League of Legends is officially a childs game

[tential]

This just in, nerd elitist gamers think winning a game is the most srs of bsns, and they want you to know about it. News at 9.

This just in, sheltered gamers who never were good at anything and used gaming as a way to escape from the "bullys" of life are now upset that they aren't even good at online gaming.

 

[exar333]

As someone who has been online gaming for 20 years, today's community is a lot worse that it used to be. It's not another 'things are going to heck...' but people are even jerks to their teammates these days. There used to be jerks, for sure, but its more the rule vs. the exception now. Its pretty sad and makes me choose my online games carefully.

Honestly, I think the lack of good matchmaking does a lot of this. Its not fun for new players to get thrown to the dogs immediately. Unfortunately, a lot of 'experienced' players like to kill newbs because its easy and they probably fear playing someone equally-leveled.

Unless you are IRL friends with people of a similar skill level, online gaming can be pretty bleak. I remember playing some new-player friendly Q1 and Q2 servers back in the day to get the feel of the game and actually learn the levels without dying in 5 sec. Then moving on to more hardcore servers was satisfying and the players were a lot more challenging. Similar with UT and UT2003/2004.

Almost 2 years back I was getting back into SWTOR after a more than year-away hiatus. I was tad under-geared and a little rusty for the first week or two. The other players in the FPs and missions (not all, but some) were real a$$holes. If I was less thick-skinned, I would have quit on the spot and not gone back, sadly. After a week or two I was in the groove, had solid gear and was leading the missions. One guy actually apologized to me later after we got re-pub'd into another group and I almost single-handedly beat the raid.

This is just my take, but I agree with Raduque that people are a lot 'less nice' over the phone, online, etc. vs in-person. Younger people have grown-up in the at environment and embraced the anonymity rather than adopt it. For this very reason, I will never touch a COD or BF game. After putting years in BF1942, the current community is just not much fun to game with. Same with most MMOs too, unless you have a good group to play with.

/soapbox

 

[smackababy]

As someone who has been online gaming for 20 years, today's community is a lot worse that it used to be. It's not another 'things are going to heck...' but people are even jerks to their teammates these days. There used to be jerks, for sure, but its more the rule vs. the exception now. Its pretty sad and makes me choose my online games carefully.

I disagree completely. Plenty of online games were filled with awful people and it was the norm back then just as it is today. Play UO in 1997? It was just as bad, if not worse, than LoL and Dota are today. The difference is players were trying to ruin your game experience to the level that you couldn't just queue up again, because that wasn't how the game worked. Looting your house and taking all this stuff you spent countless hours collecting and then laughing at you for having the audacity to not cast a reveal spell before you unlocked your door.

I take it, you didn't go to arcades in the 90s. Because, if you did, you'd get beaten (losing quarters) and then get made fun of until you could do better.

 

[tential]

As someone who has been online gaming for 20 years, today's community is a lot worse that it used to be. It's not another 'things are going to heck...' but people are even jerks to their teammates these days. There used to be jerks, for sure, but its more the rule vs. the exception now. Its pretty sad and makes me choose my online games carefully.

Honestly, I think the lack of good matchmaking does a lot of this. Its not fun for new players to get thrown to the dogs immediately. Unfortunately, a lot of 'experienced' players like to kill newbs because its easy and they probably fear playing someone equally-leveled.

Unless you are IRL friends with people of a similar skill level, online gaming can be pretty bleak. I remember playing some new-player friendly Q1 and Q2 servers back in the day to get the feel of the game and actually learn the levels without dying in 5 sec. Then moving on to more hardcore servers was satisfying and the players were a lot more challenging. Similar with UT and UT2003/2004.

Almost 2 years back I was getting back into SWTOR after a more than year-away hiatus. I was tad under-geared and a little rusty for the first week or two. The other players in the FPs and missions (not all, but some) were real a$$holes. If I was less thick-skinned, I would have quit on the spot and not gone back, sadly. After a week or two I was in the groove, had solid gear and was leading the missions. One guy actually apologized to me later after we got re-pub'd into another group and I almost single-handedly beat the raid.

This is just my take, but I agree with Raduque that people are a lot 'less nice' over the phone, online, etc. vs in-person. Younger people have grown-up in the at environment and embraced the anonymity rather than adopt it. For this very reason, I will never touch a COD or BF game. After putting years in BF1942, the current community is just not much fun to game with. Same with most MMOs too, unless you have a good group to play with.

