Boards›Player Behavior

Honor System is FLAWED

Fioh·10/18/2018, 4:40:36 PM·29 votes·12,671 views

I’d like to start a discussion about the Ranked Honor System, which I find to be massively flawed. As it exists now, the Honor System does little to nothing to solve the problem of true toxicity. Yet, it punishes the players that speak up in any way after toxicity is repeatedly thrown in their faces for an entire game.

For context, a little about me: I’ve been playing LoL since 2011 and have never ended a season without receiving Ranked rewards or as “dishonorable”. 7 years later, I’m approaching 2k games this season, have had Honor 4 for 75% of the season and then ONE chat restriction towards the end sends me from 4 to 1. Without sufficient time to climb back to 2, I’ll likely end the season without rewards because I called someone a PEANUT. Riot games--are you serious??

I’ve attached the log of the Chat Restriction I’m referencing for the sake of transparency. Of course, even this isn’t actually “transparent”. Sending a one-sided chat between two people will always remove contextual evidence. The system is flawed in order to ensure that Riot has pure justification in whatever Riot puts the hammer down on you for. What you don't see in this is the infinite spam of my http://OP.GG that was being thrown at me with verbal insults. What you STILL don't see, because Riot's feedback system is spectacular, is that throughout the ENTIRETY of this game a player and his duo spam harassed me to oblivion.

Repeatedly we are told that “the only response is no response” when a toxic player is in our game. In what way does this make sense?? If you respond to people aggressing you, you are the bad guy. But if you don't respond, the bad guy wins and you lose anyway? At the very least, why wouldn’t you stand up for yourself or your team? If you stand for nothing you fall for everything. You lose every time and the toxic player wins.

Riot--Why do you want the people getting flamed constantly to just shut up and deal with it? This does nothing but hold well-intentioned players hostage! We deal with straight up harassment. Even when we follow your method of “don’t respond”, then the toxic players will just chase you around the game! We are supposed to play through a game, being beaten down and just sit in silence? Why must the players who care about the game be forced to cater to the crying babies? Are you serious Riot? Is this how you care for your player base? WHERE ARE YOU, Riot??

How about I speak in a language you understand ($$$)--streamers and pros contribute to your economy and they face these same problems. Players like Tyler1 and IWDominate are constantly being queue sniped on stream and have trolls intentionally feed on their team for “entertainment" purposes. You aren’t supporting the average player as it is, wouldn’t you at the very least want to support these people that spend their lives promoting your game and contributing to your bottom line? Why are they also forced to stay silent and tolerate?

This needs to improve.These are just a few people that serve this example; there are so many that are simply being "quiet and tolerating." When does this necessary change start receiving attention? There are much bigger fish to fry--the real AFKers/INTers/Hate Speech Toxic Trolls--not people with minor chat issues. Of course, the smaller fish require much, much less effort.

125 Comments

Saezio10/18/2018, 4:55:15 PM21 votes

Mate, a small piece of advice. The toxic player wins if you reply. If you let em rant without responding they lose because it's them who gets frustrated.

EvilDustMan10/18/2018, 4:53:03 PM17 votes

There are two responses. An attempt to defuse the situation, or mute. You have to remember the other person is angry, and you are a stranger.

Examine the situation. Yes, being assertive for yourself is good in real life, but that's different. There's no face to face and you'll never see each other again. So they barely see you as a person. Yes, trying to defuse may make you, as the 10 year olds say, "beta" or "a soy boy", but the fact is, the other direction is just going to continue things and escalate.

And hey, so you have the other choice. Just mute and report.

Eleshakai10/18/2018, 6:25:15 PM13 votes

You mention that sending a chatlog removes context, but what you're misunderstanding is that context is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter what someone says to you, what you say to them is what matters. You can't control another person's actions, you can only control your own. If your own actions are bad, then saying 'well he was bad first' is not justification for it.

In regards to what you can do... I guess the questions I'd ask are twofold:

  1. If one person is being toxic, and you engage with him in a way that is also toxic, who do you think suffers?

My thought process is this: The toxic person likely finds it hilarious, since he's getting exactly what he wants: a reaction. So the people who suffer are the three innocent allies in your game who are suffering through the toxicity just like you are...

  1. What are you hoping to accomplish?

The reason I ask you to think about that is that people typically don't respond well to criticism or advice from people they have no reason to respect. Not saying you, as an individual, are not worthy of respect - I can't possibly judge that - but it is unlikely that, in the time of a single game, unless you're a paragon of skill and decency, you can earn someone's actual genuine respect. As a result, if you try to engage with them... your advice is most likely not going to be taken seriously, and you're wasting your time and risking your account by engaging.

Saezio10/18/2018, 4:57:30 PM12 votes

All that said I think that punishments in the end of the season should not be more impactful than punishments at the start of the season. So of course the system is flawed

TerathThyBrave10/18/2018, 7:04:18 PM12 votes

I always loved how rare it is for AFKers/INTers to actual get punished, but say one wrong word in chat on the other hand, well my friend you don't deserve to even play the game for 2 weeks, Dunkey may have over reacted but he was right about Riot being absolutely incompetent in this aspect, as well as many others.

Kei14310/18/2018, 6:13:35 PM5 votes

2000 games and you still didn't hit h5? Man, your mild toxicity must be pretty frequent.

But I do agree that the stakes have been raised now with rewards tied to honors, so there should be a fair warning before getting punished.

Voldymort10/18/2018, 6:21:00 PM2 votes

but if you don't respond, the bad guy wins and you lose anyway?

...wins... what?

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=EmiM7pZW,comment-id=0000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-07-06T15:04:31.119+0000)

While I absolutely encourage you to fight back if someone throws a punch at you and it's the best way to deescalate the situation in the safest way for you, **League isn't a fist-fight. **You're not in any danger. All being a jerk back does is mean there are now two jerks, one of which started it and the other of which feels the way to "win" is to be the bigger jerk. You're not in any danger, there's no prize for the biggest jerk, and it just creates a worse environment for everyone in the game.