Why Reddit Style Boards are BAD for League

the Anarchit3cht·Dec 5, 2014·28 votes·2,494 views

It's simple, really. There are a few reasons. 1.) Reddit already exists and way more popular. Why come to less popular platform where you will receive less feedback? 2.) Upvote/Downvote is an atrocious system that is VERY toxic. While it is good in theory, it works a lot worse in practice. 3.) It severely stagnates discussion with its poorly made "communities."

The one I'd like to mostly focus on is number 2. On the old forums, new players or players that had concerns actually felt welcome to post them. Even if they got negative feedback, at least they got feedback. With this new system someone reads something they don't agree with(probably without even taking time to actually consider it) and they immediately downvote it and then the topic gets buried while meaningless things such as "BRING BACK URF pl0x" or the tenth thread to say "WW OP GG" spam the top. You could change it to filter by recent, but lets face it, how many people are actually going to do that? It's out of the way, and the average League player just can't be bothered.

It leads to people posing legitimate concerns and then feeling like they did something wrong or bad for posting them because all they got was a bunch of down votes as opposed to actual feedback. Which in turn, limits the chance for other people who might give legitimate feedback to actually notice the topic. Think about it this way. You apply for a job. You'd much rather get a notice of rejection than simply to never hear from them again. And that same feeling of never hearing from them is exactly what an upvote/downvote system encourages.

It would be best, I think, to either remove this feature or create a restriction that allows you to upvote/downvote only if you actually post in the topic. It's great that you have an opinion, but why do you have an opinion? Why do you think what that person said was right or wrong? And furthermore, I think people don't exactly understand when they should and shouldn't up/downvote. Just because you don't agree with a sentiment doesn't mean you should necessarily downvote it(the opposite is also true) because then it, like I illustrated above, destroys the concept of having a discussion.

Anyways, this will probably get downvoted and no one will read it, but oh well.

41 Comments

Silver5arumanDec 6, 20144 votes

But its good because Riot-pun-circlejerk-"hey I'm not in this department but I can answer the convenient parts of your question"-reddit-memes ex dee dee

FaRmErXDec 6, 20143 votes

I used to check the aram specific forums everyday. the change happened and now Im here once every 2 weeks at most

the Anarchit3chtDec 6, 20143 votes

I used to regular certain boards myself, but now honestly... what's the point? Lore is all but gone. The Art department doesn't value community feedback. Gameplay/Balance teams prefer whats popular in the E-Sports scene and tend to deal with nothing but that. They've gutted alternative game modes besides the Rift by allowing them to run rampant with "bots" or "scripts" in matchmade PVP games.

And on top of all those horrible changes, they've destroyed the way we voices complaints, offered suggestions, or otherwise discussed these changes and their meaning.

DaenDec 8, 20142 votes

This is a bit doomsday-ish.

Lore is all but gone.

Comes down to a content issue, to be honest. There was a lot of Riot discussion about the new lore direction when they announced it, but a lot of people still have questions and lore still feels a bit anemic. It would be useful to see more communication on this from Riot, but to be honest I think the main thing that will help is for the lore team to release more content to help flesh out the new changes.

The Art department doesn't value community feedback.

How so? The Art department is one of the most vocally collaborative groups at Riot, and IronStylus (as an example) consistently asks for feedback and interacts with the community.

Gameplay/Balance teams prefer whats popular in the E-Sports scene and tend to deal with nothing but that.

To be fair, what's popular in the eSports scene almost invariably trickles down to the rest of us. I agree that there has perhaps been a bit too much focus on high level play at the exclusion of low level play, but it's not necessarily an end-of-the-world bad thing.

They've gutted alternative game modes besides the Rift by allowing them to run rampant with "bots" or "scripts" in matchmade PVP games.

Noooot intentional. Fixing bot problems is extraordinarily difficult, especially when it's a relatively sudden influx of the activity.

They've destroyed the way we voices complaints, offered suggestions, or otherwise discussed these changes and their meaning.

