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I may be taking a break from the game again. And it's not because of balance or lack of content.

FearEngineer·1/7/2016, 9:18:57 PM·12 votes·1,173 views

I may be taking a break from the game again. And it's not because of balance or lack of content.

It's because I can't stand the bizarre philosophy behind the report system.

I just played a game that's the final straw for now, and it's a great example of what I'm talking about...

  • Low gold ranked match
  • Third match in a row with an afk before ten minutes
  • Afk player returns after several minutes
  • A lot happened in his absence, team is losing horribly now since their jungler got a quadra etc
  • Moans and groans from team because the person is completely unapologetic
  • Game ends pretty swiftly with the fed Yi carrying, and we had no dragons
  • Tell the player they really ruined the game experience for everyone, people venting at postgame
  • Person goes with standard just a game excuse, laptop died, really don't care
  • Have to listen to enemy Yi tell me how the real problem is that we were badmouthing him, and how I'm being reported etc
  • Blah Blah Blah, I went ahead and spewed some random insults because I'm already the bad guy and I'm mad (Riot told me I'm a horrible person already)

But that's how it is, you can do this game after game and the kicker is not only does the person who actually ruins the game (and I'm not even speaking directly to winning, not having an afk is not a sure win either), the game-ruiner (being the person who unapologetically puts their team at a significant disadvantage) is seen as someone whose feelings need to be protected. They are the victim! And we have a system in place that most actively punishes people for calling them out and/or venting.

Problem? What problem? The real problem is that you said there was a problem!

It's almost as if League of Legends stopped being a competitive game and at some point transitioned into a safe space experiment.

Ruin the game? Shame on you. Hurt someone's feelings? You're done here.

34 Comments

PIMPSMOOTH1/7/2016, 9:34:19 PM4 votes

Riot's philosophy is complicated so let me simplify it for you:

**Don't be a dick. **

Random Player AFK'd? Doesn't excuse you to be a dick. Random Player is Intentionally Trolling/Griefing? Doesn't excuse you to be a dick. Random Player says mean/vile things? Doesn't excuse you to be a dick. Random Player is spamming taunts/emotes? Doesn't excuse you to be a dick.

EvilDustMan1/7/2016, 9:23:50 PM2 votes

{quoted}

safe space

Whoop, he said the magic phrase. Here is any of my sympathy right out the window.

Bye.

disregardable1/7/2016, 9:21:56 PM2 votes

The victims are everyone else trapped in the game with someone that can't stop whining about what the "instigator" did.

DexterousGecko1/8/2016, 12:14:29 AM2 votes

One question. What purpose is there in insulting people at the end of the game?

ModUlanopo1/8/2016, 5:28:21 PM2 votes

{quoted}

But that's how it is, you can do this game after game and the kicker is not only does the person who actually ruins the game (and I'm not even speaking directly to winning, not having an afk is not a sure win either), the game-ruiner (being the person who unapologetically puts their team at a significant disadvantage) is seen as someone whose feelings need to be protected. They are the victim! And we have a system in place that most actively punishes people for calling them out and/or venting.

Ruin the game? Shame on you. Hurt someone's feelings? You're done here.

I hear you, but I also think you're misunderstanding the policy.

I think the hardest thing for people to internalize is the reality that most of the people who screw up games don't do so as often as we think. Don't get me wrong, when someone bitch-AFK's, I get ANGRY. I want them to be punished because the feeling of being a person down is absolutely awful, especially for a game I play for fun. The truth is, however, that AFKs are the exception, not the rule.

Take me, for example. I was playing an ARAM recently when Windows forced a graphics driver update which it totally should not have been able to do given my settings. I had to restart and the match was lost by the time I got back in. I cancelled the update, thought that everything was okay and joined another match. Same thing. It took me almost three hours to fix. Now, I ruined two matches in short succession, but I didn't get so much as a warning. Why? Because I'm not that guy 99.9% of the time and the system knows that.

The other part of your comment is one of those things that is also regrettable, but true: just because someone is doing something that is less disruptive doesn't make it okay. If leaving or intentionally feeding is 8 Suckage Units (SU) and toxic chat is 3 SU, Riot wants both to stop - because they both suck. They get handled by different systems which may be more or less transparent, but they're both problems.

MymMbzKIgC1/8/2016, 5:33:42 PM2 votes

probably the most classic situation in lol. it seems to me the majority of players in lol are all dumb as fuck. they don't even care about winning. all they care about is if someone was mean to them and now they have to get that person back. that's what the report system is there for. i have never seen anyone get reported for griefing or trolling. the only thing you can do in lol is to stay quiet and let anyone that wants to shit on your head or you'll get banned. it's funny that riot throws out the stat that less than 1% of the players get punished or something but at least 1/3 of my games i've had someone talk shit to me. the whole thing is a fucking farce. i know lyte is lying out his ass about most of the player behavior shit he talks about.

