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A Community call to action. AKA: A plea to the Dev team and community

Oh Dang Olilan··8 votes·1,238 views

Hello everyone,

First off I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read this post. It's going to be a long one. But I truly believe that this is a necessary discussion. It's a necessary course of action to take, and I hope you'll join me in fighting for this cause, because frankly, I think we as a community are running out of time to get Riot to hear us. If it goes on for much longer without any change, I think it never will.

So, let's start with me. My name is Riffinn. Account name Lord Riffinn, just for shits and giggles. I've been playing League since the end of Season 2, right before Elise and Zed were released. And I have had a LOT of accounts. A lot. Just the ones I can think of off the top of my head: The Magick Hobo, Majik Hobo, V3nic3M3nac3, nobadlanguage, TonyFlyy, Optimus Climb, Tsukiall, and finally, Lord Riffinn. I know I'm missing at least one or two names but, it's been years, I've lost track of a few.

All of these accounts have been permanently banned except for Tsukiall. Which I've barely played on until now.

Now, I don't have time (or the memory) to go through the reasons of WHY each and every one was banned, but needless to say, some of these bans were very much deserved. Some were not.

When I started playing League, I was really toxic. Like, really toxic. REALLY. I was the whole shebang of "kill yourself" "you're fucking worthless I hope you get cancer and die" etc etc. Super mega asshole supreme over here. I fully admit it and when my first account (The Magick Hobo) got banned? It took a LONG time. Like, months. I was a nonstop fountain of shit and horrible cruelty, and it took MONTHS for me to get banned. I probably should have been banned sooner.

Over the years, I realized that A: I was being an asshole, and B: the community was horrible. Like just god awful, and I was part of the problem. So I tried to reform. I tried to be better. I stopped telling people to kill themselves, I never (and still to this day have never to the best of my memory) used any form of slur. No N words, no "%%%", no hate speech of any kind. And I've tried to become overall a better more positive member of the community that I care so much about. I can say with 100% confidence that the person I am today, if I had acted in this manner on my FIRST account, way back in Season 3, I would never have been banned. I'd be incredibly surprised if I'd have ever even received a suspension. And the reason is because the original system was good. It wasn't perfect, but for those of you that remember it, it was called The Tribunal.

The Tribunal was a system where if a player got reported many times in a short time span (and I think if memory serves me correctly, it had to be like... A LOT. I'm talking like upwards of 9, not 2 or 3) their chat logs would be sent to the tribunal. And then players would volunteer their time to judge the cases. Real, normal players, like you and I, would read through these logs, and vote Punish or Don't Punish, and then after multiple judgements were passed on one case, the majority vote would win. This was not a perfect system, but it was a good one. It was a good concept. Getting banned from an account is a very extreme case punishment. It shouldn't be a common thing. And with this system, it wasn't. Because it took awhile for you to get noticed for toxicity. You had to do something extreme to result in an extreme punishment. And furthermore, your peers were the ones judging you. And not the people in the game. If you weren't being toxic and someone reported you because they were salty and wanted to blame you? That same person wasn't the one judging your account. It was someone who had never met you, had no interaction, and so by and large, it was at least mostly fair.

And then Riot Lyte came along.

I won't go into this for long, but I think Lyte was bar none the absolute worst thing to ever happen to League of Legends. The man treated the whole community as a science experiment, and regardless of his intentions, and regardless of his PHD, he never ever seemed to understand gaming culture at all. If you go back and look at any of his statements, they all are just so insanely out of touch with reality. And everything he said came off as a "I know better than you" like a parent talking to a child. And even though he's now gone, that's where we are now. Instead of treating the playerbase with respect and consideration, Riot treats it like a child who doesn't know what it needs.

When Lyte and the team decided to "revamp" the tribunal, they put in place the current system, supposedly as a temporary measure. They said they were working on improving the Tribunal and that it would come back. That was several years ago. And we've heard nothing since.

The current state of the report/punishment system is this: It is an automated system that "learns" what people consider toxic by finding common denominators in your reported chat logs. Then it flags those actions as punishable and doles out punishments for any future reports that meet the criteria. So what the obvious problem is: There's ZERO objectivity involved. None. Riot has never once released any form of statement saying "This is what is allowed, this is what is NOT allowed." with any sort of clarity. They use vague, extremely broad terms such as "Negativity" and "Toxicity" which essentially means... anything? No one really knows what it means. It means... whatever you want it to mean I guess. Which means you can get banned and reported for whatever anyone wants to report you for. Literally. Anything. And it's all in the hands of the players you come into contact with in game.

Now, I talk a lot in game. I like talking a lot, and as I play mostly ranked, I think it's an extremely important part of the Ranked experience. Communication in all scenarios in a competitive team based environment is 100% necessary. And guess what? Negativity comes along with that. Things that fall under the broad category of "Negativity" MUST be said.

Team composition is an extremely important part of the game, and yet if you were to say "This is a bad team comp, we're all ad, and we've got no cc for their hyper carry." That falls under Riot's implementation of the term "Negativity." I know this because I've literally been told this by Riot Support.

In any game, people make mistakes. EVERYONE does. While saying "Wow you're fucking garbage you shitter noob" isn't okay and doesn't help, pointing out what SHOULD have happened, or what needs to happen NEXT time, is absolutely necessary and helpful in trying to win the game. Something like "You need to go in BEFORE me, I'm playing an assassin, I can't engage unless you aggro them first so they blow cooldowns, you can't be afraid to take damage or we'll never get ahead." is a useful and constructive comment. But you can, and I have, been reported and banned for that exact type of comment. Riot considers it "Negative" and says "You should just focus on your own play and not berate your teammates."

