Boards›Player Behavior

Shall I be Punished for Being Abused?

73150893_DEL·1/5/2016, 4:58:42 PM·2 votes·953 views

Hello Everyone..

I am "new" to League of Legends, having just started to play over the Christmas break.

While I am enjoying the experience in general, there is a situation that i am wondering how to best deal with.

The situation is that during a game, if a person is abusive to me and continues to swear, shout and type derogatory comments, in which the gaming environment has become one where I cannot stay (since to stay would allow myself to be abused further), the fact is that I am the one who is punished for being abused.

Based on what i have seen and read, the solution is that i should sit on the screen and finish the game, while the abuse and poor language continues being exposed to myself and (more importantly my son who is playing along with me) and then leave a "comment afterwards"? That neither indicates that this abuse was dealt with nor logged.

In fact, the reality is that if I dont sit and endure this 45 minutes of abuse, then I myself am penalized.

While I do like your game, the fact is that i wont sit in a game to be abused and i think that perhaps some "investigation" in to why a person is leaving (perhaps a checkbox to say "Leaving due to deteriorating environment" or something similar ) since currently, the Automatic Dropping of Queue for leaving takes a simplistic approach to dealing with Leaving and there are reason behind.

Or perhaps the TOU and the gaming community says "Nope - sorry, you stay and take the abusive behaviour and thats that" in which case, thanks for letting us know and we will look for entertainment elsehwere. Seems a shame to punish people for leaving an abusive situation without any method of discourse of defense.

BR/ Z

35 Comments

KingWanahakalugi1/5/2016, 5:10:09 PM7 votes

It is expected that you finish the game, and leaving is not acceptable in any case. You do not have to continue to take abuse while you play the game. Simply hit enter and type "/mute all" in the chat box. That will stop abusive chat from your teammates and theirs. You can also mute selective abusive players in game by pressing tab in game and clicking the sound box near the champion portrait to mute that individual person. It is a practice of some people to mute everyone before the game even starts to keep people from getting into their head. Reporting players does help weed them out of the community. Read some of this board you will see that toxic players are being removed slowly, but surely. I hope you and your son continue to play this game because it is a fun game, and there are still good people in the community.

Have a Nice Day [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

The Governer1/5/2016, 5:17:31 PM6 votes

Thank you for your comment. I sympathize with your situation but I have a few points to make:

1.If someone is abusive to you, use the "mute" button associated with the abuser(s) in the scoreboard to mute them instantly. Report them afterwards. 2.Leaving a match in any circumstances except for emergencies is not okay, because you are putting your team under heavy disadvantage against the enemy team. It is an unfun experience for either side, especially if you are playing in a ranked game and decide to leave for whatever reasons. 3.Riot is very vague in terms of whether how many valid reports are needed to punish a person (according to Riot it varies based on the offences as well), but it goes like this:

  • Automated warnings after you get reported consecutively for a number of times in recent matches. This type of warnings bears no consequences if the reports are false.
  • Chat restrictions
  • 14-day bans
  • Permanent bans

Anyways, you should know that a valid report is actually taken into account by Riot's feedback system, even though it doesn't seem to provoke any meaningful consequences. A number of valid reports will always trigger punishments.

Makior721/5/2016, 7:19:27 PM5 votes

Your 11 year old son should not be playing competitive online games period. The toxicity in league is not specific to this game, ANY competitive game will have the type of people you encountered in it.

If you insist that he should play leaguebor games like it with you i urge you to get a 5 man premade together, and have your son mute everyone on the enemy team from the start.

Riot does what they can to combat toxic behavior like what you encountered, but if you retaliate against that same behavior then you can be marked as part of the problem (however in the right you may feel)

The simplest way to stay out of trouble is to realize that if you type something into chat that has no benefit to the game (discussing tactics and the like) then you should absolutely take a second to make sure you are ok hitting then enter button.

The disiplinary system in league is largely automated. A human only reviews a case before bans are issued. Dont get baited into saying something you shouldn't.

