Boards›Player Behavior

Why is there still toxic players?

Jabatheblob1·6/11/2017, 7:24:18 AM·4 votes·7,050 views

Hey everyone, this is my first post here so let me give you a bit of background on myself. I am Jabatheblob1, I've been playing since season 3 and currently Plat 4. I am currently at college where I was studying Computer Science but now switched to a double major in Math and Physics. I don't know if this is the right section for this post, so please redirect me if need be.

I am posting here because I want to know why Riot continues to allow toxic people to play this game. Since season 3 it seems like it's been a problem and still a problem today. As the most hateful community in video game history, I would imagine Riot as a company would not be okay with such actions taking place. I want to offer a solution just so that I get my thoughts out there and see what you guys think about the idea. Overall I am just going to be covering the problems with Riots reporting system and how this will impact the future of this game. So here it goes.

Reporting System

How many of you have encountered a problem with another player being just outright horrible. This can go anywhere from racial slurs, to just calling someone bad, of course in much more vulgar terms. I can't tell you guys how many people I've reported in this game, but it seems that rarely do I ever get that message, "A summoner you've recently reported has been punished." After asking around I learned that the message doesn't always come up when a player is punished, but rather is random. This is to "protect the privacy of the user." This not only does not give us the satisfaction of knowing that the person who we deemed toxic is now facing a punishment, but rather it discourages us from using the report system. If I don't know if that person that told me to kill myself is now suspended for how long, why would I want to hop right into another game so that I can play with someone who is telling me I suck at the game?

Along with this the, reporting system also just doesn't work sometimes. Here's an example of a Korean player by the name [NAME REMOVED // NAME-AND-SHAME NOT PERMITTED]. This player has a 100% win rate on Master Yi over 338 games, yet a 0% win rate on Tahm Kench over 248 games, along with a 2% win rate on Nunu over 114 games, and a 1% win rate on trundle over 90 games. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this guy is smurfing, and wants to keep this account in low elo. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, however how he lost all those games is not okay. When he would play Tahm Kench he would play any role but jg and take teleport and smite. He would begin to leash for the jungler only to devour him at the last second, and smite the buff. He would then continue to follow around the jungler and take his camps right in front of him. In late game he would devour his teammates and throw them into the enemy team at the worst times possible. This player was able to lose 448 games out of 452 by trolling without being banned. Only until recently has this player stopped playing because this story had gotten to the front page of Reddit. This is one example of how griefing can go unnoticed by the reporting system, or without much penalty. I know that the player has incredible win rates on other champs, however it does not excuse losing 448 games on purpose.

Ranting aside, here is one way I think that the reporting system can use a change, and it isn't that complicated to understand or implement into league of legends.

1). League of Legends saves all information on each game, this includes the champ select chat log, bans, in game chat log, replay of the game, and post game chat log. This is a lot for Riot to save, I know, stay with me. In the end of the game people get to report who they wish, in which there's another change. There's more options for reporting, this is to make it as easy as possible to distinguish the toxic players. More options would include subcategories for Verbal Abuse, such as "Champ Select", "In-game", and "Post-game". This is so that League of Legends will only save the chat log that is needed for someone to make the correct judgement. These subcategories can only apply to certain reports, such as, Verbal Abuse and Hate Speech. Negative Attitude can be in this category depending on the case, but that's besides the point. The others would require the replay of the game. If a user is reported for AFK then you only need to save the champions movements, no need for animations of spells, this is to lower memory usage. However, if there is a case for intentional feeding, then the animations would be required to further investigate their intentions.

2). People who report players that later get punished, receive Karma. For example, if I reported someone that told me to kill my self, and later that player gets suspended, warned, etc, I get 1 Karma. The higher the Karma, the more seriously my reports are taken. This means that more than likely my reports are actually reporting someone that is harmful to the community. If someone were to misuse the reporting system, say, report a player for getting killed by a gank, and someone were to review the case and find no reason to punish the player, the player who initiated the report will lose 1 Karma, if not more depending on how big of a waste of time the report cause the reviewer. Along with this, this will allow a user to know when they rightfully reported someone by checking to see if their Karma went up or not. Karma would be anonymous to other players. If a player were to receive enough Karma, then they would be eligible for becoming a Moderator, or another name that suggests the same duty. They would then be allowed to review cases and apply a request for a punishment on a player. Since they are not actual Riot members, it would require 2-3 moderators to agree on the same punishment for a player, without anyone disagreeing. If there is any so-so cases, a riot member would have to oversee the case and judge for themselves. People who become moderators would have to stay anonymous as well, they are not allowed to tell others they are moderators in game. This is to prevent the power hungry ego of people(this game has enough of that as is). If a moderator is caught being toxic, revealing their a moderator, or even threatening to ban someone in game because they are a moderator, their moderator status is stripped, and their Karma is reset to 0.

