Riot has gotten into some hot water as the chat restriction bans got so out of hand that they had to be reversed.
The preseason has brought a lot of exciting stuff into League of Legends. It has brought in the new Patch 12.22, which introduced many new items and changes to the game. We also have some ARAM changes coming in Patch 12.23, while some champions like Kassadin, Dr. Mundo, Tahm Kench, and Zeri are getting their mini-reworks.
However, with new updates, there are always bugs and hotfixes needed to be done. Patch 12.22B was a primary example of rolling out an update to fix some issues with the game. Meanwhile, Riot monitors the current servers to roll out fixes in Patch 12.23. These fixes could range from bugs of any kind to balance changes.
The preseason has also introduced a disruptive speech detection/chat restriction system designed to ward off toxicity. However, that has led to a bug overcorrecting the situation and has gotten Riot in trouble. Riot is reverting some of those punishments, and here is what we know about the situation.
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Riot’s Behavioral System
The behavioral system for League of Legends was introduced a while back. Since then, Riot has tried to improve the system to fight toxicity properly. The auto mute system was implemented in Patch 12.20, and Patch 12.22 introduced disruptive speech detection to enhance the system further.
The idea was to stop people from being profane in chats and escalating situations. However, a bug put the system on steroids as it started warning just about anything. Many reports of chat bans, honor level decreases, and even permabans. This caused Riot some trouble as the players were up in arms about the issue.
Riot is Reversing Punishments
In light of the bug, Riot is now reversing punishments, as mentioned by Jordan Checkman, a designer working in Riot. He put out several tweets to explain the situation and the course of action to reverse unjustly doled punishments.
The entire Twitter thread has a lot of information. Thus, here is a brief breakdown of what Jordan Checkman said about the system.
- There was a bug in the disruptive speech detection, which was fixed a little while back.
- The bug caused unjust punishments, and Riot plans to reverse those affected.
- The bug seriously impacted fewer than 100 people. However, most people received warnings and/or chat restrictions.
- Reversals may take until Monday to roll out.
- Not every punishment will be overturned, only the ones that were unfairly given out.
- If any notifications are causing issues in playing a game, Riot has encouraged players to contact player support.
Gleaning into all that, it seems that a bug was behind the over-banning of players. Based on Reddit and other social media platforms, some corrections have already gone through, with more to come. The seriously impacted phrase is a bit vague, but that probably indicates how many people got permabanned.
So, Riot is working on getting the corrections out while improving this new system. They have the right idea, but the execution has been poor thus far. If Riot can fix the system, they will immensely reduce toxicity in League of Legends.
