Boards›Player Behavior

Can Riot explain what is and isn't punishable...?

Malhammers·2/19/2016, 5:59:08 PM·3 votes·1,100 views

"Toxic" is such an opinionated accusation...and with their new system I fear that they punish off of key words and shit, since there is no human reviewing and reading entire chat logs to determine who was at fault in any given situation. For example:

You /allchat "Fuck me" ...punishable? You say "..This damn team" ...punishable? You say "..sigh" ...punishable? You say "They are clearly better than us" ...punishable? You say "Im done" (but still play) ...punishable? You say "You suck" ..punishable? (this isnt the damn 5th grade...) You say "Lifetime bronzer" ...punishable? You say "Have fun in bronze" ...punishable? You say "#uninstall" ...punishable? You say "L2P" ...punishable?

Let me start by saying, if any of these are punishable then...just wow.

My point...if cussing is not allowed in this game can Riot please officially state that? If anything negative at all is not allowed in this game, can Riot please officially state that? All of the "verbal harassment" and what not categories of reports are all opinionated. A 7th grader would sure as hell find "you suck" as offensive and is going to freak out about it.

TL;DR - WHAT THE HELL IS ALLOWED/NOT ALLOWED IN THIS GAME!

(For the record, I have never been punished or anything like that...but these are common things that you see in chat logs from people posting about their permabans...)

14 Comments

Deep Terror Nami2/19/2016, 6:34:51 PM4 votes

**The Summoners Code is too nebulous. I need to know what I cant say.**

Riot is never going to tell you because people will use that information to skirt the edge of impropriety. Heres a simple list of things that will almost always get you punished:

Criticizing anyones skill.
Any racist, homophobic, sexist or ethnic slur.
Spamming. (A good rule of thumb is never say anything more than twice.)
Asking for reports.
Threatening, blackmailing or bullying your team in any way. This specifically includes any reference to going AFK, feeding or aiding the enemy.
Anything that could be construed as you not doing your best (Im not helping bot any more!, for example).
Whining, especially if its about your team not surrendering.

Basically, you should avoid anything you would not say at the funeral of a loved one or during the interview for your dream job.

TrulyBland2/19/2016, 6:13:03 PM3 votes

Cussing is allowed ("Fuck me" would be fine for example). Being a jerk to people isn't, regardless of whether you're directly insulting ("You suck") or being passive aggressive ("This damn team"). Riot can't give a definitive rule of what is or what isn't allowed because it's ultimately subjective. Language changes, culture changes, and with those two, ways to insult people do, too. Edit: Apart from that, it also depends on "frequency", not only severity. A little bit of passive aggression usually won't get you punished... a lot of it (especially in the same game) might.

Zielmann2/19/2016, 6:06:34 PM2 votes

There's no magical list like what you want, because that's not exactly how the system works. I can say your first example would be fine by itself, because cursing isn't inherently an issue. Only cursing at other players is.

There are some known things that can result in punishments from single or very few instances, such as hate speech or personal threats.

Outside of that, it depends largely on two factors: How often they're saying those things in a given game, and how frequently they say things like that in games in general.

Consistent negativity within a game can get you punished. You're bringing down the entire team by acting that way. Insulting other players in the game can also get you punished. These two categories cover most of the examples you gave.

The simple rule to avoid punishments is to just not be a dick.

SunLillie2/19/2016, 6:15:08 PM2 votes

The Summoner's Code is a great start, but Riot has stated that the community as a whole decides what is offensive. Momma jokes are generally considered funny in America but are a bannable offense in Korea. I read that statement from a rioter if I am not mistaken. Since the community as a whole chooses what is offensive, everything that you posted could be bannable. Some of it may not be. I think that people should try to stay positive, especially if they have been warned about toxic behavior. Freedom of speech is important which could be a reason Riot doesn't have a list of no-no words and phrases.

disregardable2/19/2016, 6:03:22 PM1 votes

Punishable: Consistently getting reported for any action that breaks the summoner's code

Not Punishable: Not breaking the summoner's code, or only doing so occasionally/rarely

http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/get-started/summoners-code/ You can read the summoner's code here. It's a good outline to keep you from being reported. ^^

spirit cooking2/23/2016, 12:04:04 AM1 votes

I just read someone's perma ban chat log and the only thing they did other than be annoying that was against the rules was call for someone to be reported.

They admit to mistaken punishments 1 out of 6000.

Kei1432/19/2016, 6:56:47 PM1 votes

The punishment system learns from the community of what is allowed and what isn't. Aside from the hard written rules of homophobic slurs and death / disease wishes, everything else is community driven.

I personally hate playing with people whom have a negative behavior, so I'm more likely to report people who say things to demoralize the team such as "dis team", "I'm done". In fact, I don't report people who say "You suck", "You bronzie for life" "you noob" to me, because I know that I do suck and I'd rather try to ask for advice on how to do better instead. While others have a different tolerance for those things and probably would let different things slide.

But knowing the community, there are people whom can't take "you suck" and "you noob", maybe even "gg ez" so chances are that will eventually get someone banned.

Just follow DTN's guideline:

Basically, you should avoid anything you would not say at the funeral of a loved one or during the interview for your dream job.

Iqqi2/19/2016, 10:44:50 PM1 votes

It is all punishable. The difference and what we really need is a public definition from Riot as to what they consider to be a toxic player. See Riot says only 1% of their players are toxic. Which is hilarious when probably 95% of all games has a person who says or does something toxic. One of the sides someone is getting toxic.

Riots definition of Toxic is extremely poor and way to lax. That coupled with the fact they exclude reports from people who actually use the system and report people routinely. If you use the report system too much, Riot ignores your report.

Short version: Riot's version of toxic is very poor and does not match any socially agreed upon definition. Riot will never adjust this equation because it would lead to more people getting banned, punished, and turned away from the game which would mean less revenue.

Riot has had years to address this. They didn't. They took away the Tribunal because too many people were getting punished "when they didnt think the punishment matched the crime". The truth was the player base was punishing clear violations (they wouldnt be in the tribunal system up for review otherwise) but Riot did not like how many people they were losing and someone put a dollar sign in front of that number and leadership turned it off.

Riot is not a terrible company. They are just that a company. There are worse and there are certainly better, but I Riot is not some angel corporation some people make them out to be. Especially after selling out.

slippykitten2/22/2016, 11:44:23 PM1 votes

Nope, they wont give any actual rules, and no they wont ban the players that troll and cause toxicity, but yes they will ban you for any ambiguously ridiculous crap they want, because its easier than actually being competent.