There is however one small thing that bothers me about their message. I'm all for not rageing, but they also seem to suggest you should always stick by raging teammates. Showing even a little empathy towards your raging teammates' situation can indeed cause amazing comebacks for teams that by all rights should have fallen victim to inner animosity. This I know from personal experience. But just as often there's just no reasoning with a rager any more, in which case the correct reaction is probably to just leave the game. Not because you're likely going to lose anyway, but because there's a limit to how much bile you should be willing to swallow just to win a round of LoL (or whatever game). After all, aren't you supposed to be having fun?
The fact that you are actively punished (low priority qeues or whatever) for "leaving early" adds to my suspicions that riot does not understand the above concept.
Yeah right. Its the same in ALL Multiplayer games.
World of Tanks, TF2, BF3, DOTA, LoL, Call of Duty, Wolfenstein (though much less due to only veteran players being left), WoW... etc. Its only a question of more or less, but there are always people that seem to not understand neither sportmanship nor teamwork.
I want such a video for World of Tanks... very often do I see people go neo-nazi all-knowing general on eachother... or start just killing eachother... and the team loses
At the risk of sounding like a silly little fanboy, I've personally only ever had maybe 5-10 people in all my 100+ games of DotA2 be so negative and anti team. More often do people communicate and work together. DotA2 isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but putting it in the same negativity league as League seems unfair to me.
As bad as LoL is, DOTA1 was worse.
Much, much worse.
Why? No means of effective punishment. One rager leads to two Leavers which leads to lopsided games...it was a domino effect.
But the same lesson applies, even if the majority of players are unwilling to listen to it.
in which case the correct reaction is probably to just leave the game. Not because you're likely going to lose anyway, but because there's a limit to how much bile you should be willing to swallow just to win a round of LoL (or whatever game). After all, aren't you supposed to be having fun?
Or you could just put the player on ignore. That makes it where the teams will still have an even number of players, though admittedly the enemy team is still likely to win.
Yeah, spot on, because I decided to get out while I still could. Maybe it's just me, but when I get kicked in the balls, I don't typically stick around to see if it hurts any less the second time around.
Almost every other online multiplayer game I've played. League of Legends, because of it's design, is always going to be a very hostile environment. It's a 'Free to play' MOBA/DOTA that uses in game gold and micro-transactions. Since you are competing for something with a perceived value (gold) the competitive matches have a perceived high stakes for some players.
The game puts you under constant pressure to get more gold and therefore if matches start to go bad it makes some people feel like they are losing actual money. That's why the game is such a pressure cooker. It's taken so seriously it's almost impossible to have fun, it's like high end raiding in Wow used to be at it's worst.
Have you ever actually played League of Legends? Because the part about "in game gold and mirco-transactions" sounds like you're describing a completely different, unrelated game and reminds me of peoples complaints that the game is "pay to win".
The involvement of real-world money in LoL is in purchasing Riot Points (RP); RP is a meta-currency that you can use to buy Summoner (account) boosts, champion skins, unlock champions, or unlock extra runebook pages. The skins don't actually give any advantage to you in-game, so the only reason to buy them is because you personally like it and want to use it. In other words, it's entirely optional. Boosts come in two flavors: Influence Point boosts (IP is accumulated on your account whenever you play a game (you get more for winning, but still get some even if you lose)) and XP boosts (your account has its own leveling (1-30) that grant perks in the form of additional slots for runes and skill-trees (masteries)). Both of these boosts will trade real-world money for in-game time by having to play fewer games to accumulate the same meta-resources, but don't grant you access to anything that would be otherwise inaccessible ((author's note- I advise against using these, the perks you get will not counterbalance the game-sense that you lose out on by not playing as much)). The possible exception to this lies in the rune slots and mastery points being unlocked more slowly, but again they are not in any way gated behind a pay-wall, you will just need to play for a bit longer to get them. Unlocking champions and extra runebook pages are again examples of exchanging real-world money for in-game time; both of these things can be unlocked with IP gained through normal play.
The point of all that is to demonstrate that this model truly does support the idea of "free to play" in that any involvement of real-world money is completely unnecessary to the overall experience or to winning.
With the chapter on meta-resources concluded, let's dig in to your other point: gold. Gold is a purely in-game resource that starts at a default value for every player in each game (though a certain mastery can give you a bit more), gets accumulated both passively at a set rate in-game and as a reward for certain in-game actions, and gets reset after each game; you can scrabble for resources all you want, but it will not help you in anything beyond strengthening your character for this fight. Efectively, this means that your gold (and any gameplay elements concerning it) are, once again, completely disconnected from any involvement with real-world money. Yes, you do want to get more in-game resources to make your character more powerful, but the same could be said for any number of other games and even other genres (Starcraft, Modern Warfare series, etc.) and as such there is nothing inherent to MOBA's in general or LoL in particular which suggests this as a cause for concern.
