Reporting in other ways

eVizorr·Oct 20, 2016·2 votes·714 views

We should be able to report players in a way other than post-game. This isn't something that is urgent or of much concern, but it would be really nice if we could report someone and not have to play a whole game with them. Although most offenses do happen in game, there are some that don't, such as someone threatening to troll if they don't get a certain role in champ select (such as queuing for support and saying "mid or feed" and enforcing it), being toxic in champ select, and so on.

As you may notice what I'm mainly talking about is when people are breaking rules in champ select, which may force another player to dodge so that they don't waste time and lose a game and possibly LP if it's a ranked game. This doesn't happen that often, but it does still happen. And if you dodge, you can't just report that player. There is no way to. And I don't think that's very fair and is mainly a problem because it can happen in ranked and lose people LP, which makes it a concern that I think should be addressed at some point in the future.

Now I don't know exactly how a system for reporting people other than in the post-game screen could be implemented, but I have an idea. The idea is that even when you queue with people, they will show in your 'Recently Played' list. And from there, there can be an option to report any player you've queued with. However this presents a problem. You can report people just because you didn't like them for whatever reason and as long as you don't do it much you can abuse the system in reports. Does this already happen? Yes of course, but it usually doesn't make a difference. And I still don't think it will in this case either. Using Riot's system where when you report people frequently the system starts looking into your reports more and seeing if they are good reports, it should work for this too. It just adds another way to report someone that basically forced you to dodge because they were being toxic, were trolling, or whatever else that is against the rules.

I hope to get some feedback on this. It isn't a big important urgent feature, but I'd like it to be something that is implemented in League one day. I understand that this probably wouldn't be too high on Riot's list of what they've got to work on now, but it could be up there one day. It fixes a small problem that doesn't cause too much trouble, but it's still there and happens to EVERYONE. Anyways, I hope you guys agree and can provide feedback on this. Thanks!

TL;DR: I want there to be a way to report people without playing with them (for trolling in champ select for example), please give feedback and in general your thoughts on the topic.

8 Comments

KORGtunersOct 20, 20161 votes

People would just not tell you they are trolling and proceed to troll.

Do you care more about winning, punishing, or fun?

If winning, it does no good to anger the troll. You will have to play the game. If punishing, you have to play the game anyways because they won't openly admit to trolling. If fun, well then you are going to have to dodge.

eVizorrOct 20, 20161 votes

I'm not concerned about them not telling me, that's why there's the post-game screen. It happens already anyways. But when someone locks first time Ashe support (example of some random troll pick) and someone is forced to dodge, I think it's fair that we get a way to report that player. This behavior happens more with smurfs who don't care about their accounts, but I still think there should be the way to report them. What you've said is pretty much how we deal with it now, but again I think there should be a way to avoid people trolling and being toxic in champ select. If that deters them to only troll when already in game, then you report them anyway like usual. I'm just looking for an added way to enforce the rules that make this game fun and fair for us all.

KORGtunersOct 20, 20161 votes

If that deters them to only troll when already in game, then you report them anyway like usual.

That is the point I'm trying to make. You aren't accomplishing anything by allowing reports pre-game. You still have to deal with a "ruined" game. Well, maybe you deter them from talking in champ select. That is a double edged sword though. It turns into a guessing game of "is anyone trolling" rather than people openly telling you they are trolling. It is not always as easy as spotting the ashe support.

eVizorrOct 21, 20161 votes

I guess you're right in that sense. But I would much rather deal with a ruined game and a player who soon may face the Tribunal due to reports rather than have to wait 6 mins for queue dodging. It's more about the goal of having less of those ruined games happen in the end, with more people being reported for their trolling behaviors. I'm okay with suffering a game in the end if I know that one more troll is off of League or at least off of that account. It does require an effort by the community though, to try to lessen the numbers of these players who just troll and don't care about the consequences or in this case don't even suffer them, as just a few people who agree with me isn't going to make the difference. But I think it is definitely worth a shot.

KORGtunersOct 21, 20161 votes

Here is where I challenge you.

