Player Behavior Design Values: Punishment

Riot·Mar 19, 2015·1 votes·78,556 views

TLDR: We believe punishment is most effective when structured towards reform, because other designs often address symptoms, not root causes. Walling off the overflowing garbage room might hide it for awhile, but the smell sticks around and you aren’t any closer to having a clean house.

Hey everyone!

We’re here to wrap up our Player Behavior dev blog series. We’ve already discussed reform and reward, and now it’s time for punishment. It’s important to note that while punishment remains the most obvious way to deal with negative player behavior, we only utilize it in very specific circumstances. We only outright punish players when we’re really, really sure (false positive rates below one percent) a punishable offense occurred.

In every other case, we believe punishment should be structured to encourage reform. Drevarius explores an example of that in action with chat restrictions, but first Lyte tackles the core problem with Prisoner’s Islands (where negative players are matched with other negative players in a separate queue) and why ranked restrictions don’t create one.

Before we dive in, it’s that part of the blog where we reiterate our overriding philosophy on player behavior in online gaming: there’s no silver bullet. We strive to find a mix including punishment, reform, and positive reinforcement.

Why “Prisoner’s Island” is almost always bad for everyone

Prisoner’s Island, matchmaking negative players together, is a tempting, obvious solution to combating poor player behavior, but it’s ultimately just lazy design that only encourages further negativity. As players are exposed to more negative behavior, they just become more likely to quit playing any particular game--up to 320% more likely, in fact. That old saying about everything looking like a nail when all you have is a hammer applies here; low priority queues can work well in one very specific situation, but that doesn’t mean you can extend it to every player behavior problem.

When players know and understand exactly what lands them in the low-priority queue, they also know exactly how to return to unrestricted matchmaking.

We do use low-priority queues in League of Legends with LeaverBuster, a system that recognizes AFKs, leaves, and rage-quits. But even in that situation, as clear-cut as it gets (a player knows when he or she ditched his or her teammates,) we still steer towards reform first.

But if the behavior becomes a pattern, the player is punished with low-priority queues, forced to wait before entering matchmaking.

But what about ranked restrictions? We’ve seen some players concerned that by removing negatively-behaved players from the ranked queue into normal draft, we’re creating a Prisoner’s Island and just calling it something else. The key that makes ranked restriction different is that the overwhelming majority of players in normal draft are still neutral to positive. By slowly and intentionally introducing a very small minority of negatively behaved players and keeping them chat restricted during their path back to ranked play, we don’t disrupt the queue and players can compete in a more relaxed atmosphere as they work to reform.

With both LeaverBuster and ranked restrictions, social pressure acts as a lever, encouraging reform. We’ve found the approach of surrounding bad behavior with good influences tends to lead to the best results for improving the experience and helping the community actively reject negative behavior. Next, Drevarius finishes up the series by addressing how chat restrictions fit into our punishment philosophy.

-Lyte

How turning chat into a resource management game encourages reform

Hey everyone! I’m Drevarius, a designer on the team behind chat restrictions.

We wanted to design a system to discourage bad language and outright abusive communications. Again, punishment should encourage reform, so simply muting foul-mouthed players treated the symptom, but failed to create a solution where the player could learn and improve their communication skills. After a number of tests, we landed on chat restrictions, a punishment that hard limits the amount of team-wide chat messages a player can send per game.

Limiting the number of messages a player can send turns chat into a limited resource. This messaging “ammunition” can either go toward useful comms that help coordinate a successful gank or toward flaming an underperforming teammate. Chat restrictions challenge players with a resource dilemma and a moral decision.

Since most players want to win, the clear choice between helpful comms and negativity leads to a substantial reduction in most chat restricted players’ negativity. Many chat-restricted players realize using chat positively has an impact on their win rate. Because of this, some chat restricted players even asked to make their restriction permanent! When we compare the old ban-first, ban-later strategy regarding negative language to the new combo of chat restrictions and bans, we’ve seen 40% more players reform in the new system.

-Drevarius

Why we believe League is only going to keep getting better

League’s currently at an all-time low when it comes to AFKs and leavers, and the community’s taken a hard stance against racism, homophobia and sexism. Cumulatively, only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language.

There’s still work ahead, and knowing that you’re experiencing something rare doesn’t help when it’s still horrifying and disappointing to see in game, and we know negative experiences linger in a way positive moments don’t.

Moving forward, we want to make it even easier to be positive. We’re also making it more convenient to find and play with your friends through expanding Suggested Players and new features like Party Rewards. We’re not done yet and we’re looking forward to working with the community to make League even friendlier. Good luck, and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

751 Comments

KT EkkoMar 24, 2015352 votes

Add reporting in champ select, thats where most of the toxic stuff is said anyways.

