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Be honest Riot. Do you want people to play your game or you to play your players?

DantCaran··3 votes·535 views

I recently heard that that Riot has issued a possible ban for the highest rated mastery Singed player. What he is known for is grabbing smite, killing the initial enemy jungler at the start of game, and then going bot to support as Singed.

To Riot, they believe that if the overall players playing on one's team doesn't enjoy something you do, then it shouldn't be happening and therefore bannable.

To the player, they believe that if the overall player trying it is trying to win, it isn't bannable. AKA purposeful trolling and feeding is bannable.

This is an obvious disconnection between the player and the almighty Riot. If RIOT BELIEVES THAT GOING OFFMETA CONSTITUTES A BAN, they are seriously lying to the player, for what they say is bannable isn't what they will be banning.

I have a badge calling me for being an Honorable Opponent, that I have lost and regain several times on my player. I play offmeta, and for the main part, everyone enjoys my company for being genuinely kind. What I have learned is that making it normal to play meta is the very reason people are toxic at all within the meta. What I see is people complaining "oh you shouldn't be that. It doesn't work. F you. Your mother die. ect" and that is half of the reason people are toxic. The second thing I see is people saying "oh you suck. delete the game. 0/4 well F you". People focus too much on gameplay, too much on the meta, and by doing these things they become toxic and unfun to everyone else.

Riot. If people don't like playing your game, you don't ban the people they blame for it. You get rid of the reasons people are actually upset: an over-focus on the meta and playing well.

28 Comments

TrulyBland10 votes

If you only recently heard about it, I recommend informing yourself a bit more before adding yet another thread on the subject. Riot has come out and explained their decision in great detail, while also pointing out that this is an absurdly rare case.

Short(ish) version: Even though Singed told people he told people too late to adjust to it (at least in some cases). And leaving the adc in an extremely vulnerable position without informing them before they pick their champion is setting them up for failure. He also showed not the least bit of flexibility. He just informed the team of what he was going to do regardless of their concerns. His attitude basically screams "Don't expect teamplay from me, I do what I want."

He was tilting his team, he was setting the adc up for failure and he tore down the team spirit... all of that already in champion selection and over a huge amount of games.

Edit: here's the link to a thread with six redposts that are a bit more nuanced than my abridged version http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/79aGu3wR-support-singed-isnt-banable-but-thats-not-the-point

DantCaran2 votes

I saw the whole thing. I read that whole thing.

Question is though: why is this bannable when they didn't and still haven't list it in the reasons someone can be banned? If someone doesn't do something that the team doesn't like, why should that be bannable? People are upset? He's not doing anything actually wrong.

He's just going offmeta and doing something that the others don't like. Just because it hurts another player doesn't mean he should be banned. He is as much a league player as any one of us.

TrulyBland10 votes

Because he wasn't banned for playing off-meta.

When you get a speeding ticket, you don't get punished for driving a car, you get punished for the way you drive your car. He didn't get banned for playing off-meta, he was banned for the way he played off-meta, which ultimately broke the summoner's code in the aspect of "support your team".

Edit: A lot of people constantly break the meta and are perfectly fine. Yet, every blue moon when Riot bans somebody that happens to play off-meta while also being a douchebag to their team, everybody is starting to panick.

DantCaran2 votes

When someone plays the game badly, they shouldn't be thinking that they will be banned. When they call for you to support the team, they are referring to you not purposefully messing up the team, which is actually bannable.

I never said he got banned. I said there was a threat of being banned if he put smite onto Singed ever again. He would have been banned if he continued, and that is the true story.

TrulyBland7 votes

Firstly: He did get banned. It was a two-week ban, that already expired by the time this hit the forums. The threat was that of a permaban if he continues his behaviour. The issue with the threat (that has been acknowledged by Riot) was that it seemed to focus on the off-meta portion, rather than his attitude. Riot Gromp has stated explicitely in fact, that he can continue playing his support-counter-jungle-singed, as long as he improves the communication and is willing to stay at least a bit flexible.

For somebody that supposedly read the whole thing, you seem to be missing quite a bit of information.

I have also pointed out how he was messing up the team willingly, even if not purposefully, in the form of the late one-way-communication of his plans.

DantCaran2 votes

Firstly: I knew that. I meant banned as in permabanned. Would you mind sending a link about Riot Gromp saying that he can keep playing it? Only thing I found was a short (long) message of him saying "Aye. No. Your adc doesn't like it."

