Boards›Player Behavior

BAM You Just Got Muted Son!

SciTiger·1/2/2018, 4:20:12 PM·1 votes·871 views

So, League has some community toxicity issues. no secret there... Honestly if someone didn't at the very least call you a worthless piece of trash every other game regular players may start to fear the world was coming to an end or that hell had just frozen over... and that's just the problem right? We expect it as if it's just part of the game. So what do we do about that?

Now let's not confuse toxicity with tilt or raging. There is a difference. This game is hard, and hardship certainly brings you down to your worst way before the best of you stands up to overcome it (if at all). People need to vent. It's part of being human. People also need to argue and disagree. I am confident however, that we can all agree that there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. There is a problem with that though... there isn't one line, as a matter of fact there is one line for every individual on the planet. That means there are roughly.. oh 7.6 billion lines. Do you really think there is a system that can account for that much variance? Well.. actually there is. The human mind.

Did you look outside lately? Notice how cars are not on fire? (for most of the world at least) Buildings are for the most part standing and the guy in front of you is not sharing with you exactly what he did with your mother last night... why? Immediate consequence in the social spectrum. Everyone is in person. There is no anonymity. As humans we crave social interaction and acceptance. What happens if we do not conduct ourselves in an acceptable way? You are ignored. People turn their back on you and you are barred from social comunion until you learn to behave.

You don't get that online these days. Its unlimited social interaction with no consequence, and Riot (or any company) can not fix this. Why? anyone?

It can't be fixed by a governing force because that is not how we are wired. We have adapted to exist in a system where we keep each other in check in real time. There is no ever watching ever micromanaging entity in real life. It can't exist. That is the role of every person during every interaction. We monitor and maintain civility in each other. We are the solution.

Why are toxic people toxic? Well, it's usually due to their insecurities. A lot of people posses the mindset that their self worth is directly linked with their performance. If they are losing they are a loser. If they are winning they are a winner. That's not necessarily true. Being a winner or a loser is more a state of mind than a situational condition. That would be how a healthy secure person would understand it. So what happens when a toxic player starts losing or failing? Logically they would have to conclude that they are now worth less as a person, or that they are lacking in some way. That is a hard pill to swallow, so what do they do? They blame someone else to spare them the truth of their inadequacies. They don't get better. They don't improve. That would take time and effort. Instead, they make someone else feel worse than them to cover up their pain.

What happens when someone is toxic to you in real life? You walk away, and you probably do so in a manner that sufficiently demonstrates how disappointed or disgusted you are with that person. Eventually when toxic people drive everyone away they have nothing left but to confront what it was that made them toxic in the first place. They have to address themselves and fix that instead of running away; at least if they want to be accepted back in the social group again (and they will because they are human). They come back, they apologize and then YOU accept the apology and let the group as a whole be even better than it was. That is how we move forward, but how do we do it in League?

Well, you can't leave. That would punish people who didn't do anything wrong. Muting doesn't seem to help either since the toxic person doesn't know they were muted unless you tell them. Even if you do tell them they have no hope of redemption after that. Maybe you made them feel bad, maybe they were just having a bad day. Maybe THIS is the hundredth time they've been muted and it's time to change but it's over... they're muted.

This is what I propose.

A new muting system - There should be two tabs.

The traditional mute button for ranked games (like I do. If its ranked in low elo you're muted. Nothing personal just got a game to carry you know?) No consequence and no notice - just muting for the sake of muting.

Muting for toxic behavior If someone clicks this button then offending players would be notified to the tune of "You have just been muted for negative or toxic behavior. After 3 minutes you may request to be unmuted by clicking the "request to unmute" button next to your icon on the tab menu." If the toxic player waits the 3 minutes and clicks the request to unmute button a small message would flash on the screen of the person who muted them giving them the option to unmute the silenced team mate and give him/her a second chance. (imagine the surrender vote mechanic) If the muting player clicks ok a message like "You have been given a second chance by your team to speak without restrictions. Good luck summoner!" would appear and the game would continue on as normal. If however for some reason the toxic player remained toxic and was muted again by the same player he would be notified "You have been muted again due to negative or toxic behavior. Your chat restrictions will not be lifted until the game is over and you leave the post game lobby."

Now, it's up for debate if that second ban should be counted as an end game lobby report or not. I don't think it should. That's what the post game lobby is for. Further punishment for multiple two toxic bans in a game could be a full loss of chat use for a set number of games.

