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Let's talk about "toxicity"

Sintaur·6/29/2016, 12:35:57 AM·6 votes·1,071 views

Hi,

I'm a competitive person who takes everything he does seriously. I'm also considered to be a pretty intelligent person, and I'm currently finishing a Ph.D. at one of the most prestigious programs in my field. I'm not stating that to give myself any sort of credentials. However, use of foul language has been showing to correlate with a larger vocabulary and general intelligence:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S038800011400151X

http://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-curse-a-lot-have-better-vocabularies-than-those-who-don-t-study-finds

I'd like to start a discussion about what is true toxicity in League of Legends. I've been banned a few times for toxicity, and that toxicity specifically refers to flaming teammates when we are losing and they continually make poor decisions that exacerbate our situation (usually by doing the same thing over and over). Yes, I cuss, and yes, I get genuinely angry. Yes, I've called other players trash (fairly or not). I've just started to think about the nature of these situations and, while foul-mouthed, whether I'm actually toxic.

I pretty much only play ranked, and I play ranked because I want to do my best and play in a competitive environment. I play normals occasionally in order to just goof off or to practice a new champ. For me, the real world equivalent would be playing in a competitive soccer league, whether professionally or not (ranked) vs. playing pick-up soccer with randoms/friends (normals). I've played competitive sports throughout my life, and when the heat is on, I can't really think of any time there hasn't been flaming of some sort. It happens. It's in the heat of the moment. It's born out of frustration, and it's a method of venting, so that the game can go on. Obviously, some people respond more or less poorly than others.

Does this make flaming okay? I don't know. Probably not. But, the ethos of playing ranked is that you are playing to compete with other people of like mind. I believe that there should be an expectation and acceptance of a certain level of expressive language. I will say, however, that with a physical-world sports team, you play with the same people, and there's a level of trust and understanding that what is said isn't deeply meant. And this brings me to a sort of realization of this issue of "toxicity."

In real-world scenarios, you have a pretty good understanding of your skill level, the skill levels of your teammates, and maybe even the skill levels of your opponents. This allows you to set your expectations for how well or poorly you expect to do. Often, the highest levels of flaming occur when those expectations are not met. In League of Legends, this expectation is supposedly set by your playing with other people near your MMR. However, there is a HUGE variance in true skill/ability among players of the same MMR, which leads to unmet expectations, which leads to "toxicity" a la flaming. I would posit that the toxic environment is actually created by the failure of the ladder system to match players/teams of near equal true skill. Yes, I am putting this back on Riot. I don't think someone being genuinely and rightfully (imo) angry and expressing that is toxic. I think an environment where people are so mismatched but believe they're equally as skilled breeds toxicity and could be considered toxicity itself.

Of course, there are people who are just plain jerks, who are not good, and who just want to provoke, anger, and cause pain. That's toxic and should be addressed. However, I'm not that person. I will gladly post my chat logs and let the readers decide, too. And obviously, there are all kinds of other toxic behaviors, such as trolling, feeding, afking, etc. I have never done a single one of those things. Despite my "salty" attitude sometimes, I've always tried, even if I've said "I'm done" (which I usually say as a last-ditch chance to motivate my team to change they way they're playing, and which often actually seems to have a positive effect, oddly enough).

I want to hear others' thoughts, though. I do hold Riot responsible to a high degree for creating environments that breed/foster toxic behavior. I believe the automated restriction/ban system (which I'm pretty sure accounts for at least 90% of their bans, and probably at least 90% of those bans are due to flaming/foul language, but I'd love to see data) is a band-aid and a way to say "Look at how good we're doing to stop toxicity!" and ultimately doesn't address or help correct the underlying issues.

TL;DR Ha, yeah right. Go read this. You can't make a reasoned response based off of a one-sentence summary.

30 Comments

UnwardiI6/29/2016, 1:51:38 AM5 votes

Well, Dynamic Queue is what will do it for me, but I'll give them till the end of the year to get it sorted or I'm walking. In the mean time though, there's plenty of catharsis to be had.

UnwardiI6/29/2016, 1:08:21 AM5 votes

This is my situation exactly, though you put it more eloquently and reasonably than I generally do.

I would like wise love to see ANY data about what their system actually does. How, for instance, can their system tell the difference between an intentional feeder running down mid and a shut down tank who gets killed in successive mid game aram engagements without being able to get off any spells because they are doing their job, standing in the front and eating skill shots? Their post game data will look IDENTICAL, the difference is intent. All it takes is someone to report them for feeding and they will be punished when they did nothing wrong. Accusation=Guilt. Good 3rd century morals there Rito.

