ITT:
Someone explain to me why the "Mute" option is not enough to prevent toxic commentary. I don't care what was said, who said it, what the context was, tell me why giving players the option to mute someone isn't enough. Explain why words are punished harder than actions.
First, lets clear up a misconception you seem to have.
Actions are actually punished more harshly than words. Gameplay toxicity starts at a 14 day ban for 1st offense. Verbal toxicity starts at a 10 game chat restriction, exception of zero tolerance.
Gameplay though takes longer to punish because Riot doesn't want to punish legitimate bad players. So determining intent is important.
As to why mute isn't enough. Well, there is a simple saying. "I mute so I don't have to deal with you. I report so no one else will have to." Also, unless you are preemptively muting everyone; potential hurtful or demoralizing things could be said and seen.
Trolls and inters do get banned but because they're getting smarter about how they avoid detection (and because Riot wants to try to avoid punishing innocent players as much as possible) it's harder to catch them in the act compared to simple chat-related offenses. Gameplay related offenses when proven to be on purpose are assigned a 2-week ban as the first punishment. In case you don’t believe me on this point here are a couple examples of gameplay trolls being banned. Yes it’s just a few examples, but it proves that they do get punished.
That said, there's still no excuse for using chat as a tool to verbally abuse and harass other players. If a player can't interact with others without trying to ruin their experiences then online multiplayer games are just not for them.
Fair enough, guys. Thanks for the responses.
The mute option is not an excuse to flame people. Just like the existence of hospitals isn’t an excuse to stab someone.
