Boards›Player Behavior

The problem with Riot's punishment and player behavior system exemplified with Tantrums response

Squarepusher·1/26/2018, 12:03:54 AM·6 votes·2,174 views
most ridiculous chat restriction i have ever seen in my life.

So, I have long seen there is a problem with Riot's reporting and banning system, there is a real disconnect between reporting other players, being reported yourself, and getting punishment "served" by Riot. Sure, maybe this system was an improvement over having nothing or no system at all, but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially when people dedicate hundreds and thousands of hours and dollars into the game, and get their game experience ruined by another player, or they themselves have their account punished or penalized and they think unfairly.

Lets just go summarize what brings this topic up now, with the latest post by Tantrum that went viral of him "pwning a feeding noob" and "laying down justice."

  1. Player X (who's name I will not speak), gets a 25 game chat ban, with seemingly harmless chat logs given to him as the reason for his ban. The player makes a post on these forums "this reason for my chat ban doesn't make sense" trying to show the system doesn't work properly or something weird.

  2. Riot employee Tantrum see's the post, and apparently gets offended or feels like his system needs to be justified, so he does research into this players full history and game report, and personally finds out in fact this player was actually running it down and feeding with Nunu! So, as punishment for his behavior and publicly questioning Riot's system, he permanently bans this player.

OK, now several problems that arise from this scenario with regards to faults in Riot's punishment system. This player was on Nunu and purposely ran it down and fed, why did he not get an immediate ban, considering human Riot employees "already reviewed the case?" Apparently he was doing this quite a bit also. Keep in mind, Riot claims they have actual human employees review all cases, so if this player had perfectly normal and acceptable chat logs, why was his punishment a chat restriction?

my answer: What I have known for a long time, if the punishment system is essentially just an automated system. Riot claims they have human reviewers, and maybe they do for some exceptionally small amount of cases (like death threats), but by and large the system is just automated. Player reports trigger flags on a players accounts, if they get enough reports from other players, then they are punished with first a 10 game chat restriction, then a 25 game chat restriction, then a 2 week ban. So, for this player who did not have toxic chat at all, and was instead just feeding intentionally, a chat restriction seems like a disproportionately incorrect punishment type, and I think most of the community would agree that people int should be immediately banned from play (and not receive a chat restriction). Unfortunately, it takes too much time to actually review the cases of intentionally feeding, because there are so many players, and Riot does not want to hire enough employee reviewers to properly address this issue. So instead they rely on a cheap automated system that gives subpar results.

I saw this system functioning poorly first hand, when 2 seasons ago, (I was new to the game), I received a chat suspension or ban (can't remember which, was a long time ago), for picking ILlaoi support. So, I was illaoi support trying to make it work, and people were getting mad and reported me for it. So, I got the same message this Player X got, "you have been reported here are you chat logs...." but I was really confused since the logs were not bad. So I escalated a ticket, after several days eventually got a Riot customer service, and just got some really vague answer about "behavior below standards" without being able to tell me anything specific. So, obviously the automated system picked up reports from people who were reporting me for Illaoi support (this is bronze division btw), even though I wasn't trolling, and the system acted on this and dished out punishment simply based on reports.

So, essentially Riot has this very imperfect system in place, that lets trolls and feeders stay in the game and keep playing, while punishing also very simple things that their automated system can detect easily, like chat logs for example or other player reports regardless of the reason. The system will essentially handle reports of someone intentionally feeding identically to someone who may have claimed you "KD'd them" and reported you. The system might be better than having no system at all, also in some cases it functions well, for example with AFK/Disconnections since these are easy to handle. However for a game and company so big, and as I mentioned earlier, players spending thousands of dollars and hours on their accounts, the system seems extremely deficient in not only giving players accurate feedback onto what rules they violated or what exactly they did, but letting trolls and intentional feeders go for a long time without punishment.

Some solutions

  1. Start the game with team chat disabled, than can be enabled manually. Most of the reports and "toxic" situation that happen are due to same team getting tilted and raging at each other usually when they are losing. Riot currently seems to be way to hard of players who are not feeding or inting but are "rude to teammates" or offended someone.

