7 ms·

The difficulty in banning ‘most toxic League of Legends player in North America’

28 points by taylorbuley 10y ago

Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
I don't play LoL (or any games frequently). However, what sort of backlash would there be if Riot were to remove Draven from the game for a month?
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Never feed a troll. He would get even more famous.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- placeybordeaux 10y ago
  This is a game that has almost 100 Million monthly active users. Removing a character because of one player sounds a lot like collective punishment.
- vanattab 10y ago
  Draven is not the problem. It's the players intentional "feeding". Which in LoL vernacular is when I player intentionally lets the other team kill them for gold and money.
  - Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
    My logic was that the article says he only plays _seriously_ with Draven, which allows him to consistently rank up. He then trolls/feeds when Draven is unavailable to him due to roster lock-out. Presumably he finds it a challenge to rank-up with Draven over and over. If he can't play as Draven he can't rank-up and _may_ stop playing. Or worse case his rank will be so bad that he'll only feed in low-rank games. Either that or the LoL community should collectively agree to roster out Draven of every single match for the foreseeable future.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  If the most toxic NCAA basketball player shot 3s like Stephen Curry, how much backlash would there be if the NCAA removed the three point line for a season and returned to just 2 points per hoop like in the 70s?
zepolen 10y ago
And now his popularity is going to soar even more.
Synaesthesia 10y ago
With the swearing and outbursts and mania, sounds like he may have Tourette's which may give you "prematurely fast reflexes". http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/03/why-tourette-s-may-be-tim-howard-s-secret-weapon-on-the-field.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/03/why-tourett...
- gozur88 10y ago
  "preternaturally"
- Cpoll 10y ago
  It's worth noting that swearing isn't a commonality among Tourette's sufferers. The condition is more accurately "motor and vocal tics," not uncontrollable swearing.
lackbeard 10y ago
Many of the design decisions in this game seem bad and arbitrary. Why have bans and why limit to 1 of each character per game? Why not let everyone play who the want?
- maruhan2 10y ago
  "Why have bans" The so called "normal mode" is one where there are no bans. Rank mode, however, have bans because with so many characters it's impossible to be perfectly balanced, and some will be distinctively stronger than others. Just by picking them first, you'll be in a much better spot, which goes against the competitive nature. So, you get to ban those characters. (Then, you might question why there is pick order instead of everyone choosing what they want at the same time. I'll get to that.) In addition, in adds a strategic element. For example, say you are really good at one character but that character is particularly weak against another character. You can ban that option out. About why there is pick order. In the normal mode, there is no pick order. In rank, there is because it adds a strategic element. It allows you to try to pick characters that will most amplify your team's strategy or nullify your opponent's strategy. This also helps with balancing since you don't want to have a strategy that completely by chance happens to be countered by the opposing strategy. "Why 1 character per game" This can be put to two options. First option is controlling many characters at once like starcraft. Second option is being able to swap out characters mid-game like overwatch. This is purely based on decisions of what make games fun. About the first option of controlling one character, this game structure is based off DOTA which is a mod for Warcraft 3. People liked DOTA because instead of the trouble of controlling multiple characters in Warcraft 3, for many people, it was more intuitive and hence more fun to control one character. It also highlights different skillsets where controlling one character rewards more on accuracy and reflexes, while controlling many rewards more on macro decision making. The second option is likely arbitrary. One can totally make the same game where you can swap out characters mid-game. But that would make it harder to balance characters and items properly, which is why I think the original DOTA decided to just go with playing one all throughout the game. And in my biased opinion, it wouldn't particularly be any more fun to be able to swap mid-game anyway.
- spdionis 10y ago
  Because then it would be another game?
forgottenpass 10y ago
Why should I, J. Random Reader, look at the game genre most notorious for putting people in a frustrated emotional state and care about that game administrators' attempts to enforce good vibes through social control without ever touching the fundamental mechanics of their anger-generator? It's easy to focus on someone that uniquely makes it their thing to be purposefully annoying. Certainly easier than to employ systems thinking about why players are pushed into states conductive to being upset by others, or wanting to upset others. So ban with an iron fist. Or don't ban. Whatever. It's not really relevant to me until they start crafting new and more terrifying tools of social manipulation to envelope the one they refuse to touch because it's their cash cow. I don't mean to single out Polygon. They, like any outlet trying to profit from covering games, seems unable to move past the myopic coverage that refuses to admit "toxic" "shitlords" are an emergent phenomenon of life (as we currently know it). They seem hell bent on never looking at what it means for societies to have such large chunks of their population engage with software explicitly designed for emotional impact. Some of which knowingly and willfully employ techniques of physiological manipulation. Games press is visibly scrambling for meaning beyond toy purchase advice. That service is becoming available from more sources than ever. The editors are getting older on average and looking for more substance out of their life's work. This kind of coverage has the potential for an editorial voice unique to game coverage, instead of being hangers-on that poorly cover widespread social politics in an embarrassingly transparent attempt for relevance. Instead of any of that, I got to read the hot take "maybe this guy does more damage banned than unbanned." So I'll reiterate my question: Am I supposed to care?
- spdionis 10y ago
  > Certainly easier than to employ systems thinking about why players are pushed into states conductive to being upset by others, or wanting to upset others. League of Legends and its genre are popular because of the highly competitive nature of the game. A highly competitive game naturally leads to frustration sometimes. The only way to take away the frustration is to remove the competition (and ruin the game). Do you have any other proposals?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
whack 10y ago
According to the article, Tyler is streaming full time. This makes him massively vulnerable, because he depends on the game for his livelihood. It also makes his characters extremely easy to identify. Find one guy in your company who would take pleasure out of giving this guy a spanking. Phreak maybe. Have him check out Tyler's stream once every day, find his latest account name, and ban it. Tyler would now be stuck in an endless loop of playing against newbies every single day. His fans would get bored out of their minds, and leave after a few weeks. Tyler would get bored out of his mind, and will see the money literally getting drained out of his bank account. Within two months, he's going to become desperate and ask for a second chance. Milk this for all you can. Ask him to post a video on YouTube, where he apologizes, atones and grovels in the most humiliating way possible, so that he loses every "troll loving" fan he has, and so every troll can see what happens to their champion whom they admired so much. You want to fight bad behavior online? Show no mercy.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- zepolen 10y ago
  Actually the fans would love watching him get perfect scores and beating everyone.

