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Toxicity Doesn't Breed Poor Play

Johnny Braavos·10/18/2014, 5:10:34 PM·3 votes·618 views

Yes, it exacerbates it but, in reality it is poor play that breeds toxicity. I think if Riot put more resources into educating people about the game, toxicity levels would decline on their own instead of forcing people to "be nice or else...".

Surely there are trolls who flame and whatever for their own entertainment, but I believe the vast majority of "toxic players" are the hyper-competitive type whose goal is winning. People really have no reason to flame outside of the actions/play of another person.

It's entirely possibly people "have bad games" but there's a difference between poor individual play and poor team-play. Having poor team-play / game sense is separate from one's own skill on a particular champion.

For example: When does most flaming occur? It's generally when someone keeps fighting 1vX, overstaying and dying after a push, or being completely oblivious to objectives (most notably the ADC who stays bot CSing while the jungler and support go for an early dragon after having killed the enemy bot lane). The dragon example is a common one even at the platinum level. These issues have nothing to do with "having a bad game" as they do "decision making". Your individual decision making does not automatically leave when you're on an unfamiliar champion.

It's indisputable that it's much easier for one person to ruin a game than it is for one person to carry it and this is solely what causes flaming. Someone who is 2-0 or 3-0 early on in mid lane can be considered to be doing well, but that is completely erased by the 0-7+ by 15 mins bot lane. So if Riot takes a more aggressive stance towards improving general game knowledge for the playerbase I think toxicity will decline.

TL;DR: Riot should more heavily explore avenues of educating the playerbase in terms of game knowledge / proper play and toxicity will likely go down on its own because frustration comes from having "that guy" lose you the game by themselves.

12 Comments

OxBaker10/18/2014, 5:17:12 PM5 votes

That would be fine if everyone was at the same level of skill but matchmaking will always be placing you with better or worse players and if I get stuck with better players, they may think I just need to "l2p" but I am currently playing at the best level I can.

Same applies to you. You WILL eventually be matched with higher ranked player and them raging at you for playing at your current level of skill doesn't help anyone.

Northing wrong with offering constructive feedback to lower skill players but raging and flaming should never be a valid choice.

Subdue10/18/2014, 7:16:57 PM4 votes

@LaceUp23

About 6 games ago you managed to give first blood, feed four kills to your laning opponent before 20 minutes, and by the end of the game, would expand that death count to 9 deaths. And while your team had a combined 31 kills, by the end of the game you managed to be in barely 1/3 of them, all while managing to have the highest deaths on your team.

Is this an issue of you just having a bad game, perhaps some bad luck, or does Riot need to send you back to League of Legends Preschool so you can learn how to play?

The matchmaker tries to make games as fair as possible, and weights the MMR and LP gains/losses to account for how closely it feels it has brought a fair matchup, but no matter how closely the game is matched, someone will do well, someone will do poorly. We see this even in tournament matches, with professional players battling it out for money. Are the players who do poorly at the world stage "baddies that need to be sent through a tutorial?" No. By virtue of this being a zero sum game, in other words, in order for one player to do well, one or more players must do poorly, and vice versa, someone will always do well, and someone will always do poorly.

Edit: Here's a link to that game by the way: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1581187942/200617327

Surakai10/18/2014, 6:35:37 PM3 votes

Yes, it exacerbates it but, in reality it is poor play that breeds toxicity.

stopped reading there.

everyone makes minor and even major mistakes every game but there is always one hypocrite who has to cry about it. countless of times I have had people cry over potentially good plays that went sour because of unknown factors that will always exist, many of which include relying on the toxic guy to follow through with something that seems fairly obvious but he doesn't which then completely screws you over thus triggering toxic dude's mental instability.

in other words, shut your damn mouth and play the game.

redniwediS10/18/2014, 6:24:20 PM2 votes

You are correct in saying toxicity increases but does not cause bad play, but it is also true that bad play only increases and does not cause toxicity.

There are people who are simply not toxic in any situation, just as there are people who are toxic when presented with any negative situation. The root of toxicity is anger and people lacking the skills to properly deal with it.

Nucleophilic atk10/18/2014, 5:32:47 PM1 votes

Been saying this. It is a cause and effect problem most of the time. The problem is, however, Rito would rather throw a blanket of the effect (banning people who yell at feeders) than spending the time to fix the cause. Obviously, there are flamers. They need to go. The problem is, when I request chat logs and Rito sends me logs of bitching at an intentional feeder that I got two games in a row, I have a problem. And yes, this guy was actually intentionally feeding. I didn't think so the first game because I wasn't bot lane and thought the ADC was just being rude. I then lanned with them and it was obvious that they were trolling. They sent me these logs of only this game. I then asked for other examples since they said "one of many" only to get a reply saying they are unable to send logs. Yeah, makes sense. This was on my smurf and I got a two week ban for this as a first time offense. This one player is going around causing many people to get banned, yet they get no punishment. It really isn't that hard to see....

nerak2310/18/2014, 8:06:57 PM1 votes

My mouth is still hanging open LOL

MPendragon10/27/2014, 7:25:27 PM1 votes

What it is, is unintentional game-throwing. What does this mean? It means people are throwing the game, but they aren't actually doing it intentionally. Their skill level just doesn't match that of the players in the game, and their decision making is generally game throwing. But they aren't actually doing it to spite their team, they're doing it because they aren't that good. I understand and this pisses me off. I've said it before, people have to STOP carrying people who don't belong in certain divisions, to those divisions. It's really not fair for people who've earned their way there, and have to endure the endless pain of playing with somebody who is legitimately so far beneath ourselves in terms of skill.