Why is the solution to flaming to report someone? It doesn't make sense that Riot added a mute button but players aren't even encouraged to use it.
Players are encouraged to use both the mute feature and the report feature. They're both tools for dealing with toxicity; muting being relatively effective per-match, while the report feature is more effective in the long run.
And reporting is the solution to flaming because everyone agreed to the same rules, and flaming is against those rules. So, since reporting tells Riot that someone broke the rules they agreed to, reporting serves as the most viable solution to flaming.
Instead of not being a sensitive child, I am going to report everyone who criticizes me and hope they get banned.
Implying that you have to be sensitive to resort to reporting.
And also implying that being toxic and flaming is devoid of any sensitivity whatsoever.
Why is perma-banning even a thing?
Because Riot needs some kind of ultimate punishment to resort to if someone absolutely refuses to play by the rules. They're not just going to keep giving small punishments for small offenses over and over and over ad infinitum - toxic players need to learn to either shape up or ship out, and Riot isn't going to let them keep ignoring the rules forever.
Someone called me a bad word in chat and instead of muting them Riot will just delete the thousands of hours they spent playing their shitty game.
I made one mistake and someone completely flew off the handle and completely abandoned the game in favor of spouting vitriol and toxicity.
See how easy it is to make anything sound frivolous if you distill it into the most basic, uninformative shorthand?
Riot permabans players not for "calling someone a bad word", but for continuous misbehavior and decided ignorance of the rules that they agreed to. Ignoring the most toxic and belligerent players, it takes quite a while to build up to a permanent suspension, and after so many games of continued misbehavior, that ultimate punishment is certainly warranted.
I look at these boards and even people who were unfairly banned are just told to suck it up and do better next time.
If the ban was truly unfair, we'd direct them to Player Support to appeal it.
If you truly want someone who called you a name on an online game to have their money, time and effort wasted, you are just as toxic as the people you report.
I want them to stop being a dick. If that means that they eventually run themselves into the ground and have all their time, money, and effort wasted, then that's on them. They had every opportunity to simply not be toxic.
