Riot outlines short and long term goals for combating game-ruining behavior in League of Legends

Former League of Legends pro Voyboy called out Riot Games for its lack of action toward toxicity and discussed the “sad state” of solo queue earlier this week. And now, Riot has weighed in.

Riot game director Andrei “Meddler” van Roon outlined changes to address game-ruining behavior in today’s dev blog post. The company created short and long term goals for combating toxicity and improving players’ experience.

An immediate change being tested in NA servers is adjustments to the report and notifications system. Players previously only received an instant feedback report if the punishment went into effect immediately after their game and if it was for the category they reported someone for. This didn’t accurately portray the number of punished players since the notifications were “substantially lower,” according to Meddler.

Now, players will be notified about a punishment regardless of which category they report someone for. And if a dozen games pass before the offenders are punished, you’ll still be notified.

Riot also has a short term goal that specifically targets disruptive behavior in Champion Select, starting late quarter two. Since there are few ways to deal with trolls in your lobbies aside from dodging, Riot will give you the ability to report those players in Champ Select. After the dev team gets enough data to “identify different types of behavior accurately,” they’ll deploy a punishment system.

A moderate goal that Meddler outlined will be reexamining the trade-off between rapid detection and false positives.

“What’s an acceptable rate of incorrect bans if it results in a noticeable drop in deliberate inting/afking?” Meddler said. “Is it worth accidentally giving a two-week ban to one player who was genuinely trying if that means 19 trolls also get banned?”

Since it’s hard to determine whether a player is soft inting or simply having a bad game, Riot relies on player reports and auto-detection. But many players are liable to report teammates for getting stomped, even if they’re genuinely trying to win. This makes it hard for the report system to determine whether a temporary ban is justified.

Riot will update the community on these changes “within a month.”