Boards›Player Behavior

Suggestions for Policy Changes in Regards to Permabanning accounts.

Lipfuzz·5/8/2019, 5:48:33 AM·3 votes·1,794 views

Greetings Summoners,

Let me begin this by shamefully admitting that my account has been permabanned from League of Legends, and rightfully so. I am not writing this for sympathy but rather to use my personal experience as the small percentage of players who have become permabanned to make suggestions on how I feel one should be able to get their account back.

My first suggestion is this: A reformation program that allows for previously banned accounts to go through a sort of "schooling" on how League of Legends wants you to behave, why they want you to behave the way they do, the effects of negative behavior, etc. This would be an incredibly long and informational implementation that would more than likely deter someone who isn't truly sorry for their behavior and who doesn't want to earn their account back.

(To add a personal note, losing the ability to play on an account I've had since my childhood was enough of a slap in the face for me to knock my negative attitude off and I feel as though I am not the only player who feels this way)

My second suggestion is this: (This one is incredibly time consuming for the banned player and will undoubtedly deter any player who truly doesn't deserve a second chance)

I am going to copy and paste the letter I wrote to support, as it contains all the details of my suggestion:

(To Riot Support)

A few weeks ago I was permabanned for repeated toxic behavior. This is fine and I am not simply requesting this ban be lifted. I understand what I did and with the time I've taken away from the game has let me reflect on how crappy I was treating teammates. It was not cool! I'd hope someone treating me like that would be banned too!

I am coming to you, Riot support, with an idea that'll hopefully at the very least intrigue you.

I am willing to complete and document a specific amount of community service hours (decided by you and your team). As much as I want to dislike this game, I can't. I loved playing this game and it was ME who got myself banned because I was being a toxic jerk. I feel as though creating a positive impact in my community will offset the negative impact I made on yours and the time I am willing to put into fixing the situation will show you how sorry I am. I also hope you take into account the seriousness of this proposal. This is not a joke, this is not me trying to win you over by showing you what I'm "willing" to do and hope that alone saves me. This is a legitimate proposal.

If you were to accept my special request and lift my ban after my completed hours, I would want a LONG TERM probationary period where even ONE report of negative behavior would replace my ban. So, here are the terms upon which I could see this working:

  1. Riot support picks a specific genre of community service (public clean up, helping homeless, working with kids, etc) and the set amount of hours they want me to complete (50, 75, 100, I am willing to do as much as it takes)

  2. The responsibility of finding the program that offers the opportunity to serve my community in the manner that you have decided falls upon me. I will send the details of the organization, the person who is managing my hours, and the specific work I will be doing.

  3. After completion of my hours along with documentation and verification, my ban would be lifted but I would be one report away from the permaban being lifted.

Again, I hope you take into account the sincerity of this request and give me a fair chance to prove myself.

(End letter)

I understand that this is "just a game" and I should probably move on, but I feel compelled to right my wrongs. I was directed to the boards by support to post my suggestions and to see what others think.

Thank you to those who took the time to read my suggestions and to those who give me their honest feedback.

Cheering from the Sidelines, Lipfuzz

9 Comments

JuiceBoxP5/8/2019, 5:55:14 AM8 votes

Perma bans are called perma bans for a reason. And that reason stems from the fact they are permanent.

Should not be changed.

XJ999999999999995/8/2019, 6:47:51 AM4 votes

this was done before but because 90% of people fail the reform process they dont bother

Umbral Regent5/8/2019, 7:44:37 AM4 votes

I'm going to be blunt about your second idea; I don't see any possibility of it being considered. You can't use general community service outside the bounds of League as a means to affect your punishment in League, and even if you could, they'd have to have a strict format to be followed for documentation, because elsewise, anyone with enough time on their hands could forge an official-enough looking sheaf of papers to pass the test.

That, and it'd have to be a one-time use only thing, on a per-person basis, not just per-account. And that's a hard limitation to implement.

However, I do rather like your first idea.

My first suggestion is this: A reformation program that allows for previously banned accounts to go through a sort of "schooling" on how League of Legends wants you to behave, why they want you to behave the way they do, the effects of negative behavior, etc. This would be an incredibly long and informational implementation that would more than likely deter someone who isn't truly sorry for their behavior and who doesn't want to earn their account back.

I'm not sure if it'd be ideal to make it long and intentionally something of a slog, and I certainly wouldn't tie it to permabanned accounts or lifting permabans, but I do think there's merit to having some form of reform program for players who have been punished and want to make the effort to reform.

