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[Debate] What defines toxicity?

Sir ArmaMalum·2/25/2014, 1:55:46 PM·5 votes·1,334 views

This may seem like an obvious thing. Toxic is...just.....toxic, right? Well that's what we're here for, to hear your definition of what toxicity is.

To touch on the more common stances, Toxic Behavior is broadly defined as behavior that tales away from the positive experience of the Toxic player and everyone around him/her. This can be anywhere from cursing to threats to rage-quitting depending on the person and the witnesses, and is considered by the vast majority of the playerbase as something the game would be infinitely better with significantly less of. I think we can all agree there.

But what makes a player cross that line from simply angry or frustrated to toxic? What switches on that red light that says "I'm reporting them after this game because of their behavior"? What does it take for you to label another player as toxic?

#####I fully expect debates here fellas, replies to replies and differing opinions. And I in fact encourage that here, but there are a few ground rules to lay down to make sure this stays as a [Debate] and not a [I'm right, you're wrong] post.

  • Don't dissmis anyone's opinions, opinions are never wrong, you just disagree with them.
  • You are free to disagree with someone always, but always do your best to explain why.
  • Don't get emotional, hopefully we're all adults here, keep it in 'debate' mode
  • Feel free to disagree with my OP as well! I love feedback, but this is a debate thread, I'll respond!
  • There is a comment reply cap! You only have a few tries to rebuttle and argue a point, so make them count!

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27 Comments

burdluver902/25/2014, 8:23:56 PM4 votes

I think the thing that gets me the most is people who hold your game hostage.

They threaten to feed or afk. They say "If you don't gank, I'm going to feed" (but with less grammar)

They are the "mid or feed" in champion select.

A secondary group of them are the rage quitters - Top lane fed, gg, I'm afk. They aren't threatening, but they gave up.

You can't play with people like this. I can easily play with someone who rages, says "EZ" at the end of a game, curses, etc. It's not fun, I don't like it. But at the end of the day, we can cooperate. The rager might have legitimate complaints and is just bad at expressing them. The "gg, ez, nubs" guy is just cocky - sure it's unsportsmanlike, but he isn't creating an environment that makes me just not want to play.

However, spending the entire game, as a support, begging my ADC not to afk (mid DCed and the jungler wasn't ganking us (because he was holding mid) and then when mid got back he was an asshole) We won, he didn't afk, but that game sucked.

Every time I could, I was trying to reassure him that we could win, asking him to please keep playing and not worry what others were saying/doing. We would have lost that game without him and it just pissed me off that I had to sit there and beg him to act like a well-adjusted human being to win my game.

That to me, is so much worse than someone just being a jerk. At least there I can just mute and keep playing. With these sorts of people though, you have to do what they want, you have to listen to them, you can't just ignore it. Otherwise you lose.

Zalkreai2/25/2014, 2:39:10 PM2 votes

Rage.

Simply put, rage is toxic. It ruins games for everyone, including the rager, and it escalates problems instead of de-escalating. Bad games happen... for everyone, that doesn't give you any right to get angry at any one for any reason. At least not in chat. Rage out loud to yourself all you want where no one can hear you, but for goodness sakes don't start yelling "OMG NOOB TEAM GG" every time someone dies... it's not going to help.

Also typing at the end of games "NOOBS EZ" or something along those lines just puts a dark taint on what otherwise might have actually been a really good game.

Example: REALLY good game, we lost but for 72+ minutes we hacked it out back and forth with the other team. Nice ping pong action, good exchanges, even some positive chat in between teams. At the end of the game what happens? Some grumbling name here types in all chat "NOOBS 2 EZ" Really ? REALLY??? After that game, that's what you post? Grrr game insta-tainted.

As a support main I can say I have been raged at for everything under the sun (we just don't get any breaks *sigh) and I'm pretty used to it. Yep I'm used to being yelled at. Now what does that say about the community? It's wrong for people to be used to getting raged at... and yet it's still frustrating and degrading every time it happens.

I don't care if you feed (if it's not on purpose) I don't care if you DC (again if it's not on purpose... Rage quit, need I say more?) I don't even care if we lose because of the above events.

Just don't yell at me. (Constructive, positive criticism is okay tho) :)

Roaranor2/25/2014, 7:11:31 PM1 votes

Some aspects of your post are whited out for me (highlighting will not reveal the text either). Specifically, between:

  • "stances," and "is broadly defined"

  • "does it take for" and "to label"

  • the last word in the above sentence

  • The bulleted points after that sentence up until the ground rules for debates.

Just thought I'd point this out, though I can't confirm it happening for anyone else.