The Huge Flaw in Riot's Punishment System
Before I start this off, I would like to say that when it comes to forums, I have very little knowledge of them. I seldom visit them, and when I do, I almost never make a comment, much less create a whole "discussion," so I apologize if I sound like a pleb. I also want to say that this post isn't necessarily being made to help me get my account back, but it's being made because I know that there are other who have been wrongly punished somewhere. The whole point of this post is to emphasize that there NEEDS to be an appeal system for punishments. Even if my ban was somehow deserved, I know for a fact that there are people out there who have been banned without a valid reason. Also, if anyone thinks I'm just crying wolf, I have the chat logs (which only shows my side of the chat) that Riot sent me in an email that I can send to you. I would be happy to explain what every thing I said in the chat. Now, let us begin. (Skip to the ---------------------------------- if you want to skip my punishment story)
I wanna start this off by admitting to a truth: I was once a toxic player in League of Legends, and it took my account getting perma-banned to finally realize how toxic I was. (I wasn't toxic in the sense that I flamed people for doing bad, I was toxic in much, much worse ways. Believe it or not, I have always been against flaming, despite doing way worse things.) I have had a (short, I will admit) period of time to reflect on that behavior, and once I finally realized that I was creating a negative experience for other players, I no longer would communicate with players in the same way that I did before. So, I wanted to start again. I began using one of my alt accounts in place of my main. I worked hard to try to be a positive player, and from what I was able to tell, I seemed to be successful, (Although I will admit that I still can be a very annoying teammate to have on your team, since I use the chat nonstop.)
So I played a game of League today (on a different account than the one I am using right now), where I was in a game with 4 other people on my team who were all in a premade, and judging from what I could tell, they all knew each other in real life. I'm sure most of you know what it's like to be the "lone wolf" in a match where the rest of your team is in a premade, but for those of you who don't, the whole premade tends to be very rude for you, and blames you for every little thing, no matter if it really was your fault or not. The game started. I was playing Twisted Fate against Vel Koz, and I am not very good at dealing with Vel as the champion I was playing. The first thing I typed in chat was "Vel koz.... yay." So, I was getting wrecked in lane, and I asked the jungler, who was playing Hecarim "Hey man, I know you need to jungle, but I'm getting ****** over here." After I said this, the top laner, who was playing Fizz, started going off on me. I told him that if he was mad because he thought I was blaming his friend, that I wasn't blaming him for anything, I was just asking for a gank.
But the salt... just.... poured from there. Hecarim did give me a gank, but he died. I said nothing to him until I tarted getting flamed in the chat. (Whether or not the gank was good or bad or who was at fault is actually irrelevant, I'm just giving you context to the situation.) Now, I wasn't near him when he engaged, but that didn't stop him from blaming the situation on me and the top laner following suit. My exact response to this is as follows: "Blame me. GJ" He then asked me why I didn't follow up, and I told him nicely why.
He went on to tell me that I was just something along the lines of "a bad player" to which my response was "No offense, but when you play a little bit more, you won't blame your teammates like you just did." I don't remember the exact way I worded it, but it was in no way a rude manner.
After receiving salt a few more minutes, I did something I know you're not supposed to do and this is why I think that maybe some people can see why I was punished but to me it just seems........ eh.
I told the enemy team that I was getting flamed. I didn't insult them, I just pointed out to them that I was getting flamed. I believe my exact words were "So top and jungle are flaming me and they're both together" (While one can say that it's wrong to go to all chat, I didn't harass my teammates. If this is somehow against the summoners code and I just didn't happen to notice it, please let me know, but still, this isn't the only thing I want to discuss)
After the game ended, I asked the enemy team in post-game chat to please report the top laner and jungler. The 4 man premade jumped on top of me and all started reporting me in retaliation for daring to ask that. A 4 man premade can get away with flaming one person the whole game because they convince the enemy team of something and get them to report the one lone player, even if I was deserving of punishment, this stuff still happens.
Now, after what above happened, I figured I was safe since Riot could see the in-game chat and would, you know, actually take time to read it. But it appears that nobody read that game's chat log at all, because within 15 seconds of getting reported, I was notified that I had a 14 day suspension, my first punishment on that account for anything other than afks. I have read and heard that an employee from Riot support reads the in-game chat, but I honestly cannot believe that this is true, assuming that statement is supposed to be accurate. There is no way an employee from Riot has between 15-30 seconds to receive AND review a case, and then decide on a proper punishment. This leads me to believe the punishment system is automated.
Now, even if you think that what I did was deserving of punishment, that still does not mean that there is no excuse for Riot not having some sort of appeal system with the punishment that they have in place. It made sense that they didn't have one when the Tribunal was still up and running, (I also am 100% sure I would not have been punished by the Tribunal) but it doesn't now that the Tribunal is down. Even if I was lying through my teeth about what I am saying right now, does that mean that Riot shouldn't have a fail safe system in place?
You can bring up the fact that only I think "0.2%" of players receive a suspension, so therefore it is rare for someone to be punished for little to no reason, but the problem with this argument is that we see innocent people get punished in the legal system today for crimes they did not commit, and there are fail safe systems in place to ensure that everyone is entitled to a fair trial and is innocent until proven guilty. Riot, on the other hand, doesn't care about taking the time to see if their system has flaws. As far as Riot is concerned, you are always guilty, and they can never be wrong.
Another point I can foresee people making is "You're obviously toxic because you have to have been reported a lot." I get reported a lot because I'm annoying. I'm not annoying in the sense that I'm salty, I'm annoying in the fact that I use the chat nonstop the whole game. Every 30 seconds there is a message in the chat from me, and this makes me one of the most annoying people you will ever have on your team. My teammates tend to abuse the report system and report me I guess as a way of trying to get me chat restricted so I'll shut up or something. This point is the only thing that is non-debatable. Even if I was deserving of punishment for this game, the rest of the games before that one were perfectly fine. Remember how there were people who were pardoned in the Tribunal because they received a lot of reports for nothing? Yeah, people do report others without a valid reason.
It;s truly amazing how people have this mentality that the report system is so perfect that there are no people out there who will abuse it.
I wish I had the chat logs for my previous 10 or so games before that but I do not. I only have that last one. If I did, it would help my case sooooooo much because people would be able to more clearly see how broken this report system is. It's similar to how the YouTube copyright abuse system (and other forms of false flagging) is (are) being used to hurt content creators who are doing nothing wrong.
Seriously, no system is perfect. There are always going to be mistakes, which is why there should be an appeal system. Either that, or the Tribunal seriously needs to come back.
