Riot DOES Not Read the Content of Player Reports (Inherent Problems with the Punishment Scheme)

Hello folks! I'm coming in hot with a bunch of questions and I wonder of anyone knows anything.

I was recently placed under an in-game Chat Restriction which struck me as a bit odd. Riot send me an automatic response saying that I was toxic. Most people who are toxic say that they aren't toxic and even the ones who agree they're toxic believe that they should not be punished for it. I was curious. I could not recall a recent game in which I yelled at another player, spam pinged them, fed the opposing team (intentionally - we all have those off games) or anything like that so I submitted a ticket. I asked Riot if they could show me where I was toxic. I very explicitly asked: Can you provide any evidence that supports me being toxic?

The person who responded sent me no such evidence. In fact, he or she said that Riot could not provide me any evidence showing that I was toxic. Imagine being arrested in put on trial and the judge says, "You are going to prison." You ask the judge, "Do you have any proof of my crime?" And the judge responds, "No. Nor can I ever provide such proof or evidence?" Would something strike you as amiss? If Riot does not obligate itself to show players evidence of the offense they supposedly commit, how can those accused players know they've done anything wrong and that they are not just some arbitrarily chosen victim?

I responded to Riot's team by telling them that if they could not provide me with evidence then they ought not give me a Chat Restriction. I thought a bit more about the situation. How many reports do you believe Riot receives daily? Somewhere within the tens of thousands considering that hundreds of thousands of people play this game, of those people many play multiple games per day and during those games someone gets reported for something. Now consider how large Riot's team is that is dedicated to responding to those reports. Does it seem possible that a team of perhaps 100 people could respond to those reports fast enough to dish our penalties immediately after a report is sent in against a player? Absolutely not. Riot does not and cannot possibly be reading all of the reports. So how does Riot go about assigning penalties? Well one plausible assumption is that they take the reports and use an algorithm to decide when someone should and should not get a report. When a number of reports are received with the same heading (for example 'Intentional Feeding') then those reports get a positive score. When the content of the comment in the report include certain indicates of negative behavior (for example 'Called me the B-word') then that assigns a positive score. If the combined score is altogether above a certain threshold a report is assigned. This is in fact how many games with too large a player base assign reports; however, those games often save the reports that result in a player receiving an infraction or punishment. Players are also able to dispute punishments.

What's the point of all this? Well. How many times have you ended a game and someone says "Report so-and-so for this-or-that?" and you're completely caught of guard by what has been said. You may have said very little if anything at all during the game but people have agreed that you deserve to be reported. Often times, they will agree you deserve a report if they see you have the lowest score (CS/KDA/Towers taken) on the team and your team did not win. Other times they will say (regardless of your score) that you did not do enough to stop your lane from crushing them despite your warding, stellar KDA and roams to other lanes to help pick up the slack. An entire team can become a hostile group ready to give out a report just to do something about the loss they just received, and the content of the report is entirely untrue. Riot's system of reports has no way of distinguishing between reports that are just fabricated and those that are actual true. Nor does Riot have a means of figuring out which reports are true and which are not.

You can test this yourself. Get a group of 5 friends who you know (preferably offline because you can actually count on them to do a report) and agree to report one of your friends fake accounts so that you can watch the process at work. Have everyone report something uniform "Intentional Feeding: Went 0/15 during the game and refused to play any safer for the sake of the team" and submit your ticket. Also be sure to have the player you're reporting do very well in game (play against bots and get them a score of 20/0/0 or better). Riot will give that player an infraction after 1 - 3 attempts.

A system like this makes players incredibly anxious and trigger happy when it comes to reports. There is no definition of what a "toxic" player is and often times you will see the a conversation go like this:

Player A: Don't gank my F-ing lane again or I'm going to AFK. You took my kill. Player B: Muted. Player A: Reported for toxic.

It is very clear that Player A would be the toxic player (intuitively) but many times they accused players like B of being toxic. Riot's system cannot make heads or tails of this. What ends up happening is that other players will see something like this going on and often times throw their hands up and report either if not both of the players. It is almost arbitrary which of the players they report. Players will constantly report one another just out of spite or retribution and the entire community resembles the one we have now: self-righteous players who are hyper sensitive. Frankly, you I think you can't even safely ask for a gank without someone bashing you for needing the gank in the first place or telling you to stop being toxic for asking anyone anything.

I think this issue can be resolved by:

1. Riot adding a method for players to contest Summoner's Code violations.

Players in the game, like in the real world, need to be able to have a clear view of the charge brought against them and the evidence in support of the charge. No one thinks someone is allowed to put you in jail without evidence, why think someone should ban you from a game without evidence?

In the event that something prevents a violation being contested arises, Riot needs to fix that issue (the Tribunal Issue that has been ongoing for months) and refrain from issuing bans while also issuing lesser penalties to players such as MUTING ONE'S TEAMMATES rather than preventing the toxic player from speaking. I have never understood Riot mutes the person who is toxic and prevent that person from speaking rather than preventing the toxic player from seeing what his teammates and the enemy team has to say. It is the environment which provokes the players and result in the toxic behavior. It is also the response a toxic player gets from other that makes them continue to shout toxic language in the chat. If a player cannot read his team's response then that player has no reason to keep speaking.

You might believe that his team will be harmed if he cannot respond to their cues which they give to him via chat. If you believe this then it is not possible to rationally believe that his team will not be harmed by him not being able to give them ques via chat. And even if one holds these two beliefs, there are pings to get around this issue.

Riot's response team needs to actually answer questions that inquire into their methods. Riot needs to explicitly say what is and what is not considered toxic and provide examples. They also need to hold accountable players who give out faulty and nonsensical reports so that those players cannot negatively affect other players and have an incentive (being punished) to not issue out false reports. To my knowledge, Riot never does this in regards to punishment (or in regards to 'balance,' 'healthy gameplayer,' 'counterplay' and all of the other buzz words they intentionally leave vague so that they can have it mean different things whenever it suits them).

I'm curious if anyone shares my sentiments or disagrees. If anyone knows anything about how Riot's system of punishments and player behavior work out, I'd be very interested (and appreciative) to hear your thoughts.