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As Somebody Who's Been Perma'd 8 Times, Here's How To Stop Toxicity

Ir Abelas·1/19/2019, 9:38:57 PM·5 votes·2,175 views

Just give players the option to mute themselves before a game starts, without the option to reverse it after the game starts. We already can mute our entire team, the entire enemy team, or both, whenever we feel like it, don't know why this isn't option.

We have pings for just about everything, and now with League Voice, not to mention Discord and several other voice chat apps, communication would not be an issue.

This isn't just for heavily toxic players, either. Imagine all the times a perfectly fine player got tilted after an incredibly bad game, and ends up losing it the very next game and flames their entire team, and has the Honor Level 5 they worked so hard for dropped all the way to Honor Level 0. I've seen that happen to often.

Over a course of 4 years, and a half, I've been permabanned at least 7 times, 10 at most, and I've lost count in all honesty. All of the bans came purely from flaming my team in chat. I 100% believe that if you just gave players the option to mute thmselves, a surprisingly large portion of toxicity would disappears in just a few weeks.

Chat restrictions are a joke of a punishment, and rarely, if ever, work. Most people who are chat restricted will say so in champ select, once the game starts, or in the end of game lobby, spouting something along the lines of "you guys are lucky I'm chat restricted." At least, this is what I've seen most frequently in other players, myself included. Not only that, but chat restricted players, again myself included, will most times just save their chat for when they really, REALLY want to flame somebody.

Sure, you can argue that this gives a free pass for players who lack self control, but if player is truly aware of just how toxic they can be in chat, and chooses to mute themselves, not just for themselves but for their teammates, they have more than enough self control. Besides, it's not like Riot can go to player to player and give them a whole class on self control.

Edit: Like everybody else that's ever suggested this idea, it's been downvoted. Glad to see people still hate the idea of giving toxic people a chance to not be toxic.

22 Comments

Hotarµ1/19/2019, 9:49:34 PM8 votes

Just give players the option to mute themselves before a game starts, without the option to reverse it after the game starts. We already can mute our entire team, the entire enemy team, or both, whenever we feel like it, don't know why this isn't option.

I have two things to say on this topic, although I'm not fully opposed to a feature like this being added.

Simply put, self control goes a long way. After my first permanent ban I learned to bite my tongue and shortly after my attitude changed when I viewed the game through a positive lens. I understand that not all players are the same (which is the main reason why I wouldn't mind if your feature was added) but exercising self-restraint is something all people should be able to do or learn how to do.

Secondly, permanent chat restrictions have been attempted before and it just led to players griefing other areas of the game (such as stealing jungle camps or intentionally feeding.) Riot removed them because it was shown to be ineffective at dealing with repeat offenders.

This isn't just for heavily toxic players, either. Imagine all the times a perfectly fine player got tilted after an incredibly bad game, and ends up losing it the very next game and flames their entire team, and has the Honor Level 5 they worked so hard for dropped all the way to Honor Level 0. I've seen that happen to often.

Well, if there was a system in place like you suggest, the player in this scenario wouldn't be able to talk in the first place. So it's either take a risk by leaving yourself unmuted and risk tilting over the course of the game or mute yourself and gimp your communication with the enemy team.

While you mentioned there are ways to communicate through pings alone, it's never as effective as using chat and not having that ability is a huge detriment to any (non-premade) team.

Chat restrictions are a joke of a punishment, and rarely, if ever, work.

I've seen chat restrictions work plenty of times. They act as a fair but stern warning that you're placing your account in jeopardy. When I first made this account I briefly slipped back into my old ways, but that 10 game chat restriction stopped me from continuing my actions and I changed for the better. It's meant to be a slap on the wrist to stop players from heading down a slippery slope.

Umbral Regent1/19/2019, 9:51:11 PM6 votes

Just give players the option to mute themselves before a game starts, without the option to reverse it after the game starts. We already can mute our entire team, the entire enemy team, or both, whenever we feel like it, don't know why this isn't option.

There are two major issues with this idea; first and foremost, self-muting relies on the player's ability to be aware of their own toxicity. And since a fairer portion of toxic players I've seen always try to rationalize and justify their behavior instead of actually view it as a problem, I'm doubtful that the amount of players who would use such a feature would be significant enough justify it being implemented.

