Boards›Player Behavior

The Real Problem with RIOT's Punishment System

Eternal Colossus·10/12/2016, 10:01:04 PM·3 votes·1,238 views

Jayce Nautilus

RIOT will not accept that their system is flawed, nor will they address my concerns on this matter. However, I have reached the point when my patience has been exceeded and I will no longer sit here and watch as a game that I used to enjoy is turned into a farce by RIOT and its employees.

Here is the background. I consider myself to be a very reasonable and kind person, though I will admit that in a few games of League I have gotten frustrated with my teammates. However, I never swear (in or out of game), I wouldn't even consider using hate speech, and I have never been verbally abusive towards my teammates. However, RIOT has accused me of all of the above, and in my opinion they have accused me falsely. Here is (in my opinion) what is wrong with the RIOT system of reports and restrictions.

To start, I will mention that I am not going to get into how the RIOT report and restriction automated system works, or how it "temporarily" replaces the Tribunal (which is false, the Tribunal is dead). If you want more information on this just ask me, but every time that I have brought it up in the past all that I receive is other members here throwing verbal abuse and hate speech towards me for it, so I would rather not bring it up.

Instead, my main point revolves around RIOT's apparent inability to uphold their own Summoner's Code, while also falsely punishing summoners who point out that others are breaking the Summoner's Code (mainly, by saying that they are intentionally throwing).

Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are many players in League who may not be as good as others, or who may be doing poorly but are not doing it intentionally. I am referring to the players that intentionally throw/feed because they think that it is funny, because they want to ruin the game for the other players, because they know that they can get away with it, or simply because they feel like it. So with that in mind, here are my two main points that I feel RIOT should seriously consider fixing:

  1. I feel that a large majority of the community would agree that RIOT has allowed too many of these intentional trolls to remain in the game and run rampant again and again with little to no punishment. I have monitored the accounts of some of the worst offenders of this, and over a year-long period not a single one of them received any punishment that restricted their daily gameplay. Even without my second point, this point should be something that RIOT would take seriously. It does not really matter how people respond to the players that are intentionally throwing. The biggest problem should be that those players are bragging about how they can intentionally throw whenever they want and get away with it. And sadly, they are absolutely correct.

  2. With point one in mind, my second point is that RIOT seems to be morally obliged to punish summoners who actively don't support the trolling, intentionally feeding, and extreme verbal abuse/hate speech that happens in almost every single game. I was just temporarily suspended (for 14 days), and the warning message said that it was for verbal abuse and negativity. The chat logs however, told a very different story. Every single game that they quoted, I was punished for saying one thing; my teammate(s) is intentionally throwing/trolling. In every one of these games there is zero doubt to the accuracy of my claims, in fact it was bad enough that the enemy team often faithfully agreed with me, honored me, and apologized to me for what my teammates were doing. Also, in almost every single one of these games, the 2-3 people that were intentionally trolling/throwing were queued together, were verbally abusive towards me and my teammates together, and lied to the enemy team about us all together. Many people in this community would understand if I had started to insult them, swear at them, anything to make them feel like horrible people. However, all that I said was that they were intentionally throwing, and then I would mute any of them that were verbally abusive. So how is it then, that RIOT feels that upholding the Summoner's Code (pointing out intentional trolls) is worthy of a punishment, while the individuals who intentionally troll/feed/throw out verbal abuse and hate speech do not? I know that many of you will say "RIOT believes that it is negativity to point out someone who is intentionally throwing". However, nowhere in the Summoner's Code does it say anything against it, nor is there any official RIOT statement condoning it. Thus, it is not against the Summoner's Code, and in my opinion RIOT should appreciate players who are seeking to improve the community of this game due to the high levels of trolling and verbal abuse that are currently allowed to fester in this game.

Thank you.

31 Comments

Awkward Couch10/12/2016, 10:57:52 PM5 votes

  • You're right, trolling is something that needs to be looked at and punished more frequently. It shouldn't take someone getting to the front page of r/leagueoflegends to get punished for feeding/trolling

  • The Tribunal was put on the backburner because they wanted to focus on the new Alpha client. With the new client, Riot can do more things like replays.