28 points by taylorbuley 10y ago

I don't play LoL (or any games frequently). However, what sort of backlash would there be if Riot were to remove Draven from the game for a month?

brianwawok 10y ago
Never feed a troll. He would get even more famous.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
placeybordeaux 10y ago
This is a game that has almost 100 Million monthly active users. Removing a character because of one player sounds a lot like collective punishment.
vanattab 10y ago
Draven is not the problem. It's the players intentional "feeding". Which in LoL vernacular is when I player intentionally lets the other team kill them for gold and money.
- Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
  My logic was that the article says he only plays _seriously_ with Draven, which allows him to consistently rank up. He then trolls/feeds when Draven is unavailable to him due to roster lock-out. Presumably he finds it a challenge to rank-up with Draven over and over. If he can't play as Draven he can't rank-up and _may_ stop playing. Or worse case his rank will be so bad that he'll only feed in low-rank games. Either that or the LoL community should collectively agree to roster out Draven of every single match for the foreseeable future.
xiaoma 10y ago
If the most toxic NCAA basketball player shot 3s like Stephen Curry, how much backlash would there be if the NCAA removed the three point line for a season and returned to just 2 points per hoop like in the 70s?

zepolen 10y ago

And now his popularity is going to soar even more.

Synaesthesia 10y ago

With the swearing and outbursts and mania, sounds like he may have Tourette's which may give you "prematurely fast reflexes". http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/03/why-tourette-s-may-be-tim-howard-s-secret-weapon-on-the-field.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/03/why-tourett...

gozur88 10y ago
"preternaturally"
Cpoll 10y ago
It's worth noting that swearing isn't a commonality among Tourette's sufferers. The condition is more accurately "motor and vocal tics," not uncontrollable swearing.

lackbeard 10y ago

Many of the design decisions in this game seem bad and arbitrary. Why have bans and why limit to 1 of each character per game? Why not let everyone play who the want?

