Boards›Player Behavior

A Passionate Player's Analysis of the Shortcomings of Player Behaviour

Masala Chai·11/2/2018, 7:53:15 AM·16 votes·7,636 views

I'm going to preface this in saying that this is simply my opinion. I've never been chat-restricted, or banned for any reasons. I love League of Legends, Riot and the employees. I have been ultimately blessed by own interactions with all the Rioters that I've met on Twitter, League, or even in real life. League of Legends has coloured my life in a way that transcends words. I've made and met countless friends through this game. I have 0 regrets ever picking up this game.

I don't have a Psych, CS, HCI, Econ, Marine Biology (ily GC) or whatever degrees your analysts, researchers, and designers have. I have yet to finish high school and submit my RD apps to colleges. I don't have cross-regional, holistic, data-informed analytics pulled straight from surveys to even guide my opinion through this write-up. But as a player, I think I am still qualified to submit my opinions on the current state of Player Behaviour Systems.

In my opinion, Player Behavior should aim to:

  1. Promote good and frequent use of positive and encouraging comms and behaviours.
  2. Discourage negative and inflammatory comms and actions, both toxic and egregious in nature.
  3. Issue reasonable penalties for those that violate the Summoner's Code. The penalties should take a more holistic evaluation of circumstances, past behaviours, and the language used.

In an ideal scenario, the following outcomes would be accomplished:

  1. Reduction of toxicity.
  2. Adequate and due punishment for those who ruin the quality of games via negative comms or behaviours, including but not limited to inting, ragequitting etc.
  3. Make player interactions with the system meaningful and satisfying.

To help set out these goals, we have the following system (implemented by whatever designers in Meta Game Systems) in place:

  1. Chat restrictions set your Honour Level to 1, or if it is already at 1, to 0.
  2. 14 day-bans set your Honour Level to 0.
  3. Continual growth towards Honour Level 5 rewards clearly established/

This system has a couple of upsides to it: For one, it clearly establishes a punishment that dissuades players from engaging in negative behavior. Players who are generally positive get a clear progression towards whatever honour related goals they have.

Unfortunately, it also has quite a few downsides too. One size fits all shouldn't apply to player behavior in the same way that justice systems or merit systems don't either. There's a lot of nuance in the actions that people get chat restricted or banned for. In some cases, it's provoked by a factor outside of their control (another player ruining the quality of the game via inting or griefing). In others, it's less so as they choose to retort to personal insults made by another player(s). Still, there are players who just instigate the negativity and hence ruining the game for their team as they devolve into a war of words and insults.

I don't think that these people should be treated on the same level as eachother. I would imagine that it leads to a disillusionment of the system, and overall increases the frustration of people in the game "Argh! Why is this person who is blatantly stealing my camps to try and ruin my League of Legends experience getting of scot free, whereas I who told him to f*** off lost season rewards and the ability to play Clash?" I'm lucky to not have those experiences since I just let them do their thing, and for the most part accept it because they likely have some other issues in life that brings frustration or lack of satisfaction to them as well. Others may though, and these are your hardcore gamers, your core audience who genuinely does love video games.

As such, here are my primary criticisms of the current implementation.

Primary Criticism 1: Offenders Receive a Punishment That Varies in Strength Even Though the Actual Crime is the Same (can't figure out how to reword this better) Explanation: Somebody who gets chat restricted at the beginning of the year is less affected by the person who is tacked with a chat restriction in September or October. This is because most people who get restricted at the beginning of the year have a lot of time to bring up their Honour Level and receive Season Rewards. The people who get restricted at the end don't, and they are left with nothing. They learn the lesson the same way the person who took the lesson at the beginning of the year, and lose much more. Losing access to Season Rewards off of one bad game will probably feel terrible

In general, I think most of us have engaged in behaviour that closely matches the diction of those who are chat restricted at some point in our League careers. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing though, we often have bad days, and sometimes we need a little nudge to pull people away from that and allow people to be more understanding of player circumstances. If anything, it's an opportunity for growth as a player AND as a person. I would impose a less harsh honour reductions for players who get chat restricted for the first time, with more harsh penalties for those that AREN'T willing to reform.

Primary Criticism 2: Verbal Abuse doesn't ruin the quality of games in every case, yet the proportion of reports that people get reported for negative in-game chat receiving restrictions IS MUCH HIGHER than the people who run it down or hard grief.

  1. My first case of evidence would be CN and KR servers which have a much higher bar of accepted in-chat verbal abuse as opposed to the NA server. There is a bar of acceptance that is unique to each server's culture.
  2. However, people who are blatantly hard-inting, soft-inting while stating "my team doesn't deserve to win", or otherwise ruining the quality of gameplay by griefing, will ruin the game for the other 9 people in that game. Guaranteed. Frustration for the team the inter is on peaks, and the opposing team isn't playing League of Legends to its full competitive extent.
  3. I've literally needed to submit a ticket to report people who grief games because it doesn't IFS doesn't detect those sorts of things very well.

