League’s attempts to reduce toxicity have made players even more toxic
Riot GamesThe League of Legends team have been trying to come up with innovative ways to reduce the levels of toxicity in the game, but those attempts have motivated players to be even more toxic to their teammates.
League of Legends has a certain reputation amongst gamers, one that has made the game fairly notorious at this point. While some remember it as a prominent esports title for some of its greatest moments or a fun game to play with their friends, it’s also infamous for having a hostile player base.
While it’s understandable to get angry at teammates considering how high the skill floor is for a game like League and how much you have to know to play at a basic level, it’s also discouraging for players new and old to get flamed by their teammates for making a single mistake.
So, Riot have taken to trying to remove some of players’ methods of BMing their teammates. However, these efforts have had the opposite effect as players skirt their way around the recent slew of changes.
League devs make game more toxic by trying to reduce toxicity
When it comes to a game as complex and team-oriented as League of Legends, being able to quickly and efficiently communicate with your teammates is pretty important. Especially considering the game doesn’t have voice chat.
However, players have developed their own sort of “language” by using in-game pings. The “bait” ping was used for nefarious purposes more so than it was used to ping something, and pinging that your allies are alive was often used to flame them.
So, those features have been removed to try and keep people from BMing. While you can still ping teammates alive, you’ll be the only one to see it. The bait ping has been completely removed as well. However, players have taken to pasting these messages in chat instead to flame their teammates.
Even the game’s pro players have been innovating to give their teammates hell. And, while it’s plain to see why Riot may have wanted to remove these kinds of pings, it’s worth mentioning they could be used to praise teammates. Pinging allies missing or alive was just as often used to compliment them for big plays as it was to flame them.
However, it’s mostly used to BM now rather than being used to compliment allies. With players’ solution cutting out the positives and keeping the toxicity, this attempt to curb players flaming each other may have only made the issue worse. As Caedrel put it, “they will always find a way”.
Former Fnatic coach Yamato directly called out Riot’s approach to curbing toxicity in a lengthy tweet explaining why removing communication is a bad idea in his eyes.
“In my humble opinion, the more ways you have to convey ideas and communicate in a strategic team game, the better.” Yamato explained. “ANY agency in a team game can and WILL be used for bad and it will be a problem you will always face in a game where you are at the mercy of 9 other players.”
Additionally, other players have been pointing out ways in which not being able to communicate as effectively with their teammates have gotten them killed.
Kirei displayed that essential pings like being able to ping that someone’s low enough to be killed by Karthus ult make the game harder to play and caused him to drop kills he may have otherwise been able to get.
However, Riot’s efforts don’t stop there. Some gameplay changes have been introduced to try and reduce junglers’ methods of stealing farm from teammates via some big nerfs to Smite, but players are already theorycrafting ways to skirt around it.
All that said, this change was almost immediately reverted. Smite’s still getting some nerfs in the next patch, but minions and pets will still be Smiteable. However, it’s important to note what these changes meant in just the day that they were expected.
Players may not have been able to Smite cannon minions away from their teammates after these changes, but players were given more incentive to run a rune that can only be used to steal from teammates rather than just having the option to do so.
Former pro jungler Selfmade was extremely critical of the changes, and not just because it wasn’t going to be possible to steal minions anymore.
With a jungler like Lee Sin for instance, being able to Smite minions was essential for high level players in order to land a skillshot like Lee’s Q that doesn’t go through minions. This has removed a level of skill expression junglers have had for a very, very long time, and is likely a big part of why the change was reverted.
Ultimately, it’s easy to see why Riot are putting effort into curbing toxicity and getting their playerbase to be a bit more friendly with each other, but the solutions they’ve been trying to implement seem to have only given players more incentive to be mean to each other.