I'm sorry but, WHAT?! I'm all for focusing on my play and getting better myself, but when you go into a RANKED GAME, the point is to WIN. You are not playing a game for fun, you are willingly entering yourself into a competition where the goal is WINNING. Critique, criticism, and learning from mistakes are part of competition in EVERY SINGLE SPORT OR GAME THAT HAS EVER EXISTED. Making these statements isn't toxic, it's not unacceptable or banworthy, it's just insulting to some people who have ego's so fragile that they could never possibly take advice from someone else. (and don't think that I'm being hypocritical here, if I make a mistake, not only am I most likely berating MYSELF for it, but should someone point out that I fucked up, I will either try to explain WHY I did it, or admit that I was being an idiot and will try to not make that mistake again.)

But some people don't see it that way. They call it "Crying" or "Whining" or "Being annoying" and then they report for that. Which I don't agree with, but you're allowed to have your opinion.

Thing is, since when did Crying, Whining, or Being Annoying start being legitimate reasons for being BANNED from the game? We're talking real hours that we've all spent levelling up, real money that we've spent in the shop (most of us), and we're having it taken away because we were... annoying? That's the standard now?

You might want to take a look at other games. Look at CS:GO, Overwatch, Dota 2, TF2, etc etc. Why is it that... none of these games have as terrible communities as League of Legends? Why is it that League has the worst community by far, but also is the ONLY major game to try and take such a harsh stance against it? The very action of taking the harsh stance AGAINST toxicity, is what's creating it in the first place.

Think about the advice that everyone gives to people who are concerned about getting punished. It's always the same. "Just mute anyone who bothers you, report them after game, and try not to say anything in chat."

We're advocating isolating ourselves, ignoring the problem, trying to pretend it doesn't exist. We're telling each other to stop talking to each other in game, stop trying to make friends, stop trying to make a positive impact. If someone is angry or tilted or upset, don't talk to them. Don't try and be just a nice human being, just ignore them. Report them. Get them out of the game. (Although make sure you don't tell anyone ELSE to report them, Riot thinks that's bad as well.)

When did we stop being a community who loves the game together? When did it become like this? Sure there are rude and toxic people in ANY game, but if you go into a CSGO match, or an Overwatch match, you're just as likely to find someone who you'll add and want to play with in the future as you are someone who's unkind and you don't want to deal with. We can never get RID of the bad, but at least there's some good in there too!

Right now, the whole community is essentially living in fear of the toxic people we're supposed to be trying to help reform. We're scared to speak because people wield the threat of reporting like a weapon, because they KNOW that it will be effective. They KNOW that reporting you will get you in trouble, even if you didn't deserve it. You know who goes into a game and if anything goes wrong or if anything they dislike is said to them, their first reaction is "Reported and muted"? Those are toxic players. THOSE are the people who are problematic. NOT people who are passionate about the game and about being competitive.

And Riot just upholds all these decisions because you were supposedly "ruining another players experience."

What does that even mean??? Like that literally can be construed in ANY manner. If I don't like ANYTHING that was said to me, no matter how innocent, no matter how nicely it was put, if I don't like it, it's "ruining my experience" and you should be punished. It's insanity.

I can't post screenshots of this particular conversation because I don't have access to the account it was held on, but this is to the best of my memory an accurate representation of what happened.

I was playing a ranked game, jungling, and I had a proxy singed top lane. I was completely fine with it, but as the game went on, all of us were behind and we were losing. So I said to him "Singed, the proxy isn't working, you need to do something else. Come help out the team." And that singed proceeded to get really pissed off at me. He yelled at me for flaming him, and criticizing something I had never tried. Now, I need to emphasize this, I was NOT flaming this guy. I was not yelling at him or cursing him out, i never insulted him, I said what he was doing wasn't working and he needed to work with the team if we were going to have any chance of winning. But he reported me after the game for flaming him. And then he added me.

And we started a conversation. He asked me why I was flaming him specifically when I wasn't playing perfectly either, and bot lane was doing poorly, he said "Why single me out??" To which I responded "Yeah, bot lane sucked. They were just bad. But me calling them bad isn't going to help anything. I can't just say stop being bad, and suddenly they'll play better. YOU however, were playing in a specific, intentional way. you were proxying, and it wasn't working. You could have easily changed what you were doing and grouped with the team, so me saying that to you is actually useful. You were capable of fixing the problem, Vayne was not. So that's why I was only talking to you."

To my great surprise, he actually responded with "Oh. I'm sorry, I'm just having a bad day and I got really angry."

I wasn't being toxic to this guy. I was strategizing in game. I was trying to win. He even realized that after the game when he had a second to talk to me and calm down. But I still got reported, and Riot would still uphold that report as "ruining his experience" and deem it punishable.

This type of thing happens almost nonstop. Almost every game. Now, usually it doesn't end in a conversation and mutual understanding, but when you're the one talking the most, it doesn't matter WHAT you say, it only matters that you've now become the target. And if something goes wrong, you'll get blamed and reported, and Riot will uphold that decision if you ever said anything at all they could possibly construe as negative. And it's not fair. At all.

My most recent account, Lord Riffinn, was just permanently banned. It was after a particularly unfortunate game where 2 of my teammates were flaming extremely hard for not being ganked enough, and the usual getting offended by shot calls and strategizing. I did nothing toxic that game, and besides these 2 players, the rest of my team agreed that I wasn't being toxic. I even asked them to please not report me, beacuse I had just came back from a 2 week suspension and I hadn't done anything wrong, and I didn't want to get permabanned.

In the post game lobby, several members of both teams were telling me not to worry, that I wasn't being toxic, and unless I had said some "crazy racist shit" I wouldn't be banned. And in that same post game lobby, less than 3 minutes after the game had ended, I got a pop up saying that I had been permanently banned.

