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@Tantram: A few Player Behavior system changes I'd like to see

Deep Terror Nami·5/2/2017, 8:24:23 PM·139 votes·12,461 views

I'd just like to put out a few features or changes I'd like to see in regards to player behavior which I think would improve player experience when it comes to negative behavior;

  1. Notification of a high rate of being reported, per category.
  • We used to get notifications like this. While they may not indicate whether you may actually be punished soon or not (because it's based on report volume and not a review of those reports), it may help indicate to a player that other people aren't enjoying playing with them and can steer them in the right direction before they do get punished. I received one of these notifications back when I started, and it immediately indicated to me that the players here did not tolerate the same behavior as some other toxic gaming communities, and I immediately changed my tune and never had to be punished; I think this would greatly benefit some players, and the community itself as a result.
  1. Muting or mitigating pings per player.
  • Everybody knows ping spam can be annoying, and that there is also no way to stop one offender from abusing it without cutting off ping sound from everyone. Just put a Ping button next to the Mute button in the scoreboard. I understand that it can be harmful to the team if you're cutting off all communication with them, so I recommend something like clicking it once to mitigate their Pings, limiting how frequent and how loud they are to you, and clicking again to squelch them entirely.
  1. Self-imposed chat restriction.
  • I think this is an extreme measure which should be avoided, but a few players have significant issues with abusing chat if it's available to them. I don't think it's a bad idea to let them limit their own chat by force before they get into the game. I recommend having an option in your Settings that imposes the standard chat restriction limits on you, but during champion select you'll always get a popup notification which reminds you and allows you to disable it right then (no checkmark to not see this popup).
  1. For chat related offenses, 25-40 games of chat restrictions on top of a 14 day ban (not a separate punishment tier).
  • While I don't necessarily disagree that a permaban should come after a 14 day ban for chat offenses, I do think there should be some sort of buffer in between to help promote reform in the player's chat behavior immediately after the 14 day account ban. I often see someone slip up just a little bit after a 14 day ban and go right to a perma, and I think still being on a chat restriction for a short period will help remind them they are still treading on thin ice, and the additional chat limitations may help them improve the behavior they were punished for. I do not suggest this additional chat restriction for gameplay related offenses.
  1. Better Intentional Feeder and Trolling Detection.
  • Just what it sounds like. Obviously we want the system to be perfect, and while I realize that isn't possible, I do think it could be much better. Just do what you can there, please. I'm still baffled when I see someone share a match history which is 15 games of Zeal stacking and Mobis; that really should be caught with a single match without them admitting their malicious intent in chat.

While this isn't everything I or others want to see, some features (like champ select reporting) may entail much more work with the client interface or under the hood, so I'll leave those for another time.

164 Comments

RiotRiot Tantram5/3/2017, 5:15:12 PM23 votes

My thoughts on these in very few words.

  1. I agree
  2. Yep.
  3. I disagree with this.
  4. Interesting idea
  5. I agree, and we are always improving our systems.

Happy to touch on some of these later, but I have work to get done:-).

EDIT: Ok, I can say ping muting is done now.

HalcyonDweller5/2/2017, 8:28:36 PM15 votes

Wish I could upvote this! Good ideas!

What about addressing the issue of players holding their teammates hostage with troll picks in order to force others to dodge when they get a role they don't want?

Player perception is that there's nothing really done about this. To report somebody you have to get to the end of game screen which never happens if you dodge. So it feels like these players are never punished. But their behavior is some of the most upsetting, tilting, and toxic behavior to put up with from a teammate. Even more so because it feels as if they can get away with it scott-free.

RacoonHunter5/3/2017, 10:31:56 AM5 votes

Honestly, I think the intentional feeding system NEEDS looked at, as I honestly believe that IT is the cause of most toxicity.

