Boards›Player Behavior

Reform the Ban System

Accursêd·5/3/2018, 7:56:02 PM·23 votes·11,049 views

In the last few weeks it has come to my attention that Riot has been passing out way more bans than they have in the past, the information for this being rather subjective, as it pertains to my reports against other players coming back positive more often and what I've seen on the boards within the last week.

Rather than taking from a few examples on the board I'll just state my opinions about why the system is the way it is and how I think it should change.\

Riot, and many others on the boards seem to believe that the current system is in place because the majority of the community is as immature as the current system seems to tend to, but it's my belief that those immature people are rather the minority, however they are more vocal than that of the majority. Now you can say, "But Curse, shouldn't the game have options for those sensitive people so they don't have to get their games ruined by the critical?" and to that I have amazing news for you. There is already an option implemented in the game for this population of people called the mute button. For some reason there's this stigma against the use of the mute button, that people just don't want to use it for some odd reason. Many of the permabans on the forums that I've gone through within the last few days are either very tame or purely just criticism, I think there was 1 out of around 15 bans that I went through that was actually deserving of a ban for being toxic and saying some things that he/she probably shouldn't have.

Going through these bans I've noticed that the Rioters all give the same vague answer, something along the lines of "This is literally harassment," when the player was simply repeating himself because of repeated instances of the same mistake. Some people could view this as flaming, however I see it as 100% constructive criticism, now if you throw insults in there that's on you, but criticizing someones gameplay should never be a reportable offense, especially in ranked.

I've played this game since February of 2010, around the time when Gragas was released. For the longest time the reports went to the tribunals, and as much of a mess it was, no matter how delayed, someone would never get their account banned for something as soft as criticism, or for example calling someone "childish," yes that is a specific reference to a couple bans on the board right now. The average age of a player in League of Legends was 26 years old as of 2015, which means that number has probably grown to 27, if you account for newer players. You cannot convince me in any world that the majority of 27 year olds get so offended when someone calls them a child that they would want that person to never play the game again, that's absurd and frankly if you told me that in person I'd probably laugh at you, so this is how it needs to be:

League needs to do away with the tiered reporting idea where it's something like your first offense is a chat ban, second longer chat ban, third 14 day ban, and your fourth is a permaban. Half of the reasons the Rioters gave for the permabans that I previously mentioned were "you previously got your 14 day ban and that was your last chance" and went on to say how they thought that the offense was extremely mild but he couldn't do anything because it was somewhat toxic according to the system. Okay. FIrst of all, if you see a problem in your policy, it's your responsibility to go out and try to change it for the better. If this guy was so mild then the highest sort of ban he should've gotten was a chat ban, regardless of his history.

Another thing. The system that is currently in place is too strict. As I've aforementioned, there were many people who got bans for criticizing team mates, hilarious. If you're playing any game that has any competition and you're not going to welcome constructive criticism in an effort to better yourself, in my personal opinion, you can get out or fix the problem yourself, which is what the mute button is for. Spam pinging too? There's been a mute for that for awhile now.

A couple months ago, I was rightfully given a 14 day ban, and I actually deserved it, I had nothing to dispute and I believe that's how a ban should be. For reference, here are my logs:

Game 1 CursedLegend: i got blue screened CursedLegend: :/ CursedLegend: nicesu CursedLegend: dont complain about anything CursedLegend: youre talon CursedLegend: kys CursedLegend: kys CursedLegend: because youre a bding bitch CursedLegend: youre bad CursedLegend: talon CursedLegend: youre actually a shitter CursedLegend: not true CursedLegend: how is that okay

I was completely tilted here and I openly lashed out in all chat. I. Deserved. A. Ban. However, there are many cases where context matters, and for some reason Riot doesn't care about context but I think they should, not in my case or cases like it because its blatantly obvious that I deserved a ban, but in many of the "harassment" cases where two players are typing back and forth to each other, both being passive aggressive, and one reports the other at the end of the match to have them get banned while the other runs off scott free, look at context. Ban none, or ban both, no in between.

If you've read this far I'd like to personally thank you and ask that you spread the word, and if you'd like provide more examples of undeserving instances or more policy ideas, thanks.

135 Comments

Chermorg5/3/2018, 8:03:39 PM10 votes

The crux of your position seems to be that you don't believe repeatedly belittling someone for their mistakes is harassment - you think it's constructive.