The chat logs are saved in a Google Doc. Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZiSyELfZkBkFTglVt33Nk8sWVJhem6P5B14DO3U1_2Y/edit?usp=sharing

Now I got on my smurf and added several players from that game. Both on my team and the opposing team. I asked them to look at these exact chat logs, and without exception, every single one of them agreed that I was behaving fine, and that i was unjustly reported. here are screenshots of these conversations

https://gyazo.com/a12f0f5729fdb986943bd0d7039f545f

https://gyazo.com/d9b327dca3cb6d4bc1090c7375082854

https://gyazo.com/10d77081cb20eafc4fccba52fe0b869e

For Clarity, here is the screenshot of the game I was in. In accordance with Riot's no name and shame policy, I'm not going to be saying who the 2 players were that reported me, but showing the players who said I was fine is in no way shaming anyone, so I think that's okay.

https://gyazo.com/5aee0fb9f30d437927b361377cc2d10e

and I sent in a support ticket. and I got this response (linked below)

https://gyazo.com/e447c26967c19a1acb855e84460da23b

It was short, didn't address anything I had actually said, clearly didn't care about the fairness of the ban, and clearly was unwilling to listen or care about the situation. I could post screenshot after screenshot of Support Tickets just like this one, that are almost entirely copy pasted and seem as if I robot wrote them. I've gone back and forth with Riot Support for a LONG time, and eventually they told me in so many words, unless I make a forum post and it gets a lot of attention, they don't care.

https://gyazo.com/9e24be293045bbb913823a4e9c8c5159

So that's what I'm doing. This problem has gone on for too long, and it seems like the only people who care are dismissed as "Toxic" and so no change ever happens. But I see people angry about the system on these forums every single day.

All we need is a simple clear ruleset that can be followed. No more fear of maybe I'll get reported and banned, maybe not.

We as a community agree that we don't want Racism, Homophobia, Sexism, Hate Speech, Extreme insults, threats, and other forms of extreme toxicity. But we as a community don't agree that anything and everything should be bannable. That the trolls and toxic players should be in control, waving reports around to scare normal players into silence and compliance. It's not right.

And I've stayed silent for too long. I hope that you'll stand with me. Make some noise, get on twittter, upvote this post, leave your own story, make your own post. Do whatever it is you want to do. But do SOMETHING.

We've lost what made our game so special. We lost the magic that we fell in love with. I just want to find it again. If I could go to Riot and work with the team myself to try out new plans and initiatives, I would. But I don't have that power. I just have the power to write this. And hope you see it.

If you've read this all the way through, thank you. Truly.

I hope it's not too late to fix this.

Sincerely,

Riffinn.

EDIT: I have updated the sharing settings on the Google Doc with my Chat Logs on it. If you want, you can leave a comment THERE addressing anything specific that you wish to.

22 Comments

MatthewRT22 votes

I would like to see the tribunal come back, players would judge what was acceptable and what wasn't not someone programming phrases that detect the slightest negativity and warrant a ban

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

Agreed, and they said it would. I think they just hoped people would forget.

The system, as best I can understand through explanations by Rioters to me, has very little in terms of objective rules. It simply looks at reports and finds the common denominator, and then punishes that denominator.

Meaning, in a completely hypothetical situation, if I were to go into every game and say the word "Pickle" in every sentence, and somehow I got reported for that, the system would notice the repetition of the word, deem it toxic, and punish that action.

But there's no accounting for the fact that the word "Pickle" is objectively not toxic.

Kei1432 votes

gotta give us a tldr here.

Oh Dang Olilan2 votes

Really hard to do so, I would honestly say read the whole thing if you want explanation and a good idea of my points but:

TL;DR: The current report system is automated and allows trolls/toxic players to use reports like a weapon, so everyone is required to just not chat at all. Reasonable criticism/negativity that's necessary to win a competitive team game is being treated like it's harassment, and there is no objective rule set that players can abide by. It's all vague and 100% subjective, which Riot then uses to uphold literally anything.

This is why, in my opinion, LoL has the worst community out of all the massively popular games (CSGO, TF2, OW, DOTA2, etc) while also being the only one to put a large focus on "fixing the toxicity issue". The solution IS the problem. Dystopia 101.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

additionally I provide proof of a non toxic account getting permanently banned and Riot Support not caring as it meets the incredibly wide and unfair standards of "Any negativity at all."

TequilaZombie2 votes

While you make some dubious points, the gist of it is 100% correct.

The automated system could improve by A LOT. Or we could get an instance of the tribunal back.

I've never been banned in my 4 (maybe 5) years in League, but I've got friends getting punished when we were having fun in our team chat and a guy in our team got salty because the enemy Lee camped him (Kog Mid, decided to push to tower ALL THE TIME with little to no vision) and complained that my friend, who was playing WW jungle, wasn't ganking him pre-6.

My friend was never toxic towards the Kog, but he told me to go fuck myself a few times in chat when I stole his buffs after he taxed my lane. Just having fun in Normals.

However, he was reported by the Kog and got punished.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

If you disagree with some of my points, I would like to hear your opinion on them, and why you disagree. I mean, if you don't want to take the time, I understand. But I'm not looking to preach and be heard, I'm looking to start a discussion. get people talking about it, get people vocal about it. That's how we can make change.

Zelorxon1 votes

Yeah you either give me 10 bucks because i ain't reading all that shit.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

You don't HAVE to, but I think it's worth your time. I did give a TLDR in a comment above this one.

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

The report system is fucked up, but there are probably plenty of games where you were toxic/asked for reports/did things reportable. It caught up with you.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

Like I fully admitted, there WERE plenty of times where I was out of line, and I've had accounts banned for it. But I honest to god truly believe that on this account (Lord Riffinn) that nothing I did or said was worthy of a permanent ban. MAYBE a chat restriction, but even my 2 week suspension was incredibly dubious (just so happens that all 3 of the games that were in the card I played an off meta champ and my team flamed me nonstop for it. My "toxic chat" was trying to defend myself, get the team to work with the pick, and assure them that I wasn't trolling. I still have those chat logs actually if it became a matter of issue.)