I think, were I to change anything around with the idea, I'd probably make the "schooling" part a modest portion of the program; a brief, informative rundown of how misbehavior affects games and so on, but what I think would probably make it more effective is to implement something of a community "buddy system" alongside it; perhaps with astute players who understand the punishment system enough to help reforming players directly tackle their issues?

I'm spitballing, of course, and my additions hinge on the ideal expectation of sufficient players signing on for the program - both as buddies and as reforming individuals - but the idea is certainly worth fleshing out more, IMO.

ModPrandine5/8/2019, 8:30:44 AM1 votes

Your first idea sounds way too similar to the [failed] attempts already made by Riot in the past. While it sounds good on paper, in practice it's just not as successful as it could be. That aside one has to be willing to just cut their losses with someone and move on, especially when that person in question has already proven time and again that they don't care enough to keep their behavior in check.

Umbral Regent already commented on your second idea so refer to their post on that.

Ricje5/8/2019, 3:02:58 PM1 votes

{quoted} My first suggestion is this: A reformation program that allows for previously banned accounts to go through a sort of "schooling" on how League of Legends wants you to behave, why they want you to behave the way they do, the effects of negative behavior, etc. This would be an incredibly long and informational implementation that would more than likely deter someone who isn't truly sorry for their behavior and who doesn't want to earn their account back.

a sort of "schooling" on how League of Legends wants you to behave

Don't you mean "on how society wants you to behave" ? Because a lot of toxicity in gaming comes from the fact that players hide behind anonymity (think of "keyboard warrior", "armchair commando" etcetera). let's face it.... If every toxic player in every game behaved the same way in society then we'd have total discord and police everywhere would be busy 24/7. It's not Riot's job to make sure a player behaves or reforms but the player's job.

A reform program has already been attempted in the past (to no avail) if I recall correctly. A simple yet effective way for a player to teach themself whether their behaviour is acceptable or not: "Do to others what you want them to do to you". Now apply that logic and think "there is a player behind that champion. How would we correspond in real life?" because as I said, people hide behind anonymity. If you start thinking in a different way than "I'm playing a game in a room and will never see this person anyway" then it's likely that your behaviour will change to a more positive one.

(To add a personal note, losing the ability to play on an account I've had since my childhood was enough of a slap in the face for me to knock my negative attitude off and I feel as though I am not the only player who feels this way)

That's good! Sadly though, punishment has to be given at first before someone realizes what they have done. Now let's apply that to the real world and society: Someone was sentenced to jail. Do you think judges would let that person go free after they show remorse for their crime? No, they would not. The same applies to accounts on the internet. If you do something that is not acceptable by the community/society online then you might not be able to get punished directly (due to anonymity) but your "possession" (in this case, your account) CAN get the punishment. If you spent money on it then it will directly affect you which makes it a direct punishment. These are all life lessons and a way to try and get people to behave.

I am coming to you, Riot support, with an idea that'll hopefully at the very least intrigue you.

I am willing to complete and document a specific amount of community service hours (decided by you and your team). As much as I want to dislike this game, I can't. I loved playing this game and it was ME who got myself banned because I was being a toxic jerk. I feel as though creating a positive impact in my community will offset the negative impact I made on yours and the time I am willing to put into fixing the situation will show you how sorry I am. I also hope you take into account the seriousness of this proposal. This is not a joke, this is not me trying to win you over by showing you what I'm "willing" to do and hope that alone saves me. This is a legitimate proposal.

If you were to accept my special request and lift my ban after my completed hours, I would want a LONG TERM probationary period where even ONE report of negative behavior would replace my ban. So, here are the terms upon which I could see this working:

  1. Riot support picks a specific genre of community service (public clean up, helping homeless, working with kids, etc) and the set amount of hours they want me to complete (50, 75, 100, I am willing to do as much as it takes)

  2. The responsibility of finding the program that offers the opportunity to serve my community in the manner that you have decided falls upon me. I will send the details of the organization, the person who is managing my hours, and the specific work I will be doing.

  3. After completion of my hours along with documentation and verification, my ban would be lifted but I would be one report away from the permaban being lifted.

They can't do that. Riot Games is not a government organization or institution. Everyone is protected by a privacy law as well. Furthermore not everyone is legally considered an adult and it would cost a ton of money to look after every single toxic person in the world that would be doing this "community service" and make sure they would be doing that. The thing you're suggesting would violate many laws across the globe and would cost way too much. Are you going to pay all those people? Are you going to take responsibility for all the law violations?

Having said all that: Hope you've learned your lesson and best of luck to you in the future. Be it on a new account or elsewhere.