Again, it seems like you truly haven't researched the topic much so this post is geared mostly towards education rather than argument. That being said, I don't generally enjoy having a pet favorite game of mine unjustly insulted, so please try to stick to justified ones
bliebblob said:
But just as often there's just no reasoning with a rager any more, in which case the correct reaction is probably to just leave the game. Not because you're likely going to lose anyway, but because there's a limit to how much bile you should be willing to swallow just to win a round of LoL (or whatever game). After all, aren't you supposed to be having fun?
The fact that you are actively punished (low priority qeues or whatever) for "leaving early" adds to my suspicions that riot does not understand the above concept.
While I agree with the spirit of your post, I do take issue with this section. Leaving the game to avoid a rager/flamer/troll seems like a bit of an extreme reaction. An alternative to this is to use the "Mute Player" function provided in-game (hold [Tab] to bring up the scoreboard and click the speech-bubble next to the offender's name). This completely suppresses that player's comments on your screen, both in team-chat and in all-chat. One player shouldn't have the power to completely ruin other people's gameplay experience, and with this method they won't; you can keep playing, and they get to keep spewing vitriol into a vacuum.
The penalty for leaving a match early does not suggest that Riot lacks understanding of how trolls can damage fun, but rather demonstrates their understanding of it. Just as a person raging in chat can be damaging to player morale, so too can one of their teammates disconnecting because they no longer want to play. I explained above how to deal with a rager, so their presence should not constitute a valid reason for disconnecting early as they have no more power to speak to you than you decide to give them. If you disconnect early, the rest of your team's efforts are now crippled n sch a way that defeat is usually inevitable. You may get what you want, but anyone else who wanted to win or even just wanted more time to practice with a new champion is now denied what they wanted from the experience; just because a game is supposed to be fun for everyone does not give you the right to define "fun" for anyone else.
Given this explanation, can you see how leaving early can be as much a tool of trolls and ragers as the in-game chat functions, and as such why the punishment exists?
Yeah, spot on, because I decided to get out while I still could. Maybe it's just me, but when I get kicked in the balls, I don't typically stick around to see if it hurts any less the second time around.
I allways perceived HoN (Heroes of Newerth) to be even more toxic then LoL. I'm wondering why it didn't come up yet^^
Weaver said:
That said, correlation does not equal causation though. I would like the actual data and reports behind this [...]. Could it just be that people lose 35% more games and are thus simply more bitter about it?
I would like to see the raw data, too. The conclusions are surprisingly drastic...
Though, in my experience many ragers are doing ok'ish up to actually quite good, in their individual performance. Their issue is not seeing the bigger picture. I think you've got to have a decent amount of selfesteem to totally trashtalk someone else.
I think the losing-more-often and raging-at-teammates have a common reason: Lacking understanding of teamplay. That'd explain the correlation of those two.
That being said, I absolutely commend Riot for their efforts of improving their community.
There is however one small thing that bothers me about their message. I'm all for not rageing, but they also seem to suggest you should always stick by raging teammates. Showing even a little empathy towards your raging teammates' situation can indeed cause amazing comebacks for teams that by all rights should have fallen victim to inner animosity. This I know from personal experience. But just as often there's just no reasoning with a rager any more, in which case the correct reaction is probably to just leave the game. Not because you're likely going to lose anyway, but because there's a limit to how much bile you should be willing to swallow just to win a round of LoL (or whatever game). After all, aren't you supposed to be having fun?
The fact that you are actively punished (low priority qeues or whatever) for "leaving early" adds to my suspicions that riot does not understand the above concept.
Dude, believe me, leavers are much worse than ragers. People who rage can be muted, sometimes (very rarely, but still) reasoned with, but those people? Unless you are super fed, or you really outsmart the enemy team, you're going to lose those 4v5 matches. Also, remember that it's a 5 person team. 1 raging neanderthal is not the reason to leave and have 3 other people suffer because you had enough.
It's a sensitive topic for me, because this is exactly how my last ranked game went. At ~20 minute stage, I was 5/2 Talon with a decent farm, and our Vayne caught 3 kills in the first 5 minutes, we were slowly approaching their base. We should be golden, right? Nope. Our Fiddlesticks decided he had enough of supporting (he was the last pick, and he called role last as well, he raged and bitched, but eventually went with support runes and masteries, so I thought it will be fine), and told us to f*** ourselves, and left. The enemy team team started winning teamfights, at first with one survivor with low HP, and then steadily started to overpower us, took Baron, wiped us, and took the game. Boom. 4 people who could already see a won game just got crushed, because one person decided he doesn't want to play that way.