But here's the thing: In my opinion, if someone makes a bunch of mistakes and they get a 2 week suspension for it, okay. Let's just pretend for the sake of the argument that it was a completely legitimate and deserved suspension. If they come back and get reported wrongfully and get permabanned, it's not fair to bring up past mistakes as justification. Those mistakes already were punished. This is a new punishment and things that have already been settled shouldn't effect it. Even if I was hitler 2.0 until i got a 2 week suspension, but after that I was Mother Theresa of League and I got wrongfully reported, isn't that still a wrongful ban? I did my time for the mistakes, the debt has been paid.

Kinda like how if you go to prison for something and serve your time, you can't then get a minor traffic ticket but get the death sentence because "Well he had been to prison before."

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

Also real quick: Yes, it's true that most people who complain about the report system have in some way been toxic in the past. Whether slight or extreme. But if we just dismiss the problems they bring up because "you probably deserved it at some point" we'll never solve the problem. If you agree that the report system is fucked up, whether or not I personally deserved a ban is neither here nor there.

Psyrik1 votes

I will agree that most people flame over strategizing and trying to win. Its annoying and should not be considered banworthy. The whole "ruins a players experience" thing is bullshit. Its like the "Im offended" thing us millennials always whine with. Like since when did we say Sticks and Stones may break my bones AND SO WILL WORDS!

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

I sort of agree with you. I do think that words can hurt, and we shouldn't be allowed to say literally anything. Hate speech, threats, "kill yourself" are all way out of line, and I'm on board with trying to get them out of the community. But the oversensitivity has gone way too far, to the point where people are manipulating it constantly and it's hurting the very people it's intended to help.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

As an extra thought, why is it ruining a players experience to constructively critique (not "you suck uninstall fuck you") but it's NOT ruining a players experience to tell them they should just stop typing in chat. Why is that any less of a viable part of my experience? Is it not ruining MY experience to have someone react inappropriately to my chat?

Dolasaur1 votes

It's pretty hard to search through your text for stuff I remember seeing, so some of this is going to be paraphrased. Sorry if it seems out of context. I'm trying to be fair.

All we need is a simple clear ruleset that can be followed. No more fear of maybe I'll get reported and banned, maybe not.

We as a community agree that we don't want Racism, Homophobia, Sexism, Hate Speech, Extreme insults, threats, and other forms of extreme toxicity. But we as a community don't agree that anything and everything should be bannable. That the trolls and toxic players should be in control, waving reports around to scare normal players into silence and compliance. It's not right.

A simple ruleset doesn't work for a couple reasons. For one, cultural differences are big. A yomama joke is laughable in the US but banworthy in Korea (I think? maybe it was China). For another, language and culture evolve over time. I doubt any games with chat filters from 15 years ago considered "kys" a bad thing. And if you're constantly revising the rules to say "The rules now more closely match what we observe in the real world", then it's effectively the same thing as it is now.

Threatening reports is harassment and is punishment worthy on its own. Simply because people do it doesn't mean Riot supports it. They may not get banned as quickly as people using specific slurs, but your piece didn't make me think that was what you were hoping for.

On Lyte:

And everything he said came off as a "I know better than you" like a parent talking to a child

Your post is already pretty long. Removing ad hominem fluff and the like (though that's the only obvious instance I remember) might make it easier to digest.

Quotes from the linked doc:

Game 1 "they are literally all bad choices." - Nonconstructive insult "ff at 20" - You can easily start a surrender vote at 20 if you want. But saying it in chat like this is like saying "I don't want to try anymore" and is unfair to your team if they still want to try (e.g. the surrender vote fails). "we have a horribly worthless teamcomp" - Nonconstructive pessimism "just surrender so you can blame me for the game and rage report me" - Passive aggressive

Game 2 "enjoy double buffs for you not paying attention" - Passive aggressive "i love how after all this time people have still not figured out how to not feed zac" - Passive aggressive "alright can we please ff at 20 i want out of this game" - Same as last ff@20 comment "i have a bad tema" - Nonconstructive insult

That seems like the standard "those are the two games you got in the email, but you acted like that in 20 other games first" situation that is so common in the PB&M threads.

Right now, the whole community is essentially living in fear of the toxic people we're supposed to be trying to help reform. We're scared to speak because people wield the threat of reporting like a weapon, because they KNOW that it will be effective. They KNOW that reporting you will get you in trouble, even if you didn't deserve it. You know who goes into a game and if anything goes wrong or if anything they dislike is said to them, their first reaction is "Reported and muted"? Those are toxic players. THOSE are the people who are problematic. NOT people who are passionate about the game and about being competitive.

I frequently make cautiously worded suggestions to teammates about everything from what items might be good buys, whether or not lane swapping to avoid a bad matchup would be a good idea, if we should group for dragon or rush a tower, etc. I've been playing since season 2 and have not gotten any level of punishment for toxic behavior; I don't live in fear of toxic players. I can't speak for everyone, but I know many of my personal friends don't live in fear either.

Whether or not saying "reported and muted" is toxic has no bearing on whether or not what you say is toxic. You can both be toxic. Out of self-interest, you clearly would prefer to have less blame assigned because of the passion for winning you have. Nothing wrong with that. "Even if you didn't deserve it" - You said multiple times you don't think all your bans are deserved. But if you have those two games of chat logs and you had games like that once every 5-10 games, I'm not surprised.

I'm all for focusing on my play and getting better myself, but when you go into a RANKED GAME, the point is to WIN. You are not playing a game for fun, you are willingly entering yourself into a competition where the goal is WINNING. Critique, criticism, and learning from mistakes are part of competition in EVERY SINGLE SPORT OR GAME THAT HAS EVER EXISTED. Making these statements isn't toxic, it's not unacceptable or banworthy, it's just insulting to some people who have ego's so fragile that they could never possibly take advice from someone else.

