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[SalmonGod]

Look, if you get a game to this kind of size and add blameable teammates to the mix it's bound to become a cesspool.

Really appreciate the improvements, though.

I think it has more to do with the general competitiveness of the game.  Every online game that is tightly balanced to punish mistakes quickly and harshly seems to suffer from a similar sort of toxicity in the community, even ones that are only loosely team-based.  I think it just feeds into elitism.

I've played other online games that required just as much team coordination as LoL, where toxic behavior was rare or non-existent.  Left4Dead is one major example that comes to mind.

[frostshotgg]

The problem that MOBAs face is that games are a huge ass time investment.

[SalmonGod]

The problem that MOBAs face is that games are a huge ass time investment.

You mean the inability to just leave a game when you're frustrated with your teammates and things are going badly?  Yeah.  That's a big problem.  There is nothing more infuriating than being forced to put in a serious effort in a game for 10 minutes with teammate(s) who are being total jackasses, while you're losing horribly, your team is refusing to surrender, and the enemy is purposely toying with you and dragging things out (dance party @ your nexus!).

Plenty of other games suffer from the same sort of community without that problem, though.

[Errol]

Look, if you get a game to this kind of size and add blameable teammates to the mix it's bound to become a cesspool.

Really appreciate the improvements, though.

I think it has more to do with the general competitiveness of the game.  Every online game that is tightly balanced to punish mistakes quickly and harshly seems to suffer from a similar sort of toxicity in the community, even ones that are only loosely team-based.  I think it just feeds into elitism.

I've played other online games that required just as much team coordination as LoL, where toxic behavior was rare or non-existent.  Left4Dead is one major example that comes to mind.

Punishing mistakes hard is a good thing. It's better if you only have to suffer from your own mistakes, though. I haven't really experienced much toxicity at all in games like Street Fighter 4, and that game is hyper-competitive.

[SalmonGod]

Punishing mistakes hard is a good thing.

I'm not a fan.  I find it anti-fun.  I like some freedom to explore, test boundaries, and figure out what works best for me on my own terms.  If the game is only calibrated to respond with "YOU HYPERWIN" or "YOU INSTA-LOSE", then this becomes incredibly unrewarding.

I haven't really experienced much toxicity at all in games like Street Fighter 4, and that game is hyper-competitive.

Do you play it online?

[Errol]

Punishing mistakes hard is a good thing.

I'm not a fan.  I find it anti-fun.  I like some freedom to explore, test boundaries, and figure out what works best for me on my own terms.  If the game is only calibrated to respond with "YOU HYPERWIN" or "YOU INSTA-LOSE", then this becomes incredibly unrewarding.

Snowballing and Punishing for Mistakes aren't really the same thing. Look at SF4 as a decent example - if you make a really stupid mistake you get 40% damage to the face. But you're still in the game afterwards with the same amount of options.

Similarily, on Dominion, if you screw up your first bot lane fight really hard, didn't bring Revive for some stupid reason and lose your tower, it's going to take a while and perhaps a bit of aid to take it back, but you haven't lost the game for it. Perhaps 50~70 points, but not the game.

Meanwhile, the core paradigm of the classic MOBA, which is acquiring gold/using that gold lead to make more gold is fundamentally flawed. At some point it just snowballs out of control. That's the reason I like Dominion, incidentially.

I haven't really experienced much toxicity at all in games like Street Fighter 4, and that game is hyper-competitive.

Do you play it online?

Yes. I'm perplexed myself I haven't gotten a single ragemail yet. Possibly because I don't win all that often.

[Sharp]

For me the most toxic behaviour I see takes place pre-game where you can't report for it, to be honest players who go "i don't support" are annoying but not ban-worthy. It's a game, you don't have to be forced to do something you don't want to, it can just mean a different meta-game which people might not like but in the end it's a game, there isn't a rule that last pick has to follow the meta and take whatever role is left. For me the toxic players are the ones who go "if I go bot I feed" "solo mid or feed", they should be banned.

[Graven]

You can, especially if it's racist or otherwise offensive comments - just take a screenshot and send it to support. IIRC they'll tell you they can't do anything, but will forward it to people who can. It's worth a try, anyway.

