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Honest question for any, what is MORE toxic, verbal abuse or trolling?

slippykitten·12/17/2015, 8:52:46 PM·2 votes·810 views

I'm really curious as to how the community (and especially Riot) thinks about this.

Obviously there will be players who get angry at each other, to try to pretend that it is possible to eliminate that is to live in a fantasy world. The question is, when conflict arises, what is more toxic - when a player curses the object of their anger out for 5 lines, or if a person makes it their sole mission to ruin the match for the other person and lose the game?

This is a question of which is worse, not which is bad. Obviously both are toxic and problematic in their own right and SHOULD be dealt with. I want to know which one the community and Riot feels is the greater priority.

It would appear to me that verbal abuse has been made the overwhelming priority of punishment, but I don't know if that is because everyone feels it is the greater issue, or because it is simpler to address. In my honest opinion, going out of your way to ruin my game and make me lose is significantly more toxic than typing mean words to me. One I can simply mute away, the other wastes my time and ruins all the enjoyment of the game. But that's just my opinion.

So let me know, I don't want to be fighting the currents of popular opinion and Riots ideology to no avail. I don't want to constantly be frustrated about the lack of attention in one area if it was intentionally designed that way. I don't want to be looking forward to something being done about, what i feel, is significantly more toxic behavior if no one else is concerned with it and Riot has no intention of addressing it.

So don't tell me how both are really being addressed, don't tell me about the difficulty of monitoring one type over another, or any other unasked questions.** I simply want to know which is considered more toxic, verbal abuse, or trolling. **

15 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer12/17/2015, 8:55:16 PM6 votes

Neither. They are both just as bad

SmokedAlmonds12/17/2015, 9:02:16 PM3 votes

I wouldn't really say 1 toxic person is worse than 1 troll. But rather that toxic players are overwhelmingly more common than trolls. So if you add up each of their total contribution to negativity then toxic chat wins out by a landslide.

Personally I find them to have very similar effects. Both make me enjoy the game less. Either one being in a game essentially makes me wish I hadn't played that game.

TragicTrajectory12/17/2015, 10:07:47 PM3 votes

One breeds another, both ruin the game. I'd say the Troll is worse, mute is a thing.

Mat7itan12/17/2015, 9:07:08 PM2 votes

I would say verbal abuse. Trolling is annoying and it ruins the game, but after that game it's done. However if someone tells you you're a pathetic loser and you should kill yourself that could stick with people depending on their situation. They might be playing the game to get away from a family who treats them like shit, and then they get on the game which is supposed to be enjoyable and get the same treatment.

Zielmann12/17/2015, 9:54:46 PM1 votes

It would appear to me that verbal abuse has been made the overwhelming priority of punishment, but I don't know if that is because everyone feels it is the greater issue, or because it is simpler to address.

It's because it's easier to address. It is much easier (though still not trivial by any stretch) to make a system that can analyze text to find toxicity in chat than it is to create a system that analyzes in-game behaviors. Especially when you consider how Riot prioritizes making the system accurate (almost zero tolerance for false positives).

This is why there's a perception that they 'only care about chat' or that it's their higher priority. Their priority was simply getting systems out to handle whatever behavior they could as quickly as possible. They're working on ways to detect trolling, but that is a very complex problem to solve.

PDE5 Inhibitors12/17/2015, 10:08:23 PM1 votes

The one that you can't mute.

But, the only one that gets punishment is also the one you can mute.

The Whamboozler12/18/2015, 12:09:07 AM1 votes

I can mute someone who is acting like an ass. I can't force them to stop diving mid tower 1v4 and feeding to throw a game and waste 35 minutes of my time.

XinZhao2WinNhao12/18/2015, 12:19:08 AM1 votes

It really depends on what kind of verbal abuse.

"GGez" and other forms of BM I honestly don't care at all about that.

But hate speech is definitely more toxic than trolling.

TrulyBland12/18/2015, 12:25:33 AM1 votes

Trolling breeds verbal abuse, but verbal abuse also breeds trolling. And verbal abuse also of course breeds verbal abuse. Trolling a troll doesn't even work to begin with, so I wouldn't say trolling breeds trolling.

Hence, my unpopular opinion: Verbal abuse is more toxic, because it's more "contagious" in the sense that it creates further toxicity. It might not ruin games quite as effectively as trolling, but it ultimately ruins more games.

alasarcher12/17/2015, 9:21:48 PM1 votes

Verbal abuse for sure. Troll aims to hurt your gameplay, verbal abuse aims to hurt person irl

Dizzilla12/17/2015, 9:24:14 PM1 votes

Trolling by far is worse. You can mute someone who is "talking trash", but you can get matched over and over with the intentional feeder. You can't simply mute people off the jungle or your lane. There is an in game fix to verbal abuse, nothing but attempting to surrender can be done about the trolls.

Tract12/17/2015, 9:40:57 PM1 votes

I mute anyone who is toxic, tada, that problems solved. Cant do anything about the trolls tho, so its basically: Maintain team communication or deal with a troll.

Both shouldnt happen :(