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How to CURE toxicity in League or any other pvp game - - - My Idea.

FlamyMind·3/6/2018, 7:02:21 PM·1 votes·1,343 views

Hi, this is my idea for curing flaming in PVP games. Every single game has a system to deal with toxic people, but not even one of them is perfect and doesn't help any side(community, flamer, developers).

So, this is my idea: Before I tell you the system, 3 things have to be done. -First, the "toxic player" will not get any warnings for bad behaviour. -Second, any player can report how much they want. -Third, there is no way to find how many reports you got or if other players got reported or banned.

After a "toxic player" gets a big amount of reports (the developers can pick whatever number they want, not important), this player will be matched, no matter what he picks (ranked or nomal or any other mode) with a "fake real match", in this match he will play with bots vs bots. Those bots will have credible nick names and will play credible (no matter what he picks). 1-2 bots will play bad from the start, if the "toxic player" starts flaming (on the chat OR by harrasing them in the game) the bots will respond with an excuse for playing bad "Sorry man, im tired" / "I want to practice more with this hero/champion". No matter what he will be his answer(good or bad), the bots will keep playing bad until the end of the match. Based on what he does AFTER the bots tell him their excuse, he will get a "Toxic level".

Toxic levels will be accorded by PEOPLE (it may be possible to be done by bots, but not cheap or not good enough), people who will watch this match, NOT only the chat (people can be toxic by playing in some ways, not only flaming in the chat), those levels can be from 1(low toxicity level) to 5 or 10 (high toxicity level).

After the match ends, depending on his toxic levels he may be punished. The maximum toxicity level should have as punishment 1 YEAR ban (people change, it does even worse to ban somebody forever, it would encourage them to make a new account, not to take a pause and think a little about their toxicity);The lowest toxicity level will not have any punishment.

BUT

Every single person, after they finish their match, banned or not, will have to watch a video (made for their toxicity level, by profesionals, not just an avarage Joe that says "be nice"), a video that tries to adress their problem and help them, im not an expert, but I know people can change, faster or slower. This video can't be closed and can't be skipped. You have to watch all of it to be able to play more (even if you close the game and open it again). And to be even more cautios, at a random time in the video, it will be told a KEY for a skin/item (to make them listen. And it will work 1 time{So that people dont flame just to get free items/skins}).

THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY: After this system will be put in place and after the first bans, people will know about "this tricky match", but they will not be able to know if they are in this match or not, only IF somebody says an excuse for playing bad. So, here is the catch, if somebody gets a flamer in their team, they can shut his mouth and not be at a communication disatvantage by simply saying an excuse for playing bad (true or not), that guy will be scared and will try to be nice... or just shut up and let everyone keep trying to win.

~I'd say the option to mute other players should be removed, because muting other players it's the same as having a toxic player, you still have a communication disatvantage.

(please tell me the flaws)

57 Comments

ModThe Djinn3/6/2018, 7:19:32 PM6 votes

{quoted} Those bots will have credible nick names and will play credible (no matter what he picks). 1-2 bots will play bad from the start, if the "toxic player" starts flaming (on the chat OR by harrasing them in the game) the bots will respond with an excuse for playing bad "Sorry man, im tired" / "I want to practice more with this hero/champion". No matter what he will be his answer(good or bad), the bots will keep playing bad until the end of the match. Based on what he does AFTER the bots tell him their excuse, he will get a "Toxic level".

It's really hard to design bots that can't be distinguished from real people, let along that can also chat convincingly and are immune to being detected by, say, looking up your current game on op.gg or something. That's a ton of dev effort for something that likely won't be undetectable, on the off chance that it works the way you say it will and improves behavior -- which you haven't convinced me it will.

Toxic levels will be accorded by PEOPLE (it may be possible to be done by bots, but not cheap or not good enough), people who will watch this match, NOT only the chat (people can be toxic by playing in some ways, not only flaming in the chat), those levels can be from 1(low toxicity level) to 5 or 10 (high toxicity level).

The math on this doesn't work out. If even 1% of the playerbase gets this, and each game can be viewed in 5 minutes, that's still about 2,250 hours of content each day. You can't DO that reasonably with people.