  2. Upgrade the punishment and reporting system to better handle int'ers and feeders and trolls who actually ruin games by causing you a loss. This will require more people to review games manually, however I am sure the community would step up to volunteer to get this done. Also, Riot is very successful financially, so they should be able to afford employees to review games properly. Yes, this will require stricter punishments in certain cases, like intentionally feeding, like 1st time offense 1 month ban for example.

  3. Having a functioning appeal system and much better communication with players as to specific reasons why they are banned. People dedicate a lot to their accounts, and if you are going to dish out a severe punishment, you should have a human behind it and specific reasons.

So, in summary, current Riot punishment system is better than nothing, but pretty outdated and needs a lot of investment and improvement.

45 Comments

Imperial Pandaa1/26/2018, 12:38:47 AM10 votes

There is something about the post you are using as a standpoint that you forgot to mention. The post game chat that isn't in the chat log. Pre and post game detection became a big discussion after the whole "Bait Banning" thing. In case you missed it, people would go "Say neck yourself 3 times in game or I'll feed."

A theory is that the IFS picked up on him admitting to trolling and pinged it with a punishment (I'm not going to pretend to understand how the learning machine works for this.).

As backwards as it sounds, the IFS and the Trollerbuster/Feederbuster are different systems (which is why you can get a 14 day for inting and then a 14 day for toxicity). Without knowing how the systems interact, this will remain a simple theory though.

Yes, as with everything involving technology, things will need to be updated and improved. Bear in mind that there are different systems for different topics. The IFS, at least is a learning machine or something that learns based on what community reports frequently. In addition to tweaks made by Riot Behavior team.

If I recall correctly, when the IFS came out, the Riot team actually didn't think it hit hard enough. So while I get you want an appeal by a person, keep that in mind.

Jo0o1/26/2018, 12:48:13 AM4 votes

You're right about one thing: The system is not perfect. The creator of the thread you linked abused the system as much as possible, and had the audacity to even challenge a ruling made against himself, knowing full well how much of a scumbag he actually is. Fortunately, Tantram was on site to correct the mistake, and you bet one of the things he'll be working on in the near future is an improvement to the IFS to properly detect and punish the bullshit trolling at play in this scenario.

A Pretty Unicorn1/26/2018, 1:12:15 AM3 votes

It's clear you didn't actually read the thread, OP, it was stated that the chat restriction was for the post game chat, which the system can't show yet. Tantram said he was escalating it to "a ban", which would normally mean a 14 day ban in this circumstance. Do you have any actual proof of your claim that they were permabanned or are you just assuming they were? It's not stated explicitly in the thread that the player was permabanned rather than the normal punishment escalation.

I definitely didn't get the impression this was about questioning the punishment. Looking into the player, which the player was essentially asking for, found that the player had also been trolling, so their punishment was escalated. I don't get what the issue is.

Troxic1/26/2018, 12:10:34 AM2 votes

Riot being full of shit is nothing new. I bet you a lot of money Riot Tantrum won't respond to this because he has nothing to stand on.

HaIlMonitor1/26/2018, 12:22:39 AM2 votes

I was honestly pissed about that. Why the hell would that be okay for him to him?

nerak231/26/2018, 12:34:21 AM2 votes

To start with, nobody spends ' literally ' hundred of thousand Hrs. & or Cash on this game .

Who do you think does this ? ......" # 1 " ....

Butt Ρlug1/26/2018, 1:49:05 AM2 votes

This player was on Nunu and purposely ran it down and fed, why did he not get an immediate ban, considering human Riot employees "already reviewed the case?" Apparently he was doing this quite a bit also. Keep in mind, Riot claims they have actual human employees review all cases

Where did you saw such claim ? It's just impossible to have an human reviewing each reports.

  1. Start the game with team chat disabled, than can be enabled manually. Most of the reports and "toxic" situation that happen are due to same team getting tilted and raging at each other usually when they are losing. Riot currently seems to be way to hard of players who are not feeding or inting but are "rude to teammates" or offended someone.

Is it really that hard to not type in chat if you know you're toxic ? Or maybe just resize it to the minimum size if you don't want to be able to read it, other solutions exists too, but disabling the chat by default seems like a bad idea, i mean i often have fun and joke around in chat, new players might enjoy advices and so on.

FIY it's been showed that if people aren't able to vent their frustrating using the chat they'll feed/int. ( it used to be the case when we had chat restriction that could last nearly forever ).

