a negative message based on something as uncertain and unfactual as an opinion.

Dylightfull12 votes

Do you shout "WELCOME TO THE LEAGUE OF DAAAAAAAVIN!" whenever someone enters your office?

If not, I think you should. It would make you look awesome. But not as awesome as Draaaaaven. Nobody's as awesome as Draaaaaaaven.

Sincerely, Draaaaaaaaven Gorillanator.

Kei14311 votes

Hi Davin, I got a few random question. Answer them as you see fit.

  • From all the data that you see, what are the top three contributions that lead to people trolling others?

  • What are the factors you see for making someone tilt?

  • what are the most common post game report reasons you see? And how does that data help with the bigger picture?

  • do you ever study the behaviour of ragers on forums qqing about fotm and zed being op? If so, what do you guys normally learn out of reading those threads?

  • a few riot staff members has been very active on forums recently, responding to us gamers and all. Is there anything you can take away from those interactions?

That's all for now!!

Riotdavin3 votes

Hi Kei!

I'm afraid that I don't really do much player behavior research myself nowadays (some other researchers work on that). So for the first three questions I'm afraid I'd be giving you pretty out-of-date info from my own experiences working in that space :) Regarding forum engagement and what we can learn from that, that's definitely a source of knowledge for us! Even though forums might not be statistically representative, it's awesome to hear from folks directly, and engaging can help build more understanding of things from different angles.

Deep Terror Nami5 votes

Are there any questions you are wanting to be asked?

Riotdavin5 votes

Howcome you aren't a real skin yet?

That's the one I'd want to ask. I want a scary Nami.

PT Waluigi2 votes

Watch. Angler Fish Nami...spooky, yes?

Deep Terror Nami5 votes

http://orig09.deviantart.net/d6a3/f/2013/221/0/a/sea_witch_nami_by_shockowaffel-d6hdym3.jpg

Use your Senior User Researcher powers and make it so! XD

http://media.giphy.com/media/VLoN2iW8ii3wA/giphy.gif

Riotdavin4 votes

I love that fanart T^T That's the one I always think of for scary Nami ;)

snackos5 votes

Hi, I'm a psychology student extremely interested in studying and pursuing a career focused on player behavior in online communities/games.

It would be great to learn more about your schooling experience, what kind of things you studied to help lead to this career path, and any experiences that helped you along the way.

I try my best to play a lot of games and talk to my friends about why they act the way they do, and I (try) to read a lot of psychology books on similar topics. I guess I just was wondering if I'm going in the right vague direction or not, as your job is basically my 'dream job'.

Thanks! <3

NoOneCanStopMe253 votes

Hey Dav (Can I call you that?),

How do you handle being raged or trolled at? It's something that's always crossed my mind whenever it happens.

Riotdavin6 votes

I just try to embrace a pretty chill attitude. If it gets to me too bad I mute. I'll try to mediate between folks if I think it's helpful, but if it's gonna aggravate things I don't. It's tough getting yelled at, but yelling back is almost always the wrong answer in League.

77Sven3 votes

Hey Davin, I have a couple questions. You don't have to answer them if any are on an uncomfortable topic.

  • One: How are you today?
  • Two: What is your thought on some of the balances done on champions.
  • Three: What is your favorite champion / role to play in LoL?
  • Four: Have you ever gone to the balance team and asked them what they were thinking with a champion design / nerf / buff? (can be a good or bad "what were you thinking")
  • Five: How concerned is riot with the opinion and experience of the player, as compared to their concern with the e-sports scene?
  • Six: Are there any champions you want to see nerfed / buffed / reworked (and why if you don't mind)? Thanks for addressing my comments, hope you have an excellent day! ;D
ShankHealer3 votes