What? You're definitely playing for fun. Winning is also a goal. Unless you're a professional gamer (or seriously striving to be), the only reason to play video games is to have fun (either on the merits of the game or for the social experience with friends and/or strangers). If you're only playing to win, you'd play a game with a possible win rate of 100% and minimal difficulty, not a game where you're practically guaranteed to lose 50% of games in the long run.

Bringing up criticism is not a crime on its own. It's the way you do it, and the goals you're going to achieve. If you're in post-game chat and say "our team comp was weak because it had no CC. Maybe we should all take a lesson from that for next game!" that's entirely different from saying "we have a horribly worthless teamcomp" in game. You're already in game, so your team can't do anything about the comp that you think is bad. They're also focusing on playing right now. You saying something like that brings down morale, which lowers your chances of winning. If you want to win, you shouldn't say that. And you say you want to win.

So consider this question next time: "Is what I'm saying going to help my team win? Is its primary goal and/or most likely result a sense of self-satisfaction?" Some of the stuff you said was genuinely helpful (like when you explained Camille's kit). But a lot of what you said falls into that second category [as well].

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

Thank you for the detailed response, I appreciate it. Truly, I do. However, I wish you had considered my message more instead of eventually coming to the typical conclusion of "Just be nicer!" That kind of conclusion doesn't solve anything and attempts to limit the discussion to only myself, instead of the broad spectrum look at the system and community as a whole that it was meant to be.

I'll briefly address each of the points you've brought up.

"A simple ruleset doesn't work for a couple reasons."

I completely disagree. Citing cultural differences is fairly ridiculous, as already different servers punishments are handled by different teams who are in touch with the culture of the server. As you said, someone was banned in Korea (or china) for something that wouldn't be banned in the USA. There's absolutely no reason that cultural differences should be considered a barrier to clearly defined rules that aren't subjective. They can be different for each server, that's a very simple matter.

You're partially right in that constantly revising the rules to reflect the current state of cultural affairs would be similar to the current system, but it is NOT the same. For a few very important reasons.

  1. You're right constantly revising them would be crazy. So they shouldn't be constantly revised. It's okay to let things be said in game. It's okay. It's also possible to make rules broad enough to cover multiple instances without being so broad as to cover literally anything.

Eg: "You are not allowed to use any form of bigoted speech regarding a persons race/gender/color/creed/ethnicity/religion/orientation/aspect of their personhood."

That's not that complicated. I don't see a way that suddenly culture would shift and some new classification would be added that surpasses that.

  1. Not everything should be punishable, and players should have the ability to defend themselves.

There needs to be a set of rules, so that (let's take the rule I just made up above) if someone gets reported a hundred times for using a racial slur, then banned, they can submit a ticket and say "hey, I never used any slurs, look at my chat." And then Riot would see if it was true or not. And if it wasn't true, they'd unban them. Not say "Oh well... you were negative. In some way. Someone didn't like you. So uh... yeah you're banned still."

If it doesn't specifically violate the rule, then you shouldn't be able to be banned. Pure and simple. It's objective, it's clear, and it's fair. There's no miscommunication or confusion. And there's no abuse.

You then went on to specifically critique phrases I used in my chat logs and say why they were problematic.

So, as quickly as possible:

"they are literally all bad choices." - Nonconstructive insult (This is not an insult. An insult is saying something is bad about a person. Calling someone stupid for picking a champ would be an insult. Saying something is a bad choice is not an insult.)

Nonconstructive pessimism

Passive aggressive

Passive aggressive

Passive aggressive

"i have a bad tema" - Nonconstructive insult (this is the only thing in BOTH games that was an actual insult. The enemy team had said "You have a bad score, that's all I see" so I responded with "I have a bad team, who doesn't follow up on ganks."

That's literally the worst thing I said. I have a bad team. Is that really so horrible and evil? Did I scar someone's mentality and "ruin their experience"? Please. Even among the youngest and most immature of gaming culture "gg noobs" is like the most common phrase on earth. If the worst thing anyone ever said about a team was "bad". Once. It's utter nonsense to think that's deserving of an actual punishment.

But, i wonder if you, and people who are in your same thought process, actually like... think about what you're saying? I don't mean that as insulting as it came out but... you just said that being pessimistic, passive aggressive, or nonconstructive, are all legitimate reasons from being BANNED from an ONLINE VIDEO GAME. Like... how is that not a ridiculous statement in itself? Suddenly we're all psychologists? We're delving into the psyche of players determining if they're being honest or passive aggressive and punishing based off of that?

Why is it even an issue? Like... where does that logic come in there? It's one thing to say "You were extremely offensive and crossed some serious lines, we're going to have to take serious action." It's entirely another to say "You weren't all that nice. Some people thought you were passive aggressive. We're going to have to permanently remove you." Is that not just... the absolute height of extreme over sensitivity? It's insane. I'm sorry but the thought of someone actually believing that without question creates such a massive amount of cognitive dissonance in my head that It's giving me a headache. It makes no sense. This sounds like it's taken directly out of a dystopian novel or something.

tbh it actually reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror, the one where everyone's life is almost entirely controlled by the "Social Media Rating" that others give you. But if you haven't seen that, it won't make much sense. Good show though.

Moving on

"I frequently make cautiously worded suggestions to teammates"

Does that not... seem like a problem to you in the first place? That you have to cautiously word suggestions? You're literally not allowed to simply make a statement, lest you might offend someone's gentle sensibilities. Are we not adults here? Are we not like... living in the same universe? Because if someone is buying a Bloodthirster on Heimerdinger, I'm not an asshole or toxic for telling him straight up "Bloodthirster is terrible on Heimer, please don't buy that, you'll be useless."

