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The essential problems with Riot's handling of toxic/troll players.

Ch0c0lateJesus·10/20/2014, 9:57:49 PM·3 votes·1,317 views

Ever been banned for leaving too many games with blatant trolls and utterly toxic players?

Its actually possible, its so common to find yourself in an utterly unbearable game that you can rack up leaver points if you check out.(generally it takes about 3 games) I tend to leave games filled with people throwing racist slurs, and people blatantly feeding with 6 boots in their inventory, people insulting one-another in all caps while the score is 2/26.

If one was having such a negative experience in any other type of game, they would quit without hesitation, but League expects you to stay, and be prisoner to trolls and flamers. I have other priorities, I dont accept responsibility for Riot's failure to get rid of horrid players, and I refuse to be captive to them. Whether or not you think leaving games like this is justified, you must accept that the system favors the trolls.

One of the reasons that trolling is so effective in this game is that there is no immediate risk for the troll, there is some vague threat of being reported, but human minds dont work that way. We respond to immediate threats, not vague amorphous invisible "threats" like reports that may or may not lead to some kind of trivial punishment in the future.

Currently people can start trolling from the second they get into champ select. Trolls dont care if they win, they just want to be irritating, so they harass, and say they will feed, they say they will spend the game following the jungler to steal his XP. At this point there is nothing at all anyone can do beyond leave, and lose LP, and possibly have a loss in their series. The troll wins by default. Maybe you just stay and let the game start, and hope the guy is bluffing..., but again all the power is in the hands of the troll.

Trolls win by default with Riot's current system, they can keep 4 people prisoner for an hour. Since the system automatically punishes people who leave, they have the satisfaction of screwing you whether you leave or not.

Riot loves to dole out punishments, but has no concept of giving people incentives. Give players a reason to stay in the game and tolerate a guaranteed loss at the hands of a troll. "Not being banned" isn't an incentive, its an ultimatum, and at some point you feel angry at Riot as well as the trolls for forcing you into this situation. Give some kind of actual reward for going long periods without leaving or getting reported.

Other MOBAs have already figured out this obvious solution. Smite has its "goodwill" system. If you keep a clean slate, it steadily goes up to 100%. The more goodwill you have, the more IP(or favor in this case) you get. Hence players at least get something for tolerating idiots, and as a result there are fewer trolls.

For gods sake, reward people for goddamn personal performance, and stop punishing scores of people at a time for the behavior of a few. This game will remain notorious for its wretched community until you figure this out, and stop putting all of the power in the hands of the worst players the community has to offer.

11 Comments

Dreddeth10/20/2014, 10:03:06 PM2 votes

That goodwill mechanic sounds like a nice incentive to hang on through the troll matches until the win of the day.

Tyrius10/21/2014, 10:31:12 AM2 votes

You know, you can just play in customs with other people. I'd have to say that that would be a bit more casual.

Deathless81C10/21/2014, 10:34:23 AM2 votes

Riot needs to get harsher with it's punishments. Game after game after game of ass holes trolling and bragging about how nothing is going to happen to them.

ShadowSkree10/21/2014, 2:33:51 AM2 votes

agree with op

themachamp210/21/2014, 4:42:59 AM2 votes

The worse, imo, are the trolls at the division V of a tier who look you up and see if your in promos and throw the game. Then just say shit like....stay silver noob! Then you look them up and wonder how they are gold with 103W-135L ><

7ha7guy77710/21/2014, 4:47:45 AM2 votes

wouldn't a goodwill mechanic make the trolls win that much more if they get you to leave? wouldn't server issues ruin the mechanic (games where you get the 500 ping reconnect which means you have to leave the game for it to actually reconnect)?

Junkο10/21/2014, 5:11:42 AM2 votes

The reason people are so toxic in this game is that the punishment system sucks.

Leave a ton of games = Ban Be the most toxic person the world has ever seen = Permanent chat restrictions Anything else like refusing to communicate and assisting enemy team = No ban

Riot said many times that only people that show extreme toxicity will get banned, but with chat restrictions letting you write 10 messages per game(and them having permanent chat restrictions), that will NEVER happen. Meanwhile people that don't want to play with toxic people and trolls are punished instantly.

NatsuDragneel61210/21/2014, 10:19:01 AM2 votes

The problem with that is it is still rewarding the trolls. If they see an incentive to stay that won't stop them trolling it will just stop them from quitting the game as well. So in the end you are rewarding the trolls/toxics as well. In the end what is really needed is a better system to weed out the trolls and toxic players, and then pick out the good players and reward them. Don't have rewards for staying in games have rewards for being a constant good player maybe in conjunction with not leaving games.

Meikuu Zanshouk10/20/2014, 10:16:03 PM1 votes

they troll you, fed and verbal abuse? then you just play the best you can, you can just mute them all and if they fed, well take it as a challenge, leaving a game just because they are trolling or verbal abuse isnt actually gonna afect them, but your own.

if they dont make you rage quit, tecnically they didnt get what they want, but as soon as you leave, you get reported by them and you cant even get to report them.Ahri

Subdue10/21/2014, 5:07:18 AM1 votes

This argument makes no sense. You start of saying you feel held hostage by trolls, and then go on to say you want there to be more on the line for you to lose if you start leaving...