Boards›Player Behavior

The Real Issue of Player Punishment

powershot12·4/27/2017, 3:42:28 AM·4 votes·1,479 views

The most baffling thing about League of Legends is the way Riot deals with toxic behavior. It might be simple; you talk down and belittle another player, you get punished. Except it is not so simple. Nobody flames or uses profanity just for the sake of it (at least for the vast majority of times). Something lead to it. And the biggest reason is incompetency and blatant negligence by other players. Since League of Legends is a team game, every one matters. Every player needs to contribute to their teams success. That seems all high and noble when everyone knows each other. Not the case when it is solo queue. In solo queue I am teaming up with 3-4 complete strangers in the hope of coming out victorious.

That is a good 20-60 minutes spent on one single game. The least one could ask for is effort from the entire team. In ranked, everyone is expected to show up at 0 min until the nexus is destroyed. However this is not always the case. When even a single teammate decides to give up, the game becomes exponentially more difficult to win. It is not the intentional feeders, it is the players who are 0 are 4 at the 15 minute mark. It is the people who try to 1v1 the Riven is up 2 levels and a boat load of farm or the people who give up first blood and say gg and pretty much intentionally feed. 0 and 20 will get caught for intentionally feeding, but people who go 0/9/2 will not, even though it is pretty much the same outcome.Xayah and Rakan were recently released and there are so many duos going them in bot lane. When the entire rest of the team knows they are going to feed and there you have it bot lane was a combined -11. Am I supposed to believe that you could master the two new champs in one day? Especially when the other bot lane has been playing Vayne and Thresh for multiple seasons. They go into a game with no experience and end up feeding. Am I supposed to sit their and say it is alright when they clearly wasted at least 20 minutes of my time? These are the types of players that encourage what Riot would call "toxic players'.

I would not mind having a toxic player on my team. Because at least I know they care. They are the people who want to win. And they are the people who did their part to at least give their team a chance to win. In my experience, 90% the toxic players are the ones that are doing the best on their team. On teams that are -30, they are the ones that are +5 . They are the Russell Westbrooks trying to carry teams that were never in it. Shouldn't the best players be given the benefit of the doubt to at least let out their frustration especially when they are the ones who actually want to win? And good for them for calling out their teammates. Accountability is key to winning. Everyone is accountable for their actions. If you play in any sports league, your coach and your teammates hold you accountable for your actions, and if you give up on your team, expect to be benched and scolded by your teammates. I want someone to hold me accountable for my actions. If I screw up and if I keep making the same mistake, I encourage people to point that out. Was that a bad dragon call? No ward in the river? Didn't call a MIA? Let me know . That is how you get better.

Players who are a clear detriment to their team deserve everything that comes to them. I am not talking about the person who gives up first blood and farms under tower all game without feeding. Or the bot lane duo who went 0 and 0 in their lane. These are the people who carried their own weight. The people who saw a mismatch and knew they could not win their lane, so instead of forcing it, the played safe to give their team a fighting chance. These are the players that should be commended. Sometimes not losing lane is just as important as winning lane. If you do not lose your lane and everyone else at least holds their lane, you will always have a chance to win. If you prevent the other team from snowballing, you are always 1 teamfight or 1 baron away from victory. But people who give up and blatantly challenge the already ahead Zed who already has his item 3147 and item 3142 are what cause this outrage from players.

At the end of the day it is either all okay or none of it is okay. Either all toxic players get banned or none of them get banned. Toxic players are not just the ones that flame. It is also the people who are blatantly ignorant and show no sign of improvement and continue to make the same mistakes that cause their team to lose. Everyone has a bad game. I get it, no one is perfect. But players who have bad games will never be 1 and 10. They might be 2 and 5. Players that accept that they made mistakes and limit their detriment to the team. Anyone who always tries will never end up with double digit deaths at 30 minutes. And certainly they will not have multiple games of this type of ineptitude.

My solution if Riot chooses to go down the "none of it is okay" is Ranked bans. Someone who does not care about their team, someone who chooses not to listen and improve themselves, someone who tilts and gives up on their team should be banned from Ranked. Normals are normals. If you choose to test out new champions or show ineptitude that is completely alright in normals. But when you lock in a champion for Ranked, you should be expected to fight to your last breath for your team. This is not to be confused with surrendering. If you surrender at 20 that is completely alright as long as you tried until the 20 minutes is up. You tried to contribute and you tried to communicate; that is what every player should be doing. If you fail to live up to these expectations, a Ranked ban should be imminent. Maybe 5 games of forced normals if you frequently and consistently are a detriment to your team. I am not only talking about just wins and losses. Someone who is statistically the worst player on their team and who is consistently multiple standard deviations below the average bell curve (supports should be exempt from this particular judgement as they usually have inferior peripheral stats due to the nature of the position.) Some may say this system is too punishing, but when you waste the time of 4 other individuals for your ignorance of abilities, you should be penalized.

Now for people who do not like to take flaming criticism, that is alright as well. Riot included a mute button for a reason. You can mute away flamers, but you cannot stop incompetent teammates from making your games less enjoyable. Personally, when I am called a scrub or a loser, especially when it is justified, I do not get offended or angry. I want to try my hardest to prove that person wrong. I will make less mistakes. I will make a play that benefits that team. To make that person say even if only to themselves "hey he/she really stepped up their game after that slow start. Maybe he/she really isn't a scrub." That is proper motivation and should not be punished. But if that does not float your boat, the mute button is already there.

