An issue I have with my recent, first ever punishment.
My understanding of these boards is that they do not have a good reputation, but I'm writing this post anyway because I feel there is a point to be made.
So at around 7 AM on November 19, 2018, I was dolled out a 10 game chat restriction. For, from what I understand, was a single game (unless some continued problematic behavior exists which I am unaware and that was not brought up when I asked about it in a ticket). I don't really care for my honor level, and apparently this will not affect me getting my ranked rewards for 2018 since it's preseason. I have no ulterior motive here.
Here is the chat log of the game for which I was punished (with unnecessary chat edited out by the friendly player behavior rioter who I will not name).
[4:41] Grau (Cho'Gath): im done [4:44] Grau (Cho'Gath): afk farming till 25 [23:58] Grau (Cho'Gath): just ell me why [24:00] Grau (Cho'Gath): you wont vote yes [24:04] Grau (Cho'Gath): what is our win condition [25:53] Grau (Cho'Gath): its a bad call. [26:21] Grau (Cho'Gath): well you made it of course you would disagree [27:26] [All] Grau (Cho'Gath): just end. im not bothering trying to save this anymore these guys are just voting no on principle [27:52] [All] Grau (Cho'Gath): or did i say your refusal to ff is just stubbornness [28:09] [All] Grau (Cho'Gath): lmao then report me, game will do what it does [28:48] Grau (Cho'Gath): people like you are worse than the actually toxic flamey ones. you get off on being a victim or some shit? [29:54] Grau (Cho'Gath): Yup. Unrelated to score more related to your behaviour of trying to push me over the edge to do something actually reportable [29:58] Grau (Cho'Gath): because that's prob what you get off on [30:22] Grau (Cho'Gath): then stop making shit up about me lmfao [30:33] Grau (Cho'Gath): saying i hard flamed when i said very little to you all game
I will admit that the chat from around 28 minutes to 30 minutes isn't good. It is true that I did not need to respond. And for many, many other matches I have been working on muting people and just trying to play the game.
Now allow me to provide some context on all the 'problematic' parts that came before that.
"Afk farming till 25." I was extremely behind at that point in the game, and desperately needed the exp to try and get back into the game. Despite that, within the next two minutes I ganked bottom lane and we killed both of their laners. I expressed frustration for 3 seconds and then continued to play. I was not accusing or blaming anybody. I was not flaming anybody.
In my experience, telling people I'm done trying to gank actually causes them to change the way they play and enable ganks that are actually good. It's like reverse psychology or something. If they think I'm actively ganking they will play foolishly, and when I tell them I'm done they play a lot safer and smarter (which enables me to actually help them when the chance arises).
"Just tell me why you won't vote yes, what is our win condition" I cannot understand why this statement could be considered toxic. Am I not allowed to try and strategize with my team or to ask, genuinely, what they see in the game that I clearly do not? If this is punishable, then the only lesson I can take from it is to stop trying to work with my team, and to avoid using chat to figure out what we should do at all costs.
This is the response I got when I asked about this. "I'm going to try to give a scenario. Imagine that you had the most late game scaling composition in the World and their team was the most early game composition ever. The game of course naturally goes bad in the early game. Some player goes, game over, gg, go next, ff. And you truly in your deepest hearts believe this game is absolutely winnable. And they say "why we won't ff toxic?" For one, this only really serves to demoralize the team either making the team believe the game is over which further upsets you or by creating a divide between your team so that now there's a less of a chance to win the game. Either way, it's not strategically valuable."
This is slippery slope mentality to the extreme. Saying "imagine if you had said this toxic thing instead" DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE PUNISHMENT. It is not what I said, it is a way I could have said it that was significantly more toxic and detrimental than what I did say. I did not say gg, go next, etc. I did not say "why we won't ff toxic." I asked what our win condition was. Had they responded to me or changed how they were playing in the least, that would be different. I would have tried to work with them. But they said nothing, and continued to just walk out and get slaughtered. But we hit the point where the enemy was just farming our team for kills to pad their stats instead of ending the game when I made my following comment.
"It's a bad call": While not the most helpful advice in the world, I was getting tilted and didn't want to write an essay on why we shouldn't try to baron with just myself at half HP and our adc while the entire enemy team is alive and we have no vision, whilst already being extremely behind. This is another thing which is ridiculous to be punished for. It was not an insult, it was a quick response because I was busy trying to play the game. ADC responded with "I disagree" to which I said "well you made it of course you would disagree." Just a statement, not an insult. If they agreed about it not being a good call they would not have made the call, after all.
The continuation of the 'example response' from the rioter is this "Calling out someone on their negative calls can easily come off as an attack. It might seem like it but imagine if someone said you're bad a shot call, don't ever shot call again. While what you said isn't as bad, it's still in the same line. It only serves to discourage them."
I agree. It can come off as an attack. I can imagine if somebody said that. That is insulting, they're saying I am bad, and that I should give up. WHICH IS NOT WHAT I DID. I said the call wasn't good. I made no comment about my ADC or their intelligence. I did not insult them, or directly criticize them. I commented on a decision they made. If my comment is unsafe, then really any criticism of another player that isn't a short essay about what they did wrong and how to fix it is a punishable offense. Not cool.
The remainder is where I slipped up. My team was getting slaughtered and the enemy was toying with us, and two people kept wordlessly voting no to the ff as the other team slowly started hanging out in our base to farm kills. I wanted them to just end the game, since it was over already.
Then my ADC went into all chat and said I had been flaming all game and was blaming them for the loss, etc etc. Generally spreading lies, because as you can see by the log I had targetted nobody on my team with any comment in that game. I should not have risen to the challenge but I did. I tried not to call them names, I tried not to flame them hard. But I did want to state the issue I had with them and call them out for trying to make me flame so they could play the victim card (something I have dealt with in reality from people that I have a really hard time letting slide.)
I should not have risen to the challenge, but I dont think what I said was that egregious.
I'd be frustrated if the last point was all it takes to get a punishment. Four-ish comments made within a couple minutes of a single game, not flaming but calling somebody out on a bad behavior. But if they said "that's just the rules" I'd have to accept it. (Of course, it would mean any one game can get me sacked, and thus forever discourage me from trying to communicate with teammates to try and do things when games start going South. Which currently feels like the most reasonable lesson to learn from this.)
But the earlier points bother me. And I think they should bother you, too. It would be like getting banned from an ice cream store for saying "I don't think peanut butter mint earthworm was a good choice for a flavor" because if you had instead stated "You suck ass at making ice cream" it would have offended the staff. I'm typically very careful to try and criticize what people do, and not who they are. Because that is how people learn. Much like how I try to say WP whenever a teammate does something right. Mistakes should be commented on so people can learn, and successes congratulated. But I now feel unsafe doing that. I don't want an escalated punishment. I don't want a game that caters to the people who try to bait out bad behavior so they can report somebody for playing poorly (In that match I was far from my best, but I was stressed out from working on assignments all night and was hoping to unwind).
IN CONCLUSION If this is a legitimate punishment, it can only mean one of two things:
ONE: If the earlier comments I made were toxic, offering any criticism to your team is risking your account, and thus you should allow players to continue down a path which will lead to your loss, put on some nice music, and just play like it's a solo game because that isn't punishable.
TWO: If we agree that the earlier comments weren't bad, then it means two minutes of relative unpleasantness are enough to warrant a punishment without a warning. Which leaves me feeling the only safe route is to /mute all every game in fear of ever mildly slipping up again and getting my account punished. I feel discouraged from interacting with other players.
The system is generally pretty solid when it comes to really bad offenders. But the fact it can be abused for mild things like this is frightening and quite the problem.
