Boards›Player Behavior

Riot Support is Holistically Unhelpful

Ztringz·2/29/2020, 7:18:57 AM·1 votes·3,574 views

I'm a little toxic, so I've received my fair share of punishments (never perma'd). But more often than not, Riot Support doesn't seem to help provide solutions. Almost every single time, when I ask what happened and why they think my punishment is fair, I'm often met with 150 or so word replay that can be summed up by saying: "Don't get tilted 4Head". With the occasional "mute people". I generally do mute people who are being outright obnoxiously toxic, but what usually happens that gets me in trouble is I don't follow a dumb play, I get flamed for that, I say something along the lines of "that was a dumb idea so why would I follow?" and it escalates into a flame war. I completely understand that the flame war stuff isn't okay and that there isn't a inch of room for nuance with Riot's horrible bot. Whatever.

In my most recent experience, I asked some pointed questions about things I can do, why it feels like other people don't get punished for harsher flame, int, grief, afk, etc. (Yes, I saw the post where Riot said they are gonna address it, but I'll believe it when I see it). And why they are so trigger happy with the one toxic behavior that is absolutely avoidable (chat abuse) through mutes; why I'm told to mute other toxic players, but then I'm receiving punishments for a single game of flame. Most importantly, I asked how to get my account out of the amount of trouble it's in. If there's a decay time or something, not because I want to be toxic, but I'm kind of petrified to chat right now despite my enjoyment of banter and the truly good experiences I have had in chat. And more or less, despite all these questions (they actually asked me if I have questions, so I'm not just throwing all my frustrations at them unprompted), they have replied 3 times and just kinda said "we'll look into the behavior of the other players, but you can't retaliate". Fine, sure, cool. What about the other four of five questions I have asked?

More importantly, beyond their few scripted responses, they are really bad at providing solutions. For instance, I've never been told that there is an option in the interface to turn off allied chat, so I don't have to think about using /mute all every single game. It might sound stupid, but getting flamed is what sets me off, so I do think this could be helpful to me.

This isn't an indictment of the entire support staff. I can distinctly think of at least one time where they were helpful and responsive in a way where I felt like they actually were listening to why I was so upset and frustrated and felt that it was unfair, but I've had half a dozen or so instances where they literally just sound like a bot.

Edit: This is directly quoted from their support page when I selected to submit a ticket about my restriction: "From tech to tilt, we're here to help you!"

If they aren't supposed to be helpful, as some of you have suggested, that's a pretty misleading thing to put as a subtitle on the ticket page.

24 Comments

Eedat2/29/2020, 7:28:21 AM13 votes

I mean you aren't paying them to be your therapist so I dunno what kind of advice you are looking for. They aren't going to hire psychologists to give free sessions to everyone who writes in a ticket. Getting your shit together isn't the responsibility of random strangers on the internet

rujitra2/29/2020, 7:33:57 AM7 votes

What do you want them to do? They can't magically change your behavior. They can't sit there and hold your hand and watch every game. Do the cops say "hey, let me come drive around with you for the next week and see if we can stop you from speeding"? No, they tell you "here's your ticket, go fix your attitude". They can't fix your behavior, only you can.

Kei1432/29/2020, 12:43:23 PM4 votes

So there are multiple systems in play. Gameplay and verbal are different systems and use different methods of detection and punishment.

The verbal punishes based on consistency x severity, meaning you can be punished for 1 game of extreme toxicity or many many games of mild toxicity.

Think of it like a health bar (or tension meter) in music games. When you hit the note at an off beat, your tension meter increases. When you completely miss a note, the meter increases by alot. When you hit the note at good timings, it reduces the meter.

Riot's behavior system works the same way, as in we all have a toxicity meter attached to our accounts. When players are mildly toxic, it goes up a tad. When people use hate speech, it pretty much fills up the meter. of course, clean games reduce the meter.

