Boards›Player Behavior

How Devs should rethink the way they deal with toxicity

BigDiDaddy··1 votes·772 views

I'm a loud mouth. I've always been. It has its ups and its downs. However, I've never raged at another player for being bad, I've never steamed behind my screen repressing my thoughts being scared of a ban because of a player's behavior, I've always hated, with a deep passion, people raging at video games: that is my trigger point. Whenever my girlfriend is playing while in the same room as me, I get genuinely upset whenever I can feel her frustration at other players, yet she never says a bad word in-game. Then you have toxic players, ranging from call other bad, trying to tilt them with small little remarks, feeding, etc. You get the idea. Nobody wants that guy on their team, nobody thinks it's fun but the guy raging on the other hand. That said, I used to play this game, a lot, a few years ago. From season 2 to 4, I was on everyday, playing dozen games a day and just grinding my ass off to reach the highest rank I could. I was pretty proud of myself when I reached my goal, then I lost interest in the game and just quit playing. Then I met my girlfriend, who wanted to play games with me, so she got me back to playing and I'd play maybe two or three games a week. That was about two years ago. Then there was this specific game, we matched with a two-men premade (like us), and they were raging hard on the fifth player. I let myself go and defended the guy, even though he was dragging the team down, but I didn't care, I still don't. I was perma-banned for it (as I had previous situations beforehand). I didn't really care either, I even laughed about it, as I didn't really enjoy LoL anymore. At first I believe it was because of my attitude, but at the same time, it made no sense I would get perma-banned for being a good sport in all my matches (beside a few banter here and there, but that's always in good fun). Recently, I was bored and decided to play a few games of league on an account I used to have a long time ago. Same exact thing happened, perma-banned and everything. I opened a ticket (I didn't remember I had previous offenses on this account, so I was a bit shocked) and I had my answer. This time and the last, I wasn't banned for putting toxic players back into their place, but rather for using specific words. For example, in my last instance, I was baited into saying the N-word, as the guy raging was saying "nagger" instead of it and I told him to use to real word instead of hiding behind false ones. I also told him to "stop acting like a f*****", as he was acting like a child. Maybe the term wasn't appropriate, maybe I should have used another word, but I'm not here to justify my actions, I take full responsibility for them. My point is, after two years, riot still has the same problem it used to have back when I was first banned. So, obviously, something isn't going as planned. It got me thinking, going back to the use of the word "nagger", toxic players know they can't get banned for their attitude, at best they'll get suspended. However, they know, if they say the wrong words, it's instant actions taken against them. So they know how to go around these bans (I know too, but I don't care enough not to speak my mind, read my first statement). So you have this situation where "clever" toxic players just keep roaming the games and just making the experience worse for everybody, while players with no filter, get banned for saying specific words. Then, I asked the moderator (or whatever their title is), why they would allow me to say these words in the first place. By that, I mean, why not put a filter that can't be removed so nobody has to see these words? Wouldn't it make sense to do that rather than banning people for saying these words? I don't want to get into conspiracy theories or anything here, but something doesn't add up. After two years of ineffective measures, I would have thought riot would have backed up and rethought their strategy to solve this problem that has been plaguing LoL for its whole existence. Yet, they haven't, instead, it seems they have doubled down on it. I think the video made by videogamedunkey explaining this very issue is quite detailed on the situation, as i don't agree with him justifying his rage, I get where he comes from. In the end, I would recommend three things to developer:

  1. Let us say what we wish, the game, in itself, was made to talk shit. If you don't want to take that route, I perfectly understand, then go for the two following ones:
  2. Put a censor that can't be removed, no matter what, if you don't want specific words to be spoken;
  3. Give us an option to remove chat all together Anyway, some inb4 You shouldn't have used these bad mean words, no no no I know and I'm not trying to justify myself, this is beside the point and my examples are used as to put yourself in context Lol you were banned, get rekt, you won't get unbanned Beside the point, again I'm glad players like you aren't allowed to play Superb, but are you fine with actual toxic players playing in your games, if not, what should we do about it?

Anyway, have a great one, I hope League comes back to what it used to be: a fun place to hang around with friends and have a blast. Edit: People seem to be missing my point, so tl;dr version: toxicity is still here after two years of drastic measures, something's wrong. Wat do?

29 Comments

Timethief497 votes

Chat is part of the game, it shouldnt be removed entirely, not even as an option. Riot shouldnt have to cencor players, they dont expect you to be an angel, they expect you to just be a decent human beeing or atleast not to be an asshole.

BigDiDaddy2 votes

Why even allow it in the first place then? Removing the ability people have to kill each other doesn't matter, we expect everybody to be a decent human being and not kill each other

AeroWaffle3 votes
  1. Put a censor that can't be removed, no matter what, if you don't want specific words to be spoken;

Nope. For there to be a review of a person's behavior in this system a player must be reported. A group of 5 friends is free to talk as much shit to each other as they want in teamchat. If nobody is offended and if nobody in the game thinks that the behavior was unacceptable, there is no harm.