Not being able to communicate well doesn't show in their Banning List. What is reportable purposely setting your team up for failure, being toxic, or griefing. Not speaking in a way that doesn't fonder the best possible strategy isn't bannable.

These two things are contradictory. He didn't mess up his team purposely, and that's what counts. Willingly? That's allowed, because he isn't messing his team up purposely. Just because someone tries something new, and it doesn't do best and you knew that, so you willingly did that, that does not mean they were attempting to feed!

TrulyBland7 votes

We don’t have a specific system or feature that moderates this kind of behavior. Incidents like these are reviewed by Rioters only after they are flagged to us by a variety of possible variables we look at in League matches. We would never ban an account based off something basic like unusual picks, unusual builds, or weird roles. To be honest those kinds of things might get complaints from other players but they are not the kind of things that make a measurable impact on how painful a match might be for our players. However, players that feel ignored, disrespected, hijacked, or marginalized do report increased pain and frustration with League.

That's fairly straight forward.

Let's also not dive into semantics of "willingly" vs. "purposely": Pasting that paragraph of what he was going to do as late as he did, was screwing over the team's ability to adapt to the strategy. He sacrificed a part of his team's ability to impact and enjoy the game, for the sake of not having to discuss his plan.

That has nothing to do with "trying something new". That has everything to do with being a straightup horrible team player. And given that being a team player is part of sportsmanship, this is actually very obviously a reportable (and punishable) offense.

DantCaran2 votes

If someone were to accidentally feed at all, would that constitute willingly feeding? And so if they feed, its bannable?

Okay, so lets not talk about semantics and instead talk about what they said.

They put the reason for the two week ban as players "report increased pain and frustration with League." while he plays. Now, if someone were to feed by completely accident, wouldn't that give increase pain and frustration in league? Now, is that bannable?

Semantics lets ignore them again. Think about every way you can interpret anything to get anything done, and then through that you can ban anyone. People's impressions were that you couldn't be banned for doing something new and unwieldly to your teammates, as long as purposeful feeding wasn't done. Riots opinions about what is bannable and what they will ban are different than what the players think. That is directly lying.

TrulyBland7 votes

You are trying to take all the parts of what constituted the ban and look at whether they are all individually bannable, but that doesn't make sense.

The entire case was bannable in Riot's opinion. That doesn't mean breaking the meta is bannable. That doesn't mean not communicating with your team is bannable. That doesn't mean willingly lowering your team's enjoyment of the game is bannable.

But when a player is throwing an unusual strategy at people without showing any flexibility, informs them of crucial parts of the plan too late to adapt for no good reason and is willing to completely sacrifice one player's enjoyment and impact on the game and all of that consistently over hundreds of games, that is, in fact, a problem.

You are trying to twist an extremely rare case into a general rule. But if you want to do that, then the general rule here is: Don't do exactly the same thing as that Singed player did.

Sometimes there is no simple and easy rule to be derived from something. Hence why Riot said that these cases will even in the future always be decided by manual review.

DantCaran2 votes

People are banned based on something they did. If parts add up to a ban, we need an actual way to know what added will lead to that ban. If the player believes something is not bannable and than it is bannable, it is lying to the player.

He did nothing considered in their Reportable Ban List to be actually banned. If Riot can ban someone over a convoluted detasteful case, without any individual bannable offenses, it is strictly false information to say that someone can't be banned if Riot doesn't find an offense.

The community believes that to be banned you must have been overly toxic, griefing, or purposely feeding. If Riot believes that people should be banned because communication is bad, they should have added that in the list of POSSIBLE BAN REASONS.

Even if something he did was helpful to the team, it doesn't make it right to ban him. He did nothing out of his own knowledge to mess up the team. He messed up the team through normal playing. He did mess up the team because he wanted to. Playing something offmeta will always offer a chance of willfullingly messing up your team. If this is bannable, willfullingly messing up your team, than all of UNTRIED OFFMETA IS BANNABLE.

If we are to allow complete possible bannage without a rule saying the ban was needed, then Riot can literally ban anyone they choose at all. No rules are then set up. No restrictions are set up. Banning is just, if they do this a little more than they now, just something that happens when Riot feels it to.

TrulyBland4 votes

The community believes that to be banned you must have been overly toxic, griefing, or purposely feeding.

Then the community is stupid and needs to look up the listed options to report people as well as read the summoner's code. Negative attitude and unsportsmanlike behaviour are just as punishable.

