Boards›Player Behavior

Why banning doesn't work, Prisoner Island does, and Riot has no idea what they're doing

Kill Myself Slow·9/1/2018, 2:12:49 PM·2 votes·2,883 views

Oh No! You were toxic and said something you shouldn't have in the heat of the moment. This was a very bad thing to do and as punishment riot will now revoke your property and account that you have spent possibly years on and who knows how much. Well? What do you do now? That is the core of the argument on player reform and why banning is not only ineffective but harmful and why the much debated Prisoner Island is a better long-term solution with a higher result rate and more tangible benefits, and why Riot is absolutely wrong and misguided when they introduced the automated system and refused to implement Prisoner Island as a reform system when it was first discussed under the logic of "You don't want to be there"

So banning is the most popular means of dissuading negative behavior on the internet. It has been around as long as the net has but, one key element is different in why banning is say more effective in call of duty or overwatch than it is in Heroes of the storm or League of Legends. The latter does not cost anything to start right back up again angrier and bitter than ever with the goal of just making everyone miserable. This is the problem with banning as a method of reform in League, it doesn't actually keep anyone from playing, all it does is force an already angry possibly mentally unstable individual to make a new account and harass newer players or congregate with the same type of banned 'smurfs'. Let me be clear Prisoner Island does exist it's called the new player experience and blind normals.

Blind normals are the most apathetic toxic game mode I have ever seen next to Aram's pure 5 bot teams. Nobody cares enough to try to win, they get mad when they don't win, or when YOU prevent them from being the glorious solo lane carry they believe themselves to be. In short Blind Normals are full of delusional bitter toxic players with no other resource than to abuse the system that allows them to make a new account. Riot might not have intended to make Prisoner Island but Blind Normals can't be called anything other than Prisoner Island. What's worse is that this form of Prisoner Island doesn't work at all. It's like a holding cell that you can break out of at level 30 if you manage to not get banned before that but then those same natural character tendencies work themselves up again and the cycle continues.Nasus

How do we stop this mire of flaming trolls, afk's, and just not very nice people? Simply don't take away their time invested accounts. I know! Hear me out. Prisoner Island as a concept is a place where people with less than Honor Level 2 are sent to reform giving them full access to their accounts, allowing them to play as much as they want unrestricted in chat, but unlike the normal game modes, Prisoner Island has a hidden win condition. Reform by collecting honors of every kind across a specific number of games. Play the games but don't get the honor, you start a new probation, get the honor but not play the games, you stay there. The concept is not only simple but it's actually beneficial to the toxic players as well. There are people who might never want to leave Prisoner Island because they can be as rancid and toxic as they want and it doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't want to be there.

Let's be real Flame is apart of the Game, it has been, it always will be, only recently has Flame been treated like the second mortal sin itself. Allowing people to flame will believe it or not reduce the level of toxicity in players because it serves to vent their frustration. But OH THINK OF THE CHILDREN! you may say but... children shouldn't be playing this game to start and if they're on Prisoner Island, to begin with, they're toxic too. Now we get to the actual idea of why Prisoner Island works.

Enough games with the worst that league has on tap, and you will start playing more positively and start trying to encourage teammates to get that honor to get out. If you hate Prisoner Island and truly wish to reform. You'll focus on improving your gameplay enough to impress your team members, get better at the game, and not incite flame wars to farm honors. Instead of hopping from account to account never truly paying for your mistakes, learning from them. You will buckle down and work to get your account back into "Normal" games. The entirety of league will benefit from this because Prisoner Island actually gives reform a chance to happen unlike continuous banning because "Who cares if I get banned on a level 7 account with nothing on it" is a prevalent mindset in the community.

Riot does not understand psychology. If they did they wouldn't have such a horrible community management problem. League is for lack of better words a chore to play with the right team comp. A simple fun game made to goof around and play a champ with different builds, runes, or just something you never played before becomes YOU HOLDING THIS GOLD 4 SMURF FROM BEING LEVEL 30 AGAIN AND PLAT THIS TIME. This is what happens when you proliferate your new and casual player experience with experienced but toxic veterans. Every game starts to carry personal weight and the responsibility to win magnifies in the worst person's eyes. This in turn has a broken window effect. New players learn the toxic behavior from banned players and in turn become toxic themselves. I asked a friend who never played league to give it a shot. His first game was, a nightmare, with a silver 4 akali smurf barking commands and orders at a level 5 player. I urged them to keep trying and recorded their interaction with the game. First they were timid and scared then they started to get frustrated and vocal finally it devolved into capslock arguments about being toxic and crap at the game by game 10. 10 games to turn a totally new player into a raging keyboard warrior. Now is this a scientific experiment? Absolutely not I WISH someone would actually do a psychological study on league and the effects it has but sadly Harvard sent my proposal back [slayer-jinx-unamused]

