@Riot, in regards to nunu/smite bot lane being a ban worthy offense

And this being the reasoning given (in this thread: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/FrILlWp7-14-day-ban-because-playing-nunu-support-with-smite-is-stealing-other-peoples-roles?comment=00f0):

> {quoted} > > Here we are again! The case of_ “Unusual Pick that Throws A Game on Its head”_ vs “The Teammates going WTF Is Going On”. > > If you’re just tuning in we previously covered this topic with a similar case in December: “Support Singed isn't bannable, but that's not the point”. > > We feel that the situation between these two edge cases are very similar. But it’s obvious we need to keep updating a few processes to smooth out any rare repeats in the future. And rare is what we’d call this; it’s a very unique edge case that seems to only present itself once every few months among thousands of audits that we process. > > Let’s re-iterate our stance from before: > > Q: Can I get banned for choosing a champion or strategy that is outside the current meta? > > A: 100% no. Choosing a champion or strategy outside of the current meta is not a factor we take into account when reviewing accounts. On any given day tens of thousands of players are making unusual picks in the game and they’ll never receive penalties in any form.
> > Q: So why does this issue keep coming up? What makes it different? > > A: Riot Gromp said it best in the previous post when they stated: “...common sense and good sportsmanship say that experimenting players need to clearly communicate intent and win conditions to their teammates.” League of Legends is a team game and sometimes the biggest challenge can be coordinating with 4 other strangers who share a common goal; victory. If a player is going to rewrite the rules for the rest of their team then there is more pressure to properly communicate to everyone what they want the plan to be, and what they think everyone should do to achieve it. > > But wait! Communication doesn’t stop after you press the Enter button on your keyboard; and that’s where we saw a problem in this particular case. All of us need to be aware of the difference of communicating “with” someone vs. communicating “at” someone. Telling your team what you’re going to do and then ignoring them isn’t really working with them it’s holding them hostage. Telling your team what you want to do and actually working towards a common plan is a central part to playing any team based game. > > In this case what we observed was an expert Nunu counter-jungler throwing the meta on it’s head with a respectable win rate of 53%. While pretty impressive on it’s own, we also found that nearly 50% of their games were reported by teammates as frustrating and unfun. Keep in mind, this isn’t just teammates in losing games, this is teammates across all of his games; victories included.
> > The message was pretty clear to us, this player is serious about_ Making Nunu Great Again_ but they are leaving a trail of dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger in their wake. > > Winning is not the end all be all of League. We want players to have fun but not at the expense of teammates. Ideally this means players will coordinate among themselves in a given match and react to the unique circumstances they end up in. If a player is consistently forcing “their vision” on the rest of the team **and **refusing to adapt to their needs we reserve the right to intervene. That’s what happened here (and before with the Singed case); players cried out how terrible the experience was for them and we intervened. > > Moving forward we’re going to keep updating our processes for these edge cases. We will still be on the lookout for situations where a player is creating a really negative experience for everyone else and we will intervene when necessary. In this case it’s undeniable that TakeTheDraw wants to win even if their approach leaves a lot to be desired. The effects on others in his games were enough for us to lock the account and we stand by that. But our agents were not properly prepared with a process to handle this edge case when they wrote in and that is on me. I will be working with the team to clarify an escalation process that emphasizes clearer feedback and opens the door for ban reductions if we believe that someone can make changes to their play style allowing them to continue crushing the meta but not at the expense of their teammates.

Are you folks aware of just how awful a precedent you have set with this ruling?

You banned one player, ONE, for essentially "failing to communicate effectively" in lobby about what his game plan is....

And yet you continue to institute systems (really bad ones, by the way) like role selection that harm the health of the game (by requiring things like auto fill) and encourage players to forego communication about strategy and picks in lobby?

And this is on top of practically EVERY LOVBY FROM BRONZE 5 TO CHALLENGER containing multiple players who "fail to communicate effectively"? None of whom have been banned for "breaking" the same rule as what you banned that nunu player for?

You literally singled out one player (who was succeeding with his strategy, so obviously his in game communication must be pretty good to adjust to his teams on the fly with an unusual approach) when millions upon millions violate that same rule daily and nothing is done to them.

This is the absolute height of hypocrisy and it's complete and utter bullshit. I've done the exact same strategy as him (usually with a different champion pick) and never been banned for it (or even reported as far as I know). How the hell os that fair? How is it right?

First of all you need to immediately undo his ban and issue a PUBLIC statement of apology to him.

Secondly, if you want to set the precedent that communication in lobby is of paramount importance and a must for ever game and every player then you need to stop introducing systems and concepts like role selection that discourage players from communicating (or even learning HOW to do so properly in lobby) and remove them because they create an unhealthy gaming environment.

Shame on you riot, I've always considered you a shortsighted and unethical company (when your CEO pays and gives an account to a permabanned professional player to boost him that's just a really shabby and pathetic look mark merrill), but this absolutely takes the cake.

You could not possibly have screwed this decision up in a worse way. Particularly since it's your poorly designed systems that discourage players from using and learning basic game play fundamentals in the first place.

Bad job.

You did bad and you should feel bad.

Shame on you.