Every single person, after they finish their match, banned or not, will have to watch a video (made for their toxicity level, by profesionals, not just an avarage Joe that says "be nice"), a video that tries to adress their problem and help them, im not an expert, but I know people can change, faster or slower. This video can't be closed and can't be skipped. You have to watch all of it to be able to play more (even if you close the game and open it again). And to be even more cautios, at a random time in the video, it will be told a KEY for a skin/item (to make them listen. And it will work 1 time{So that people dont flame just to get free items/skins}).

Leave it on, AFK. Plus you just have added a reward for flaming once, which isn't really ideal.

Guojonjaich3/6/2018, 7:29:32 PM5 votes

[MOD EDIT: removed the inflammatory part that is unnecessary to your argument]

This would never work, is too convoluted, too complex, takes way too many resources, and wastes everybody's time.

Umbral Regent3/7/2018, 1:20:51 AM3 votes

Okay, this is...Not great. At all. There are a whole host of flaws and issues with the idea that can be pointed out.

First off, your proposed change to the system does not actively discourage bad behavior. Giving players however long to accrue however many reports - all the while, they're ruining however many player's matches with their misbehavior - the system you propose already fails in swiftly punishing people, and it sends the message "It's okay to flame and be toxic! Just play this one obvious bot match and watch a video for a free key fragment for being toxic!"

And that is a massive problem. A punishment system which doesn't actively discourage bad behavior is a bad system, and what's worse is you even propose that the video (first time through) gives players who watch it all the way through a key - that sets up the expectation that watching through any of those videos will get them free keys, and that is an expectation of rewarding bad behavior, which equates to a terrible system.

Second, your idea is senselessly complex with too many layers on it. "Person is toxic, doesn't get punished, until they get 'sneakily' matched into a bot match where bots will make excuses for bad play whenever addressed, and if the toxic player is toxic in that match, they get reviewed and given a score that arbitrarily determines a punishment - and they get to watch a video for a free key".

Why all of that BS and fluff when the system we have is so much quicker, cleaner, and simpler? If a person is toxic and gets reported, the IFS reviews their match, and if the player broke the rules, they get punished and stripped of Honor. Quick, clean, simple, and it discourages bad behavior while also not rewarding it in the same turn.

Third, you also propose a change to the type of punishments doled out, at least in one respect, which is changing the permaban to a full year ban. The whole point of the permaban is to tell players "your behavior does not line up with our code of conduct, and since you seem determined to ignore the rules, we can't have you in our game".

The point of the permaban is to show players why they shouldn't continuously break the rules - because they can lose everything they invested into that account if they don't shape up. It's a tangible loss that gives the player a reason to follow the rules.

If that was changed to a full year ban, with the permaban stage being removed, what does that tell players? "oh, just make an alt for a year and pay nothing so i can still play and keep all my skins and stuff." In other words - you're not discouraging toxicity. Which, again; not discouraging the behavior the punishment system is meant to punish makes it a bad system.

Fourth, removing the mute feature alongside this toxicity-enabling, slow, drawn out, overly complex process, is only going to make everyone's lives worse, because without the Mute feature, they now have to deal with all the toxicity other players can offer, while the system just waits for that toxic player to accrue whatever arbitrary amount of reports.

There is zero benefit to removing the mute feature, it's a defensive tool against toxicity, and all removing it would do is cause people to suffer. Do you really want people to suffer more from toxicity? 'Cause that's the message you're sending with "remove the mute feature".

Lastly, you're hinging expectations that the community at large is going to learn of the bot matches and try to abuse the system to psyche out toxic players and keep them from being toxic. To start with, that, plain and simple, will not work. There are going to be numerous players out there who won't even hear about it, and the number of players who do hear about it and decide to abuse its existence to trick toxic players would be very, very fucking small.

Let's not forget to mention the fact that the majority of the players who find out about the fake match system will only figure it out potentially weeks after the fact, since your proposed system doesn't move to quickly punish bad behavior, and the scant few people who hear about it and decide "maybe I could use this to my advantage if I just come up with bot-sounding responses?" will probably only do so a good while after hearing about it.

In other words, you're expecting people to either be super-smart and constantly up-to-date with things and have the intent to abuse systems against toxic players (which is a really fucking bad message to send, by the way), or suffer because you let toxicity get free reign.

