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Ideas: Why is League so toxic?

Karunamon·11/11/2017, 7:55:10 PM·5 votes·1,257 views

This is a long read. There is no tl;dr

Let's talk about the design of this game as it relates to player behavior.

Why does this game in particular have such a problem? Every game has its stupid trash talk (online shooters are stereotypically full of children who go on about how they did your mother last night), its ways to troll, but as a gamer across all the genres, the troll problem seems magnified here.

I've got a few ideas. So why is League so toxic? It has all of the following, with each thing adding up to more than the sum of its parts:

**1. Teamwork is required in the extreme, where the actions of one person can absolutely trash a game for others. **

This is the nature of a MOBA and there isn't much to be done about it.

**2. Trolls have a nearly infinite number of ways to waste your time, and you can't do much about it. **

  • Surrender votes are already on a supermajority vote, yet they're gated behind a 20 minute timer.
  • The litany of ways to be a jerk in champ select (banning pick intents, "...or I feed", not taking assigned role)
  • Queue dodging forces everyone to go through pick/ban again - this can and does happen multiple times in a row
  • Leaving early inflicts more annoyance on the people who stayed in the game than the person who left.

3. Feedback is rare

  • The only weapon you have against miscreants creates a feeling of powerlessness.
  • "We took action" popups are exceedingly rare.
  • Players committing actions that are blatantly against the summoners code are still playing games
  • Players have no way to see if their reports are even valid or not, not even something as minimal as a thumbs up/thumbs down.

4. Quality of life is low (other miscellaneous things)

  • Bots infest ARAM and vs AI games - Riot's stated policy on banning these in waves mean that a single bot account will have interfered with over 150 games before being sold at level 30.
  • "Bait banning" is a thing. Get someone to say the British word for cigarette twice, report them, and they get an immediate 2 week ban.

Note that I didn't include anything on the reasons people get banned. Very, very rarely does a post make it here that indicates someone was banned for something that they didn't deserve a ban for. By and large, Riot does a great job of keeping their false positive punishments low.

That being said - all of these little things add up to a really awful perception, especially to newbies. It makes League look like a game that's overrun by trolls that you can do nothing about.

Without access to their stats, I can't say whether that's true or not. I can only speculate. All I have to offer is my own anecdata - I've been keeping a paper log of my few PvP games, and can say that around 40% of my games (around 30% if we only count normals rather than ranked) feature either someone leaving, or someone on my team behaving in an unsportsmanlike way. In my entire time playing this game, I have not once received the thanks for reporting popup. Does this mean my reports are all invalid? I honestly, truly, do not know.

This data is part of the reason I don't play much aside from ridiculous bot stuff and normals anymore. Roughly every second or third game is a negative, rather than positive experience.

So that's enough of my whining. What could we do about it? Using the same categories above, I have some suggestions, mostly spitballing, so take these as the "throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks" that it is

Going on the above categories:

**2. Empower players so they're not forced to suffer the actions of a troll **

  • Remove the 20 minute FF timer, as there's little benefit to forcing people to stay in a game they don't want to stay in.
  • This is already sort of done with the remake option, but it's extremely limited.
  • Remove the ability to ban hovered champions
  • "..or I feed" should immediately ban the player, email their porn collection to their parents, and set their computer on fire. (Only sort of kidding)
  • Don't tear down the lobby when someone dodges a queue - keep it active and let someone who queued for the dodged role (or picked "fill") join up in the same spot.
  • Enhanced penalties for habitual leavers/queue dodgers. Waiting 20 minutes to play isn't enough.
  • A game that's 4v5 is statistically trashed for the team that's down a player. Take the DOTA option and let everyone leave without penalty.

3. Give better feedback on reports

  • A scorecard (one of the highest rated posts on this board's history) would be amazing.
  • Show people whether their reports, all of them, are having any effect, even if it's just a number or a grade. Even something like the honor system (a "defender of the rift" level, tied to valid reports) would be a huge improvement.

4. Improve quality of life

  • Ban the bots sooner. 150 games per bot is a lot of ruined games.
  • Consider captchas before entering queue
  • Bait bans are becoming a problem, you've got a subset of the community that's making it their mission in life to trick people into losing their accounts. The fact that this is even possible is absurd - I know you might not want to negotiate with terrorists, but please, for the love of all things holy, turn that system off.

That's all I have. Any other bullet points you'd add?

17 Comments

Marcus101RR11/11/2017, 11:08:10 PM3 votes

I had a recent issue that makes me question Riot and the Rule System:

Match: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2642745297/219512378?tab=overview Live Replay: HOW TO SHARE?

