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Bringing down the ban's and chat restrictions for toxic behavior. Would that really be so bad?

100greenmen·10/21/2016, 8:31:24 AM·3 votes·1,831 views

Hey, I'm 100greenmen. To give some insight as to where I'm coming from, let me shed some light on myself. I've been playing league for a little over a year now, and throughout the years I've observed a lot of the culture that has circulated around league over the years. I gotta say it's pretty impressive how rich it is. I haven't said much of anything on the forums simply because I didn't have anything to "add" to any discussion. In an attempt to minimize the amount of rash backlash (if any) I won't specifically refer to any incident or user unless asked to back up my points.

One thing I've always been divided on however has been the treatment of people who would make the game more miserable for others. There are varying levels of toxicity and I'm not trying to say grow a pair and deal with it. Nor am I saying that you should be free to let loose every death threat and obscenity you can think of in a fit of rage. I am also aware of people that do deliberately go above and beyond making other people miserable because they're either really dense or they have no sense of self control.

I'm not here to call anyone out about how they feel, I just wish riot would be more lenient with who they permaban or chat restrict based on community feedback. It's happened in the past where a reputation or status can be enough to condemn someone who may not have been worse than other's without a bad reputation, whether they earned it or not. Or to immortalize someone from ever getting a restriction of any kind.

What I hope to get across to anyone who reads this, is that I don't think a system where anyone who works for riot should restrict or ban people for foul language. I can think of very few other games that do this, and I think the reason why is because riot does try to be very close with their playerbase. I'm sure that many think that riot is upholding an illusion of care for the community and that they're stupid. I do believe that some riot employees who frequently interact with the community are the ones who genuinely enjoy it, but I'm getting off track.

So what then. Allow toxic, trash talking, inconsiderate, sadists to say whatever they want whenever? Well. It's tough to say. League has a large player base, and odds are you're going to encounter more than a handful of people who are unable to restrain their rage are pretty high. Or you could just stumble across a few players who would be more than reasonable and pleasant under the right circumstances, but they had an unfavorable match up and got killed by something they didn't see coming.

I've seen people with fan loyal fan bases get banned whether they seemed to deserve it or not. In some cases very unjustly while others are seemingly immune to the ban hammer. I feel bad for the fan bases and that's partially what inspired me to talk about this. Most of what I'm saying is off the top of my head, and with that I welcome a discussion where we can earnestly talk about a compromise that riot could take for those that want to trash talk, and those who prefer calm collected sportsman ship.

One thing that could be done is having toxic players put in queue's with other players who are toxic. I hardly imagine I'm the first one to think of this, the only downside I can think of is what is essentially branding players as the bad guys and further dividing the community. Or maybe not. I dunno. It's all I can think of at 1:40 in the morning.

Or riot could just lay off completely as far as silencing or banning for toxicity. However I don't think that could happen, as much as some people would love it. But I do have to point out one inconsistency. There is a way to mute players. Ally or enemy. So why would there be a system in place to get rid of foul mouthed sailors.

And to reiterate, I'm not condoning or condemning toxic behavior. Personally I've actually come a long way as far as dealing with people who do flame. When I started playing a year ago I knew people were going to call me garbage, tell me I sucked, threaten to report me, etc. I thought it would be easy enough to brush off any insults hurled my way. But alas I have Asperger's (a form of autism), and one of the things that people with that (including me) have a hard time with it's anything that can be perceived as a threat. While writing this I realized that I can perhaps encourage people with the brief story I have to tell about how I overcame that. To some extent.

When I was like, 6 or whatever my mom got married to a man who at the time, seemed like a very caring and generally all around nice guy. Before the initial "incident" where he scared me to the point of wanting to either die or get rid of him somehow I had lived a fairly sheltered life. I'd never been yelled at (which is all he did at first) or felt scared of anything in my life. For the next 7 years or so I had been getting more and more afraid of him, to a point where I seriously considered jumping off a cliff that was nearby. The only thing that stopped me was worrying about weather or not the fall would kill me. That and a persuasive talk with my mom. It wasn't until I was 16 when I was over what was an extreme fear of the man, and I just kind of accepted that he was not going to change (although he has started). Just to clarify he'd done more than yell at me in between my childhood and mellow teen years. So I had reason to fear him. so for the next few years I avoided him as much as I could, simply because I didn't want to give him a chance to hurt me in any way, and because he was generally unpleasant to be around.