  • The old Tribunal was extremely inefficient. Players would get punished for games months after they happened. Back when the Tribunal was running, most people would just hit punish to get the extra IP, people weren't actually reading the chat.

  • The problem is, it's hard to have an automated system detect trolling. It's a lot easier for an automatic system to look for toxicity. That's why you see toxicity punished more frequently than you see trolling/intentional feeding punished. That being said, there needs to be something done about trolls.

  • Your "study" of all the people you kept track of for a year is fundamentally flawed. How often do you check to see if they are still playing? How many games have they trolled in? How do you know they are trolling if you can't watch their games? Why should I take you at your word when you say, "after a year of monitoring these people"?

  • People troll, it's frustrating yes, but that doesn't mean that you have the right just to flame. If you start flaming the trolls, not only do you give them exactly what they want (attention), but you just make a bad situation worse. Bad things happen all the time in real life, that doesn't mean that you just get a free pass to throw a hissy fit. An eye for an eye only leaves the world half blind

  • I play 5-6 days a week around 4 ish games each night. About 1 time a week I actually see toxicity/hate speech, I don't know why people exaggerate how often toxicity occurs.

  • Riot isn't morally obligated to ban people who aren't actively trolling, you yourself admit that you try to make the trolls feel like horrible people, how is that any better than what they're doing? Why can't you see that you're both in the wrong?

Kei14310/12/2016, 11:30:06 PM2 votes

Don't we all want the behavioral system's visibility to be better, so we know what/who is being punished and not.

BUT !!

your logs probably consist of being negative to those "throwers", logs or it didn't happen.

Kartagia10/13/2016, 5:41:44 AM2 votes

YOu are violating part of summoner's code saying you should not criticize Riot games :P

The problem is the A.S.S. - Artificial Stupidity System - used to punish people. IT seems that trolls have been able to teach it to take gj as verbal abuse. ANd there is wall of silence from Riot side to all comments and questions about the system, thus they KNOW it is failing. And they know, they have to play with trolls, or get DDoS on their servers. Thus, they go with bullies, and start punishing those who try to defend and stop bullies.

Weathered10/12/2016, 10:46:39 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Eternal Colossus,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=iLjN7xf8,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-12T22:01:04.191+0000) Jayce Nautilus

Not sure why this is here.

[{quoted}](name=Eternal Colossus,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=iLjN7xf8,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-12T22:01:04.191+0000)

However, RIOT has accused me of all of the above, and in my opinion they have accused me falsely.

Riot is obligated to give chat logs and evidence to the player for a punishment for verbal reasons. Post your logs if you want people to agree with this statement.

[{quoted}](name=Eternal Colossus,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=iLjN7xf8,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-12T22:01:04.191+0000) I have monitored the accounts of some of the worst offenders of this, and over a year-long period not a single one of them received any punishment that restricted their daily gameplay.

Keep in mind this is a handful or millions of players being analyzed.

[{quoted}](name=Eternal Colossus,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=iLjN7xf8,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-12T22:01:04.191+0000) Even without my second point, this point should be something that RIOT would take seriously.

In the past Riot has taken a different stance and tried to punish players for this, but an overwhelming amount of faulty punishments were made to players who simply did poorly if their cases weren't manually handled, which is ridiculous to try for such a large game.

[{quoted}](name=Eternal Colossus,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=iLjN7xf8,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-12T22:01:04.191+0000)

Every single game that they quoted, I was punished for saying one thing; my teammate(s) is intentionally throwing/trolling.

Riot has clearly stated many, many times that asking for reports will do nothing but hurt the person asking. One report has the same weight as an entire 9, so there is no reason to ask for a report. In fact, they have stated that incessant asking of reports to a point where it is "toxic" will result in punishment.

CrazyBear198710/18/2016, 9:40:38 AM1 votes

[zombie-brand-facepalm]