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A real discussion about Behavior and Reform

IW Autofill·12/14/2016, 9:16:00 PM·3 votes·1,057 views

I am a league player of a certain number of years, I have seen the system in various states and I must say without a doubt that there is something inherently backwards about the league of legends instant feedback system. No this is not a rant on how I got X and think it should be Y, nor is it a call for the tribunal. What you read below are my observations off of having attempted to be restricted, banned, and analyzing the system in depth across a multitude of accounts. Before I begin. I Deserved Every Single punishment I received my problem so much is not with the fact that the behavior is being punished but HOW it is being conducted. Lets begin.

Of course the first time someone is a little too toxic and gets a mysterious number of reports, they get.. a warning! Cue dramatic lights and effects, no but seriously I understand the attempt here but this no better informs anyone of what they are doing than the summoners code does. The warning is a bland and almost insulting "Hey buddy we know you're not having a great time but you gotta be an okay dude alright homeslice?" It feels disjointed and disconnected from the actual game. You get it after game and viola problem solved right? Well no, most people who get a warning go on to get a restriction, sometimes in the next game.

So what can we do? Well for one, why not highlight some of the chat the player used that is deemed as offensive. Now I hear you typing "Well you should know what is and isn't okay to say!" And that would be right if we all shared the same values and morals but we don't for example I grew up in a household where Hell was an appropriate word to describe frustration or exasperation or exaggeration. Not specifically go to hell but "Hell yea!" that kind of thing. Meanwhile my cousins were raised in a house where the word HELL (all caps) was about as bad as any of the other famous four letter words. My point is people of different age, gender, and even ethnicity consider different things in different ways. IF there is a universal standard for league, be more open, enlighten the player don't threaten them. There is a handy list in the support page of 'acceptable' terms and dialogue somewhere in the league of legends website but that is putting a lot of onus on the player to do research for what should be a simple straight forward game.

Secondly, Context, people do not wake up and go "I am going to tell someone to kill themselves over a video game!" no, that is a gradual process that a new player undergoes which I like to call Legalizing. The first step of Legalizing is dealing with a league player, preferably a jaded one. The naive new player sees mister senpai and sees that senpai calls his team mates trash and horrible. Senpai is the role model in this case so he is teaching a new generation or lets face it at this rate SEASON of player that its okay to insult your team mates. What little johny new to league doesn't know is senpai is running a premade and he's insulting his friends. Of course HOW COULD HE!? premades are not disclosed with any kind of information provided from the client. So another suggestion is tell a person "you are joining a premade, some of the terms of the summoners code may not apply with them but you are still punishable under the instantfeedback system."

Moving on, after the warning comes the first actual punishment, a restriction I've seen anything from 1 to 10 games for a first time with anything from 1-3 games worth of reports, its a little chaotic. Now here is where a person goes from 'mislead' to completely abhorrent. As one of the joys of having been chat restricted you are graciously treated to a script of everything YOU and only YOU said in the games that earned the reports. Not once, Not twice, Not even five times. However many times between the start of the punishment and the required number of games it takes EVERY SINGLE LOG IN. This does not work, in fact it fails majorly in two very simple ways. One showing someone their mistake repeatedly does not educate them on the mistake it makes them HATE the people that reported them and see themselves has suffering unduly, and secondly there again is no indication of exactly WHAT was termed offensive. If you need to keep saying "Naughty boy" at least tell the punished player what they said that was wrong, sometimes its obvious "KYS" ect, sometimes its not so obvious "Man lux that ult was so bad that I hear it got elected as president" Trump jokes, topical! both are equally valid in that report screen and that's where the confusion comes in.

A much healthier alternative to this chat restriction is a simple identification system on a players account Green, Blue, Red. Green accounts can freely use all chat and team chat, Blue accounts can only use team chat, Red accounts can not use chat at all and can not read chat at all either. This instead of hampering a player and promoting worse play "I meant to say Top TP but I ran out of chats in the first 10 minutes saying GLHF and explaining how I'm chat restricted" and filters players by nature, its a sliding scale that does not encourage further toxicity because it allows players to participate but not by requirement. Let me tell you those ten games are ROUGH on chat restriction you feel like you're playing with the enemy given a handicap and it makes you very upset.