Auto censoring words would not actually help in the first place. Even if the player doesn't creatively avoid the censor by changing a letter or two (and most people do this when they want to piss someone off), the intention still goes through. For example;

"WuKong you ******, stop stealing my CS you piece of ****"

Even censored, the behavior is still unacceptable. Even small situations like this;

"Sona is being a ******".

The reader knows that the *'s mean something that's rude enough to be censored, so it's still pretty unacceptable. Censoring helps people who don't want to see colorful language.

"**** me, I'm losing the lane hard up here."

No negative behavior here, just a swear.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

Fair point, however, it's now how it works, as I've demonstrated previously, regardless of context, they don't consider swear words to be tolerated in any situation.

KingWanahakalugi2 votes

Quite the contrary, Riot has taken a official stance that they do not care that you swear in game as long as it isn't directly aimed at another player. Riot deems it unacceptable to use your chat to verbally harass another player. There are plenty of chat logs on the boards that contain no curse words, but have resulted in large scale bans because of players directing abusive speech toward another player.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

https://imgur.com/AV2CZGR Pretty sure the e-mail I received said otherwise.

xFresko2 votes

{quoted}

https://imgur.com/AV2CZGR Pretty sure the e-mail I received said otherwise.

"Homophobic slurs, racial slurs, hate speech" are never tolerated. No one where there does it talk about cussing.

TrulyBland2 votes

If you had looked carefully enough at what you circled there, you'd have found the word "hurtful" in there. That's nothing you say about regular swears. Nobody considers "fuck" a hurtful word. And all of that points towards the inherent problem of hate speech: It always targets somebody and it always insults somebody; even when it's not directed at any single person in particular.

KingWanahakalugi2 votes

If you're referring specifically to "hate speech", I can assure you it encompasses more harmful speech than just swearing.

Here is a quote from Riot Tantrum (more or less "the Authority of Player Behavior"):

Riot Tantram (NA) Senior software engineer - 2 months ago

The in-client language filter is completely different and not used by the behavior systems. Just wanted to clarify that, as assuming it is could cause confusion.

We do not ban for bad words. We ban for harassing people.

ModThe Djinn5 votes

{quoted}

Fair point, however, it's now how it works, as I've demonstrated previously, regardless of context, they don't consider swear words to be tolerated in any situation.

Swear words are 100% okay. Using them against other players in an offensive/belittling manner isn't. Using hate speech also isn't. But you can fucking say fucking as much as you fucking want.

It's when that becomes "fuck you" or "you fucking suck" that it becomes an issue.

Colgate Gator2 votes

No thanks, I don't care for listening to unfiltered "loud mouths" without repercussions in each game I join.

Ph03n1xb1rd1 votes

Let me tell you a secret, it will change your life!

Use the glorious MUTE button!

ModThe Djinn2 votes

So a few things.

Firstly, the lack of filtered chat actually helps identify problematic people. If you can't get through to people using, say, hate speech, the sort of person who wants to use that offensively will find other ways to express the same sentiment that might be harder for the system to identify. That doesn't really reduce toxicity -- it just makes it more difficult to detect.

Secondly, some words are fine. "That was a fucking amazing play" is 100% okay. "Fuck, they got Dragon" is 100% okay. "Fuck you, kid" is NOT fine. The only times the words themselves are the issue is with pejorative language.

Removing chat and/or letting you say whatever you want also aren't really options. Removing chat means that important communication may not be occurring, and the idea that you shouldn't communicate with your team is not something Riot wants to encourage. Letting all chat go creates a more toxic game environment, which is a big problem.

Riot can't (nor do I think they believe they can) ever eliminate toxicity. What the system does, however, is somewhat minimize it, which I feel is a good goal.

I hope League comes back to what it used to be: a fun place to hang around with friends and have a blast.

League still is this. If your definition of fun includes behavior or language Riot has deemed toxic, you can still use the /whisper command to friends, queue as a 5-man and just treat the enemy respectfully, or use Discord and say whatever the bloody hell you want. The game is still the game, and its rules on behavior aren't that much different than they were back in Season 2.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

I understand perfectly your points, but the toxicity level hasn't dropped in the past few years. It still has this bad reputation for having the worst gaming community, so either they have to revisit what they're doing or scrap it. I was simply pitching ideas out there, and I know pretty well they aren't flawless, but I believe it's a discussion that must be had, instead of pretending anybody who ever received a ban had it coming and are evil people and people who never had one are angels who never tilt or act with some degree of toxicities.

ModThe Djinn3 votes

{quoted}I understand perfectly your points, but the toxicity level hasn't dropped in the past few years. It still has this bad reputation for having the worst gaming community, so either they have to revisit what they're doing or scrap it.

My experience has been rather contrary to this -- I've seen League's community improving in-game, although I appreciate that's somewhat anecdotal. I've also seen the biggest complaints come from players with previous run-ins with the behavioral system, although, again, somewhat anecdotal.

...instead of pretending anybody who ever received a ban had it coming and are evil people and people who never had one are angels who never tilt or act with some degree of toxicities.