This system isn't perfect, but then again neither are we. It would be effective though. I would love to hear any comments or tweaks someone would make, especially from a Riot official.

Thank you - SciTiger

39 Comments

Modi1/2/2018, 6:17:27 PM5 votes

Now let's not confuse toxicity with tilt or raging. There is a difference.

I disagree, tilting and raging are forms of toxic behavior

This game is hard, and hardship certainly brings you down to your worst way before the best of you stands up to overcome it (if at all).

Part of growing up is learning to control your behavior. The only way to learn that your behavior was unacceptable is to have consequences. Those consequences are the chat restrictions, temporary suspension, and permanent ban. If you don't learn from the first bits of feedback, Riot's policy is to use the final measure, since it has the most impact.

People need to vent. It's part of being human.

Vent away, just not in chat. Yell at your screen, yell at your cat (as one person who posted here does), or, better yet, find a better outlet for your anger.

People also need to argue and disagree.

Disagree, yes. It is going to happen that people disagree. Argue (in the sense that it happens in a toxic game) no. The game is not the place for argument. It is completely counter productive.

That means there are roughly.. oh 7.6 billion lines. Do you really think there is a system that can account for that much variance? Well.. actually there is. The human mind.

Everyone may have their own opinion of where to draw the line, but society is an agreement of where the bounds of the line are. This is what the current system imposes, the bounds of the lines

They have to address themselves and fix that instead of running away; at least if they want to be accepted back in the social group again (and they will because they are human). They come back, they apologize and then YOU accept the apology and let the group as a whole be even better than it was.

I have a brother who is a complete asshole. He has been an asshole to our dad, to my other brothers, and to me. He has stolen from us (not like $5 here, $10 there, property worth thousands of dollars). His behavior is reprehensible, the living embodiment of the the definisiont of manchild ("man" is a stretch, he acts like a five year olf, but is nearly 30). He wants to come back in the good graces of the family, he has even said so to my dad via text message. But guess what? His actions have consequences. He can go piss off in whatever world he wants to live in.

His behavior was not a one time event, it is a continuing pattern, where we gave him many, many, MANY chances to improve. He chose to not, now there are consequences. He is no longer invited to any event that I or my other brothers host. My dad and grandparents may invite him, but if he shows up I will leave in the best case. Worst case scenario is I will cold-clock him in the jaw and then leave.

If you don't learn (and getting restrictions & 14-day suspensions are learning experiences), I don't want you in my community.

Though I understand the desire to give people chances (as I said, we gave my brother many aka 100s of chances), but there are some who don't learn. Just look at the Tyler1 issue. He was banned, and banned, and banned, and the only time he has even tried to show a shred of remorse was when Riot said "Enough, get the fuck out of the community" and enacted his so-called "ID Ban".

In my opinion, feedback when you get muted by someone would start being a game for them. They would try as hard as they can to get muted, holding it as a badge of honor. There may be some people who would take it as "I'm being too much of a jackass". The ones who need to be muted in the first place, would likely not give a shit whether they are muted, or would see it as the reverse, as stated above.

SEKAI1/2/2018, 4:28:51 PM4 votes

The purpose of the automated system is to get through generic cases as fast as possible given the amount of reports is impossible to be reviewed by human employees or even through methods like Tribunal (which was already lagging behind completion rate by an extreme margin why back when League was just a thing that had just started). A bot was necessary.

Any specific cases that maybe have resulted in a faulty ban will be discussed in a support ticket.

..............

Also, I generally do not approve your method of muting implementation, because it seriously hinders the gameplay, given you have to do back and forth clicking, and it also gives trolls more power to spam it and interrupt players (by constantly annoying others who then mute them for toxic behaviours, which then they proceed to harass the player by trying to appeal, and if they do get appealed they will just repeat the cycle again and again until they are just muted via traditional means). What's gonna happen is that no one will use this 'Muting for toxic behavior' feature.

Telephone Booth1/3/2018, 1:18:03 AM3 votes

My god... The indulgent rambling. Get to the point already. TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ.

PlsTouchMeGently1/2/2018, 8:37:19 PM2 votes

Gold 5 and talking about low elo lmao.

Colgate Gator1/3/2018, 5:38:59 PM2 votes

{quoted}

Now let's not confuse toxicity with tilt or raging.

That was a quick read.