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Alternate route to dealing with chat issues. A few bad days should not equal perma-ban.

kevinsNUTTZ·3/22/2016, 7:36:47 PM·3 votes·1,533 views

Let me start by saying I know prior to writing this that I will get a ton of negative feedback, but please hear me out before simply jumping to a conclusion. I am writing this for a second chance for not just me but for everybody who believes they were unjustly given a permanent ban. What I am about to suggest is going to be hard for some people to wrap their heads around but here it goes. Lift all the permanent bans! I would say in just the past 3-4 months because that is when I noticed this drastic change in bans due to chat related issues but the time period for the lift could be debatable. My first reason for suggesting this is: If the player was truly so toxic, used such foul language game after game, and was such a negative experience to play League of Legends with I am absolutely positive that with this new ban system that is in place these players will be gone very shortly after returning to League of Legends. But the players that really just had a few bad days, which is all it takes now to get ban in my opinion, will be so grateful to have their accounts back that they will most likely avoid chat at all cost. I know I will, or would, if given the opportunity. A personal experience just yesterday led me to this conclusion: STAY OUT OF CHAT. I am now playing on a level 10 account because my account is in the land of the perma-ban unfortunately. In this game yesterday I have an Ekko mid lane, he is around level 10 playing against a Leblanc that is at least level 18 because I noticed she already had keystone. The Ekko is losing lane and is getting just ridiculed non stop by our support. I tell our support to give him a break because he might be a new player and the LB could be smurfing. The support turns to me and says "F**K you, he is not new. He just sucks." The game ends and I get the pop up saying I was reported. The support that was ruining our game in chat reports me for merely suggesting that the Ekko was a new player. Sadly I am sure my new account will be ban soon because of that. The fear of being perma-ban is so strong right now that I will just never enter chat on this or any other account I play on. My second reason for suggesting lifting these permanent bans is simply because I think there is a much better solution. I will keep this section short and sweet. Chat restriction was a pretty decent punishment but it really just limited the amount of negative things people could say in a game. Chat restriction did really punish the players that truly want to communicate but simply had some bad games and are now chat restricted, so they probably used their limited comments wisely. This brings me to my alternate punishment: If you have the power to chat restrict players then why is a complete chat ban not the next step instead of simply removing players from the game entirely. A 14-day/perma-chat ban really hurts the players that come into a game of League of Legends knowing that all they want to do is be toxic. Take chat away completely not the game. My third reason for suggesting lifting the bans is: Seriously how did it become so easy to get ban? My main account was ban 3 months ago and I am telling you I was way more toxic when I first started playing four years ago. I had no idea what i was doing, people would rage at me so i would rage back. The worst punishment I received was a gigantic chat restriction. Trust me this hurt because I loved chat at the time. For years I would occasionally get a chat restriction and then out of nowhere I got my perma-ban. I honestly did not see this coming but I accepted it and made a new account. I got this account to gold and then out of nowhere I lost this new account as well. Before even getting a chat restriction. Chat related issues are much easier to detect than lets say intentionally feeding, I understand this but I think the punishments should be handled differently. If somebody is simply a bit to excited in chat then take chat away. Please do not take the game away. In conclusion my belief is that there are many ways to ruin a game of League of Legends: Intentionally feeding, Purposely going afk/sitting in fountain, Simply being DC, Chat related issues, etc. I find that chat related issues are the lesser of the issues but the most harshly punished. I only consider Chat Issues the lesser because I think it is the easiest issue to solve and it can be solved without kicking people out of the game entirely. Toxic players may be annoying but they could also win games, an afk will never carry you to a victory. So if a player is having so much trouble with their chat (they just can not help but be toxic) then take their chat away permanently, not the game. On behalf of all the players who truly believe that they were to harshly judged please consider this path. I would personally love to be your permanent chat ban guinea pig. I have recently acquired a new found love for keeping my mouth shut and spamming pings as it is. Thanks for anybody who takes the time to read.

59 Comments

Zielmann3/22/2016, 7:55:26 PM4 votes

It takes a lot more than 'a few bad games' to get a permaban. Granted, in very extreme circumstances a single bad game can spring immediately to a permaban, but these are extremely rare cases. I'm talking substantial personal threats or severe and excessive hate speech.

But by and large, your 'few bad games' won't get you punished even once. That's not how it works. The system looks for longer patterns of negative behavior over a period of games. You generally have to be pretty consistently bad to even get the first chat restriction. Don't think that because ban notices only have logs sometimes from just 1 or 2 games, it means the punishment was issued solely off those games. There was a lot more than went into it.

Beyond that, you claim there's been some uptick in permabans lately, and I just don't see it. This section seems just as active as it has been for a long time. The only major increases in traffic come when Riot does a wave of bans for illegal 3rd party application use and scripting. And that's completely unrelated to the chat ban systems at all, so irrelevant to this conversation.

To your suggestion to offer amnesty to recent permabans: What's the point? The players already proved through three other tiers of punishments that they weren't going to reform. They're clearly told that an additional punishment beyond that point will be a permaban. And yet they don't do anything to avoid it. Riot doesn't want these people in the community anymore, and letting them back in will only give them one last chance to run around the game ruining things for people.

And there's some actual historical data to back this up, too. Before these automated systems were put in place, there were a lot more punishment tiers in place, prior to a permaban. It even started out where the first 'punishment' handed out was just a warning. What Riot found was that the vast majority who were going to reform would do so after just the warning. A few more might correct themselves after the first actual punishment received. But reform rates very quickly dropped to near-zero once any more punishments were handed out. Basically, if somebody doesn't get it after the first couple slaps on the wrist, probability is extremely low that they reform at all. But the extended tiers of punishments meant that the players were spending a lot more time around ruining games before they finally made it to permaban level.

To add even more to that, there was what they called a Level 20 Challenge years ago. The offer was this: If a player had been permabanned, they could start a new account, and if they made it to level 20 without receiving a punishment, they could get their main account back. This was around for a year or two, and a lot of people attempted it. Success rate: exactly zero.

SmokedAlmonds3/22/2016, 8:44:13 PM2 votes

I hate chat restrictions. They punish everyone on a team, not just the person who is restricted. On a more personal level, this are people I know that I don't want to play with. Not because I can't handle the things they say, but because they are people I simply have no interest in being around period. They are taking up a slot in my game that could have gone to someone I want to play with or may become friends with. If you are going to restrict players they need to be matched only with other restricted players. As most around here know, they call that prisoners island and riot has already said that they aren't going to do that.

Also. We basically had this already up until last August. It was permanent chat restrictions exactly, but they would stack indefinitely. It was ineffective and chat restricted players have a higher chance of trolling. I don't think it is worth the cost to the entire player base all for the benefit of people who can't behave.

Chat is not punished more harshly than griefing. It is just more common, easier to detect, and almost completely handled by an automated system. Chat infractions get 4 chances including two chat restrictions unless they are severe. Griefing only get 14-day and permanent bans. They are just harder to detect, harder to prove, and require manual reviews in most cases.

Kei1433/22/2016, 8:39:42 PM1 votes

I think you should learn the reporting basics first next time before you start typing such a long post

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/tvviuURj-multiple-reports-and-other-misconceptions

enjoy your read.

Calabok3/23/2016, 9:26:56 PM1 votes

There are ancient Chinese proverbs that fits this scenario:

A bad word whispered echoes a hundred miles

In a flood of words, surely some mistakes