Boards›Player Behavior

Toxic or Truth?

Deathrow 1999··2 votes·1,021 views

Is it Toxic or Truth to use chat to tell someone they are bad when stats don't lie and being 1 18 is bad? I'm disappointed that this generation is so thin skinned that if they are called bad they want retribution and need to report and hope they get someone banned. They have the option to mute or better yet grow a pair and just play the game. Riot is more concerned about getting rid of the so called toxic players and not balance the game or get rid of the intentional feeders or trolls. I have had accounts banned for calling people trash, terrible or bad. I don't use profanity or vulgarity yet I get banned for telling someone my opinion. I guess free speech is not in Riots vocabulary. I know all the bleeding hearts will post comments that I deserved my bans for calling someone bad when their comments have the same intention as I did which makes them just as "toxic". I'm sure I will not be the only one that will not give Riot another red cent and will do what I can to let others know of this "joke" of a policy and maybe save some people some money. Riot truly needs to look into the people in charge of this penalty system as I'm sure their intention is to get rid of the excessively toxic players and not the players like myself that only used the words bad, trash, or terrible. Good luck Riot.

21 Comments

Vicarious1175 votes

There's a line between pointing out someone's mistakes in order to help them improve and just calling them shit players for the sole reason of making them feel like the shit you think they are.

The former is ok, and yeah sometimes certain people will still overreact and take your constructive criticism as a personal affront to their whole being. But the latter is just you being a %%%%, and you deserve to be banned for thinking such childish, and yes TOXIC, behavior is alright.

Learning this difference is important for growing the fuck up. Now I haven't seen the OPs actual statements so idk if he was trying to be constructive or just being a fucktwat cause he thought he could..... but OP, I know you know where you fall on that line.

Zielmann4 votes

Is it Toxic to use chat to tell someone they are bad

Yes.

GoleBilon1 votes

Damn i played many sports on semi professional level and never thought that saying " oh fuck you fucked up " or " how shit you can be " is toxic, im also toxic to myself on daily basis because when i missplay i say " im a boosted chimpanzee "

But for real yea , it is negative but he has a point , people can get tilted and one outburst of emotions shouldnt be considered toxic. On the other hand you've got a point constant harrasment and calling smn bad is negative and does not improve smns gameplay at all.

Just wanted to diffrenciate those 2 because with no specific rules about what is toxic and what is not I was called "toxic retard " after saying let me quote " Wow that was bad " after our team got aced on baron and we all missplayed ( met 3 good summoners tho who told our mid that it wasnt directed at him )

Zielmann2 votes

Maybe I'm jumping to unfair assumptions here, but in pretty much every case where somebody comes to the board trying so say they were innocently making an observation that somebody wasn't playing well, once we get chat logs, it turns out that they're actually constantly berating their teammates through the entire game. Often times after just a single mistake. When the OP basically admits to calling people bad in-game, and especially when he sites the score line as a justification, I'm going to assume the worst, unless he posts chat logs that prove otherwise. "Wow that was bad" is commentary on a team decision, and shouldn't be a problem. But the OP is specifically asking about calling other people bad. Vastly different.

As to the comparison with playing other sports competitively, it's not even close. In competitive sports, you have a rapport with your teammates built up already. You practice with them. You go out for team dinners with them. You know them. There's usually at least a level of a professional relationship there, if not actual friendship. You even get to somewhat know opponents on other teams that you play frequently. When that sort of a relationship already exists, you can get away with it more.

But for most players, League is nothing like that. You're in a game with 9 people who you've never seen before, and you'll likely never see again. You don't have any sort of rapport with them, so people will only know you based on what you say and do in that one single game. They have no idea what you're like in other games, or outside of league, so when you just start calling them bad, that's all they know of your behavior.

The bottom line is that in league, calling people bad has zero purpose. If somebody screws up, chances are high they already realize it and feel bad about it. Making it worse does nothing to help at all.

GoleBilon1 votes

Lets start from the last paragraph i can deffo agree and disagree with your point , it has zero purpose ( inside the game it changes nothing for the better maybe for the worst ) but if you think about it from the other side of a human that does it , its venting frustration which calms him down. I never said this behaviour is perfectly reasonable and good , its not it has no purpuse its ot improving the situation , and does not comfort already "Feeding" teammates. All i say on daily basis is that it is not so gamebreaking , so negative and toxic it should be treated in the same way as "death threats " i myself dont care about it at all , yea smbd is trying to annoy you w/e mute and play along it does not matter.

I'll skip the part about sports because you actually said some wise words and changed my mind .

And back to "everybody here is toxic " , Toxicity has many faces, there can be more severe or less severe things you can do i the game. It's also based on context , in one of my personal chatlogs i said "fuck you " with full intention of saying it , it was towards my friend that stole my farm we had some banter in chat and it wasnt toxic. Yet Riot Support employee when i questioned my restriction said its toxic , she wrote smth between the lines of "even tho you said it to your friend who did not report you, other community memebers that were in your game considered it toxic" and i fucking hate that. Punishment system shouldnt be community based , there should be specific rules that we all know , yea simple to say " dont be a douche " i can assure you if i had authority to check smns logs no matter what he said in chat i can find smth toxic.

easiest example is from that boards, some guy from NA called the " toxic player that posted chat logs " mental , his comment was then deleted because it was considered harrasment. Yea i did report him because imo it wasnt good behaviour , then he said to me what he meant and i understood he wasnt toxic.

