Riot is building a “good behavior island” to deal with toxicity

Riot Games appears to be attempting to patent a “good behavior island” for League of Legends players based on activity at the US Patent and Trademark Office. 

According to the patent submitted by Riot, the game developer is looking to reward positive players with improved matchmaking. This is a different take on Dota 2’s “low priorty queue,” often called Prison Island, which essentially quarantines toxic players together away from the rest of the Dota 2 playerbase. Instead, Riot will be prioritizing matchmaking for its most honorable players. 

The patent outlines a system that matchmakes players based on a profile commendation database, matching them with other users based on behavioral data. This means that there is a database that stores “commendations,” meaning the player has been consistently reported for good behavior. The category score for a player’s commendation is calculated based on how many times they have been commended. 

For now, this concept is only an application. The League of Legends community already has a few concerns, one being what will happen if a player is consistently honored because of their skills even if they are toxic, and how it will affect players who don’t play as many games and therefore garner fewer honors. 

While there are definitely still questions to be answered, the patent does seem to prove that Riot wasn’t lying when they said they would attempt to address the growing toxicity in the League of Legends community. 

Riot wants to combat toxicity in League of Legends, reward good behavior

As more and more big names in the League of Legends community came forward with complaints about the ongoing negative experiences in-game, Riot finally came forward with a response. 

“We can assure you that here at Riot, this is something that is taken very seriously. We are always watching. We are always iterating on that process. The team is working around the clock to make sure this is something that can be resolved in a timely manner,” commentator Rivington Bisland said. 

For a while, League of Legends players wondered what the game developer would do to prove they were taking the increasingly toxic playerbase seriously. This patent for a “good behavior island” seems like it could be a good first step.