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DISCUSSION: On the Idea of Chat Restrictions

Jðrdan·2/9/2015, 11:58:17 PM·3 votes·1,515 views

If you are here expecting another "post the chat logs, I dare you" threads or are just here to start childish drama, I suggest you leave this thread now.

Now, for those of you who have stayed, I want to have an actual discussion on the idea of chat restrictions. There will be multiple ideas expressed in this thread, and I do not mean to offend anyone who agrees with the current situations nor do I intend to blame Riot directly for what they have set in motion.

**DISCLAIMER: **This is being posted in the Gameplay and Balance section as I feel that it is an important topic that really does affect gameplay.

To begin with, let me tell you a few things about myself:

  • I have been playing League of Legends since late Season 2 on multiple accounts, with the main account that I use now being used regularly since the beginning of Season 3. While this is not as long as many people that I know, I feel it is long enough for me to have credible opinions about happenings within the game.
  • I'm a very opinionated and outspoken person, so please do not be offended by the direct nature of my post.
  • I am not ashamed to admit that I have been chat banned on more than one occasion; however, as I stated before this thread is not in any way about my own personal problems but about the problems with these "restrictions" as a whole.

As the new season is just beginning, I feel the need to address the imperfections in the chat restriction system that is currently in place.

First and foremost, and I know that Riot has tried to accommodate this to the best of their ability, is the fact that behind every computer screen, we are human. Everybody has bad days every once in a while, and while Riot has made attempts at making it so that one or two reports will not result in a restriction, those 1-2 reports quickly add up and eventually people will get put on a restriction, anyway. Now, I don't work for Riot but I can only assume that much like many other things nowadays, there is a whole automated system which determines after a certain amount of reports over a specific time frame, someone receives a restriction, as I find it hard to believe that a game so large in scale could have people that actually review each report before deciding a punishment. By this logic, someone could be unjustly reported several times over a period of a couple weeks and still receive the same punishment as someone who is actually a negative factor in the community. If anyone has a counterargument for this one please do not hesitate to discuss, because I really am curious as to how exactly the report system even works right now.

Furthermore, I fail to see any benefit of restricting players from communicating with their teammates in a team-based game. The argument that, "people who are being toxic aren't trying to communicate anything positive to their team", is operating entirely off of assumptions and does not apply to every single person that is under a chat restriction. Speaking from personal experience, recently I was on a huge winning streak and hadn't been saying negative things to my knowledge at all in the chat and yet I still got a chat restriction, after which I began to grow frustrated with my restricted communication and ended up getting demoted because of it.

**NOTE: ** I am acknowledging that I was playing bad and that is why I was demoted, but the reason for my playing bad ultimately lied in my anger that i could not properly communicate with my team.

If anything, a chat restriction such as the one that is currently in place could easily be programmed to only apply in Normal games, or rather than forcing a player to suffer through a specified number of games with limited chat, a time limit could be placed on the account for the restriction so that people have the option of simply not playing on that account until it is over. Forcing players to actually commit to playing without being able to communicate goes completely against what League of Legends is supposed to be about -- winning team play.

Another alternative solution would be to having a chat filter (as an alternative to restricting chat) so that when someone types a word or phrase that the filter perceives as negative, the message just won't be able to be sent out.

**It is my personal opinion **that any of these ideas would be a drastic improvement to the current system that is in place. Please do not hesitate to argue with or against me in the comments.

TL;DR: Chat restriction sucks; the system needs fixing.

29 Comments

Gank Top 4 Succ2/10/2015, 1:49:39 AM5 votes

Just get good and don't bother talking at all lol I play a majority of my ranked games instantly muting anyone I find annoying or that doesn't contribute anything good via chat. Just...be...less toxic lel 2ez get rekt.

Altherious2/10/2015, 2:01:41 AM5 votes

Honestly all you have to do is just mute people... Maybe you're just too stupid to use the friggen button you dip.

Mid As Viktor2/10/2015, 2:01:30 AM5 votes

This system is implemented to stop epik trollerdogs like you from sharing your dank memes all over the internet.

tips fedora

DXDMordred2/10/2015, 2:30:51 AM3 votes

The fact of the matter is, and i've done a short study on this.

Players who have been chat restricted or suspended / banned due to a result of their toxicity, despite what Riot says, don't actually become less toxic. They just do things that intentionally put other players on edge, for absolutely no reason mind you, so that they can report those players, and feel redemption knowing someone else is being punished.

Now that person who is reported, could either be guilty or not be guilty of the decided offense. It doesn't matter, because the automated system punishes you regardless of if you committed the offense or not.

For the most part you can rule out a player being toxic for the sake of being toxic. And i'm talking about verbal toxicity.