A side note that goes along with the player in Korea, Elave, there may be people out there saying that the Korean reporting system is one separate of NA. Regardless, if there's one system that works, it can work anywhere. This is a community based system that allows players of that area to regulate the players of that same area. So if someone finds something offensive in NA, a player in NA will be reviewing their case, not someone who does not understand the culture of that area.

3). This game will die if things are not taken seriously. Our generation is the first to experience these types of games so we are willing to sit through the torture of other players in order to climb the ranks. This will not be the last game of this style. With that being said, future generations are going to be less willing to tolerate toxic players and find a game that is along the same lines but with a better community. Parents too would suggest the same. If I were a parent today and knew how bad this game treated their customers, I would never let my child play this game. The internet as a whole has already started being less tolerant of people who are just blatantly rude to others. I've been playing since season three and I feel like quitting when I get game after game of being told to kill my self, racial slurs, or even threats on me and my family. This is the only game that I've played that has tolerated people like this, and this is why I come here to suggest a solution.

Hope this wasn't too long for some people, I hope people can add to this or suggest other ideas to help Riot improve their system so that we are able to have fun again playing this game.

30 Comments

ModUlanopo6/11/2017, 1:55:34 PM6 votes

Good morning,

I have edited your post to remove the name of the Korean player. Name-and-shame is not permitted on the boards, even in this context, as it is ineffective and can lead to witch hunts.

Thank you.

Samura Yukisuna6/11/2017, 8:52:45 AM6 votes

Riot arent allowing toxic players free reign. Players are being banned every day.

Evening30006/11/2017, 7:35:28 AM4 votes

There is toxic where you go in traffic, in the store, shit even in the strip club, so people play games to cool off then when something bad happens in the game they get frustrated because usually you can control the outcome of the game and when doesn't happen you get mad so that is why there is still toxic players.

MyDaddysAGoblin6/11/2017, 7:32:01 AM3 votes

Its all bout circumstances, one can simply have a bad day and u run into him.

YokoNomi6/11/2017, 7:49:18 AM3 votes

So far I've seen two posts about rage, but nothing about those that do it deliberately with the idea that they're free to insult others over an internet program, built for entertainment.

I am with the belief that due to us knowing nothing about the circumstances of every single individual, it makes sense to assume that everything is intentional, and no one should be given a free pass for harassing a player deliberately, or treating them or the enemy team like garbage. Toxic players are far too rampant in this game as of late, and while the report system is technically effective, it's too slow to handle the volume of people that think they're able to treat others like that toy rabbit they probably tore the arms off of as a kid, which had probably belonged to the neighbor's kid originally.

We don't need a new system, we just need an improved one. It's working, just not well enough for the huge player base we have.

Jamaree6/11/2017, 8:11:10 AM3 votes

{quoted}

I am posting here because I want to know why Riot continues to allow toxic people to play this game. Since season 3 it seems like it's been a problem and still a problem today. As the most hateful community in video game history, I would imagine Riot as a company would not be okay with such actions taking place.

Because there is no be all magic solution to magically make it go away. The same reason toxic players are "allowed" to play the game are the same reason assholes still walk around on a daily basis being assholes. You can't catch them all and not all of them are assholes 24/7.

Reporting System

How many of you have encountered a problem with another player being just outright horrible. This can go anywhere from racial slurs, to just calling someone bad, of course in much more vulgar terms. I can't tell you guys how many people I've reported in this game, but it seems that rarely do I ever get that message, "A summoner you've recently reported has been punished." After asking around I learned that the message doesn't always come up when a player is punished, but rather is random. This is to "protect the privacy of the user." This not only does not give us the satisfaction of knowing that the person who we deemed toxic is now facing a punishment, but rather it discourages us from using the report system. If I don't know if that person that told me to kill myself is now suspended for how long, why would I want to hop right into another game so that I can play with someone who is telling me I suck at the game?

Because with how the system works, it takes more then one game's worth of reports to generally even get a warning. The system is designed to punish people who are reported often, so someone doing something every once in a while means they won't get punished. So what the system takes note of is the amount of times someone gets reported since people tend to continue said behavior after the first incident which eventually leads to a ban. You will always get a message if the person you report gets banned, however, most people don't actually troll, flame, int, or afk enough to get to that point.