[SalmonGod]

Snowballing and Punishing for Mistakes aren't really the same thing. Look at SF4 as a decent example - if you make a really stupid mistake you get 40% damage to the face. But you're still in the game afterwards with the same amount of options.

Similarily, on Dominion, if you screw up your first bot lane fight really hard, didn't bring Revive for some stupid reason and lose your tower, it's going to take a while and perhaps a bit of aid to take it back, but you haven't lost the game for it. Perhaps 50~70 points, but not the game.

Meanwhile, the core paradigm of the classic MOBA, which is acquiring gold/using that gold lead to make more gold is fundamentally flawed. At some point it just snowballs out of control. That's the reason I like Dominion, incidentially.

I completely agree.  It is a fundamentally flawed mechanic  This is also why I only play ARAMs anymore.

RPG snowballing isn't the only mechanic like this, though.  Take Counter-Strike, for example.  Your learning process in that game is mostly going to consist of dying instantly without even firing a shot, and then waiting 5-10 minutes for the next round to start, so you can repeat the process over and over and over again.  Incidentally, it's another game with a horribly crude, elitist community.

I haven't really experienced much toxicity at all in games like Street Fighter 4, and that game is hyper-competitive.

Do you play it online?

Yes. I'm perplexed myself I haven't gotten a single ragemail yet. Possibly because I don't win all that often.

Thinking about it more, fighting games aren't punishing in the way that I'm talking about.  Yeah, you can lose a ton of health to a nasty combo, and veteran players will mercilessly trounce newbies with ease.  However, there is still likely to be some back and forth exchange in the fight before you lose.  This is essential, because it gives new players more opportunity to learn and be inducted into the game, instead of driven away.  More importantly, there aren't any terrible consequences for losing.  You're not losing something that you've invested a lot of time into, and you don't have to wait very long before starting over.  I think harsh barriers to entry and high stakes (usually time investment) are the #1 factors that enculture elitism in a game, and all the super egos/no-fun-allowed attitudes that entails.  Fighting games are rough to start, but they're still not cruel the way many other games are, especially MOBAs.


And now for something completely different!

[penguinofhonor]

Meanwhile, the core paradigm of the classic MOBA, which is acquiring gold/using that gold lead to make more gold is fundamentally flawed. At some point it just snowballs out of control. That's the reason I like Dominion, incidentially.

That's the entire point of the system. At some point, one team snowballs into a win and the game ends. Something like this is required in a game without a time limit.

I've had games where nobody snowballed. Those games are intense and all, but they very reliably last 50+ minutes.

[SalmonGod]

Meanwhile, the core paradigm of the classic MOBA, which is acquiring gold/using that gold lead to make more gold is fundamentally flawed. At some point it just snowballs out of control. That's the reason I like Dominion, incidentially.

That's the entire point of the system. At some point, one team snowballs into a win and the game ends. Something like this is required in a game without a time limit.

I've had games where nobody snowballed. Those games are intense and all, but they very reliably last 50+ minutes.

Yeah, I've heard that argument a lot.  I still think it needs to be tighter controlled.  If there is no limit on the amount that one team can snowball, then it hits a point where there is literally zero point for the other team to continue playing the game.  If this happens before the surrender time limit or a couple teammates are stubborn about surrendering, then the losing team is forced to endure an extended trouncing.  This situation is the worst part of the game, and happens way too often, in my experience.  Being forced to continue putting effort into a situation where I feel completely helpless just makes me really, really angry.  I have never, ever gotten as angry at any game as I have at LoL, purely because these scenarios happen, and good game design would prevent that.

I've had what I believe to be a decent solution for a long time:  Make leveling up a constant over time.  Everyone in the game levels at exactly the same rate.  Gold is still earned according to player success.  However, items have level limits.  And there you go.  An easy mechanic for controlling snowballing.  One team will still work itself to an advantage, but proper game balance can prevent that advantage from becoming too overwhelming.  The losing team can never find themselves completely shut down by pure numbers, until that point in the game where everything is unlocked.  Preferably, that would also be the point at which surrendering is allowed.

