The Definitive Resource For Suspended Players

I'm not a RIOT employee, I'm just a member of the community, hoping that hearing it from another player will help it sink in for some people... this is not a short post, but I'm pretty sure it will address any issue you may have - I tried to organize it to help you find what you're looking for OK guys, why are we here? Well, you're either here because you caught a ban (permanent or otherwise), and I'm here to save you from having to write some long drawn out post after your hands are probably already tired and cramping from all that in-game chat you've been doing when you should have been focusing on playing the game.

First of all, I've never been banned, suspended or chat restricted. I'm human, I get annoyed and upset by things, including other people who seem to not pay attention. I've even used some rather colorful language in some games, so I know if you've been punished, you probably deserved it. It may not have been for one specific game, it may have been for the fact that you've managed to accumulate a significant number of reports from other players in a high percentage of your games. I'll let you in on a secret about me: one of the easiest ways to set off my temper is when I play with a friend of mine and someone gets salty towards my friend, then I usually retaliate. The thing is, It's not a significant amount of my games, and I don't go overboard anymore, because in reality, why should I feel better for running my mouth from behind a computer screen?

While I've never been on the receiving end of punishment, but I've read enough responses and explanations that I figured I would bring it all together from you. I typically lurk the boards but after seeing the same things over and over, the past week or two I've started giving some responses to these complaints about bans while adding a little extra flavor in hopes that maybe the point will sink in a little better.

I. How Does the Punishment System Work? In the majority of cases it works like this:

1. You do something in a match
2. Someone reports you for that thing (AFAIK a new feature gives you a popup if you're reported for toxicity to encourage you to calm down)
3. After enough reports (AFAIK thresholds/triggers are not specified by RIOT to prevent gaming the system) a review is triggered
4. A decision is made by RIOTers
5. Action will be taken or not taken based on the review

RIOT holds the account responsible for all actions taken on it, it is the responsibility of the account holder to protect the security of the account. The only possible exception to this is stolen accounts, I've seen RIOT address this on a case-by-case basis, but the onus is on the account holder to make this argument and I highly doubt RIOT will proactively provide details on requirements for this to prevent people from exploiting that exception

II. What Punishments are Possible?

• In the case of typical toxic behavior (being overly rude/aggressive/nasty/offensive) you will be escalated up a 4-tier system: 1st Offense - 10 game Chat Restriction 2nd Offense - 25 game Chat Restriction 3rd Offense - 14 day suspension from the game THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE, FIX YOURSELF OR... ** 4th Offense - Bye[slayer-jinx-catface]

• In the case of EXTREME toxic behavior, RIOT may escalate you up the tiers based on what they feel is appropriate. So that you are not surprised by this later, there are some words that seem to automatically bump you up the tiers (I've seen permabans tossed as first offense). Certain themes such as what would typically be labelled "hate speech" may earn you the fast track to the permanent ban. I've noticed 6-letter words and their derivatives are are especially effective at ensuring your account is down for the count

• Any form of cheating will bump you straight to permanent ban. No, they won't tell you how you were caught, but I will address cheating later.

• Feeding falls into it's own specific category, the exact metrics for it aren't public knowledge to prevent trolls from being able to walk up to the line without crossing it. The same as other issues though, a number of factors are reviewed to determine if you had a bad game or if your play was intentionally bad.

III. But I Still Want To Argue OK champ, go ahead...

I spent a ton of money on this account! Cool... I worked in retail for 8 years and bitchy customers used to tell me how much money they spent in my store (spoiler: I was unimpressed). RIOT feels the same way, spending money on RP is not required, and doesn't make you a better customer to RIOT than the kid who continues to play but doesn't spend money, and they won't give you a license to talk to him like he has less of a right to play this game than you. You don't own the account and you paid to use additional optional content on that account.

People are overly sensitive and need to toughen up Buddy I couldn't agree with you more! Nothing pisses me off more than "safe spaces" and participation trophies and people complaining and petitioning because everything is overly offensive to their specific demographic. But the truth is that just like malls are public places within private property, so too is League of Legends. It is a publicly accessible, private intellectual property hosted by a private company. That means that they make the rules, period

It's natural to vent, you can't punish me for responding like a normal person It's natural to go "number two" but if you try to shit in the ball pit at Chuckie Cheese you will be kicked out and if you're lucky, only banned for life. And let's be honest, your in-game chat was more like diarrhea in the ball pit, on the slide and all over the arcade... you probably got it in people's pizzas

I was accused of using "malicious 3rd party software" but I don't even know what that is! I believe you that you don't know what that is, but the person that you let use your account (like the power-leveling service you paid to bump you up in ranked) used a scripting service. No, simple key-binding is not considered scripting, so don't blame it on your mouse - I just addressed this issue with RIOT behavior services and they confirmed it is OK to bind individual inputs to your mouse as long as they are not a combination input ("macro" is two or more keys put together simultaneously or subsequently in order to create flawless combos) "macros" will get you in trouble. If you know someone else was using your account and try to lie on the boards to get public sympathy, a RIOTer will eventually show up and publicly announce how many ranked games you were cheating in, and how worthless it was since it only got you into Silver 4.

Why am I in trouble? What I said wasn't that bad, look! One of two possibilities here: 1st. you were more than likely negative and toxic in a high percent of your games and this is the straw that broke the camel's back. You have already received at least 3 other punishments and you didn't learn your lesson, so they are going to have you on a shorter leash. or 2nd. you aren't showing us the real chat that got you in trouble, don't worry, a RIOTer will show up and point that out and invite you to show the full chat log that RIOT provided you with.

Final things: keep your cool, it's only a game. Most of the time even when someone else is playing bad, a skilled player can carry the win. Don't get upset, keep moving forward, IT'S ONLY A GAME and not worth raging over. Look inward and see what you can do to play better that way YOU can be the hero that carries your team to victory. With improvement like that, you may get bumped up in MMR significantly and see a major climb in ranked (and you also aren't likely to catch a punishment!)

I'd love to invite RIOTers to comment on this if there's anything they would like to see added in or clarified, as well as any other summoners out there who have a list of the punishment year/codes that way I can include that to help people understand their ban.