Dear RIot, I'm switching to Dota2, and Here's why. (if you care)

RedFøx·Jan 6, 2015·4 votes·1,115 views

So, this initial statement is going to sound really lame, but I hope that someone from Riot comes across this post, and considers it, and why I'm headed over to Dota2, for a while, and potentially for the rest of my gaming career. Why that matters? Riot is a business, and they are losing a customer -who willingly throws them money and spends countless hours on their product- because of what is perceived to be a lack of customer service. Which reflects poorly on the company as a whole.

So, "On to the initial statement now." I was wrongfully banned. At first glance that sounds really lame, but hear me out: I was a toxic player. And I was reprimanded for it. I was put on chat block a couple of times and I was at one point banned for like 2 days or something. But after coming off of chat block for the second time, I wholeheartedly decided that: I love this game, and raging in a game and getting banned for it is not worth it, and that toxic players are terrible to play with and I don't want to be that kind of guy. I've already lost online friends for being toxic. Its not worth.

To all my fellow summoners that tend to get ragey in chat: It. Is. Not. Worth. It. Toxicity ruins games and it never accomplishes anything good.

So on to how I was banned. I was in a game and someone, (I assume as a joke) decided to report me for fun (I wouldn't 1v1 him in-game and it made him mad, so at the end of the game he said he was going to report me). That resulted in a 14 day ban. [Last I checked, not 1v1ing someone is NOT in the summoner code, or what have you. Thus, my being banned is not only absurd, but also a gross infringement of the very "law", "code" standard that I'm being judged by.

Needless to say I'm more than a little frustrated at the whole predicament. I finally come to this paradigm, if you will, in my online gaming career, where I absolutely needed to avoid negative behavior, to keep reaping heavy disciplinary action. The disciplinary system that was set up by Riot, on League of Legends to stop players from being negative worked. I was on a path to become a better, more positive player. And instead, I became the victim of a terrible joke, which ended in an unwanted, unwarranted 14 day hiatus.

Now, on to why I'm potentially permanently going to Dota2. There is no clear, or from what I've found, effective way to appeal a ban or report. I recognize that my situation is fairly unique. Not unprecedented, or anything. And I'm sure people post about this kind of thing all the time. But, as this is the Riot's own LoL forum for its players, moderated by Riot, I would HOPE that Riot cares enough about its League players -the people that support the Riot- to listen and give at least some form of customer service. I would like to think they care about the content that the players post. I mean, Riot is always going on about all the cute fun cool pictures, paintings and plushes that players make. But they don't care about the player that has a problem? That seems like a pretty lame deal. Alright, so something that I've heard, is that they haven't enough man power, to be able to take care of everyone's concerns. Look. Riot isn't the first huge company with an enormous amount of customers, asking for for help and voicing opinions, concerns, and questions 24-hours a day. Apple. Dell. Best Buy. Blizzard. These are huge tech based companies that provide at least some form of customer service. Not all of them provide the best. But they resolve issues. They make it happen. Your problem doesn't inevitably disappear into the depths of the forum archives. Its not impossible for Riot to have some form of customer service/problem solving dept.

In fact. I may go so far as to say, the fact that Riot has been around for so long, and has grown to be so big, and HASN'T built some sort of Customer Service Dept., leads me to believe that Riot doesn't really care about us. If at all.

18 Comments

JubbinautJan 6, 20157 votes

I'm sorry, I'd love to believe you, but... I see exactly zero evidence that your claim is true. And, in fact, it's a claim that flies in the face of the very design and functions of the system that you claim banned you.

Maybe you did get reported that game, and maybe it was by that guy, and maybe he even left a note saying "he refused to 1v1 me huehuehue" or some other ridiculous thing. Even if those things are all true, that is not the reason you were banned.

RedFøxJan 7, 20151 votes

I'm fully aware of how the system works, and your reasoning. "It's not that report that got you banned, but the behavior/reports leading up to it" I understand all that. What I'm saying in this post, is that I haven't been toxic since being reprimanded for it and because of a troll, I was reported. Which lead to a ban. Do you think the guy at the tribunal even looked the game over? The guy working in the tribunal either didn't care enough and just hit the punish button (which is known to happen) or assumed I deserved it or something.

This isn't a "woe is me" post. Its a post to hopefully raise some sort of awareness about flaws in this area of the system.
Unwarranted bans don't happen all the time, but they do happen. And hopefully help bring about a more efficient ban/report/appeal system.

JubbinautJan 7, 20151 votes

Actually, I do think he looked over it. Primarily because the Tribunal's down at the moment, so it's not some random guy that reviewed your case, but a Rioter.

If you do believe it was in error (which, again, you offer no evidence of), send in a Support ticket, asking only for the chat logs relating to your ban.

If it's in error, they'll see that when they gather the logs for you and revert it. If it's not, they'll show you.

Demonsolder21Jan 7, 20151 votes

Error no the system is pretty accurate.

JubbinautJan 7, 20151 votes

That's true. I've only heard about 2 or 3 bans being issued incorrectly.

Sir ArmaMalumJan 6, 20154 votes

Have you submitted a ticket asking about your latest ban? (top right corner, support, then top tight corner again for 'submit a request' in case you didn't know, some don't)

Granted I have not used it often and I've heard both good and bad things from account ban appeals that is a way to appeal, albiet not directly through a "un-ban me" category.

disregardableJan 6, 20152 votes

It's a copy-paste support system. The best he'll get is "We're sorry, we don't have the ability to unban you, here are some links about being less toxic for when you return".

Sir ArmaMalumJan 6, 20151 votes

While I agree with you that is usually what one gets with situations like this, I'm just making sure he went down all the roads he could before claiming there is no customer service at all, which is quite simply not true. Can it be better? Definitely, Any customer service can always be better. But it does exist.