It is possible for playerA to get punished and playerB not to, even though playerB was waaayyyyy more toxic . Let's say playerA started the game with the toxicity meter at 95% and playerB's at 35%. Ingame, playerB said some pretty nasty shit and playerA responds with some minor shit. After the game, playerA gains 10% toxicity and playerB gains 50%. Now playerA is at 105% toxicity and gets punished, whereas playerB is at 85%, and not punished in that specific game, even though playerB was found to be 5x more toxic than playerA in that game.

The gameplay system has some automated components to it, but it is largely manually reviewed. The thing about gameplay reviews is that the system (whether it is automated or manually reviewed) has to be sure that a player is intentionally running games.

People won't be punished for being bad at the game, they won't be punished for experimenting with the intent to win, they won't be punished for being tilted then making a bunch of bad plays and decisions.

The system has to carefully review the intent, and typically there will be a personal history / gameplay patterns to identify the intent.

AFKing is also handled by a different system. The leaver buster is pretty much automated but we've also seen people get 14-day banned for rage quitting as a disruptive gameplay punishment through manual review.

The system rarely notifies people upon valid punishments, if that's what you were using and using as a gauge on whether the system is working, then you are dead wrong.

Sure they can use better transparency, but you said it yourself after reading the article, you'll believe it when you see it.

Dear God your post was hard to read, I had to read it like .. 6, 7 times to try to understand what were your questions. If you have 5 questions, put them in bullet points or something. So much of your text is lost when you try to put too much into a sentence.

In general, the first sentence of your paragraph is a summary of your paragraph. When you bunch all your main points in the middle of your paragraph, your message will get lost very easily.

Imperial Pandaa2/29/2020, 2:23:16 PM3 votes

In some places, if you can't or are not allowed to answer a question, you are to not acknowledge it. The range of reasons can vary, but I suppose support could have linked you to a support article. That or maybe you could have actually looked through some yourself.

Why does it feel like others get away?

This would be ignored as it also speaks about other players punishments. So the option would be tell you they can't or won't answer it; or ignore it. Either way it is a lose lose

trigger happy?

Again, no real answer they can give. People seem to forget the system isn't automatic. A review, and potential punishment, may only happen if someone was properly reported. If no report happens, then no review happens, then no punishment for that game. Also, just because a defense for something exists, doesn't mean it should be allowed.

mute but punished?

Mute is to stop it for the game, report is to potentially prevent from the player affecting future games. So still boils down to "don't misbehave". Also, by that point it is more likely a history of flaming.

how to get out of trouble

This would be ignored because there is no true correct answer. It could take one person 100 games over the course of 3 months. It could take another 1000 games. Because there is no true answer, one doesn't answer it. This avoids the "but Jimbo said it would only be x!?!" argument/complaint.

And a lot of these questions could have been answered simply looking through the support faq database.

Pombagira2/29/2020, 9:03:32 AM2 votes

To answer your account standing question, it decays by how many games you play and how were you behaving in those games. So if you don't chat at all for xx amount of games for 2-3 months (assuming) and you haven't been reported for a legitimate reason (remember false reports don't count), your account's toxicity level will go down and then depending on how your account will be judged, your account will be on good standing again. It depends on each player, and Riot won't tell us how each account will be judged in case of people abusing it. I say play games daily for at least 2-3 months just to be safe, and absolutely remember to /mute all or at least don't chat anything that could be taken as offensive (even if it doesn't seem offensive to you) and you will be good to go. I was 14'd and it took my account I think... 3-6 months before my account was clean? When I knew I got my Honours/rewards back that's when I was for sure I was good. It's not always the case, but it's a helpful guide to see how you're doing again.

Grokmir2/29/2020, 10:29:51 PM2 votes

I know this is anecdotal evidence but I've never had any issues with riot support personally.

I got hacked once and had my account returned the next day and I got chat restricted once (first and last time) and riot was understanding enough of the situation to give my honor 5 back after I finished the punishment.

Literally every time I contact riot I get the exact opposite experience than what is shown in posts like this on the boards. Idk if I'm just lucky or some people aren't telling the entire truth.