In recent days, after streamer Voyboy posted a video discussing the toxic environment in League of Legends, a wave of reflections and new forms of punishment and reporting has emerged within the community, all aimed at making this game less toxic. With a publisher that closely monitors the community, Riot Games is certainly aware of this, and when the community reacts too strongly, they must provide an appropriate response.
Just a few hours ago, Riot Meddler – the project director for League of Legends – posted an article about this issue on the League of Legends homepage and outlined the solutions that Riot Games is implementing to reduce the game’s toxic environment. Essentially, Riot is focusing on enhancing the effectiveness of the reporting system and introducing more appropriate forms of punishment for those who deliberately ruin the game.
Riot Meddler: “Current plan – Upgrade feedback notifications on reports”
We have just implemented some upgrades to how the reporting system and notifications work. Currently, this is only applied in North America, but if this trial goes well, it will be rolled out across all servers in the coming weeks. The result should be a significant increase in the number of punishment scenarios reported.
Previously, you would only be notified that a player was punished successfully if that player was punished in accordance with the category you reported. However, this led to a significantly lower number of notifications that players receive compared to the actual number of players banned. Therefore, the new notification system will send you feedback as long as the player you reported was punished, regardless of whether it aligns with the category you reported.
Short-term plan – Reporting at champion select and disabling chat
Game ruining behavior right from champion select is something that players have very few ways to counter. Starting in the late phase of the second ranked season, we will give you the ability to report disruptive players during champion select. Initially, these reports will be used to assess attitudes during champion select. Once we have enough data, we will better evaluate player behavior and implement appropriate punishments.
With this information from Riot Games, we can be assured that they are focusing on upgrading the punishment and reporting system for players with negative attitudes in League of Legends, rather than just ignoring the problem as before. Besides the upgraded reporting system, we hope it will become a bit more useful; the ability to report during champion select is also an incredibly useful and novel feature.
Of course, League of Legends is not lacking in quirky and effective playstyles, but playing outside the meta is different from ruining the game. Indeed, encountering players who lock in Yasuo even when playing Support or Jungle makes teammates frustrated and not want to play anymore; not to mention position disputes and those “mid or troll” attitudes and other negative behaviors that need to be eliminated. We hope Riot’s system will work effectively and minimize toxic elements.