/soapbox

It's not just the games, it's the layouts of the games have drastically changed as well.

 

[exar333]

I disagree completely. Plenty of online games were filled with awful people and it was the norm back then just as it is today. Play UO in 1997? It was just as bad, if not worse, than LoL and Dota are today. The difference is players were trying to ruin your game experience to the level that you couldn't just queue up again, because that wasn't how the game worked. Looting your house and taking all this stuff you spent countless hours collecting and then laughing at you for having the audacity to not cast a reveal spell before you unlocked your door.

I take it, you didn't go to arcades in the 90s. Because, if you did, you'd get beaten (losing quarters) and then get made fun of until you could do better.

No, no arcades. Not my kind of games....

That sucks, that definitely wasn't my experience at all. FPS, MUDDS, etc. had a great time online back through the early 2000s. The Diablo2 community was a blast.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Actually it is quite easy to speak without offending other people. If you have a problem with that then you are the problem not the other people.


And you have the absolute right to free speech, you are quite able to say anything you want, you just might have to face the consequences. The government will do nothing against you for trash talking someone in a game. But that is not what you are asking for, you want consequence free speech, and that just doesn't happen.

Well, free speach doesn't cover what is said in a game, or even inside someone's home, for example. Hell, you can't even argue free speech inside a starbucks. Totally agreed on the first part; you don't have to be so darn offensive when playing LoL.

The few cases recently I have seen make it to the front page of r/leaugeoflegends complaining about being chat restricted by the new system didn't seem too solid once Lyte came on and showed everyone snippets of the players in questions chat logs.
http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4911009
that's just one example from recently.


if you feel you have been unfairly chat restricted, feel free to complain on the forums/reddit. Lyte loves to bring down the ban hammer, with a public display of chat logs to boot.

And MangoMonster's crap is what I'm thinking of when I say I'm GLAD this system exists. Heck, I might fire up LoL and play just because of this.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Well, free speach doesn't cover what is said in a game, or even inside someone's home, for example. Hell, you can't even argue free speech inside a starbucks. Totally agreed on the first part; you don't have to be so darn offensive when playing LoL.



And MangoMonster's crap is what I'm thinking of when I say I'm GLAD this system exists. Heck, I might fire up LoL and play just because of this.

Oh I don't disagree there are some vile vile people out there. Most of what you see on those forums are extreme cases though. I too had them show me why I was banned and mine was meager compared to what you see there. There's no way to defend yourself w/o making an excuse so the point is taken out of context anything looks worse than what it is when you are really p!ssed off about someone purposely trolling. It doesn't matter if 1 person reported you or 5 people reported you.

Again the issue isn't necessarily that people talk, it's that you can't leave the game w/o being punished, regardless if someone already left or is trolling.

Their stance is you could be the ONLY person in the game on your team, you still have to play it out and report afterward. THAT IS YOUR ONLY OPTION. (aside from not playing, but let's be realistic).

The fact is they don't know how to fix their system. Honestly I didn't mind the judging system because anyone who's played the game at least feels some apathy if they read the whole story. The automated system is simply BS.

 

[smackababy]

No, no arcades. Not my kind of games....

That sucks, that definitely wasn't my experience at all. FPS, MUDDS, etc. had a great time online back through the early 2000s. The Diablo2 community was a blast.

Plenty of bad experiences all around, if you were the kind to get offended. I remember going into my first arcade thinking I was pretty good at SF2 and getting completely destroyed. Up to that point I had been playing my dad, lol. Some kid let me know just how terrible I was after he beat me and that motivated me to practice and beat him. Eventually, I was able to and it was a great accomplishment.

In plenty of sports, it gets pretty heated. I've had quite a few pick up basketball games turn into near brawls. But, not being particularly skilled at basketball, I just had to let someone know how embarrassing it was when I stuffed their shot back into their face or crossed them over. And, if you fell down trying to defend me, you might as well just leave the court and never return; you're done.

 

[videogames101]

Why does there need to be a chat police force? I contend the opposite.

First of all, chat has and always should be optional. You continue to have the option to ignore/mute every player in a game or in DotA2 even turn off chat completely. For the players who want to be chatting, let those players police the game themselves through votekicking, etc. which SORELY needs to be added to dota2.