[ZetaX]

No, what you suggest is "remove start game snowballing, only allow very slow/late game snowballing". What's the point of that¿ It almost removes the versatility of having a strong start game team to acquire an advantage, and generally seems like a way to restrict the freedom such a game offers. If you think that a game should not realistically be decided in the first 10 minutes, I think you didn't understand the concept of strong start game versus strong late game.


It is also not the game's fault if your team doesn't want to surrender, and that won't change with your system, anyway. If your companions want to play on, then they want to play on. Sometimes they know very well that they are almost surely loose this one, but still want to end it normally to see how much they can do, and what they can learn from it; or just for the fun of it. If you have a problem with getting overruled by a majority of players, either don't play or only play with friends.

[SalmonGod]

If the game is going to deliberately include team comps that are designed to decide the game inside the first 10 minutes, then it should allow earlier surrendering...

And I still don't believe that snowballing should ever reach a point where the game is decided with finality, without actually being over with.  You should never ever feel completely and totally helpless against the sheer disparity of numbers wielded by their characters vs yours, and still be forced to slog through it under threat of action against your account.  I just don't understand how anybody can consider that anything but horrible, toxic game design.  An advantage is fine, but hopeless, crushing dance party in front of your nexus because you're just knocked that far down and will instantly explode if you take one step outside your spawn?  No fucking thanks.  Put some limits on that shit.

If you have a problem with getting overruled by a majority of players, either don't play or only play with friends.

I'm just voicing my opinion.  I've already given up on summoner's rift long, long ago.  I only play ARAMs anymore.  I only ever picked up LoL and played summoner's rift as long as I did because everyone I know plays it, but some of them are just that damn stubborn.  They have some personal honor code or blind optimism issues that prevents them from ever surrendering.

[frostshotgg]

But a teamcomp can't win in the first 10 minutes. What they *can* do is get a seriously heavy lead in gold AND experience. Experience is like a metric fuckton of free gold, and zoning players out of it is something that even 1200 elo understands. If you can kill someone, and they know it, then make sure you can keep your lead by not letting them get more xp.

About half the time a team surrenders in the first place, they could have easily made a comeback. That's one thing I like about Dota's system, no surrendering means a defeatist attitude towards everything. "Oh noooo, Soraka got a kill. gg report my team." It's even worse when people with it expect other people to have a defeatist attiude with it. "OMG TEAM WONT /FF STUPID FUCKTARDS ENEMY GOT 1 DRAGON WTF" Nothing is more annoying to me as a player than when I see that I or someone else can carry a game, but the rest of the team is like nope and /ffs anyways. I'd love to see how the game changes if Riot disabled surrendering for a patch or so.

[ZetaX]

@SalmonGod:
The whole point of those early game teams is to get a very significant advantage early on in an attempt to win the game fast. If the other team can survive untill minute 40 (random number, actually depends on the teams), they have a chance of turning it around. It is often a bad habit to surrender at 20 just because your team is very late game and stands 5/18 or similiar, while you haven't lost third towers (sometimes not even second ones); the LCS and season 2 finale had several games that where ultimately won by the "loosing" team being able to stale the others long enough.
I for myself played several games which we initially lost hard (the most extrem one was something around 3/25 and only one third tower left at minute 25), but which we won in the end (sometimes due to much higher late game possibilities, and sometimes due to the enemies making a severe mistake).

There are rare cases where the start game is so totally lost that a comeback is impossible, but I think this is just a very minor percentage (except maybe in lower ELO, because without still getting enough farm [despite your enemies advantages; note that this does not mean you need to get equal or more farm than them], coming back is impossible). You also don't need xp over time, because situations where you cannot even leave your base anymore rarely occure that early, and often are your own teams fault by not warding enough.


Oh, and please don't start with that "I'm just voicing my opinion", because so do I. I never told you to shut up or tried to silence you in any way. I just gave you an advice, and I was, and still am, serious about that one: If you don't have fun with LoL (or some aspect of it) because majority does not agree with you, then just don't play it.