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Banter is good and appreciated but where does the line to toxic exist and what can be done about it?

Tha Dumpster·7/16/2019, 5:32:14 AM·1 votes·2,068 views

So for about the past week or so I have been on a smurf account with one of my friends who is new to the game. On at least 3 separate occasions in less than 20 games I have had a teammate rage and flame myself and others endlessly. They use every word you could imagine, which is fine but then they start throwing around "r%%%%%ed" which I though was one of the words that gets auto picked up as a ban/chat restriction. I have yet to experience the the lovely "kys" or hate speech but its only a matter of time. (must note I do not have any chat logs on hand)

While I will admit I throw a little banter back, it is usually nothing more than "you are new" "stop talking and play the game" "don't get so mad". I have done my duty as a member of the summoners rift and reported these summoners while I wait for my favorite thing in league of legends which is the notification that a recently reported player has suffered consequences. Yet, to my sadness these players have yet to receive punishment. I even had a guy who had to have been using a bot (walked down mid and just auto attacked).

Why is the reporting system for this game so unhelpful against a community that is harshly toxic? I feel like there is more that can be done besides "just mute them" which has never quite sounded right to me in a game that REQUIRES team communication that sometimes a ping can not explain. While I realize this is the internet and there are keyboard warriors, I feel like this is a lame excuse to allow blatant toxicity more often than not. I feel like the reporting system needs to give out harsher punishments or at least chat restricts more often.

Of course I am not perfect, I have been there myself in the depths of elo hell flaming my teammates and enemies. I have received a 2 week ban(!) on my main account in the past. I will say that experience helped me learn that flaming isn't really going to help, and I have gotten much better since that ban. I think that other players would benefit from such actions. If they don't then eventually the account gets banned and all that time and possibly money is wasted. I don't have a fix to this problem and I have no clue how much effort riot puts into the reporting system but I dare say its not enough. Maybe, instead of a lux skin every 2 months we can throw out a couple chat restrictions instead? I don't want to bitch the whole time I love the game, have endless days played over 6 years, and I love the content but riot please help make the community better.

TLDR: people say bad, nothing happen, fix reporting system?

3 Comments

ModThe Djinn7/16/2019, 11:57:13 AM2 votes

The system favors accuracy over speed, but it is decent at both. A brief look at this board alone will show numerous cases where the system is able to detect and appropriately punished varying severity severities of toxicity. Is it as fast as might be desirable in every case? No, but that doesn't mean it is inefficient or ineffective at what it does.

With regards to the line between banter and toxicity, it basically comes down to whether your comment is more of an insult or more of playful teasing. "You suck" is an insult, while "Almost!" to an enemy Draven who obviously missed you with an ult is closer to banter. It doesn't insult them personally, doesn't really belittle their gameplay so much as a single moment of failure, and is generally good-natured

The last part is especially important. If the rest of your chat makes it clear you're being a jerk to someone, even banter is easily construed as insulting or intended to offend. If the rest of your chat log makes it clear that you're a friendly person just kind of goofing around with the enmy team, it's more easily identifiable as playful banter.

Tha Dumpster7/16/2019, 7:23:35 AM1 votes

First time on this forum and I can see based on how other posts have gone this is probably going to get downvoted item 3070 . But I am genuinely curious if people think the reporting system is effective? It definitely isn’t useless, but I think it could be ramped up even a little bit.

I’ve said this to my friends who play for Atleast 2 years but I would be interested in league getting a voice chat for all 5 to join. I think people would flame less(maybe, mw2 lobbies were brutal) because they could articulate their strats better. Also, hearing another humans voice reminds you that its a real person playing that champ and you get a little more real life than words popping up in the chat. Of course there would be exceptions to the rule but I think on whole it would be an improvement.

I would be more likely to mute someone verbally harassing me compared to just typing.

I also see that I could have just edited my original post but as I said I’m new to the forum game and I already typed this out, apologies.