But Riot pretends to think that this cycle of Ban, Smurf, Ban, Smurf, Ban, Smurf isn't one of the key factors making their game almost unplayable (Not talking about balance here) and refuse to take immediate and effective action like implementing Prisoner Island or changing matchmaking to group similar HONOR LEVEL players together to ensure at least some cohesive form of reward for actually playing honorably, because skins are dumb, wards are worse, and borders especially temporary ones motivate nobody. It is time Riot stopped treating their player base like children who quit when they get set back (like they tell us not to do in games) and recognize that a LARGE portion of the playerbase are teenage to adult who literally have nothing better to do than play... and if they can't play their main account, troll on an alt.

Thank you.

57 Comments

Imperial Pandaa9/1/2018, 2:50:54 PM9 votes

That is all just your opinion on the matter.

The reason for perm bans is to have a price for getting in trouble because no one wants to lose something they invested time and potentially money into. By making an Island, which comes with its own slew of problems, you also start saying "Hey! Be as toxic and volatile as you want! No bans!" Which begins to actually push more people away, but I'll address my grievances with the Prisoner Island next.

Issues I have with the idea (yes, my opinion):

  1. As stated, it will push away more people than bans do. Remember, the number of people punished is actually a minority. "But they'll end up at PI." After how long though? How much damage will they cause first?

  2. Cost; unless you are limiting the game mode for the Prisoner Island, then Riot will have to make game servers for each of the game modes and maps. "They aren't a small idie company and can afford it." Yes, but for how long? A game needs to be profitable or even at worse. When it starts to cost more to maintian servers than what you make, games start shutting down.

  3. In and Out; When do you go into PI? First offense? At Perm? After both chat restricts? Are you including gameplay bans? Depending on how you answer these, the situation is worse for people who may only make the mistake once. You mentioned having a hidden Honor way out too. What happens when people don't honor anyone? What if they are only honoring the person who carried? What if they honor the biggest troll/flamer in the match? You start running the risk of the wrong people getting out.

Now, you want to claim that blinds and the NPE is "Prisoner's Island" and again I will mention that is your opinion. I don't have much issues in blinds with toxicity of any kind (gameplay or verbal) and when I made new accounts, it was fairly obvious I was playing with other smurfs. Yes, probably by level 5 you are going to mainly be playing against other people of similar mmr (smurfs) anf again, don't seem to have any issies with toxicity.

Subdue9/1/2018, 2:50:41 PM4 votes

Nope, I'd rather they just keep banning toxic players. They should also be far more strict against toxicity at the early levels and have MMR adjust more aggressively to separate smurfs from real new players more quickly.

Sillae9/1/2018, 7:31:41 PM3 votes

"This was a very bad thing to do and as punishment riot will now revoke your property and account that you have spent possibly years on and who knows how much."

Stopped reading the wall of text because it became invalid with that sentence.

You don't own your account, you don't own anything. Riot does. Riot lets you play the free account, and offers the option to buy skins for the account. In terms of service, they spell out that they can revoke everything at anytime for any reason.

Didnt read your TOS? Well, you are the one who agreed to the legally binding contract without at least glancing over it.

Anyway, prison island is a horrible idea. They'd have to spend lots of money regulating and sorting the good from the toxic, then keeping servers open reserved just for them. It's also basically not a punishment, they have no reason not to be toxic other than meeting more of their kind.

Just take your ban, dude.

usul12029/1/2018, 3:05:19 PM3 votes

Riot has stated that their current punishment system is designed with reform in mind, up until perma ban where they just don't want you 0pay9ng their game anymore. Pi goes pretty much directly against promoting reform.....

Icy Hot Shoto9/1/2018, 3:31:57 PM2 votes

"I got punished, make a prisoner island so I can still play even though Riot doesn't want me here."

I'm guessing that's you?

dKiWi9/2/2018, 1:24:47 PM1 votes

oh no! i have acne and depression so i am now qualified to rob a bank in singapore on impulse with no repurcussions allowed. I see where this line of logic is going

Thuban9/1/2018, 5:57:16 PM1 votes

You need self control and discipline. Which no one in the Americas(yes, North, Central & South) have. Too bad so sad. Learn self-control or don't speak at all. At a point where all social privileges just need removed, both digitally and physically/mentally.

My Names Gumbas9/1/2018, 2:26:35 PM1 votes

Honestly a prisoner island thing would be fucking epic, Permanently banning someone doesn't solve anything, But if he manages to climb out of the toxic pit that (in theory) is a prisoner island as a reformed player, He definitely deserves a place within the normal servers. Also I want my account back [zombie-nunu-bummed]

edit: Why are people downvoting me? Because I have an opinion?