Boards›Player Behavior

Improving the Honor System

Ichabod1·2/3/2019, 3:13:40 AM·3 votes·3,605 views

I know that this subject has been brought up on several occasions, and it's something that Riot has changed and tweaked over the years. I want to make a few suggestions, and while I'm sure it will be ignored in part or in whole by Riot, I still think it merits consideration.

Currently that system feels stagnant. It offers little in the way of reinforcing wanted behaviors. Riot claims they don't want the system to feel like a grind, but due to the very nature of a leveling system, there is no way to avoid this. The main concept of the honor system is to use positive reinforcement to increase desired behavior among players. I have a background a teacher, therapist and childhood development in both cognitive and behavioral growth (at all ages). It mention this because the gaming community mirrors a classroom in many, many ways.

In order for the Honor system to work as wanted, there are some aspects to it that need to be improved. Much of this has been attempted to be addressed, but with varying degrees of success. There's always room for improvement, and the Honor system needs much improvement. Follow are a few things to consider and my thoughts on how it might be implemented. I really hope that Riot takes a look at this, and while I highly doubt much will be considered, a response by one of the developers would be greatly appreciated.

Reinforcement of Player Behavior Using Positive Reinforcement

_Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reinforcement _ *This is basically your reward system. *Intrinsic reinforcement is an internal thing, and most easily understood by explaining it as "feeling good about your actions." This is the most difficult to achieve, especially in a gaming environment, but if done correctly can be the most powerful type of reinforcement possible. Some people feel good by merely doing good things. Others feel good when they win a game. *Extrinsic reinforcement is an external reward. In League of Legends, this is the easiest to achieve and is the primary reward system currently used. You get skins, or prizes of some sort.

Feedback *Feedback needs to be frequent and easily understood. The more frequent a player receives feedback on their behavior, the more often they will consider their behavior, and work to improve it.

Punishment *This shouldn't need explanation, but I'll give a quick word on it. Anything that is received negatively in order to decrease the likelihood of repeating a specific behavior. This is the least effective type of reinforcement, especially when it isn't paired with positive reinforcement.

Currently, the Honor system lacks heavily in positive reinforcement. Punishment has been doled out and the system changed over the years as it was found that it's not as effective as hoped. Don't get me wrong. People that are tilting and making the game toxic for other players need to be limited in their capacity to do this, but Riot needs to include reinforcement of positive behaviors, as well.

The system right now is not very well understood. Players (like myself) know very little of how they rate. That's because there is no visual feedback and is very, very, very infrequent. I suggest that Riot implement a Health Bar (or Honor Bar). Much like in game, players will easily be able to understand where they sit in the system, if they are improving and if they need to work harder on their behavior. I know this will appear as though it will create a grinding system, but you are fooling yourselves if you don't believe it already is one (for those players that are interested in the system at all). The Honor Bar doesn't need to state where the level caps are (though that would eventually be understood in a rough way), but it does need to give feed back in how the player is progressing or not. We're just left in the dark right now, blind to how much of an impact our behavior is having.

Progress can be slow because of three thing (unless I misunderstand it). 1) Not many games are played 2) Punishment is in place and 3) the player doesn't interact very often with other players. Negative reports that don't demand a harsh response are rarely even known to a player, and so can slow their progress. We need to know more often if we are being reported, even if we don't get a punishment. And if we don't talk much in game, we are less likely to get honored by our team mates, even if we are respectful, impactful and are a positive player for the game as a whole. The number of games is a moot issue, because Riot wants people to play as often as possible, this is not going to be change due to the business end of things.

As of right now, the honor system is a failure. A complete failure. It serves no purpose that has any noticeable impact on player behavior, doles out rewards and feedback so infrequently that players are left with a sense of uncaring, and is changed with a repeated lie on the developers lips. "We don't want it to become a grind." It already is. It's just a very unsatisfactory grind, but only for the few that even care about the damn thing. Make us care Riot. Isn't that the point? Make us care about our behavior by giving us some sort of visual that rewards us with constant feedback. How well would any of us done in school if the teacher never showed the student their grades? Only told them that they are making progress.