Anomander1/5/2016, 5:37:38 PM4 votes

Mute. Report. Move on.

While the mute button doesn't stop the initial damage that these actions can cause they do prevent further verbal abuse. And should be used liberally.

However you are responsible for your own actions. You choose to afk and leave the game making a bad situation worse for the remaining players. There is no reason outside of REAL LIFE emergencies that justify afking. And emergencies like that should be rare enough that it should not cause you to be punished.

I know that this seems harsh. I know that no one should have to put up with continued abuse. This is why there is a mute button and report feature. The mute button is to protect you from CONTINUED abuse in that game. The report feature is to help prevent them from abusing others in the future. If your leaving and not reporting the player you are causing more people to be harmed.

Benjaling1/5/2016, 7:23:27 PM2 votes

This game has a T rating. If your son is 11 he's too young to be playing it anyways...

themachamp1/5/2016, 8:59:12 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Hello Everyone..

I am "new" to League of Legends, having just started to play over the Christmas break.

While I am enjoying the experience in general, there is a situation that i am wondering how to best deal with.

The situation is that during a game, if a person is abusive to me and continues to swear, shout and type derogatory comments, in which the gaming environment has become one where I cannot stay (since to stay would allow myself to be abused further), the fact is that I am the one who is punished for being abused.

Based on what i have seen and read, the solution is that i should sit on the screen and finish the game, while the abuse and poor language continues being exposed to myself and (more importantly my son who is playing along with me) and then leave a "comment afterwards"? That neither indicates that this abuse was dealt with nor logged.

In fact, the reality is that if I dont sit and endure this 45 minutes of abuse, then I myself am penalized.

While I do like your game, the fact is that i wont sit in a game to be abused and i think that perhaps some "investigation" in to why a person is leaving (perhaps a checkbox to say "Leaving due to deteriorating environment" or something similar ) since currently, the Automatic Dropping of Queue for leaving takes a simplistic approach to dealing with Leaving and there are reason behind.

Or perhaps the TOU and the gaming community says "Nope - sorry, you stay and take the abusive behaviour and thats that" in which case, thanks for letting us know and we will look for entertainment elsehwere. Seems a shame to punish people for leaving an abusive situation without any method of discourse of defense.

BR/ Z

Yes, you can be punished for being abused...happens to a lot of people :(

Sarutobi1/5/2016, 5:16:30 PM1 votes

If someone is being abusive in terms of typing offensive things the best thing you can do is mute and report them afterwards, Why you would leave a game just because of that just seems really childish. Nothing will get done aside from you getting Low Priority Queue, and that person who was toxic would go unpunished because no one will report them, and more than likely report you for leaving the game. We all have to deal with people like this, not only in this game, but in real life. With this being Riot's Game we have to abide by their rules. And while that person is breaking the rules as well, we need to do our part in that if it does happen reporting them will be our best option so that they are more than likely to get ban and either change their way, or not play this game anymore!

Maximum Morde1/5/2016, 5:31:18 PM1 votes

There is a mute button you know. Use it and report at the end. Old enough to be a parent but too dumb to use a basic game function. I feel sorry for you.

Awkward Couch1/5/2016, 6:45:50 PM1 votes

Hey Zaletta,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience with League. There are a couple of things that I hope I can clear up for you.

if a person is abusive to me and continues to swear, shout and type derogatory comments

This is something that I see on the boards quite frequently, and it does get really frustrating. The good news is that Riot does punish/ban these types of people.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/GpmY8WRt-permabanned-for-fighting-with-a-real-life-friend http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/9xhYBbTM-hahahaha-riot http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/EEdbZmqh-permanently-banned http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/wWMeEvfW-so-riot-permabanned-my-account-for-toxic-behavior-behavior-a-result-of-toxic-scripting http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/ZKsY4Azh-being-trolled-by-riot http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/oEMVvp1u-the-report-system-is-broken http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/N1uLdwlM-got-permanently-banned http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/92Zvh3Jz-why-riot-permanent-ban-after-someone-purchases-rp-in-shop-isnt-this-stealing http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/2dxI395Z-riot-you-baned-me-for-chat14-days-check-the-reason

These are just the people who talked about getting punished (which there are more who don't talk about it on the boards) within the past 24 hours. There will always be people who fall through the cracks but a vast majority of them get punished. If you have more questions I would suggest taking a look at this.