I would go on, because there are also issues to be brought up regarding the idea's usage of bots, but I really don't want to jump on that train. Suffice it to say, the consequences of this system you propose would be disastrous.

EL HAMSTERO3/6/2018, 7:31:35 PM2 votes

lol

YerroFever3/6/2018, 7:33:37 PM1 votes

This sounds like a request to remove permabans, ie actual consequences, from the punishment system.

People are allowed to make new accounts but if you've gotten to the point where Riot permabans, you, that's Riot's way of saying "get out and stay out."

First, not giving anyone warnings as to what behavior are in violation of the TOS and then doing a 1 year ban as their only form of punishment is quite draconian. People who complain that getting permabanned after getting chat restrictions and a temp ban is Draconian, having a FIRST punishment be a 1 year ban is going to be absurd.

Giving them warnings early on is a way to try and get people to recognize their negative behavior and stop it early on so they don't get accustomed to being toxic to the point where they have affected SO many games that they have pushed people out of LOL due to toxicity, that the 1 year ban becomes meaningless because in this free to play game, they have lost a LOT of potential sources of income (ie all of the players that played with this toxic person while accuring "a big amount of reports" and left because Riot took too long to get rid of toxic players) while letting one toxic player stay in the game without any punishments. This is just economically bad for Riot. Letting people stay toxic and accrue many reports before anything is done is just the epitome of bad business. Asking the community to tolerate toxicity is the same as telling the community that toxicity is not an issue.

Second, I don't see any benefit of this bot game you suggest. Not only has this suggestion allowed a toxic player to ruin "a big amount" of games already, you don't suggest any sort of remedy except for a 1 year ban. What are the other punishment levels? You say there is 1 (low toxicity) to 10 (high toxicity) scale but only talk about a 1 year punishment. Do you want NO punishments for anyone below the 1 year temp ban level or a graduated scale of punishments?

Third, the video is easily ignored. People can go afk and let the video run. When people get reform cards, they're being informed of what their bad behavior is and it is their choice to go to the forums or open a support ticket. So I don't see why a cookie cutter video about certain types of behaviors will actually help.

Fourth, people already know that they have the option to not type anything toxic. How does your suggestion make this any more salient to a toxic person?

Fifth, removing the mute button isn't a cure for toxic chat, it is a shield from toxic chat. You don't need to chat to communicate. You can ping. So what is the point of removing the mute button? I don't like seeing players call others slurs and get flamed and I mute it because it just makes me salty towards that player and gives me less motivation to help that toxic player, which ultimately is self defeating. At least if I'm ignorant to their further toxic chat, I'm still going to keep giving it my all to make sure we win rather than try to punish the toxic person by self sabotaging my own chances of winning. I have noticed that I tend to win more of the games I mute toxic players than I do when I leave toxic players unmuted. I don't know about others, but this is a pattern I have noticed within my own games. So can you explain to me why removing mute is actually better?

RallerenP3/6/2018, 8:37:35 PM1 votes

A couple of points (& TL;DR at the bottom)

  • Bots arent convincing.

After a "toxic player" gets a big amount of reports (the developers can pick whatever number they want, not important), this player will be matched, no matter what he picks (ranked or nomal or any other mode) with a "fake real match", in this match he will play with bots vs bots. Those bots will have credible nick names and will play credible (no matter what he picks). 1-2 bots will play bad from the start, if the "toxic player" starts flaming (on the chat OR by harrasing them in the game) the bots will respond with an excuse for playing bad "Sorry man, im tired" / "I want to practice more with this hero/champion". No matter what he will be his answer(good or bad), the bots will keep playing bad until the end of the match. Based on what he does AFTER the bots tell him their excuse, he will get a "Toxic level".

Good luck creating an AI that is convincing enough to fool a human.

Let's start with chat: For this to be convincing enough to work the AI would have to understand and process (to a limit) natural language. It's not something you 'just' program. You might know about the Turing test. It's a test for AI to see how convincing it is. All it has to do is hold a conversation with a human without the human figuring out it's an AI. To this day not a single AI has ever passed the turing test (more sources at the bottom of the link.)

Though it could be feasible due to the not-so-chatty nature of league to work well enough but it would still take up alot of resources that could be spent elsewhere.