Mac TíreMar 24, 201516 votes

You are too right. That and if they would impliment ranked que to que your pref position to you dont get the toxic troll picks and end up having to support yasuo, or adc vlad. =P

XonraMar 25, 201527 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tubit Trigun,realm=NA,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=AXFvsXqE,comment-id=00090001,timestamp=2015-03-24T23:54:54.291+0000)

You are too right. That and if they would impliment ranked que to que your pref position to you dont get the toxic troll picks and end up having to support yasuo, or adc vlad. =P

Nothing like locking in an Olaf as second pick to counter their top, to have the last pick refuse to adc and pick a Darius because they "called top", but you can't dodge because you are in a promo and will give you an insta loss. How after this many years there isn't a system for allowing you to queue up in a role, is baffling.

Comedy SilverMar 25, 201521 votes

Personally i believe that false reports should be noted, i have been reported countless times for no particular reason, but much of the toxic stuff is indeed said in Champion select. Clairvoyance

VenotixMar 25, 201513 votes

honestly i kind of wish that they would make a ranked team builder, like you pick your lane, role, and you can still duo, and you are matchmade with other people who have the differing lane roles, i know this would probably make for some long que times, but i personally would rather wait five extra minutes if it means i get to jungle udyr and have a great game doing it without arguments!

huntdabeastMar 25, 2015173 votes

this would also help in the game menu, being able to report all the fake advertising accounts that randomly send me friend request and the people that go crazy in a champ select and then dodge queue

Lord ImrhialMar 25, 201598 votes

Literally everyday when I sign in I have 2-3 new "random advert bots" accounts trying to add me. >.>

I feel like this needs to be taken care of because I am positive they most likely scrape this data (our names) from all LoL related sites. It makes me want to withdraw from the online community as to stop this annoying harassment and I do not wish to withdraw from the community, so I ask that Riot please works on stopping this. I try to be very helpful and outgoing on the API Developer site for example. Many people from there add me in-game, but now I just insta-ignore every add request because I can't tell if I am adding a genuine person or a spam bot.

Even something simple such as after 10 friend requests are in made in under 5-10 minutes, they have to do some text verification to make sure it isn't some spam bot.

For real though this needs to stop. Thanks!

GrrrrrMar 25, 201597 votes

I 100% Agree Starting a game with the mind set that you know someone just said Middle or Feed, or starting a game when someone said guys I am going to troll and Feed. puts you in a set mindset that the game is hopeless.

bad arcade kittyMar 25, 201518 votes

{quoted}

I 100% Agree Starting a game with the mind set that you know someone just said Middle or Feed, or starting a game when someone said guys I am going to troll and Feed. puts you in a set mindset that the game is hopeless.

90% of time those people aren't serious

XonraMar 25, 201547 votes

[{quoted}](name=bad arcade kitty,realm=EUW,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=AXFvsXqE,comment-id=000900040000,timestamp=2015-03-25T00:36:56.939+0000)

90% of time those people aren't serious

Not sure if I agree or disagree with this, but most people don't say this at all. I get people find it funny, but with the large batch of salty and troll people in ranked, not really a good starting point for a joe, because if someone takes that seriously, it can easily put someone on tilt and lose you the game.

Sure you can say "then they need to take a joke", but maybe just don't make that kind of a joke that is usually not a joke :P especially since unless you SAY it was a joke, no one knows until the game actually starts.

bad arcade kittyMar 25, 20158 votes

{quoted}

Not sure if I agree or disagree with this, but most people don't say this at all. I get people find it funny, but with the large batch of salty and troll people in ranked, not really a good starting point for a joe, because if someone takes that seriously, it can easily put someone on tilt and lose you the game.

Sure you can say "then they need to take a joke", but maybe just don't make that kind of a joke that is usually not a joke :P especially since unless you SAY it was a joke, no one knows until the game actually starts.

i don't say that it's good, i say that it shouldn't immediately discourage you riot is correct that most people still want to win anyway

XonraMar 25, 201528 votes

[{quoted}](name=bad arcade kitty,realm=EUW,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=AXFvsXqE,comment-id=00090004000000000000,timestamp=2015-03-25T00:48:21.943+0000)

i don't say that it's good, i say that it shouldn't immediately discourage you riot is correct that most people still want to win anyway

It is hard not to be discouraged by someone already being negative before the game even starts. You don't know if someone is joking or not, as I've had more than my fair share of people that say this and mean it.