LoL thinks they need to police assholes in their game, and to punish those players. But the fact is every player can police the game for themselves by choosing not to talk with an asshole player. In this way the people who don't give a shit about the asshole player can still communicate, and those will delicate egos can continue to play in a vacuum.

(Full disclosure, I'm the guy who duo queues and assumes it's 2v8 before the picks are even out.)

 

[tential]

I disagree completely. Plenty of online games were filled with awful people and it was the norm back then just as it is today. Play UO in 1997? It was just as bad, if not worse, than LoL and Dota are today. The difference is players were trying to ruin your game experience to the level that you couldn't just queue up again, because that wasn't how the game worked. Looting your house and taking all this stuff you spent countless hours collecting and then laughing at you for having the audacity to not cast a reveal spell before you unlocked your door.

I take it, you didn't go to arcades in the 90s. Because, if you did, you'd get beaten (losing quarters) and then get made fun of until you could do better.

It's different now than before though.

I know exactly what you're talkigna bout from playing Lineage 2. First time logging into a server and leveling up what happened? People max level max gear are camping low level areas killing off new players. One shot dead, you can't defend yourself. We found other areas (less than ideal but whateveR), farmed up, formed alliances, worked together to kill off high level trolls, one day we were max level/max gear, and we found those guys doing it, and we killed them off, picked up their gear, and sat over their dead bodies and laughed at them.

There was a RIVALRY aspect back then, whether in arcades or in games.

In an MMO now in 2014? You go, level up, level up, get max gear in 2 days (because you were given liek 8 XP boosts, told you were the best, gained 2 levels just for signing in today!), no one pked you (because you can't player kill anymore almost every area is protected), and no one talked shiit to you (because well, can you even talk shiit in MMOs? They make it so different races/groups can't even talk to each other to avoid this as well), you match make into an Arena, fight some one, maybe lose maybe win, nothing is at stake, you don't care.

It's the same thing, I agree, but now the system around it is extremely lame.

Plenty of bad experiences all around, if you were the kind to get offended. I remember going into my first arcade thinking I was pretty good at SF2 and getting completely destroyed. Up to that point I had been playing my dad, lol. Some kid let me know just how terrible I was after he beat me and that motivated me to practice and beat him. Eventually, I was able to and it was a great accomplishment.

In plenty of sports, it gets pretty heated. I've had quite a few pick up basketball games turn into near brawls. But, not being particularly skilled at basketball, I just had to let someone know how embarrassing it was when I stuffed their shot back into their face or crossed them over. And, if you fell down trying to defend me, you might as well just leave the court and never return; you're done.

CORE ASPECT OF GAMING MISSING TODAY.
That Rivalry aspect. That "I'm going to beat your ass one day!" Now, we have ensured that this never happens. You can essentially be a bottom 100 player in ANY game. You'll still win 50% of the time due to the matchmaking process. I don't support match making in any way. Playing with good players, having them point out my EVERY mistake (and they may laugh and tell you how much you suck too, suck it up, you DO SUCK THAT'S THE POINT), that's how you learn. Playing with 9 other bad players, yes you get to win more, but what fun is winning against 9 other terrible players? There is 0 incentive to learn games because you'll play at your skill level.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Eve online has all this, and yes it was considered part of the game and yes it got heated sometimes, however overall the community was STILL much less toxic overall than any MOBA i've played.

The problem with LOL (and gaming in general) is the overall mainstreaming of it. The more popular your game is with crowds the more @sshats that play it.

Eve while not perfect isn't a mainstream game at all and takes quite a bit of skill to play - most casual gamers wouldn't touch it.

 

[LucJoe]

Their stance is you could be the ONLY person in the game on your team, you still have to play it out

Seriously? Valve recognizes that a game is ruined when one person abandons. In dota, after a single abandon everyone else is free to leave without penalty.

 

[SMOGZINN]

You can essentially be a bottom 100 player in ANY game. You'll still win 50% of the time due to the matchmaking process. I don't support match making in any way. Playing with good players, having them point out my EVERY mistake (and they may laugh and tell you how much you suck too, suck it up, you DO SUCK THAT'S THE POINT), that's how you learn. Playing with 9 other bad players, yes you get to win more, but what fun is winning against 9 other terrible players? There is 0 incentive to learn games because you'll play at your skill level.

