For as long as it has existed, Riot Games’ MOBA League of Legends has had a reputation for heavy negativity and aggressive behavior among players. This “toxicity” has been an issue that Riot has been combatting for quite some time, and the company is now taking a new approach to reprimanding these players: banning the unruly from new loot and crafting systems.

Riot has several features that they’re looking to change or implement in their game for 2016, and one includes a loot system for the players. At the end of each match, players will be granted chests or keys to chests, which will hold free loot for them to utilize. This loot could range from a one-week rental period on a hero, to unlocking a hero completely, and even free skins. The crafting system allows players to trade loot drops they don’t want toward ones that they do.

The loot mechanic marks the first time Riot will allow players to gain skins without actually having to pay for them, but Riot plans to only let good little girls and boys receive these perks. Riot’s lead game designer of social systems, Jeffrey Lin, did an interview with Polygon today, and spoke on this decision.”If you’re a player who is punished for toxicity or intentional feeding or so on, you can’t get loot.” Lin goes on to say the developers are still ironing out the details, but they want the loot system to be a way of “earning something just for playing the game and being awesome.”

Riot has made several attempts at minimizing toxicity in their game before, including an honor-based ranking system among players, automatically muting those reported often for toxicity, and even withholding ranked season rewards from toxic players. The problem seems to persist, however, and hopefully Riot will one day find a solution that will convince people that anonymously spouting hatred in a video game is not worthwhile. We wish them all the luck with it.

Let us know what you think of Riot’s strategy in the comments below!

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HT – Polygon

Featured Image – Riot Games