Post by Thornnn on Jun 20, 2013 19:15:17 GMT -6
Summoner Icon and Ping Display Changes
Riot Pwyff
"Hey Summoners,
It’s time to bust out those rare Summoner Icons! Within the next little while we will be rolling out a new change to the champion loading screen that will allow players to display their hard-earned icons while loading into the game.
In addition to this new feature, we’ve also collaborated with the Player Behavior team to drive a smaller change where we will be removing all latency (ping) displays except for your own. Through our studies on toxicity and ping displays, our data suggests that showing pings during loading adds more toxicity to games before they even begin. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that removing the ping display on champion load screens would lead to a healthier overall community, so we acted on it.
All in all, we’re excited for these new loading screens, and we're looking forward to seeing you all show off your favorite Summoner Icons when this feature rolls out. Check out the picture below for a glimpse at what’s coming soon to a loading screen near you!"
As for why the ping was removed, Riot Pwyff took a stab at why showing player ping can be a bad thing:
"While Lyte might be able to shed more light on this topic, the one thing he mentioned to me that really stuck was the fact that players who have a high displayed ping tend to receive more reports, even when the same player had lower ping. I can think of a number of situations where players can react negatively to ping displays:
- seeing all the same ping on the enemy team and deciding you'll lose because they're all on a premade team
- harassing a teammate for a particularly high ping
- assuming a teammate is of lesser skill because they have higher ping (there is some nuance here I won't go into)
In terms of positive things coming from ping displays, I honestly can't think of anything that shouldn't be solved with good communication. In other words if a teammate has high ping and it's affecting his play, he SHOULD be communicating that to his teammates to allow them to accomodate to his playstyle. He shouldn't rely on the ping indicator at loading to communicate this."
(Some more information was posted as of June.21.2013)
Lyte (Lead Designer of Social Systems)
"...when we were doing research on ping displays a few players did mention that seeing teammates' ping allowed them to potentially judge where another player's location was or better prepared them for how to play together with their teammates; however, this was not the typical experience for players.
Our research specifically looked at players who had fluctuating pings--sometimes they had high ping, and sometimes they had low to medium ping. What we found was that when the same player had high ping, they generally were the target of more bullying and more reports. When the same player had medium and lower ping, they generally did not see the same kind of harassment. By looking at players who had fluctuating pings, we could control for any extraneous factors (personal, cultural, etc) and focus just on the impact that ping displays had. What we found was that on average, ping displays caused more harm than good.
When making difficult decisions like these, we often ask the following: "What kind of decisions do we want players to make when presented with this information?" For ping displays, a very small number of players used the information for positive purposes while it was very easy to use the information for negative purposes (i.e = "f*ck, my teammate is using a toaster, he can't possibly play at this level!").
Hopefully that explains some of the rationale behind this particular change."
He continued, responding to the questions on how their tests came up with these results
"Well, this is a very easy test. We intend on re-evaluating the players with fluctuating ping after the ping display change and see if the increased harassment and reporting
persists. If it does, then we have evidence that the toxicity is probably from gameplay issues and not ping display.
If that's the case, we'll revert the change. Science is all about iteration--it's tough to get it right the very first time."
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"Hey Summoners,
It’s time to bust out those rare Summoner Icons! Within the next little while we will be rolling out a new change to the champion loading screen that will allow players to display their hard-earned icons while loading into the game.
In addition to this new feature, we’ve also collaborated with the Player Behavior team to drive a smaller change where we will be removing all latency (ping) displays except for your own. Through our studies on toxicity and ping displays, our data suggests that showing pings during loading adds more toxicity to games before they even begin. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that removing the ping display on champion load screens would lead to a healthier overall community, so we acted on it.
All in all, we’re excited for these new loading screens, and we're looking forward to seeing you all show off your favorite Summoner Icons when this feature rolls out. Check out the picture below for a glimpse at what’s coming soon to a loading screen near you!"
As for why the ping was removed, Riot Pwyff took a stab at why showing player ping can be a bad thing:
"While Lyte might be able to shed more light on this topic, the one thing he mentioned to me that really stuck was the fact that players who have a high displayed ping tend to receive more reports, even when the same player had lower ping. I can think of a number of situations where players can react negatively to ping displays:
- seeing all the same ping on the enemy team and deciding you'll lose because they're all on a premade team
- harassing a teammate for a particularly high ping
- assuming a teammate is of lesser skill because they have higher ping (there is some nuance here I won't go into)
In terms of positive things coming from ping displays, I honestly can't think of anything that shouldn't be solved with good communication. In other words if a teammate has high ping and it's affecting his play, he SHOULD be communicating that to his teammates to allow them to accomodate to his playstyle. He shouldn't rely on the ping indicator at loading to communicate this."
(Some more information was posted as of June.21.2013)
"...when we were doing research on ping displays a few players did mention that seeing teammates' ping allowed them to potentially judge where another player's location was or better prepared them for how to play together with their teammates; however, this was not the typical experience for players.
Our research specifically looked at players who had fluctuating pings--sometimes they had high ping, and sometimes they had low to medium ping. What we found was that when the same player had high ping, they generally were the target of more bullying and more reports. When the same player had medium and lower ping, they generally did not see the same kind of harassment. By looking at players who had fluctuating pings, we could control for any extraneous factors (personal, cultural, etc) and focus just on the impact that ping displays had. What we found was that on average, ping displays caused more harm than good.
When making difficult decisions like these, we often ask the following: "What kind of decisions do we want players to make when presented with this information?" For ping displays, a very small number of players used the information for positive purposes while it was very easy to use the information for negative purposes (i.e = "f*ck, my teammate is using a toaster, he can't possibly play at this level!").
Hopefully that explains some of the rationale behind this particular change."
He continued, responding to the questions on how their tests came up with these results
"Well, this is a very easy test. We intend on re-evaluating the players with fluctuating ping after the ping display change and see if the increased harassment and reporting
persists. If it does, then we have evidence that the toxicity is probably from gameplay issues and not ping display.
If that's the case, we'll revert the change. Science is all about iteration--it's tough to get it right the very first time."
TL;DR
These people with high pings usually get reported more often then people with normal pings (same goes for Red Pinged Players)
So the reason why they're getting rid of Pings Displayed on the loading screen is to negate any ping harassment.
It's only a study so if it works it's there to stay, if not it'll be reverted back.
So the reason why they're getting rid of Pings Displayed on the loading screen is to negate any ping harassment.
It's only a study so if it works it's there to stay, if not it'll be reverted back.