Those familiar with the popular game League of Legends would acknowledge its renown for disruptive behavior exhibited during matches. Often, this results in a new ranked system that compels the players in question to engage in normal matches if they are to continue participating.
This negative behavior ranges from players deliberately losing games with a view to create content, to instances of in-game misconduct perpetrated by even some of the game's most proficient players. This has earned the game a somewhat unfavorable reputation within the gaming scene.
In response to this, Riot, the game's developers, announced at the start of 2023 that they are exploring numerous measures to discourage this negative behavior and reprimand players guilty of such indecent activities like AFK (away from keyboard) during games, BM (bad mouthing) their partners, and other unsportsmanlike acts.
Riot’s latest approach takes this even further. Any players who exhibit the aforementioned disruptive behaviors practice will be restricted to only playing regular matches, and they would be unable to participate in ranked games until after they have played a few normal games.
New League ranked behavior system sparks controversy
A new ranked behavior penalty has been introduced that requires disruptive players to play regular games for a period.
However, intense ranked queue players have found several ways to circumvent the barriers Riot has so far put in place. Despite stiffer penalties for leaving games and dodging lobbies, some tenacious players maintain multiple accounts that they interchange consistently to keep queuing.
While the current systems timed penalties and chat restrictions may curb those particular accounts to a certain extent, many toxic ranked players of the game can merely switch to a different account and plunge right back into the queue.
Nonetheless, the newest system revealed by Riot pledges to extend the penalties and particularly target players who swap between multiple accounts.
Disruptive players are compelled to play corrective games in a non-ranked queue and exhibit good behavior, according to the team's post. These restorative games encompass pretty much anything that isn’t ranked, and it's expressly mentioned that only those players who behave respectfully during these games will be given the green light to return to the ranked games.
While it isn’t specified exactly how many matches would have to be played to get back to ranked games, it is clear that those who interchange between various accounts cannot merely wait out a timer any longer. Instead, they would need to participate in some matches on their present account before they can jump back into the activity.
Certain players that don’t interact with ranked games and prefer to play normal games without the associated stress and disruptiveness have expressed their apprehensions regarding this new development. They fear that tranquility of their norms games would be infiltrated by penalized players serving their corrective game bans.
This new change is projected to feature in patch 13.19, and it is expected to be released around the 26th of September, 2023.