Boards›Player Behavior

This game isn't enjoyable anymore. And it's the community's fault.

T3 DefDopey·5/19/2019, 1:52:56 PM·57 votes·17,659 views

This game used to be great. When I first started in season 1, players were helpful and supportive to new players, and it ushered in a nice era of good vibes, good community, and cohesiveness. Sure, people got competitive and maybe said some mean things once in a while, but it wasn't by any means a toxic place to play a game.

Now, the game has completely evolved into a gathering of some of the most awful, rude, disrespectful, racist, homophobic people on the internet. My most recent encounter was one "[removed by moderation]", a silver player who claims to have a "diamond account". Let me tell you a little about this person and my interaction with him, as I'm sure everyone reading this will have at least something to relate to.

We start the lane very well, getting our subject "[removed by moderation]" (Vayne, our ADC), a first blood kill on a successful invade, and it all snowballs up from there, getting him up to 7/1/1. Then, this person decides to start running into them 2v1, 3v1, and even a 5v1, intentionally killing himself to try to make a big play because "it's fun, im not trying to win" (his words). Died every time, and proceeds to claim "this is a smurf, and this account is going to get banned in a few days anyway", and proceeds to completely throw the game. Vayne also cheered on the enemy team while flaming and trolling his own. Of course, I reported for intentionally throwing the game.

But that's where this thread really starts. Does a simple "Report for intentionally throwing" solve the problem? How do I know if action is even taken on this person? Can't this person just make another account to do the same behavior? I feel like action should be taken on this person's main "diamond account" (if it even exists), to dissuade this kind of behavior. I personally suggest banning of ranked play for the rest of the season. If people don't respect the game, I feel they shouldn't be entitled to play it.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is Riot needs to start holding these people accountable. I'm not trying to sound like another bellyacher trying to tell Riot what to do to make this game better for my own agenda, but I'm trying to approach this with reason and maybe give the moderators some perspective to chew on, when it comes to planning out how to take action for this general type of player, not necessarily this specific one.

People that exhibit this kind of behavior completely devalues your product, Riot. This community has absolutely, without a doubt, have to top the list of the most toxic people. They create these "smurf" accounts to ruin your game, to piss off the people trying to enjoy your game, to make money selling an account, or to abuse your lower ranked players (that make up the vast majority of your player base). Poor sportsmanship, trolling/flaming, etc. all break the summoners code, but my question to you is how tight are you even trying to enforce your code anymore? I feel like every game I ever get into is just a stress test that is building up inside me until one day I have a massive heart attack or stroke.

This game isn't enjoyable anymore. It's been devalued by this community to the point where action needs to be taken. Riot, please, you can't allow this kind of behavior to progress. Have some class. Have some dignity. Have respect for your players that want to enjoy this game. Or have you created something so big that you can't even handle it anymore? Have you made a game that's grown so much that you don't have control anymore?

Or do you simply not care? Was this whole thing just a waste of time?

128 Comments

CrazyMonkeyCZ5/19/2019, 2:57:51 PM24 votes

Am I only one who remember toxicity in S1? 3 months into S1 I remember majority of my Dota/Warcraft friends switched or tried LoL, and I suppose that we weren’t only migrating group of players, these games were super toxic from what I remember.

Big part of our toxic behavior was probably surpresed by the fact, that we were focusing more on learning, we knew nothing, no guides no probuilds, shitty vods from tournaments and few youtube videos were only sources, when you are learning you don’t have that much time to see others mistakes and flame them, get tilted etc.

Big majority of players nowadays are 3+ years experienced players, which means they did or they think they did learn everything and now they are blaming others for their mistakes, relieving their frustration bcs they can’t climb/improve.

I also think Riot is doing good job, you really have to think before you’ll just spit shits around. You probably eresed big portion of bad memories, which is natural.

All in all, if the game itself is enjoyable for you, you shouldn’t really have problems or at least I don’t that much.

Hotarµ5/19/2019, 3:29:27 PM16 votes

Am I only one who remember toxicity in S1? 3 months into S1 I remember majority of my Dota/Warcraft friends switched or tried LoL, and I suppose that we weren’t only migrating group of players, these games were super toxic from what I remember.

Yes, this.

I didn't play back in the super early seasons but one of my friends did and while we were in class he'd tell me about people wishing death on him, using racial slurs, etc. People always view the early versions of League through rose-tinted glasses.

Toxicity is just more noticeable now because the playerbase has increased by a large amount, the early seasons of the game were still plagued by toxic players just like today. I agree that people's motivations were probably different, but still, toxicity is toxicity.

ModPeriscope5/19/2019, 4:52:56 PM15 votes

I've removed the name from your post, as naming and shaming is not allowed on the forums.

If you have any questions about this moderation action, don't hesitate to reach out to the Boards Moderation Team via:

You can submit a Support ticket or message them on Twitter to talk with a Rioter regarding that player if you did not report them in the post game.

Cevrad5/19/2019, 2:54:35 PM10 votes

Play on EUW, they actually care about winning the game, NA is a hopeless sesspool of for fun players that will never change because Riot's agenda is to let people play how they want to play even if it is clearly throwing the game.

Madjack015/19/2019, 4:25:11 PM7 votes

I played since season one and believe it or not the game used to be far more toxic than what we see today. Riot was also far more laid back with toxicity back then if memory serves correctly.

I believe people tend to think otherwise due to something called chronocentrism. It's a reflex we have to think that a given problem is something that's more than ever hot shit in our current time and often that it's far worse than it used to be. Usually that is not the case though (or at least it's not as clear cut as people make it out to be).

I also assume that people find far more stuff toxic today than they used to back then... but that's too loaded a discussion to get into right now.