Why? Because Say you're in a ranked game. your mid laner picks a champion that is either a champion that he has no skill with, or is countered by the opponents mid laner (assuming that their team chose first.) He then proceeds to get FBed under the enemy tower within 30 seconds of the game.

After being asked polity not to do that, he continues and ends the game going 4-25-2 in a loss.. where as their mid laner goes 21-1-14 because they got a lead on the constant intentional feeding of your mid laner.

What's Riots response to something like that right now? "Oh, he's just not playing well, too bad his intentional feeding made your game experience terrible.. better make it up in your next game with our shitty LP System and our shitty matchmaking!"

After 2-3 games of this happening in a row, even the most purest player can slip up and say something toxic or hateful. Because RIOT is showing that the behavior they have been the victim of (trolling/intentional feeding players) is not being punished. In fact, I am going to go as far as to say that riot is promoting this type of behavior.

How you ask? Because of the lack of punishment, and the lack of dev responses on the matter on the boards. Hell, the intentional feeders don't care. They've already done their damage and caused you negative playing experience, negative LP(if ranked) and they get off scott free. They get punished? Oh well, they'll just hop on one of their other accounts and troll away (Tyler 1 example with the 12+ accounts banned, who btw is STILL playing this game despite riot's "perma ban" )

Again, the fact that it's almost like riot is promoting this type of toxic behavior is the leading cause of other people becoming toxic.

It's very easy to determine if someone is trolling/intentional feeding vs someone who sees a build and tries it out (example, lucian jungle from Anklespankin) because there's actual effort and seeming apologies that come with it. Like for example, a person trying out something will usually try and play safe after the first or second death, and not try and continue the behavior. They will try and safely farm where they can.

Now, I bet you that if riot started to crack down on even warning players when they've developed a pattern of trolling, the toxicity in games will also decrease. I know my behavioral punishments have come because I finally snapped after several games with trolls and feeders on my team. Hell, a 10 game chat restriction came earlier this year because after 3 ranked games in a row with the SAME TOXIC FEEDER (note, solo queued) I finally had it and told him off after the 3rd game in a row of trolling.

On a related note. I wish riot had an option at champion select to report players who are toxic from the get go (telling a top to K Y s when they refuse to switch, or they pick an obvious champion to troll because they didn't get their pick etc). it's sad that they basically FORCE you to have the negative play experience before allowing you to send a report.. Hell, even BLIZZARD has a system in hots where they can report a player before the game begins...

DonnieDarkin5/3/2017, 2:17:55 AM4 votes

I think its all stupid. If you want to flame someone, they can mute you. If they want to trash talk you after the match, you can leave the lobby. All that happens is that people find more creative ways to word their trash talking and flaming so as not to throw up red flags--the spirit of what they are saying is still there. Lets stop wasting time with trying to fix peoples behavior. It will always be at the same level no matter what you do. Whether you punish it or not. Ban someone, they play on a different account. Punish people for certain "bad" words, they just use different words. Trying to change human nature is a colossally retarded effort. Especially when you put 5 people in a game with strangers where you can often feel powerless. Of course people are going to get angry. WTF did Riot expect? There is a reason this is the most toxic game community--its human nature, and its exasperated by the VERY NATURE of the game.

I don't understand why people don't understand this. You guys are living in a fucking fantasy land where you believe utopia and world peace is an achievable thing, and the worst thing someone can do is be mean and rude. Fucking stupid snowflake generation.

AeroWaffle5/2/2017, 8:32:20 PM4 votes

Notification for many reports

My concern with warning people that the system is detecting poor behavior, is that it makes it more apparent to those trying to intentionally avoid the system (while still being an ass) where the cracks are.

If you're talking about the reports themselves, Riot originally removed the warning because whether or not the recent reports were valid still is up to interpretation. And some users used the notification as a reason to attempt to harass the players they just got out of the match with as revenge.