  1. Upgrade the punishment and reporting system to better handle int'ers and feeders and trolls who actually ruin games by causing you a loss. This will require more people to review games manually, however I am sure the community would step up to volunteer to get this done. Also, Riot is very successful financially, so they should be able to afford employees to review games properly. Yes, this will require stricter punishments in certain cases, like intentionally feeding, like 1st time offense 1 month ban for example.

So, there are multiple issues here :

  • The system often fail to identify inters/feeders just because a lot of people will report someone who just had a bad game as feed/int.

  • I don't think you're realizing that there are thousands of new reports everyday.

  • It use to be the case actually, if riot doesn't give something in return for those who judge other people's behavior, nobody ( or at least not enough people ) will actually do it, if they give a compensation for judging people a lot of players will do it without even correctly analyzing the game thus resulting in a lot of undeserved punishments.

  • Even with a bunch of employees, considering the huge amount of new reports that will come everyday, this system would actually be extremely slow, the tribunal had this issue too someone getting reported might still not be judged months after the report.

The actual solution for the current system to improve is giving it some time and that people stop reporting someone that just had a bad game.

  1. Having a functioning appeal system and much better communication with players as to specific reasons why they are banned. People dedicate a lot to their accounts, and if you are going to dish out a severe punishment, you should have a human behind it and specific reasons.

The overall rules are actually fairly simple it's simple common sense, you have the summoner's code and the "Code of Conduct" section of the TOS which everyone is supposed to know. The punishment system is quite simple too, you can find tons of official information about it online people even made charts about it.

https://i.imgur.com/ACZhFYu.png

I don't really get your point about "specific reasons" often time the reasons are just common sense ( Except 3rd party software use for obvious reasons ), it'll be displayed on your punishment message and you can always ask for clarification in a support ticket or on this subforum. More often than not people know that what they did is bad and they just accept the punishment, but you have some extreme cases on the forums where they don't want to admit that they're in the wrong, hopefully it's a minority.

There is a functioning appeal system using support tickets, if riot made a mistake by wrongfully punishing someone they'll remove it as soon as possible ( you can find tons of examples of successful appeals on the forums ).

Anyway, yes there is always some room for improvements. It's just extremely difficult ( except for obvious cases ) because riot don't want to make mistakes and ban someone who just had a bad game and because people are reporting countless of players that did not actually feed/int.

[sg-soraka]

7deadLeeSlnz1/26/2018, 1:50:45 AM2 votes
  1. Player X (who's name I will not speak), gets a 25 game chat ban, with seemingly harmless chat logs given to him as the reason for his ban. The player makes a post on these forums "this reason for my chat ban doesn't make sense" trying to show the system doesn't work properly or something weird.

The system cant show post game chat in the reform cards yet which is the reason he got this harmless looking excerpt.

  1. Riot employee Tantrum see's the post, and apparently gets offended or feels like his system needs to be justified, so he does research into this players full history and game report, and personally finds out in fact this player was actually running it down and feeding with Nunu! So, as punishment for his behavior and publicly questioning Riot's system, he permanently bans this player.

The problem is the player behaviour boards get post like very often in which people claim their ban was unjustified but Tantrum clears everything up. That is what he is doing. He does not need to defend his system because he knows it works and if something comes up that doesn't work he knows it too. You know if he hadnt find anything that would have justified a ban he would have lifted it. He was only punished for is behaviour.

OK, now several problems that arise from this scenario with regards to faults in Riot's punishment system. This player was on Nunu and purposely ran it down and fed, why did he not get an immediate ban, considering human Riot employees "already reviewed the case?" Apparently he was doing this quite a bit also. Keep in mind, Riot claims they have actual human employees review all cases, so if this player had perfectly normal and acceptable chat logs, why was his punishment a chat restriction? my answer: What I have known for a long time, if the punishment system is essentially just an automated system. Riot claims they have human reviewers, and maybe they do for some exceptionally small amount of cases (like death threats), but by and large the system is just automated. Player reports trigger flags on a players accounts, if they get enough reports from other players, then they are punished with first a 10 game chat restriction, then a 25 game chat restriction, then a 2 week ban. So, for this player who did not have toxic chat at all, and was instead just feeding intentionally, a chat restriction seems like a disproportionately incorrect punishment type, and I think most of the community would agree that people int should be immediately banned from play (and not receive a chat restriction). Unfortunately, it takes too much time to actually review the cases of intentionally feeding, because there are so many players, and Riot does not want to hire enough employee reviewers to properly address this issue. So instead they rely on a cheap automated system that gives subpar results.