maruhan2 10y ago
"Why have bans" The so called "normal mode" is one where there are no bans. Rank mode, however, have bans because with so many characters it's impossible to be perfectly balanced, and some will be distinctively stronger than others. Just by picking them first, you'll be in a much better spot, which goes against the competitive nature. So, you get to ban those characters. (Then, you might question why there is pick order instead of everyone choosing what they want at the same time. I'll get to that.) In addition, in adds a strategic element. For example, say you are really good at one character but that character is particularly weak against another character. You can ban that option out. About why there is pick order. In the normal mode, there is no pick order. In rank, there is because it adds a strategic element. It allows you to try to pick characters that will most amplify your team's strategy or nullify your opponent's strategy. This also helps with balancing since you don't want to have a strategy that completely by chance happens to be countered by the opposing strategy. "Why 1 character per game" This can be put to two options. First option is controlling many characters at once like starcraft. Second option is being able to swap out characters mid-game like overwatch. This is purely based on decisions of what make games fun. About the first option of controlling one character, this game structure is based off DOTA which is a mod for Warcraft 3. People liked DOTA because instead of the trouble of controlling multiple characters in Warcraft 3, for many people, it was more intuitive and hence more fun to control one character. It also highlights different skillsets where controlling one character rewards more on accuracy and reflexes, while controlling many rewards more on macro decision making. The second option is likely arbitrary. One can totally make the same game where you can swap out characters mid-game. But that would make it harder to balance characters and items properly, which is why I think the original DOTA decided to just go with playing one all throughout the game. And in my biased opinion, it wouldn't particularly be any more fun to be able to swap mid-game anyway.
spdionis 10y ago
Because then it would be another game?

forgottenpass 10y ago

Why should I, J. Random Reader, look at the game genre most notorious for putting people in a frustrated emotional state and care about that game administrators' attempts to enforce good vibes through social control without ever touching the fundamental mechanics of their anger-generator? It's easy to focus on someone that uniquely makes it their thing to be purposefully annoying. Certainly easier than to employ systems thinking about why players are pushed into states conductive to being upset by others, or wanting to upset others. So ban with an iron fist. Or don't ban. Whatever. It's not really relevant to me until they start crafting new and more terrifying tools of social manipulation to envelope the one they refuse to touch because it's their cash cow. I don't mean to single out Polygon. They, like any outlet trying to profit from covering games, seems unable to move past the myopic coverage that refuses to admit "toxic" "shitlords" are an emergent phenomenon of life (as we currently know it). They seem hell bent on never looking at what it means for societies to have such large chunks of their population engage with software explicitly designed for emotional impact. Some of which knowingly and willfully employ techniques of physiological manipulation. Games press is visibly scrambling for meaning beyond toy purchase advice. That service is becoming available from more sources than ever. The editors are getting older on average and looking for more substance out of their life's work. This kind of coverage has the potential for an editorial voice unique to game coverage, instead of being hangers-on that poorly cover widespread social politics in an embarrassingly transparent attempt for relevance. Instead of any of that, I got to read the hot take "maybe this guy does more damage banned than unbanned." So I'll reiterate my question: Am I supposed to care?

spdionis 10y ago
> Certainly easier than to employ systems thinking about why players are pushed into states conductive to being upset by others, or wanting to upset others. League of Legends and its genre are popular because of the highly competitive nature of the game. A highly competitive game naturally leads to frustration sometimes. The only way to take away the frustration is to remove the competition (and ruin the game). Do you have any other proposals?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

whack 10y ago

According to the article, Tyler is streaming full time. This makes him massively vulnerable, because he depends on the game for his livelihood. It also makes his characters extremely easy to identify. Find one guy in your company who would take pleasure out of giving this guy a spanking. Phreak maybe. Have him check out Tyler's stream once every day, find his latest account name, and ban it. Tyler would now be stuck in an endless loop of playing against newbies every single day. His fans would get bored out of their minds, and leave after a few weeks. Tyler would get bored out of his mind, and will see the money literally getting drained out of his bank account. Within two months, he's going to become desperate and ask for a second chance. Milk this for all you can. Ask him to post a video on YouTube, where he apologizes, atones and grovels in the most humiliating way possible, so that he loses every "troll loving" fan he has, and so every troll can see what happens to their champion whom they admired so much. You want to fight bad behavior online? Show no mercy.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zepolen 10y ago
Actually the fans would love watching him get perfect scores and beating everyone.