Permanent Player Mentoring System

0Ri0N·Jun 9, 2015·24 votes·1,727 views

Hello all.

First, let me say I hope you are having a wonderful day.

The reason I am writing this is to propose the establishment of a new system. Recently the chat room Platinum vs Silver became extremely popular on Reddit. However, it soon became overrun with trolls. However, I believe the system has great promise. Many multiplayer games have master/apprentice or teacher/student systems set up that give high-level players rewards for helping newbies. However, in MMORPG's (where these systems are most popular) there is not exactly a steep learning curve. I believe a system like this could be extremely beneficial to the League community.

The thing that gave me the idea was not actually Platinum vs Silver; it was watching a video about Riot, where I learned that experienced Rioters teach more inexperienced Rioters how to improve their game every week. I believe we could extend this to the entire League community. The system would operate as follows: players Platinum or higher could sign up to be mentors. They would be denied if they had any recent chat restrictions/bans/etc. Plat players would then be matched with sub-Plat player in a queue, would play a game, and then would talk about how to improve better. Players would also have the option to link with specific mentors they really benefited from, to group with them in the future. Participants would be subject to strict rules about trolling, and would be banned from the mentor/mentee queue if they were reported trolling.

I truly believe that a program like this could do wonders to improve the quality of the community, and better help new players learn the game in safe environments. Such a system would be groundbreaking for the MOBA genre, and would make League stand apart even more as one of the leading games in the world.

I am happy to discuss this idea with any of you if you would like (in fact, I would relish that opportunity) so please do not hesitate to respond. I would especially love for some reds to get on this thread for their input.

GGWP to you all,

0Ri0N

Edit 1: @Phreak I'd love to get your opinion on this (and maybe a pun or two)

Edit 2: The excellent point has been made that this could be open to trolls or toxicity game modes.. I propose there be a rating system for both students and mentors to weed out those who are not there to learn or are not there to teach, only to cause other players grief. Obviously trolling or toxicity would warrant reports as in current game modes.

22 Comments

Deep Terror NamiJun 9, 20154 votes

I know Dota 2 has some sort of mentoring queue. This is a good idea. Not sure what kind of stuff they came up with on that thread, but they could give special mentor skins/icons/borders for it as incentive to those who were given honors for their work :3

0Ri0NJun 9, 20152 votes

Exactly. Also, Dota's system is a bit jenky. this could be real official and part of the client, not just pickup games.

RootworthJun 9, 20152 votes

I disagree.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20153 votes

How so?

MrElyJun 9, 20152 votes

This seems like a good way to add more positivity to the community, and to help out those in need, and a good way to boost the egos of Plat Players. I think this would be a very good addition to the game.

FiendishNinjaJun 9, 20152 votes

I fully support the idea. The rewards part would have to be handled in a particular way however, and i don't have an answer as to how that would be.

The problem with offering representation like certain skins or icons is that people would cheese for them. So they'd skim by, doing the mentoring thing without like actually mentoring, or they would create alternate accounts and mentor for themselves, get their friends who are new/don't play ranked to be their mentees, that sort of thing. Then people who are assholes, not people who act like assholes (i'm sure we all have/do at times), but people who are like actually just terrible would have this representation that makes them seem like really good dudes/dudettes. My issue is that I'd want the people who do this mentoring to have some sort of representation so everyone knows they're good types of people.

Another thing about making this an actual game mode/sanctioned thing is that there would be repercussion for being that person who comes just to stomp a bunch of players. I'm sure you've heard of how Silver v. Plat got rekt on the EUW server. for people who come into this game mode and do that sort of thing, as it is an actual game mode now and not just customs, I'd say that they should receive a delayed ban type of thing so that no matter when they got the ban, it would last from friday of one week through the sunday of the next. so like it lasted to weekends and a week. 9 days (or 10 don't really care to count right now lol).

I think a solution could be to revamp the whole honor system. Instead of picking Friendly, Teamwork, or Helpful, just have an honor button. if someone gets 1000 honors or something give them an icon. if they get 2000 give them a border in their window during champion select. if they get 4000 give them a skin. That type of thing. then for every successive 1500 honors give them 3000 ip or something. Then let the mentees give up to 5 or 10 honors to each mentor or something. Obviously it would still be abusable, but under this system even if all the opposing team gave you the maximum honors, it would still take 20 games to get the icon, 40 to get the border, and 50 to get the skin. it would also encourage everyone in normals to give honors to all teammates no matter what (unless there was a reason not to). The more honors you give and receive the happier/more satisfied you are as well, and more prone you are to act that way. Kinda like the fake it til you make it thing. Smiling (even when not happy) makes you happy. Cognitive dissonance, if you're not happy but you're smiling, then one of the two has to change, and if you keep smiling, then your happiness has to change. Same idea applied to behavior. Would also improve the report rate for bad behavior i think. People would just get in the habit of clicking the honor/dishonor button at the end of each game (now that it's as simple as one click for each at the end of the game). I'd say still keep the report function (as well as the dishonor function).

TLDR:

revamp the honor system to make this mode possible.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

The honor system has merit in it's own right, and I think transforming that system to become a mentor system would take it too far away from it's core design goals to be completely viable. However, I support the implementation of a similar system to provide a sort of "Mentor rating" to help weed out those players who are there to actually help and those that aren't. There could likewise be a "Student rating" where mentors can indicate whether the student was open to learning in a constructive way.