But that doesn't include physical toxicity. And when I say that i'm referring to people who intentionally play below their skill level, with other players at their skill level, so that they can report those players for their 'verbal abuse / harassment / toxicity', when in all reality, they are the ones who are causing it, by intentionally playing below their skill level.

Now this isn't a reportable offense, because if you random with people you've never played with before, you don't know what their skill level is. But I can logically come to a conclusion, that the probability of a player being carried to a rank they don't belong at, is next to none. How can I come up with that conclusion, you ask? Because it doesn't happen to me. I have to play above the skill level that i'm playing at, in order to at least obtain a 50% win ratio. If I play below that skill level, my odds of winning are well under 50%, i'd even go as far to say that my odds are below 15%.

So yes, oddly enough, I base my conclusion on the matter, on the probability of a player getting carried to a position they do not belong at, or rather, the improbability. I figure the improbability, while IS possible, there's next to no chance that EVERY unskilled individual is getting carried to a skill level they don't belong at. As a mathematician I would literally have to be ok with a few %, or under 1%, some very minisule number. But all the unskilled players? Not a chance.

They are intentionally playing beneath their skill level, to seek redemption on their own toxic behavior, by finding ways to bully and get a rise out of innocent or mere innocent individuals in order to seek their own satisfaction knowing that people are being punished.

You might think, well that's rather sadistic and uncalled for. Yeah, no kidding. Is the human race possible of such a thing? Read a newspaper.

Onlyhalfawake2/10/2015, 2:04:59 AM3 votes

Maybe if you weren't so toxic to begin with? Originally when i was reading this i tried to take most things into consideration but i just can't anymore. You got restricted for a reason so fucking deal with it.

OctahedralPrism2/10/2015, 12:20:35 AM2 votes

"Speaking from personal experience, recently I was on a huge winning streak and hadn't been saying negative things to my knowledge at all in the chat and yet I still got a chat restriction, after which I began to grow frustrated with my restricted communication and ended up getting demoted because of it."

This happened to me as well, excluding the demotion. At any rate, the chat restriction in the system does not quite make sense because, as established "...I fail to see any benefit of restricting players from communicating with their teammates in a team-based game."

Right to the point, why partially block communication in a game that requires almost constant feedback between players, in order to execute a plan for better strategic playing, or in other cases, team based fighting?

This stumps me.

This article is very well spoken, I admire this, and am ready to discuss this point alongside the author.

This is something Riot needs to see, contemplate, and consider.

Cool Beans,

Legend1060

DXDMordred2/10/2015, 12:55:10 AM2 votes

1: Riot needs to remove the responsibility that they gave to the community to judge the actions of others, and start taking that responsibility for themselves. I'm literally sorry, but the child - majority of the community is NOT mature enough to uphold such a responsibility. Most of the player-base have NEVER worked a job in their entire life. I bet a rather good portion of the rich California kids who have maids to clean their houses, have never even washed DISHES before, or swept a floor.

You can easily find mature responsible adult volunteers who have been tested for solid judgement, and they can take responsibility for the judging of actions. Shit nobody would want to do that for free, but Riot wouldn't want to give their "hard earned cash" away either, so why not allow incentives of Riot Points or Mystery Skins instead? Bam, problem solved.

I'll come back to this, but tournament started / coffee ready/

danmarge2/10/2015, 2:15:32 AM2 votes

Disclaimer I haven't been playing this game for long but I feel I have some insight that may be relevant. While it does seem against common sense to block a convenient if not necessary feature used to win a game (the team chat). Its also inconvenient to take away someones license that repeatedly speeds. If you abuse chat the simple way to stop that is give you a chat restriction so you can't keep abusing it. If you tell someone to kill themselves or verbally abuse them how can riot stop this, the simplest way, stop you from chatting. They're also assuming that if you verbally abuse your teammates as a method of communication, your team is better off without your input.

As to your suggestion of blocking out any phrases that are deemed unacceptable, there are too many slang and or synonyms for insulting phrases. There is something that would always fall through the cracks. (off the top of my head in a half a minute span, synonyms for go kill yourself: slit your wrists, jump off a bridge, go die, shower with a toaster, hang yourself, end your life, stop breathing) see how the list goes on and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The reporting system to my knowledge is not get x amount of reports and get a ban, its probably a program that looks for repetitive popular harassment phrases in your chat log. So you get reported 10 times in those ten games the program analyzes how many red flagged phrases you've said such as if you called someone slurs or said they suck at this game(obviously the later is more harshly worded).

There's a reason why whenever someone posts about how they received an unfair ban it never gets reversed because I would venture to say 95% of these are legit bans that's why there's so many lyte smites. I would venture to say conservatively speaking that 50% of toxic players actually own up to being toxic on the forums. Everyone in this game deserves human decency because at the end of the day unless you're trash talking the enemy team in a bot game you're talking to a human(this seems to be lost on internet communities cause they don't have to look someone in the eye when they tell them to Robin Williams themselves).