I'm not saying you should just give up cause up some douche, but it gets old, and when no less than half the time, the person acting a fool in champ select is the one that acts the same in game, you just sigh and start expecting what is normal, and don't keep thinking "maybe this time they won't act a fool." when that didn't work the last few hundred times.

sure you might want to win, but when acting or saying something stupid puts your team mates off, they are less likely to gank for you, less likely to heal/shield you, less likely to respond or take your advice even when it turns out good, then you are more likely to lose. If you want to win, then perhaps even jokingly telling people you are going to feed isn't the best idea. It isn't as if it has ever been funny for 1, and for 2, it was only a joke because it is actually a thing people say and do.

Hard not to get discouraged when the trend leans heavily towards negativity in ranked.

XonraMar 24, 2015121 votes

I have to be honest, since joining nearly 5 years ago now, player behaviour has if anything, gotten significantly worse, and not even a little better.

Even over the past year, I have seen more "Trolls" in ranked specifically, more people seeming to feel more comfortable about raging or being rude, and people will bluntly tell you to report them because they know they won't get punished like they would have even with the old tribunal. Riot seems to be targeting verbal issues 90% and afk issues 9.9% and maybe issues otherwise .1% at most.

There is no punishment for people who troll in champion select because they want a role, or those who intentionally feed, people that troll build (no, it isn't okay to go full ap on Cait and try to jungle).

The tribunal needs to come back 6-7 months ago as Riot on their own don't seem to know how to properly deal with these cases, and as they are getting more frequent, aren't doing much of anything about them. I can mute a rager, I can't mute someone from intentionally feeding.

Aedar OlivariusMar 25, 201583 votes

This guy gets it. I've been playing since mid Season 2 and the time League has gone without a Tribunal has been the most toxic experience I've had in pretty much any game community.

The Tribunal worked incredibly well because people from the community voted on cases, which meant that the people deciding punishment could actually tell whether someone was a detriment to their playing experience. Honestly, the only thing the Tribunal needed was showing the statistics of the game, like the Advanced Match History that we can view at the end of every game now. If the Tribunal came back with showing the Advanced Match History of the game in question as its only addition, I guarantee that it will reduce the toxicity of this game.

Think about it, with that addition, you could see someone's build order, where they died, how many times they died, and their chat log. Someone would literally have to be blind or not looking at the case at all to determine whether the person getting punished was trolling/intentionally feeding/being toxic or not. This would mean that the community as a whole would be trying to win the games they play while keeping the toxicity to a minimum. At the very least, this would reduce overall toxicity in-game

AngrusMar 25, 201527 votes

Since the technology is there for both advanced match history, and chat logs, I would hope that Riot has all the information they would need to implement this, or at least access to all that information for their own decision making. The question, of course, is do they have the time and the manpower to go through it all, since there are many cases, and I'm assuming it would be a full time job for every employee of Riot.

skullzx7Mar 24, 201579 votes

"Cumulatively, only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language."

Well I've gotta be the unluckiest person ever then cause I'm somehow hitting every single one of those 2% games.

XonraMar 25, 201554 votes

{quoted}

"Cumulatively, only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language."

Well I've gotta be the unluckiest person ever then cause I'm somehow hitting every single one of those 2% games.

Pretty much this, I must have terrible luck.

I played just 3 games last night (I had to stop after the third).

Won the first, but all through champ select one person was raging at every champ someone on our team picked, got into game and he was mad the jungler was ganking for me top so many times ( I was 4/0 at 6 minutes so it wasn't exactly bad, and no one else had died). Constantly yelling and cursing and saying some ridiculous stuff until I muted him.

The next two games I somehow got stuck with the same duo two games in a row. One jungled, the other played adc. They were making some way over the top racist jokes in champ select, telling people to F off cause they asked them to stop, then at the end of both games they would suddenly switch from trying to completely trolling and intentionally feeding.

The jungler would stand under the enemy team inhib turret and start spamming dance, then when we asked what he was doing he and his friend would start asking us what we were talking about in chat, trying to act like the three of us were making stuff up, since ya know...most punishment come from chat, and they weren't being as bad chat wise in the actual game, but were in game at least, very clearly intentionally feeding and trolling.

I get people who go afk at 20 minutes because the team won't surrender, or someone who starts feeding because "the game is already lost" because someone might have died 4-5 times in 25 minutes, etc. I would say the percentage of games with excessive harassment is closer to 50% easily, especially when people start going on tilt. It is maybe 30% in winning games, but like 60% in losing games if not more.

2% is a complete joke and an outright lie, unless Riot is actually only counting non-draft mode normals, aram, or bot games. They certainly aren't counting ranked, because that would raise it no less than 20% by itself.