It does require an effort by the community though, to try to lessen the numbers of these players who just troll

Is punishing the only way to achieve this goal?

eVizorrOct 21, 20161 votes

Realistically, yes. Even with the harshest punishments such as prison for life, people still do things if they really want to. This same logic applies in League, especially since it is not a real life game. This is just another game people play on the Internet. If people are punished more often, they will either realize that they're not enjoying what they're doing and leave the game (which has it's problems for Riot but that is something for Riot to think about, as in my eyes I don't have a problem with that), or they change their ways and play the game the nicer, more fair way.

The polar opposite method that also works in humans is seeing the nicest people get rewarded for their contributions to the community. However, as we can see the rewards Riot provides are near impossible to acquire, and have little to no value. Yes, if Riot revamp's their reward system and maybe gives the nice players a nice free skin (similar to the Victorious skin idea, just based on a different system), or something of actual value to those players that better the community. Along with that I would think the system that decides how players can qualify for this should be changed, as players honoring each other just doesn't happen enough, and honestly doesn't give a clear idea of who is a great player to have in the community and who is not. In theory, I would love this system, as it doesn't focus on removing the toxic players but rewarding the nice players. However, that could show problems for Riot, in terms of creating such a system, since it is harder than the implementation of my idea of a solution, as well as free skins may make them lose money if the skins turn out to be better than most other skins on the selected champ(s).

To sum it up, I believe that punishing is at least the most practical solution, which is why I provided it. However maybe this other solution can work just as well, it really depends on how Riot would look at these solutions, what their perspectives on this whole situation would be.

KORGtunersOct 22, 20161 votes

I appreciate your responses.

However, I feel there is more we could do. I'm going to quote you again with emphasis.

It does require an **effort by the community **though, to try to lessen the numbers of these players who just troll

While you were talking about an effort in reporting; I am considering an effort in general civility. This means nice people need to be nice. They need to forgive more often. It is incredibly easy to mute then report a person. It takes much more effort to forgive negativity.

I've personally witnessed how just general "niceness" can bring a player back from trolling. There have been games where I was tilted. Then one person making an effort to cheer me up gets my head back in the game. Then there is the opposite. I am tilted and the team generally talks down to me and reports. After these games, I am still tilted and I'm sure no one really enjoyed themselves. I am likely to "ruin" my next game as well. No it is not your job to make everyone feel great every game, but I guarantee that one nice person has a better experience than me and the so called "righteous".

Then we can consider the "trickle effect". That nice person ended up having a nice game. On top of that, I am no longer tilted. So our next games are likely to be nicer as well. As stated earlier, on the opposite spectrum; we had one bad game and likely more to come. So with the negative spectrum, we have to wade through the bad games before we can report and remove the "bad apples", Only then does our play experience have a chance at improving. The positive spectrum reaches our goal of improving play experience faster. The positive spectrum never had the bad experience to begin with.

With all this being said, I can understand why punishment could be considered the most practical solution. I have not found many people willing to consider other possibilities, as you have done so admirably. So once again I have to thank you for your time and opinions.

eVizorrOct 27, 20161 votes

To start off, I'd like to thank you in return for viewing and commenting, this was a really nice discussion. It opened up my eyes to solving toxicity problems in not only the League community, but any community. I was going to link a video by Foxdrop which supports your point about how being nice can completely change the game, but I think it might have been one of Phylol's videos actually, and researching it would take some time that I don't have right now. To sum it up, he states that being the positive person, and just saying it's okay don't worry about that mistake does really work. However, these types of videos usually don't get that much exposure. As well, some people just don't want to put in that effort. It's much easier to react and be mean instead of thinking and being nice. This is a video game and some people just play to blow off some steam, maybe relax themselves, and having to be nice to other people about their mistakes might not be in anyone's intentions.

All of that being said, I would really like for there to be a system where being nice is rewarded because it could really turn a lot of heads. However, that could get some backlash as not actually removing the problem but trying to lessen it to the point where it disappears, which may not be a "quick" enough solution for the community. All in all, I don't know where I would head with this situation, since there are a lot of things to take into account, and with many of them being uncontrollable variables that can have their own various outcomes, it might be too much for someone to even want to take on as a project to create a system with the end goal of bettering the community. So with that, thanks again for responding and creating this discussion with me.