What would the opposite of "Prisoners Island" look like?

LynXLytE·9/18/2013, 1:59:43 AM·3 votes·1,265 views

When discussing the Honor Initiative, players are quick to ask for more incentives, but Riot finds 'hard rewards' a tricky issue.

What I'd like to talk about is how we might use the honor system to 'reward' players not with a tangible 'gift' but rather a more enjoyable play 'experience.' Namely, I love the idea of being able to play more regularly with fellow honorable summoners. In this thread, we discuss what Riot could do to help foster the community of sportsmanship/honorable players.

I'd like to ask what the community thinks of instituting an Noble Island, a sort of Honor Club?

People have discussed a 'prisoners island' concept where trolls are tossed in together so they can't mix with the general population. The main critique of this 'solution' is that it exacerbates toxic behavior, leaving little room for reformative behavior (resocialization).

If we apply this concept to a community of honorable players, wouldn't we see a reciprocal process? In theory, honor would beget honor, creating a haven of anti-toxicity. If players were genuinely perpetuating honorable behavior, wouldn't we experience more enjoyable games? Win or lose, players still compete, but on this Noble Island, you are guided by the golden rule of sportsmanship, instead of the blind immaturity of selfishness.

Of course there is no such thing as a gamer's utopia, but I would like to hear everyone's feedback on the feasibility of creating a sacred space for e-sportsmanship, an Island of Good Repute.

For example, a separate queue is created that you can only participate in if you meet a certain honor threshold (received from the other queues). This creates an incentive for players to act honorable (assuming they want to queue with non-trolls).

I admit this may incentivize 'honor trading' or some other exploitation, but so is the case with any 'reward' system. The balance, however, would come when those imposters try to participate on Noble Island, in which the community either recognizes their true nature (and issues reports) or the trolls don't actually act out and continue to blend in without disrupting the experience.

Thoughts??! We have to remember some people just want to have fun, not earn LP.

TL;DR: Riot plz make a separate queue for players who maintain a positive honor threshold versus their reported ratio.

13 Comments

Mirror9/18/2013, 7:54:58 AM4 votes

This would be unlikely to happen, only because it makes sense from Riot's perspective to want to spread your most positive players out among as many games as possible in order to create the highest possible number of positive experiences everyone has when playing the game.

10 positive players crammed into 1 game makes one positive experience for ten people.

10 positive players divided between 5 games has the potential to make five positive experiences for fifty people.

Lyte has been charting the relationships that exist (if any) when various combinations of known positive, neutral, and toxic players get matched together, and what kinds of experiences the players have by the end of the game (based on the number of reports sent, and possibly any Honor awarded). Hopefully one day he can share some stats on that.

Until then, though, I think it makes sense not to let the "good guys" hog all the positive vibes to themselves. =) Gotta spread dat love.

BottleCapster9/18/2013, 4:55:02 AM2 votes

Personally i would love to be grouped with more level-headed individuals, and i think it would be a great incentive to get players to use honor again. We wouldn't per say have to segregate trolls, but a higher likelihood of playing with positive players would be much appreciated.

BruisingPrune9/18/2013, 3:23:55 AM1 votes

Heaven on Earth

Doomsie9/18/2013, 4:58:09 AM1 votes

It seems that it might be complicated by MMR-matching with honor-matching. Even if that isn't an issue, it seems like it'd lessen the positive impact honorable players could make in the general community to give them somewhere to hide from neutral players.

My personal experience is that when someone makes a positive and/or constructive comment in-game, especially with a sort of negative player present, it has helped keep me focused and positive, too. Don't take away the nice people T_T.

All that said, I definitely support brainstorming in relation to the honor system :D, it's a cool concept!

Zielmann9/20/2013, 1:32:12 AM1 votes

Separate the scum from the bottom, and you get two groups: scum, and average/good people.

Separate the best from the top, and you get two groups: good people, and scum/average people.

It effectively creates the same thing that Riot is trying to avoid by not wanting to go the "prisoner's island" route in the first place. It's just a slightly larger group of people getting shoved in with the worst offenders.

As an average player myself, I would find it highly unfortunate to know that I wouldn't even have a chance at running into super positive players. I do my part for the team, ping when pings need pinged, and that's about it. I never rage at people, but I also hardly say more in chat than the occasional 'gj', or 'sorry' if I screw something up.

So, as an average player, my experience is that solo queue is tough enough as it is (I don't play it a whole lot). I don't feel like the average player should effectively end up with more of a chance of getting with negative players than what already exists. Separating out the most positive players like that would effectively do just that.

It sounds good on paper, but in reality, it just doesn't work as well as you would hope.