Hey Davin, I was wondering if some sort of LP loss/Gain system could be thought about - Being bronze myself i find that in many games i get players that flame ( causing me to flame, i will admit ), but more importantly troll to often. So for players like myself who can consistently go positive on KDA and push towers but have my team ultimately not be able to consistently help win the game. So i find that i lose many games and alot of hard earned LP because "my team hold me back" ( I know its the Bronze Stereotype) - So over all i was wondering if there could be a system implemented where if you consistently play well and do your best but lose that you lose less or 0 LP. I get that this is a bit of a big idea, but us lower tier players who mostly play for fun(but sometimes for rank) could have a little bit of an advantage - this way the bad players who actually troll/feed etc. dont hold the seemingly better players back Thanks for your consideration and time I better make like a Tryndamere and SPLIT IT

shindigs2 votes

What does the research process look like for a new champion? What types of answers are you looking for when it comes to a new champ?

Riotdavin4 votes

These are generally lab research, meaning we bring people in to the facility and go through one-on-one sessions! New champ research is super fun! It usually starts with some concept testing -- we'll have some key art pieces and some action images of a few different champions. Get people's initial thoughts, what they think the character would do, have them explain to us who the character is, etc. That lets us see how well the character is communicating a particular fantasy. After that we would start doing prototype testing, testing out kits and animations in-game. We iterate through those and are largely trying to figure out whether the goals of the champion design are being met from an experience standpoint. So, for example, if we're testing Lucian, we want you to feel like a speedy gun ninja. If we're testing Vi, we want you to feel like a wrecking ball. Mood and theme and tone and all that are huge parts of that process!

Blind Drunk5 votes

Simply give them a dash, some form of cc, and every 3 hits give them a buff.

Bardic2 votes

Hello there. I saw this on the client and was immediately curious. You've worked with player behavior before and I wanted to know why Riot/support has the stance is does on being muted upon request. They allow people to terminate their accounts (for what I assume is because of game addiction) but they do not allow any sort of disabling of chat. They will even go as far as to remove a player who is solely toxic in chat from the game rather than simply disable their chat. If I had to try and put this all into one question: Why does Riot not just disable toxic player's chat, why 'chat restriction'?

Thank you for reading.

Riotdavin1 votes

We've found that chat restriction is pretty effective in terms of reforms, if that's what you mean (as to why we'd do that instead of muting/banning). Or are you asking why we don't allow players to self-mute?

Bardic1 votes

{quoted}

We've found that chat restriction is pretty effective in terms of reforms, if that's what you mean (as to why we'd do that instead of muting/banning). Or are you asking why we don't allow players to self-mute?

Yes, I am asking why you do not allow players to self mute. If a player knows they're uncontrollably toxic and can either have support mute them or mute themselves before starting a game, would this not cut down on toxicity, if only slightly?

I ask especially for players sitting on their final warnings who really just don't want a chat bar, can Riot really not do better than "type '/mute all before the game starts kthxbye'?"

EDIT: Sidenote: There's no /mute all in champ select or the post game, so if that's the best solution Riot has for the players I've described, can that be implemented in some way as well?

Riotdavin3 votes

For self-mute, it'd be an effective way to isolate behavior, but it wouldn't put the onus of responsibility on the player to reform. Philosophically we're more comfortable with reform as the approach. Our stance could change, of course, but personally I think there's some responsibility to help people find ways to become responsible online :)

FrontlinerDelta3 votes

Wouldn't a self-mute just be unbinding the chat key?

TinyLindsay2 votes

If you could be anyone's* support, who would it be?

(*your wife excepted, since that is the obvious and correct answer)

Riotdavin3 votes

I mean, you, obviously ;) But given your caveat... I think it'd be really fun to be a support for Aphromoo, with him playing the ADC. He mains support and would know how to coach me to be better, and it'd be neat to get to see him in a role I don't get to see him in normally. Oh, or Remi, with the same premise -- her Thresh plays are too good, and he's my main.