How so? When looking through Hot sorting, it's relatively obvious that for Riot's purposes it does help with grabbing relevant information. Instead of seeing a running commentary of anything players are saying, all the most discussed/controversial threads are sitting there on a single page ready to be grabbed to help with design.

SaixosDec 6, 20143 votes

I have to agree with the second point, but an even bigger concern of mine is that people who don't receive any views/votes at all will simply vanish into nothingness. I posted a rather long analysis that I worked hard on recently and had it die pretty much immediately. I'm somewhat demotivated about writing another thing now because if I put effort into a thread I'd like to get it to get some actual views instead of getting some "Stop flaming me if I miss a hook" to the front which won't have any impact overall anyway.

the Anarchit3chtDec 7, 20141 votes

Exactly my point. The old-style boards were not sorted via the "hot method" and thus saw the light of day. The popular threads would remain on top because they had the most recent activity, but they didn't cloud out the less popular threads in order to remain on top.

DaenDec 8, 20142 votes

A lot of users, particularly more active ones like myself and Hyrum Graff (first example that came to mind), prefer to use Recent sorting. It's much easier to follow discussions and participate when things stay in a relatively predictable order, and Hot sorting ends up feeling a bit jumbled when paying consistent attention.

That being said, I do see the reasoning for Hot. It's useful to be able to see, at a glance, what players are talking about at a given moment. Depending on the board and situation, I do occasionally use Hot to grab a snapshot of perceptions and interests; I just don't personally enjoy using it as my main form of organization.

Tannhäuser GateDec 8, 20142 votes

i use recent too in chronological order so it is similar to old boards

DaenDec 8, 20142 votes

Recent users unite!

I just don't feel Hot is a good sorting method for anyone planning to consistently interact with the platform. It is, however, amazing for lurkers and those that only plan to check in once or twice a day.

Hyrum GraffDec 6, 20142 votes

1.) Reddit already exists and way more popular. Why come to less popular platform where you will receive less feedback?

Because eventually (distant future), this site will have a lot more integration with the client. Things like, you can read a build guide on here and click to import it directly into your item sets.

the Anarchit3chtDec 7, 20142 votes

And why does it need to be reddit style to have client integration? That makes no sense.

Hyrum GraffDec 7, 20141 votes

It doesn't. I was saying why we would come here instead of reddit.

the Anarchit3chtDec 8, 20141 votes

That's entirely beside the point. While it sounds like a nice feature that would in no way actually mean I'm going to use the boards. I might come read a guide or something to import an itemset, but there is no reason to actually post or become apart of the community.

Hyrum GraffDec 8, 20142 votes

You had many points. One (point #1) was, "Why not just use reddit?" So I don't think it was beside the point.

I wasn't responding to points 2 and 3.

MajorPain9Dec 7, 20142 votes

You are straight dreaming if you think that is going to happen Graff. Hell they can't even link the lore up.

Hyrum GraffDec 7, 20142 votes

It's not going to happen for a long time. That much I know. I'm guessing stuff like that will start making its debut summer 2015.

MajorPain9Dec 7, 20141 votes

That's being modest, especially after the preset item build fiasco. There is no way the integration of Leddit, can be placed into the game when they can't even accomplish the similar task of preset builds doing the same thing. The amount of bugs would devestate any chance of it coming to the game.

The bugs of Leddit, and the actual main issues haven't even been addressed besides the fact that "we are working on it" or its "coming soon" for over a year now.

There is nothing distant about that thought.

the Anarchit3chtDec 6, 20141 votes

I'd just like to point out another scary thing.... 4 comments to 200 views. 2 of the comments being my own. Okay, maybe it's just not interesting or what people expected. But then 13 upvotes. Upvotes on the comments. No discussion. Just meaningless voting.

Hyrum GraffDec 6, 20141 votes

Many of the views are likely your own, as well. It's not unique views, so you may very well have viewed it 10 or 20 times, which pushes the view counter up.

the Anarchit3chtDec 7, 20142 votes

I only view it when I reply. And I suppose when I posted it to begin with. That makes me have like 4 views now? Regardless, I doubt me and the other two people to comment it before you viewed it that many times.

ujf2qEqxi9Dec 6, 20141 votes

Look, Riot doesn't care what you think.

