Boards›Player Behavior

Honestly speaking, is the punishment system too harsh in league?

Prime159·3/2/2017, 5:28:38 PM·4 votes·2,531 views

I'm not trying to start a huge argument with anyone, but I am genuinely asking. I had my buffs stolen as jungler in one game about 2 1/2 months ago. I will be the first to admit that i fed, which i have never done before and have not done since. Their system has no warnings at all, i got a full 2 week suspension for one game out of 700. Afterwards they say you cannot gain loot until you are reformed. This is an extremely vague term with no limit to the time. I have seen people on forums who have not gotten loot gain back in over a year since their punishment. I was just told by riot that since my punishment a month and a half ago that they still see some negative attitude and 2 afks.

Now... both afks were disconnects, i guess their system cannot see that. My "bad attitude" consists of literally around 5 games. I'm sure i said something along the lines of "jesus christ guys, what the fck are you doing?" I'm not saying that is being nice to them, but really? In a video game we can no longer, ever, comment on our team's decisions or gameplay? That is part of what the game is. Given, this was once again a very small percentage of my games. A handful of times in the past 400 games have i even spoken to my teammates. I have way more thumbs up than reports, but they seem to take a small sample size and decide that is the entirety of who the player is. Remember also that anyone can report you, from saying something like "you are terrible" to more extreme offenses. They can report you for nothing at all in fact and that can look bad on your total "resume".

I understand this is a free to play game, so i'm sure some will say "just play another game", but I just wanted honest opinions of people on this subject. I have seen a fair amount of forums about this where people who have never been punished act like anyone who has been deserved every last bit of it and they hate toxic players, trolls, ect ect. What many of these people don't understand is that literally one game, one "unworthy" comment can get you a suspension or ban with no warning. Just look out for your future in the game.

30 Comments

Naked Baby Thief3/3/2017, 10:09:15 AM3 votes

Riot used to have a staffed psychologist, and had a stickied forum post on the old forums, which they talked about how punishment actually leads to worse behavior.

This is a proven psychological fact as well. Even children which suffer repeated punishment like spankings, are much more prone to bad behavior. There are several hundreds of books that go indepth to this fact. It isn't like this is an unknown in this day and age.

When Riot changed their punishment policy, the former head of Customer relations quit, due to conflict of interest. No surprise.

Fact is, Riot understands that Bans = New accounts. New accounts = $$$, because people will unlock the things they really want right off the bat.

They genuinely, legitimately, do not care about the community. Company policy is to make money.

This is why they have such a loose definition of what is 'toxic behavior'.
Asking your teamates to report someone on your team? Considered toxic. Complaining too much? Considered toxic. Saying GG? Considered toxic.

I can tell you that, from season 1 & 2 to now, the environment is MANY TIMES more 'toxic' than it was previously. And when I say that, I mean, you are much more likely to be griefed and cussed out. Not just, someone had bad games and said something negative in chat about it.

Since the system has no real way to fluidly report griefing behavior (your teams lee sin feeding on purpose doesn't show up in your chat log), that means that people pissing you off, game after game, will eventually result in your mood changing. That resulting mood change is more likely to make you say something on edge. In the end, you are more likely to get banned for telling off someone who is griefing you, than the person who fed 10 kills to the enemy adc on purpose).

Nameless Voice3/2/2017, 7:14:11 PM3 votes

Honestly, I don't think the punishment is harsh enough.

If you troll or intentionally go AFK in a ranked game, then at a minimum:

You should take all of the LP loss from that game, and your teammates should lose nothing.
You should be banned from playing ranked for a month.
The same restriction should be applied to all of your accounts.

There is extremely high toxicity in ~20% of ranked games, and the number has been fairly constant for several years. That's not acceptable in any way, Riot need to really clamp down and start doing something about it.

scazzman3/2/2017, 8:49:44 PM2 votes

yes and no, i believe it's too harsh when it comes to chat. but not harsh enough when it comes to gameplay trolling, intentionally trying to bait players into getting banned, intentional feeding ect.

Sarutobi3/2/2017, 5:38:50 PM2 votes

There shouldnt be a warning to not break the rules. If anything your warnings are the Term of Service/Summoners Code you read when making an account and every time the game is updated. But then again if you are given a warning you are basically saying its ok to do this till you get said warning. With that said in my opinion the punishment isnt too harsh, it needs to be harsher. Because the way i see it, loads of people troll, be toxic or any other rule breaking in their games and this happens way too often. Even the people i see post here seems to do this in a lot of games before any actual punishment is issued.

Blinden3/3/2017, 3:40:38 AM2 votes

Omg, I totally agree with you. I got a 2 week ban because I was toxic to my toxic teammates in one rank game. I know that I had two in game chat ban warnings but that was like three months ago. I played a lot of rank games and my teammates appreciated me a lot for doing well. However, now I cant play for 2 weeks just because of one game with toxic players who made me to rage. I strongly agree that Riot's punishment degree is too much for the players. Instead of 3 warnings and a permanent ban, Riot should create more warnings. Seriously, two week ban after 25 in game chat ban???

Kei1433/2/2017, 5:38:05 PM2 votes

for a 14-day ban, you;ll need to play 150 games or so without getting validly reported (its not time based, its games-played based). Its Riot's way of saying "prove to us that you learnt your lesson".

there's no definite timeframe, cos when you get validly reported, it'll take more games to prove reform.

jadelink3/17/2017, 5:05:39 AM1 votes

No. If anything its very lenient. Try saying or doing anything even VAGUELY close to what goes on every other game here on an actual sports pitch. The result would frequently mean being sent off the field, or banned for the season. That level of verbal abuse doesn't even seem to merit a chatban here.

Astrovert3/2/2017, 11:14:22 PM1 votes

Wait a minute you got disconnected twice in a month and a half and you didn't return to the game after disconnecting? Then you were toxic on top of that?

Yes you deserve to be banned for that alone.

Btw if you are going to criticize what someone is doing learn to criticize specifically what they are doing wrong, instead of wtf are you doing which in itself is a useless criticism as it is completely vague in itself.

ZURELL3/3/2017, 2:11:00 AM1 votes

no sometimes it's just not used properly or interpreted correctly

Kukan Seishin3/3/2017, 2:59:22 AM1 votes

It is not harsh enough

DrCyanide3/3/2017, 3:25:08 AM1 votes

I'm torn on the issue.

On the one hand, I can see how it'd be very frustrating to have no idea where you stand or how close you are to being considered changed. Some feedback, even if it was once every 20 games or so, could help make reform feel less impossible.

On the other hand, I've only ever personally known one player to get a chat restriction out of the dozen or so people I know who play the game. Maybe I just know generally friendly folk, or maybe the systems tolerant enough most people don't run into issues with it.

I do feel like there should be a punishment between 2 week ban and permaban, because I think there are people who don't realize how the punishment system works and they start to change when they see the first "real" punishment.