I should not have to tiptoe around it and go "Hey uh, just wanted to throw this out there, but Heimer scales with ap and not really with ad at all so I was just thinking, if it's okay with you, maybe you should buy a different item. If you want to. Just my opinion."

That's nuts dude.

"You can both be toxic."

Sure, agreed. But why should the system be allowing for toxic players to report people for toxicity? That seems... at best self defeating, at worst it opens the door for an incredible amount of abuse. Because some people are "Toxic" in that they are matter of fact and are simply trying to win through giving direction, like myself. And some people are like, actually toxic. Actually assholes. And they know how the system works, and they use it to their advantage. They won't say anything in chat, because it'll get them banned. But they'll say like maybe 1 thing in chat. Something you can't get in trouble for by itself. Then they'll do something like... follow the jungler around stealing camps as nunu, or play tahm kench and mess up plays with W. Just a few days ago I had someone who wanted to play yasuo mid, someone on our team banned it without noticing, and all he said was "%%%got" and then never spoke another word. He just autolocked cleanse ghost nunu. went mid, didn't technically intent feed, he just went full tank and died a few times in lane, then engaged teamfights, waited for us to follow up, and then walked away so we'd all die, as he was our only tank.

That's a toxic player. And real toxic players don't get punished because Riot only cares about what's in chat. And real toxic players INTEND to be toxic. So they find ways to make sure they can get away with it.

Tbh at the VERY least, when looking at any report, regardless of what ruleset riot upholds, there should be a basic check system of "Okay player 1 reported player 2. Lets check these chat logs, and oh look it looks like Player 1 was SUPER toxic, so we're going to completely ignore this report."

There's such a thing as an unreliable source. At the very least, unreliable sources should be ignored, on a case by case basis.

"Oh but this would result in so many people not getting banned" Yep. You're right. Good. It would completely take away power from the actually toxic to troll the nontoxic into anger. And once people no longer feel like they're being constantly threatened with losing their account, at first there'd be an adjustment period where things would get worse. People would be super toxic all over and feel free to do so without threat of getting banned.

But eventually, and not even very long after, people would start simply ignoring it. If something REALLY bothered them, they'd use the mute button. And that would be the end of it. Right now if something is bothering them, Riot has instilled every player with a sense of entitlement. They feel like if they're upset for any reason, they DESERVE to have the other person punished. But if you take that away, you're left with people simply being people. If they don't like something, they can exercise their right to not see or hear it. Nothing more is needed. I can exercise my right to tell you to fuck off, and you can exercise your right to either tell it right back to me or simply mute me and poof, negativity gone. And suddenly when there's not a constant back and forth battle of "Statement. REPORTED. NO YOU'RE REPORTED. WELL IM REPORTING YOUR FIRST, EVERYONE REPORT THIS GUY WITH ME." etc etc ad infinitum, people stop being so toxic and contentious. There's no point, people either react negatively and then you both are involved and either no one gets punished or they both do, but since neither one wants to get punished, they just move on after the game. Or people just ignore them, and most people don't like talking to a wall.

That's what's happened in other communities. Look at CSGO. It's pretty well known for having trolls and toxic people in voice chat, but when you get into serious play, like ranked? Almost all the trolls go away. Because people want to win and have no real reason or incentive to take unnecessary offense to things, and they have no reason to troll. Maybe they rage if they lose, but that's it. It's at absolute worst a small quick interaction and then no one thinks about it any further because no one has ever told them that it's more.

Dolasaur1 votes

That's a toxic player. And real toxic players don't get punished because Riot only cares about what's in chat. And real toxic players INTEND to be toxic. So they find ways to make sure they can get away with it.

Riot does not only care about chat, and you know it. Be fair. They have leaverbuster and intentional feeding detection systems too. It's simply way easier to do text parsing than creative troll intent parsing. That doesn't mean they're not working on other detection systems, just that they haven't been released yet.

You're literally not allowed to simply make a statement, lest you might offend someone's gentle sensibilities. Are we not adults here?

Emotionally mature adults have empathy and are aware that others might be in different circumstances than they themselves are. If you don't care about offending other people, that is selfish, a trait that is generally linked to other people viewing you as immature. If you do care but can't tell the difference, then that means your social senses are not in line with the general public.

LoL is not a game for everyone. It's a game for a specific audience that Riot wants it to be for. And that audience is the group of people that are willing to do their best to live by the ToS and not do behaviors that Riot finds toxic. Those exact behaviors may not be clear to you, but dealing with social ambiguity is also a part of being an adult. As a child, you experiment and learn, and that learning continues even as you're an adult. Based on the history you gave of your previous accounts, it sounds like you are still learning and evolving, and that's great.

Right now if something is bothering them, Riot has instilled every player with a sense of entitlement. They feel like if they're upset for any reason, they DESERVE to have the other person punished. <snip> "Statement. REPORTED. NO YOU'RE REPORTED. WELL IM REPORTING YOUR FIRST, EVERYONE REPORT THIS GUY WITH ME." etc

I thought I mentioned this already, but it must have been in a different thread. Calling for reports or bringing up "I'm going to report you" is not acceptable behavior. Riot has called out that that is bullying and should be reported under harassment. It's a nice, clear rule for you :)

I can exercise my right to tell you to fuck off, and you can exercise your right to either tell it right back to me or simply mute me and poof, negativity gone.

Negativity being gone is not the only thing Riot wants. Riot wants an actively engaged community that enjoys positively communicating with each other. If you just mute everyone as soon as you go in game, it defeats that goal. It's one reason why Riot refuses to disable chat for people or default to /muteall. I personally do mute people fairly liberally, because the satisfaction of avoiding a toxic game is generally much greater than filing a report after I've already become unhappy. But that's become less of an issue for me over the years, because fewer people in the games I play have been toxic (as opposed to when I started in season 2). I don't know if Riot's master plan is working or if I just got lucky.

