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New Verbal Harassment Initiative is Counterproductive (@Lyte)

Driƒtwood··1 votes·716 views

I'm aware of the new counter-abuse initiative that recently went live, and I've come to realise something. This was a terrible, terrible decision. While it was made with the right intentions it's making league a more toxic place. Here's why.

What happens when an avid league of legends player is banned? Does he spend two weeks doing other things and clearing his mind to come back a reformed player? Does he decide this game is not for him, that it makes him react too angrily towards others? No, he quickly creates a smurf account and brings his toxicity back, only now it's worse and it's directed at new players.

Do you guys realise what this does? It makes the experience for new players worse, while simultaneously avoiding proper punishment for toxic players.

I can think of a far better approach towards discipline. First of all, ranked play could be disabled. That would be disciplinary action #1. If that does not improve behaviour, then chat could be restricted to 1 message a minute of whatever it is right now. If that doesn't work, then just disable chat for them. Permanently.

Instead of trying to punish annoying players in the greatest way possible, just make it better for everyone else instead.

EDIT: In general, the response to my idea was generally one of dismissal. I know how to read a room, so no worries. Also, I wasn't aware Riot had such a sophisticated system in place to track smurfs, so to me this is a huge relief. Thank you everyone for taking the time to read my post.

8 Comments

redniwediS2 votes

Best thing I can think of to fix this is to link main accounts and smurf accounts. There are real reasons to have a smurf or even just a second account, and those reasons will be untouched by this.

I know it would be troublesome to pull off, and maybe even impossible, but in my mind it would be a solution.

Driƒtwood1 votes

Best thing I can think of to fix this is to link main accounts and smurf accounts. There are real reasons to have a smurf or even just a second account, and those reasons will be untouched by this.

I know it would be troublesome to pull off, and maybe even impossible, but in my mind it would be a solution.

Okay, so as for this you have to realise, if someone was banned, they won't link their account because they want a clean start in the eyes of the system. THe whole point of a lot of smurf accounts is to bypass their ban. So, sorry, but that's not a viable solution.

redniwediS1 votes

While true a mix of small rewards for linking accounts accompanied with very, very harsh penalties if found bypassing a ban with a smurf could do the trick.

Even angry people tend to follow the rules if their main account is on the line.

Driƒtwood1 votes

While true a mix of small rewards for linking accounts accompanied with very, very harsh penalties if found bypassing a ban with a smurf could do the trick.

Even angry people tend to follow the rules if their main account is on the line.

Okay, but what about toxic players? You've seen how vile people can get in this game. I'm not saying the system doesn't work before they get banned. I'm saying it's after they get banned that the system breaks down.

About your other comment, it's pretty much impossible to figure out of someone is smurfing out of banned account.

redniwediS1 votes

It's actually very easy. How do you think Riot knows if you are allowing other people to play on your account? They don't just notice odd jumps in rank, but they have the ability to track IPs and play times.

The information is there, it's just a matter of if Riot is interested in using it for this purpose or not. I doubt they would, but it's still an idea.

If they did decide to do something like this they would need to do two things:

  1. Make it very clear that it is being done.
  2. Make it very clear that bypassing a ban by doing this can result in account deletion for all accounts involved.

For all most players know they could have it in the rules already and are just not acting upon it. Almost no one reads those agreements after major patches. However it would be a bad idea to leave it at that. Making sure people know this is a possible punishment is a deterrent all by itself, and those who are willing to have their accounts repeatedly deleted are the type we don't want in game anyway.

For the most part the new system they are putting in place will be good enough, as keeping accounts under level 30 from being toxic is a near impossible task.

Baitsa Dasuto1 votes

Riot can already reliably idenfiy smurf accounts - did you really think the LOL client you install doesn't create a unique hashsum for Riot to identify it? Riot also can tell where you connect from (via tracing) as well as major computer components and software (it's very easy for companies to identify Windows installations). So if they notice two accounts logging in from the same computer in the same area of the country, and both are toxic, both are banned together. Has already happened multiple times; the acused hadn't even mentioned his smurf.

This system is mostly in place to group smurfs together in matchmaking, though that doesn't work perfectly since there are usually not enough smurfs with the same MMR aviable, and so sometimes "normal" people have to play a game with people on their smurf account. (Riot recently admitted Matchmaking was not working perfectly anyways)

But as far as identifying toxic players goes - together with in-depth chat log analysis - it works like a charm!

EMOFRATPARTY1 votes

You're assuming a lot here. Just because a player gets a ban doesn't mean they are immediately going to Rage Create. Additionally, any toxicity of a similar nature will be noticed by the same system. Sure it's not flawless, but considering The Tribunal is still not operational an automated system is the best way to go.

Driƒtwood1 votes

You're assuming a lot here. Just because a player gets a ban doesn't mean they are immediately going to Rage Create. Additionally, any toxicity of a similar nature will be noticed by the same system. Sure it's not flawless, but considering The Tribunal is still not operational an automated system is the best way to go.

Okay, first of all I have seen rage-created accounts. Earlier today I was playing with a pre-30 Riven who I noticed was being particularly toxic. Asked a few questions to confirm my suspicions. Yes indeed, turned out this person was banned about two weeks ago. She's moving back to her real account tomorrow, having learnt nothing and dealt out two weeks of toxicity to newbies in the process.

As for your second statement. It's not just flawed, it's counter-productive. There's nothing to stop someone from being toxic in a new account. It even creates new problems, such as the ol' "I'm done guys, gl, this is just a smurf anyway" then ragequit. I know I'm not the only one who notices this.

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