Since then I've started making amends and I will credit it to God, as I am a christian man. He's overcome his own child abuse and past relationship scars in the last few years. It's helped me to forgive him and now I know how to deal with people like him. I even managed to stand up to him, quaking in my socks when I thought he was putting my younger sisters down in a similar way that he did to me.

This never would have happened if I didn't every realize that I was the reason I was miserable around him. Yes his behavior was appalling but if I could take myself back 10 years, I wouldn't have been as hurt as I was.

So what am I trying to get across? I know it's annoying to deal with toxic people, or just people who hate you for being new and not knowing how to play a champ when it's your first time playing pvp. I also know what it's like to be the person raging at someone who could be new or having a bad game. It was miserable on both sides of the boat. So let me say that sheltering yourself or quieting others who offend you is unhealthy as it does not allow you to improve as a person. You have to challenge yourself in every aspect if you don't want to stay the same sad person. Bettering yourself in anyway weather in real life or online is more essential now than it's ever been. Just like your muscles, you can't build yourself up, unless you break yourself down first.

Some people might need to be broken more than others, some just need to be torn a bit. Either way don't be a turtle. Someone who lives within their comfort zone and retreats when things get uncomfortable. Unfortunately I can't offer a top ten list of the trendy tips and tricks for dealing with toxic people and becoming immune to them. (buy a wit's end) I just want to make a simple request that with time, patience and a whole lot of effort, could bring the community together and allow people who had problems with toxic talk to get over them.

Also as an afterthought I'd like to say I've seen a handful of threads that suggest not being a toxic player and to sort out any real life problems you may have. If you have anger problems or you are extremely toxic for the fun of it, I'm sorry you wasted your time reading through here. I'd recommend looking for any of the other threads for self improvement and anger management. Or discussing what I had to say here tonight. Even if you just want to call me a... you know I probably shouldn't be the first to say it. You never know when those who wield the mighty ban hammer might be watching. [slayer-jinx-wink]

22 Comments

Astôlfo10/21/2016, 8:35:06 AM4 votes

Very few people get punished. Even fewer get permabans. It's fine.

Kei14310/21/2016, 3:05:28 PM3 votes

so not too clear on what you are trying to say in regards to streamers & toxicity, but what may feel like ban immune hammers could be them using multiple accounts, thus the chances of them getting banned is much less than playing on a single account (assuming the same level of toxicity for both streamers).

I'm also not too sure what you are trying to say overall (argument structure not the clearest), but I have a hunch that you want to fix toxicity. Prisoner Island (matching toxic with toxic) is currently not what Riot is thinking of, as they believe in reform, sticking toxic with toxic just makes anyone playing in that environment behave worse.

I feel like that if people knew that saying things are unacceptable eariler, I feel alot of the toxicity can be reduced. Some people say that in their home / sports team environment say crazy toxic things, so they must think it's OK to say it. So if they are pointed out earlier clearly that what they are doing is wrong , then there may be hope for them to stop early.

However, there are some people whom just won't learn so Riot permabans them. I agree with Riot philosophy there, but the downside is that they make new accounts, and say the same thing to the new people, thus some of the new people think that it is OK to say stuff like that (when in fact it is not) and the new people need to know that people are punished for being toxic.

Bottomline, it points the behavioral system requiring better visibility.

Woodakoodashooda10/21/2016, 9:17:05 AM2 votes

The OP's entire post is a load of nonsense. Are you seriously claiming neutrality towards negative behavior? People who treat others miserably and thinking they can simply get away with it is not, nor has it ever been, okay. If, at any point, you feel it necessary to justify someone calling another a terrible name then you aren't being neutral, you're enabling the bad. And that, in itself, is bad.

scazzman10/21/2016, 10:45:08 AM2 votes

my complaint. is riot's current policies for dealing with toxicity are backfiring. rather then punish the real trolls. it's emasculating "normal" players into not typing, and creates an atmosphere where everyone is trying to get each other reported, encourages flamebaiting and toeing the line in order to get people banned that you dont like, and the real trolls can bypass the system.

Desolas Arterius10/21/2016, 3:25:56 PM2 votes

The issue with reducing the severity/frequency of punishments is it wont deter players from being toxic. Like others said in the thread, very few people get punished, and even less get permanently banned, so this isn't that big of an issue as people think it is.

It may feel that way, but it's because most of the threads in PB&M are about being "unjustly" punished and wanting to appeal. Keep in mind the boards is a very small percentage of the playerbase, and PB&M especially is a smaller board compared to others. It you took the overall amount of players who receive punishments for behavior it would actually be a pretty small number. Last time I saw (might be wrong though), the percentage of players banned was less than 1%. I don't know if that's changed, but that's what I last remember.

