Reform System for Banned Players

Randomonium··2 votes·728 views

I've played League since Season 1 and I've never received a chat restriction or a ban. That said, I don't think I'm better than people who struggle to control their anger in this game. While I am strongly in favor of Riot's Terms of Use, Summoner's Code, and banning system, I feel that this system is flawed and needs to be improved.

The major flaw in the system is that there is no reform system that encourages toxic player to reform so they can regain rewards that they have lost. In essence, the system is all stick and no carrot. This causes toxic players to never reform and just make new accounts over and over, ruining the experience of many new players.

In order to truly develop a positive community there needs to be a reform system that allows players to prove they've changed and a support network to help players who are struggling to change. That's the real goal after all, turning toxic players into healthy ones, not just banning all of them over and over again.

The system I have in mind would be this:

  1. Riot implements a way for positive players to assist toxic players who want to change. Ideally I'd like to see Riot implement a mentorship program in League where mentors devote time to help other players in exchange for some type reward (like honor banners.) There can even be a feedback system where players can rate mentors and let Riot know who is really serious about helping people and who is just looking to get the reward.

  2. A banned player makes a new account and gets assistance from positive players.

  3. If he can play on this account for a year straight without ANY form of punishment (i.e. no chat restrictions or temporary bans), he may initiate an appeal process.

  4. The appeal process is very similar to the account recovery process. The player must provide evidence that he is the owner of the banned account and provide information about his new account.

  5. If Riot can confirm that the player in question owns both accounts beyond a reasonable doubt then the banned account will be unbanned.

  6. The unbanned account will start at the 14-day ban level, meaning that a single offense will again result in a permanent ban. If the player continues his good performance he can drop one escalation tier every 3 months until his account is not at risk anymore.

Upvote if you like the system and let me know what feedback you have. Obviously there will be ways the system can be exploited but I think we can find ways to minimize this exploitation and actually help people reform.

6 Comments

Korillo3 votes

Ehhh you get multiple warnings and punishments before being perma-banned. Basically if you get perma-banned they see you as a lost cause who cannot reform. If these players truly wanted to reform they would have attempted to reform wayyyyy before getting perma-banned.

The only "reform" process for perma-banned players is making a new account and that's probably a good way to go about it. They lose all of their time/work/money/rewards due to their behaviour and hopefully it sends a strong enough message that if they want to continue playing league that type of behaviour will not be tolerated at all.

Surgespace1 votes

I agree with this but to play devils advocate, what exactly is put in place to make people want to reform? Nothing.

  • The warning system is a joke and comes up whether or not you were toxic so it's completely irrelevant and serves no purpose to actually "warn"

  • When you're toxic you tend to lose ELO from trolls who troll you from being toxic, thus putting you in a MMR hell which places you with people far below your skill rating and making you try to carry them out (all while them being extremely hostile towards your better rank and more toxic than higher up ranks) This is incredibly frustrating and makes people in a bad slump play/behave even worse having to play where they don't belong for an extended period of time.

  • You simply get punishments from a 1 sided story that sometimes you think back and say "Hm, yeah sure I was harsh but man that guy I remember who made me say all those things was way worse and deserves the same fate" Only to check up and notice he's in a Ranked Game as you speak and you got baited.

There is literally zero things than actually are put in place to Reform players, it's very black and white and one sided, and the only method it serves is...either mute all your teammates in game (which isn't reforming it's just hiding your anger), or start a new account (which isn't really reforming it's just starting over being the same person).

Korillo1 votes

{quoted}

I agree with this but to play devils advocate, what exactly is put in place to make people want to reform? Nothing.

  • The warning system is a joke and comes up whether or not you were toxic so it's completely irrelevant and serves no purpose to actually "warn"

  • When you're toxic you tend to lose ELO from trolls who troll you from being toxic, thus putting you in a MMR hell which places you with people far below your skill rating and making you try to carry them out (all while them being extremely hostile towards your better rank and more toxic than higher up ranks) This is incredibly frustrating and makes people in a bad slump play/behave even worse having to play where they don't belong for an extended period of time.

  • You simply get punishments from a 1 sided story that sometimes you think back and say "Hm, yeah sure I was harsh but man that guy I remember who made me say all those things was way worse and deserves the same fate" Only to check up and notice he's in a Ranked Game as you speak and you got baited.

There is literally zero things than actually are put in place to Reform players, it's very black and white and one sided, and the only method it serves is...either mute all your teammates in game (which isn't reforming it's just hiding your anger), or start a new account (which isn't really reforming it's just starting over being the same person).

Nobody makes you be toxic, that is a choice you make regardless of how you are treated or how a game is going.

Your devil's advocate is more of a "let's give excuses to toxic people, it's not entirely their fault!". I'm sorry but the FOURTH punishment is a permanent ban. perhaps the first or second punishment can be forgiven and you were just having a bad day(s)/some bad games but 4 times? Sorry no, at this point you need to be removed from the game for the sake of the community.

Zielmann1 votes

It's not worth the time and resources to implement things like that. And they have solid evidence that it wouldn't actually work.

Years ago, they had what they called The Level 20 Challenge. The premise was simple: If a permabanned player could start a fresh account and level it up to 20 without receiving a Tribunal punishment, they could contact Riot and get their old account back. Not a single player was successful at this challenge. And that only requires getting to level 20, which takes far less than the full year you propose.

Even beyond that, Riot has extensive data showing that reform rates plummet with each successive punishment tier players hit. Basically, the vast majority of players who are going to reform, will correct their behavior after just the first punishment they receive. A few players will still reform after a second punishment. But very, very few will reform after a third punishment. Historically, almost nobody would reform after a 4th punishment.

What they really need is a better system in place to reward positive behavior to begin with.

Randomonium1 votes

I guess I'm just too optimistic that people will change. I do still believe a mentorship program would be a great addition to League to encourage positive behavior.

Zielmann1 votes

And I guess I'm a bit jaded by the time I've spent in this section. Players who are actually receptive to help or advice are few and far between. Most permabanned players seem to either disagree that their behavior was actually bad, or else they realize it was bad but have no interest in reforming because they think they're entitled to behave that way in a game if they want to. In both cases, they basically refuse to accept that what they're doing can or should get them banned, therefore they have no intention of actually changing.

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