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Ranked Rewards and Negative Behavior

RiotRiot Socrates·11/11/2014, 9:19:26 PM·83 votes·42,777 views

With the end of the season upon us, we’re going to be issuing the ranked penalties we initially explained here, but we wanted to remind everyone why we decided to exclude players displaying the worst of the worst negative behavior from ranked rewards. We will be notifying ineligible players via email, and you can read that email in this post.

Our goal for rewarding players with skins, borders, icons or wards at the end of the season is to commemorate their achievement in competitive League. As I said before, the rewards celebrate positive sportsmanship as much as skill. We’re only penalizing the absolute worst behavior by withholding rewards in 2014, but let us know if you have any feedback.

Thanks for playing ranked with us in 2014, we’ll see you in the preseason!

Email –

Summoner,

Your account will not earn any ranked rewards during the 2014 season following an extensive audit of in-game behavior during your recent League of Legends matches.

The personalized audit analyzed your games for examples of extreme harassment including sexism, homophobia, racism and excessive verbal abuse against other players in your game. At Riot, we do our best to try and encourage positive play and reform players who occasionally lapse into negative behavior. However, the type of activity found on this account is never acceptable within League of Legends in any context. We’ve seen some players believe that retaliation is okay, and we want to be very explicit that it is not.

Given the highly inflammatory nature of your comments and actions in game, you are ineligible for rewards this year, but if you improve your conduct next season, you’ll be eligible in 2015. However, continuing to display such negative behavior can result in the permanent closure of your account.

Click here to read more about ranked penalties.

359 Comments

Summoners Raft11/11/2014, 9:32:26 PM54 votes

Great way to deal with toxic players! I agree!

Konidias11/11/2014, 10:17:17 PM22 votes

Haven't people received punishment already for their behavior?

I had a 2 week ban back in Aug-Sep... I served the ban, didn't complain... I've cleaned up my behavior..

Now I might not get rewards? Why? Why keep punishing people who are trying to reform? It's like "you served your time... you show improvement... welp, time for you to be punished some more!"

It makes no sense at all.

Zaliant11/12/2014, 1:43:10 AM18 votes

Reformed player here, i just wanna thank riot for their system and pushing me to be to be positive, i was really stressed about not meeting my own goal and not being good enough, but i eventually decided to man it up and just be positive, i didn't really talk in my ranked games from then on and i got my goal of plat for this season, and i even got my rewards. I was incredibly toxic too, riot does review your cases and it's not just an automated system, i'm living proof of that. Good job Riot, i love your game and your company, thank you!

Doominator1011/11/2014, 9:33:12 PM18 votes

Just from a technical standpoint, I think you could replace "2014" (Line 1 Para 1) and "2015" (Line 3 Para 3) with "this" and "the next". Then you could reuse that prompt regardless of the season.

In addition, I think it may be more helpful for summoner 13 to have an example text log or two of the player in question. If they were flagged in the first place, then there should already be a log in the tribunal shouldn't there? I haven't been on the wrong side of the rift yet so I don't know for sure.

Saskothehunter11/12/2014, 9:23:43 AM15 votes

League of legends is turning into the league of polite kittens and butterflies.

Nucleophilic atk11/11/2014, 9:54:32 PM12 votes

Probably going to get flamed for this, but I disagree. Have you told these players that if they don't increase their behavior that they wouldn't get rewards? I have gotten chat restricted this season and was never warned that this could be a consequence. I understand that me getting a chat restriction doesn't put me on your list, and I'm not even currently on a restriction, but I am still concerned for the others. There are two separate types of rewards, ranked tier rewards and the rewards you get from being "honorable opponent" and whatever. To take one of those rewards away because of negativity in the other just seems wrong to me, especially when doing this without telling the players that you would be doing it. It would basically be the same thing as denying someone their "friendly" ribbon thing because they are bad at the game.

I am in no way defending the "worst of the worst" players. But, they earned those rewards with their play. So to all of a sudden say they are being stripped of a skill based reward because they were toxic just doesn't make sense to me. After all, you guys say "toxicity causes you to lose games". If that were the case, then you wouldn't have to do this at all since no "worst of the worst" player would win enough games to get any type of rewards. Still look forward to getting my gold rewards though :D.

ScrandHD11/12/2014, 1:42:38 AM9 votes

Great to see Riot's doing something to get rid of toxic players.

KilljoyX11/11/2014, 10:58:50 PM7 votes

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be getting this email since I went toxic after my dad died and the chat restriction for 10 games turned to 20 and then 40 and then 90 even though I was only playing so much to finish the initial restrictions.

I was never chat restricted or banned under the tribunal but I hate getting stuck with premades who 4 man report me. The new system only cares about weight and volume not what is said. Telling someone to go die is the same as saying "Welp we tried" since the only thing these look at is report volume and weight. Now I get reported for asking to FF at 20 in a game where we've lost 2 drags 3 towers and it's 5 to 17 and it counts toward a chat restriction.