I agree the rewards system is rather tricky. I am not at Riot, so I do not fully understand their policy for rewards systems. As such, I make no attempt to suggest something in my original post. There should be some incentive, but that is up to Riot to determine what makes the most sense according to their design goals.

I see the potential for a ranked queue of mentors existing, that would act as good incentive for mentors committed to helping the community.

FiendishNinjaJun 9, 20151 votes

I wasn't suggesting making it a mentor system. I was suggesting that your mentor system be more of an honor system, just with it being a more general thing. Instead of being rewarded for mentoring, you get rewarded for just being a nice player, and mentoring is a big part of that.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

That sounds too similar to the honor system, and too unstructured I think. There needs to be a separate system entirely.

FiendishNinjaJun 9, 20152 votes

Either way, I support your idea fully. Would love to see any version implemented. I do agree that my idea is bad tbh. I was just trying to offer another approach. Maybe someone would be able to make htis into the best idea lol

the more starting points we have brainstorming, the more places we can end up depending on how we pursue our ideas.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

Agreed. Thank you for voicing your point of view!

ZéychinJun 9, 20152 votes

I really like this idea.

I really don't think this idea would go well, based on my experience with this community. I am not a toxic player. I kindly suggest advice (in a positive way, instead of harshly critical) here and there or suggest that we could have done something better as a team. General community response? 'fk ur mom im afk bcuz supprt took 2 cs with tardons embrac at lvl 1 and it mad me dye to turrent lvl 9'.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

I understand that there would be a lot of people out there like this. But the system would weed out those who don't really come to learn, as well as those who don't really come to teach.

John BerserkJun 9, 20152 votes

Perhaps Riot can implement a system that automatically chooses mentors and mentees via some complicated algorithms, as opposed to being able to choose your mentor or mentee.

Mentors can be chosen among players that meet certain requirements, such as

Being Platinum V or above
No bans or restrictions within the past couple/few months
Regularly/consistently displays kind, helpful, honorable, positive etc behavior in-game
In-game Normal/Ranked performance is relatively good (C+ average or above in Champion Mastery grades)
Other hidden stats and factors taken into account

Things like that

Mentees can be chosen among players who exhibit somewhat opposite traits, such as

Gold I or below
Often gets chat restricted or short bans
Easily loses their patience in game, flames their teammates, reported often for toxic behavior, bad-talks the enemy team, etc
In-game Normal/Ranked performance is sketchy (C average or below)
Other hidden stats and factors taken into account

Basically, if you meet the requirements to be a Mentor, the game will notify you and ask if you would like to accept having that kind of responsibility. If you accept, you're placed into a pool of mentors waiting to get paired with mentees, and vice versa for mentees (meet the requirements, system recommends learning under a mentor willing to help, get placed in a pool waiting to get paired up).

Mentors and their mentees could have special privileges with one another to make it a truly helpful system for both of them, such as in-client voice chat, small IP boosts when duo-queued, live spectator mode (aka without the 3-second delay...though this might be a bit much), things like that.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20152 votes

The only problem I see with this is that it leaves no room for the bronze player who is has great sportsmanship and is always nice to his/her team members, yet is still stuck in bronze. This isn't a reform system for toxic low-rank players. It is an opportunity for driven and motivated players to learn and improve.

cloman100Jun 10, 20152 votes

im in. i am a bronzie (i want my silver shiny rank back :P) and i want to learn what im doing wrong. is it me or my teammates that decide a teamfight. how to actually farm Amumu just gotta keep practising item 3073

Commando YiJun 9, 20151 votes

the problem with mentoring in my experience is that the vast majority of silver/bronze/gold/plat/diamond players do not want to hear about what they're doing wrong and what they need to change about their behavior if they want to start winning games

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

This is exactly why there would be a rating system for the students as well. those who come to learn will be rated higher

Supp HeroJun 9, 20151 votes

It's a great idea overall. The only downside is you could get some super toxic high rank player who thinks being a 'Mentor' is flaming a low level player for every mistake and eventually gets the player to not like the game so much. You could restrict the mentors to people who have honored ribbons or a certain amount of honor but it still wouldn't fix that possible problem.

Based on some of the attitudes of people who give 'advice' in this game I could see high level players abusing it to make themselves feel more pro by trashing on a new player.

Not that the idea itself isn't good, I just feel it might bring out this type of thing just as much as it would bring out the good Mentors.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20152 votes

I addressed this caveat in some other comments, but i will make an edit to the original post for clarity. The idea is that both mentors and students could be reported fro trolling or toxic behavior and be removed from the queue.

GeoffJun 9, 20151 votes

The only problem I see with this is that most Plat V players, and even Diamond V players, have a ton to improve on or have an extremely narrow scope of knowledge. For instance, it would not be that difficult to hit Platinum V playing only a handful of champions or a single role. How could you make sure that the mentor actually has relevant information for the individual person they're mentoring?

Also the rating system would likely end up being whoever was nicest while coaching versus who has the best information. A Bronze V player might not necessarily know if the advice they're getting is good.

0Ri0NJun 9, 20151 votes

That's all valid. I think the simplest way is that mentors would teach roles (top, mid, jg, etc.), however there is general gameplay knowledge that can be taught across all roles (warding, csing, map awareness, etc.)

It is a definite possibility the rating system could end up like that. However, that's where the geniuses at Riot who do this for a living come in. We would have to trust them to bring some sort of balance to the system.