I think people forget that the only diffrence between a toxic player and great summoner ( lets exclude those douchebags that use hate speech and int ) is that one cant hold his nerves and 2nd can . Thats all , we all get frustrated sometimes, some of us deal with it better some worse. People that harras those "toxic guys " on boarrds are no batter they are most of the times passive agressive and feel they are better than those "toxic summoners" no , you are not , you are just the same. ability to keep nerves in a computer game does not mean you are better, the fact that you were not banned does not make you better...

Zielmann2 votes

You're totally right. There's definitely been a culture that's built up here around throwing negativity at players asking about their bans, and it shouldn't be that way. The intent of this section is for players to ask for advice or figure out what got them punished in the first place. Fortunately, some of us here do try our best to provide constructive feedback. Admittedly, it can be difficult at times, especially when the player asks for help but doesn't actually accept any help they're given.

As far as in-game, though, if you're bantering with a friend, you still need to remember that your whole team sees what you're saying. They don't know that you know the person you're talking to. And unfortunately, that sort of banter can bring down morale of the whole team, even if it was meant in jest. We've all been in enough games where players start flaming each other and it turns what could have been a win into a loss full of infighting. Even if it never reaches that point, just seeing the start of negativity in chat can make a player think "oh no, not this again..."

I also feel like with the existence of Discord, there's pretty much no excuse to not be in voice chat with anybody you queue with, but that's another topic.

Regarding there being set rules, I really feel like 'use good sportsmanship and don't be a dick' are pretty complete rules, and simple to follow. Also, keep in mind that their system doesn't work as a sort of witch hunt, looking for any single instance of negativity and immediately punishing for it. It looks for established patterns over time. Some misunderstood light banter with a friend in one game isn't going to get you punished. More relevant to the OP, even one game where you call somebody else bad isn't going to get you punished. Only when you start to frequently cause problems will you find yourself getting a push from the automated system.

GoleBilon1 votes

I mean i know i made a mistake where i had banter with my friend in chat , although i know for sure that i was reported because of my performance in game and nobody got offended by it. Its just the " ill report him for negative verbal and inting " cause he was annoying and made me loose thing

In terms of set rules i would like to see them i had shitty conversations with riot support where they back every restrction by some bullshit which wasnt right even according to summoners code. I learned my lesson im reforming right now and i had no restriction in like 2 months but i understand guys that come here with chat logs that are just full of TILT not actuall negative behaviour and they got permabanned.

Biggest problem is that most bans for toxicity are for responding to harassment , for actually being triggered. Its not a good excuse but it shows the pattern , negative behaviour creates more negativity. Sticking up for yourself is a bad idea because you can get banned for it.

Basically my opinion stays unchanged even tho since i started posting here i changed my view on many aspects : Mild negative behaviour is not equall to real toxicity. Yea its not necessary but it should not be punished so severe. And its not because i consider it "normal " its because i know it can happen , after playing 10 games where you lost 9 you can get tilted by an inter who ruins your game. And even tho its not an excuse there should be some understanding.

Zielmann1 votes

The vast majority of players never even get caught up with even a single set of chat restrictions, which means the vast majority of players are actually dealing with things reasonably well. Admittedly, everybody also tilts now and then. The difference is how it's handled. Most people are either able to still withhold themselves through tilt, or else they recognize it and stop playing for a while to cool back off. If you're tilted and choose to continue playing, that's on you. If playing while tilted leads you to being negative, then you deserve every bit of what you get when you just jump into another game already on tilt.

I could echo similar things about responding to harassment, too. The vast majority of players are capable of either ignoring it, or they're smart enough to mute the problem player before it causes issues for them.

But I do have to push that 'sticking up for yourself' isn't inherently bad in League. You make it sound like people are banned for self-defense. But those cases go far beyond self-defense, and straight into counter-aggression territory. Real self-defense in chat would be asking the person to stop harassing you, simply explaining whatever action or decision you made that they disagreed with, or even just trying to redirect focus back onto the game (let's group and do x).

When you see people claiming innocence due to 'self-defense', they're never doing those things. They usually immediately jump to returning harassment right back on the player who provoked them, calling for reports against that person, etc.

I've been around this game since closed beta. I've seen many occasions where being positive or just redirecting attention to the game at hand manages to calm down the hot-headed player on the team and turns the situation around for a win. Sure, it's not a high success rate because some people just get so bent on being negative that they can't be helped. But not once have I seen a game where returning harassment on a problem player fixes anything. It just doesn't happen.

So if option 1 gives you a small chance at turning things around and winning the game, and option 2 is guaranteed to not turn things around, which is the right choice?

