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Make It A Requirement To Link Our Accounts To Our Phones & Accept Device & Location Agreements

IRON to PRO·2/20/2020, 1:26:53 PM·1 votes·2,408 views

I'm fine with the idea of making multiple accounts on league of legends, but I do believe their should be a requirement to make us link our accounts to our phone number in order to play the game, and also require you to accept a location/device agreements so that the system knows you are playing the game in this location and on this device, this way a bronze player can't go out and pay for boosting services and hit gold, and if you want to change your location and device you will have to speak to player support and get it approved, and also make it so that if you ask for a device or location change you can't change it back for 10 days, that way they can't just hit up support and change it to the boosters device and location just to change it back to their actual device 2 seconds later after the booster gets the rank they want. I think these changes are completely fine because like, come on really... How often does someone move from California to Florida within 2 weeks time? but im sure if that is your case and you aren't cheating... support will allow you to change, but in that case they should be monitoring your rank to make sure it didn't shoot up out of nowhere in the time frame your request was made.

Also I thought to myself, well can't they just turn around and use a friends number? That's true, but in that case they should make it so that the phone has to be next to the device you registered to play on location wise, this is also great because you can't just turn around and use your friends number unless their phone is next to your computer. If your friends lives in California and you live in Florida you won't even be able to log on to that account using your friends phone.

So for a basic idea or concept... Make an MMR pool for our accounts, so for example, you have 5 different accounts, you would be required to link each account to your phone number which identifies you. Your accounts would be placed in a pool and your MMR would be based on the average of your 5 different accounts. This way someone who has hit diamond+ and decides he wants to play on a lower level account the system will know that lower level account is yours, and that you peaked D+ and you will still be playing against players in that MMR pool, and not go around destroying new or lower elo players for kicks.

These are just idea's that popped into my head randomly and didn't require much thought, but the point of it is this, If RIOT wanted to, they could easily destroy these issues so many have been complaining about for years, which are high elo smurfs playing in low elo, and boosting services, elo boosting services being the worse because not only are they placing low elo players in higher elo's then they have earned; which fucks up the ladder, But players who are playing the game the right way have to go up against these boosters, and its not fair. Then we have to sit and wonder if that ekko that just went 21/0 in silver was just having a good game, or if it was a challenger player boosting a bronze 1 player into silver. RIOT could fix it, maybe put actual thought into prevent cheating, and this would never again be a problem. But... it probably won't happen.

13 Comments

RebeccaUCuber2/20/2020, 1:52:03 PM3 votes

It would be a nice solution. Sadly too many streamers and probably elo-boosting services grant Riot another source of income...

Hélrè2/20/2020, 4:34:50 PM2 votes

No thanks, last thing I want is Riot Games to hunt down my location. I would just stop playing at that point if things go so dystopian that my video games wanted to know where I am for ENFORCED BEHAVIOR. For personal privacy reasons I hate that idea deeply and truly as with the times, more and more large corporations greedily trying to take my data and personal information for sale to marketing companies, I've become very averse to the idea it just always seems a little scummy now, and most importantly to mention they do it already in South Korea and it just doesn't work anyhow. People still boost and are boosted, they just get around it with 3rd party services. Apdo rank 1 Challenger Korea having stated that boosting for him was so profitable that it payed off all of his college loans and then some. And they even go so far as to require Social security numbers attached to their accounts. To which they just steal from non-video game playing individuals. Which can cause further problems. So that's a fun fact, if you see anyone outside of South Korea playing the game but they're not a Korean national or dual citizen, they're using someone elses social security number to play. And it creates a huge black market for these services that will procure security numbers for people.

Not to mention even, what if someone went on vacation and took their laptop with them. 1 day Texas location, next Tijuana location. Well now you have to go explain to glorious riot game overlords that you decided you want a vacation, so 'please don't by my account glorious Riot Games, I just wanted a vacation to be free from my daily responsibilities, and I promise I will never play league in a non-pre-approved, naughty zone again'. Even if you have a system where 'you can request a change' the change has to be looked at or done automatically. Even if done automatically, then what if you're not in Tijuana for 10 days? Well guess when you get back, you just can't play. You're out of luck little Timmy. If you're someone who travels for work, the game is then truly unplayable. Divorced parents who live maybe only a few hours away from each other, just enough to be in a different state or county and you have to go back and forth? Well you can no longer play, period. And we can just throw out the idea of actually interacting with support, the sheer volume of tickets per day they get they can't even get to in a timely fashion, same with player reports. If their support were that good they'd be finding the offending accounts through the report feature fast enough for it to not be a problem. So then you'll also have to trust those support personnel with tracking you and securely switching your location and being actually able to speak with them in a timely manner, it just doesn't make sense for the life of a typical individual to have to sit and speak the a Glorious Riot Games representative to be able to play a game for leisure, during their travels to Grandmas House. Or even to have to switch it using an automated system.

