Boards›Player Behavior

The lack of communication with Riot is a major part of the reason why the community is so toxic

NA Darklarik·9/8/2018, 5:19:31 AM·77 votes·16,845 views

Ive been around since very early season 1. Started in NA, transfered to LAS (where i lived), and left this profile with the sole intention of participating in the boards. Back in the day, in the old Forums, Riot was generally way more active, and the way they engaged the community was way better. These Boards have been in "Beta" forever, and ever since they emerged things just went downhill as far as communication goes, during that time i noticed the community noticeably got worse, especially when they shut down the Tribunal.

I cant remember the last time i saw Morello, Xelnarth, Guisno, Zilean, GrumpyMonkey, and many other great Rioters on ANY thread at all. For instance, i did not even know one of my favorite Rioters, creator of Leona, IronStylus, didnt work at riot until just a month ago when i saw a thread saying "Ex Rioter Ironstylus ..." And i searched him up to see he was no longer at Riot.

These boards suck so much, that Morello doesnt even use the boards to talk about game design anymore... HE USES GOD DAMN TWITTER. One of your most legendary designers and greatest employees, whom i view as the equivalent of what Thrall is to the Hoard, Morello is to Riot, doesnt even use the medium you placed to communicate with us.... are you happy with this? The old, MASSIVE Threads, like this one with titans like Zileas (which i saved, because frankly i still think it was the greatest League Thread of all time), just dont exist anymore.

And you know whats worse? I dont even think that for the time being, they COULD exist anymore :( This is because in their continued absence over the years, the community has degraded itself into a whinning, witch hunting, angry thing that can rarely rationally talk about things like they did in that Thread i linked, and so, few Rioters even dare poke their heads out anymore, which in turn, helps keep the problem of lack of communication going.

Ive seen many replies by Rioters saying that although they are quite, they DO listen, as well as that they recognize that their is a communication problem. But ive been seeing this for nearly 3 years now.... and its just one of those things that never seems like its being fixed, and its steadily chipping away at the faith in Riot.

/EndRant

21 Comments

gileskd9/8/2018, 8:35:04 AM26 votes

all riot needs to do, is 1 easy simple fix. have 1 rioter, who reads the boards, and comments on each post he or she reads; "hey, I have read this post on why you feel taric is weak at the moment, I have/will be sending a brief summary to (insert other rioter here). we appreciate your feedback. and will be talking about this issue. no guarantees if we make any changes. but we will be talking about it. have a good day"

that's part one of his job

part two is once a week make a mega post of the upvoted/problematic/or what they feel needs to be discussed issue that they saw that week.

"hey guys, this week I saw a lot of nerf malphite and buff kallista. as well as buff teleport and smite. let me know what you guys feel about this, and/or anything big I might have missed this week. :)

they say they read the boards, but we have no way to tell if our voices have been heard. it was what? a full week since PAX, and all we know is Daniel is gone. no comment on the sexism or mass suicide joke(this is not a joking matter)

SociopathFriend9/8/2018, 5:31:40 PM5 votes

The community got plenty toxic without Riot's help. The community in a large percentage has almost nothing to do with the boards and didn't back in previous seasons either.

Toxicity in-game has never relied on how often Rioters posted on the boards. Toxicity in-game then bleeds through the community in other areas.

And Riot really doesn't have a choice. You go where the majority of the players are. If the majority of League's fanbase for whatever reason likes getting news from Twitter- that's where Riot is going to work. There's no win from putting more effort on the boards- it's a means to an end.

Scary Door9/8/2018, 9:04:05 PM5 votes

I have said it many times in the past---and others have certainly echoed this sentiment:

It is bizarre behavior, to say the least, that Riot uses third party sites to discuss their game at the exclusion of the game's own website. Promoting and discussing the game elsewhere, sure, that makes sense, but doing so without engaging people on the leagueoflegends.com is a real head-scratcher.

Granted, I haven't played in months and I've been out of the loop recently. I come here in the hopes of seeing signs that the game will improve in the future and return---even if only partially---to it's glory days, but if Riot can't even be bothered to discuss their game here on even a semi-regular basis, then there's really no reason to bother.

The perception within the community is that Riot doesn't listen or care about the majority of the feedback from it's playerbase. While this perception may not be 100% accurate, there is clearly some truth to it as evidenced by what was happening in game as of the last time I played and the general decline in quality over the last few years (another topic for another day). But clearly, designers/developers are contributing less to these Boards and chosing instead to go to the safe-haven, third party outlets to discuss changes.

Riot has fallen into the trap of many other game creators in taking the 'we talk, you listen, we create, you play' mantra, which may be a contributing factor in the overall decline in the number of players and why folks such as myself have finally given up the ghost on this game.