Ranting aside, here is one way I think that the reporting system can use a change, and it isn't that complicated to understand or implement into league of legends.

1). League of Legends saves all information on each game, this includes the champ select chat log, bans, in game chat log, replay of the game, and post game chat log. This is a lot for Riot to save, I know, stay with me. In the end of the game people get to report who they wish, in which there's another change. There's more options for reporting, this is to make it as easy as possible to distinguish the toxic players. More options would include subcategories for Verbal Abuse, such as "Champ Select", "In-game", and "Post-game". This is so that League of Legends will only save the chat log that is needed for someone to make the correct judgement. These subcategories can only apply to certain reports, such as, Verbal Abuse and Hate Speech. Negative Attitude can be in this category depending on the case, but that's besides the point. The others would require the replay of the game. If a user is reported for AFK then you only need to save the champions movements, no need for animations of spells, this is to lower memory usage. However, if there is a case for intentional feeding, then the animations would be required to further investigate their intentions.

Technically they already do that, only not to the extent you say, you would also get a lot of false negatives from this player base. A lot of people who report for "intentional feeding" tend to do it more out of the player doing poorly instead of them actually feeding. Personal point, I have gotten reported for intentional feeding for going 0/6/3 with Vlad, I had a bad game, it happens with every, in turn, the next game after, I went 10/0. The same things would go along hand and hand with the other sections. Hell, the reason they removed unskilled player is for that very such reason. Players would use it as an attempt to get players banned if they play badly.

2). People who report players that later get punished, receive Karma. For example, if I reported someone that told me to kill my self, and later that player gets suspended, warned, etc, I get 1 Karma. The higher the Karma, the more seriously my reports are taken. This means that more than likely my reports are actually reporting someone that is harmful to the community. If someone were to misuse the reporting system, say, report a player for getting killed by a gank, and someone were to review the case and find no reason to punish the player, the player who initiated the report will lose 1 Karma, if not more depending on how big of a waste of time the report cause the reviewer. Along with this, this will allow a user to know when they rightfully reported someone by checking to see if their Karma went up or not. Karma would be anonymous to other players. If a player were to receive enough Karma, then they would be eligible for becoming a Moderator, or another name that suggests the same duty. They would then be allowed to review cases and apply a request for a punishment on a player. Since they are not actual Riot members, it would require 2-3 moderators to agree on the same punishment for a player, without anyone disagreeing. If there is any so-so cases, a riot member would have to oversee the case and judge for themselves. People who become moderators would have to stay anonymous as well, they are not allowed to tell others they are moderators in game. This is to prevent the power hungry ego of people(this game has enough of that as is). If a moderator is caught being toxic, revealing their a moderator, or even threatening to ban someone in game because they are a moderator, their moderator status is stripped, and their Karma is reset to 0.

This system has problems, in trusting people to just raw police themselves. I loved the Tribunal, it was an unpartial judge and jury system, however in the case of this system, while it would be good if everyone were pure hearted, at the end of the day, we are all human beings. It would take just one moderator being found being abusive for people to start poking holes in the system and demanding it being removed and others asking why they aren't becoming moderators, etc. On top of that, with moderators, there are WAY too many reports for people to rationally sit down and look at every report, this game is huge.

3). This game will die if things are not taken seriously. Our generation is the first to experience these types of games so we are willing to sit through the torture of other players in order to climb the ranks. This will not be the last game of this style. With that being said, future generations are going to be less willing to tolerate toxic players and find a game that is along the same lines but with a better community. Parents too would suggest the same. If I were a parent today and knew how bad this game treated their customers, I would never let my child play this game. The internet as a whole has already started being less tolerant of people who are just blatantly rude to others. I've been playing since season three and I feel like quitting when I get game after game of being told to kill my self, racial slurs, or even threats on me and my family. This is the only game that I've played that has tolerated people like this, and this is why I come here to suggest a solution.

It isn't that they tolerate, it is that this game is so massive and has so many players that it of course brings all the assholes around. That is just how it goes with being the biggest. Back when WoW was the biggest, that game was considered the cesspool of the internet. That being said, I'm not just trying to bash your ideas, I'm just explaining some of the problems that can arise and why things aren't getting better. It isn't that they don't want them to get better, it is that doing so is impossible. You can't perfectly police people, we have still yet to figure out a system in real life that perfectly polices humans. Innocents get hurt, some of the worst offenders get away with this, and the system overall has flaws, what makes you think a game company could randomly just fix problems with human nature?

Hope this wasn't too long for some people, I hope people can add to this or suggest other ideas to help Riot improve their system so that we are able to have fun again playing this game.

