Bans and Negative Behavior

I am at this time of writing a player in possession of four permanently banned accounts. I come to you, not as a 'reformed' player nor someone seeking absolution. I do not apologize for the behavior that earned my bans nor do I regret a single word typed. What I come to discuss in a very calm and mature manner is what Banning is, how it actually impacts league of legends and what any would be a more suitable solution.

First off. I have had four accounts permabanned for 'toxic behavior' if you'd like to research these accounts they are TheObamatar A dead champion A dead champ I stopped caring

two of these accounts were level thirty with over 200 dollars invested in skins and RP, all the accounts had some minor amount of skins, the obamatar having Pulsfire Ezreal and Spiritguard Udyr among them. The actual banning order was

A dead champ A dead champion The Obamatar I stopped caring

I presently have two week bans on other accounts but I'm not going to mention them for fear of being preemptively banned, because I don't trust riot not to do that. Regardless all of these accounts were banned for repeated counts of 'toxic' behavior. If anyone wishes for me to provide logs I happily will. As I said above I do not regret my behavior or my words because I chose them of my own will. If we do not claim responsibility for our actions even at the worst of times we can not call ourselves human beings, being a philosophy I hold very dear.

To the meat of the discussion though, What is a ban, a ban is obviouslly losing access to an account and all content contained however when you look deeper than that, what does a ban restrict access too? Skins and Champs, the skills gained from playing those accounts is transative you can not remove my experience no matter how little or insignifigant. So then in essence a ban is the removal of 'perks' of an account in good standing. The effects of a ban are literally as long as it takes for you to make a new account. I can regain skins, I can regain champs, I can regain a rank the account is merely a means to an end. So I ask you, what is a ban to someone like me but a temporary inconvenience.

So if I am only momentarily inconvenienced by a ban, who does a ban actually affect? Well when you break it down a ban affects three people primarily. First it affects the playerbase, that toxic and now vindictive player is free in the lower levels, to my knowledge it only takes a week to reach 30 again with some XP boosts. That toxic player is now toxicing it up in normal unranked matches generally making the game miserable in one of two ways. The hyper carry smurf or the "I'm a smurf" type of player neither are enjoyable to be on or against. The hypercarry messes up your team dynamic placing one overlyskilled player in the role of captain and commander and anyone who doesn't listen is 'feeding' likewise the "I'm a smurf" player doesn't care if they're toxic, afk, troll, or just make life miserable because they aren't there to learn they're there to just get to 30. (This note aside for general trolls who just aren't included in that formula). Second it affects the community because as we have seen toxic smurfs become the law of the land for normals and unranked games most of which take unranked games more seriously than ranked promotions and flame their team mates for honestly new mistakes or off meta picks. The community suffers when you ban a toxic player only for them to smurf a new account because you haven't deducted your toxic player, you've only bred a toxic culture that keeps stagnating and recycling. Lastly and perhaps the most important on who bans effect, perhaps the most, Riot. Bans are lucrative income for Riot as a means of stripping away a players account, skins, and champions not to mention Boosts and name changes, riot tends to profit the most off of banned players who simply don't start over and want their "main" champion back. Riot's revenue is probably comprised of figures with something like 'smurf' accounts being more than fourty percent of their revenue over new champ releases and new players buying rp. Because realistically very rarely do new players buy RP, perhaps they find a champ they like and want a skin but the way riot has designed hextech they don't actually have to spend any money. New players aren't buying champs from start, smurfs are now there may be a small playerbase who do buy RP immediately after making an account and to them I am sorry if I overlooked you, but putting politics aside, Riot stands to profit the most of Permabanns on accounts.

Now I've offered my opinion of the problem what about the solution. The way I see it there are three ways to descentivize toxic people from making new accounts.

1. Toxic Mode: A mode filled entirely with toxic accounts, no bans, no restrictions, just utter sewage of the league community. This works as a better reform than making a 'toxic' player bitter, by forcing them to play with truly horrible people they will likely be so 'scared straight' as to never go back to that horrible mode again. As for permabanned people, lock them in there forever, let them keep all their stuff, but only play with horribly toxic people like themselves. Can they still make a smurf, yes, but why would someone not being gated from playing their account make a 'toxic smurf' the problem seems to settle itself. However league doesn't really benefit from this model, since the smurfs won't be buying their old champs and skins

2. Remove Leveling: This is a pretty broad but short term solution that works in everyone's favor. Removing leveling removes the introduction of toxic smurfs back into the system contaminating new players. If everyone starts out able to play any mode, with all masteries and runes unlocked, toxic smurfs will ALWAYS go back into ranked and just start a vicious cylce of banned/smurf/banned/smurf. Seeing as this will likely only affect bronze to silver elo it wouldn't effect your pro scene and smurfs would still need to purchase skins and champs so riot will still profit but the community will not suffer.

3. Unranked Elo: This is perhaps the screwiest suggestion but there is already a system in place to judge a players skill via win losses, riot is SUPPOSED to matchmake according to that but we've all had those games, the system is imperfect. By implementing an invisible unranked elo, smurfs who constantly hyper carry will generally filter up to meet other hyper carry smurfs. new players will generally settle into lower elo's that's just how it works. This will remove the people who are smurfing to level, smurfing because of ban, and smurfs in general which make leveling a generally TORTUROUS experience, in their own special bracket.

In the end, I don't think Riot will ever completely nullify the impacts bans have on everyone but the banned, either by lack of will or lack of ability not sure. But I think that is important to consider alternative methods of player correction for a more expansive and steadily stagnating player base. Professional streamers have commented about the lack of new blood, people complain all the time about how every mode but the weekly mode and summoners is filled with bots. There are legitimate problems with the two week/ permabanning system and I would love a discussion on what could be done better or what could fix the system. Please, PLEASE do not post below with riot rhetoric about how it works. I am if anything proof it does not work and I know there are hundreds if not thousands like me across the world. Banning does not solve toxicity it only removes the toxic account not the player.