Let's Bury Toxic and Flaming Players For Good
Intro Hello everyone. Before I get into my solution it's only fair for me to let you all know that I have recently been perma-banned for toxicity. This however, is not a discussion for me to whine about getting my account back and although that would be great, would not help whatsoever in permanent solving the toxicity issue. And before someone brings up permanent bans as being a permanent solution please remember that someone can just make another account and be just as toxic on that one. I value the LoL community a lot and want it to genuinely become better even if I am not a part of it because I appreciate what the game and community has become. So here is my proposal.
The Solution The one way for toxic players to be deterred from saying anything toxic wouldn't be to ban them for good but to make a pre-determined chat for players that tend to flame or be toxic to use sort of like a drop down menu that has several branches with pre-approved messages. There can be messages that relate to objectives, phrases that are commonly used, and others. Here are some examples: Objectives: Dragon, Baron, Bot Tower, Mid Tower, Top Tower, Inhibitor, End, Teamfight, and Defend Phrases: Lol, sorry, nice job, gank, gg, well-played, leash, etc.
TL;DR: a drop down chat menu for toxic and flaming players with several options relating to game play.
How this is Different from Pings Although Pings can communicate some of these messages just as well, I personally think that most people get annoyed by pings (I'm not saying that they should be removed) and that this drop down menu makes it so that it is IMPOSSIBLE to say mean things.
Why it Should be Used Now some of you might be saying "this is not a fair punishment for those that were toxic" or "Riot shouldn't have to limit what people say" and to that I have two things to say: one, banning a person's account that they spent time and money on is not COMPLETELY fair either, it may seem to be justified because it is a punishment after all but there is a very good reason why toxic players shouldn't be banned which I will get into later in the next section. Two, banning people is the same thing as limiting what they have to say.
Banning Toxic/Flaming Players is Bad? Now I may seem to be getting a little liberal in what I'm saying but please bear with me there is a perfectly good reason why this makes sense. Let me use an analogy. Let's say in this analogy toxicity = sewage (both things that no one wants to have in front of them). When people need to take care of sewage they don't push it out of their house and put it somewhere else (a different gaming community), no they bottle it up in septic tanks and control it. The most common thing that upsets perma-banned people isn't that they lost their account and need to level it to 30 again, it's that they lost all the champions and skins they had. If that is what is tying them to their account I doubt that they will care much about having to deal with a chat drop down menu if it means that they get to keep their skins and champs. If they do get perma-banned they will do either one of four things: make a new account and be toxic again and flame because of resentment, make a new account and improve their behavior, play a different game and still be toxic and mean, or play a different game with improving behavior. This is horrible for Riot if they make a new account and the first thing they do is introduce new players to a toxic community, the new player will think "this community is horrible, I don't want to play this game anymore if it means more of this!" But this doesn't happen if the toxic player is playing on their chat banned account because they can only say pre-determined things and will be playing in their respective elo's away from new players.
Why You Should Listen to Me You shouldn't there is no reason why you have read this far aside from the fact that you are extremely open minded or going to see what kinds of things people are saying below. Like I said in the intro, I simply want to make this community better. This game has given so many good memories to me and my friends that it is only right that I give back to it. Being able to walk up to my parents (I'm 17) and showing them how popular, complex, and competitive games have become means so much to me. And believe me it makes me sick to my stomach that I can be so mean to people, I don't think this game owes me anything, I don't think that being toxic to the point of being banned is some sort of achievement. We are only human and we may make mistakes, but it is fixing those mistakes that makes us something more.
Thank you so much to those of you that took the time to read this. Please leave comments below and keep this idea alive.
