League of Legends Trolls Can Now Be Banned Within 15 Minutes of Offending

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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League of Legends Trolls Can Now Be Banned Within 15 Minutes of Offending


Riot Games' new "instant feedback" system can deliver 2-week or permabans to offenders within 15 minutes of being reported.

The problem with a lot of punishment systems in place for video games is that they take too long to take effect. If a player is being an asshole, a troll, or cheating, it could be months before he is finally weeded out and disciplined. Riot Games aims to solve that problem with its new "instant feedback" system that can dish out 2-week or permanent bans to offending players within 15 minutes after being reported.

"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," announced Riot in a blog post [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/player-behavior/new-player-reform-system-heads-testing].

The system is specifically focusing on verbal harassment and "hate speech", which includes (but is not limited to) homophobia, racism, sexism, and of course the ever-present death threats.

Here is 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 (players' names and chat logs are scrubbed) and the punishment for the behavior

Riot says that the player behavior team will be on deck, hand-reviewing the first few thousand cases the instant feedback system sorts through, but if it doesn't find any major hiccups, it aims to eventually make it a fully-automated process.

For those of you worried about how accurate the system will be in discerning legitimate reports from "troll" reports, Riot assures us that through previous data collection, a system like this one would only have false positives in the 1 in 6000 range - an acceptable number for the developer.

What do you guys think about this? On the one hand, toxic players make the experience bad for everyone, but an automated system like the one Riot is proposing seems like it would be ripe for abuse from the very people it is trying to punish.

Source: Riot Games [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/player-behavior/new-player-reform-system-heads-testing]

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RicoADF

Welcome back Commander
Jun 2, 2009
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A computer system is the only practical way to police a game of that size but it'll be interesting to see how people figure out ways to abuse the system. One thing people do fast is find ways around authority.
 

Eric the Orange

Gone Gonzo
Apr 29, 2008
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OH, WHATS THAT, YOU DID NOT LIKE A.I. OH DEAR MY PROCESSOR SLIPPED AND ACCIDENTALLY BANNED YOU, WHAT A SILLY MISTAKE. OH WELL, TOO LATE NOW.

(that's supposed to be a robotic voice not shouting, please don't hurt me mods.)
 

xxobot

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Jun 2, 2014
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I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Steven Bogos said:
1 in 6000
For a game this size, even if only a subset of players end up in the system, that is a staggering number of false positives.
 

Ariseishirou

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Aug 24, 2010
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Well, they have to do something. They were hemorrhaging players the abuse was so bad before they started policing it. The honor/reporting system actually has cleaned up the community considerably. I played before it was implemented and just about every match was a shitshow of the worst kind of trolls. I quit for a while (in no small part because of that; I honestly find the CoD player base less abusive) and when I came back after the new system, it was like night and day. It still happens, of course, but it's honestly quite rare now and I immediately report it. I heard that it increased the number of people playing, especially those returning to their accounts, so it's no surprise they're looking for even better methods.
 

Realitycrash

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xxobot said:
I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Steven Bogos said:
1 in 6000
For a game this size, even if only a subset of players end up in the system, that is a staggering number of false positives.
True, but given that the proportion of assholes is far higher than that, and that troll-reports is not necessarily that common, I'd argue the benefits outweigh the risks. Even if I myself end up on the recieving end, I am just so sick of the constant toxicity.
 

dangoball

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Jun 20, 2011
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I would be weary of permabans by an automated system. Two week ban is ok with 1/6000 even if it's false positive, it's not like short term loss of access to a game is the same as incarceration on a false positive. But that permaban worries me, especially if there won't be a way to fight the claim. Such a measure should be handled by people, not an algorithm.
 

OldNewNewOld

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Mar 2, 2011
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The "good" player are starting to become more toxic than the "toxic" player. There were more than enough false bans thanks to the community. No need to add more. And yeah... "examining"... sure, that's what will happen.

I've been asked by a few friends to start playing LoL with them and the "toxic" rules are the main reason why I never moved from Dota to LoL.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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That sounds excellent, solid community management has became the biggest necessity in online games a good long while ago and it is high time someone pushes that boat on.
But I sure hope someone is on top of false positive reports, it's not that big of a deal if the system overreacts occasionally, but it is a big deal to respond to people who contact you over a questionable reprimand (this last part quickly gets ignored in automated systems because it's much easier to just keep you banned).
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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1 in 6000?