They are a Chinese company, and will cater to the Chinese players. Where do all the bots come from? China, just like in every MMO with gold farmers.

They're running their company into the ground. This game is on it's last leg.

the Anarchit3chtDec 8, 20141 votes

Riot actually did care about their players once upon time. Then they got extremely popular on the Esports scene and that is all they care about now, completely forgetting that idea that the "esport" scene is comprised of who are just regular players(anyone could feasibly be in the next world tournament if they work hard enough) and they would do well to keep that in mind.

DaenDec 8, 20142 votes

Riot actually did care about their players once upon time. Then they got extremely popular on the Esports scene and that is all they care about now

To be honest, I think it's more along the lines of they have expanded so fast that they don't have the infrastructure in place to be able to show their caring as easily. I have spoken with a lot of Rioters, and a consistent theme is that they all want to make the experience as good as possible for as many players as possible.

Do they always succeed at that goal? Pfft, no. But attributing it to greed or a lack of caring is doing a great disservice to the individual Rioters that really do want to make the game and surrounding features as awesome as they can.

ujf2qEqxi9Dec 8, 20141 votes

Do they always succeed at that goal? Pfft, no. But attributing it to greed or a lack of caring is doing a great disservice to the individual Rioters that really do want to make the game and surrounding features as awesome as they can.

Do they EVER succeed at that goal?

Take, for example, the jungle changes this season. A direct response to the mid-end of the season where the support would roam with the jungle.

But it only works in the pro game. Because a normal SoloQ game doesn't have enough coordination to pull off something like that.

DaenDec 8, 20142 votes

Do they EVER succeed at that goal?

Yes, and you're hiding behind a thick wall of bias if you think otherwise. The art team consistently turns out really high quality content (skins, VUs, splash art, etc.), gameplay continues to innovate and improve, etc. I'm all for pointing out Riot's flaws and trying to effect change, but blatant bias is not the way to accomplish that.

Take, for example, the jungle changes this season. A direct response to the mid-end of the season where the support would roam with the jungle.

But it only works in the pro game. Because a normal SoloQ game doesn't have enough coordination to pull off something like that.

Many of the jungle changes were in direct response to the jungle feeling stale and only allowing a tiny subset of champions to viably use that space.

As for your second point, it works in any game where you have any coordination whatsoever. The current jungle incentivizes teamwork much more heavily, and it's a lot more engaging jungling in the current patch as opposed to before the preseason changes.

ujf2qEqxi9Dec 8, 20141 votes

And then they sold out to a Chinese company.

DaenDec 8, 20141 votes

Mmhmm. An investor from China invested some money in Riot, obviously they are now sold out to the Chinese company and don't have any integrity any more.

Logic, pls.

SukishooDec 8, 20141 votes

-2.) Upvote/Downvote is an atrocious system that is VERY toxic. While it is good in theory, it works a lot worse in practice.

But we had up/downs on the old board and that was just as toxic... so there's really nothing different here.

DaenDec 8, 20141 votes

But we had up/downs on the old board and that was just as toxic... so there's really nothing different here.

Just because it's equally toxic on the new platform doesn't make it good design; the point is to make the Boards superior to the old forums in every way.
It actually does function differently. Votes affect thread sorting, and they have a massive affect on how comments are organized within threads. I rarely vote on comments because of how ridiculously influential a single vote can be in changing the order.

SukishooDec 8, 20141 votes

Wasn't saying it was good... just saying they didn't change anything in that aspect cause they kept the voting system intact instead of getting rid of it.

the Anarchit3chtDec 8, 20141 votes

They didn't have influence over the positioning of topics as they do here via the "hot method". And while it's remedied easily by sorting it via recent, it is, as i've said, out of the way. i get what you're saying, i do. but not only did they decide to have the feature remain intact, they made it more prominent and gave it more power than just a visual marker as to the reception of the post.

