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New player reform system heads into testing

Riot·5/19/2015, 6:17:46 PM·17 votes·137,711 views

When negative behavior occurs, we know that the faster a player receives feedback, the better their chances of reforming. With that in mind, we’re building and iterating on a new instant feedback system that delivers actionable feedback and appropriate punishment to players that need it most. In the future, we expect instant feedback to take on rewards as well, but in step one we’re focused on reform-oriented feedback and punishment.

The system’s initial tests kick off today in NA and take aim at verbal harassment. The system delivers reform cards (notifications that link evidence of negative behavior with the appropriate punishment) that help players address their negative behavior. Your reports help the instant feedback system understand and punish the kind of verbal harassment the community actively rejects: homophobia, racism, sexism, death threats, and other forms of excessive abuse. These harmful communications will be punished with two-week or permanent bans within fifteen minutes of game’s end. Here’s how it works:

  • Teammates or opponents of the offending player send reports and the system validates them to make sure they aren’t false
  • The system examines the case and determines whether the behavior deserves rejection or punishment based on community-driven standards of behavior
  • The system fires a reform card through email, sharing the chat log of the offending player (we scrub other players’ names and chat logs) and the punishment for the behavior

The player behavior team will be on deck, hand-reviewing the first few thousand cases the instant feedback system sorts through. If the test goes smoothly, we expect instant feedback to roll out to all regions shortly. Like we mentioned up top, this test marks the beginning for instant feedback. Upgrades will allow it to shoulder more reform and punishment responsibilities and even reward positive play. Here’s a peek at where we’re headed:

  • In-client reform cards
  • Follow-up notifications for players who reported a player who was punished
  • Upgrades for chat and ranked restrictions
  • Upgrades to recognize negative gameplay behaviors like intentional feeding
  • Recognition of honors and rewards for positive behaviors and communication

We’ll hang around the comments to answer questions and hear your feedback. We’ll come back soon to share more about the vision for player behavior, including plans for the Tribunal.

1,213 Comments

Action Jxn5/21/2015, 1:33:15 AM182 votes

considering your automated afk detection issues me a very pretentious warning, forcing me to type "i agree" to a warning that looks like it was written for 10 year olds, after your server kicked me mid-game (and i reconnected and still won) I don't have much faith in an even more complex automated system dolling out punishment.

Ray0ut5/21/2015, 1:43:03 AM128 votes

I really think this is going down the wrong path. Having it weight the words said differently isn't a positive feature. Vocabulary doesn't efficiently correlate to negativity, and often the most innocuous words are the most negative. Gg easy is far more infuriating and negative than getting called a fag ever was. I hope efforts are put forth to try and actually curb negative behavior, not just try and punish people for saying naughty words. We're not children here. Remove the afks, the feeders, and the incessant negative players. Don't try and police language.

footfoe5/21/2015, 12:42:46 AM93 votes

automatic banns scare me. you are giving the machines too much power

Aithos5/21/2015, 2:07:17 AM78 votes

The problem here isn't the speed of the feedback at all...

The problem is that there is no clearly defined, definitive set of rules for people to follow. You are essentially creating the worlds largest lynch mob, where the overwhelming majority of people in charge of punishments are teenagers who aren't mature enough to make those kinds of decisions on their own.

Part of the problem is that it's far too easy to report, people don't consider reporting a big deal (on either side: reported or reportee) and so it becomes a weapon against people you didn't like. That's a big deal when it is a system meant for serious offenses and excessive behaviors.

I wrote a huge post on this but I'm going to wait and make my own thread because this post is upsetting given my recent experiences. I think you have really good intentions and you're an intelligent guy, but you're still trying to treat the symptoms when you should be identifying and taking care of the causes instead...

