There's A BIG Problem With Toxicity
Last game, (ranked solo/duo) we were winning hard. Looked like nothing could stop us. Great team comp, all lanes were doing well. Our Darius and Xin Zhao were doing Rift Herald, and got invaded by the enemy team. They were about to get 2v3'd and probably lose, so the Xin took the RH buff that was meant for Darius. Most of you (i hope) would think "eh whatever it's k" if this happened to you. But no. Our Darius got super toxic. So Xin Zhao simply said "k muting dari" and nothing more. Our Darius got so tilted off that one little comment, he did everything in his power to make sure we lost that game. Because "Xin doesn't deserve to win. Xin doesn't deserve my carry." Just because of this. Both ally and enemy team were discouraging his behavior (most of the time the enemy encourages it, this was a rare example.) but each time Darius just said "eh i just got promoted, loss doesn't mean anything to me. I don't have to try. Report me, it does nothing. Idc if you report." etc. His username was 'ultrazander007' if you're curious, or wanna report him too. <3
This game (also ranked solo/duo) I had an Akali. She got killed twice in lane then just decided she doesn't have to try anymore. She refused to group, refused to help us, flashed on place, fed 13 kills, most of them for no reason, tower dove, and all the while saying the same stuff as the Darius. "Idc if you report me, it does nothing. Lol i don't have to try, I don't care. Nah i don't feel like winning today." Username was 'Drawrs.'
And this is not an uncommon event at all. Probably around 1/3 of the ranked games I lose are because someone just decides they don't feel like winning. Because punishments aren't harsh enough, they think reports do nothing, etc. There are definitely ways to fix this problem. The way I see it, there's 2 main ways.
- Riot Fixes It: Riot imposes harsher restrictions, larger punishments, increasing their workload as well as possible increase in people that get wrongly punished. This would most likely guarantee at least some improvement in the way of trolls, but decrease things such as income from those toxic players that get banned, if that's such a bad thing at all.
2)We (The Community) Fix It Now this one would be very difficult, very slow and not guaranteed to work at all. There will always be toxic people, but there are workarounds. Usually if you just keep people happy, they won't be mad. Simple as that. If you suspect people are going to be toxic, don't do things that will set them off. Like the Xin Zhao for example. If he had just muted Darius without saying "k muting dar," perhaps Darius would've chilled a bit more. But that's not really what should happen. Sure, we can make the toxic players happy, or we could just make less toxic players. This post is mainly to encourage people to be careful when dealing with toxic players, to just keep them chill, especially in ranked. But more so, it's to show people that Toxic behavior isn't what League is supposed to be about. It's a shame it's so prevalent.
TLDR: Most trolls don't care about being reported or banned, harsher punishments might be needed. They can just make a new account and do the same thing. Reporting and banning feels like it only sometimes works, that there are loads of toxic people I report that don't get punished. (Or, at least, I don't know that they got punished.) If you have a toxic player in your game, try not to "trigger" them. Especially in ranked. Just relax, make them happy, and you'll win. Think about what you say, especially to someone who comes off as being short-tempered, cause they'll most likely be trolling if you take it the slightest bit too far. Despite this, the real problem about trollers/toxic players isn't how WE deal with THEM, it's THEM in general. We need to be less toxic guys. This game's for fun. Just have fun. There's mute buttons, report buttons, and block buttons. Use those. Don't use the chat or the game to take your anger out on people.
Thank you. I encourage you to report the two people I mentioned, and to go forth playing a little less toxic each game you play :D Have a great day everyone.