Zielmann5/2/2017, 8:35:28 PM4 votes

Not much to add or detract from these. So I'll leave my personal priority order for the ideas: 5 > 2 > 4 > 1 > 3

Cavesloth5/3/2017, 6:27:49 AM3 votes

I'd just like to see them send a report to everyone who reported someone when they get punished, not just the last person. I think people would have more faith the system is working if they did this.

TEA Nietzsche 5/3/2017, 8:06:48 AM3 votes

I like all those ideas more or less. But there is one thing I have never really understood: why do toxic people get permabanned instead of permamuted? What exactly is the advantage?

ModPeriscope5/3/2017, 4:49:54 AM2 votes

Hey DTN!

Fellow Nami main. I like these ideas. With ping spamming, maybe we can have a button that just limits pings from a certain player to 1 every 4-7 seconds, increasing in time depending on frequency.

I was thinking about the notifications of high report frequency. I think it could benefit players and increase reform rates; on the other hand, it could allow players to momentarily reform before becoming toxic again. I think this would be important for beginning players, but after your initial punishment, you shouldn't receive warnings.

SUPERX4PANDA5/3/2017, 12:57:55 AM2 votes

Number 3 I would absolutely use, as sometimes I just can't help but flame. Knowing I can put a definite stop to myself to cool down would be great. Number 1 would also be great because sometimes people don't have a good grasp of what exactly is or isn't punishable. If you know for a fact you didn't say anything then it means nothing, but if you did flame then you'll know that people are reporting you for it, not just letting it slip by.

PlsCheckThisBush5/2/2017, 9:17:32 PM2 votes

DTM, you've been chat restricted 316 times prior to this, summoner 11 summoner 11 summoner 11 your permanent ban sh....wait. Kidding, couldn't resist :D. I do like these ideas and hope that some of them will see some light in the future.

  1. Yes. Far too often do I see threads on PB&M along the lines of "WTF RITO X BAN FOR THIS?" and defend the fact that they had no prior warnings. With some form of better warning system I honestly think it would give players a chance to reform (especially if it's their main account with tons of time and sweet skins).

  2. For the love of all you believe in let's give this some attention. Even if we can't completely mute pings for communication reasons, being able to limit hearing the pings from someone that's "?" Pinging 6 times every time their cooldown is up would be invaluable. I've had many games that were completely winnable and fine where teammates would simply Alt+F4 out after seeing a teammate spam pings on them.

  3. This would be great as long as the players don't have ANY method of being able to reactivate their chat during the game. I like the ideas you proposed here, as it will help those that feel the need to spam "??? GGEZ U SUK KYS" every game stop from doing it, or be able to be reported more swiftly when they decide to use their limited messages for only the most egregious offenses.

  4. I rather enjoy this idea, it gives players that little reminder of "Hey unfriendly player, you're already escalated up the punishment tier, try not to slip up again - remember you're in our system already and we're keeping a close watch on you item 3348 ."

  5. I feel that this would be great, however I'm not sure how it would be accomplished honestly. Sure, building 6 tears or 6 boots is pretty easy to see that someone is beyond the point of caring, or 10 deaths under the enemy mid tower in 5 minutes with 0 pathing or interaction, however on the flip-side I don't know how it would account for actual "new" players to the game that are either having a bad game or trying an off-meta build (and learning ADC-Ryze or something else similar doesn't do so hot).

Thanks for bringing these issues to light and hopefully they will get some positive attention and move things in the right direction! I do agree that there are a few outlying issues (such as pre-game lobby reporting, as you mentioned) that could definitely be implemented to prevent the whole "MID OR FEED" sort of mentality. Hopefully we see some of these suggestions brought up in the near future!

Kitty Cat Tosha5/3/2017, 6:12:49 AM2 votes

I want to add: more clarity about the PB system. Simple things like "One report per game is enough to flag a game for review" or "premades hold no additional power to get a player punished". The EU volunteers made a database with known facts about the system, but it was a helluva job to get all the data, quotes and sources (and even then most of it was on Lyts AskFM page which is now deleted).