I would just like to point out that matchmaking is not there for the bad players as much as for the good players. Good players get tired of being in games with no challenge because the rest of the players can't seem to master using a mouse and a keyboard at the same time. If I wanted to play someone so bad that I can just stand out in the open and kill them non-stop I would just play against the computer, at least it can use cheap tactics to give it an advantage and challenge me.

 

[crownjules]

Seriously? Valve recognizes that a game is ruined when one person abandons. In dota, after a single abandon everyone else is free to leave without penalty.

Though that's only in non-ranked games. There's no safe to abandon in ranked matches.

The other piece that's good is that if you get too many abandons you're forced into Low Priority Queue. There you have to play a certain amount of games against other LPQers before you go back to normal matchmaking. It's a little more effective IMHO than Riot's punishments of chat bans (who cares) and temp bans (just hop on my second account or play something else).

Trash talk definitely happens in regular sports. Not to the same frequency I ever experienced in my long time playing various sports and definitely not with some of the choice words you seen thrown around online. Anonymity emboldens people since they don't have to face any repercussions.

 

[GaiaHunter]

In real world there is a thing called a fist, which many of these people would receive in their faces.

The game community sizes exploded. What was social accepted behavior between small like minded groups isn't and shouldn't be in larger groups.

The people that enjoy that kind of behavior and game experience can be playing the games that cater for them.

Clearly Riot is saying "we don't want you guys and that behavior in our game".

 

[tential]

Though that's only in non-ranked games. There's no safe to abandon in ranked matches.

The other piece that's good is that if you get too many abandons you're forced into Low Priority Queue. There you have to play a certain amount of games against other LPQers before you go back to normal matchmaking. It's a little more effective IMHO than Riot's punishments of chat bans (who cares) and temp bans (just hop on my second account or play something else).

Trash talk definitely happens in regular sports. Not to the same frequency I ever experienced in my long time playing various sports and definitely not with some of the choice words you seen thrown around online. Anonymity emboldens people since they don't have to face any repercussions.

Look at the NFL. They just had to institute rules to crack down on this Trash Talking. It CERTAINLY goes on in sports. The only reason it happens more in gaming is because if you said those things to a person in real life, it would instigate a fight. Some of the most vocal people online are the most timid people in real life.

 

[Cappuccino]

Mostly wood 5 and Glass 2 players are toxic as F\!

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Actually it is quite easy to speak without offending other people. If you have a problem with that then you are the problem not the other people.


And you have the absolute right to free speech, you are quite able to say anything you want, you just might have to face the consequences. The government will do nothing against you for trash talking someone in a game. But that is not what you are asking for, you want consequence free speech, and that just doesn't happen.

Actually you just deeply offended me, so you're wrong. I think you should moderate your speech to make sure I never have any negative feelings.

Some people are offended by arbitrarily gentle interaction, a lot of them can be found on tumblr. This why we have free speech, because no one gets to draw the line on what is and is not allowed. The only reason it's allowed in game is because free speech is only protected in public spaces, not privately owned ones.

I never asked for consequence free speech, that's a straw man of my position. I just think people should stop being babies about words, grow up and be an adult, being offended by what someone says is profoundly stupid.

As Linus recently said "I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended."

Our rights don't end where your feelings start.

 

[sweenish]

Actually you just deeply offended me, so you're wrong. I think you should moderate your speech to make sure I never have any negative feelings.

Some people are offended by arbitrarily gentle interaction, a lot of them can be found on tumblr. This why we have free speech, because no one gets to draw the line on what is and is not allowed. The only reason it's allowed in game is because free speech is only protected in public spaces, not privately owned ones.

I never asked for consequence free speech, that's a straw man of my position. I just think people should stop being babies about words, grow up and be an adult, being offended by what someone says is profoundly stupid.

As Linus recently said "I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended."

Our rights don't end where your feelings start.

People certainly get to the draw the line. But those are lines you have the opportunity to know about and agree/disagree with ahead of time. You're obviously still "free" to say what you want, but there tend to be consequences you would rather avoid. Feel free to test this out by yelling "bomb" on an airplane.

You are correct that rights don't end where feelings start, but there's a fine line between the recipient being too sensitive and you being a dick.

I find that life is much better if I'm not constantly trying to toe the line.

 

[Omar F1]

The system is abused plain and simple. Especially if you are playing with duo's etc.

