I Want To Have a Discussion.

Warning: This is an incredibility long post that is largely my personal feelings. There is a tl;dr at the bottom of the post with the questions I truly want to talk about.

I want to emphasize at the beginning that I am banned for two weeks, and this post is not to try and minimize my mistake or to validate my behavior. I just want to have a discussion around the situation. I won't post the chatlogs for now, because I don't want the conversation to necessarily be about me, but the two things I said are within Riot's Zero Tolerance Policy, so that should narrow it down for those curious. I was an ass, I feel bad in hindsight for what I said, and anger isn't an excuse from punishment.

I do want to emphasize plainly and separately: I wasn't in the right. I should be held accountable for my actions. Zero Tolerance Policies (ZTP) are good policies. I do want to talk about context and how the ZTP currently works.

As much as I don't want the conversation to be about me, to have the conversation easily, I have to frame it around myself.

So, I've been playing League of Legends for almost a decade now. Until yesterday, I have never, ever had a blemish on my account. No low priority queues, no chat bans, nothing. I was Honor 5 last season and I was Honor 4 this season.

I was playing my first warmup (draft) game of the day. We had a Teemo Top and a Kai`Sa bot, so I picked a champion I love playing but don't get the chance to often; Lucian (mid). Bot lane wasn't doing great, but I was 2/0 and had a 25 CS lead on my Zoe.This is gunna be a hard game, but I can carry this with the jungler. I can't remember exactly, but after their second or third deaths as a duo, in all caps, they something to the affect of "Maybe you could help out jungle", and he replied pretty straight forward by saying 'you should have asked for help', and then bot lane goes 'relax man', 'chill dude'.

Perhaps this is just me, but this genuinely felt condescending. Perhaps the all caps was an accident and perhaps they didn't even notice it, but if you're complaining and someone addresses your complaint simply, I don't see how telling them to relax is not a troll comment. Perhaps it's some culture thing.

Game starts falling apart. I was tilted out of my mind, no doubt. I should have muted all and side laned or something, but I didn't. I take my portion of the blame here. I threatened to AFK here, I think, around a couple of bad plays by the team, and getting collapsed on a few times by four people mid - I think I made a passive aggressive comment about it being great no one had pressure. Not cool, I get it.

So bot lane is mid clearing the wave, no prob, I was splitting top, heading to meet them mid to defend, and I am clearing wolves. Kai`Sa walks away from about ten minions on the turret and tries to take the camp away from me. That's not a misunderstanding. That's not culture, language, etc. He was trolling. Intentionally being an ass, trying to tilt people on his team.

Whatever. We'll just forfeit. This game is likely a loss and I don't really wanna play the long con this game to maybe win. Now, this part is conjecture. We throw up the FF and two people don't forfeit. Fishy, but I have no way of proving this, of course, but regardless of this, it made me feel like I was trapped in this game that made me feel awful (regardless of who voted no). It was just piling up, yaknow? Maybe I should have just disconnected and took that lump instead of letting it fester.

At this point, I hadn't addressed bot lane directly at all to my recollection, but here I am splitting top again, trying to get to my next item so maybe we can win a fight...and I don't know if they were engaged on and they didn't have a choice or if they made the bad call to engage and just lost, but immediately after Kai`Sa calls my location in fog of war out in all chat, so the enemy MF 'can get her penta'.

Even now, with no stress from that game in my veins, all I can think is "how degenerate". Honestly. I flipped my lid. I called them a slur and I told them to do something nobody should say. I was so angry, and maybe I shouldn't have been as mad as I was, but I think, genuinely, even in hindsight, I have a right to be mad about this situation. Not just the game, but the idea that, even if this Kai`Sa gets punished in some way, IF it happens, it'll be in weeks, after they ruined countless other games. That game was frustrating, but that frustration goes away after the game is over, but the frustration that I might, or my friends might, queue with this guy and there's no tangible thing you can do but suck it up is pretty permanent. If I were to compare the game I experienced to prison. I'd have to compare the latter feeling to Death Row - you know, you know it's over (the game), and you know the call isn't coming (instant feedback), so here you are waiting for the next chair.

Now, I want to emphasize again, I am not asking not to be punished. I don't think I shouldn't be punished, but I do want to talk about context.