My last point is about your time limit ban as opposed to games. I would totally agree with this in a world without smurfs. If someone can circumvent the punishment simply by playing another account its not really a punishment. For example if as a kid I got a bad grade my parents would take away my Gameboy, but this punishment isn't really a punishment if they just took my main Gameboy and I had a spare that I could still play with.

As a new player I am more often than not the center of this negativity because even though I'm not 30 I sometimes get matched with silver players. I'll admit they're better than me they've played more. This is a game and it needs to be treated like one. If you verbally abuse your team you shouldn't be able to use chat the whole game. This is why they give you a limited number of messages so you can still communicate with your squad but can't waste those messages on negative comments. I'm not saying I'm perfect either I've wanted to rage at people too, but before I do I always say would I want someone to say the mean things I'm about to say to my mother. If the answers no usually I delete the message before I send it.

DXDMordred2/10/2015, 6:13:07 AM1 votes

Yes, I am drawing conclusions based on my inability to be carried by other players, as an improbability that other players are able to be carried by other players. I did not say, it was an impossibility, I said it was an improbability.

And with that being said, I am saying that I have to participate to the best of my ability in order to stand a chance of winning, and if I do not play to the best of my ability I stand a very very small chance of winning the game. That's just what it is, the value of my participation is game changing. That's not arrogance, it's honesty.

So I believe, if i'm stuck in a bracket where my win ratio is 50%, and I end up with a player who is WELL BELOW the skill level of the bracket that we're playing in, I can generally rule out the fact that they were carried to that division, thus they carried themselves to that division, or the value of their participation was a strong factor in them getting to that division. Therefore, if they are playing poorly to the point where you could easily deem them as unskilled, in comparison to the division that they are playing in, it's usually intentional.

I don't believe someone who constantly plays poorly could be carried to a division they don't belong at, if someone who constantly plays well struggles in maintaining a 50% win ratio.

Sure what I say may sting, but I have no spoken no lie.

Vitol2/10/2015, 12:48:02 AM1 votes

This is true

MrPerson102/10/2015, 2:06:09 AM1 votes

I just want to point out this part: "Furthermore, I fail to see any benefit of restricting players from communicating with their teammates in a team-based game."

I believe that's the entire point. Not only are you being punished by the lack of ability to talk to your teammates (which many like to do, some for better reasons than others), but having the inability to communicate can also greatly affect the outcome of the game since I've found (specifically in ranked draft upto the mid-gold level and normal draft) people seem to have absolutely no map awareness, don't pay attention to pings and would rather watch the chat box for someone to flame. That , unfortunately, more often than not rapidly leads to a quick feed from "lack of communication" where your jungler or other lanes get blamed because they couldn't figure it out.

I'm not saying you're one of them, but that's generally the consensus I've seen over the few years I've been playing.

Jðrdan2/10/2015, 2:06:46 AM1 votes

It's people like the last two comments that is the exact reason for the beginning of the post...this is meant to be a discussion, not a toxicity thread where you berate me with nothing constructive to say.

EDIT: I posted that before Personio commented.

SmokingPuffin2/10/2015, 2:11:14 AM1 votes

Now, I don't work for Riot but I can only assume that much like many other things nowadays, there is a whole automated system which determines after a certain amount of reports over a specific time frame, someone receives a restriction, as I find it hard to believe that a game so large in scale could have people that actually review each report before deciding a punishment.

Riot reviews permabans manually. Everything else is done with an automated system.

In the case of chat restrictions, they're looking for the worst 3% of the community in terms of aggregate report weight per game. "Report weight" is the measure of how much we care about a particular player's reports; Riot is intentionally unclear about this, kind of like how credit companies are about credit scores. That said, we do know that enemy team reports carry more weight and players who spam reports have less weight.

By this logic, someone could be unjustly reported several times over a period of a couple weeks and still receive the same punishment as someone who is actually a negative factor in the community.

Right, it's possible. Statistically, Riot controls for this by setting their culling threshold very low, such that anyone who actually gets restricted is significantly over the line Riot really wishes to set. Kind of like how cops only pull you over for being >10 mph over the posted speed limit.

the reason for my playing bad ultimately lied in my anger that i could not properly communicate with my team.

This is super common. It's the point of the restriction, in fact -- Riot wants you to realize that being able to communicate with your team is a valuable privilege.

a chat restriction such as the one that is currently in place could easily be programmed to only apply in Normal games,

This is not much of a punishment for a player who got restricted during ranked games.

rather than forcing a player to suffer through a specified number of games with limited chat, a time limit could be placed on the account for the restriction so that people have the option of simply not playing on that account until it is over

The alternate account problem is precisely why Riot has moved away from timed punishments and to "X games" punishments. When you ban a toxic player, they start playing alts. That just shifts the toxicity around the playerbase, rather than really mitigating it.