Likewise, someone spamming the chat, yelling at their team mates about things WHILE DEAD is vastly different to them doing so while standing afk in the middle of a team fight. GET BARON! GET FUCKING BARON! BARON NOW YOU FUCKING PRICKS! Is not, in my opinion, a toxic thing to say. First off, if you only say it the once, it is entirely probably that half your team simply wont see the message pop up, and if you don't use firm language, they are far less likely to actually listen to you, however, if you then go on to lose the game, you end up making yourself a scape goat. They all report you for being "toxic" and this somehow absolves them of any personal failure.

Unlike you though, I'm far beyond being civil or reasonable about any of this. It's bullshit, plain and simple, and I now make it my mission to get as many people wrongly banned as possible.

Dankstin6/29/2016, 10:51:12 PM3 votes

The catharsis of flaming sometimes has black hole-level gravity, and you just have to say something mean. I think it's just human nature to want to say something. You can mean it or not, but typing the thought out is just so liberating. Does the player know they're having bad game? Of course they do. They're the one messing up so badly it warrants mention from a teammate. Do we need remind them of this failure? No, we really don't, but being "offended" by some words doesn't effect your mmr the same way a player who is offended is ruining your game with their paltry skills. In a ranked setting, it isn't fair for people to play badly by making extremely stupid decisions. They, as per ethos of ranked, were supposed to enter queue with in mind their absolute best performance. Experimental itemization, ignoring your team losing team fights being forced upon them due to you being the most damaging player on the team while you're split pushing... like don't be acting like you're the victim when you're the one physically nailing yourself to the cross.

Proxiimus6/29/2016, 5:25:05 AM3 votes

LOL.. 'BARON NOW YOU FUCKING PRICKS! Is not, in my opinion, a toxic thing to say'.. Me, as a fellow league player, would not mind seeing you gone. If you can't see the toxicity in that.. you obviously have issues that Riot is justified in booting you off their game for good.

Amasa Delano6/29/2016, 5:55:02 PM2 votes

Yours is a very interesting thought.

You mention that flaming happens typically when expectations are not met. I never flame at my teammates, and I would say, based on your paradigm here, that that's probably because I go into every game with no expectations. I hope to win, and I do the absolute best I can do, but I hold no expectations about what anyone else is going to do. I've done the same thing on physical sports teams in the past as well, with the exception that perhaps I had some slight expectations about what my teammates could do, based mostly on their past performances and how on the ball they were during warm ups.

What would be the negative implications (if any) of lowering expectations going into games? Play your best, yes, help your team, yes, all the other things that make games be won, but just don't have expectations about how your teammates or opponents will play. If your teammates are as good as you, great! If not, expectations are not unmet, so flaming doesn't need to happen (although teaching opportunities are still there).

Are there any downsides to playing this way that I am not thinking of? I would genuinely love to know. Thank you!

Proxiimus6/29/2016, 5:26:08 AM2 votes

Not to mention.. If you want your team to do baron.. all you do is have to type 'BARON' and spam ping assistance on Baron.. usually works 90% of the time.

GULAG 4 U6/29/2016, 9:45:35 PM1 votes

Well first of all the only constant factor in this game is you so the best way to play this game is to expect that your teammates will be a bunch of useless bots.

_(--)__/

Rumpletumskin6/29/2016, 10:34:03 PM1 votes

I need to ask, have you ever played any other pvp based online game? Riot certainly does not foster toxicity, even before the automated system was put in place. Most of the intel the automated system uses was gathered from real players via the old tribunal, hence why simple things like "gg ez" became ban worthy, the community felt it toxic.

I'd like to know how this is simply a band-aid, while other companies don't do half as much for "bad players" other than ban hackers (which in my opinion, riot could be doing better with - see 3v3 bots).

I also loved how you flat out contradicted yourself, you have been banned for toxicity. You sit there and accuse others of trying to provoke bad gameplay patterns, meanwhile admit to doing it yourself... You are, in fact, a "plain jerk" as you call them.

I'm also sick of people make crappy real life analogies, this is a virtual playground. You may as well cite freedom of speech, even though it has no basis here. When you are playing ranked, guess what? You are NOT playing professional soccer, you're playing a video game. You are basically saying "I should only get a 5 minute penalty for assaulting another player, because he instigated it". No.

You are playing Riots game, you abide by their rules. Simple, no?