Punishments, fairness, and why I'm uninstalling league after years. Constructive critisism included.

This thread is mostly intended for Riot employees to read, and meant to possibly help other players in the future. Both to learn from my experiences, and maybe change how punishments work a little.

This will be slightly lengthy, so I'll just start with a very simplified TL;DR. The punishment system does a terrible job trying to make slightly toxic people to try and be better, and punishes them instead. Now you know what the meat of this thread is. Now, for my personalized experiences, and why I'm finally leaving this game for good. I will start with my playtime, an example of punishments, and end with constructive feedback. It'll be a bit all over the place, but I just want to cover everything to a certain degree. Also, for the record, I'm not currently banned. I can play if I choose, so I'm not raging over being banned.

I've been playing this game for quite a while. I started sometime after Nami was released, when she was still the login theme. I've played quite a few games, probably thousands. Mostly pvp. I've was there when blind pick was the only way to play. I was one of the people that only played Team Builder, when it was a thing. I remember all the things that created large infinite salt among players. With that said, I've NEVER been the racist, insulting kid. My version of toxicity is pretty much only limited to losing my patience in games that are clear losses. I'll lose my patience and stop trying, point out why we aren't going to win, and only when its clear in the kind of games in which the enemy carry is something akin to 21/3, and our carry is 0/10. At 15 minutes.

These are the games that make me stop having fun fairly early. I will, of course, try to surrender as early as possible to move on and try again in a different game. However, and everyone has experienced this, there are plenty of games that involve duo's and more. In those games, those duos that essentially feed and just wont stop, also refuse to surrender.

This, my fellow gamers, and Riot, is the crux of my post. At this point, in these games, I become what you could call very low level toxic. I will ask why they don't surrender. I will ask that they do in the future, unless they can suddenly become relevant and give us a fighting chance (this basically NEVER happens). I will become increasingly salty. Throughout all of this, I won't call them swear words. I won't use vulgar language. I will be salty, and have a clear negative attitude, but the reason is obvious.

I'm stuck in an unfun game, against my will. If I quit, I will 100% be punished for it. I'm being held hostage for up to half an hour by people that both make sure we can't win, and make sure I have to keep playing.

This is awful. MOBAS are subject to this very specific experience, and League of Legends is the only game that employs a punishment system that will punish me for my non vulgar, non harassing, salt. I am deemed the problem of these games.

Now at this point, some of you will probably say "well then just stay quiet in chat". You know what? You're probably right. I cannot get punished if I just sit there and suffer of frustration and boredom silently, like an obedient child. I can take my beating silently, without resisting. Sometimes I do. But I'm not a flawless person, and sometimes I simply state that we are going to lose and should move on with our lives. I get harshly punished for this. I never start the cycle of games that become unfun, and toxic. But I, as a human being, have great difficulty staying silent while just taking a beating. I cannot be the only one like this.

As I said before, I've played a LOT of games. Honestly, these situations are but a small percentage of my total games played. However, as far as the punishment system goes, that does not matter. The VAST majority of my games, I get honored for beeing a good teammate, and great shotcalling. When my honor isn't throttled, I will constantly get that notification saying "you get x% more honors than the average player, keep it up!", but again the punishment system does not care. I am mostly a supportive player, who tries to win, have fun, and play as a team and try to do some silly combos. but that one game in an average of 50, that one instance of non vulgar rage, and I'm suddenly a honorless, toxic, chat restricted player. It does not matter if 99 out of 100 games I'm honorable and forgiving. It's just the one game that I'm not. And again, in that one game I'm not vulgar or racist. I'm not saying degenerate thing. I'm simply plainly frustrated with wasting my time.

My feedback is thus. I think the punishments for non vulgar, non horrific things said in chat should be vastly more forgiving. I think that every single restriction should take the factors of those individual games into consideration. If someone is saying swear words, that's clearly not okay. Same with racist stuff, telling someone to kill themselves, and other obvious uncalled for foul things. However, saying your 0/20 jungler that won't ever help is useless, while probably rude, is also very accurate. Pointing that out, while rude to the jungler, is affecting that player far less that that player is affecting the team. That should matter, but it currently doesn't.

For me to be chat restricted over this is nonsense. Now, I cannot coordinate with my team. I cannot quickly come up with a combo and express it. Why? Because of that game where I pointed out teammate was useless, when they were genuinely less helpful than a ward I placed at the beginning of the game.

I'm sure some of you will disagree with me. Maybe all of you will. But for me personally, this experience has shown me the ratio of value riot places in my efforts to be a good teammate. Basically, it only matters if I NEVER lose my temper. My one game in 100 honorable games makes me a problem.

As a result, I cannot justify putting anymore of my time in League, let alone money. I've been here for a while, but I'm a functioning adult. This kind of punishment has it's place in a boarding school for children, not a free to play online game.

For those of you that are staying, have fun. May you never have awful games, and may you never lose your temper. Stay positive, and test negative.