And furthermore, this game promotes chatting with team mates, and yet the most common thing you'll ever hear on the "Player Behavior" threads is "Just don't chat ever. Don't say anything. To anyone. Ever."
I'm sorry, but if a system you're promoting as "necessary" for your game to work properly is basically shunned by the community as a "report trap," at what point do you take your design back to the drawing board as a failure?
Because people have figured out that it doesn't matter what you say, someone will find a way to report your for it. You could say "Hey, I really think you should have pushed top instead of farming scuttle crab."
And that's "toxic" to someone, somewhere. And they report you. And you might not get chat restricted for that single offense, but then it happens again... and again... and then, because instead of saying "I really think you should have pushed top instead of farming scuttle crab," you instead say "I really think you should have fucking pushed top instead of farming scuttle crab." BAM.... you're 14-day banned.
Because the system sees "fucking" and says "this player is toxic," even though you had a completely valid and relevant point. You just happened to use a curse word.
You know what? That's how some people talk. There's no disrespect behind it. There's no toxicity behind it. Its just the way some people talk.
I talk to my own mother that way. I have since I was 14, maybe younger, and I respect the shit out of my mom. I respect her more than anyone.
Did you see me say "Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit, I hope you fucking die?" No.
Did you see me say "I fucking hate you, you dumb motherfucker, eat shit and kill yourself?" No.
I wasn't disrespectful.
I used cuss words casually and in regular conversation, as is my right as an adult in a country that celebrates free speech.
But I digress.
My point is, how can a game promote chatting and player communication, and then punish players for chatting and communicating? Have you ever been out in the real world? People talk in all kinds of ways. People swear, people say really nasty things.
There's no "report" button for words you don't like in real life.
I'm a US Navy veteran (USS Antietam, San Diego, 2007-2012), and I can tell you from experience, teamwork and team building don't revolve around censorship. Teamwork and team building revolve around modifying YOUR OWN behavior to suit the needs of the group, not pointing fingers and crying and complaining because something someone said hurt your feelings. If someone says something you don't like, you know what the best course of action is? You ignore them. You ignore them, and you get the fucking job done. Like an adult. What the fuck are words? What do words matter? Just tune them out and move on.
Oh hey! Look! Riot actually implemented a system that allows you to do just that! How convenient!
Actions are a different thing entirely. Actions mean something. Actions cannot be ignored. Actions affect others, positively and negatively. If this were the Navy, and someone was purposely screwing everyone, we have ways to take care of that. Ways you don't need to worry about. Just know they're extremely effective, and there aren't many repeat offenders.
But you can't do that on league. All you get is chat. All you get is words, because the report system is garbage. You can't take care of the problem yourself. Not to mention, a perma-banned person can just start over with a fresh account in a matter of a month or so, and be right back to their bullshit behavior. So what does it matter to these people? They're probably on their 4th account already. What's a 5th? It'd be like if that kid that got "taken care of" in the Navy appeared the next day without a scratch on him and just started screwing everyone all over again. There's no fix. There's no cure. There's no effective solution. The kid who wants to screw everyone can just continue doing so unimpeded.
Shit, if this chat restriction is any indication, the system actually CATERS to the people that want to screw everyone. Here I am, chat restricted for being annoyed at yet ANOTHER game where cancerous players perform ACTIONS (not chat, not words) to ruin a game - while the person performing ACTIONS (not chat, not words) to ruin a game gets away Scott free.
I assume they got away with it, because recently Riot implemented a nifty little message window to tell you when someone you reported got punished - and I haven't seen shit.
So to summarize, I disagree with your "just report them" mentality. It doesn't work. It never has. Not in 6 years of me playing this game. (Leona was new when I started)
Only innocent people get banned because of chat logs and premade group reports, while the trolls silently commit their crimes, immune to punishment because there's no record or trace of their behavior, because Riot doesn't employ people to randomly and secretly watch people's games.
And I'm not saying people shouldn't be banned for chat... saying things like "kill yourself" or going off on cuss-laden tirades is completely unacceptable, and rightfully punishable. But that's not what happened here. That is not what I'm guilty of - although its certainly what I'm being punished for.
Riot should not rely on bots and algorithms to do the job for them, which are (community opinion, and probably fact) completely ineffective. Ask anyone who plays this game that's had any sort of experience with the behavioral system - themselves, or otherwise - and they'll tell you its garbage. It doesn't work.
Toxic players can keep being toxic, because there's virtually no punishment - just create a new account after you get perma-banned and its like nothing happened! Sure, you lose some money, sure you have to level up the account, but what's that take.... a month? Less? Shit, recently they even patched the leveling system so it's even FASTER for perma-banned players to hit 30 again and start trolling again. A smart design choice, at a time when they were highlighting all they were doing to make LOL a less toxic game, they did the ONE THING that would guarantee ZERO progress towards less toxicity.
I have been playing on this account since July 2011, and I think I've trolled one game, ever. Thousands of games. Probably 3500+ games of League, and I'm fairly certain I've only trolled one game, ever. And I did it just to see what it was like, and I felt horrible.
Every other game I've played, I played to the best of my ability. As I should. As everyone should.
So forgive me if this comment, or the chat in question may seem a bit annoyed (but not toxic!).
I've been dealing with this garbage for quite some time, and have yet to see any reasonable results.
W.