But fine, you want clear cut rules? Here's a clear cut rule from the Summoner's Code:

Being a good team player begins at champion select. Be open minded when considering the needs of your team.

Your opinion: Did he do that? Did he show open mindedness when he just copy-pasted the paragraph of what he was going to do?

What about this part:

If everyone's picked and something stands out as a deficiency in your team composition, try asking for another player to fill the gap, or change roles to embrace that responsibility yourself.

Did he ask people to adapt to his strategy? Or even leave them the chance to do so?

You focus on the parts you want to focus on. But you cannot deny that the way he acted broke the summoner's code.

Great Muta2 votes

This forum is a joke man. These people will defend bull to no end.

You are totally right and are wrecking the guys.

Great Muta2 votes

DantCaran smiting the RBSC! You rock dude.

Most of forum members here don't want discussion sadly. They just want to bully downvote. That's why nothing gets up voted but Rito butt slapping posts.

Great Muta2 votes

Exactly.

How can Rito expect people to follow the rules when they won't even tell us what the rules are?

EvilDustMan7 votes

http://i.imgur.com/cOMj3.gif

Dynikus6 votes

how are people still going on about the singed player?

DantCaran3 votes

Its because people thought going offmeta wasn't bannable.

Dynikus5 votes

it's not. that wasn't the problem. Instead of making the umpteenth thread about this weeks after it happened, your time would have been better spent actually reading why riot gave him a 2 week suspension.

DantCaran2 votes

I read the second post made about why to ban him. They said that overall, upsetting the people hes with is more important than to have him as a player.

That is not an attitude a player should be treated with. In the ban list that is provided by Riot, this shouldn't constitute a ban. This should constitute normal play in every sense of the word. This man isn't griefing, purposely feeding, or being toxic.

I am not saying I don't know why they did. I am saying they were wrong to do it in every sense of the word.

Final Spark Lux4 votes

There's a big difference between playing off meta and playing something that screws over your entire team. Go have a look at some of the guys videos, most of them are the same. The only reason this even got so much attention was because the amount of mastery points he had. It could have happened to anyone. Also it doesn't matter what riot wants to do, when you sign up you agree to their ToS. They can do whatever they want

DantCaran2 votes

Just because they can do whatever they want, doesn't mean they should do whatever they want. Banning someone for going offmeta when they said that originally wasn't bannable in their terms for being bannable, is directly lying against the player.

He didn't feed. He reached Platinum II with this and always did well. He didn't troll and told everyone what he was doing.

If they randomly wanted to ban you, would you put a smile on your face and say "that's alright! Riot knows best!"?

IAintDarius4 votes

Actually he dropped multiple ranks when he started trolling with singed support.

Either way the title is cute, I bet you were up all night trying to come up with something that sounds clever.

bad arcade kitty3 votes

well, i believe that at least a part of the reason why permabans are so nothing special nowadays it may be that few people chargeback and a few make another account repurchasing a part of the lost content...

Great Muta2 votes

Exactly.

There's also nothing that can be done from stopping people from making new accounts. I have three accounts now.

Great Muta2 votes

Mark my words that with the current banning system there will be no players left by 2018. Madness has to end or League will.

YumScrumptious961 votes

Wow is almost like League's numbers aren't hurt by toxic players, and if anything Riot is doing better as a company. People make this promise every new year that League will die unless they stop punishing toxic players like yourself, it won't change the fact that a majority of players aren't asshats.

SugrGlidrWifRidr1 votes

at the end of the day its a game, not a job. some people want to pick there champ and just play, especially when u have so many games played as each game begins to mean less and less to you, and slowly your actions also mean less and less as your experience grows as its usually someone else that causes the team to lose.

now if this guy went full head coach and explained all the shit he was going to do, not only would that become a great burdon to do every single lobby.......it would also open him up to getting trolled as everyone would instantly start crying about it, and overall they would then be starting the game off in a very negative way.

see the thing with riot is, it seems like they are ran by idiots that really don't think things through. there is no 'best' way to do something, there are pro's and cons to every rule and action.

the bottom line is, was this guy trying to lose games? no he wasn't, so riot as usual, is a bunch of goons with the mindset of radical left, lets do shit that can't be explained in a logical way because we 'feelz' this is the best way.

Pandemic Punch1 votes

Riot should just let the ranking system deal with it and ignore it.

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