Players do not improve their play to challenger level over the course of one game. Repeatedly pointing out mistakes they can not fix that quickly serves no purpose but to belittle them. There is a big difference between the following:

Player A: Hey man, try to do X instead next time

and

Player A: once again no vision Player A: Once again, get picked off Player A: Maybe if you were with the team

repeated over and over in a game.

While yes, it's not as toxic as telling someone to kill themselves, it is still toxic. It doesn't just ruin the game for the player it's directed at - it makes the game less fun for all other players involved who have to watch someone pointing out every little mistake. If players want a coach, they're free to go buy one themselves - you don't get to just assume the role and say "but I was trying to coach them so nitpicking their mistakes is okay".

One thing I think people also forget is that these players getting 14 day bans for the above behavior have a couple things in common that they conveniently leave out of their original posts and sometimes don't even answer questions about - history and frequency. These players have almost all had prior chat restrictions telling them this behavior is okay. Punishments escalate - Riot doesn't just sit around and let someone ruin infinite number of games and make them less fun. It is expected you improve your behavior or you will be permanently banned. Further, many of these players had just came off a smaller punishment (either chat restriction or temporary ban) - or in some cases were on a chat restriction when they got banned. If you are on or very recently off a punishment and you go straight back to negative, bossing behavior, that's a clear sign that you have no intent on improving your behavior.

The bottom line is this - the community, ever since Tribunal - when they could actually vote directly on this - has overwhelmingly decided they don't want to see bossing, negative, mistake-pointer-outers in the game. It makes it not fun to play if you constantly have to worry "well if I fuck up he's going to harass me over it". And it is harassment. It is unwanted attention being given to someone for playing poorly. Whether you accept that or not, that's fact.

AJStarhiker5/3/2018, 8:00:14 PM7 votes

How many of those "context" logs have you read? I have yet to see one where yes, the context would have made much difference.

There have been games where I've seen people baited into raging and, even after I tried to point the bait out to them, they still continue to rage and harrass the troll. I may have chosen not to report those players, but that doesn't make them innocent. They allowed the troll to tilt them into reacting in a punishable manor.

Risen295/4/2018, 4:07:48 AM5 votes

The new ban system is an horrendous example of injustice.

Four examples of one behavior lead to a permaban. Even if you played 4,000 games in that time.

Meanwhile, thousands of people with legitimately toxic/griefing ingame behavior goes completely unpunished just because they say nothing in chat.

Thats why some griefer recently griefed for hundreds of games, feeding and trolling, yet wasnt banned until he admitted in one game chat that he was doing it on purpose and said he never has gotten punished for it.

This is not how justice works. Only punishing the people who say something in chat that can be interpretted as incrimination. Leaving the 1000 other griefers who say nothing completely unpunished.

GettemClone5/4/2018, 10:20:59 AM5 votes

I think a toxic player ( who's toxic only in chat, but plays the game without trolling ) should not have the same punishment as a cheater, troll, or feeders.

punishments should follow rules.

Someone is flaming in chat? easy, ban him from chat.

Someone is RUINING games by trolling or cheating? easy, ban his account.

you don't give everyone the same punishment .. it's just not fair, lol is the only game i've ever played that does that.

SheP Boi R Dee5/4/2018, 1:22:49 AM2 votes

i think the problem with the whole system is the fact that we accept as a community that perma bans are a thing, it stops noone from playing, it just steals money from us due to skin purchases and such. it is also quite possible that people will be even more toxic when they come back due to the pain they feel in their wallets.

Pika Fox5/3/2018, 8:51:44 PM2 votes

I agree that context should matter, but even so in almost all of the cases that get posted, you can see they deserved it even without context.

Xellex4205/5/2018, 9:25:12 AM2 votes

Of all these comments...it seems like NO ONE answers the OPs main point. As a player of this game for 5 years I think by now the ban system should have been reworked to ban people who troll the game itself, not the good player that got heated and said something dumb in the chat.

You can pick a troll champ, follow your team around the map and feed all the lanes, take smite and steal minions and jungle camps, just make the game miserable for your team...and that is OK and you will NOT be banned for it. Yet you say something in the chat above a pg-13 level and you can get perma banned for it...even tho there is a mute button to make the chat not even happen. How do you stop the troll from ruining the game?!?!?! YOU CANT!!!!! How is this even an argument?! I will NEVER understand how anyone could agree with being banned for what you say in chat, and not what you do in the game itself...