I do understand wanting to adjust the system or perhaps the punishments. That is completely okay since this is a discussion after all. But do keep in mind the new system they added (Instant Feedback) actually works very well compared to the Tribunal and older report systems. If anything, we've seen less false punishments and more reforming from players who get their first chat restriction.

Riot has tried other types of punishments in the past that didn't include bans; they didn't work out so well and made players worse.

I think what we have is pretty good in all honesty. The players who have been banned for behavioral issues have all been truly deserving of it, at least from what I've seen. There is no reason to be lenient on players who exhibit such rude mentalities that disrupt the game and make it less enjoyable.

I mean, it's not fun playing when someone is flinging insults at you all game, is it? So why allow them to act that way? They need to learn that that behavior is unacceptable and hinders gameplay since they're spending more time typing and less time playing. It's just as disruptive as feeders and AFKers, since the one flaming is not playing to their capabilities. It also lowers moral of the other players and cause them to not want to play as well. We don't really want that at all. I definitely dont.

So the punishment system doesn't need to be toned down, nor should it be removed. But I do appreciate you trying to discussion this in a more professional manner, and being open to other's opinions. That's pretty hard to do when confronted with, and better than what I've seen on the boards before :P

Gear Kitty10/21/2016, 3:02:19 PM2 votes

I really hope that I don't post what I'm about to try typing out, because it means it's gonna take hours until it's to the quality I expect my words to be, and I was kind of hoping to play some matches today.

Let's hit some rebuttal points before getting into it.

There is NEVER a reason for toxic behavior. Whether it's camp/CS stealing, Ability Trolling, or a general refusal for team play. Even less so when it comes to toxic chat. It is pointless. Unneeded. Worthless.

There is a key, which has to be hit twice, to create toxic chat. And the Enter key is generally one of the farthest keys from the action. Every player makes a conscious effort to not only START communicating, but to SEND their words and return to active gameplay. It's much easier to hit Esc while typing to just stop what you're saying.

THAT is why there is Zero Tolerance when it comes to toxic chat.

It's safe to say that on the market there is probably few, if any, other team multiplayer games with so much Active Gameplay Action and Needed Player Knowledge colliding with Game Information. Introducing not only senseless but inflammatory chat pulls away from the team's goal of playing the game to their best. Winning is great, and you should try to do it, but Riot just expects you to try your best and not attempt to negate your teammates doing that as well.

Off of that, I'll hit some things. 'Toxic' Queue breaks matchmaking. Part of the foundation is that everyone can play against everyone else, depending on each team's general rating, or MMR. It's not the best system, but it is what's in place. Toxic Queue would be like reintroducing Team Builder or Dominion. A lower population that the matchmaking system has to try and balance so each side comes down to roughly 50/50. The match variance would be too great, which would feed into the Queue population's KNOWN Toxic behavior as a feedback loop. ALL WHILE EATING SERVER DATA TO SUPPORT THE GAMES.

Riot takes a stand against inflammatory and toxic behavior because it literally costs them money to support it, but it costs them nothing to drop those who break the rules. That's probably how Lyte got the company behind it so well. It raises match quality and community appreciation, looks good to the media, and saves them money while not actually affecting sales.

Stores do the same thing taking expired items off the shelves, and that costs money cause an employee has to go through and manually perform the act. People acted with their money to show they didn't want that item so the shop removed. There is a set amount of space they can use, as well as to the fact that the item could be bad for anyone's health who consumes it (or doesn't get the full benefit of consumption, like most expired medications; aka The Toxic teammate isn't giving their all).

Riot culls the worst of the worst accounts, and accounts can only get that far by actively ruining the experience Riot offers as their (almost) sole product.

Zero. Fucking. Tolerance.

And I was right, 3 hours to type and edit that. Waylayed by some skype chats and starting a load of laundry, but still.

BlastRush10/21/2016, 11:00:04 AM2 votes

[deleted]

Troll for Trump10/22/2016, 12:30:50 AM2 votes

Referencing this post here, there are also cases of people who are just Smiters or White Knights or whatever.

Many of them are just as toxic. You can even see a good example in the guy who's name is the Roman form of Poseidon,

100greenmen10/21/2016, 11:16:24 AM1 votes

I've liked answering to posts as soon as I could, but It's 5:00 in the morning and I need some sleep.

100greenmen10/21/2016, 8:33:06 AM1 votes

Man that post turned out longer than I wanted it to be.