Love My YandereMar 24, 201560 votes

The key that makes ranked restriction different is that the overwhelming majority of players in normal draft are still neutral to positive.

The key that makes ranked restriction different is that the overwhelming majority of players in normal draft was neutral to positive but ever since ranked restriction it became neutral to negative.

FTFY.

In your (Riot) definition of toxic is a negative attitude that infects other players making a neutral player negative or a positive player neutral. In your own definition of what you are trying to stop you contradicted yourself.

only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language.

What world are you on? Is this for the tournament realm client globally? while sure racist, homophobic or sexist language is low because that requires knowledge of who you are playing with/against but there is way more then 2% excessive harassment. In over 10% of my Coop vs AI games there is "excessive harassment" I am lucky to get in a normal draft game where a player you can tell is rank/chat restricted because he will say one line every 5 minutes and it will be an insult about 30% of the time. Another 50% just have some guy on tilt getting pissed (at least I assume, I really hope he just isn't a troll) and the other 20% is actually nice... I would really like to see how you get the numbers considering you don't even look at reports considering you use an automated system now.

If you want people to be positive, not just neutral, make rewards for only the positive players, make use out of those stupid ribbons that you only see once every 50 games anyway people have over 500 "teamwork" and never been chat restricted. Make a "reward" for losing so the people who just lost a game doesn't feel like they wasted an hour of their lifes even if it is something small because guess what? 50 IP is useless when you unlocked everything and have over 50K IP.

Me personally I say gj (good job) whenever my team makes a play and mb (my bad) when my team mistake that isn't my fault because I don't want to see them fight. But you know what, if they do we have a nice feature in the game called the Mute feature where you ether type "mute player name or ALL" or click on the microphone symbol when you press tab (by default) for the scoreboard. This would be the best way to combat negative language and allow you to focus on other stuff like what people complain about all the time. The trolls who intentionally feed or afks or someone picks AD Ziggs first time Ziggs in diamond 1 elo then goes 0-10-0. Like just create a video that randomly takes place (and forces you to watch) in the client after games (like say after every 5 or 10 games) to demonstrate how to use the mute button and block feature (the client version of the mute button).

I hope my points are clear. I really don't want to do a TL;DR because all of what I said I think is important. I hope you stop trying to sell your business to the public media and actually try to help the community like you advertise.

PS: Better nerf Irelia

Mac TíreMar 24, 201558 votes

I notice that the attacks of special needs people have not been addressed. Too many times I have seen the term autistic being used. Not cool. This illness is not as uncommon as you think. Me personally am not but I have 2 nephews that are. and one thing to get me to go off on you is to start using the term like its cool or something. Rito, if you are gonna address some of the stuff that is at a low. Address the stuff that is still wrong. and this is assuredly one of them. 3/5 games I see someone calling someone autistic. Stop the bullying, and the degrading of others.

RedesignatedMar 25, 201530 votes

Autism and just about anything else in the mental atypicality spectrum gets used as an insult, unfortunately. It's really gross, and I'd definitely like it if Riot would stop pussyfooting around about including it directly in what they consider toxic. The amount of games I have where people say a champion or skill is "retarded," or ask if someone is autistic because they made a misplay, is a lot higher than 2%.

RylinuMar 25, 201525 votes

I am Autistic. Luckily I've learned not to take comments on the internet to heart. When people are staring at a screen, they forget that they're playing with other real people with real feelings and they say idiotic things because they think they're being funny. Autism isn't an insult, Down Syndrome isn't an insult, and it's not funny to use it as such. They're conditions that can't be helped, and are misunderstood 99& of the time by the general population. Remember the Golden Rule, people. The insensitivity is ridiculous.

StephenizgodMar 25, 201539 votes

Im sorry but i respectfully disagree with it getting better. More then 50% of my games there is someone being verbally abusive to someone. You may say that its just 1 game out of 10 that they are like this but the point is they are being incredibly offensive in that 1 game. Punish them? No not necessarily but you must realize that there are thousands of players all being toxic in 1 out of 10 games. This results in more then half the games i play being full of negativity. League is just Toxic, you miss a minion and suddenly you are told to kill yourself, god help you if you miss another...

Not saying im perfect or that i expect perfection, im just saying please stop fooling yourselves, make no mistake this game is full of toxicity. Trolls in ranked run rampant with seemingly no consequence as i can see they continue to troll 3-4 games after trolling me. AFKers still AFK because they dont see any long term punishments or they just dont care. Toxic players just stop talking for a few games so they dont get consistent reports... It might just be that Bronze and Silver have the worst of the worst, but thats where a large portion of your community is placed so for those who try to not be toxic are stuck in this unholy hell-hole and feeling like they are forsaken by Riot.