Oleandervine11/12/2014, 1:06:55 PM6 votes

I don't understand why people are getting their panties in a twist over this, unless they're some of the people who engage in verbal abuse... If you are a colossal d!ck to people and consistently insult them, you deserve to have your rewards revoked, regardless of your gaming skills. Your skills as a player are irrelevant if you can't cooperate and be nice to your fellow team mates, so it makes sense to punish them if the offensive behavior persists even after initial punishments. The bottom line on this is to be a better human being while playing this game and respect those who you are playing with.

Jingerbeardman11/11/2014, 9:41:08 PM6 votes

when are these emails going out?

uB9clTXV6D11/11/2014, 10:03:00 PM5 votes

As much as I hate toxic people, the logic behind this is really retarded. But that's not much more than I expect from Riot. At the end of the day, they still have their rank and their mmr. Not getting a border, an icon, a ward, and probably the worst skin that morg has, doesn't mean much. it's not even an attempt at solving the problem and it's not much of a punishment either. Overall, dumb.

Also there's the fact that supposedly only the most extreme cases get this punishment, if that's the case then they should just be banned not wasting time with superficial nonsense.

Knucklefist11/23/2014, 5:20:00 PM5 votes

Too bad people dont get punished for the things they should be punished for. What kind of world do we live in where its acceptable for someone to waste 30 minutes of someones elses day in a game they threw....but somehow it is unacceptable for me to tell them to fuck off. Or how about punishing people because they dont want to sit and drag out a 4 vs 5, or even a 3 vs 5. Who cares if people win 4 vs 5's all the time. Do you think if i'm playing basketball I want to play a 4 vs 5? Think if I'm playing football the game should continue without a quarterback? No logic or consideration is given to stopping the behaviors that cause people to rage. You only punish the ragers.

You dont hand out bans for when last pick should be picking an adc and they pick a shen and go 6 and 22. But if I'm 8 and 3 somehow im a worse person than him for calling him a troll and telling them they cost us the game. I also would like to call B.S. on your ban system as a whole. How is it only 1% of people ever receive any disciplinary action.....yet there's a troll in every game almost? Quite simple. You aren't banning the trolls. You are banning the people that aren't submissive and passive enough to just sit there while someone wastes time out of their day.

I have an idea...how about you stop making people play games with people they have on ignore. Or people who have reported them. I've reported people numerous games just to have them on my team the very next game. Make it so toxic people cant play games with people who have them muted. It serves a double purpose. People learn how to utilize the mute button instead of crying because someone said something they dont like. Secondly it will make it harder for the more toxic people to find matches because it reduces the pool of people they can play with.

I confess to being a total asshole to people who piss me off. I also understand everyone cant be good at this game. But some people are intentionally bad. Some people do things in character select that basically guarantee a loss. You should also make a system where people can vote to disband the queue or kick a person before the game starts. That way when the "mid or feed" person ends up on your team you can just give them the boot. I just think you should deal with some of the issues that make people rage instead of putting all the blame on the ragers. You get people who come to "Ranked", troll, and say its just a game get over it. I dont think people understand that you can be super polite in chat, and still troll like a mofo in game.

FatedTitan11/11/2014, 10:57:17 PM5 votes

I'm glad y'all are taking a strong stance on anti-bullying. But can we please be professional already? When people are using homosexual slurs, that's what they're doing. Homophobia means they are afraid of it. Use of homosexual slurs means that they are using those terms in a hateful or derogatory way.

It may seem like no big deal, but it just shows a lack of comprehension of the English language that I see this all the time from Riot. The vast majority of people reported for "homophobia" by your accounts, are actually using homosexual slurs. They are in no way afraid of people that are homosexual. They're just hateful people.

InternetsLoLhaha11/12/2014, 4:32:23 AM4 votes

Have these emails gone out yet?

owenstarkiller11/22/2014, 7:07:38 PM4 votes

I had a lot of faith in the system...till this year. It is clear the tribunal is about re-education and not justice. Which is why they have a psychologist running it and why you can now get busted for telling someone you will report them. I'm not even sure what "toxic" means anymore other than "felz badz". Toxic to me was ruining the game by purposeful bad play. It no longer means that...because that's the one thing they never check.

KingCobruh11/13/2014, 5:28:18 PM4 votes

@Riot Socrates Hey I made a post and was hoping to get a response in time. I'm currently deployed as of Oct 9th and knew for sure i wouldn't be able to play on the internet out here but made plat before leaving. Due to my inactivity I was decayed back to gold, will I be able to get the border i grinded hard for or suck it up and move on...?

N1k0511/20/2014, 9:17:27 AM3 votes

What about an idea to reinforce good behaviour? That is, give summoners who go a full year/season with good behaviour a reward skin. One per year/season. Thoughts?

