Boards›Player Behavior

Its Now More About Business Than Player Experience

TinkleTheLegend·4/19/2019, 10:23:34 AM·2 votes·2,105 views

I am quite new to this community and if anything i have instantly noticed the high level of abuse and "toxic" behavior compared to other games I have played. I understand that there are some people that simply cannot handle defeat or accept that they are not playing well enough to contribute to the team and therefore create a situation in their minds that they are not the problem and others are to blame. I also understand that this is a "competitive" game and therefore like in any competitive situation, people will attempt to anger or upset the ENEMY team, which is fair enough.

This has now got to a point where every game i have played in PvP has been ruined and demoralized by people that are so emotionally torn over a video game that they cant handle basic negative feelings and then feel they must vent this on others because there is no real danger in doing so, and people are just not being punished for their behavior.

Now i think this has something strongly to do with the fact that the more people playing the more money that is being made for RIOT. This is a game that has to produce a large source of income to maintain this game, but surely WE the community deserve to be placed in games where people who are not mature enough to handle simple emotional situations on a video game are not present. There is an easy solution to this by integrating a behavioral factor into the game for each individual player. Why has this not been implemented yet?

I have noticed that i am not the only person attempting to gain RIOTS attention for this problem. If this were a live action sport this would not happen, it would not be acceptable and therefore does not exist in the parameters of the game.

I think WE the community deserve an answer on the real reason why this type of behavior is ignored. RIOT needs to understand what is happening to its community, i also do not think RIOT understand the importance of a positive gaming community. I would also run the numbers and i think you would find that the large majority of contributing community members who purchase RIOT content and genuine players who just want to play the game and have fun doing so.

RIOT, i hope you read this with an open mind into how you can tackle the behavior problem of players. The behavioral factor mark on players is a big step forward, i would also consider implementing a voice chat system after this so players CAN communicate easier which i also think contributes to the frustration of lesser minded players.

Thanks.

6 Comments

Jamaree4/19/2019, 10:28:29 AM6 votes

Never gonna be a fully solvable problem, also, they won't add voice chat before they know it won't solve anything, this myth that people are nicer over comms is bullshit and anyone who has played Overwatch or any open mic game for that matter knows that is bullshit.

zPOOPz4/19/2019, 10:40:54 AM4 votes

First you complained about toxicity and how people cannot handle defeat or being emotionally torn about it. Then on the last paragraph you suggested Rito adds voice chat so people can voice those emotions for everyone to hear??? No thanks.

The Ecdysiast4/19/2019, 11:00:52 AM3 votes

Well, you're new to MOBAS, which are a very specific type of game. So you don't really understand the major factors that contribute to what you consider toxicity.

This game has very unique features that very few other games have.

  1. First and foremost, you can type while moving. And there's plenty of downtime getting back to the game to do so. Most other games, you use wasd to move and chatting requires you to outright stop any action. So people have no option to express their discontent.

  2. Being a team game, it can be up to your allies whether or not you have fun. That doesn't always mean whether or not you win, but seeing the gray screen most of the game isn't fun. Especially when it wasn't you who gave the enemy the gold advantage.

  3. Tying into that, the game is a 20 minute commitment at bare minimum, unless the whole team agrees at 15. Either way, that's longer for a match than any other kind of competitive game. So you may be stuck in a losing game for 25+ minutes. And it only gets worse the lower tier the players are, because sometimes a guaranteed win gets dragged out an extra ten minutes simply because they don't want or know how to end it.

So if you can't handle this very specific set of circumstances, maybe MOBAS aren't for you. Granted, HOTS doesn't have /all chat and is much faster-paced, so it may be a better option. But it also has the downside that you're even reliant on your allies to level up, unlike this game.

The community is no more toxic than the community for any other competitive game. It's just that this one gives you the most downtime to express it and your allies' failures can have a much bigger impact than in other games. For example, in R6 Siege you might actually be able to out-skill the opponents even with terrible allies. But the nature of this game doesn't allow for that. Only a handful of champions are mechanically versatile enough for it to actually make a difference, and even then there are champions with targeted CC to stop you.

And we don't even need to talk about why non-competitive communities aren't "toxic". In those games, people often get better and better stuff, so something a new player might desperately need is totally useless to them. They're friendly because it doesn't hurt them to be. Failure is extremely seldom, and pretty much meaningless since you can always just try again. But there is plenty of toxicity if, say in Warframe, you're piggybacking on missions or cause the team to lose a mission that requires a rare key to even do.

This is just the nature of the game. No, not everyone will get heated enough to say mean things in the chat. But you should know before logging on that some people will. If you can't handle it, then don't play.

Note: I'm not condoning toxicity. But if you're truly damaged by what people say, a report doesn't stop the emotional damage. That's like calling the police after someone chops off your arm and throws it into a meat grinder. If there actually was damage, then it was already done. Better to avoid the damage when you know for a fact it's going to happen than to just relish in someone's punishment.

Umbral Regent4/19/2019, 11:20:48 AM2 votes

This has now got to a point where every game i have played in PvP has been ruined and demoralized by people that are so emotionally torn over a video game that they cant handle basic negative feelings and then feel they must vent this on others because there is no real danger in doing so, and people are just not being punished for their behavior.

I think WE the community deserve an answer on the real reason why this type of behavior is ignored.

It's not being ignored, though. Misbehavior does get punished, and it takes only a brief look through the Player Behavior boards to find ample evidence to this fact.

Riot fully understands that toxicity would hurt their ability to maintain players - and consequently, income - more than it would help. That's why they have the Instant Feedback System (IFS) to handle reports and punish players for flaming and breaking the rules.

...i would also consider implementing a voice chat system after this so players CAN communicate easier...

Riot already has implemented a voice chat system, though it's specific to premade groups. And, hopefully, it stays that way; from my personal experience playing Call of Duty, Halo, and Team Fortress 2, I think it'd be a pretty bad idea to put full-blown voice comms in League.

Kei1434/19/2019, 12:08:44 PM2 votes

What you are experiencing right now is what we call the "low level experience". Where people whom were toxic and banned create a new account to continue playing.

They are still toxic and hasn't learnt from their mistakes and/or angry at Riot. So they take their fustration out on other players in the game.

These accounts typically don't last that long and by level 40 or so, most of them end up permabanned again. So you experience gets better.

So the question is what can they do about the chronic toxics that keep coming back to the game. IP and MAC bans are easily circumvented and come with their own collateral damage. Prisoner's Island is not a model Riot is willing to employ, as they Riot say goodbye to the chronic toxics than keeping them around.

Voice chat may change small amounts of behavior about it, but if the toxics are willing to wish death upon others, they'll do that in voice as well.

Telephone Booth4/20/2019, 7:40:26 PM1 votes

The problem is not being ignored and they have very strict rules against toxicity that results in chat restrictions, temp bans, and permabans.