HighSpeedBeast5/21/2015, 12:11:33 AM60 votes

I would like to see more rewards for "good" playersitem 2050

MrLittleThor5/20/2015, 11:46:45 PM51 votes

Lyte how do you plan on solving False Positives? Especially when it's done automatically, and within 15 minutes of a game ending, there are sure to be issues. Do you have a certain criteria that they need to fill to get automatically banned/perma-banned?

hartar5/20/2015, 11:49:01 PM44 votes

Hey Lyte, could we have later some Q&A about the new system?

Ayriez5/21/2015, 12:41:11 AM38 votes

Is 'The System' a computer? Or is it like the Tribunal? I've reported several players before, but I've run into them again over a long span of games to find out they weren't punished at all. Last night I reported someone who afk'd 12 minutes in because he gave up and was going to go 'smoke a bowl'. He then assured me he wouldn't be banned because he's done that sort of thing many times prior.. Will the system be able to detect this kind of player? or is it just a pipe dream of mine that all this stuff goes away..?

Praetor Don5/21/2015, 12:10:13 AM37 votes

What's the status on honor and honor ribbons, I rarely see any ribbons of any sort anymore :-(

Xin Wan5/21/2015, 1:03:33 AM37 votes

The number of commenters who are mad at Riot for punishing players for being complete assholes is... interesting.

Zeromos5/20/2015, 11:35:33 PM35 votes

Is this live now ?

Muramashi5/21/2015, 1:12:03 AM35 votes

My question is this; I've seen people get reported for nothing just because a single player/duo didn't like the person and he got a warning or he was indeed punished. Will this rectify that? Because tribunal was the bomb-diggity. Players actually got in trouble for serious things and the fake reports weren't even able to bypass the troll players.

Ada Wong5/21/2015, 5:08:30 AM32 votes

I like the idea of the new system however.

. Riot needs to fix it so chat logs show all chat history in the logs however censored names similar to tribunal.

We need a way to appeal punishments that are false after being spam reported by toxic players themselves, unless of course the new system only punishes players as stated for this reason: ( homophobia, racism, sexism, death threats, and other forms of excessive abuse.) If this is the case I have nothing to worry about, but with the previous system I was always getting restrictions because players spam verbal abuse reports, after refusing communication, or harassing chat even with no text typed in some games at all you still get behavioral warnings at times of being spam reported.

I am all for dealing with the extremely toxic players, and those who just start arguments in games, and don't know when to accept (NO) for an answer, or those who spam others with threats of reporting one another for simply having bad games especially in those where players don't talk in champion select or understand what they are doing it happens a lot.

I also want to know when Riot is going to fix Champion Select Toxicity. I have been getting a lot of toxicity in Solo Queue lately.

. Non Communication, . Players who auto lock. . Players who say they are filling a role, change their mind without informing players. . Players who do not know what they are doing (Not really punish worthy but for me its a major problem) . Players who say hateful things when a person says they can't play (X) Role effectively.

. Players who do bad after being forced into a role because of either unskilled players or just doing badly because they are new to something or don't actively fill a specific role a lot.

We need a solution I know riot said they were going to add role finder to Ranked Solo Queue, and I believe this would solve alot of toxicity.

. My personal match history would be a lot better . It would lower toxicity of (X) Role or feed . It would allow players to fill the roles they want to . In general I believe over-all toxicity would drop

There is just too much toxicity around champion select often because players argue over role, and some players just can't play specified roles effectively so players do bad then players get toxic in chat, adding a role selection would allow players who want to fill specified roles to be able to fill them.

The third issue but its not as big of a problem

. Champion Bans and non communication, allow each player to ban a champion, or vote on bans.

{quoted}

LeaverBuster handles AFKs/Leavers, and we'll be upgrading the reform systems here to handle intentional feeders in the future.