Aerothal1/8/2016, 5:38:06 PM2 votes

rip

D3CIPLE1/7/2016, 11:49:07 PM2 votes

Ban first never ask questions #PHD. I have a feeling that this groundbreaking game ruining system wont be around forever. However the damage and frustrations will drive people away from league and to better games. This game is worse than kindergarten with its hippy be happy ideology. Guess what people in your game ruin the game for teammates regularly. All riot cares about is whats said and nothing about what is done. They are also removing any emotional response to the game.

Sythriel Draken1/8/2016, 12:10:13 AM2 votes

What is confusing the living hell out of me is that riot can use words like Shit, etc in stories, but the moment you say those words in a game and someone reports you, especially if it's in the concept of "Fuck me, my bad" after making a mistake you get the " you've been reported for offensive language blah blah".

Riot has a problem with their reporting system. This has been pointed out on the boards, AND on their facebook page by someone showing that they got an "offensive language" pop up when they didn't say anything throughout the game (chat included) and yet, they would rather push the new team builder (I'm actually excited for don't get me wrong) than actually sit down and work out why their reporting system is bringing these false reports up, warning people for the wrong things, not going after the intentional feeders and intentional afkers like they said they would.

IDK maybe its just because riot does not care about those of us that play in the bronze-low gold bracket and instead just rely on diamond and plat players where the toxicity is lower as their metric for their failure of a system.

Jubbinaut1/7/2016, 10:24:56 PM1 votes

While I completely sympathize with your experience, I can't say that I agree with most of your concerns.

There is a system in place to address afks that is entirely automated (that is, reports aren't a necessary factor). In fact, it was recently tuned to take effect significantly faster, and can actually issue punishments for as little as one afk.

Other forms of non-verbal toxicity are rather trickier to deal with. They are addressed, just not as quickly as everyone (Riot included) would prefer.

So it's not that verbal toxicity is the only thing Riot cares about. It is, however, easier to detect and address than most other forms of toxicity. As such, it has so far received primary attention. There's no underlying philosophy stating that words are worse than actions - only a recognition that addressing words is easier than addressing behaviors.

GamblerOfLives1/8/2016, 5:38:47 PM1 votes

Totally agree

My last game, i think had 2 afk and 1 feeder(not intentional) high plat-diamond elo. The 2 afk returned after a few minutes.Mid got camped by myself and was ahead, top was losing hard and blaming the team.I didn;t say anything.Reason-i don;t want to get punished. We managed to stay in the game, me and mid was carrying hard the game.Bot had a Thresh who was level 7(when everybody was atleast level 13-14) and had 10 deaths. It happend, i did "flame" if you call it that, my thresh, but in a polite way:). I told him to stop dying for no fcking reason, when me and mid was trying to win.It worked, he only died 2 times after i told him that:) We actually won the game;)

qetzel1/8/2016, 8:20:50 PM1 votes

In my opinion, somebody badmouthing the AFK makes the environment even worse. I don't want to have to listen to that shit (I don't - I mute once I realise it is more than just a few comments). It makes it a lot harder for me to get any fun out of the match.

The fun for me doesn't end when I have realised that I have lost. Sure, it sucks, but I still enjoy playing. You getting pissed at somebody makes the time I spend not enjoyable. That is why I report you and hope that you get punished (just enough to let you know that your behaviour is not good, unless of course you really deserve it).

I dn't give a fuck about the feelings of the unapologetic AFKer beyond normal human decency. When you get upset, I and the other two people on the team are victims of the negative environment you have worsened. I care about my enjoyment and the enjoyment of the other two people on the team.

I don't see why both people can't be punished. Both people helped to ruin my game. Shame on both of you.

Now, it is much easier to punish toxicity in chat. Excessive AFKing is much less common than excessive chat toxicity. Some people are sympathetic to AFKers because they also have occasional computer issues. Behavious is subjective. AFKing isn't. It is harder to pretend or believe that you have done nothing wrong if you have been AFK. For these reasons, and others, it can look as though Riot only cares about chat. They don't.

I hope that you come back to League with a fresh perspective.

PersianShinobi1/9/2016, 7:52:37 AM1 votes

Ruin the game? Shame on you. Hurt someone's feelings? You're done here.

Too true. Ah well, blacks and Jews get dicked in real life, toxic kids get dicked in League. What can ya do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