Sorry, but unless your internet just died, there's no excuse for leaving the game. The rager can be muted, and with full teams you can still win despite all the flame on the chat. Leaver is permanently damaging the team. Period.
OT: I totally agree. Even if I'm pissed at someone, I just stay silent. I report a lot after a game, but if I realize that raging won't get us anywhere, and sometimes a simple "gj" after a successful gank can do wonders. Video posted on my FB wall.
This has been researched and disproved many a times. Its not the ARTS(see what I did there?) community, its the internet at large. The difference is that there are actually very few games out there where you're forced to communicate and cooperate with such a large amount of people a day, and where teamwork, like stated in the video, is directly linked to success or failure. Sure you can have a bad experience in Call of Duty, battlefield or css if you have bad teammates there as well, but it wont make your aim worse. Where in ARTS styles games the opponents gets directly stronger, and you comparatively worse the worse your teammates are doing. Thats why it may seem like these people are the worst of the worst the world has to offer, but in reality its just a cross section of the internet as a whole
Actually, having bad teamates in CS does affect your effectiveness just as much as it does in DoTA-like games. Your example of a player's death negatively affecting their team while simultaneously being beneficial to their oposers stands. Everytime a teamate of yours gets killed in CS, the enemy team gets money for weapons and equipment. Your team is also way less likely to win that round, further expanding the money gap between teams. After a while, your team will be deploying considerably worse equiped than your adversaries, and, therefore, objectively less likely to win.
In tournaments, yes, absolutely. In pubs? No one cares one way or the other. It doesn't affect you greatly that one of your 10 teammates rushed into mid and got sniped by the enemy AWP. You can still win the round if you're good enough. Hell, it might not even matter if you win the round. All that matters is how many headshots, nades and kills you can land. And if your teammates are so monkey retarded that you can't even start the round before you get shot in the back, you can just find yourself another server. In dota, if even one of your teammates does something stupid, it can ruin the whole game which can last more than 40 minutes, and it might not matter how well you yourself play, you'll still lose.
edit: I use dota because thats what I play. Same goes for every other moba out there, of course.
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind greater group cohesion leads to greater success. You're more willing to watch each other's backs, and you're more willing to adjust your strategies together in order to succeed. When you've decided you don't like somebody in your group, you're more likely to play your way rather than playing as a group.
I'm noticing this in Final Fantasy XIV. I haven't played an MMO in a while, but I remember in FFXI a LOT of teamwork and pre-planning was required to get anything accomplished, so you rarely went into a fight without a good idea of what you were doing. But with FFXIV, there is a system that automatically pairs you with people, and you're basically thrown in at a moment's notice. It is possible to strategize, but a lot of time if nobody is willing to take the helm that doesn't happen, so a lot of times someone will be doing something wrong. Sometimes what others say is nice, sometimes it isn't so nice. And in my experience, things go more smoothly if the advice and strategizing is nicer because they're more willing to work as one and do even more to make sure things go off without a hitch.
Plus, a lot of time what you really need is good leadership, and the person who's bitching and moaning is not going to be taken seriously or followed as a leader by everyone else.
This same concept is the reason I fell in love with Left 4 Dead. Especially in Versus mode, teamwork is the most valuable skill a player can have.
It's too bad more games don't emphasize teamwork like this. With any luck, encouraging good attitudes and letting them so directly affect gameplay could even carry a person's style over to non-team games and make voice chat across all games and services that much more pleasant.
You vastly underestimate the psychological effect of intern flaming in a team. In the end both parties are annoyed and start playing even worse, one because he spends more time flaming and watching the mistakes of others than look after his own shit, the other because he gets annoyed and tries to prove some shit and making even more dumb mistakes. Toxic players affect your performance and in the end are cause for more bad games than anything else.
If they were down 16k gold, then they won, because the other team made mistakes afterwards (and they didn't)... being nice doesn't win games, but it definetly helps. You don't want to help someone, whose description of you could fill a diggestive system...
I honestly think it's more that losing players rage, not that raging players lose. Everybody gets frustrated when they pour an hour into a game and lose because one person is terrible or somebody else disconnected. Sure, there are people who rage, and that does put pressure on a person, but I just think that winning teams have less reason for aggression, and that's the real reason.
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