With the upcoming patch 13.19, League of Legends will bring a major change. Those who misbehave in the game will receive a new penalty. Players will be excluded from ranked matches, but must spend their time actively in the game.
What does this new penalty look like? According to the LoL dev team, players who exhibit toxic behavior will henceforth be excluded from the ranked list for a certain number of matches. This means that those who are punished must first play normal rounds, ARAMs, or the rotating game modes to be allowed back into the rankings.
The following are affected:
- Leaving a match
- AFK
- Intentional feeding
- Trolling in the match
- Bad behavior in chat
Toxic players will thus be excluded not just temporarily. The penalties before were rather harmless for many, as they simply switched to another account or ignored League for a few days or weeks. When they returned, everything continued as usual.
The new system truly hurts, as many players primarily play ranked matches, because they have a particularly competitive edge and are usually the most fairly balanced. However, to play again, they must first behave in lower-quality matches. Because those who remain toxic will continue to be excluded from ranked matches.
When will this change come? The new patch 13.19 is set to be released on Wednesday, September 27. It will also be the patch played at the World Championship – aside from perhaps minor hotfixes for Briar.
No automatic perma-bans, but at least a reaction
How is this being received? Just this week, we reported that toxic players and trolls cannot be automatically permanently banned because the system could also affect innocent players. A developer explained that bad behavior is still a reason for harsh bans.
Now it seems that Riot has thought about this interim step.
How is this being received? Generally well, although there are some individual concerns. One user writes on Twitter that the affected players hopefully win the matches and do not just have to participate in them. Otherwise, they could ruin them again or at least not put in much effort to be allowed to play in the rankings again.
Others fear that the change could lead to more toxicity in matches outside of ranked. This could ruin the game for casuals who like to play a normal or an ARAM match. Moreover, this does not solve the problem of toxic players in normal matches, which is also seen critically.
Overall, however, there is praise for the change, as players with bad behavior should not have a place in ranked matches. Those who misbehave too often should be permanently banned from the game, demand some.
What do you think of this change? Will it really help or rather impact the casual side of LoL? Feel free to share in the comments.
Recently, there were calls not only for player bans but also for champion bans from ranked: LoL players demand after the debacle with the new champion: ‘Ban them all for at least a week’