BresnDec 9, 20141 votes

The old forum makes finding posts on certain sub-forums impossible too...

the Anarchit3chtDec 9, 20141 votes

They have a comprehensive search function so I don't know what you're talking about. Not to mention any thread you'd be interested in is going to be on the first few pages.

ABlueQuakerDec 12, 20141 votes

I agree with your point that the upvote/downvote system is toxic and I was quite vocal about this for a while. It just needs to be Upvote, or leave it alone - if it's genuinely offensive or off-topic it just needs to be reported and subsequently removed. Downvoting is inherently negative and, by extension, breeds toxicity.

DaenDec 12, 20142 votes

{quoted} It just needs to be Upvote, or leave it alone - if it's genuinely offensive or off-topic it just needs to be reported and subsequently removed. Downvoting is inherently negative and, by extension, breeds toxicity.

Hi,

This is something with which I disagree pretty heavily. In a situation where only upvotes matter, it makes the "circle-jerk" mentality significantly more problematic. It becomes literally impossible to show any displeasure for a thread, so every post just inflates over time. Without a way to counterbalance upvotes, there would be no way for the community to show disagreement, commentary on lack of post quality, etc.

Downvoting is not inherently negative, it's necessary to ensure the Boards platform functions properly (assuming there are upvotes). Personally I would be interested in seeing a completely different system like tags or gradient voting, but no matter what: if we have upvotes, we need something with which to balance them.

the Anarchit3chtDec 12, 20141 votes

I agree with this. You can't have one without the other. The up/down system, however, I think is falling short of what it is intended to be.

ABlueQuakerDec 13, 20141 votes

{quoted} Hi,

This is something with which I disagree pretty heavily. In a situation where only upvotes matter, it makes the "circle-jerk" mentality significantly more problematic. It becomes literally impossible to show any displeasure for a thread, so every post just inflates over time. Without a way to counterbalance upvotes, there would be no way for the community to show disagreement, commentary on lack of post quality, etc.

Downvoting is not inherently negative, it's necessary to ensure the Boards platform functions properly (assuming there are upvotes). Personally I would be interested in seeing a completely different system like tags or gradient voting, but no matter what: if we have upvotes, we need something with which to balance them.

The Youtube comment section was Upvote/Report for years and only turned to sh*t AFTER Google switched it to a Upvote/Downvote system.

DaenDec 13, 20142 votes

{quoted} The Youtube comment section was Upvote/Report for years and only turned to sh*t AFTER Google switched it to a Upvote/Downvote system.

That's fallacious logic. Google change a lot of things when they overhauled the chat system, it wasn't a simple swap to allowing downvotes that caused comments to fall apart.

This is the kind of logic that leads people to think video games cause violence; "This serial killer played video games, obviously the video games were the core problem" is a fallacy.

the Anarchit3chtDec 12, 20141 votes

I think that idealistically it's not a bad system. But in order for it to work the way it was intended the users need a specific mindset and that just simply will never happen

BRBGTGBOWFLEXDec 13, 20141 votes

I really hate boards.

I feel like Riot is open to feedback on the game-- i.e. Jinx's skin got redone after we all agreed it was trash. Summoner's Rift has been improved and we've all provided positive comments.

But we all give feedback on the boards, we all say they suck, and we just get this idiotic brick wall. Someone is selling boards as a success to their boss, but really, this is a failure. They probably also get to make the metrics that define success, so when they present boards they can spin this as a success.

It isn't. Whoever you are, you're bad at your job.

RhlaxDec 13, 20141 votes

While i disagree with your title, i do think there is some good feedbacks here...

2.) Upvote/Downvote is an atrocious system that is VERY toxic. While it is good in theory, it works a lot worse in practice.

it is better than people bumping their own threads, no? there needs a way to sort posts. up/downvote is very democratic

off topic - what we need is player unions(?).. players helping players to articulating their concerns in an effective manner... that means without the use of hyperbole... people may have good ideas but difficult time writing it down...

it is easier to express emotion, but easier to understand logic