I would also love to understand the definition of (Intentional Feeding) because I see this a lot, and a lot of harassment towards myself, or other players for simply doing very bad in games especially when matched with toxic players, or players who have absolutely no idea what they are doing things are just not going to work out very well because I have seen about 5 different players besides myself be harassed in chat and reported by others just for having bad games or being unable to play with unskilled players in a dual role (Which would also be resolved by adding a role selection) players who are higher skilled and do off team compositions like Annie as a support could avoid playing a role in lower elo where players have no idea what they are doing.

Egotistical Jerk5/21/2015, 12:27:00 AM32 votes

Another point is that many young children are and will be growing up playing LOL, and the way Riot handles and treats issues can socially ingrain children on how to behave.

If they are taught that if somebody says an negative opinion that they should be silenced immediately. I grew up playing many classic games including the original Counter-Strike.

I was cursed and trashed from the start for any mistakes I made (even ones beyond my control) Originally I was offended and it turned me off from playing, but as I grew up playing I learned to ignore bad behavior, trash talking is just part of competitive sports and it will never go away no-matter how many systems Riot implements.

If Riot keeps going down this road of putting proverbial guns to players accounts everytime they open chat it will only lead to player spite and oppression.

Of course the amount of text "abuse" will go down, but instead of players venting rage in chat (and everyone muted him). He will feed or make the team subtly lose on purpose. Riot is trying to play god to appease a loud vocal minority that is offended over everything.

THEATOMBOMB0355/21/2015, 12:11:32 AM29 votes

how will this effect people who troll when they report? is there a counter punishment for people who try and report people when nothing really happend? kinda like a "Boy who cried Wolf" system

Egotistical Jerk5/21/2015, 12:13:09 AM27 votes

Do you think these features will restrict freedom of speech and further suppress the more vocal community?

Considering anyone can mute a player in a few seconds why so much resources is being allocated to ban players for merely saying words.

I think saying racist or sexist things should be frowned upon but punishing players for trash talking is crazy.

What about a checkbox that a player can check on whether or not they want it, like the old XBOX matchmaking where players would be matched based on their personality.

1.Underground 2.Professional 3.Family

Angry lolrus5/20/2015, 11:42:43 PM25 votes

Exciting!! I'm glad to hear it. Especially the fact that I'll know if players who were toxic were removed. Maybe its perverse, but I like to know that the guilty get punished. It makes me feel better about the effort I put in to be positive.

CherryOakSmoke5/21/2015, 12:37:59 AM24 votes

I agree that something has to be done about the toxicity of the LoL community. Sorry people, but the LoL community is famous for having the most harsh and brutal community. But I'm very concerned about the potential of people being the victim of a false claim.

Is there going to be anyway a player who has be banned or perma-banned can contest the decision. I mean what if other players are antagonizing you and goading you into a fight. what if they report you, but you don't report them because you are a mature player who knows that the drivel of someone you don't know means nothing to you, but you get banned.

Is that fair? By being the bigger person and not reporting someone, but some immature little kid wants to be an asshole and reports you.

I'm just very concerned for the potential of abuse here.

Jabios5/21/2015, 1:43:59 AM19 votes

How does the system differentiate between joking/actual toxic behavior?

Like saying "Ashe I'm going to fucking murder u! :P" can be taken as a negative attitude or a joke depending on context.

hartar5/20/2015, 11:46:03 PM16 votes

This system sound really cool. I liked, in special, this:

Follow-up notifications for players who reported a player who was punished.

It make the person who report fell he did something to help the improvement of the game.

Tanonev5/20/2015, 11:58:42 PM15 votes
  • Teammates or opponents of the offending player send reports and the system validates them to make sure they aren’t false
  • The system examines the case and determines whether the behavior deserves rejection or punishment based on community-driven standards of behavior

Am I correct in assuming there's a distinction between a false (bad-faith) report and a not-punish-worthy (good-faith) report?

Z Statistic5/20/2015, 11:50:37 PM13 votes

Wait so if my teammate in ranked is flipping shit and bringing down everyone the whole game and we all report him, they will be punished right then and there? No waiting? No feeling like reporting is useless?