Honestly, I would just hand out chat restrictions to those who are just negative in chat all the time, giving adequate opportunities for reform and allowing players reforming see a sort of maturity scale as they reform. And for those that don't, harsher chat penalties. I would save permabans for people who spew egregious stuff like encouraging suicide or extremely racially charged statements, or in general ruin the game for the community via deliberate and actual griefing or inting.

Thanks for reading, and maybe give your own opinions about player behaviour in the comments. I'd love to hear alternative perspectives.

16 Comments

WoΘxer11/2/2018, 11:45:04 AM6 votes

So I must promote my inters to do it better?

So I must promote trash teams to player worse?

Why I must suck their D's to get honor progression faster?

Fk this garbage system who ever designed this bullshit must be fired afterward.

MorgManBasher11/2/2018, 12:35:13 PM5 votes

It's so hard not to flame someone that's purposely losing you the game. They are running it down your lane, smiting your camps, following you around trying to ruin your game but they won't get punished because they never type "Kys"

Aionius11/2/2018, 8:08:18 AM5 votes

I like this. It really shows good care and what's healthy for the game as a whole.

rujitra11/2/2018, 1:11:36 PM4 votes

Once you start saying that players should get a pass for being provoked, I stopped.

Everyone is expected to have self control here. It doesn't matter if you're getting emotional, frustrated, or angry. You don't get to take it out on others.

Lastly, verbal abuse ruins the game in the vast majority of genes - hence why it's reported so commonly when it occurs, and usually by multiple players per game when it does happen.

Best of The Best11/2/2018, 11:51:48 AM4 votes

i think another good thing that should be added is an exclusive skin at the end of the season for everyone who reaches honor 5 like the victorious skins.

Baby Ghoul11/3/2018, 2:34:23 AM4 votes

These are accurate criticisms that are applied to any zero tolerance system, but at the end of the day Riot has this system to be efficient. I would hope that one day that can change, but that would also require a lot of resources to determine the nuances in each case.

My issue with system came up rather recently with the addition of the honor system. They're using it more as a punishment than a reward system this season.

Let's face it, the honor rewards are lackluster, but the punishment is quite severe. No ranked rewards if you're below honor level 2, which by all accounts takes a considerable time to achieve.

Their choice to tie honor level 2 to ranked rewards for this system fundamentally changed the equation. Therefore the honor system can no longer remain an ambiguous system that nobody can accurately explain because Riot provides few details.

The checkpoints are excruciatingly long which just encourages grinding. We can only guess when it comes to what aids progress and what halts it, and we get no warnings that tell us if we're at risk of going off the honorable path. We're largely left in the dark when it comes to our honor progress and I fail to see how that encourages reform, if anything it is quite frustrating to play hundreds of games and not know what you're doing right or wrong. That needs to change.

The old system may not have been perfect, but it was clear which is what matters. No ranked rewards if you received a punishment after a certain date. What we have currently is a system that is dangling ranked rewards in people's faces and pushing them to grind more when in reality only a few of us will have the time to dedicate the insane amount of time it take to regain honor level 2. During that period we're just left to our own devices.

We obviously know not to break the rules, especially after receiving a punishment, but what is honorable to Riot and why are they being secretive about it? Some people claim it is so that nobody takes advantage of the system, but right now it is at the expense of people who are trying to reform. That was fine when the honor system was just about rewards, but now it has a punishment element which requires clarity.

This honor system right now is not good. They need better rewards for people that are honorable and a clearly defined system that focuses on reform.

Danksley11/4/2018, 3:11:34 AM2 votes

They need to implement IFS on the forum and tie it to in-game punishments without telling anyone.

Would be a rude awakening to the people who are honor 5 in-game but use this board as their outlet to abuse other players.

zlajo11/3/2018, 10:56:24 PM2 votes

You've hit the nail on it's head.

I've had 2 games where my games got ruined by true trolls. Both trolls flamed my whole team besides their troll behavior. At the end, the trolls got punished, but i got aswell. Support didn't want to lift it because i argued with them before muting them. He said that they were ruining our game and that i was right to tilt, but that i didn't handle them well.

The frustration was big because exactly the reasons you mentioned. I got the same punishment as them, while losing my end game rewards without chance to get back to honor lvl 2. In the end i chose to stop playing this game. The automated system has terrible flaws. I could stand the toxic players, but not the automated system's injustice. It just shows how much frustration such a system makes....

In the past the tribunal had better results, with less error in player punishment. The down side was that it took longer before someone got their punishment. The community filtered the reports where someone got baited into flaming from the true toxic players, which where then sent to the player behavior team at Riot.

I think that with a few alterations, the tribunal could work great. It's time between crime -> punishment could be lowered, while keeping it's accuracy high.

Anyway, nicely analyzed and written OP. I agree with you totally. I'll write in another thread about tribunal's reintroduction possibilities.

BeatleZzz11/2/2018, 2:55:26 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Masala Chai,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=A4t4i2oX,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-02T07:53:15.578+0000)

I'm going to preface this in saying that this is simply my opinion. I've never been chat-restricted, or banned for any reasons. I love League of Legends, Riot and the employees. I have been ultimately blessed by own interactions with all the Rioters that I've met on Twitter, League, or even in real life. League of Legends has coloured my life in a way that transcends words. I've made and met countless friends through this game. I have 0 regrets ever picking up this game.

