Community, let's have a talk.
We need to rethink the way we treat ourselves, other people, and Riot on these boards and ingame. I've gotten sick of the disrespect that is thrown around by this community and now feel the time to address the issue.
Treating Ourselves Correctly
This is something not talked about often enough, I feel, so I'm addressing it here. It is my personal opinion that being toxic hurts not only the victim but also the perpetrator. When you are toxic, a lot of times people are toxic in return. In addition, people that are toxic in chat can often get chat banned, resulting in teamplay being more difficult. In extreme circumstances you could even lose your account.
Here on the boards, being toxic can lower the respect people have for you, because people can look back on what you've said. Being toxic helps nobody, including the perpetrator.
Treating Other People Correctly Segway into this topic from being toxic helping nobody. Having been the victim of toxicity a few times, I can say that it feels godawful to have someone talk like that to you. It's not constructive, and DEFINITELY doesn't make me want to try hard. We need more constructive forms of criticism. We need to turn, "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU ULT" into "Save your ult for after CC is burnt next time, alright?". It's painful to watch innocent people become the victims.
Also, as I mentioned earlier on, toxicity can lead to toxicity. It happens to often- one person gets mad, the rest follow suit. It ruins any sort of teamplay and constructive conversation,
Treating Riot Correctly I have something to say to both sides here. Community first, because this IS to you guys after all (yes, including me).
Community: Have you ever thought that maybe, there's a REASON Riot won't talk to us? Like, maybe every time they try, they get downvoted? It's not fair to them to ask for answers and then not be happy with the answers they give. In addition, it seems like they ignore our feedback, but you have to consider what goes on behind the scenes. They have a LOT of stuff to do at Riot. They may not have the time to respond to everything, and sometimes things need to get done on a deadline.
Riot: As mentioned, I know you guys have stuff behind the scenes that we don't see, but we need to know what it is keeping you from telling us what's going on at any given time with, say, the boards. Your community coordinator should be dealing with this kind of thing- taking surveys, knowing what the community wants, and telling you guys how to best respond to popular complaints. The community should be an integral part of Riot Games.
TL;DR We need constructive criticism in this competitive environment, and we need to be an integral part of Riot as the community.
Devilish out.