XonraMar 25, 201524 votes

{quoted}

Im sorry but i respectfully disagree with it getting better. More then 50% of my games there is someone being verbally abusive to someone. You may say that its just 1 game out of 10 that they are like this but the point is they are being incredibly offensive in that 1 game. Punish them? No not necessarily but you must realize that there are thousands of players all being toxic in 1 out of 10 games. This results in more then half the games i play being full of negativity. League is just Toxic, you miss a minion and suddenly you are told to kill yourself, god help you if you miss another...

Not saying im perfect or that i expect perfection, im just saying please stop fooling yourselves, make no mistake this game is full of toxicity. Trolls in ranked run rampant with seemingly no consequence as i can see they continue to troll 3-4 games after trolling me. AFKers still AFK because they dont see any long term punishments or they just dont care. Toxic players just stop talking for a few games so they dont get consistent reports... It might just be that Bronze and Silver have the worst of the worst, but thats where a large portion of your community is placed so for those who try to not be toxic are stuck in this unholy hell-hole and feeling like they are forsaken by Riot.

Yeah I have hit 5 Morg bindings, but I miss number 6 because the enemy dashed out of the way, and I'm told for the next 3 minutes how terrible I am. The next one I miss I'm told to uninstall my game, god forbid I miss 2 around the same person in a row, they will mock me, tell me I'm garbage, and really lay it on thick, potentially with a second person joining in.

I have thick skin, but it is a bit silly that this is the kind of behaviour that is okay, because this isn't what riot considers toxic because they aren't being Racist, so they will do this same type of thing game after game after game with no punishment.

StephenizgodMar 25, 201514 votes

Its crazy how many people are toxic and nothing is being done, this is just the community though :(

Its not even about being thick skinned or not, i mean you can tell me to kill myself all you want idc and im not going to do it obviously, but its the fact that i know they do this in all their games...

WhítenínjaMar 25, 201536 votes

Can we have rito actually read chat? Most of the time when I get reported it's because someone is being very toxic and so I tell them "I'm going to report Riven for being toxic." And then I get a chat restriction for verbal abuse.... thanks rito

Epyon AvengerMar 25, 201535 votes

Am I the only one who would be HAPPY if those people stuck in the "Prisoner's Island" left the game? Really. I get it. Rito doesn't want people to leave because it's less chance for them to make money, but it's the BEST scenario for the other players if the toxic ones are locked up together and either dig deep and "reform" or GTFO.

ZashirMar 25, 201523 votes

This. I was scratching my head over this. Either make them chose to grow up, or go waste space somewhere else. They are not wanted if they can't prove to be decent human beings.

CosnirakMar 25, 201530 votes

Your numbers on how bad things are seem rather off. Between streams and my own play I see a large variety of players at all sorts of ranks (and unranked) and things are far worse than you make them out to be. They're still better than ever and better than many other games, that much I believe.

But "cumulatively, only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language" is a flat out lie. I have a hard time believing anyone at Riot actually believes that and I'm certain <1% of players believe it. You might counter with some lax definition of 'excessive harassment' but by any reasonable definition there is excessive harassment in A LOT more games than 2%. Spend one afternoon as a team just reading all the chat from random bronze ranked rift games until you can't take it anymore. I dare you! And yeah I know, that's probably the hot bed of the worst of it, but it shows up in everything from bot games to challenger too.

A ton of stuff goes unreported. A ton of reports of VERY awful behavior result in 0 action taken to reform or punish. Your IDEAS about what to do to correct bad behavior and encourage good behavior seem great but you consistently screw up the details. Some people can't queue for 5+ minutes because they missed one queue pop while others say down right cruel and demeaning things to their teammates over 1 or 2 minor missplays game after game and NOTHING HAPPENS. As the saying goes the devil is in the details and you guys are royally screwing up some of the details.

One minor solution that I feel would help a lot and no one seems to talk about is improving the jump from unranked play to ranked play. A lot of people meet the requirements to queue for ranked but are clear outliers in skill compared to the average player there. This tends to create a lot of problems. Supports who constantly try to cs and take clarity because they don't understand the game isn't about just killing minions fast end up fighting against people who have 200 ranked game wins and made gold last season. Please help newer players learn the basics of both fighting and overall game strategy sooner and easier, for everyone's sake.