So that's potentially 4500 false automated bans per day, up to 135'000 per month. Well, either the system will work, or player numbers will suddenly drop and Riot will re-think it's implementation. It's certainly not the worst system for auto-admin that's ever been dreamed up.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Count me among those that think that the spirit behind this is good, but the implementation is a bit dubious. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, or so the saying goes.

Realitycrash said:
True, but given that the proportion of assholes is far higher than that, and that troll-reports is not necessarily that common
I'd imagine the reason fake reports aren't that common is due to the fact that currently all reports are actually reviewed...so it's rather pointless to report someone just to troll them when someone at Riot will look at the case and clearly see no wrong-doing.

With an automated system, however, you lose that check'n'balance. I'd imagine this will actually increase the number of fake reports as trolls just roll the dice because "why not?"

1/6000 may seem like pretty slim odds...but I'd imagine that it's actually a drastic increase from the odds of a false positive from the previous system.

I'm all for curbing the toxicity as well...I just don't think an automated system that dishes out bans is the right way to do it.
 

llubtoille

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Apr 12, 2010
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If they find it's open to abuse, then it's up to riot to patch up the lopeholes, which they almost certainly will.
Those who are hit with false positives always have the option to contest it, and RiotLyte's pretty infamous at sorting the good from the bad in an open forum XD
 

happyninja42

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May 13, 2010
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Realitycrash said:
xxobot said:
I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Steven Bogos said:
1 in 6000
For a game this size, even if only a subset of players end up in the system, that is a staggering number of false positives.
True, but given that the proportion of assholes is far higher than that, and that troll-reports is not necessarily that common, I'd argue the benefits outweigh the risks. Even if I myself end up on the recieving end, I am just so sick of the constant toxicity.
Yeah, I'm not too worried about it. Especially if the banning system starts to actually weed out the trolls, there will be less people inclined to make false positive reports, since the people most likely to do this (the trolls), will likely have been banned. Sure it's not a perfect system, but I'm sure it will improve with time as they tweek things.
 

Davroth

The shadow remains cast!
Apr 27, 2011
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Yeah, I don't know about this... I mean, troll ran rampant in League, that'S true. But I'm not super comfortable with the idea that a machine will dish out permanent bans, considering you can spend actual money on your League account, even if the chance for a false positive is low.
 

RaikuFA

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Jun 12, 2009
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But how will a comp know the diffrence between feeding and being new to the game?
 

happyninja42

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RaikuFA said:
But how will a comp know the diffrence between feeding and being new to the game?
The article said it was going to focus on reports for bad behavior and speech. Hate speech, racist comments, etc.
 

Nieroshai

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Aug 20, 2009
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This doesn't change the fact that anyone can report anyone for any reason, including the vague category "unsportsmanlike behavior," which can be and has been interpreted by players and tribunal as winning. You win, you get reported by the other team. You lose, you get reported by your own team. And you can actually get banned for these trifles.
 

NerAnima

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Jun 29, 2013
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Happyninja42 said:
RaikuFA said:
But how will a comp know the diffrence between feeding and being new to the game?
The article said it was going to focus on reports for bad behavior and speech. Hate speech, racist comments, etc.
Which is something that is definitely a good idea, keep it focused on just that, and it should keep the numbers down. It will still be open to abuse, though, so I'm cautiously optimistic, but prepared for the horror stories to start rolling in once the system is fully automated.
 

Nieroshai

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Aug 20, 2009
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llubtoille said:
If they find it's open to abuse, then it's up to riot to patch up the lopeholes, which they almost certainly will.
Those who are hit with false positives always have the option to contest it, and RiotLyte's pretty infamous at sorting the good from the bad in an open forum XD
They almost certainly won't, since they let the tribunal ban players for having too good a K-D.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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NerAnima said:
but prepared for the horror stories to start rolling in once the system is fully automated.
I can see it now..."Glitch in new system perma-bans 3/4ths of the entire player base." xD