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Toxicity: Causes and Potential Solutions

KlNGPlN·11/28/2014, 8:07:01 PM·1 votes·755 views

WARNING: Wall of text incoming!

Hello, fellow League players! I'm Kingpin and I've been playing League since the end of Season 1. Since I started playing, I have seen a steady decline in the integrity of this community. As a single player, my voice goes [practically] unheard and I am sure I'm not alone in feeling like Riot is not taking the steps necessary to correct and prevent poor player behavior. Being a competitive player myself, I find the Ranked ladders inconsistent and extremely difficult to climb due to the staggering number of "trolls" and immature players - I would assume there are many of you who feel the same. This is doubly so within the solo/duo queue territory. Player skill only factors into a game to a limited extent when there are players focusing more on arguing than playing. We can't all be expected to carry every game as if we are a Challenger level player competing in a Bronze level environment.

This is not a thread to complain about BM (Bad Manor) you have seen in-game. I would like you to post your thoughts on potential systems Riot could implement in order to address this issue. While I am aware that player age is a major factor in the community's "personality", too many people are content to sit by and watch as players push the boundaries of acceptable Netiquette. Hopefully if enough people make their voices heard, we can push for change and halt the downward spiral that this community is clearly in. Note that we must also be conscious of the fact that Riot is not only a kick-ass game dev company, it is a business and businesses must remain profitable in order to give employees job security and such. Asking for extreme change is unlikely to be considered by Riot. Be realistic. Riot won't make a change that cuts their player base in too significant a way, as that would result in declining profit. Unfortunately, that is just the way business works so lets work around that.

With this in mind, lets brainstorm and hope we can reach some sort of conclusion or compromise that Riot will see and take seriously! [Please be constructive] ... GO!

I'll begin by suggesting that Riot develop a team of "in-game moderators" who are able to invisibly spectate games. While this is only doable on a portion of total games played, I feel many players would improve their behaviour knowing that Riot may be watching and evaluating their behavior. That being said, I believe the consequences for toxic behavior need to be exponentially more severe and more easily handed out. Aforementioned moderators should have the power to hand out suspensions and warnings as well as track players they deem to be negatively impacting the community.

4 Comments

OhBoyItsaMegaman11/28/2014, 8:55:33 PM1 votes

For starters, I do not think a ton of people will agree that player behavior has been declining since Season 1. Pre-Tribunal players had little reason to believe they'd ever be punished for their behavior, and they acted that way.

Next, I have to point out that your desire to stamp out toxicity has a little agenda... You seem to feel that an abundance of trolls makes ranked play so inconsistent that player skill no longer plays a large part. That's not the case, and it's also not the case that you are expected or required to play at a Challenger level in order to get out of Bronze.

But anyway, on to the change you're suggesting. You say "I feel many players would improve their behaviour knowing that Riot may be watching and evaluating their behavior." But what's your reason for thinking that? If there are indeed people who a.) regularly break the rules, b.) know that that behavior is against the rules and intentionally do it anyway, and c.) have a strong desire not to get punished, those people would potentially shape up.

But that's an awfully small source of bad behavior. The other people we need to deal with are: people who DON'T know what bad behavior is, people who DON'T intend to break the rules but can't control their temper, or DON'T care all that much about punishments. Having a banhammer patrol squad would do very little to reform these players, wouldn't be at all effective at catching them quickly, and would potentially leave them just as confused and upset about their ban.

KlNGPlN11/29/2014, 4:40:44 AM1 votes

Again, you've assumed that the moderators would be handing out bans based on the results of a single game. That is unrealistic and easily worked around. A though would be to "flag" consistently reported players and have Riot able to track said players. On the other hand, wouldn't the fear of being banned for active out even one time be a deterrent? Paired with the knowledge that if you are reported, you may have a pair of eyes on you, I think that this could have potential.

As to whether or not punished players would trust a Riot employee's decision...most players do not believe themselves to be toxic. That doesn't mean that they aren't. Ignorance, whether it is intentional or not, is up to the player to address. Failing to do so......should be punishable as well. Frankly, who would be better equipped to hand out punishments than a living, breathing part of Riot? Don't forget that such a position would come with training (likely) as well as the understanding of certain guidelines for handing out punishments. If it were up to the players entirely, there would be no such thing as an accurately judged punishment. Too many emotions are involved in the decision process. Is being unaware of you own bad behaviour an excuse? No. At least not in my mind. Ignorance is not bliss.

I agree with the ideals behind Riot's more recently posted focus on how to deal with said players. However, the entire purpose of this thread is to generate ideas for how the actual systems will work.