TrulyBland3 votes

Is it Toxic or Truth

That question makes about as much sense as "Is it a bird or is it blue?"

Imagine you see a random overweight person on the street. Do you A) Say nothing. B) Say "You're overweight." C) Yell "YOU'RE A FATTY!!!" and laugh while you point your finger at them.

According to you, both B and C should be socially acceptable, as it's the truth.

Karak Hirn1 votes

Its a stupid example, but okey. If a fat person come to me and sit on me i would tell him he is a fat stupid fuking shit. Thats a good example.

Catwalk Lady1 votes

Who tf talks to random people on the street??? Like, no thanks. They could be a serial killer, ever seen Criminal Minds.

KVbqbFsC8e2 votes

You could have someone being 0/30 intentionally, and this community would still consider you to be "toxic" if you called them "bad".

Kei1432 votes

why not both?

especially when you use certain ways to say it.

Borkahn1 votes

One game isn't really enough statistics to go on if a player is indeed bad or not. Same for a good player. You want to look at the course of games previous in addition to the current game. Observe whether their lane was countered or not. Multiple reasons. I'm a great Shen player. But you stick me up against a teemo as Shen and the teemo is great at zoning and I receive no help? I'm going to fail that lane. Does that mean I'm a bad Shen? No it means that I got countered by a teemo who knew how to do his job. Now I can try to offeset that with ganks to other lanes and jungle creep or two. But I'm still going to be behind and chances are lose the turret. Sure the guy had a 1-18 game. You probably helped put him on tilt so that he kept dieing. Doesn't mean he is terrible if you look at other statistics.

GoleBilon2 votes

We are not talking about their actuall skill tho , yea you can be 0/5 in a game on fiora while meanwhile having 80% winrate with her does it mean you are bad with her ?

no it doesnt, but it also does not mean you did not play bad this one game. Calling someone bad irl results in nothing , yea poeple disagree call each other bad etc nobody pays attention the only reason people in this game pay attention to things like that is because some summoners are more focused on reporting sysytem than their game play. We play a game where saying " plz stop fucking feeding man dont fight her you already died 5 times 1v1 " is considered toxic behaviour ...

On the other hand is calling smn bad necessary in the game ? no its not but most of times its outburst of emotions from people who care about winning. There is a diffrence between "man you're fucking bad " said once and constant harrasment in chat for 40 minutes.

Borkahn1 votes

trying to process whether you agree with my comments or not. I'm not sure about your point

Deathrow 19991 votes

Here are the logs to the last 2 games I played that got me perma banned. If you can honestly say that what I said in these 2 games warrants a permanent ban from a video game then I fear for all humanity. In both ranked games I had afkers and feeders and the few words that some may call toxic cannot reasonably be offensive enough for a perma ban.

Game 1

Sammy Veigar: report poppy Sammy Veigar: i cant win every lane Sammy Veigar: you guys too heavy Sammy Veigar: report lux afk Sammy Veigar: cant win with lux and poppy afk every 2 min Sammy Veigar: i quit... team too heavy... enjoy freelo Sammy Veigar: qqq Sammy Veigar: team useless... im done Sammy Veigar: u guys lost to a 3 11 MF Sammy Veigar: grats Sammy Veigar: sad to watch the terrible Sammy Veigar: thanks team Sammy Veigar: Nautilus only good player

Game 2

Sammy Veigar: nice ganks hec Sammy Veigar: great jungling hec Sammy Veigar: being a jungler doesnt mean u dont leave jungle Sammy Veigar: easy report hec Sammy Veigar: report hec inting Sammy Veigar: we cant win with this hec... ff Sammy Veigar: gg hec and GP... thanks Sammy Veigar: i quit... gp and hec dont help Sammy Veigar: they are 1 11 Sammy Veigar: absolutely pathetic Sammy Veigar: gp still not helping Sammy Veigar: go afk gp and hec Sammy Veigar: possibly the best hec i have ever seen

Karak Hirn1 votes

Since you cant be baned coz of trolling, but you can be baned coz "being toxic" this game has the most unfair and stupid justice system.

ModPrandine

[{quoted}](name=Karak Hirn,realm=EUNE,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=tvTpAT4t,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2017-02-21T05:40:28.451+0000)

Since you cant be baned coz of trolling, but you can be baned coz "being toxic" this game has the most unfair and stupid justice system.

Obviously the system isn't perfect (there's always room for improvement with it) and players can sometimes slip through the cracks from time to time but gameplay trolls do get punished as well. In case you don't believe me Here are two examples of gameplay trolls being banned. Yes it's just two examples, but it proves that they do get punished.

P.S. And before you say "oh that's not good enough" or "oh that proves nothing", just note that you claimed that gameplay trolls don't get banned and yet I provided two examples that prove otherwise.

ibeatanerexia1 votes

I agree, there is nothing wrong with telling someone that is just genuinely bad that they are bad. If I see someone that is progressively making the game worse, I always look up there match history before I say anything. But in this community you are expected to not get upset when players throw every game. Maybe set up a report for bad players so after a few they get suspended to play bots only.

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