BaldBritney9/8/2018, 12:22:06 PM5 votes

i dont blame them, theres always that one guy that decides to insult the rioter, although i do wish they;d communicate much more

Banuvan9/8/2018, 7:17:40 PM4 votes

Riot is toxic itself. By that I mean the entire company from the top to the bottom is a million times worse than the community. Riot has been enforcing standards in LoL that they themselves don't believe in. They are the very definition of hypocrites.

What happens in game is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of crap that is Riot games headquarters.

What do you truly expect Riot to do about toxicity in game when they applaud it in their company.

Chr0m3n3rgY9/8/2018, 8:42:13 PM3 votes

also i think that 14 day ban is a bad ''final warning'' i mean,if i get a 14 day in 2017 and a perma in 2018 without any warning about my behaviour...and first of all,they should be the one who can help us deal with teammates that are useless and then start flaming us,so in conclusion this game is destined to get doomed cuz of the people that work there(not for everyone,i subbmited a ticket about my ban and two people who answered me were cool and i can tell that they understood my situation)

Bijeesny9/9/2018, 9:58:33 AM2 votes

I still don't understand why is Riot choosing Reddit/other sites over Boards, the official LoL forum...

If they just invested more time on this site, and invest more time into better communication (perhaps do an occasional devstream where you adress the current issues and discuss some suggested solutions, discuss major changes etc.) it would change the relationship between Riot and the community to the better.

StillHittinLicks9/8/2018, 9:25:42 PM2 votes

Riot may do some dumb shit, but you gotta give it to them, they keep in touch with the community.

GreatWhiteNorth9/8/2018, 7:30:43 AM2 votes

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

XeroKimo9/8/2018, 1:40:07 PM1 votes

I mean for the years I've seen, since maybe around mid season 3 or so, lots of people would crowd and attack the rioter that posts on a forum or the boards, by attack I mean both either just plain insulting them, or asking them questions that they either can't disclose an answer or doesn't have the knowledge to answer. The very early days probably wasn't like this since the game was smaller back then too, but as Gilekd suggested, a job that's simply having a rioter read a post and just inform that a rioter has read it, and if it's note worthy, pass it on to the respective teams would mean that people would know this rioter knows nothing about the direction any of the teams are going for, while still knowing Riot looked at it

BigBrotherAniki9/8/2018, 8:39:26 PM1 votes

Like i say not so long time ago about Riot being not present on boards Imagine being fresh Riot member that wants to talk with community You come to the boards You see shit flooding from posts like "NERF TRYNDAMERE FICK YOU RIOT" "I AM LEAVING THIS GAME TO FORTNITE SCREW YOU RIOT" "AND I AM VET FROM SEASON 4 STILL IN SILVER EVEN IN SEASON 8 BUT I KNOW HOW 2 BALANCE GAME" And my favorite "Dude with level 30 not playing game anymore apparently but talking about balance" dude if I was an Riot employee i would just run away to reddit. generally i think on old boards lol community was less childish and toxic.

Madjack019/8/2018, 12:21:44 PM1 votes

I am not sure if there actually is a significant connection between communication and toxicity. I very much doubt it even.

Maybe a few less posts on the forum asking in disbelief why this or that happened. Ingame though there would not be much difference.

From the position of a developer, there is not much to be gained from communicating a lot.

Kei1439/8/2018, 10:53:41 AM1 votes

IronStylist did have a departing thread here. Maybe you just weren't paying attention.

Also, Morello is no longer doing stuff for League of Legends, he's on the R&D team for Riot Games, meaning he's creating other games. Last I checked, these boards are for League of legends only, maybe a bit of Mechs vs Minions.

Somehow I get the feeling that you just dont know how to use these boards well.

Finally, reedit as a medium has a far bigger out reach than these boards. Why create something when you can do the same elsewhere?

PurpleYukari9/9/2018, 3:15:35 AM1 votes

A new perspective I got from speaking with Riot Rikey is that there are a lot of skilled people at Riot Games who work hard to continue producing great content. They work so hard that it may be impossible to have the energy or time to reach out to community members on the forums, as they do it during their free time. I know the feeling, because I have personally felt burnt out when I worked full-time. Frankly, its a really nice treat whenever rioters reach out on the forums.

SprixOk9/9/2018, 1:09:06 AM1 votes

What i think they should do is what Riot Rikey did and reach out to some of the community pick some people to play with and just play blitz and talk about anything (you probably saw it on the boards already)

mack91129/8/2018, 4:13:36 PM1 votes

I have been on these forums since the end of season 3 and you are correct riot posts have dropped dramatically but if that's the effect what's the cause.

In my opinion the overwhelming toxicity that any rioter receives when they do post is that cause due to a childish uncaring part of the community.

Nea1049/8/2018, 3:04:19 PM1 votes

I think that the overall quality went down a lot, looking at how bad they have been doing this season, and probably even before; lack of compentence and skills.

E.g., it's just crazy not to listen AT ALL about major issues (i.e., damage out of control) players pointed out back in November or so. After having caused those same issues, of course.