Not say "Oh well... you were negative. In some way. Someone didn't like you. So uh... yeah you're banned still."

In the short term, reporting simply causes the game you were in to get flagged for review. This is why 1x report is the same as 9x report. It's not that someone didn't like you; it's that someone didn't like you and you were toxic enough to get banned by the impartial automated system. If you weren't toxic, then the system wouldn't punish you at all. I get that you're not happy with the lack of clarity surrounding the punishments, but I addressed that part earlier.

However, I wish you had considered my message more instead of eventually coming to the typical conclusion of "Just be nicer!" That kind of conclusion doesn't solve anything and attempts to limit the discussion to only myself, instead of the broad spectrum look at the system and community as a whole that it was meant to be.

I believe I understand some of your points. My issue is that I disagree with several of them. You want a clear set of "you can do anything that isn't on this list" rules, and I think that's insufficient. You want revenge toxicity to be legal (or at least less severely punished), and I don't. You want to be free to say things that are passive aggressive and indirectly insulting, and I want to play games where everyone is positive and constructive. You speak for yourself and some other unknown person/people when you say "We've lost what made our game so special. We lost the magic that we fell in love with." But you don't speak for me. I've loved this game more every season.

If your mindset (or communication style) changed to the point where you didn't say things that other people consider toxic, then all four of the differences I pointed out would be moot, which is why I addressed your post in the way I did.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

  1. Riot's leaverbuster system tends to punish people with internet problems more than it does people who actually rage quit. I've never even heard of anyone ever being punished by this so called "intentional feeding detector."

  2. Yawn the empathy argument gets so old. Having empathy and choosing to defend your right to free speech isn't immature, insinuating that other's who don't share your viewpoint are immature is, in fact, immature. (before you say it, I'm aware Riot doesn't have to respect my right to free speech because of the TOS, that doesn't mean they shouldn't or that I don't still have it.)

2.5 That's a really interesting and self righteous argument lol. Have you... talked to Rioters? The founders of Riot? Like, do you actually know this info to be true or are you just surmising it because you nicely fit that mold and you want the community to be like that. So clearly Riot supports exactly what you're doing, and they support it intentionally? A bit egotistical of an assumption to be honest. Regardless, I prefer to believe that the game with the most concurrent players of all time didn't make that game for a small percentage of them, and the company doesn't give a shit about the rest. Maybe that's true, I don't know. I sure hope not.

  1. Yes, you mentioned that threatening a report isn't acceptable by Riot's standards, but literally my entire point is that Riot wants things to happen, and then they take action that causes the exact opposite to happen. Whoever is in charge of running the Player Behavior team is out of touch with reality. And certainly out of touch with their player base. It's like "Hey I'm going to put this giant pile of money on the ground. Make sure NO ONE TOUCHES IT. I'm just going to leave it completely unprotected." "Oh my god I can't believe someone took it. Wow this is just a shocker."

  2. "Riot wants an actively engaged community that enjoys positively communicating with each other." Oh. Well Riot's gonna have to give up on that dream because that will literally never happen. Ever. Not in a hundred thousand years. People are people, and people are not actively engaged and people do not enjoy positively communicating with each other. Maybe a person does. But they're dealing with way too large a group to ever even fantasize about something that unrealistic. Also I like how their way to get there is essentially go full Nazi and forcibly throw out people who they dont like. (Who pay their bills)

  3. An impartial automated system that has no objectivity. There aren't preset perimeters. If 10 people in 10 different games don't like the same thing, regardless of what that thing is, the system considers it toxic. That's not impartial, that's mob rule.

  4. "You want a clear set of "you can do anything that isn't on this list" rules" Yes. yes I do. That is exactly what I want.

"You want revenge toxicity to be legal (or at least less severely punished), and I don't. You want to be free to say things that are passive aggressive and indirectly insulting, and I want to play games where everyone is positive and constructive."

To be honest, I want everything but bigotry and already illegal activity to be allowed. I see no reason why it shouldn't. Welcome to the real world.

"You speak for yourself and some other unknown person/people when you say "We've lost what made our game so special. We lost the magic that we fell in love with." But you don't speak for me. I've loved this game more every season."

I speak for the majority of people who played this game in its early stages, the people who are constantly on this forum saying in shorter form what I'm saying right here. The people you dismiss as unwanted, but the people who brought league up from nothing and made it what it is today. There's a reason most of the old players are leaving. Because this stopped being a game, it started being a cult.

You can love the game more and more every season, more power to you. But you are the minority. And that's fine.

But you shouldn't be in control of the game.

No one is telling you that you can't enjoy the game YOUR way, why are you telling us that I can't enjoy it our way?

Dolasaur1 votes
  1. Yawn the empathy argument gets so old.

So does the "Why should I need empathy" argument.

2.5 That's a really interesting and self righteous argument lol. Have you... talked to Rioters?

One of the two founders quoting the other in a blog post:

League is not designed for everyone. To quote Ryze, "Riot & League of Legends are like Black Licorice. Some people love it, some people hate it. We are not for everyone. We will never be Vanilla, nor should we aspire to be."

Source: http://tryndamere.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-tldr-on-solo-queue-vs-dynamic-queue.html

That specific source was talking about game design rather than behavioral systems, but the core message is identical and equally applicable. They don't want everyone.

I don't have a source for the "unwanted" comment on me; that's the sort of thing that Scarizard or Ghostcrawler will often just say offhand in the middle of their 2 hour long videos. But I'm willing to bet you can't source anyone from Riot saying something like "we really want people that we permabanned for toxicity to create new accounts and keep playing" either. They do want players with the will to reform, hence the escalating punishment system (as opposed to a universal one strike and you're out system).

To be honest, I want everything but bigotry and already illegal activity to be allowed. I see no reason why it shouldn't. Welcome to the real world.