Another alternative solution would be to having a chat filter (as an alternative to restricting chat) so that when someone types a word or phrase that the filter perceives as negative, the message just won't be able to be sent out.

Sounds like a PhD research topic to even get anywhere close to understanding. I mean, humans are amazing at context sensitive language parsing and they still misunderstand perceived negativity levels in text constantly.

Crzymstrbkwrm8762/10/2015, 2:13:29 AM1 votes

I understand most of what you said, but I do not like the chat filters idea. It just seems too easy to me for people to abbreviate, shorten, use acronyms (not sure if I spelled that right) and get around any filter system that riot can create

Matthias91192/10/2015, 3:03:56 AM1 votes

I/other people get unfairly chat restricted all the time!

From everything Riot has said, no. Only something like 5% of the NA community has ever been restricted, although the percentage may be higher in Ranked because tensions are higher and people are more trigger-happy with reports.

Riot uses automated systems (which include parsing and analyzing your chat rather than just counting reports) and also checks things manually. It has been suggested that short chat restrictions may be totally automated, while longer ones and bans are manually reviewed.

If you really feel you have been punished in error, open a ticket with Support and see if there can give you some more information.

Chat restrictions punish the team.

  1. Most players getting reported enough to get restricted are not contributing much of value.
  2. It's a chat restriction, not a full mute. I rarely see in-depth, useful strategy discussion. Riot has stated they tuned the system so that most players could still communicate effectively.
  3. A majority of restricted players increased their win rate. Anecdotally I've seen a number of players attest to this on the forums, or even ask for permanent restriction so they don't get in trouble as easily.
  4. When Riot started applying chat restrictions along with Tribunal punishments, their recidivism rates went down across the board. It seems to actually be quite effective at making ragers see how much nicer games are when they don't rage.

it should be a time restriction, not # of games

This is trivially evaded by playing on an alt/smurf, making the restrictions much less effective.

DXDMordred2/10/2015, 3:53:03 AM1 votes

My sample size of 1? My brother, I have played over 16,000 games in my moba gaming career. I have probably played more games, than you and every single person on your friends list combined.

You don't have to believe me, because I cannot prove it. This is my hypothesis, which I consider my conclusion, because I am unwilling to change it depending on the observation.

If you were stumbled by that to begin with, you might be interested to know that I believe that some of the other players who are intentionally playing below their level, are the LCS professionals and Riot staff employees on their smurf accounts, who are intentionally trying to prevent players from reaching Diamond 1 / Challenger / Master, and becoming an LCS potential. How could I come up with a conclusion such as that? Well they don't want competition. You might play this game for enjoyment, and may never see yourself in a professional spotlight, ever in the near or far future - but some players might. And those players will add further competition to their already challenging career, and could potentially ruin their earnings. Thus if they prevent those players from potentially adding to their competition, they will continually reap the income.

Why would Riot do it? Well Riot would do it, for accepted bribes from the LCS professionals to keep them in business. Everyone takes a cut. Men are tempted by Greed.

There's one thing for you to think about. And the next thing. I agree with you, the season 5 placements probably put numerous people on tilt, and it further puts them on tilt because they're playing in a division they previously thought was beneath them, and it may or may not still be.

But I do disagree with the last thing you said. If a player was theoretically doing exactly what I said, and intentionally playing beneath their skill level to toy with other individuals is HARASSING them. Now the people they wish to report are victims of harassment. They are literally victims of their own crime, because they cannot defend themselves. Who am I to declare how skillful a player in my skill bracket should be? As skilled as I? More skilled? Less skilled? I declare they should be equally skilled as I am IF I cannot exceed a 50% win ratio in my bracket. If I can't win due to skillful competition, then all should be equally skilled.

I know from my personal experience that they are most likely trolling, or intentionally playing beneath their skill level, to intentionally grief other players, but nobody will believe me because I cannot prove it. I can only use logic and reason to prove my point, but I don't actually have hard evidence.

The thing I ask you is; should victims of harassment, be punished for verbally lashing out at their antagonists? You seem to believe they should be, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I also do not agree. Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither does the first wrong. Riot should seek out these individuals and remove them from the game, since they are the ones who are breeding the toxicity. The victims of harassment who are punished for their lashing out to their antagonists, should be given some leniency knowing that their harasser antagonized them.

I mean good grief, the player base is over-run with small children and young teenagers. The vast majority of the community is composed of individuals who haven't developed the ability to deal with harassment. So they do what they think is best - lash out. Do they know that the player is intentionally griefing to get them to rage, so they can be punished? No they probably don't. But I do.