Mordius' Solution to Alleviate Toxicity
In this thread I will give an overview of the problem I see in League of Legends related to player behavior followed by what I believe to be a possible solution to help promote a positive competitive environment. Please give me the courtesy of reading this entire post prior to commenting, and provide feedback where you see fit rather than rejecting the entire concept completely. Thank you.
It is inherent with any online competitive scene that player toxicity has become a common practice among gamers. This is due to the desire of individuals to climb in rank paired with the expectation that every member of the team will carry their weight to victory. After all, if everyone played their role perfectly, then the only way for you to lose is if you yourself did not do your best. Which would not warrant lashing out at your teammates.
In League of Legends, players are paired together at random with strangers in Ranked albeit those who choose to duo queue. From personal observation, practically all toxic interactions between players occur between random individuals and not between duos.
While one could attribute this lack of toxicity due to players knowing each other, this is not always the case. It is very likely that duo queues simply know what each other are capable of, and are thus less likely to lash out due to playing poorly. It is easy to attribute a stranger playing bad with simply being bad.
As someone who had exclusively played Solo/Duo queue for years, and who has played other competitive games with systems more in-tune with flex queue, I have come to the conclusion that Riot should do away with the Solo/Duo ranked queue all together.
What I would suggest in replacement of the current ranked system is a series of implementations that would help promote group finding, meeting new people and forming new friendships.
The way this new system would work is when a player enters a ranked lobby they will be queued into the Looking For Group System after they have selected their two preferred roles. (Top,Mid,Bot,Support,Jungle,Fill). After this step, players can either search for a ranked game or invite players from the LFG system.
The LFG system will provide a list of player names as well as their preferred roles and their honor rank. Players can modify the search criteria to look for specific roles. Players will be listed by their rank closest to the person searching, so a silver 4 player will not be given a list of Gold 1 players. Players will receive a notification upon being invited in which they must accept to join.
Once a party is satisfied and queued, the queue system will pair teams based on size.
Queue Pairing. 5, 3-2, 4-1, and 2-2-1 Teams of 5 will be paired with another team of 5 exclusively to promote fair play.
This is to promote players to take the time to invite players to their lobby to not only meet new people but also reduce toxicity once the game has started. In the event of a 4-1 pairing, players who queue solo will be guaranteed their role, and will be given an extended search timer as a result. This is to prevent being filled in a role a player doesn’t want to play which will increase chance of toxicity, and also promote searching for a party to reduce queue times. Players who queue as a team of 5 will be given a small amount of bonus exp and honor at the end of the match regardless if they won to promote 5 man queuing and using the LFG system.
I believe this system is better than the current system, because it allows players to meet each other before they are locked into playing a game together and get an idea of who they are playing with and what they are capable of, which I believe will reduce toxicity. This will also give players a chance to review match history, which will prevent players from getting queued with intentional feeders, reducing the rate at which gameplay related toxicity will take place. Players who win together will also be more likely to play again together, creating friendships and providing a better chance at climbing the ranked ladder.