One thing I wanted to note is that swearing in and of itself is not considered toxic. Saying something like "Man I fucked up" is allowed. Saying something like "Fuck you Lux!" is not.

In reading some of your responses in other threads, you say things like this:

Since this is your company policy and a "mute all" puts the onus on the person being abused to avoid it (rather than on the community to put a stop to this abuse and bullying)

you are saying that your community condones this abuse to continue and that i should endure 1 hour of this (at the option of having to mute everyone)

I would like to say that no one condones being toxic, that's the whole reason for this Player Behavior and Moderation board, is to stop toxisity in this game. I have to give credit to King Wanahakalugi and his response:

You should not be subject to abuse by another player, however, you are also punishing the other players of your game by excusing yourself. The mute button is meant to lead to neutrality long enough for you to finish the game.

League, and MOBA's like it, are different than games like COD or Halo. In League, or Dota 2 or Hero's of the Storm, there are 10 players throughout the course of the game. These players cannot change, with the exception of Dota 2, whereas in COD players can join or leave at any time and it will not affect the balance of the game. That's why leaving a game is considered unsportsmanlike in League.

i think that perhaps some "investigation" in to why a person is leaving (perhaps a checkbox to say "Leaving due to deteriorating environment" or something similar )

While that is an idea that I haven't heard of before, I just see something like that getting abused way too much. I just see people using this as an excuse so they don't get punished for leaving a game ever. But that's just my opinion.

I don't this toxisity problem is a problem with League alone, I've expirenced this with many other games including : WOW, CS:GO, Rocket League, TF2, and most recently Heroes of the Storm. But that's my experience so take what I say with a grain of salt.

NoobLearninGame1/5/2016, 8:43:13 PM1 votes

Isn't there an option to censor swear words & such? I know those words aren't the only way to be offensive by a long shot but it might have helped.

There has to be a happy medium where the game isn't ground to a halt every time someone is offended, and which allows people to be punished for repeated offenses, this is about the best you're going to get in any competitive game for the most part (other than specific servers on games with strict & active admins that ban anything that would be offensive to the parents of children such as yours, or kid oriented games that have a strict policy & will ban/punish in some fashion shortly after reports are sent in).

Some game communities are nicer in general, but usually they're also a lot less competitive, or are pretty old games, with a smaller community that wants to retain players partly out of a sense of desperation to keep the population up enough for them to be able to play themselves.

Even in those nice communities you're still going to come across some very "toxic" individuals sometimes (who in some cases use cheat programs to make it even more unpleasant), and in many cases there's no reliable way to keep them out of the game, sometimes they'll even have the ability to bypass IP bans, something that can't occur in the same way in LoL because you've to have a separate account after one is banned, which requires a lot of time investment, a punishment of its own really.

Maybe it was just that I was not as capable back when I started & my performance bothered people I played with, but these days I seem to run into a lot less issues with other players (might be Rank & MMR based when it comes to Normals). There may be something to the idea that the lower levels in LoL are filled with the most toxic members of the community, many of them probably previously banned players that were forced to start a new account, and in other cases just impatient people of various ages who have a low tolerance threshold for anyone even creating a hint of negativity directed at them, intentionally or not.

I'm not trying to convince you to keep playing, but you do need to have skin of a certain thickness to be able to play more competitive online games that aren't strictly enforcing child-friendly policies. This type of behavior will always exist, and the only real option is to punish after the fact, or else 9 out of 10 people have to suffer through 20+ minutes of playing a slanted match because one person decided to leave. It's part of the agreement you make when you sign up not to do this.