Is permanent ban really the best way to sort a toxic player?

grodruwmQ7·2/20/2017, 2:39:35 AM·1 votes·1,619 views

Okay so i am sure we all have bad games and have all been toxic at least a few times in the course of maybe even playing for as less of a time as an year. So my question is : If you commit a crime in real life, you have different punishments for different crimes and with varying intensities. A serial killer on being charged of the guilt of having murdered 10-15 people mercilessly and being proved for the guilt is possibly either hanged or given a life imprisonment. On the other hand, if a small time thief, manages to steal a wallet from a person on a street side and on being caught red handed is given a punishment too but not as severe as the one given to the serial killer and the punishment is as such that the thief also realizes his mistakes and given the conditions that turned him to making money this way are also taken into consideration.

That's side talk. Coming to the mainstream : If a person has invested money, time and maybe in some cases even family relations to play this game, but for some reason as he gradually plays the game, he finds himself at a point where he gets more frustration built up with each game ( and i think we all can agree considering the fact that this is just what the league community has come to i.e. a point where toxic players are lesser than the trolls that run it down mid or intently afk). Lets say the person takes out his frustration in chat on his own team mates and gets reported (that is, a frustration that has built up for years) and next minute you know he is permanently banned. Having seen the type of people that come and reply to posts like this, generally 10% care about the fact and give unbiased and satisfactory answers, 75% that come and say "F*** you serves you right for being toxic" etc etc and the remaining 15% just come for reading and typing in "something something kappa lol rofl" so i do not know if its even worth giving a shot but i only am as riot support told me to give feedback on boards if there was anything i wish to be changed so people can alongside down or upvote the post and maybe if, given good feedback, be taken into consideration by Riot Games and brought into the game.

> Okay so now let us say the person who held back for years and was salty for a brief duration, is now perma banned (sounds like every other league player). Should he be given this severe of a punishment for his loyalty to the game? I mean i know he deserves a punishment, but taking away something from him that he has possibly put into a part of his existence and wasted years of his life ( and yes i said wasted because that is what it will be if he gets banned) on the game. Punish him, i am not against the idea but the severity of the punishment shouldn't be this high. I mean if you are going to punish equally for guilts even more damaging to the community like botting, cheating, afking, inting i.e with perma bans then that is just unfair and unjustified. Honestly to me perma bans are better suited only for the above mentions...whereas for toxicity a simple permanent chat ban is enough and best for of punishment ( that is if 90% of the total reports to the player are only verbal abuse or negative attitude related, if he has a mix of all reports like inting, afking, cheating etc, then a perma ban is justified). No chat restriction, just a perma chat ban that perhaps can be removed if the player shows good communication skills henceforth by the use of just pings. Honestly its the best way out because banning a toxic player just equals him creating a new account and flaming in that account. If the main goal here is to remove toxic players, then an IP ban is what should be implemented, but knowing that your company believes in individuals having reforming capabilities, the permanent chat ban is more of a suited punishment for over the top toxic players ( and i mean only for toxic players with majority of chat related reports and not other reports in equal proportions) as it is a reward and punishment at the same time, reward for loyalty to the game and punishment for exhibiting negative attitude. I know a new question arises that if a person cannot communicate at all, how is he supposed to be a team player? Well to that id say, there is a reason pings are there in the game and a reason why Riot updated them and increased their usefulness since they can now even be used to ping drake spawns, alive/dead team mates or enemies etc etc and i do not know how many of the people reading this have sent a ticket to Riot Support regarding chat issues and toxic behavior, but a common reply from the support staff is usually "if you cannot say anything good at all it is better to say nothing at all" and this is from 2 personal experiences and yes i have been toxic but that it not the reason i am here typing this. I am here so that even the most negative player gets the chance to be rewarded for loyalty but still be punished for the negativity he is spreading if it were just for me i would not have come to the boards but rather just contacted riot support staff about the same through a series of tickets. I know majority of replies to this post will be troll comments made by people that have taken the time out of their worthless lives to come and show their uselessness through their replies and say "F*** you bro u get this for being toxic" or "no no he is wrong a permanent ban is the best way" , but to the people that actually care about the topic and think what i have said makes sense even in the slightest bit, feel free to comment and share your thoughts on the same and even modify this idea of mine (well not just mine perhaps quite a few others that probably just didn't share it on the boards) and thanks for your support well in advance and to the trolls --> [zombie-brand-facepalm]