My best suggest would still be bringing back the Tribunal.

ModPeriscope6/11/2017, 10:56:45 AM2 votes

You can't name and shame players on the boards as it's a violation of the universal rules.

KORGtuners6/11/2017, 8:43:59 AM2 votes

It is harder to be nice to your enemy than it is your family.

Support Position6/12/2017, 3:16:12 PM2 votes

Easy answer. Because riot doesn't actually do anything.

Leaf on Bush6/12/2017, 3:22:26 PM2 votes

Because the community isn't static. Some toxic players go, new toxic players appear. They will never just magically disappear, but that doesn't mean that they are tolerated. If anything it means that LoL is very popular and attracts many players that have... diffrent attitudes or develope diffrent behaviours while playing.

Without the report system there would be WAY MORE toxic players.

timmy16914/8/2019, 4:33:58 AM1 votes

Honestly, you're actually lucky that you are in relatively high elo, the players are not as toxic as bronze and silver elo. From personal experience I get told to kill myself because I am a terrible player maybe every 2 out of 3 games, sometimes its not even because I am playing bad. Some people are just so used to telling people to kill themselves and how they deserve it. This should be taken into account by Riot games, as some people who are under stress irl may take this little nudge over the edge and actually do it. I have reported players that have done it but nothing has happened to them as I still see them playing games. So I have given up reporting players, is there actually any point? Nothing seems to happen, or am I taking chat too seriously? I just feel that to have a 'greener' or place to be fun for everyone people should be conscience about what they say.

AmericanVenom5/4/2018, 7:05:04 PM1 votes

I think all toxic players should be banned no matter how bad it is. When a player is toxic and putting the team down, it does not help with the problems that are happening in game. Not every game is gonna be a good one and a lot of these toxic players need to understand that, they think every game is gonna go there way, and that's not the case. These toxic players need to grow up out of there kid pants and grow up and understand, it's just a game.

woodvsmurph6/12/2017, 6:15:39 AM1 votes

Yeah pretty sure I have run into a number of players like the Korean you mentioned. Also people who blatantly say in-game they are much lower ranked than the account they are playing on and that it is a friend's account.

Karma system (nice choice of name considering champ names) is a nice idea, but it could be abused possibly too - for instance just report anyone who does sub-par in every game in hopes of maximizing my karma and getting more weight to my reports. That said - saving only required data based on what is reported is a nice idea and would save people a lot of time reviewing data I imagine.

I actually think a huge part of the issue with toxicity is NEW players though. Like, when I was new, I learned very early on to listen to more experienced teammates even if they weren't nice about explaining/saying something. Now people call you toxic if you ask them to ward when they shove lane. If you ask them to play safe and hug tower when they are down 2+ kills and losing every 1v1 or 2v2 trade, you are ignored at best, flamed and reported for toxicity and targeted (try to make your game as miserable as possible) at worst. I have played since season 3 and only in the last 1.5 yrs or so have I really seen so much of this behavior - and not just in-game, but also in society. People are all about ME ME ME. Nobody thinking about TEAM or their fellow human beings. I get tired of seeing this game after game; getting ignored and thus losing game after game. So I start failing to check my language and end up replying to toxicity (needless aggression and feeding via repeating the SAME "mistake" [you're supposed to learn and stop repeating if it really is a mistake] time after time and crying toxic if asked to do something logical that you should already be doing based on your elo/rank even if asked nicely) with toxicity of my own. I no longer tell someone nicely to ward or not force 2v4's vs fed enemies after the 3rd time they've done it. I start telling them they are making stupid plays or "just farm at your [bleeping] tower". I don't like it. I hate reaching that point. But game after game of people doing the same stupid plays that if I played anywhere near as poorly I would be 3 tiers below my current rank, yet they are in same match as me ruining the game for everyone just becomes too much to take. I forgive people messing up here and there. I forgive losing lane - it happens to everyone. But decision making being consistently sub-par and way below the level of what the rank deserves PLUS being toxic is not okay. If teammates are just behind, but playing with intelligence or ADJUSTING their play to make better decisions, I have 0 problem being the selfless teammate who dies every fight to get the TEAM a winning fight. But give me selfish toxic players with horrible decision making and I will play only for myself and tell them what I really think of their play. Because said players are not punished effectively, it turns otherwise decent players who WANT to be positive and TEAM oriented into toxic players who get chat restrictions.

Buckeye20027/22/2018, 2:09:22 PM1 votes

why cant people who troll be punished? Why cant we flame trollers, it's our only recourse, when they sabotage our game