GrrrrrMar 25, 201529 votes

Vote option in lobby. Let us Vote people out. 3 votes = gone

TheEvoDragonMar 25, 201516 votes

Well if we had that then we'd have to deal with trio queues in normals trolling and kicking anybody that takes one of their main roles. Not to mention the people getting kicked for off-meta picks. Urgot

Zero1OneMar 26, 201512 votes

Evo, did you wanna play with them in the first place? They're doing you a favor and frankly, wasting their own time and not yours. This is not a valid point sir. All they would be doing is making you queue up for a new game and not have to play with them!

I, for one, would totally adore having a **Vote System in place during Champion Select **to vote out players that harass you and abuse you in chat and troll pick you and/or are not paying attention to champion and role picks. People would have a chance to requeue without that particular player and have a world of difference for pregame trolls and negativity in their games. I've wanted this in place since I started playing in Season 1.

I've wanted to be able to pick a Role before you even queue for Ranked, when I first played Ranked in Season 2, to avoid all the fighting for a role when you get in champion select. I was really excited when Team Builder was being talked about, and then super let down when they made you pick a champion and didn't implement anything for Draft or Ranked for just **picking roles. **These are such easy basic things that if they happened, THEN I would be more inclined to believe that bs 2% number they are throwing out there, because I know most game negativity starts there.

And lastly, having a **Loss Forgiven Voting System **at the end of game when you play a game where someone on the other team Rage Quits or DC's would make a HUGE difference in players attitudes towards each other and actually give the community the ability to show **positive behavior towards each other **without having to do much or go out of their way. Imagine playing a game where you get your win, and the other team doesn't have to be penalized because a Loss Forgiven Vote comes up because they have had a missing player for a third of the total game time?

Can you imagine how great it would be if we had these tools and systems in place in the game to actually ENJOY ourselves rather than 'hope for the best' and maybe you won't get a troll on tilt being salty all game for your fifth game in a row? Do you notice how those terms are so popular and thrown around rather than terms that describe positive people?

I've played over 8 thousand games of League, yeah I live and love this game. I own every skin you can and almost everything in game. Hell, I wish I worked for Riot. That would be epic. I say all this just to legitimize that I can attest with all the rest here, the League Community is comparatively atrocious to most any other game community out there in how players talk and treat each other. I know for a FACT most of my games have consistent negative behavior in them, and I personally strive to be as positive as possible under those circumstances. I'd really like to see awesome ideas like this implemented in my League to hit the real 'root' of player behavior and circumvent the rampant bad behavior we all see and know really exists.

BeersteinMar 25, 201525 votes

I've played since quite some time before season 1 and I can honestly say the toxic levels in this game get worse every year.

I applaud Riot for putting forth such extreme efforts to curb toxic behavior but whatever you're doing it's making it worse. Your punishments create multiple accounts, new players have to deal with them. Pre lvl 30 essentially IS a prisoners island, and guess what happens to the new players that have to go through that cesspool? They pick up off the worst of the worst in the community and are likely to come out toxic themselves.

You ban peoples accounts for verbal reasons and send them to smurfs. I've said this several times over the years, you're perpetuating the problem.

I play WoT and account bans are super super rare which are for instances of cheating, botting etc. You know what happens to people that are verbally abusive? They get a temp chat ban (24 hrs) then 3 days, then 7, then a month, then 6 months, then permanent. You know what the result is? The toxic levels in that game is peanuts. The punishment system for verbal offenses is verbal punishments, and even then they're super lenient yet over the years it's fostered a long term improving environment.

Stop banning accounts for verbal reasons, ban people from chat for verbal reasons. Ping spam? Restrict people to being able to use all but the MIA ping, abuse that? Take it entirely. But STOP account banning over verbal reasons. You're only sending these players down to harass new players in a MUCH worse manner on accounts they don't care for. This community is 1000x more toxic than it used to be. Also 1-30 is 1000x worse since new players that are positive are usually run off the game if not hiding in bots. Oh and that makes the ones that DO want to PVP suffer that much worse of an environment as others literally hide in bot games from your prisoners island. So instead they often have to deal with bot accounts on their own teams when this happens!

linkblade91Mar 25, 201510 votes

I would have to agree with this person. I was such an individual hiding in the bot games while trying to level to 30.

To be cliche about it, Pre-30 felt like a "wretched hive of scum and villainy", and maybe 1-in-20 or 1-in-30 of the people I encountered I would have considered friend-ing for being decent, good people. The rest made me want to flee League and go play single-player games :/

Their fresh, new accounts have no history of poor behavior, so jerks and the like are clever enough to understand they can behave however they want. It's too early for recourse against this "new player"; meanwhile they attack and scare off actual beginners.

