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Improving the New Player Experience by modifying the Punishment System

DrCyanide·10/14/2018, 1:07:01 AM·6 votes·2,642 views

The punishment system currently takes the worst of the community and bans their accounts, forcing all of them who want to stay to create new accounts. These new accounts get intermingled with the fresh new players, and while there may be some attempt to filter out the veterans it still takes time - and during that time players can give up on the game. Dumping your sewage into a river upstream of where you get your drinking water is one of the easiest ways to give a population cholera, and the results aren't much better for League. We can take Riot's ads and missions trying to entice new players as an indicator that Riot would very much like it if more new players tried the game and stick with it, and having the welcome wagon be the toxic players they're trying to get rid of doesn't help with reaching that goal.

So, what do you do?

It would be nearly impossible to prevent smurfing all together, but there is another solution - don't dump toxic players into the new player stream. Don't force them to create new accounts. AKA: Don't permaban them.

Now, before you jump to the comments to say "they already tried that!", I know, hear me out.

When Riot had infinite chat restrictions, the game had 4 pings: Danger, Warning, MIA (?), and Assist Me. Everything else had to be communicated with chat. No chat and no timers would indeed make the game very hard to play at a high level, which lead to increased frustration and the inting/trolling problem.

That's no longer a problem for League of Legends today. You can ping the timers on Baron, Dragon, Rift Herald. You can ping your HP, your Mana, and how much time is left on every ability you own. You can ping who's alive and dead. You can ping just about anything your heart desires. Communicating with your teammates is easier than ever, even if you can't type. It's reasonable to conclude that there'd be less frustration if you couldn't type.

But I'm proposing something different than infinite chat restrictions.

#I'm proposing a modified Prisoner's Island.

"But Riot already said why they don't like Prisoner's Island!" I know. Believe me, I know. Let me explain.

The conventional Prisoner's Island states that you lock all your trouble makers in a queue with each other and let them torment each other as much as they like. It has problems, ranging from limited matchmaking to limiting the ability of someone to turn around and get out. If queue times were to get too long, or if matchmaking was too bad, prisoners would just create another account, and create the same problems as we currently have. That's no good.

What I'm proposing instead is 10 game chat restriction, 25 game chat restriction, X games on "probation". (Ok, the name sucks, but I'm using it to get the idea across, bear with me)

Probation would prioritize matching you with other players on Probation when possible. If it found 10 players who were all on Probation and the MMR was right, there'd be no difference between that and a regular queue. However, if it couldn't find 10 players, then it'd prioritize MMR, but it would mute the players on Probation from those who weren't on Probation. No chat restriction, they can talk as much as they want to whoever will listen to them, but their audience would be reduced to those who are on par with them or opt-in to listening to them.

Players troll in Probation would be no more likely than people trolling when teamed up with people who start the match by typing /mute all (in theory). The scenario is exactly the same, you can yell all you want, but you're not getting through unless they allow you to.

It's possible that getting out of Probation could be earned by getting Honors rather than playing a specific number of games, particularly if their chat checks out as being neutral or good.

Some players have asked for an """adult""" server that lets them say whatever they want. With this system, let them opt into Probation, it'll make them happier and it'll keep their teammates who don't want to listen to that while is person goes through the punishment system happier.

All in all, I think this could be better for the players punished and the new players.

12 Comments

AeroWaffle10/14/2018, 1:19:30 AM5 votes

The issue with the prisoner's island idea wasn't only because people would just bypass it, but because it offered very little hope of actually improving the behavior of the player due to the composition of players that went into such an island.

If a player wouldn't improve their behavior among the standard behavior, they certainly are not going to improve when they are placed into a queue that's going to have a much higher likelihood of rude players.

A true troll, one who enters a game intending on trolling the game, is rare. Most of the those I see troll do so because they felt slighted by their teammate in one way or another. Much more often than not I see people troll in response to being insulted or insulted back. This queue would likely have a higher likelihood to run into trolls as a result.

And most players that want a queue where they wont be punished for their chat behavior probably wouldn't want to join a queue if it meant a higher likelihood of trolls.

R107 Games10/14/2018, 1:18:39 AM4 votes

nice, agree fully on your post.

would like there be no punishments for verbal toxicity all together, but this is good to.

DongerStruck10/14/2018, 1:27:32 AM2 votes

People who dislikes could at least explain why they dont agree....

Chad Thundergems10/14/2018, 1:35:40 AM2 votes

When I first started playing Guilty Gear back in the day, a lot of people who were better than me gave me a lot of tips, and were generally very friendly. Without them, I probably wouldn't have continued playing the game as much as I did. In the same sense, I think your idea would probably work well for the community as a whole because of this. Being a new player should be a very welcoming ass-kicking. Not many people are into getting dumpstered and then flamed on top of that. If League really wants to bring in players, it's probably for the best if they keep toxic veterans out of new player queues. Another addition to this I think could be some kind of "mixed" queue, where old and new players are thrown into a casual game together. Veterans would know their teams were full of scrubs (like usual), but could actively seek to help the people on their team. Almost like a coaching game. Maybe I'm just fishing for honor, who knows. Great idea, I'd like to see something like that.

DongerStruck10/14/2018, 1:22:01 AM2 votes

Riot could simply improve the reform system so people actually try to be nicer and get back to honor 2, now its impossible, or nearly impossible, unless you're playing like a no-life... imo thats the real problem..

DongerStruck10/14/2018, 2:24:08 AM1 votes

Riot could work on a better system that is obvious, but they are so slow to ''improve'' anything this will take years..

DongerStruck10/14/2018, 4:37:58 AM1 votes

You know what? i wouldnt mind playing with other toxic players at all, in fact id be super happy, because i dont mind, i played wc3 before, i dont care about people insulting me. thats part of the internet. if this were to happen, id BE VERY HAPPY to not PLAY WITH SNOWFLAKES AND SJW'S ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

CharDeeMcDenniz10/14/2018, 6:26:14 AM1 votes

too soft IMO, and if we go off the numbers RIOT tells us than the amount of perma'd people who make new accounts is quite small, I honestly dont think it's that big of an issue

just my 2c

swindsurfer10/14/2018, 7:11:39 AM1 votes

I love this idea, lock me in with 9 other toxic pieces of trash and lets see who can feed faster and drop more racial slurs than me. This system should also have a reverse report option where you get banned if you aren't toxic enough. Brilliant idea.