Last week, Riot announced and launched a new player punishment system. For those of us that have endured the relative anarchy since the Tribunal's adjournment, this is a welcome relief. The new system (or at least its announcement) has had an immediate impact on players in solo queue, but there is a bit of misinformation going around about how the system works and what the system looks for.

The New System

The automated punishment system is the first phase in what is going to be a much larger player behavior system. That system, detailed in part here, will be unfolded in the future, but this automated system is going to be the core of the new order. The automated system is a natural evolution of giving the successful chat restriction some more teeth and fixes a few of the core problems of the old Tribunal system. The biggest change is the speed at which punishments are meted out.

When I was a voter as part of the Tribunal, you would see cases that sometimes were older than a month. While this was not a problem for the voter, who could still make a decision on whether the case was bad or not, it was a major problem for players who got banned for events that occurred two or three months before their punishment. Those players sometimes disconnected their behavior with their punishment, even despite the introduction of reform cards, and argued with Tribunal members about their "unjust" sentences. A more immediate negative feedback will help those players come to terms with the fact their behavior isn't acceptable.

The system makes a determination on whether to punish the reported player in a manner that is similar to the old system. When you reach an unknown threshold, the system will review your behavior in your games and determine if it is worthy of a temporary suspension or a permanent ban. The current punishments seem to be limited between fourteen day and permanent suspensions, with warnings and chat restrictions to be added later. The system doesn't only take recent games into account, but also your history of past behavior, although it currently only puts the game that triggered it into the reform card.

The system identifies whether your behavior is ban-worthy through a machine learning system that recognizes trends by looking at reports players have made and the chatlogs of the reported players. Rather than banning players on a predetermined list of words and phrases that can be skirted around, the system attempts to create its own dynamic list to understand what behavior players find unacceptable. While the majority of the system is determined through this dynamic list, the machine has zero tolerance for hate speech and death threats.

Playing Under Skynet

Of course, an automated system might make players nervous. Early in the system's rollout, a player published a mild chat log that saw him receive a fourteen game ban. The ban was rolled back to a three day suspension after Riot's intercession and the system's sensitivity was toned down, but concerns remain - Will I get banned by the system for talking. A simple answer to that is no, but there are a few things to keep in mind when playing.

1) Obey the Summoner's Code - While this sounds like common sense, players tend to get surprised when people report them for being poor sports. While the system might not identify your "poor behavior", the worst you act to your teammates, the more reports you're going to rack up and the closer you get to the system's threshold. Try to live by the simple rule of "don't be a jerk".

2) Avoid Problem Words - It should go without saying that slurs are unacceptable, but there are other words that carry with them a negative connotation. One of the biggest ones is one that came up constantly when I was on the Tribunal ban inquiry forum is "report". Players that are jerks like to threaten other players that take issue with them. The easiest way to threaten someone is to say "Report so-and-so for being a whiner". While in some cases "report" has perfectly acceptable uses, use it sparingly - you don't need to spam it every three minutes if one of your teammates is being a jerk. You risk yourself looking bad and scattering a pretty high incidence "toxic" word into your chatlogs. Other words to avoid are "kid" and "feed". Also be careful with sarcasm - it's difficult enough to distinguish as a voter with no context, I'm not overly enthusiastic about the system identifying it.

Kayle Background League by Jon-Johnz

3) Use Constructive Criticism - Another big issue that players don't understand is that constant denigration by their teammates doesn't make players suddenly improve. Avoid pointless criticisms like "stop dying" and "don't feed them" - they add nothing to your team's communication and they're basically asking for fight. Even common suggestions like "stay under tower" and "ward the river" need to be said tactfully, otherwise the other player is going to respond angrily that they have been. Ask if you can help them or offer assistance by warding deep. It's better than getting dragged into a fight you psuedo-initiated.

4) Do Not Get Dragged Down - Finally if someone starts harassing you, do not respond. With an automated system, all a angry person needs to do to bring you down with them is get you to say one or two nasty things back to them. While retaliating was never seen as "okay" by Tribunal voters, we were at least understanding when a player was blowing off a little steam after being harassed. You don't have that sort of luxury with an automated system. Either keep your cool and keep playing, or mute the offending party. Don't give him the satisfaction of bringing you down with him.

Remember to help the new system out by reporting offenders and honoring people that you enjoyed playing the game with. While the system is automated, it uses the standards we give it with our votes. Once the Tribunal is relaunched, take the time out of your day to vote on a few cases. Help mold the community's standards on behavior. I'm sure you'll benefit as much as the rest of us.