How to Solve Toxicity.

Tl;DR: skip to bolded text saying "THE SOLUTION" if you don't want to read an essay filled with (constructive!) criticism of Riot's system.

For a long time, I've had a love/hate relationship with this game.

I've had my share of toxic moments, and have partook in some myself, unfortunately.

However, these moments or even moments when my team does very poorly or throws the game aren't my concern; as long as I do well and work on my mistakes, it doesn't matter. Right? If I work on my mistakes enough I'll get better eventually, right?

Right?

Wrong.

You see, unfortunately, the system that is currently in place encourages winning the games over actual self-improvement. Does it take a decent amount of skill to win? Of course. But sometimes you just get out-comp'd, or countered hard, or there will be times where you have a strong start but your opponents outscale you and you can't finish the game in time to prevent their inevitable roflstomp of your entire team.

Now, an example. Let's say I pick Bard and go support botlane. We completely spank them, we win lane, we break the tower before 10 min, etc. etc. Mid lane isn't doing so well, so we roam there and get them farmed up and fed by bullying back the opposing mage. Everything is going smoothly, and nobody on the enemy team has gotten any kills and most of them have less farm than most of us.

The enemy ADC is a vayne, the Jungle is Jax, and the mage in mid lane is Ahri. The enemy plays it safe afterwards, farming up and waiting for when we mess up. Eventually a few of us get caught out, and before we can respawn to protect some turrets, they break 3 of them (keep in mind death timers are long because it is late game).

Eventually, the worst thing possible happens; they manage to come back from a crippling early and mid game because of one mistake (not to mention their frighteningly good scaling) and we get completely obliterated.

The end screen pops up, and that all-too-familiar feeling of irritation and disgust bubbles under the surface as I look at each player's score and damage output. Then I get to my score, and the salt mines begin to open.

12-3-24.

S-.

I had practically carried my team and have an amazing score, as a bard support, no less! I was friendly all game, tried to be a team player, and gave it my all...and I get this game's equivalent to a welfare check in the form of IP...too small to do anything with, and full of bitter disappointment about where my life had gone.

No extra IP, no extra rewards, nothing to show for my efforts except an S and a - symbol on a score screen I was about to exit anyway.

Now, this may have been a bit melodramatic, but the point is clear...effort means literally nothing in this game. You could be bjergson going mid as yasuo, and your score means nothing. It's an empty title, with no backing behind it, and nothing to show for your efforts. It's like placing number 2 in a world art contest, and getting a bag of toenail clippings as a reward, or talking about how excited you are to be number 2 in the entire world to your friend, and having that friend say "yeah, but you're not number 1."

And Riot wonders how to fix toxicity.

Listen up...I have an idea. Hear me out...it may sound radical, but it might just work and reduce toxicity by a LOT.

First off, I have to compliment Riot and give credit where credit is due. It wouldn't be fair if I ripped into their system without a plus side, would it?

Their rating system for how well you do in game is top-notch. It helps people really want to improve and do well in the game, and I've had significantly less players feed due to this. I have also improved my gameplay due to this system, so great job there.

Now, for the bad stuff.

You took a great first step, but about fifty steps backwards due to your system. Why is your system terrible? Here is why:

1. You get nothing for doing well in game, only for winning. If you win, great! You get first win of the day bonus, you get increased mmr so you won't be matched with less-than-optimal teammates, and lots of IP. Oh, yeah, and you also got a c+ as garen top lane. Good job on that too, I guess. But if you lose, shame on you...you played vayne adc and have the most kills, most damage, least deaths, and most assists out of every single other person on your team, got commended even by the opponents, and got an s+, but you DIDN'T WIN. For shame. What a bronzie. Oh well, I guess you deserve SOMETHING...here, lemme see what spare IP I have in my pocket. Here we go...a whole 70 IP! Just like all the other people who lost! Don't spend it all in one place, now, you hear?

This is absolutely nonsensical to the highest degree. People who do incredibly and still lose get less than someone who does average and wins. This makes zero sense.

"But it makes you want to win more!"

Yes, and it devastates you if you lose, making you feel like you mean nothing to your team and that your efforts were entirely wasted. Top-notch.

2. You still lose points in ranked even if you carry or do spectacularly well considering the circumstances. Won the game, great! Here's a smidgen of LP to let you climb up half a rung in the ranked ladder. You're making progress! You lost? Well, your S+ vayne simply wasn't enough to carry your team. You belong in a lower ELO because of that. Oh well, but I guess you tried really hard. Here's a slightly reduced LP loss for your efforts. Nice try, I guess.

This ALSO makes no sense. I get trying to make people want to win more and thus try harder in game, but once again, losing is still too harsh, especially if you know you tried your best and did a rather phenomenal job, too.

