How a Flawed Honor System Inspired Me to Reform, and How It Can Improve Going Forward

Before I ever downloaded League of Legends last year I was told by my friends how toxic the community was, and when I began playing on my own I fit right in. I called people out, insulted, and argued with people in seemingly every game.

In July of this year, almost a full calendar year after I downloaded the game, I finally typed the three letter phrase that starts with k and ends with ys and was instantly handed a two-week suspension. This was my first and only penalty I have ever gotten.

It was only after I received the penalty that I realized that my end-of-season rewards might be in jeopardy. I quickly submitted a ticket to riot support, told them how this game consistently brought out the worst in me and that I have not filed this ticket to dispute my penalty, as I know it was completely deserved, I am doing this to learn how I can most quickly get my honor back to level 2.

As I'm sure everyone who has filed a ticket regarding an honor drop, the classic answer given is to just "play more" and treat others well. I had also heard that once you are penalized you earn honor at a slower pace than those who haven't been punished.

In my discussion with this support employee, I was also told that even if you aren't saying things that might warrant a chat ban or a two-week suspension, if you are negative in ANY WAY, your honor progression will be "slowed." I was surprised to learn that even suggesting that we should FF is considered something that could stall honor progression.

With my newfound knowledge about this system, I made a real effort to not say anything negative in chat. Not a single word of toxicity or negativity. I grinded hard playing around 15-20 games a day during the last month of the season and was just barely able to finish this season at honor level 2. It was hard to keep up this pace and I know it isn't realistic for most people, but just so you can compare my climb to yours it was taking me about a week to progress through the checkpoints going at this ridiculous pace.

But something I never expected happened that I never could have imagined.

When I first started my honor climb, I was hard-stuck gold 5. During that last month I kept a PMA in every game. Didn't let things tilt me off the face of the planet like they used to and just tried to be encouraging or say nothing at all. Since this was the end of the season, the patches were relatively insignificant and the game wasn't changing. During this month period I climbed from Gold 5 to Plat 5, and the only thing that changed was my attitude. I don't know how much higher I could have climbed and I only stopped because the season was ending shortly and I got burnt out from playing so much.

This experience showed me just how important keeping a PMA is. As it turns out, when you don't flame your teammates they actually play better (shocking, I know). And when you aren't flaming others and are keeping a cool head you make better decisions playing the game.

The only regret I have with this entire experience and how the honor system could improve going forward is that before I got my two-week suspension I was never issued a chat ban, or notified in any way that my toxic behavior had no place in League of Legends. I think If I was issued a chat ban for my normal level of toxicity I would have reformed myself much sooner and maybe I would have ended up even higher than plat 5.

That being said, I know (based on the nasty things I've said with no punishment) that in order to get a chat ban you have to be INCREDIBLY toxic, and once you are given a chat ban you are dropped to honor level 1, or if you're already at 1 you're instead dropped to 0.

Maybe if you were notified after a certain number of reports for negativity that if you keep up the pace you could be chat banned, and have the first chat ban only knock you down one full honor level so you aren't stuck in a horrible honor grind like so many players were this season. Perhaps this could influence others to change their behavior before they get a serious penalty.

Don't get me wrong, I think that there should definitely be some things (like what I said) that earn you a two-week suspension automatically. But there should be something less severe than automatically being unqualified for end-of-season rewards as well.

I hope my experience inspires others to reform their own behavior. Even if you don't care about the community, it could seriously help you climb in ranked.