If I had to pick someone who mains ADC, it'd be fun to support Sneaky on Kallista. I think it'd be intense :)

RiotRiot Silog5 votes

Duo Thresh lane pls

Riotdavin9 votes

Click lanterns at same time, ultrahug

Wildglow2 votes

Hello, got a question related to reporting(not sure if it fits your area of expertise though); In the reporting selection, one of the options included is "unskilled play".

Yet, encouraging players to report others based on their "unskilled play" seems like a way to encourage the type of thinking that blames other players for your lack of success in games.

Is there some niche use of that option that I'm not thinking of, or is it something that just is still in the works to be fixed/updated(for example, changing the option to griefing, suiciding, trolling etc...)

MC STOJAN x92 votes

A question.

If a guy if AFK, say 20 mins, the whole game, ragequit or something of that nature, wouldn't it be reasonable to give back the LP to those 4 players who invested themselves and their time in that particular game even though they knew, deep down, that if the enemy team is just good enough, they wont even need to try their hardest to win a 4 vs 5 game. Why is giving an undeserved advantage to the opposing team something you still haven't solved yet?

And i know you' re all busy guys, doing what you're told to by the main bro on top. But you put so much effort and focus on eradicating the negative attitude, verbal abuse, overall all bad "habits" some players have grown since playing and still you dont realize you actually indirectly encourage the very thing you claim to stand against. Giving ragers the ability to threat with: "hell with this. imma afk, team such tards" when you can obviously influence in every way to make that dissapear. It creates negative environment for the rest of the players. How do you get back to those who did nothing, but ended up with a loss? With a report button? That literally seems pointless, since every game if full of ragers, afkers and so on.

Making those 4 players lose League points for 1 player afking(maybe intentionally, maybe because he lives in a bad internet service environment) results in us thinking you wont give us those LP points without us experiencing all the negative sides of playing a multiplayer game.

You kinda created a culture. A rising BM culture.

PT Waluigi2 votes

What lead to the hud change?

ErodDragonslayer1 votes

Hey Davin,

  1. My question is a little different but I was wondering how you got in to the video game industry and what your experiences have been like ever since. How was the process like to get your job, what do you think was the hardest part about getting your job, and what is the most important part about your job.

  2. Have you ever thought about creating a way for toxic players to let out their frustrations?

  3. Finally what is your favorite part of your job?

Riotdavin4 votes

  1. While I was getting my Ph.D. I was studying play and its role in learning. Specifically, in games! I wanted to apply that to the industry, so very early on I started figuring out how to work in a more applied context. I worked at another game company before Riot, but was persistent in bugging them about whether they'd start doing research. I was really fortunate and got to interview with the User Experience group, and eventually joined them as their first User Researcher! I remember part of my early process was talking to a Rioters over Twitter, then chatting on AIM (!) with Pendragon about a potential role. So the usual story of: luck, persistence, and having an appropriate skillset. I consider myself very fortunate, even though a lot of hard work was involved.

  2. Short answer: Yes! Long answer: That's a better question for the player behavior team ;) But 'release valve' stuff is an interesting topic.

  3. I get to work with smart people that really, legitimately give a shit. Like, the 'player focus' thing isn't just corporate brand-speak, it's something people here are super passionate about. They burn up when stuff doesn't seem right. That gives me a lot of energy :)

Gunnlaug1 votes

Hey Davin,

Which Thresh skin is the best skin? You may or may not lose a fan if depending on your answer ;) Thanks for reaching out to us! GL;HF

Riotdavin5 votes

Oh snap... uh...

Usually I go Blood Moon. I mostly duo lane with my wife, though, and sometimes we coordinate our skins. So if she's playing Captain Fortune then I'm gonna go with Deep Terror Thresh.

But overall winner? Blood Moon.

Oztar1 votes

Do you think there will ever be another skin for Gnar? I love all of his skins but the question is, Will there be anymore for him? Gnar

Draketheoc1 votes

Hi Davin, on a scale of 1 to 10 what do you feel about diana Diana

Riotdavin4 votes

11

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