I would just like to talk about Rehabilitation in the punishment system
Just recently I have received my first ever ban in league of legends. I have been playing the game since Halloween of 2014, and I have been a staunch supporter of its growth since then. Now in that time of playing, I have only ever received one temporary chat ban, which happened last year If I remember correctly. As of right now I am sitting on a 14 day ban over toxicity in 2 recent games.
I am not gonna dispute deserving the ban, I definitely do deserve it for what I've said to people even if it was provoked, I just want to talk about why I don't think that suspensions are as good of a reformation tool as chat bans when it comes to toxicity.
I am not sure about anyone else, but habit is the driving factor in almost all of my interactions. If I get in the habit of doing something for 5+ days, I will almost never change from that path. This scares me a lot when it comes to a 14 day ban. I spent about $1000 on skins on this account, and if I am gone for 2 weeks I don't even know how I am gonna get myself to start playing this game again. Even if I do come back, It wont change me as a person. The suspension will only change my access to league of legends, not how I use it. An extremely long chat ban however would be more beneficial to me as a player. Lets take a 300 game chat ban for example. You would probably get in the habit of not even hitting enter within the first 100 games with the following 200 to reinforce that. I would say that is long enough to change your attitude, and get you in the habit of not typing in games, which would inadvertently increase your performance as a whole since you aren't thinking about chat. Hell, I would take 1000 games of chat ban and low priority queue over the 14 day suspension just because I know that the suspension won't change me as a player, and would most likely make me more irate and unhappy with this game.
The only downside I can think of to giving longer chat bans instead of suspensions to toxic players is that they will have reason to influence games in other ways such as afk-ing and trolling. My only solution to that is to punish them according to those actions. When you punish someone for toxicity in the form of a suspension they will not sit there for that duration and reflect on themselves, they will move on to another game and be toxic there until its time for them to come back and be both toxic and pissed after their suspension. What they need is a punishment that directly affects how they play the game. If a toxic person cannot use the chat system for an extended period of time, they will end up forgetting about it entirely. Hell maybe they would even learn to use the mute button since they cant respond ( I know I am guilty of ignoring it more than I should ).
IDK, I'm just really pissed that in my 6000+ hours of League of Legends, and with only 1 prior offense that happened last year, I'm getting a 14 day ban over 60 minutes of a game with a toxic premade on my team, and a game against a toxic LB (and yeah I was toxic back, that's why I'm banned right now). I figured that If I at least type out my thoughts on it I can get some sort of relief for getting this off my chest.
