Hextech crafting and chat restriction - let's chat.
Over the past three years the one thing that seems most consistent is that players on League will troll, flame, AFK, basically do anything and everything possible to make your time as miserable as possible. This includes taking a called lane, feeding, purposely stealing cs or buffs, and many other things along the way. Every game has this, but not every game is in the denial Riot Games has that a majority, not a minority, of their users display unsportsmanlike behavior.
Recently I got a chat restriction, and I was guilty as charged - 10 games. As a result, despite numerous honors since for teamwork and such, I cannot get loot. This is not a problem for me, I own all the champions. What is the most annoying is the fact I can grade an S and not receive a mastery token.
The difference between mastery tokens and loot is that loot is given out randomly whereas S grades are -earned- by doing well. By saying to me "You have to play dozens of games to get back your good standing" that means I cannot get a token and therefore, can only go as high as mastery level 5 on any champion until the restriction is removed. Mastery tokens are not loot. They are not a privilege, they are a reward for hard work and exceptional performance - in fact, as assists are key to gaining that rating, it requires good teamwork and great effort with a team to obtain.
Having "served my time" I have seen a change in the moderation - people are finally getting banned, suspended, and restricted for bad behavior whereas before, reports seemed to do nothing. I'm happy about this, and a lot of the toxicity the last few days that would usually be present is starting to wither away as people talk about a hard stance on this sort of thing. Well done, honestly, because the main reason for that restriction was utter frustration with feeders, afkers, etc. That, along with the 6.11 patch proposal of ending a game within 3 minutes for an AFK? You literally made my day. That was one of the greatest things I have ever read on here. Thank GOD finally we can get out of unwinnable games without any loss or 25-30 minute wait period!
The only question I have is when the tokens will be available again, as I'll be sure to save the mastery 6 and 7 champions for when I know my performance will actually net a token. But I have to say congratulations, for a company that's usually had their head in the sand about the userbase's overwhelming negativity, I'm glad to finally see you guys cracking down on all of this!