Second; Riot does not want players to cut off their communication with others - communication is a pretty sizeable part of the game, and giving players the option to just not communicate at all (exempting pings) would go against their intent of maintaining communication as a part of the game.

Chat restrictions are a joke of a punishment, and rarely, if ever, work.

I'd like to see evidence of this. Riot has previously mentioned that the majority of players who get chat restricted don't receive another punishment, and the portion of punished players who keep getting punished continually diminishes to the point of the permanent ban, which has been stated to be roughly 0.06% of the playerbase.

Not only that, but chat restricted players, again myself included, will most times just save their chat for when they really, REALLY want to flame somebody.

Similarly, I doubt this. If you have evidence, I'd like to see it, but otherwise, I'm inclined to doubt anecdotal claims.

Sure, you can argue that this gives a free pass for players who lack self control, but if player is truly aware of just how toxic they can be in chat, and chooses to mute themselves, not just for themselves but for their teammates, has more than enough self control.

Enough self-control would be the ability to refrain from flaming people, not requiring some external factor to inhibit their ability to chat altogether.

If you voluntarily cuff your hands together behind your back to avoid punching people, that's the opposite of a sign of self-control. That's evidence that you don't have enough self-control or confidence in said self-control, and choose to simply inhibit your ability to punch people over actually personally restraining yourself.

The same applies to self-muting as a concept.

But, how's about I add to the idea, to make it partially more viable? Have the option to self-mute, but doing so costs Honor progress (1 checkpoint's worth?) and Honor Locks you until you remove the self-mute.

That way, players who aren't confident in their ability to control themselves can use the self-mute at the cost of Honor progress (since taking the easy way out isn't really honorable), and the Honor Cost gives people an incentive to not rely on the self-mute and actually develop the self-control needed to not flame.

Jo0o1/19/2019, 9:44:58 PM5 votes

This isn't the first time such an option has been suggested, but I continue to be skeptical of what it would accomplish in practice.

You already have the option to simply choose not to partake in chat, but you've ignored that option enough to get banned 7-10 times. Would giving you a box to check have prevented those bans? Maybe you would have made use of it briefly, but even with full knowledge of what you were doing and how it would affect you, you continued to break the rules and continued to get banned over and over. So what's stopping you from simply unchecking the box?

ı Sona ı1/19/2019, 10:57:48 PM3 votes

Option 2. Learn self control. Some people learn that if they persist with their negative behavior they will be punished. Some learn this but disregard it. Go for the former not the latter.

[sona-playing]

Arngrim311/19/2019, 10:18:56 PM3 votes

It's called "self restraint". If you've been Perma banned 8 times because you can't control your anger, then i think you either need to take anger management classes or just not play at all.

SSJ Gogeta1/19/2019, 9:54:33 PM2 votes

just don't type 4 head

Kei1431/19/2019, 11:35:57 PM2 votes

Why not just use something like AutoHotkey?

Syrile1/20/2019, 2:04:21 AM1 votes

The real way to remove toxicity from the game is to remove the trolls. Sure, there will still be some but the majority of it is caused by people trolling games or flaming each other simply because they are doing poorly. If you are one of the trolls you need banned. If you are a flaming because someone is new or having a bad game, at minimum, you deserve a chat ban but likely deserve to be banned because once you are chat banned, it is more likely you will just int-feed or something.

Solicitude1/19/2019, 9:53:09 PM1 votes

Some years ago RITO implemented a permanent chat ban instead of actual perma-bans as an experiment. What they found out was that toxic players will always find a way to show their frustration, even if they cant use the chat. Inting or ruining the game for their team mates in any way. So no. Permanent chat restrictions instead of perma-bans wont do it.

And even if 1% of the players that got perma banned were able to reform with this method (while the actual number is way lower than that), this still wouldnt excuse bringing the other 99% of the toxic players back into the game.

Cloth Armor1/19/2019, 10:15:20 PM1 votes

All for it.

Having the option to do something and not using it hurts nothing. All the haters who are telling you how you wont use a feature you are asking for are just that, haters. And we all know haters gonna hate.

Keep on brother!

PresBushDid7111/19/2019, 11:05:31 PM1 votes

There's been instruction for unbind ing your enter key while playing league for awhile now. I would think someone that really wanted to play sans chat would have researched and implemented it by now. I've used it and, besides not being able to start a remake or surrender vote, find it highly effective.