Even then I could get a burner phone for like 45dollars or less from the dollar store, with a non-contract prepaid agreement get a phone number and keep it around as long as I wanted the account, and a booster could theoretically make that back from only one or two boosts. And the sim could be replicated or location spoofed to be in a different location by the many anti-tracking services used by privacy advocates.

Then you have to get around distinguishing people who have had a genuine leap in skill, because it does happen. Versus people who are being boosted. Because people can be coached by higher ranked players or by friends, or they can do like some people I've known personally and play Dota for a bit, not even that long. Maybe a week of getting into Dota or some other game with high difficulty or just the break away from the game helps them to cool off from past losses, take the lesson and improve and it genuinely makes them a better league player, so when going into ranked these people will get a bump in skill, suddenly. For any number of other reasons as well, if someone is playing with an injury or while ill perhaps for some time, then suddenly they get better or they're playing with a laptop touch pad and finally get the desktop of their dreams with all the improved equipment and ergonomics and better precision that affords them really lets their talent shine better. Those cases maybe sound not so common, but given a player base of millions of players there will be many many who are like that or do have genuine natural bumps in skill occasionally. So then you'll have to take that into account, because when those people are then wrongfully terminated, of course they will have to appeal themselves. And that will only further gunk up the already clogged support tunnel so instead of them actually getting to requests or bug tickets or to actually dealing with offending accounts this will become another thing on their plate to deal with.

Though I will say, there may be something to the idea of allowing players to OPT in on a service that allows you to combine your MMR, that would of course have to be made in a way that couldn't be abused, saying you can't temporarily attach to a friends account and use that as a form of boosting. Other than that it does have potential for players who simply want a second high level account to play with. Though the problem is a lot of people who make secondary accounts to climb back, it's either done for the challenge, or to have an account with fresh MMR. But I think something like that idea could be made to accommodate people who are looking for that. And you can do that without needing to be so dystopian that you have to link your phone number, it could be done entirely through email, or through game interface.

Timethief492/20/2020, 4:44:09 PM2 votes

When i started playing i didnt have a phone and I have friends that play the game that still dont have a phone.

Maximus Paine2/20/2020, 2:03:12 PM1 votes

I like the idea of linking accounts to something more tangible, but for different reasons. That, basically for enforcing stricter discipline and discouraging trolling, toxicity, etc. If a habitual troll gets an account banned and he can just open a new one very easily, then there's no real pain or penalty. It could discourage ELO boosting schemes for that reason.

Now, the location thing I think would be unworkable because people have legitimate reasons for playing from other locations and going back home in a short time. Any sort of process that requires players requesting support to do something is probably unworkable as they would have to handle thousands of requests daily and they don't have the manpower.

Averaging MMR of accounts would pose a problem because there could be legitimate reasons for MMR to be substantially different between accounts, like maining different roles, champions, or mainly using them for ARAM and other modes, etc.

Linking to phones has probably been looked at by Riot. it may pose some privacy issues and they might not want to implement it because people wouldn't like it or law doesn't allow. Korea links them to their national ID. I wonder if it promotes better conduct for them.

Ariel the Cruel2/22/2020, 10:08:34 PM1 votes

At that point, we may as well follow the Korean model of requiring a SSN for all online games. Your idea is a MASSIVE privacy concern (Never mind security risk) and would probably cost them a large chunk of the player base.

The trade off would be the DRM dilemma. It becomes a hassle for good actors, and bad actors just adapt the methods they already use to subvert the systems.

GoldsmithSmarty2/22/2020, 9:18:30 PM1 votes

The last thing I want is, for a Chinese company to know my location and phone number. I’m sorry, but fuck you for such a suggestion. If you want this dystopian future, fine, but you should be ashamed for posting your weird thoughts here.

RekSai CoffeeCo2/20/2020, 2:20:17 PM1 votes

Only if it is OPT in, i have no interest in ranked or SR for that matter so don't care about MMR.