Riot is a for-profit company. Toxicity is a major turnoff for players, so removing it encourages players to stay. If the number of people getting banned for toxicity outweighed Riot's measurements of new players that didn't leave due to toxicity, then they would definitely take a different stance. Riot makes more money banning toxicity than tacitly allowing it. Sucks that you're unhappy about that.

I speak for the majority of people who played this game in its early stages, the people who are constantly on this forum saying in shorter form what I'm saying right here.

<skip because formatting groups the two quotes together>

There's a reason most of the old players are leaving.

You make these claims, but you show no evidence. Not super convincing to someone outside of the proverbial choir.

I think I'm out. I'll read a reply if you post one, but at this point I'm not particularly interested in continuing the discussion.

Oh Dang Olilan1 votes

I'll keep this one actually short, because it's pretty clear we have a severe difference of opinion. Which is perfectly fine.

  1. the difference between the empathy vs why empathy argument is I'm not demanding action from you, while your side does demand action from my side. It generally boils down to, in a question of rights (on a more general level, not talking about video games specifically) if what you want to do doesn't violate another person's rights, you have the right to do it. That's like really basic social contract theory. Not trying to be condescending I'm just trying to lay out clearly where I'm coming from.

In reality, no one has the right to be treated nicely. And I do mean NICELY. Not saying that people don't have the right to be free from undue harassment, etc etc. Because you do. But it's not a right for people to always get along and for everyone you meet to be especially kind to you. It's just not. That doesn't mean I have the right to go off on you and start spouting hate speech and harassing you, but there's a big line there. It's not a black and white "You're either nice or you're harassing me." And while it's certainly nice when people are nice, I believe that it's important to keep in mind that just because we WANT something, doesn't mean we DESERVE it. Regardless of whether or not we agree with it. "I might not agree with what you say but I'll fight for your right to say it." (i might be slightly butchering this quote but i'm not far off.)

  1. I disagree that it's fair to completely cross apply this quote but it's plausible that it's their overall philosophy. I at least respect that you have some back up for this.

  2. This is actually an interesting one, because I'd argue that Riot has taken action in the past that specifically contradicts this. One really interesting example is Tyler1. He had... what was it, like 12? 20? some crazy amount of perma'd accounts. And the only time Riot ever took action against him was when he started to get popular. In fact, Riot has never EVER permanently banned a PLAYER (as opposed to an account) if that player wasn't publically relevant. Now, I admit this sounds a bit conspiracy theorist, but you'd think if Riot was planning on banning Tyler1, they'd have done it before he reached double digits. But they only did it once he got popular, once the community started loving him. Which is a big middle finger to a company that is constantly saying that the community DOESN'T support people exactly like him. In my opinion, Tyler1 proved Riot was bullshitting when it comes to what they say the community wants, and that's why they took action against him. Tyler1 is a perfect example that the community is totally fine with toxicity. (also the tons of other streamers that are hella toxic on stream... Trick2g, Nightblue3, etc etc)

  3. I honestly don't understand... something about formatting?

  4. Idk how long you've been playing but I've been playing since end of season 2. And almost everyone that I've talked to or even just that have a public voice who are in the same category of playing for a long long time, they understand and agree with what I'm saying. Youtubers like Dunkey, Keyori, streamers like WingsofDeath, Hotshotgg, and PhantomL0rd (yes, PL was a League streamer back in the day, before he ever touched CSGO. He was actually insanely good.) It's not something that I can bring up a statistic about, but it's something that old players generally agree on. Not everyone, but it's certainly not an uncommon or minority sentiment.

Honestly, yeah we'll probably never reach an agreement, and that's fine I suppose. I would personally want to continue this conversation because you bring up legitimate points, at least in that they're intelligent and have some backing. I might disagree with them and ultimately yes I believe I'm right but that IS just my opinion.

What it comes down to, is yes, it would be really nice if everyone was super nice and constructive in league. It would be great if no one was ever toxic and everyone was the pinnacle of sportsmanship. But it's unrealistic. It's never happened before and I don't think it ever will. More importantly, while It's great to try and encourage good behavior, I believe it's 100% morally and ethically wrong to DEMAND it. To FORCE it. I believe that there are standards that everyone does have rights to. Not being subject to hate speech, bigotry, threats, etc. I believe that should be enforced. But regardless of if I think people SHOULD be passive aggressive, regardless of whether you or I want them to do so, they should have the ABILITY to do so. It's free speech doctrine at it's simplest. And yeah, Riot doesn't have to respect free speech rights because we all agree to the TOS and whatnot, I understand that. I'm not trying to sue Riot on some legal basis here. But I believe that Riot has an ethical responsibility to respect free speech. I believe that the right thing to do is set forth clear rules that protect people from extremes, and allow everything else. That doesn't mean good behavior can't be emphasized and encouraged.

A great example of this is the hextech loot system. If you're on chat restriction or just back from a ban, you don't get anything. If you're behaving well, you literally get free skins. This is a great way to encourage good behavior. And I'm all for implementing even more ways to do so. But when you go from encouraging good behavior to punishing bad behavior (that is still within the rights of the people to do so. Like being passive aggressive isn't violating anyone's rights.) then it becomes this weird frightening situation that sounds like it was plucked from a dystopian novel. Suddenly we don't WANT to be nice, we're scared to NOT be nice. And that's a worse situation to be in than simply a toxic community. It truly is.

Thanks for the discussion, I understand if you don't want to continue but it has been appreciated. If you wanted to add me on Tsukiall for a more 1 on 1 talk, feel free to. Otherwise, have a nice day, ggwp, etc etc lol.

KORGtuners1 votes

All we need is a simple clear ruleset that can be followed. No more fear of maybe I'll get reported and banned, maybe not.

Easy. No bans for chat.

I am not biased.

Easy. No chat.

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