Our banning/punishment system needs a rework

Hello,

My name is Kovah and I have been playing this game since season 1. Not that it matters that much, but I've seen an evolution of this game as changes were made and the playerbase has grown. There is one thing i've noticed: This game is progressively getting more toxic. I would say 1 in every maybe 5 games or so back in season 1-2 had someone that was legitimately toxic. Now before I continue let me explain my definition of toxic. I think a toxic player is one that intentionally, FOR NO REASON, and without legitimate claims targets a player or group of players with the intention of being an asshole and tilting them. What I dont consider toxic is A. A player defending him/herself against said toxic player or B. Someone who calls another player/group of players out on a mistake with the intention of helping them improve/stop that action from continuing.

Ok now with my definition of toxic out of the way, let me continue. Since season 1, the game has gotten to the point where EVERY SINGLE GAME has a minimum of one toxic player in it. MOST games have at least two. Just as an example I would like to tell you about a toxic person from my last game. At about the 4 minute mark until the end of the game, they started harassing our mid laner, FOR NO REASON because they made 1 mistake. They were referencing their stats, how many games they have played, and using this to tell them how terrible they are at mid, and how the game is already over because of how bad they are. In my opinion acting like that is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than two players just yelling profanity at each other for a few minutes and then its over. Why? Because in any competitive arena, trash talk and temper/adrenaline will exist and its natural. There is a level of trash talk that is not detrimental, and actually drives people to do better. When there is healthy trash talk the attitude most people take is "oh yea? I'll show him who's the best ADC!" then they proceed to try hard to prove themselves. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the player who I just mentioned that gets off on harassing other people for the sole purpose of destroying moral.

Now our punishment system is clearly not working. The way our punishment system works is it targets a certain type of language, and do not look at the context of something "unless a person actually takes the time to read it". What this does is punish mostly the healthy type of trash talkers and shoves them into the naughty corner. What doesn't happen is isolating the players who don't necessarily use a ton of profanity, but go out of their way to just be, and sorry for the simplicity here, straight up mean. You know what i'm talking about, they are the person when you are playing, and nothing has even been said in chat up until this point, and they out of nowhere go "Amumu you're absolutely garbage dude, gg this guy has no idea what hes doing. Go back down to bronze kid". For some reason this is not going punished. These people are consistently in my games. Every game I have to deal with this. You know what I don't see? I don't see any of the fun, NATURAL, NORMAL, FUN trash-talkers. They are all gone, replaced with these "under the radar" toxic jerks.

It is making this game a drag to play. It's hard to have fun when someone SO IGNORANT is on your team. How can they get away with this? How are they allowed to exist but the players who grew up playing halo 2, and gears of war, and warcraft 3 and just simply trash talk a little with no intent of hurting someone else are all banned?

The system needs a rework. We need to focus on getting rid of the ignorant players who simply want to ruin the game and get away with doing it. This has already been long enough so I think I'll stop but it is very important to me because this game has been such a big part of my life. I have been playing this game for years and feel very attached. But lately when I play all I feel is negativity surrounding me and it feels terrible because you cant even talk back to these people. They harass you, get you riled up, then if you tell them to stfu you end up getting a chat restriction or a ban so you just have to sit there and take it or mute them while they continue to just be ignorant. I miss logging on and having fun competitive matches anymore, it seems like that is gone.

If you didn't read this and just came to the end, here is EXACTLY what it feels like now. It feels like you are in school and you are in the middle of class. A student next to you (toxic player) keeps whispering so the teacher cannot hear him and he keeps harassing you. Finally you snap and say something back, but it was loud enough so the teacher (riot) can hear and you end up getting sent to the deans office (chat restriction/ban) while the other student gets away with it.

Please, fix this system, get rid of all these people getting away with destroying the fun of this game.

-Kovah

Edit: Just got done playing a game where at minute 4 our top laner said "fk you noob feeder" "trash NA player" "noob feeder trash" I am NOT KIDDING he had this on repeat for 30 minutes. He did not stop repeating the same thing, for THIRTY minutes. Can't even attempt to enjoy or even play a game with someone like that on my team. I'll actually be upset if he doesn't get banned.