The whole story The jungler bans the ADC's pick, and later the ADC bans the Jungler's pick. Now I can't confirm or deny it was intentional at first glance, however, I believe the jungler accidentally did it. The Botton Role however, did ban the JG out of spite (believing it was intentional). Now I am a guy who normally predicts the following out the game just by being in the lobby and not in game. Mind you this was lobby before the game started. I predicted this is going to be a loss and these two players will ruin the experience for me (possibly others), and give me a loss, a worthless one as well with no effort.

The result is 12 minutes of laning phase I do my best (this can clearly be seen that I do what the Meta is, the rules, the summoner code of conduct), up to the point where I can clearly see Sona is being slaughtered alone on Bottom lane, while the Bottom Adc is roaming with the other JG. Yes, both the Bottom and the Jungler went JG. Top lane is losing hard, bottom lane has no defenses, and mid (me) is struggling. I get upset, very upset because Riot released two important tools (three if you count the custom games) for people to goof off in that doesn't affect your record or your match skills.

  • Practice Tool - The most important thing where you can do whatever you want and TEST your META and your skill to determine if it is feasible in a match without ruining other people's experience.
  • AI Vs. Coop - Nothing more boring then fighting against brain-dead bots. You literally can't ruin anyone's experience here, and if you do lose, you REALLY REALLY have no skills what so ever.
  • Custom Games - They don't count period, no IP gain, no nothing. Its just Sandbox literally aside from Practice tool.

Now these two could have gone there instead of my game and ruined it. But the kicker is, I decide to Open Mid, we can't win, and they won't cooperative or participate to play.

I am confused. I was suspended, and my chatting/ping privileges were revoked. In addition, I was marked for AFK-like behaviors. My 12 minute laning phase says otherwise. Because at this point I believed we could still win with proper cooperation, but I was very oblivious because I didn't see our Bottom, in the Bottom lane at all.

So I need reassurance, clarification, and understanding...What is wrong and right in League?

Am I the bad guy here? I am level 32, been part of this community for 2-3 years now, and this is the first time I have gotten an infraction...

My Report To Riot:

I just recently encountered a game where I got tired of playing with players who not only don't play their required roles they were assigned, but also refuse to cooperate. A replay view will be required for this. 2 Player have offended me and the game, I came here to play League of Legends with people following the rules and the game. What is the point of a game that you gave players the option to use "Practice Tool" and AI vs. Coop to deviate from the rules and do whatever-you-feel-like.

It ruins other people's game. This is the experience I have just gotten and I want to avoid such events from happening again.

The replay clearly shows I did my job in Mid role till the laning phase, however the other team says nothing wrong with doing what they are doing? Losing our game, particularly, a loss for me. For no reason at all. There is a difference b

Redcadaver11/11/2017, 8:22:57 PM2 votes

I believe that it's "Justified" Toxicity. Just from reading the threads in player behavior to the games I have been in I am sure a good portion of toxic people don't think their toxic. They know what they are saying is wrong but they believe that because they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar it's unfair. Mind you they are not sorry for what they did, but sorry they got caught. For instance telling someone to kill themselves is strictly forbidden and should be obvious not to say this in game, yet people do because they think by "defending themselves" that they are exempt from the rules.

Of course this can be rectified by simply muting the person who is toxic, but people feel the need to have the last word in so much that the game doesn't matter anymore and all that does matter is their ego to people who they will most likely never see again.

A Dominatrix11/11/2017, 8:09:17 PM2 votes

Lately ive been playing most of my games with friends so the amount of toxic players/trolls I get has been diminished by a lot especially since we use discord so I don't need the ingame chat and can just mute it at the start.

AleksaTeemo11/11/2017, 10:45:23 PM1 votes

TLDR is?Kappa

dodio11/12/2017, 2:01:57 AM1 votes

Yeah lets remove the option to ban hovered champs that way when caitlyn jungle comes thru you gotta let it ride.

iLBGAMing11/11/2017, 8:03:41 PM1 votes

If you remove these championsRiven Yasuo Zed Draven MasterYi Syndra Talon Vayne Veigar MonkeyKing the toxic people will go away... Kappa

OrderOfTheLotus11/13/2017, 5:38:31 PM1 votes

how about the suspension rates between people who are toxic but don't use profanity? Do you think it's unfair that profanity gets instantly punished whereas other people who may induce the anger probably go unseen?

spool3211/11/2017, 10:32:12 PM1 votes

Your point #3 is excellent. #4 "bait bans" makes no sense to me. Is this a language thing? I don't know how someone could possibly trick me into saying something offensive enough to draw an automated punishment.

Grimspeake11/11/2017, 10:41:35 PM1 votes

Idk how people think league is toxic. Its like the only game ive ever played that bans people for shit. You ever play csgo? Your teammates can actually kill you on there before they get kicked. SnD on cod?? Literally children flaming people and intentionally throwing games for lulz because they saw someone on youtube do it. Even fucking runescape is more toxic.