EleshakaiJan 6, 20153 votes

Don't get me wrong, if you really WERE wrongfully banned then that's wrong and I think you should put in a support ticket asking, specifically, for the logs of the games that resulted in your ban so you can get clarity on it. Unfortunately Riot's customer service ticketing system is a bit inundated with people and a bit low on staffing so if you don't ask specifically for logs they usually won't give them to you.

But... you don't get banned for one report if you weren't toxic in the game. The system scans the text of the game before issuing punishments and it takes far more than one report to result in a 14 day ban. Not only that, but the system takes time - not as much as it used to - but still at least a short time to process reports and scan logs before issuing a punishment. So chances are the punishment didn't even take into account that final game you played before getting banned. You were probably punished for things that happened prior to that.

Edit: On a side note, Valve has the lowest number of customer service staff AND the lowest ratio of CS staff to players of any major tech or gaming company. So... don't expect more out of them than you get here.

RaptameiJan 6, 20151 votes

In Dota you get put into low priority queue after 2 reports by an automated system. Enjoy being toxic.

RedFøxJan 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

In Dota you get put into low priority queue after 2 reports by an automated system. Enjoy being toxic.

I'm done being toxic. That's why I'm frustrated about my ban. :)

DecritJan 6, 20151 votes

Customer support is not a thing to work on a free to play game, at all, if not i telegraphed situations like transactions or systematic faults ( and not decision-based). Not even Dota has it, or at least different from LoL, and it is just for paid content.

And it is completely acceptable. It is not a P2W game, with a lot of content and without speculation ( at least not too much) and giving that kind of support would really be a problem. It reminds me of a game dev, from Zeybod if i am right, that talked about customer support and how it was unaffordable by them because they sell games that after shares and all gave a profit of "a coffee" ( this without sales), and by supporting customers they have to pay almost as that or even more. Think about it applied to a f2p game. Seriously.

Riot is not heartless, actually they are trying within their limits and without making some players "favourite chilrens" compared to others, but i also feel sorry for you because it' s a really crappy situation indeed.

Why it has to be Dota2, by the way? I mean, among all the choices is the worst if you are having problems with raging because it' s designed even more on toxicity IMO xP try Strife instead, i belive it could treat you a little better than Dota about community and flaming ^o^

SLangedEdgeJan 7, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Customer support is not a thing to work on a free to play game, at all, if not i telegraphed situations like transactions or systematic faults ( and not decision-based). Not even Dota has it, or at least different from LoL, and it is just for paid content.

And it is completely acceptable. It is not a P2W game, with a lot of content and without speculation ( at least not too much) and giving that kind of support would really be a problem. It reminds me of a game dev, from Zeybod if i am right, that talked about customer support and how it was unaffordable by them because they sell games that after shares and all gave a profit of "a coffee" ( this without sales), and by supporting customers they have to pay almost as that or even more. Think about it applied to a f2p game. Seriously.

Riot is not heartless, actually they are trying within their limits and without making some players "favourite chilrens" compared to others, but i also feel sorry for you because it' s a really crappy situation indeed.

Why it has to be Dota2, by the way? I mean, among all the choices is the worst if you are having problems with raging because it' s designed even more on toxicity IMO xP try Strife instead, i belive it could treat you a little better than Dota about community and flaming ^o^

Don't get it twisted this game has some form of p2w. With champs and runes costing so much time, to unlock a FOTM champion and be hyper competitive you'd have to grind for runes and pay for champions. Many ppl have done the rough estimate of playing this game for 2yrs 40hr/wk to unlock all the content (something of that nature).

Riot made 650+ million last year, they can afford a more reasonable support staff.

With that said, if you complain enough on this board one of the mods will come through with logs that prove you were a terrible summoner and deserve ur ban (at least in the old boards)...i'm have still waiting for the one where you are forgiven publicly for a false ban, but here's hoping for u.

DecritJan 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Don't get it twisted this game has some form of p2w. With champs and runes costing so much time, to unlock a FOTM champion and be hyper competitive you'd have to grind for runes and pay for champions. Many ppl have done the rough estimate of playing this game for 2yrs 40hr/wk to unlock all the content (something of that nature).

Riot made 650+ million last year, they can afford a more reasonable support staff.

With that said, if you complain enough on this board one of the mods will come through with logs that prove you were a terrible summoner and deserve ur ban (at least in the old boards)...i'm have still waiting for the one where you are forgiven publicly for a false ban, but here's hoping for u.

This game is not p2w, ok there are transactions that may favour players i agree but from this to p2w there is an abyss! It' s more like an "avoid sink time" fee, that luckily does not have always an impact since there is people that flavours cheaper champions.

Also i don' t know the economical details, but that gain was with or without expenses and shares counted? And if it is just pure gain, how much was given to employers and how much invested or used to pay debits of investiments? Throwing random numbers does not help :\

Also, the complain thing strikes me as a tinfoil hat thing... at least, if that happened i find statistically reasonable that the people who ranted were also toxic ( i don' t know the right correlation and i don' t support it, just my point of view due to personal experience). This said yeah, grind is a thing :\ but again, f2p

RedFøxJan 7, 20152 votes

Thanks for your comments. The thing is, is that Riot is huge, now. And unlike the other MOBAs. They CAN afford to expand in this area. Why Dota? Because I know it. But thanks for the advice, I will try Strife! :]

DecritJan 7, 20152 votes

NP ;D I don' t have tried Strife intensively, but by looking at how it works and the impact that gave to me looks really pleasant to play! Maybe still a little rough and unpolished, without much content since it started not so much ago, but if you have rage issues/want to cool down looks good since "avoiding toxicity" was the main goal of the developers :)