19 Comments

Zombiemaster2/20/2017, 3:32:08 AM4 votes

Okay so now let us say the person who held back for years and was salty for a brief duration, is now perma banned (sounds like every other league player). Should he be given this severe of a punishment for his loyalty to the game?

First thing to mention is that the amount of time of money you invest into an account is irrelevant when it comes to punishments, including permanent bans. All players, paying and non-paying alike, are treated equally when it comes to punishments. When you spend money on the game, you are spending it to unlock virtual content, you are not spending it to gain immunity from any sort of punishment, including permanent bans.

With that being said, permanent bans for chat toxicity are not given out for a first time offense, unless the behavior in chat was incredibly severe. Other than that, the only way to get a permanent ban for chat toxicity is by exhibiting toxic behavior enough to have gone through several smaller punishments first and still refusing to change their behavior. So, if this player received a permanent ban for being "salty for a brief duration," then either their behavior was very extreme or they have had a prior history of being salty. Either way, the permanent ban was indeed earned.

whereas for toxicity a simple permanent chat ban is enough and best for of punishment

Riot has already tried something similar to this in the past with infinitely increasing chat restrictions and it didn't really work. They found that the majority of players would resort to intentionally feeding or other forms of trolling when they couldn't be toxic in chat. So doing this would really only give these players more time to be toxic before they eventually reach the permanent ban step.

If the main goal here is to remove toxic players, then an IP ban is what should be implemented, but knowing that your company believes in individuals having reforming capabilities, the permanent chat ban is more of a suited punishment for over the top toxic players

Even if Riot didn't believe in reform, IP bans are fairly ineffective. For one, there's too much potential for collateral damage. Years ago, Riot actually did do IP bans, but they wound up banning the IP of a college dorm. This banned several players for the actions of a single toxic player. Also, it's really not too difficult to change your IP address, allowing one to easily avoid the IP ban altogether.

Dynikus2/20/2017, 2:44:18 AM4 votes

A serial killer on being charged of the guilt of having murdered 10-15 people mercilessly and being proved for the guilt is possibly either hanged or given a life imprisonment.

Hanged? What the hell year is this?

And the thing is, you're not given a permanent ban right away unless you do something exceptionally bad. Repeat offenders for even small crimes get more serious jail time, it's the same case with repeat offenders in league getting more serious punishments. How much time or money you've invested in league is irrelevant, if you continuously break the terms of use, even after multiple warnings/punishments, I see no reason they shouldn't permanently ban your account. It's bad for business, and it's bad for the game in general.

EvilDustMan2/20/2017, 3:09:55 AM3 votes

You don't get permabanned from just a few games. Permabanned is a solid consistent assholery.

Paquay2/20/2017, 10:43:51 PM1 votes

No, permabans are not the most effective method. Someone driving to your house, kicking down your door, and smashing up all your gaming equipment would be better, but that's a bit of a hassle so they permaban instead.

KORGtuners2/20/2017, 8:14:09 AM1 votes

I'm old.

When I first started playing video games, we were allowed to say and do whatever we wanted. Literally, no one was punished.

Oddly, chat toxicity wasn't rampant. It was actually rare.

I'm not going to claim toxicity just goes away if we stop banning people. I will say that the community will survive without bans.

MissingKayo2/20/2017, 10:59:31 AM1 votes

Blah blah blah. Your fault. You lost the privilege.

Warlord Scrap2/20/2017, 3:01:03 AM1 votes

Honestly they used to do perma chat bans and found people would resort to inting or afkin. I do agree with you though just stating the reasons