They're the reason I almost quit, and while I'm glad I did not, I also understand that others before me have felt similarly and didn't stick it out :(

New players shouldn't have to traverse a den of spiders and wolves to reach the "promised land" of...slightly less frequent meanness. Put them all together with each other, and maybe seed in some actually-nice, helpful people who are already level 30, to help out and teach them.

TheEvoDragonMar 25, 201520 votes

"League’s currently at an all-time low when it comes to AFKs and leavers" I've had 3 4v5s in ranked in the last 2 days... 2 were in a row and even got me demoted. Riot if you guys could add some sort of an LP loss reduction for situations where a player leaves for the majority of the game that would be great.

FenrisulfrMar 25, 201519 votes

And this is where Riot ultimately fails...their punishments.

Chat restriction may allow one to make 'moral decisions' on if they either flame or communicate, but when it comes down to it, you're only hurting the player completely. Pro players like Dyrus have already complained that ping spams ruin the experience and are incredibly annoying due to their nature and how you cant squelch them. And since, if a person is using their INCREDIBLY limited to praise a player (to more quickly get their account back into a 'positive' standing through that), they use up their 'ammo' to communicate important things. Pinging things like Dragon/Baron/Other objectives with just a ny of the ping types don't actually or accurately portray what they player is trying to say. Specifically if a chat restricted player sees an enemy take dragon and they want to report to the team about the timer on drag (if vision isn't available, so the timer itself won't start ticking). Turns out, they won't be able to since, ya know, they're chat restricted.

And since we're doing all this, horrendously repeated, talk of rewards, reforms, and punishment, none of it matter! Tribunal is still down and hasn't come back up. As someone who has willingly received one report and ONE warning about being negative, and being slammed with both ranked AND chat restriction, I know that its based upon the number of reports recived and, not at all, about the accuracy of the reports! It's just an automatic witchhunt of a system that is currently broken and won't get fixed with the tribunal no matter how many false reports and 'labels' you put down on players (aka, majority players are neutral, etc.). Its click-bait and filler of false information to just make one believe the game has gotten a lot better than previously. I'd rather see 'punishment' go out to people who are making bot accounts and adding everyone constantly instead of toxic people that I can just mute.

But I guess for now I'll continue to get into a game and under 10 minutes in am asked 'who I bought my account from' and 'to uninstall' because I'm having a bad game but have a great skin....yet I'm the one who gets reported and restricted while others go untouched.

CyberKaiMar 25, 201518 votes

I let a friend of mine try and play this. She played the tutorial. Then the battle training. Then he tried playing a PVP game. She quit about 5 minutes in because everyone on her team yelled at her when she gave up first blood. Until everyone realizes that this is only a game, its not going to get better at all.

ˆayyMar 25, 201517 votes

I would like to point out that in my experience positive and neutral players rarely take a leadership role because they are afraid of getting reported, and while I may have been chat-restricted for negativity, I like to point out people's mistakes and how they could improve. This often leads to the harassment message popping up which makes me sad and not want to help people. Im done ranting, just pointing out that many players simply ignore chat, so they aren't really affected by positive players that much.

Pucking PurrfectMar 25, 201517 votes

Cumulatively, only 2% of games globally include excessive harassment, racist, homophobic,or sexist language.

LIES...

Lord MacaroniMar 24, 201515 votes

Funny how toxicity of premades in solo queue isn't addressed at all in any of these posts, but is probably one of the top reasons people have a negative experience in any particular game.

bad arcade kittyMar 24, 201510 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Macaroni,realm=NA,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=AXFvsXqE,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-03-24T23:08:33.141+0000)

Funny how toxicity of premades in solo queue isn't addressed at all in any of these posts, but is probably one of the top reasons people have a negative experience in any particular game.

this it's premades made me hate anybody who i meet in the lobby

Lord MacaroniMar 24, 20158 votes

Would really appreciate a red response to address how they plan on dealing with premades who pretty much log on to piss other people off. I'm willing to bet there's an alarmingly high percentage of solo queue players who are reported by premades to have a scapegoat for losing, than solo queue players reporting each other consistently. People have clamored for the option to opt out of premades for years now.

Slam GarbageMar 25, 201514 votes

A kick vote system in champ select? I think if we had this for ranked it would make the game much more healthy. You wouldn't have to dodge. it would be like a surrender vote, 3 or 4 votes for the kick to work. ( 3 in case of duo) The last pick urgot jungle would just get kicked for 5 mins or whatever and you would requeue. Just a thought.

dakoslugMar 24, 201513 votes

I really hate the negativity towards prisoner island. It's designed to really punish negative players. The fear of being in prison island I think would defer any acts of toxicity. For example, pretend i was recently put into prison island LPQ. It would be a terrible experience and I would never want to be in it again, right? So having the constant fear of being punished in such a way should be a good deterrent to continual acts of chat abuse.

