Toxic Behavior in League of Legends

Basically, when someone talks about an online gaming community, they use the word “toxic” to describe it, and that’s just the gist of it. Pretty much every online multiplayer game goes to death when the amount of people flaming become greater than the amount of people that don’t. If you’ve followed Riot Games, you’ll see that they have a completely separate division that is meant to counteract vulgar and impolite players in its community. Kimberly Voll, a technical designer at Riot said this to Polygon about toxic behavior in League of Legends:

“The problem with one disruptive player, and a severely disruptive player, is that they’re potentially affecting nine other people. It doesn’t take very long for that to explode”.

So, what ideas does Riot have? Banning would work if every 1 out of 50 players were showing aggression towards their own team. But, since half the players can sound off on their team to some extent, banning just doesn’t cut it anymore.

That’s why Riot tried some other ways to tackle this issue instead of gross banning and that is the Honor System. The Honor System was introduced in 2012 but it was given a makeover in June 2017 and the company keeps adding to it every now and then.

Why did Riot think that the Honor System could work? The thought process behind this was that instead of punishing bad players, how about you award the good ones? If you start giving bonuses to players that have a continued series of good conduct in their matches, other people might be persuaded to do the same.

All You Need To Know About the Honor System

The Old Honor System

The old honor system actually didn’t work that efficiently just because there weren’t any rewards linked to it. In the old honor system, you could even honor opponents. The honors were:

• Great Opponent
• Great Leader
• Great Team-mate
• Great Mentor
• All Around Honorable

Honorable individuals were gifted a ribbon and the top 10% players in each category were gifted a summoner icon for their hard work and good conduct.

Revamped Honor System

So, basically after every game end, the players are given a 40 seconds time period to award a team-mate with honor. There are three honors you can choose from.

• Stayed Cool

This honor is for specifically those people that remained calm and collected even if they were on their way to a loss. These people stayed cool and created a positive vibe amongst their team regardless of their loss.

• Great Shotcalling

Great Shotcalling is meant for the people that know what it takes to win a game. They make the decisions for their team and if properly followed, could be the decider of victory or defeat.

• GG <3

GG <3 is the honor for players that didn’t fit the above two categories. These people might have good conduct or they might’ve made more than a few godlike plays.

Progression in the Honor System

There are five Honor Levels that a player can go through. Each person starts at Level 2 and it is completely up to them whether they go up or fall down.

There are two ways to progress to a higher honor level:

• Winning Games

Winning a certain game will give you experience even if no one gave you honor after the end of the match. Read how to improve your playstyle in our short guide.

• Receiving Honor

Playing well and receiving honors that can add a lot to your levels

• Levels

Basically, you can go from Level 0 all the way to Level 5. Each honor level has three checkpoints; reaching each checkpoint will give you a certain reward and you will only be able to level up after you’ve completed those check points.

• The Penalties

The Honor system also implements penalties based on how grave the crime is.

• Slight Aggression

For the players that did show some level of hostility, but they didn’t ruin the overall vibe of the game. These players will get slower experience gain towards increasing their Honor level.

• Inappropriate Cursing

This is for the players that may or may not have a reason to curse the entire team. A chat restriction will be placed on these players and their Honor Level will go down by 1 level.

• Flaming Kids

This section is specified for the people that completely ruined the game for their team and none of the other 9 people would ever want to matched up with them again. This results in a 14-day ban and the Honor Level will get reset to zero.

Honor Resets

The Honor Level for each player resets at the start of the season just like their rank. The rests are based on the current level of the players. Generally, if you’re above level 2, you get reset to level two but the checkpoint depends on your previous level.

• Level 5 goes to Level 2, checkpoint 3
• Level 4 resets to Level 2, checkpoint 2
• Level 3 drops to level 2, checkpoint 1
• Level 2 remains at Level 2, but with zero checkpoints

Players that were already lower than level 2 will stay the same.

Honor Rewards

• Key Fragments

Key Fragments are regularly awarded to players above Honor Level 2. These keys can be used in Hextech Crafting which bring you a step closer to opening Hextech Chests.

• Honor Capsules

When a player levels up to level 3, 4 or 5, they will receive an Honor Capsule. Honor Capsules can open as soon as you receive them without any keys. They can contain key fragments, skins, emotes, shards and other Honor-exclusive items.

• Honor Orbs

Similar to Capsules, Honor Orbs are awarded when player reaches a checkpoint in level 3, 4 or 5. These can also open without any keys and they contain key fragments and champion shards.

• Loading Screen Flairs

Once reaching Level 3, a player can receive loading screen flairs. You can unlock a flair by getting honors from your team-mates. Once you get enough honors from your team-mates you will take a flair to the next game. Keep in mind, a flair is temporary, so keep up your performance and get tons of honors to hold on to your flair.

• The Bottom Line

The Honor System was a great initiative by Riot Games and they definitely deserve a pat on the back for their efforts. The system is literally fool-proof, and with the passage of time, it’ll just keep getting better and better. Who knows, the system might even bring back some people that were sick of the toxic community.