Riot is all about clarity ingame nowadays - could not hurt to extend a bit of that clarity to their behaviour systems as well.

scazzman5/2/2017, 11:18:50 PM2 votes

I would also like to see this . A system put in place to detect trolls attempting to bait other players into getting banned. And take away their ability to report on top of other punishments

devestadedgods5/3/2017, 11:11:46 AM2 votes

This is completely unrelated to the current topic on this board ( simply do to the reason I cannot find a way to create my own thread) I thought it would be a good idea to post it here. Where many of my fellow players can read this. I just updated to the new tank update and my biggest issue is the item changes, specifically guardians angel. I completely disagree with removing the mr. Because it's the only item in the game you can build on any character and it provides a reasonable benefit. Not only your adc and ad assassins need the passive but literally every single champ. It completely devalues the item. Makes it like the second item you build on zed now. And with the huge buff to the tanks the penetration items get nerfed? Why not wait to see if the champ changes you made are even balanced first. You're changing so many things in the midseason that I fear you won't have the time to balance it. And currently it feels very unbalanced. I would have much less to complain about if I felt you were taking the appropriate time to balance it but it feels rushed.

AgeOfTheMage5/3/2017, 12:09:16 PM2 votes

Now, another idea is that lets, say, someone inted, you and other people reported him. doesn't the one report that got him punished be the only one getting the notification that they were punished? If that's the case then it should be changed to have all the people who reported said inter/toxic player get the notification. Mainly for reassurance the system is doing it's job.(sorry if it sounds confusing, i'm not that good at wording things).

58697132DEL15/3/2017, 3:05:45 PM2 votes

Mute the pings for sure. I don't get how people can make the argument that you shouldn't be able to mute pings because communication, if someone is abusing the ping system anyways all they are doing is giving me false communication and information. They don't ping an enemy is missing they just spam it when I die, they don't ping when I'm actually in danger they're just doing it when they think that I'm not where I should be, and it's actually really annoying how many people ping on the way and then never show up and laugh at you and chat for believing them. Trolls will evolve to abuse every system so every system is going to need some kind of shut down to avoid those people.

So yeah Riot whenever You actually wanna care, You should be able to mute individual people's pings. Because if someone is already abusing the ping system in order to troll, they're not going to have anything worth saying in the game anyways and this is going to help you keep playing properly

AdeBug5/3/2017, 10:48:12 PM1 votes

Well I thought no1 was obviously a bad idea, I guess not so obvious to some. If you would try to find a threshold for unpunishable trolling, then no1 would definitely help you. Yes, that's abusable, pls don't bring that back.

Aneura5/3/2017, 1:26:30 PM1 votes

The only issue I have with your list is the self-imposed chat restriction. I've seen a few people say they are toxic because they have chat. I'm sorry, but it's ridiculous that people can't control themselves. Play the game. If you are incapable of not typing a negative statement or flaming your team then you have bigger self control problems. You are making a conscious decision to act in that manner to type the words and hit enter. This is not something that should be allowed to be prevented because someone can't control themselves.

It's a game yes, but how hard is it not to be an ass-hat. I don't care if you take the game seriously or not there is no reason for telling people to kill themselves or using racial slurs. So I don't think giving someone a means to force a sensor on themselves when it's a simple matter of don't type the stuff in the first place. If a person is walking down the street and someone bumps into them there is no option to mute yourself and prevent you from saying something stupid. You control your actions if you are behind a keyboard or in society it does not matter. The random toxicity of people in this game is just absurd. I had three guys in a champ select start trashing a guy for picking Yasou (he ended up being on of the best players on our team and contributed to our late game comeback). They insulted him swore and continued the harassment during the game. For nothing other than picking a champ. I reported them and got instant feedback that they received punishment. I'm happy about that and hopefully they figure it out, but I don't expect it.