3. The above two reasons contributes FAR more to toxicity than "I didn't get my role" or "stupid bronzies". Yes, poor cooperation from your teammates DOES contribute a lot to being angry, but most of the time, THAT reason for being angry goes away after about 10 minutes or so. So how do people stay angry even after taking a long, much-needed break? Simple. After getting over that anger, once you see that the game is tilting in the opponent's favor even when you're doing well, you begin to feel that uselessness, that helplessness that so often is associated with being "salty" or "butthurt". This feeling is basically your brain saying "oh crap, we're losing, and I'm trying my best and it's not doing anything, I feel so useless right now, my contribution to the team means nothing, and I'm worthless". What ends up happening, is the player begins to try and reassure themselves it's not their fault, it's the circumstances, but goes the complete extreme with it. They start lashing out at teammates for screwing up positioning, telling them off for "throwing", and even berating enemy players for choosing "OP" and "brainless" champions.

This feeling of hopelessness continues to haunt the player and makes them nervous every single time they load up the game no matter what mode they play. They start thinking that the entire responsibility of losing those games was all their fault, and they begin to get apathetic. They feel like no matter what they do it won't matter, because trying is pointless, and you don't get any points for effort, only for winning.

Sounds pretty awful, doesn't it?

Those of you at Riot games, I ask you to keep reading despite how long this post is...I DO have a solution, and although it might sound radical, I think it would change the landscape for the better despite any backlash you get from your more, well, how to say this nicely... "elite" class of players. It will really eliminate a lot of toxicity from the game, make the game actually fun to play, and reduce ladder anxiety by a lot.

Yes, I'm just an average player...not even Gold, I'm barely hovering in Silver 5, but please hear me out, and please take the following into consideration. Please listen to your players for once, and stop doing things like getting rid of modes and getting rid of queues for just a few more minutes to read the following words.

Thank you in advance.

THE SOLUTION:

Start giving out either more IP for those with higher scores or give them some RP despite them having won or lost the game.

It's crazy, I know, but if you make your IP handouts and RP handouts based on score (something that already is very much based on teamwork and skill), then, rather than make players angry at losing, you'll be encouraging them to strive not for winning, but strive for getting better at the game.

For instance, if a player gets a C- but wins, give that player far less points than someone who gets an S+ and loses.

Perhaps make it a thresh-hold thing...people who earn a B+ or an A- or higher get a bit of RP or a bunch more IP than everyone else.

Keep the base amount of IP low, and make it the same for losers and winners.

In ranked, make it so that those who get a B+ or higher DON'T LOSE ANY LP. Think about it...yeah, it's a crazy thought, but if a player consistently gets a high score in ranked but gets demoted a lot, it's not very fair, is it? If they truly belong in a higher level, they will continue to get that high score, and thus will rise. Perhaps they'll rise very quickly, but it will be earned. This makes more sense than basing LP loss or gain on win/loss ratio.

Those who get lower than a B+ will lose LP at the normal rate, based on the normal statistics. The reason why this makes sense is because if they got a low or average score at that level, they obviously don't belong at that level or weren't playing their best, so they don't deserve to play at that level or any higher.

Extreme? Maybe, but is it any more extreme than removing long-standing game modes because you never took care of it properly or promoted it? Or getting rid of a queue despite player protests because you know what the playerbase wants more than the actual playerbase itself? I'm not trying to be a jerk here, or state what was right or wrong but despite anyone's opinions, those were some pretty extreme decisions on your part.

So, in conclusion, making players strive to DO BETTER is far better than making them want to WIN NO MATTER THE COST. If players do better and have a more positive outlook due to a well-designed reward system, they won't care very much about winning or losing anymore, and will simply want to be a better player in general. This, of course, will net a lot of player more wins, and most likely increase your playerbase as far more enjoyment will be had with this changes in place.

Am I telling you how to do your job? No, of course not. This is a mere suggestion for how to improve your game, from my point of view. You've already proven that this is ultimately YOUR game, not ours, so it is up to you whether you implement these changes or not. I don't know a lot about psychology, nor do I even pretend to know how to run a massive game such as this, but I DO know how the players feel, how I feel, and why seemingly good players with good track records suddenly turn massively toxic at the drop of a hat.

That being said, please, like I mentioned, take my points into consideration, at least. A reply is not necessary, but would be absolutely fantastic! I'd love to explain more about why I think this would work, and even how I came across it.

If you want to talk to me privately and not discuss this on the boards, my in-game-name is "ItsASledgehammer", just like my posting name on this site.

If any other players want to discuss this with me here, I'd love to, but try and keep it somewhat positive, or at least civil when discussing these points. I really don't want a lot of toxic comments here saying things like "this is stupid and so are you" or "lol nice try" or "gtfo u filthy silver casul", just civil discussion, please.

Thank you again for reading this novel of a post, and I hope to see you on the rift!