Now this new ranked ban system would be very difficult to implement. That is understandable. But if Riot is not taking the extra step to ban ALL toxic players, why ban just a small portion of the problem. In the current system players who are incompetent and show no desire to win are rewarded while players who stick up for their time wasted are punished. In the end players who are vocal enough to motivate and perform are the ones on the short end of the stick. Even if they are not the most progressive, any day of the week I will take some extra insults and take flamers if that means they give me a better chance to win, because I know they will show up from start to finish (most of the time). So Riot, don't ban what you call 'toxic players' who are only a portion of the problem. In the current system you let the seeds of incompetence and lack of effort sprout into complete shitshows. Where games are unenjoyable for both parties. No one wants to steamroll a lane when the other laner folded after first blood. I have seen it all in bronze, silver, gold and above. It is omnipresent in all tiers. Look at the bigger picture. Look at what caused this issue. And if you want to punish flamers and make them quiet without expressing their opinion, everyone will remain quiet. And when they cannot retaliate to the injustices of incompetency and ignorance of players who choose not to try, they will leave the game for good.

On a side note, new champions should be disabled from ranked at least for the first week. Give people time to learn the champion/s so it does not turn into a feedfest when some wise guy thinks he can learn the champion on the fly. One day is never enough time to learn a new champion.

31 Comments

ModUlanopo4/27/2017, 5:42:24 AM7 votes

And the biggest reason is incompetency and blatant negligence by other players.

If you play poorly, well then the belittlement was probably somewhat justified.

This is not an excuse for toxicity. The problem with your argument is that someone has to lose their lane. It isn't always incompetence or negligence that makes that happen and attempts to label it as such are shortsighted and unfair. "You should have done ____" is just Monday-morning quarterbacking.

As an example of how easy this is to do, I looked you up on OP.GG. You're at 40% over your last 20 games and 0-2 on Yasuo over the past week. Is that incompetence? Should you receive a ranked ban for taking Yasuo into ranked?

powershot124/27/2017, 3:46:42 AM3 votes

On another note racial and homophobic slurs are another story and should not be tolerated. They should be dealt with separately compared to flamers.

ModPeriscope4/27/2017, 4:08:18 AM3 votes

Something lead to it.

I was pretty turned off from your ideas when you made this statement. It sounds more like an out for toxic players, like it's not their fault they're toxic. Thankfully, this wasn't the gist of your statement.

You want a system that bans players for being bad. And you want them banned from ranked games. If we implemented that system, I'm fairly certain Dyrus wouldn't have lasted in the NALCS.

There's a variety of factors that go into a player's impact: their skill, their matchup, their scaling, impact on other lanes, and attention drawn from other lanes. And you've reduced those factors to K/D.

Further, putting those players into just normals creates the Prisoner's Island, which Riot has stated many times they won't retry.

I'm not 100% ok with the system we have now, but low level int-feeders are pretty difficult to detect due to how hard it is to detect intention in those situations.

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MisterSki4/27/2017, 5:00:29 AM2 votes

I get what you are saying man. I understand why people dislike bad players and also why people dislike toxic players. Both are issues that exist and sadly toxicity is just the more obvious and punishable issue. Feeding can ruin a game more than a toxic player can because you can mute a toxic jerk but you can't ignore a 5/0/0 top mid that was fed. Eventually that fed player on the enemy team will come to your lane and blam-o you're dead. It sucks and I have voiced similar issues but they are constantly received with disdain and insults which I find pretty ironic.

This Is Your Dad4/27/2017, 4:00:06 AM2 votes

About toxic people caring about the match.... yea most of them start spamming surrender votes and afking in base until people do what the toxic player tells them to do, which never happens, so they just lose the game instead. Edit: Also, incompetence can only really be measured over the course of several games. Even Box Box feeds sometimes, and it's not on purpose or because he's bad. There's so much going on, and a big part of how you perform is your mood. Why try to piss someone off and make them play worse just to spiral into overwhelming defeat?

Not HeIping You5/2/2017, 12:27:57 PM1 votes

New champions would never be banned from ranked, even though it makes total sense and is absolutely necessary, new champions, and their skins are how riots majority shareholders will consistently make more money. Profit is Key. That in the end is all they care about, if they can help us out and it doesn't cost them much, ok no problem, but If it exceeds a certain amount of their money or decreases profits then that's a big obvious denial.

The reason this is, is because when a new champion is released, twitch streamers play them and sometimes their skins in ranked and high elo play. Because redardless of performance they can make up games lost with the new champion. Who watches twitch? Millions of people. When millions of people see high elo players using new champions or skins its basically free advertising for riot. Disabling this means that all of this is immediately gone. There also won't be any immediate youtube videos made.

"Example Gosu Vid: XAYAH MASTER OP EZ GAMES LEGIT SKILL. And it's a highlight vid 3 days after release. Theres some more free advertising. His vids get tons of views.

Its all money. Thats why we won't see a temp rank ban on new champions.

Kei1434/27/2017, 4:19:35 AM1 votes

if you insult and belittle your team mates, does it make them play better? or does it tilt them more?

powershot124/27/2017, 4:46:32 AM1 votes

To clarify when I meant leniency to toxic players, I am leaning more towards people who flame and not personal attacks. Something like 'you fucking suck' or 'step up your fucking game' or 'you are a bona fide scrub and stop fucking feeding' should be tolerable. Anything on the lines of death threats or racism should definitely be punishable. Riot tends to use 'toxic player' as anyone who gets penalized which is very misleading whether it be for hate speech or just moments of anger.

SecondAirbane4/28/2017, 8:59:36 PM1 votes

the only complaint i have with this is the mia thingy you dont need to call mias for lane missing your teammates need to look at their map you can MIA if the enemies are at drag or baron or if someone died at top mia that lane cause those enemies are missing