After restriction we have SUSPENSION! congratulations you are among the top 1% of league summoners so toxic you need to be removed from the game!.. but do you really? Suspension is for lack of a better word, the point of no return. This is where a league player either learns one of three lessons. "Golly gee I better what what I say, do, and how I play or I might lose my account"/"Oh, I really didn't think I was that bad, maybe I just shouldn't say anything that way I can't be reported"/" Screw this game, They think I'm toxic I'LL SHOW THEM TOXIC!" or the optional fourth ".. just forget it, I'm done" League especially does not want option 4. So with lesson 1 being the optimal ending where do you really think things end up I'd say with no hard numbers But riot doesn't have them either that most players fall into 2 or 3. I've seen so many people straight terrified of talking in chat, and the only time they do is when their frustration boils over to the brink. SO what is a better system? Believe it or not I don't think people should be banned, I think that people who have surpassed a certain threshold should be restricted from anything but Coop VS AI until they earn enough honors by their team mates. WAIT, let me explain.

When someone is banned not only do they get the frustration of not being able to play, they get to stare at what got them banned every time they log. SO what does any sane person do!? THEY MAKE AN ALT! or smurf. Yes the people you so proudly banned are not gone, they simply start back up and continue their ways however now bitter at losing their account for X period of time and made to play Coop VS AI anyway! Let me put it like this I have never seen someone truly toxic in Coop VS AI. People are communative they chat and compliment each other and generally have a decent amount of fun playing around. YES there are outliers and I'll get to those when I reach Perma status because these are future permas, anyone toxic in ai will eventually be banned trust me. Now the mandatory AI playing works on multiple levels. First playing bots makes you feel good, you win alot, you get this illusion that you are really good. Second requiring honor requires that they DO actually change their behavior at least temporarily enough to get unrestricted. Lastly it doesn't contaminate your new player base. Let me tell you, the climb from 1-30 is both easy and impossible at the same time. Trolls, Salty [plat] mains and smurfs, OH MY GOD the smurfing going on between 3-30. It is devastating how badly you can lose a game to some smurfs and what does this do? It triggers your nuclear teemo shroom who just got banned, which trickles down onto johny new at league because senpai sure is being toxic. They have no clue this is a toxic player who's been punished all they see is a player better than them acting that way and it sticks.

And finally the big guy, the ultimate punishment the Perma. And I gotta say that I'm okay with Permas there are points where people just will not co operate and at the cost of a single customer you must remove them. I think the perma is carried out waaaay too dramatically, giving the same text box and big fanfare like someone being given the pennant stare. I think perma's should simply be, "Your account has been deleted due to repeated levels of toxic behavior on this account, the name has been released and your email unregistered , have a nice day." Simple succinct and it does more than leaving the account accessible but not playable. How many names are locked behind perma'd accounts that new players would love to have, I again have no numbers but its got to be high. But focus on the wording "Your account has been deleted, and your email unregistered" Its a clear, Get out we don't want you. NOW that player may make a smurf, since riot does nothing to stop this behavior but, now they know the reality that if they don't behave they will be evicted.

There is one , very small niggling thing, the hexatech crafting system and the instanfeedback system SHOULD NOT BE LINKED. Oh my lord what were you thinking. "Here's free stuff for playing!" "Oh wait you got restricted, so even though you played well, didn't flame, carried your team and got an S!.. No chest or keys for you, until you 'reform'" If ever there was a counter intuitive system in place. You are actively punishing people for playing well because they might of gotten a chat restriction for 1 game a week prior. This has got to be addressed from my research it only inspires toxicity and the feelings of hopelessness that if i ever get punished I might as well just roll a smurf because it will be faster to level to 30 than fix this. Riot seriously, unlink the hextech crafting from the feedback system you're only hurting people who truly want to improve and reform.

Well those are my ideas, please respond with any of your own or riddle my little plan full of holes, either way

GL and have fun on the rift summoners!

23 Comments

LordofEntropy12/14/2016, 9:33:55 PM2 votes

A lot of stuff in there. But one thing that stands out, you seem to place blame on the different punishments like chat restrictions, suspensions, and loss of hextech crafting for inspiring toxicity. People who get "inspired" to act inappropriately by the punishments for their previous inappropriate behavior are a lost cause and should be quickly moved through the punishment tiers until they either learn (unlikely) or give up and find something else to do.

ModUlanopo12/14/2016, 11:28:27 PM2 votes

Let me tell you those ten games are ROUGH on chat restriction you feel like you're playing with the enemy given a handicap and it makes you very upset.

That's the point. Chat restrictions are intended to make you change your behavior.

Sir Fuzzi12/15/2016, 11:03:28 AM1 votes

The problem with reform is that people either realize it and do it, or ask for the rules to be bent so that they can do it and still get away with their favourite thing.

I'm a pretty crass individual but I've never been socked by League's moderation. I think the fine line everyone seems to miss is located somewhere around 'directing ill intent toward people'-- if your language is just meant to hurt and not pointing out their mistake in at least a moderately constructive manner, then it's not likely to win you points. It's a simple dichotomy.