GmeshMar 24, 201513 votes

Before I start I want to say that I like how competitive League is. It's nice that everyone has the urge to win, not caring about winning (In ranked of course) is not acceptable.

However It feels as though it is NEVER okay to lose. If you lose you have to find the reason WHY. Was it the jungler? Someone fed? Well it surely wasn't you! It seems LoL corresponds to many player's own ego. If the culture could just shift away from the "do-no-wrong" attitude and the occasional loss being at least ACCEPTABLE, the game would be in a better place...

XonraMar 24, 201522 votes

Sadly, Riot is to blame to an extent (I know, shifting the blame.

You get a pop up in game when someone gets a kill, or death, making that an obvious focus. You get an assist? Well you at least get to show up next to the huge portrait of the team member that got the last hit.

Your game is now shown off on a website (the league match history) instead of having to look it up, you just search for it, so people can see just how you did or didn't do, even if that isn't an accurate representation of your contribution.

People compare a 1/5/15 mid with a 1/5/15 support. The mid should be getting kills, but you notice there is nothing about the tons of farm they might have that are far better than the 3/5/15 top with terrible farm, but then the support who shouldn't be taking kills or cs, but he is bad still by stat comparison.

The game is set up to reward you for winning with more ip, a nice victory on your match history, and you gain lp in ranked.

The game punishes you with tossing up the defeat on your screen, you have to click to leave that screen, everyone can see the defeat on your match history, you are punished with a lose of usually more lp than you gained if you even go even (I have 50% in ranked and still lose more lp than I gain by about 8 somehow)., and you get significantly less ip.

No one wants to lose because you are punished for it in ranked essentially, the community mocks those in lower tiers, and kills are celebrated far too much. It is no wonder people get salty over losing in ranked giving the system riot has implemented. You are forced into a role you aren't familiar with because still no ranked team builder and you lose so that reflects negatively on you somehow, and your not as great moments are put to the forefront.

Winning should be great, but losing shouldn't be held up just as high for everyone to see. It is why winning is more of a relief instead of a good thing and losing just causes frustration as there are too many visual reminders in your face "you lost, you lose lp, you can be reported for doing poorly" etc etc.

LCS DoubleVisionMar 25, 201510 votes

I don't get it. The problem with toxicity has to do with chat.. Yet there is no way to disable chat and even if you do mute someone they can see what you say.. Why not fix that problem and add an option to disable chat if you don't want it or when someone is muted they can't see what you say, That way you can be as toxic as you want and release the beast and no one can see it but you?

As someone once said- The reason people are toxic is because you are helpless to do anything in a game with trolls. For example, If you were playing basketball game and some dude says, pass me the ball everytime or i'm going to go score for them you would simple not play with them.

In league you don't have that option.. You are either stuck with that person for 20mins + of you have the option to dodge/afk but get punished for it and that is why people are toxic because they are helpless to do anything against people going out of their way to waste your time because they didn't get a position they wanted or just troll to troll.

Simple Fix. When you mute someone make it to were they can't see what you type so that way you can let off steam but they can't read it. Why they can still read what you say even though you mute them is beyond me but chat options is the way to combat toxicity since that is where it all goes down.

In other words, you can't change human nature as easily as you can add chat options. If someone wants to be toxic let them, just give the option to where if they choose not to mute you then when you mute them they can't see what you say.. problem solved.

It doesn't take a PHD to figure that out.

Otto AttackMar 24, 20159 votes

Can we fix the fact that if afks buy an item the team doesn't get loss prevention, cause I'm still getting that crap.

Night and ArrowsMar 25, 20159 votes

This is a good example of toxicity: Now I consider myself a pretty positive player, maybe others dont but i dont know. One time when i was jungling a game, top called for a gank. The Riven there was being super aggressive and had already died twice. She was fighting her opponent, so i signaled her to back off and wait for me becasue i knew she would die before i got there. When i did, she responded with, "stfu" Do you know what i did? I turned right around and went to help someone who would appreciate it. She clearly didnt need my help if she told me that. Now, maybe that wasnt the best or nicest thing to do but I DID NOT want to help her after she said that. Afterward, she cussed me out for pinging and then abandoning her but she was just a rager, was from the start. That just shows you how just one negative comment can turn a helpful person (at least i hope im helpful) into a jerk.

Maybe some more rewards would be a good idea......just spitballin'.