I agree that it's far less black and white than that, yes. But I think the solution, if there is one, likes mostly in the individuals themselves. Nothing Riot can do will STOP someone who really wants to harass someone else.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

Well, it's probably anecdotal as well. To be honest, it depends at what elo/level you play. As I've just made a new accounts, new players tend to have that attitude. Bronze and silver tends to also be quite toxic. Gold is golden, and plat is garbage as well. At least, these were my observations from two years ago.

I've also seen the biggest complaints come from players with previous run-ins with the behavioral system, although, again, somewhat anecdotal. Well, of course we're going to argue against a system we deem unfair, if the point of the behavior system is to get rid of players that actually bring down the atmosphere of a game, getting banned for saying mean things while we see people actively being assholes running around.

HalcyonDweller2 votes

Actually, the system is very good at detecting smurfs and players who already know the game, so you wind up getting placed with other players who are at similar skill levels as you. Unfortunately a lot of those people tend to be the people who have had their accounts banned and who still have unashamedly toxic behavior.

Things at the higher levels are much better, because the higher level you get, the more you get matched with people who have not been weeded out by the system for toxicity. Some of these people who remain may be clever trolls, but for the most part they are decent folk. If you can withstand the initial dumpster fire and hold onto your temper and your hat long enough, you will reach levels of matchmaking where most of the toxic players can't reach because they get banned before a certain level on each of their new accounts.

Telephone Booth2 votes

Their system detects words like nagger. These "clever" toxic people you speak of, are not getting away with it just because they switched the I with an a. Lol, Riot isn't THAT bad at what they do. They've reassured people several times that they detect misspellings, languages, most of the ways people THINK they can avoid getting caught, they actually detect. So that whole premise behind censoring it is just flawed. People will always find ways to spell something differently. Imagine how many thousands of ways they would have to censor words, and then how that would affect actual real words that people say all the time.

I would support just letting people say whatever they want, though. Obviously that ain't gonna happen.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

So we agree the actual system is flawed, but how can they improve it?

xFresko1 votes

{quoted}

So we agree the actual system is flawed, but how can they improve it?

The problem is that the anonymity of the internet is always going to breed assholes. As unfortunate as it is, toxicity will always be there in one way or another. All they can do is use harsh punishment as a deterrent. Some wont even reform and just make account after account. In a lot of cases this wont fix the actual person, just how the act in game, which is generally fine enough as they want to improve the experience of those who are just trying to play.

It's not necessarily their job to actually make someone stop being a toxic person. It's their job to make sure that those people behave as much as possible playing their game.

It's never going to be a perfect system. It's far from perfect as is, but it's always being worked on. It's definitely gotten more strict as the years have gone by, which is a good thing.

Telephone Booth1 votes

{quoted}

So we agree the actual system is flawed, but how can they improve it?

I do agree, but it's literally the least of my concerns lol. I could care less about their chat rules.

jpguy9021 votes

I feel like its pretty easy to get around chat filters. Whether it be be spaces between the letters (e x a m p l e) or periods (e.x.a.m.p.l.e) or any other variances of those.

Butt Ρlug1 votes

I want my teammates to focus and do everything they can to win the actual game, i don't want them missing cs and hiding under turrets while writing pointless stuff in chat !

ModUlanopo1 votes

but are you fine with actual toxic players

"Toxic" means different things to different people. You clearly have different priorities when it comes to the behavior systems. That's okay, but it doesn't mean that other people are wrong.

BigDiDaddy1 votes

Of course I have different priorities. In two years, I haven't seen a slight change in the numbers of people raging at their screen, so their system isn't working well. Unless they're trying to crack down on people using swear words, instead of people bringing down the game's atmosphere, in which case I don't understand why they'd allow to remove the chat filter in the first place.

HalcyonDweller1 votes

I see where you are coming from, so I'm actually inclined to upvote your post. I had that problem too for the longest time, I can tolerate bad teammates to the ends of the earth, but when another player makes a conscious choice to try to make another person feel like crap I used to go rabid.

That said, in the end it does not help things to cuss out or do any other things to those players to put them in their place, because in actuality our reaction (with it's high magnitude) is actually more likely to reinforce their behavior. This is why Riot punishes flaming even when the flame-ee is utter shit and deserves it.

I feel your pain and it's awful that people can say things like that and seem to not be punished while the people who react to them are punished, but it's not that Riot does not care about this issue, it is more that they have to work really hard for even a small step of progress against toxicity. In the end punishing people for providing fuel to toxic players is more effective than trying to actually censor those toxic players. And so Riot does both, they punish toxic players and they also punish people who react to them.

At this point I'm just rambling and I can't remember where I was headed with this so I'll just conclude it with this:

It sucks that people sometimes get away with being toxic, and it can be immensely satisfying to 'put them in their place.' But at the end of the day, taking justice into our own hands only makes the problem worse and it's not worth it. Better to mute report and move on, and allow Riot to use the data-point of our report to eventually improve their systems.

Primaquarius1 votes

I'm a loud mouth. I've always been.

Guess Ill stop reading there

Mordius1 votes

Please consider: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/yGWOlKIK-unofficial-discord-for-permabanned-players

If you ever plan to come back to league

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