Boards›[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous

Does Reporting Do Anything?

aceofthegod·9/24/2015, 4:23:17 AM·3 votes·691 views

So I just finished a match (a win actually) where I had a duo of Leona and Annie who raged at the whole team for a bad fight or two, calling us r%%%%%s, swearing at us, and just the whole nine, as a duo for the remainder of the match and in post game. They actually then tried to get me reported in post game because I told them it was rude and that I had full intention of reporting them during the match. Regardless, I reported both of them and now it's in the hands of riot.

Here's my issue.

About a month ago I got into a match and argued with an intentional feeder in a ranked game. I avoided using vulgar language, but I admit I did take the bait and argue back and forth with this kid, trading insults for about 10 minutes. No more than about 2 hours later do I get the popup that I had received a 2 week suspension for my behavior in that match. It was frustrating, yes, but it actually gave me a bit of faith in the system. If I could be suspended for harassing a teammate (who baited me into the argument, no that that makes it anymore justified) then someone who is harassing me with such vigor could also feel the swift hand of justice. But, justice is apparently unbalanced. In a perfect world, I should be able to log onto op.gg or some similar site tomorrow and see they these two players have no posted matches since tonight. But i feel like that isn't going to happen. Only because since coming back from my suspension, I've encountered feeders, harassers, afkers, an such, and have used the best of my ability to fight through, and submit a report after the fact, but when I attempt to follow up on my own (through op.gg or similar sites/apps) I see that these players continue on.

So, where is the balance? Does the report system actually do anything? If the rebuttal is that it takes a few offenses before you're actually punished, then consider this:

What if I had been a young kid. Say a 12 year old kid playing league. And two people qued together harassed me, insulted me, and made the game worse for me just to amuse themselves? Would it be fair that they essentially get away with it just because they may or may not have a history of this type of activity?

The only type of justice that is viable in this medium is swift. People get away with ruining a fun experience for others because they know the system is broken. And that, to me, is not ok. As someone who worked in the video game industry (sales, promotion, creative control) I pay a close attention to the public perception of video games. And the obvious stigma over online gaming is that it is full of "Angry, foul mouthed kids screaming at each other and telling you they're going to sleep with your mom." and letting people get away with this type of harassment in game is what perpetuates this to continue. If you allow others to ruin the experience based on the merit that it is only a single offense then you open the door for abuse.

If a football player took his helmet off and screamed obscenities at someone on the opposing teams bench during a timeout, he would receive immediate repercussions for his actions. If we want games like League to be recognized as sports, e-sports, or to just have the respect that other hobbies and pastimes have then we need to treat them as such.

Thanks for reading! Garen

7 Comments

Archon X9/24/2015, 4:24:52 AM1 votes

telling a teammate during a game that you will report them is toxic as fuck

enjoy the permaban

LCS DoubleVision9/24/2015, 5:13:36 AM1 votes

Do you not see the daily posts on forums complaining about being suspended banned? Derp,,

SmokedAlmonds9/24/2015, 7:44:00 AM1 votes

Punishments are almost never the result of just one game. Your probably wasn't and just because the players you are talking about don't get banned doesn't mean your report didn't count against them.

You are right that speed of the system is important and it has improve dramatically over the last year or so. Back when we had the tribunal it took such a massive amount of reports to even end up there.

It would be nice if we had referees in every single game like they do in football to throw out punishments on the fly. But there are millions of games played every day and that's simply not feasible.

Goliathrodz1/21/2016, 3:26:08 AM1 votes

Bah, reporting doesn't work. If reporting feeders, harassers, afkers was actually working, you will not have such a prevalent behavior among players in LoL. You will always find people that will get away with it, but I find that 90% of the games that I and others play has a toxic person playing. Meaning that the system doesn't work. People would stop if there were more meaningful punishments, like banning somebody from chat and such. Once somebody start the verbal attacks, the possibilities of victory are greatly minimized and the game play isn't fun. A lot of people have left the game for the same reason, they play games like Smite and Heroes, since their producers are more vigilant about bad behavior.