First, and foremost, contextually, of course, I said what i said. I made that choice and it's my cross to bear. Of course.

However, given the context of that game and my history with the game as a whole being pristine, I do question whether the package of punishment I received isn't too steep. Honestly, I don't know what word I want to use here, but that's the best I can think of right now, so let me just elaborate;

As it stands, I am looking down the barrel of a two week ban, my Honor has been stripped (and from what I have read, essentially suspended until I hit an unknown benchmark), and I am ineligible for end of season rewards. I read this as; "You made one mistake and your entire season is a wash", What's more, it's more like "You were flamebaited into washing away your entire season and maybe, just maybe, in a few weeks that guy might get a much less severe punishment". Now, granted, I mostly agree his punishment should be less severe - he didn't go to the lengths you did - but man does it feel bad that guy is probably just going to get off free.

I worked very hard this season, and had made plans with a buddy to duo on up to Gold, but now that's a complete wash. I was hoping for a Victorious Malzahar - one of my favorite Champions - but now it's like...is the border worth the grind, the stress, etc?

I work very hard every season to help people get better at League. I'm part of a community where I mentor players, I take the time in post game to try and help people understand champions, matchups, etc. I try to help my teams make good calls rather than handshake and coinflip, and to understand what those things mean and why you should avoid them. Help people with warding. The list goes on and on. I was Honor 5 for a reason. I was Honor 4 for a reason. Not anymore though. All that good will is scrubbed.

All of this is amplified by my understanding that my account as a whole can be washed at any moment, because now, if there happens to be another lapse in judgement, my account is in a standing that if I get flagged for anything, well then, time's up. This makes me feel like all my devotion, all my time, all my everything actually means nothing at all. This feels like a Doomsday Clock on my goal to collect every champ (I have ten left!), my goal to get to Gold, my goal to get Honor Five, my goals to expand my champion pool to be more competitively/high ELO viable.

I live League of Legends. I love Riot Games. However, I am now faced with this awkward "why". A severe anxiety that my investment could just be gone.

Enough of how it made me feel, though, that's not really the point, just part of the framing, and I went on about it more than I wanted...

What I want to discuss is what Zero Tolerance Policies (ZTP) mean to you. On paper, it says what it says, right? You do the thing, you're done - but that's not how they usually work in practice, right? For example, in school, if you're school has a ZTP on bullying - if someone is caught bullying they're likely suspended. I can't speak for anywhere else, but where/when I was going to school, if someone was suspended, we sent the homework with them to do, and when they came back they did the tests after school. The goal is to make them see that their behavior is bad (and will be punished), not to hamper their experience in education.

In this scenario I would liken grades and school work to Honor and end of season rewards. Suspend me, hit me with the two week. I'm going to want to grind HARDER on the come back because my timeline is out of whack. I'm going to want to be more careful, just /muteall every game, etc. As it stands though...I just don't want to play at all.

Then to further expound on the school example, if the kid in question did continue to bully, they would then be expelled, etc. The idea of Zero Tolerance is good. It's great even. However, I genuinely do not think the current implementation encourages reform at all. It encourages people to make alternate accounts and not value those accounts at all. It's encouraging me from quitting League.

I could keep going on, but this post is gigantic as is; I had an example about AA in mind, too, and some others, but like I said....

So in closing, I just want to reemphasize that I don't believe anything I have said here should make me above punishment. I screwed up and I said two things nobody should say. I get that and I want to take responsibility for that. Give me the two-week, give me chat bans, give me low priority queues, give me the final warning even - you can give me all of those things and I'll carry that cross....heck penalize my Honor for being an ass - drop it down to Honor 1 or something - but the end of season lock out on a single mistake and the honor reset, man, it really just makes it all feel like I shouldn't even had bothered and I shouldn't bother in the future....and I hate that feeling.

tl;dr do you feel like contextually things like prior history should be used as a positive marker as well as a negative one (i.e. this person has a bad track record, we should escalate punishment - or this person has a positive track record, maybe be should deescalate the punishment), should the environment of the incidence be taken into account (i.e. this person was clearly being harassed first, perhaps we should give them a little leeway and give them a lighter punishment, but still punish them), and do you think the Zero Tolerance Policy as it correct stands is working as intended (i.e. do you think it encourages reform or discourages toxicity)?