The #1 reason for toxicity in this game is that you are locked into a game as soon as you go into character select. If anyone trolls you, YOU are the one punished if you leave, not them. You have no choice but to play through until the end regardless of what happens.

After a number of times of this happening, it is no wonder people get irate and negative. Riot did this to themselves due to never actually addressing this major weakness in the game. Yes it's a game, but people ARE competitive. All sports are a game, and toxicity happens there as well. It is just the nature of competition. Emotions get high.

I for one just tend to mute people that annoy me, but that doesn't fix the trolls and leavers at all. If it isn't your team that has one, it's the other team. Rarely is there a match that it doesn't happen (usually whoever is losing). These days even if you are winning if someone dies and thinks it was your fault they start trolling or yelling 'reported'. It's just gotten stupid. People are assholes.

I've been in the habit of just muting everyone as soon as the game starts. While it helps against distractions, it certainly takes away from the depth and feeling you are playing with humans. And again, it does nothing to fix the real issues of the game that lead to all of this.

Very well said, it explain some of the situation running over at LoL.
In LoL, you talk you get reported, you ignore them all, also end up being reported.

Back when I joined the game in 2009, I spent the days and nights playing it, I stopped playing all the other PC games, even stopped reading Anandtech or following the tech news! It was too damn fun to play, you pick whatever you want and play it the way you like, no one would say a word to you.

Nowadays, I have no idea how it attracted such a huge bunch of idiots, that cries for every mistake you make, or any move that they won't like from you. I stopped playing in 2012.

Thats being said, I've met a lot of excellent players, wonderful people to play along and had a nice chat with a lot of friends, and I still actually play and enjoy it along with my brother from time to time (dual dps at bot - total domination usually, of course we have to fight the team in order to accept that combination).

 

[CurrentlyPissed]

They might as well age restrict you to play the game now. Chat restrictions left right and center for speaking your mind or trash talking the other team. Ranked restrictions for doing the same. Man what happened to competition? What happened to being able to make your enemy feel bad for losing, this is a competitive game this isn't child's play. If you feel hurt after a game because someone said something to you, suck it up and move on. Instead this game has become the epitome of tattle tales. Its breeding a generation of people unable to handle the real world. Never knew game developers had to become baby sitters as well. Shame on them, shame on Riot, and shame on the League community for supporting a lack of freedom. My 2 cents.

It takes a lot of reports to go into chat restriction, and if you actually reform you can fall down pretty quickly.

I was up to 100 chat restricted games because I taunt a lot. I calmed down quite a bit and backed off for about 4 weeks and tried to not get reported. Well last night I did, and I went a little to far. Fell back into my old ways and only received 12 restricted games.

So you can very quickly fall down, and out of that category. And Riot already explained the system, to even receive those restrictions you have to get up to a 12% report rate which is fairly high. That's over 1 report/game.

Sounds like you need to cool down a bit and just play the game.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I never asked for consequence free speech, that's a straw man of my position. I just think people should stop being babies about words, grow up and be an adult, being offended by what someone says is profoundly stupid.

So, you don't want consequence free speech, only you don't want those specific consequences? Any other restrictions you want to put on the rest of us so you can act as you please without specific consequences?
Because as far as I can tell no one is arresting you for your trash talk, they are only deciding that if you do it in their specific private space you have to face their consequences, and that is what you are complaining about.

Our rights don't end where your feelings start.

I'm free to get offended and take any lawful action I feel necessary based on those feelings. Or is being offended not covered by free speech in your book?

 

[Danrr]

When I play I just mute all players and ignore the chat, I don't care if I picked a wrong char or I'm playing bad as long as I'm having fun everyone can go f*ck themselves.

 

[RampantAndroid]

When I play I just mute all players and ignore the chat, I don't care if I picked a wrong char or I'm playing bad as long as I'm having fun everyone can go f*ck themselves.

The messages for people being out of lane early game are helpful though...

 

[smackababy]

When I play I just mute all players and ignore the chat, I don't care if I picked a wrong char or I'm playing bad as long as I'm having fun everyone can go f*ck themselves.

And this is why the community is toxic. You get people who wish to "play solo" in a game reliant to heavily on team interaction. And, said person is too selfish to adjust their style to fit in with the team. I don't care that you want to pick any hero or you want to do badly. Go play against bots or in unranked. I don't want to play with idiots who think like you.