Boards›Player Behavior

Weaponizing the Report System to make Gangs

Dr1ve·12/8/2018, 5:39:51 AM·2 votes·1,775 views

The Problem: We have all seen it done. Someone gets mad and wants to report you for whatever reason. Say you get mismatched with someone who is boosting their friend's account, playing hardcore on 30mg of adderall, 3 redbulls, and no social life at a time when you're playing casual; a couple beers in, unwinding after a long day at work. You get your ass handed to you, and one of your teammates decides to report you. But they don't just silently report you, they solicit others to report you as well, even if that person initially didn't see a reason to report you. This behavior itself is toxic and creates a gang mentality where people group up to pick on someone by using reports as a weapon. When others agree to report someone, it is a positive reaffirmation to the initial person who is more often than not just trying to be a bully. Am I wrong? I haven't played a single game in the past .. ever, where someone on either team doesn't say "report amumu, report trundle, report _____" for literally ANY reason!! Another situation would be that say you get counter picked and have a shit game, and your teammates are a pre-made 3 or 4 person group. One of them may then decide to report you, and now you have not just one but 4 reports as they collaborate to report you. This is usually in conjunction with the soliciting reports as mentioned above, specifically asking the ENEMY TEAM to report you, often followed by "enjoy your ban". The report system has become a WEAPON by which players threaten and attack each other. And how does that impact players? How does that impact the game? Let's think about the person being reported. As soon as your team says they're going to report you for having a bad game, how are you going to respond or react? Are you suddenly going to just "play better" against the guy boosting his friend's account who hunts you down anywhere on the map because he already got a lead? Often times that's not even possible. Or are you going to think "well they're going to report me anyways, why even try?" I'm willing to bet the latter. 9/10 times.

Some Possible Solutions:

  1. Add a report topic to REPORT people who SOLICIT reports and abuse the report system. Take away their ability to report people if they continue to solicit reports!
  2. Create an AUTOMUTE feature for people who want to play every game with all players muted, instead of having to /mute all every single game, often too late to prevent the initial toxic or bullying of people who aim to tilt their own team.

Honestly, there's got to be a better solution but I'm not going to put the time into thinking it out. It's not my game, it's Riot's. If you want to solve the problem of toxic behavior, take away the weaponization of features meant to punish actual bad behavior, not targets of bullys and pre-made report gangs.

7 Comments

TheLastShadow4512/8/2018, 5:42:47 AM7 votes

I see what you're getting at, but you seem to not understand one thing about the reporting. It only takes one for a game to get flagged and checked, anymore after that have no value.

SUPERSATANA12/8/2018, 6:19:41 AM4 votes

{quoted}

Say you get mismatched with someone who is boosting their friend's account, playing hardcore on 30mg of adderall, 3 redbulls, and no social life at a time when you're playing casual

Yeah, everytime someone is losing is cause the other is a boosting piece of shit with no life.

ModPeriscope12/8/2018, 7:58:06 AM3 votes

You can report others who call for reports. Mark “harassment” and make a note-“player calling for reports”

By default, chat is there to help work toward objectives and increase teamwork.

Personally, I don’t find issues with toxic players frequently or bad enough to warrant having everyone muted at the beginning of the game.

Kei14312/8/2018, 3:15:48 PM3 votes

** #### The real problem #### **

Too many people don't understand that the system does not punish people based on report count alone.

** #### The explanation of the process #### **

  1. The system receives a report
  2. The system will review the game for toxicity
  3. The system will assign a toxicity score to that game a. If the system found no toxicity, a toxicity score of 0 will be assigned to that game b. if the system found a tonne of toxicity with hate speech, a toxicity score of 100 will be assigned to that game c. The system assigns the same score to that game regardless of how many reports were received
  4. That toxicity score gets stored in a player's behavioral history
  5. If a player passes a toxicity score of 100, that player gets punished
  6. A player's toxicity score will reduce over clean games played

** #### The REAL solution #### **

Find a better way to educate players that multiple reports don't do a damn thing.

HavokDash12/9/2018, 8:41:46 AM2 votes

Riot has stated that Spamming, threatening, begging, or soliciting for reports is seen as a form of harrassment and falls under the escalating punishment, like toxicity and flaming. so: "Do X or I will report you for Y..." Is punishable "Report X for...." is punishable "We will report X if you report Y....." Is punishable.

If someone is to be reported, YOU do it....SILENTLY. Not dogpile the other players on 1 person. Reports do not stack, it is not your place to sway the opinions of other people The 9x report myth is just that....A MYTH. If someone is calling for reports on players, You can report -THEM- and get THEM in trouble.

mlm olo mlm12/8/2018, 6:30:43 AM2 votes

https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/201752884

Do not ask other players in the match to report the offending player. It only takes one report for our systems to review a game. Additional reports will not do anything for the offending player;

It hasn't always been this way. I don't think Riot made an announcement either. So, that is probably where all the confusion comes from.

Also, you can report people for soliciting punishments.

however as mentioned above, it could open yourself up to a report of your own; especially if you are derailing the match by constantly demanding reports of other players.

There is still the possibility for gangs. Just not as you describe them.

There is still a "culture" of weaponized reports. I think it will always be that way because reports have the expectation of punishment.

Modi12/8/2018, 7:37:02 PM1 votes

When you start your post with pointless ad hominem, you diminish the value of your post.

With respect to reporting, multiple reports in a single game are equivalent to a single report.