The real problem is gameplay: You would have to make an AI that can realistically simulate all elo's or the player would know what's up. Again this is something you don't just program. Making an AI that can do that would take YEARS and millions of dollars of research to do, and even then it might not be possible with the technology we currently have.

  • Having people review reports is ridiculous

Toxic levels will be accorded by PEOPLE (it may be possible to be done by bots, but not cheap or not good enough), people who will watch this match, NOT only the chat (people can be toxic by playing in some ways, not only flaming in the chat), those levels can be from 1(low toxicity level) to 5 or 10 (high toxicity level).

We once had a system called the tribunal, and this was the idea behind it:

Since the developers wouldn't be able to keep up with the growing community (and growing amount of reports to review), they had to do something. The solution was having the community vote on punishing a player, or not punishing a players. They were able to see the full chat logs from the games of the player being reviewed. On paper this is a great idea.

In reality: Not so much.

As the tribunal grew older the amount of players participating in it fell, and those left just pressed the punish button without actually reviewing anything. Meanwhile the amount of reports grew and it could take months to get a person punished.

Riot shut down the tribunal and released the IFS instead. The IFS took data from the tribunal, Riot, and it continues taking data from the reports being made right now. It's all fed into an algorithm which proved to be really great. It had 2 major advantages: It was really fast, it was consistent (It doesn't have biases like humans do.)

  • People don't change

After the match ends, depending on his toxic levels he may be punished. The maximum toxicity level should have as punishment 1 YEAR ban (people change, it does even worse to ban somebody forever, it would encourage them to make a new account, not to take a pause and think a little about their toxicity);The lowest toxicity level will not have any punishment.

Statistically, people don't change. There was a experiment Riot where if you could get a new account to level 20 without getting sent to tribunal, you would get your account back. It had a 95% failure rate. People went back to ruin games.

If you'd truly changed you'd know exactly why you deserve to have the permabanned account stay like that. If you can't see it, then you havent actually changed for the sake of being nicer. You changed to try and gain something from it.

  • People don't change (part 2)

Every single person, after they finish their match, banned or not, will have to watch a video (made for their toxicity level, by profesionals, not just an avarage Joe that says "be nice"), a video that tries to adress their problem and help them, im not an expert, but I know people can change, faster or slower. This video can't be closed and can't be skipped. You have to watch all of it to be able to play more (even if you close the game and open it again). And to be even more cautios, at a random time in the video, it will be told a KEY for a skin/item (to make them listen. And it will work 1 time{So that people dont flame just to get free items/skins}).

If the punishments didn't get people to not flame, nothing will. They wont care WHO tells them to be nice. People can change, but they have to do it themselves.

Also don't reward players for flaming. If anything they key should be for avoiding having all their accounts instantly permabanned. (Still only works one time.)

  • Bots arent convincing - the sequel

THE BIGGEST IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY: After this system will be put in place and after the first bans, people will know about "this tricky match", but they will not be able to know if they are in this match or not, only IF somebody says an excuse for playing bad. So, here is the catch, if somebody gets a flamer in their team, they can shut his mouth and not be at a communication disatvantage by simply saying an excuse for playing bad (true or not), that guy will be scared and will try to be nice... or just shut up and let everyone keep trying to win.

So if the bots should work they need to have natural language processing (something that doesn't really work with the current technology).

Otherwise the real players trying to trick toxic people will have to be completely silent, and not make any plays only a human would.

  • SILENCE!

~I'd say the option to mute other players should be removed, because muting other players it's the same as having a toxic player, you still have a communication disatvantage.

I'm not putting anyone at a disadvantage by muting them, and if even I i were it'd their own fault.

I can still see their pings.

  • The long awaited summary and TL;DR

This system is waaaaaay to complex to ever work.

The problem isn't that toxic people aren't scared of the punishments, it's that they think they'll never recieve one, or they don't care.

This wouldn't be a solution for that.

PresBushDid7113/6/2018, 8:39:54 PM1 votes

Just a thought... do you really need bots? There were a number of people that did the tribunal. Couldn't you have real players on riot provided accounts? So toxic person would get put in a game with 9 people around ish their lvl.. and 1 or 2 people on his team would be picked to be the bait.