ThatDarcyGirl11/22/2014, 2:46:44 AM3 votes

While I like this system, and I do think it will cut down on the negativity that spreads throughout this community, especially what's displayed in ranked matches, I also have always disliked the fact that there is no obvious way for the guilty party to defend themselves.

Because this is an automated system, it's only going to pick up negative language. It's not going to really analyze the reasons why someone is lashing out, or whats causing them to do so. I know this, because I recently suffered a ranked ban that I feel was done so unjustly. Essentially it boiled down to my jungler making a mistake, not switching champs with me in the lobby, and then refusing to own up to his mistake. Stuck playing a champion I was unfamiliar with, in the last win needed to complete my series and move up to silver, I got upset. However, my negative responses didn't start until the entire team ganged up on me for "feeding". I'm sure every last one of them reported me. Thus the ban. I'm not really a rager. If I do get ragey, it's normally on skype with friends. I do my best to not be mean to others, because I don't believe in that.

I could be wrong, there may be a way to appeal these bans. But it hasn't been made overtly visible to me, the average player who rarely stalks the forums.

Wandrer11/22/2014, 5:30:29 AM3 votes

I think there should be a White Knight option

WHITE KNIGHT- enter a game for a player who has been AFK for more than 5 min, small bonus ip given for taking over.

It would give games the chance of coming back, because the most disheartening feeling is when you are doing well and an afk ruins it.

BlackLegendful11/25/2014, 7:06:26 PM3 votes

Riot took my season rewards away, I've made peace with it but what really bothers me is the fact that the system they are using to remove rewards doesn't account for anything other then "negative" words that the bot picks up and frequency of reports. Plus the main reason most people rage which is because people troll and ruin the game is having nothing done to them because they bot only looks for verbal abuse and negative language. The worst section of the community and the center to almost all the problems is being given a free pass while people who react to them and don't just sit down and take their shit are being punished.

I understand I have been toxic and I deserve to be punished, but this is a showcase of Riot's inability to enact a new system when it is ready. To punish one group of negative players, which is probably more of a reaction group then a causation group is silly. It isn't dumb, it isn't stupid, and it isn't retarded. It is just plain silly. Trolls who cause this negative behavior in players should be getting punished as well. I would much rather see afks, dcs, troll picks, intentional feeders, intentional throwers, and the enormous amount of other trolls get punished then ragers. I would rather deal with a guy saying "u r a f4gt" any day then deal with someone who is polite, but trolls the game causing us to lose. Ragers aren't the ones destroying this community it is trolls.

Chaotic Reks11/12/2014, 12:18:30 AM3 votes

Does this mean that most of the people who are currently banned from the great banning of 2014 are still eligible for ESR (end of season rewards)?

420 69 42011/25/2014, 8:22:51 PM3 votes

Bad system, if they think this is going to work with the way reports and the tribunal are going, they have no clue what they're doing.

The Illithid11/13/2014, 2:58:17 PM3 votes

For everyone saying that this punishment is stupid because there is a mute button and people should have thicker skin, you should spend some time reading the articles out there about the effect anonymity over the internet has on interactions between people. Generally speaking, the vast majority of toxic players calling out racial other other slurs or making obscene threats would NEVER verbalize these things outside of an anonymous internet environment. Even in an anonymous phone call where they could hear the other person's voice, they would feel uncomfortable saying those things to people. It is the fact that they are unable to associate the lines of text and the 3-D champion model with an actual person on the other end that they feel they can unleash. It is not acceptable and you should think about what it would be like if the person behind you in the grocery line threatened to kill you or all that other nasty stuff just because you put something on top of your eggs in your grocery basket and "OMFG n00b mistake."

Xbelow11/15/2014, 12:34:03 AM3 votes

Can i ask what is defined as the worst of the worst? Just never know what you consider that bad. How many people have ever been chat restricted and banned percentage as well :O? Can we see that info please!

ArcticHorizon11/15/2014, 1:02:53 AM3 votes

I think listing examples of their bad behaviour would be great. All you need to do it is give moderators a tool to select/highlight their bad behaviour to be fed into the e-mail. Showing players what they've done wrong really encourages self-reflection.

Aquafima11/15/2014, 5:02:04 AM3 votes

I saw a racial discrimination in a normal game,Because I'm not white,，so he fed.also used abusive language。。。。I am sad，I think we should give him a point penalty，his name is " Guardianphu " and i had screenshot about his remark,"[email protected]“ this is my e-mail,If you can contact me, I can give you（I don't know where to publish，，if this is wrong,request you to help me to the right place,thanks!!)

Keenwi11/16/2014, 3:31:24 AM3 votes

My account was suspended because It said I left game. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/1gNF6nN8-suspended-technical-disconnection Please hear me out I dont deserve to be suspended on a technical issue.