What's so poor about the current systems? The real flaw is that accounts are free and people can reroll, and no amount of punishment will change that.

SugarRayMoe12/15/2016, 11:37:59 PM1 votes

It doesnt bother me the "medium level" toxicity. I mean "noob" "l2p" "you're BAD!" "unistall" "go play vs AI noob" and all those things. Actually (maybe because I'm so used to it from playing another games, since you see it in every single online game) I think that they shouldnt even punish them further than some days of chat restriction each time someone does it too often (never a ban).

But really EXTREME toxicity really really triggers me. I mean, it's the only game I've seen so frequently things like commit suicide or all that cancer stuff. Extreme toxicity should be insta-permabanned. I mean, if you havent learnt no to wish other people's family to get cancer, you never will. You cannot pretend to use a video game to teach a more or less mature person a behavior that his parents didnt teach (were not able to teach) him when he was a child. Just delete those players from the game.

I strongly agree with the learnt behavior. I mean the "jhonny" and "senpai" story. It's so true, so, so true. You are the newcomer, you see that behavior and you learn it. Simple as that. Though, extreme toxicity is not as easy to learn, you need to learn it IRL. I see "Noob", I repeat "noob", but I will never be able to wish someone cancer or tell him to commit suicide or all that rape your mom stuff. Seriously, that kind of stuff is beyond the scope of what a video game can teach you, maybe you can feel yourself more free to unleash that behaviour in the videogame, but you have learnt it IRL, and you cannot unlearn it in a videogame.

SugarRayMoe12/16/2016, 12:01:44 AM1 votes

I would like to add to the johnny-senpai story a little thing.

Once the newcomer see that senpai is being extremly toxic vs him, he thinks that it is allowed, since senpai is playing the game (i.e. is not banned). The FIRST reaction is to backfire hard. I mean, he insults me, why shouldnt I? That happens because the banning system cannot (and never will be able to) ban people in the very same moment they are extreamly toxic, during the chat conversation. Hence, the newcomer perceives it like "normal" or "allowed" since he doesnt know anything about lol or its community, he has just arrived.

The very first thing that "johnny" should know when he begins to play is that toxic players are banned, no mercy, just banned. But it took me a long while until I realized about all the banning stuff.

The very first thing you see once you login should be a list of permabanned people. So that the very first thing that you realize once you start playing the game is that people get banned. Something like, "dont think that you can be toxic or that it's normal to be toxic". And a warning against fighting toxicity with toxicity, since it can get you banned. It would be a "kindly reminder" for those that are not newcomers too.

LordofEntropy12/15/2016, 8:39:43 AM1 votes

White supremacy has nothing to do with making mistakes, it's purely about these people are lesser/these are greater due to things completely unchangable, i.e. what race you were born. League's tiered punishment system targets something completely under the control of the individual, their behavior. Nothing is assumed from the get go(that is noone is being punished just for existing in game), until inappropriate behavior occurs and is reported, then the system reacts. Do you see why it's a very poor and incorrect comparision?

As far as tolerating mistakes, the tiered punishment system does just that: there are warnings, escalating chat bans, suspensions, which are all returnable from (this is demonstrated by dropping in punishment tiers by playing without misbehaving). Additionally Riot sends the offending chat logs showing what was unacceptable. Part of accepting and tolerating the mistakes of others, it that they learn from said mistakes. It's a two-way street. It's fair to expect others to tolerate making a mistake. It's not fair to keep repeating that same mistake and expect continued tolerance; especially when the mistake is completely under your control, you control your behavior. If one continues making the same mistake over and over, and then starts blaming the resultant consequences of those repeated mistakes, instead of looking at themselves. Well, that person isn't learning and needs to go home until they can figure out the problem is themselves and not the system.

It's also possible that a mistake is so egregious, making it difficult for anyone to reasonably either tolerate nor expect toleration. If one decides to go off in a game with something like "kill urself f#$#$t n$#$r hope ur mom gets cancer, die, I will killz u" yes, you will jump punishment tiers and deservedly so, because you shouldn't need a warning that being bigoted and aggressive in not acceptable in a public manner.

LordofEntropy12/14/2016, 10:11:30 PM1 votes

You are going to compare a tiered punishment system in a video game to white supremacy?

And no it's not "only people who are good enough" should play. It's people who can behave, act appropriately, exhibit a modicum of self-control, and play nice with others. Failing that, there are numerous opportunities to reform and adjust their behavior via tiered punishments before it reaches you can't play anymore.

Being young isn't an excuse, and if that's their reason, it's better for them to start learning in a video game, rather than real life, that acting inappropriately towards others does have consequences.