I want to know what the rest of you think. Criticism is welcome, but please be respectful to one another. Don't make me send you to the principal. lol

5 Comments

R107 Games2/3/2019, 3:18:08 AM1 votes

I think chat restrictions should only bring a person's honor level down by 2 or 3

Awf Meta2/3/2019, 6:17:34 AM1 votes

Riot doesn't identify positive behaviors. Like at all. Riot only identifies negative behavior. Your idea can be simplified to "was there negativity last game?". Answer no = player is gaining honor. Answer yes = player is losing honor.

The downside to increased transparency is that malicious offenders are better at circumventing the system. Which I personally don't have a problem with. Riot might.

Umbral Regent2/3/2019, 6:01:37 PM1 votes

So, before I begin, I want to say two things, the first of which is to clarify that, despite having the Specialist tag, I'm not a Riot employee or part of the Community Moderation team, so, strictly speaking, what I say should just be taken peer-to-peer.

Second, I'd also like to clarify about the Honor System;

Progress can be slow because of three thing (unless I misunderstand it). 1) Not many games are played 2) Punishment is in place and 3) the player doesn't interact very often with other players.

Of these three factors, minimal interpersonal interaction is the one with the least influence on Honor progress. As far as I know, the two things that really would slow Honor progress is how frequently you play, and whether or not you have valid reports filed against you - since, as long as you're playing, you'll get ambient Honor progression from simply playing the game, with small boosts if you get Honored or if the Team Honor Bonus pops.

That all aside, onto the actual subject matter.

I would probably personally agree with your assessment that the feedback on positive behavior and response to negative behavior is fairly disproportionate. While I've never really been on the receiving end of a punishment, I can say that the only positive feedback you get is too sporadic to really hammer home the message of positive behavior being recognized.

Since, as it stands, you only get feedback on positive behavior whenever you:

  • Earn an ambient Key Fragment drop
  • Reach an Honor Checkpoint
  • Reach an Honor Level

Though, this is ignoring if you get Honored by other players in a match, which can be seen as moot, since one can technically be Honored for just about anything, from not losing as a Support to getting a terrifying KDA as a Jungler or Midlaner.

That said, feedback on the opposite end of the spectrum (negative behavior) is a bit harder to deal with. Warnings could potentially make a difference in whether or not a player reforms quickly, but at the same time, when Riot previously had implemented warnings, they were misconstrued as punishments, and had to be removed as a consequence - forcing them to rely strictly on the punishment system as the primary method of negative feedback.

Adding an Honor/Account Health bar could potentially work as a solution, but it runs the risk of toxic players using it to learn how to game the system, and use low-key toxicity to ruin games, stopping only when their "health" is low so that they can refill it - or, worse, reliably managing their "health" to be toxic over the course of several games.

However, it could be possible to implement something that allows a player to see both positive and negative feedback on their behavior. (I could be unwittingly echoing the Monthly Report Card concept here - though I haven't read it myself, so pardon any potential unoriginality here.)

My idea is this: Add a section to the Client (under Profile) titled something like "Account Health" or "Behavior" or something of the like, and have it separate into two menus - one for positive behavior, and one for negative behavior. Positive behavior would roughly track stuff like what Honors you received recently, whether or not you're making more Honor Progress, and pulls a match from your History to highlight if you've been given MVP Honors. Add on to that the statistics from Key Fragments/Checkpoints/Levels regarding how many people Honored you for this or that, how many non-premades Honor you, etc.

Then for Negative Behavior, have a disclaimer reading "you haven't been punished yet, but your behavior may not be the best. Here are some instances where you've displayed unsportsmanlike behavior.", and pull a few matches from the recent week where a report was validated. Probably add some of the periodic quips from the Loading Screens (Regarding the impact of negative/positive behavior in games) and a suggestion to ask the boards or Riot if they want to understand why their behavior validated the reports.

That way, positive behavior has more reliable, active feedback, and negative behavior has proper feedback and warnings that are hard to misconstrue, and vague enough that people can't reliably game the system.

Zero Drive2/3/2019, 8:50:14 PM1 votes

Until we can see actual meters in our honor and behavior improving the honor system is going to feel like an RNG flop.