I don't have a Psych, CS, HCI, Econ, Marine Biology (ily GC) or whatever degrees your analysts, researchers, and designers have. I have yet to finish high school and submit my RD apps to colleges. I don't have cross-regional, holistic, data-informed analytics pulled straight from surveys to even guide my opinion through this write-up. But as a player, I think I am still qualified to submit my opinions on the current state of Player Behaviour Systems.

In my opinion, Player Behavior should aim to:

  1. Promote good and frequent use of positive and encouraging comms and behaviours.
  2. Discourage negative and inflammatory comms and actions, both toxic and egregious in nature.
  3. Issue reasonable penalties for those that violate the Summoner's Code. The penalties should take a more holistic evaluation of circumstances, past behaviours, and the language used.

In an ideal scenario, the following outcomes would be accomplished:

  1. Reduction of toxicity.
  2. Adequate and due punishment for those who ruin the quality of games via negative comms or behaviours, including but not limited to inting, ragequitting etc.
  3. Make player interactions with the system meaningful and satisfying.

To help set out these goals, we have the following system (implemented by whatever designers in Meta Game Systems) in place:

  1. Chat restrictions set your Honour Level to 1, or if it is already at 1, to 0.
  2. 14 day-bans set your Honour Level to 0.
  3. Continual growth towards Honour Level 5 rewards clearly established/

This system has a couple of upsides to it: For one, it clearly establishes a punishment that dissuades players from engaging in negative behavior. Players who are generally positive get a clear progression towards whatever honour related goals they have.

Unfortunately, it also has quite a few downsides too. One size fits all shouldn't apply to player behavior in the same way that justice systems or merit systems don't either. There's a lot of nuance in the actions that people get chat restricted or banned for. In some cases, it's provoked by a factor outside of their control (another player ruining the quality of the game via inting or griefing). In others, it's less so as they choose to retort to personal insults made by another player(s). Still, there are players who just instigate the negativity and hence ruining the game for their team as they devolve into a war of words and insults.

I don't think that these people should be treated on the same level as eachother. I would imagine that it leads to a disillusionment of the system, and overall increases the frustration of people in the game "Argh! Why is this person who is blatantly stealing my camps to try and ruin my League of Legends experience getting of scot free, whereas I who told him to f*** off lost season rewards and the ability to play Clash?" I'm lucky to not have those experiences since I just let them do their thing, and for the most part accept it because they likely have some other issues in life that brings frustration or lack of satisfaction to them as well. Others may though, and these are your hardcore gamers, your core audience who genuinely does love video games.

As such, here are my primary criticisms of the current implementation.

Primary Criticism 1: Offenders Receive a Punishment That Varies in Strength Even Though the Actual Crime is the Same (can't figure out how to reword this better) Explanation: Somebody who gets chat restricted at the beginning of the year is less affected by the person who is tacked with a chat restriction in September or October. This is because most people who get restricted at the beginning of the year have a lot of time to bring up their Honour Level and receive Season Rewards. The people who get restricted at the end don't, and they are left with nothing. They learn the lesson the same way the person who took the lesson at the beginning of the year, and lose much more. Losing access to Season Rewards off of one bad game will probably feel terrible

In general, I think most of us have engaged in behaviour that closely matches the diction of those who are chat restricted at some point in our League careers. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing though, we often have bad days, and sometimes we need a little nudge to pull people away from that and allow people to be more understanding of player circumstances. If anything, it's an opportunity for growth as a player AND as a person. I would impose a less harsh honour reductions for players who get chat restricted for the first time, with more harsh penalties for those that AREN'T willing to reform.

Primary Criticism 2: Verbal Abuse doesn't ruin the quality of games in every case, yet the proportion of reports that people get reported for negative in-game chat receiving restrictions IS MUCH HIGHER than the people who run it down or hard grief.

  1. My first case of evidence would be CN and KR servers which have a much higher bar of accepted in-chat verbal abuse as opposed to the NA server. There is a bar of acceptance that is unique to each server's culture.
  2. However, people who are blatantly hard-inting, soft-inting while stating "my team doesn't deserve to win", or otherwise ruining the quality of gameplay by griefing, will ruin the game for the other 9 people in that game. Guaranteed. Frustration for the team the inter is on peaks, and the opposing team isn't playing League of Legends to its full competitive extent.
  3. I've literally needed to submit a ticket to report people who grief games because it doesn't IFS doesn't detect those sorts of things very well.

Honestly, I would just hand out chat restrictions to those who are just negative in chat all the time, giving adequate opportunities for reform and allowing players reforming see a sort of maturity scale as they reform. And for those that don't, harsher chat penalties. I would save permabans for people who spew egregious stuff like encouraging suicide or extremely racially charged statements, or in general ruin the game for the community via deliberate and actual griefing or inting.

Thanks for reading, and maybe give your own opinions about player behaviour in the comments. I'd love to hear alternative perspectives.

Sent you an add at 7 am because I have nothing else better to do than to add people who aren't toxic.