I think most of us know that Riot uses an automated system. I need a source where they claim to use human rewiers. Let me give u the short version Riot's system: 1 report = 9 reports and every report will be reviewed. In the chat Tantrum provides the player supports trolling. One game of that would still be ok but he probably has shown continuous negativ behavour and this game was the finaltrigger. Do you even know how many reports these employees would have to review? It's too much of a load to be handled by humans. But can you actually name arguments why the system is cheap and its subpar results?

I saw this system functioning poorly first hand, when 2 seasons ago, (I was new to the game), I received a chat suspension or ban (can't remember which, was a long time ago), for picking ILlaoi support. So, I was illaoi support trying to make it work, and people were getting mad and reported me for it. So, I got the same message this Player X got, "you have been reported here are you chat logs...." but I was really confused since the logs were not bad. So I escalated a ticket, after several days eventually got a Riot customer service, and just got some really vague answer about "behavior below standards" without being able to tell me anything specific. So, obviously the automated system picked up reports from people who were reporting me for Illaoi support (this is bronze division btw), even though I wasn't trolling, and the system acted on this and dished out punishment simply based on reports.

I can guarantee you your ban was not for playing illaoi support. You are one of the people that cant recognize their negative behaviour. Feel free to post your chat logs. Im sure someone can help you.

So, essentially Riot has this very imperfect system in place, that lets trolls and feeders stay in the game and keep playing

It is difficult for a system to see the difference between haing a bad game and trolling/int. feeding.

the system seems extremely deficient in not only giving players accurate feedback onto what rules they violated

the community makes the rules and reform card shows which part of your chat logs are not tolarable.

Start the game with team chat disabled, than can be enabled manually

You mean the opposite of system now? I dont understand what would make the difference?

Upgrade the punishment and reporting system to better handle int'ers and feeders and trolls who actually ruin games by causing you a loss. This will require more people to review games manually, however I am sure the community would step up to volunteer to get this done. Also, Riot is very successful financially, so they should be able to afford employees to review games properly. Yes, this will require stricter punishments in certain cases, like intentionally feeding, like 1st time offense 1 month ban for example.

You are basically saying they should bring the tribunal back. It did not work back then and it wont work now.

Having a functioning appeal system and much better communication with players as to specific reasons why they are banned. People dedicate a lot to their accounts, and if you are going to dish out a severe punishment, you should have a human behind it and specific reasons

I agree to some extends. A lot of players seems to have a problem with recognizing that their behaviour is toxic. To have a human do the work may be again too much of a work load.

Colgate Gator1/29/2018, 11:20:22 PM1 votes

As the general consensus seems to be, no, your solutions are completely flawed.

ModPeriscope9/14/2018, 7:34:48 PM1 votes

Locking this thread since it is extremely old. Please pay attention to the date of the post.

If you have any questions about this moderation, feel free to reach out to us in the Boards Discord.

DontTouchMyBall1/26/2018, 3:11:59 AM1 votes

The ride never ends does it.

{quoted}

Riot being full of shit is nothing new. I bet you a lot of money Riot Tantrum won't respond to this because he has nothing to stand on.

Nothing to stand you say? As far as I seen he completely stood on top of the OP's face last thread. I'd love to bet you'd be losing the bet, but Im poor, I cant risk it.

EvilDustMan1/26/2018, 3:32:14 PM1 votes

I think the only problem is, yea, the guy deserved a 14 day ban.

Naramiel1/26/2018, 12:53:14 AM1 votes

To be honest, I had my reservations about Tantram's response as well: the punishment seemed entirely called for given what Tantram accused him of, but putting it in those terms, as well as mugging for upvotes, felt a little strange coming from someone in a position of such power. Not to mention the tone of "and this is what you get for challenging your punishment!"

In re the OP: does Riot actually claim every case is manually reviewed? I can't imagine anyone would believe that was true.

Anyway, I generally feel more punishments should be handed out, not fewer. And again the punishment in this case doesn't seem excessive for the alleged crime. But the way it was done does feel a little off.

Telephone Booth1/26/2018, 12:50:07 AM1 votes

I'm pretty sure it's always getting tweaked.