Boards›Player Behavior

Boosted vs feeder vs bad player vs bought account. Know your terminology

djjomon·10/5/2016, 3:20:50 PM·3 votes·1,285 views

Please don't insult your team. It tilts your teammates, it tilts YOURSELF, and you eventually get in trouble for it. If you're into this game so much that you get mad enough to insult people, you probably don't really want your account banned. ESPECIALLY right before the end of season rewards. Even smurfs. That's several hours of your life lost if you get your smurf banned. Anyway..

Boosted = paying a better player to win games on YOUR account. A favor from a friend would count too. If you suspect boosting, check their lolking graphs. You can usually tell where they bought the boost, if they actually did. A huge, inconsistent spike to Gold (or whatever rank), then a dip back to previous levels implies a boost (but doesn't confirm it).

Feeder = someone with a negative KDA. Not to be confused with an Intentional Feeder (intenting), who is purposely giving kills to the enemy team. Feeding can be unintentional. Everyone UNINTENTIONALLY feeds at some point. We all have our bad games, for whatever reason.

Bad player = someone who makes the same mistakes and refuses to learn from them, IMO. Or someone inexperienced. This definition is up for debate. But it's NOT someone with lower MMR than you. Lower ranked players can still be good, in their skill range. Good players have bad games, bad players have good games. Low MMR players can be knowledgeable. (Back in Season 4 or 5, one pro coach/analyst, I think MonteCristo, was Gold rank, but understood the game at a Challenger level).

Bought account = paid for someone else's account. Not always boosted account. You can buy a boosted account, but then someone else was technically boosted.

BONUS term: toxic = someone being rude or insulting. Using any of the above terms in-game, when a player is doing poorly, is typically toxic. Calling a player toxic, ISN'T toxic. Though it's impolite (I'm guilty of this though). Telling a player they're being reported isn't inherently toxic, but it's close. Intentionally feeding, taking someone else's role, or purposely throwing off a team comp with an intentionally bad pick, are all examples of toxicity. EDIT: Purposely throwing off a team comp with an intentionally bad pick is ONLY toxic if done with MALICIOUS INTENT. As in, "you took the role I called so I'm gonna ADC Galio F you". Extreme example, but that's probably toxic. However "I wanted to mid but I only play Galio, I'll take him bot and do my best" isn't toxic. Credit to Desolas Arterius for clarifying this. He made me think it over, and I was wrong in how I said it. A non toxic example, as Desolas Arterius explained, is a one trick pony taking an unorthodox pick. (This reminds me, I have a Diamond 4 friend who would play Wukong in all roles, and carry his teammates).

I've had my fair share of toxic players lately. And, most of them misuse the terminology.

tl;dr: don't be toxic. But get your terms right.

7 Comments

Desolas Arterius10/5/2016, 4:00:13 PM2 votes

Allow me to expand a bit on your terminology as well :)

1: Boosted: Allowing another player of higher elo to play on your account to increase your rank. This can either be out of "kindness" or for monetary gains. Difficult for normal players to determine, but the MMR system will accurately sort these players the more they play. This can also apply to players who abuse the Dynamic Q system by queuing up with much higher skill level friends in order to get placed into higher ranks they normally wouldn't be able to achieve on their own. However, the latter example is not punishable, since there is no violating the ToS during this. Only the account sharing is punishable by permanent ban since that is breaking the ToS.

As you also explained, a huge jump with a dip back to the previous rank can sometimes help identify suspected boosting, but is not always applicable. Some players may not play enough to reach back to that rank, or perhaps lost interest in the game between seasons.

2: Feeder: You explained this perfectly :)

3: Bad Player: Subjective, but your description is somewhat close enough to what everyone thinks. The issue becomes not separating the bad players skill-wise and attitude-wise, since a bad player can fall into one those different categories, or both. There are bad players who mechanically are not good at the game, but understand it mentally. There are bad players who understand the game and play well, but have terrible attitudes. And there are also bad players who don't understand the game, refuse to learn it, but are still enjoyable to play with. These vary depending on who the player is, but mostly it's associated with skill-level.

4: Bought Account: Any account sold to another player who is not the original owner. This can include: max level accounts, higher elo accounts, and even accounts with many and/or all cosmetic items. Punishable by permanent ban since this violates the ToS.

5: Toxic: Subjective, but mostly relates to point 3 in terms of negative behavior. Not all toxic players are good at the game, and vice versa, but all toxic players do get punished. Toxicity can occur in multiple ways that are verbal and non-verbal.

As for your points on describing toxicity; calling a player "toxic" can perceive you as being toxic. It all depends on how you word it. If you say "Please stop being toxic" then that isn't an issue. But if you call someone "Omg why are you so fkn toxic" then it could be perceived as negative. But this usually is never the case, so not much need for worry.

Rallying for reports or announcing to a player you're reporting them is toxic, and can be considered harassment. It is recommend to never rally for reports or announce you are reporting a player. It only takes 1 report to trigger a review of the player, so there is simply no need to ever type that into chat.

Intentionally feeding is indeed considered toxic, but it's best left to Riot to determine those cases. Players cannot determine if someone was intent feeding since we cannot compare all their games and logs to see if it was true.

Taking someone's role (in draft) is reportable under "Unsportsmanlike conduct". But I don't know if I would inherently consider this toxic. It's much different in blind pick considering there are no pre-determined roles, and players don't have to give you the role you called if they pick before you. It can be toxic, but that is usually up to how the individual acts.

Your example of "purposefully throwing off a team comp with a bad pick" isn't toxic however. This is purely subjective, and not applicable for every situation. Perhaps that player is only good at that champion? Or perhaps they wanted to play something off-meta. It's not toxic, nor can you report a player for this. It can be annoying, but annoying =/= toxic.

Bonus 6: Trolls: A player who uses verbal or non-verbal means to create negative environments, or to get a specific negative reaction out of other players. This includes, but not limited to; intentional feeding, verbal abuse, harassment (v & nv), and taunting. This is much harder to define since there are many different means of trolling, and they vary from game to game. However the basic description of what a troll is, is unchanging. It's just harder to determine what is considered trolling in League, since it changes every season as the game continues to evolve. Same with the playerbase.

scazzman10/5/2016, 4:22:51 PM2 votes

i would also like to add

Flamebaiter: a player who deliberatly attempts to rile up another player through passive aggressive chat or gameplay. usually on thier own team, in order to provoke a response, such as flaming back, or asking for reports for the purpose of getting said player banned or chat restricted

Troll Armada10/6/2016, 3:30:15 AM2 votes

nice effort, but I feel like cheating is cheating.

and this perpetuates the myth of lone 'Booster With A Heart of Gold' narrative, whereby they are using nothing but their skillZzzZ to lift players above their elo.

while their are various lone wolves (usually the ones getting caught) that is not the correct picture of the how the other, vast majority, of these people operate.

that's important because the way they operate is through a combination of these things, which takes too long to explain.