Just over a month ago Riot announced their new ‘honor’ system for League of Legends. It is intended to reward players for being nice and it was hoped that it would lead to the game becoming a friendlier place. Most people were quite surprised when this actually happened.

The honor system is a very simple idea. After each game when you enter the scoring screen you have the option of granting honor points to teammates who’ve been helpful, co-operative or friendly. You can also give honor points to opponents who behaved ‘honorably’. The system was intended to supplement the existing ‘report’ system whereby players can send abusive or disruptive players to the Tribunal to be judged by other players and possibly banned by Riot admins.

The Tribunal has helped to improve the LoL community, which has at times been described as one of the most unfriendly on the ‘Net, but it wasn’t nearly effective enough. So when the honor system was announced a lot of people thought that it also wouldn’t work. Thus, many people were quite surprised when, almost overnight, the LoL community got ...well... nicer. Sure, there are still trolls and flamers but their presence in games has become the exception rather than the rule and players in general have become far more likely to help one another out.

Even I was surprised at how quickly the change occurred but the success of the initiative itself didn’t surprise me at all. There are very good psychological reasons why the honor system does work. Trust me, I’m a psychologist. You see, it’s been understood for some time that there are several things that a reward or punishment system needs to manage in order to be effective. One of the most important of these is, strangely enough, time. In order for any sort of reinforcement to be effective it needs to happen soon after the behaviour that you’re trying to reinforce. This holds true for both punishments and rewards.

This is one of the reasons why the Tribunal system doesn’t work right: it can take weeks or months for an abusive player to appear before the Tribunal. In that time they’ve been trolling up a storm, and as far as they can tell no one has been doing anything about it. But with the honor system you are told that you’ve been given points as soon as the points are awarded, so it’s immediately reinforcing.

By the same token players who don’t get much honor will start to wonder why they haven’t. This is important because many abusive players don’t know that their behaviour is harming others. They think that they’re fine and that it’s everyone else who has a problem. The honor system beats that argument by not having it in the first place: if you want honor you need to subscribe to the majority’s view of what it means to be “honorable” and since most people aren’t trolls that view will tend to be quite a positive one.

It might surprise people to hear me say that most players aren’t trolls but it’s true. I mean think about it: how often have you been in a game where all 10 players were flaming? This almost never happens, it’s always just a handful of players (usually only one or two) who ruin the game for everyone else. Most players are polite and positive but they don’t do anything when the trolls start trolling because they don’t want to be a target for the trolls’ abuse.

This is another reason why the honor system works: it gives a reward for positive players who stand up to the negative ones. This is vitally important because being abusive is self-reinforcing, so you have to actively work against it. I mentioned above that in order for a reward to be effective it needs to happen shortly after the behaviour that leads to the reward. Well, the problem with abusive players is that their behaviour provides a reward for them. Being a jerk feels good, if you’re a jerk. It makes weak players feel powerful and gives frustrated players an outlet for their rage.

This means that unless someone stops them abusive players only become more abusive over time. Anyone who has taken part in the Tribunal can see this happening. As you go down the list of the games that a player has been reported for their conduct becomes more and more disturbing, because no one is doing anything to stop them. Luckily the honor system helps here too because it gives all of the other players a reward for standing up to abusive players. I know it’s a silly thing, but that red ribbon on your champion picture looks pretty darn sweet. I definitely want one, and so does everyone else.

There will of course be players who refuse to participate in the honor system (usually because they aren’t getting any, and with good reason) but as long as they are in the minority and as long as Riot keeps catching those who try and 'game the system' honor should continue to make LoL a better game for everyone.

Andrew Verrijdt