What if we could prevent toxicity before it ever became severe?
What if the client intervened before a player's behavior ever developed into full blown toxicity?
Conditions that should be required before intervention:
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If the player begins to perform significantly worse than their norm in game,
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And that player is acting clearly defensive and inflammatory in chat.
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Add more conditions if necessary; such as receiving reports from teammates, or other indicators of negative interactions with other players.
How to implement the intervention:
- Provide the player with a message:
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Reminding them that they are likely suffering from tilt.
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Recommend that the player take a short break to cool off, or notifying them that they are being blocked from playing for a short period of time to give them time to cool off.
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Assure the player that this does not necessarily mean they are in trouble, but remind them that toxicity could result in punishment.
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Offer links to (or embed within the message) funny videos or lighthearted or heartwarming stories, just something to help them try to feel better.
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Offer links to (or embed within the message) guides on how to handle frustration and communicate better with difficult teammates.
- Apply an extremely short ban that does not contribute to the player's punishment tiers. By extremely short I mean, 0.5 or 0.75 hours, or maybe up to a maximum of 12 or 24 hours if Riot wants to be especially heavy-handed with it. (This is optional, just a potentially effective - if quite direct - method of intervening)
Why I think this will work:
Tilt is by definition what happens when we become too invested in the game, begin to struggle, and then find ourselves so overwhelmed with our frustration that we cannot focus enough to play effectively.
Giving tilted players some time to cool off and let go of that frustration will likely be enough to help most of them recover from that tilt and restore their normal level of gameplay.
Additional benefits:
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Players will be helped to avoid losing streaks, and their stress will be lowered overall because they do not suffer as much from extended periods of tilt.
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Players who would otherwise have gone on a toxicity spree may be prevented from doing that, saving them from being toxic in the first place, and preventing them from disturbing their prospective teammates and receiving reports from those teammates or even punishment from the automatic system.
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Players who would have ended up playing with the tilted player will not be matched with them and will be saved from having to play with a teammate who at that point in time is more likely than normal to behave in a toxic manner.
