Still one of the most toxic games :(

Phoen1x09·Apr 14, 2017·2 votes·1,880 views

Hello,

Recently played my first game of LoL in about a year. I've been supporting LoL for about 6 years now by watching streams and spending too much money in the shop and I honestly think I might be done contributing anymore. I wanted so bad for LoL to thrive and help create e-sports but I think its just about peaked due to a toxic community. Its hard for new or "casual" players to even enjoy the game without serious community trimming/fishing or a good group of friends on similar schedules (who's got that as we grow older?!).

Long and skinny. I played as Hec in a Blind Pick. I see all the other roles are called so I take the jungle. I don't know many of the changes so I plan to hit 6 and see what opportunities are available. The enemy Gragas was really good. He had several successful ganks in the early game and was outplaying most of the players on my team.

As often happens for us mediocre players, we become the scapegoat for all the angst of the team. I consider this to be one of the lightest offenses as the worst thing they told me was to "uninstall the game so others don't have to...put up with your noobishness". Compared to the rampant misogyny, racism, and elitism I've faced down on the internet i the past, its a pretty light day. But it being my first game back in awhile, it really turned me off immediately. I doubt I'll be spending any money on Riot Points anytime soon as a result.

I wanted to share my story in hopes to motivate the fine people at Riot to continue to support initiatives that unmask poor behavior online, especially in gaming. I'm afraid I don't have any unique suggestions for you, but know that the little guys are still here, trying to support your game and mission, but we're being squeezed out. I can't imagine there's many of us loner do-gooders left.

4 Comments

somekindofpieApr 14, 20173 votes

This is where I stand. I don't condone toxicity, but in my opinion, if you can't take toxicity, then you shouldn't be playing online games. The problem with League in particular is that it doesn't really have a specific market, by putting such strict rules on toxicity and that kind of behavior, it implies it's targeting a child friendly audience, but in reality teens and adults are its biggest market. A lot of the other games I play do not have any chat filters and the games play out fine. Like the other guy said, just mute. In all honesty, I don't understand when toxicity became a big issue. I remember playing so many online games pre league like Maplestory, COD, etc and people were flaming each other all the time. Nobody cared, they just laughed it out. Like I said, League specifically is and will remain to be one of the worst communities in all games because of its failure to specify an audience. Not only are they now double downing on banning people who are toxic, they also are in some subtle sense supporting toxicity because they take no actions to make sure they don't play again. The reason why there are so many smurfs now is because people are getting banned left and right which is also ruining the game for the actual new players who don't get a genuine experience for example like I did back when the game was fine in season 4. Anyway, I digress. To sum it up, everybody flames in every game, league is one of the only to put extremely harsh bans on it. Not only do they ban people, they are encouraging toxicity and making the community worse in terms of toxicity and making the community 'softer' by taking no actions to prevent this from happening again. Again, I don't condone toxicity or slurs, etc, but a guy saying 'you suck @ss' to me isn't toxic at the same time. Anyway, just my thoughts.

BigNasty3001Apr 14, 20171 votes

I couldn't agree with this more.

To add, their policies have only made it worse. I think it's time to take a serious look at why harsh punishments don't work, and then apply what is learned.

A majority of the flame i see has the word 'report' in it. Question someone's build? Report xxx toxic. Type 'what the fuck?' Report xxx toxic. Say anything at all that isn't a meme? Report xxx toxic. We have created a community of people who think that they are entitled to tell others what to say and how to say it.

I play several online games, and have never seen this type of community. This is the only game I have ever been punished on. So why is it that in other games i am not considered 'toxic,' yet in this one I am considered toxic enough for punishment? Simple, everything is toxic. Constructive criticism is toxic. Giving someone tips is toxic. Getting frustrated, which is a normal human emotion and does not make you a terrible person, is toxic.

This community needs to stop fooling itself. Just look through this board for examples of the whiny entitlement of the playerbase.

La Belle SauvageApr 14, 20171 votes

Mute all every game. You can communicate all you need with pings. Assuming you are past Level 30 why on Earth would you play blind anyway? I agree there is a gigantic level of toxicity, but. I find the draft q to be less so.

If you q up in draft mode and mute all then you mitigate about 90% of toxicity. Then the only opportunity is pre and post game.

Telephone BoothApr 14, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bello Bagheera,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=jKJENVqf,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-04-14T12:28:32.280+0000)

Mute all every game. You can communicate all you need with pings. Assuming you are past Level 30 why on Earth would you play blind anyway? I agree there is a gigantic level of toxicity, but. I find the draft q to be less so.

If you q up in draft mode and mute all then you mitigate about 90% of toxicity. Then the only opportunity is pre and post game.

I actually find blind pick to be less toxic and more casual. There's rarely autolocking in my games and fights over positions. I play Non meta champs and rarely ever get bitched at for it. It's been really nice actually, aside from the one game recently where I was told to kill myself because I picked anivia support. But that's okay, I don't mind stupid kids trying to insult anonymous strangers. I smile when it happens and think "haha risking your account for nothing". In draft mode, people seem to be more on the edge of insanity with how angry they get over this game and I've just been enjoying messing around in blind on my alt account.