Riot's attitude towards players and how it results in frustrating design
I find that Riot's attitude and reactions to the game's players have lead to a game more frustrating than it needs to be, and frustration that I know stems from developer decisions is far worse than frustration that I know stems from player actions. This is why I keep quitting every time I try to come back. Given League player's notorious reputation, I can totally see where it comes from, but it's pushed me away once again, this time more aggressively than ever before. I'm taking the time to write this because I really love the game, but... well let me explain.
When I first started playing, about when Shen was released ~6 years ago, the biggest problems seemed to be player behavior. Flaming, trolling, ragequitting, whatever. Riot saw the problem and set about fixing it, and looking at my experiences with players now, I think they found some success at an incredibly difficult task.
Eventually I peeled away the layer of toxicity and started seeing sources of frustration that must have much easier solutions than your campaign against the darkest sides of human nature. Things like summoners disconnecting due to internet issues, or sometimes not even connecting at startup. The most frustrating thing was the hopeless wait for sweet release when stuck on the bad side of a 4v5 situation, and that didn't always result from bad human behavior. Moreover, I was sure there had to be a way to at least shrink or mitigate the frustration that stems from these situations, in addition to trying to avoid them (which can't entirely be done). Seriously caring about the game, I ended up posting on the forums a solution that I had thought (and still think) was entirely sound. It was completely ignored, but whatever, I understand these boards are a busy place. What really got me though was when I went looking at other posts by people who had come up with great solutions to minimizing the bad experience of falling into the inevitable 4v5. Riot's response in these situations is what continued to gnaw at my mind every time I wound up in a 4v5 from then on, always eliminating any hope for the future.
One response that I saw often was basically that it was so rare it wasn't worth trying to fix. How brutally, thoroughly disheartening that is to read over and over: That the single most frustrating thing which dominated my experience of the game was considered a non-issue.
About as common though, was a genuine concern and analysis of the system proposed. It was a reason why they wouldn't consider implementing a system like that. Usually, it was that it would encourage players to encourage players to quit in losing situations. I understand why you would be cautious about that, but it was pretty messed up for a few reasons. One, it shows a very low (probably deserved) opinion of your players. Two, it was a choice which empowered misbehaving individuals to muddy the League of Legends experience for every single player, regardless of how they behaved or who they encountered. Faced with a solution that could improve the experience, you disregarded it with the anticipation that a few individuals would abuse it. The worst, most frustrating thing at that point though, is that when a response to your response was proposed which solved the problem you pointed out, you invariably ignored it. To this day, there is no relief for the 4 innocent players left victim to a disconnect or ragequit, and it's made so much more frustrating knowing that there are many creative solutions out there being disregarded.
Recently, I came back to playing after having quit. I was curious about the new champions, new changes, new rift. I wanted to see what was in place to make the experience more fun. I played a few games, and (even though I now sucked) players weren't really all that toxic, and a few times where there were leavers it wasn't so bad. That is- until the last game I played. Someone raged and someone else quit, run of the mill stuff. It was very early in the game and we were already far behind. We knew the drill. We all just walked to the fountain and waiting for 20:00. This sucks, and it feels avoidable (I can quit after someone else quits in every other game I play) but I didn't expect more. Warning pops up about AFKing, so I press okay and move around a bit. We all do it. We all understand what's going on here. This is the best we can do in this crappy situation.
So here's the kicker: When the game ends I get this popup. This popup is telling me that abandoning a game or being AFK results in a negative experience for your teammates, and all I can think is "Are you f*cking kidding me?" I am the teammate. I felt the negative experience. Someone else abandoned, and we suffered, and you're going to lecture ME? The message then proceeds "Do you agree not to leave any further games?" and prompts me to type "I agree". I cannot remember feeling more insulted. The condescending tone, the condescending process, the fact that I never left in the first place... it all adds up to something that couldn't have been designed to be more insulting. It's the perfect capstone to how I see Riot, looking down on its players like naughty children that need to be disciplined and can't be trusted with nice things (like an anti-frustration system post-leaver). It's there every time I start the game now, reminding me why I left in the first place.
