Riot reveals new ranked penalties for LoL players in Patch 13.19

After years and years of toxicity issues in LoL, Riot Games is looking to implement harsher penalties for ranked queues in the next patch.

Riot Games tackling LoL griefing behavior with harsh ranked penalties

Toxicity and negative behavior have been a constant issue that most online games, including LoL, have had over the years. While some changes have been implemented throughout the years, including the possibility to mute pings and chat for all players, there are still lots of instances where toxicity brings a negative gaming experience.

On September 19, Riot Games’ development team tweeted out their intention to add ranked queue penalties for “most offenses”, in an attempt to reduce the potential toxic instances.

The devs have stated that a new system will be implemented to punish griefers and general toxic in-game behavior, and it’s set to be released in the next Patch 13.19, the Worlds Patch, which is scheduled to hit the live servers on September 27. According to the tweet, toxic players will have the ranked queue disabled and will have to play a couple of remedial games in a non-ranked queue by showcasing positive behavior.

By non-ranked queue, Riot refers to any blind pick, draft pick, ARAM, or any of the rotating game modes, when available. If they show non-negative behavior in those “remedial games”, they will be able to play ranked matches once again.

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Riot devs reveal the offenses which are punishable for solo queue penalties

In a secondary tweet, the dev team said that offenses like Leaving, AFK, Gameplay, and Chat penalties will be considered for ranked queue penalties. While it’s still unclear how “strict” and how the system will detect gameplay-related griefing behavior, this will definitely lower the toxicity in ranked games to a certain extent and bring ranked queues in a better direction.

The best thing is that griefers who are punished won’t be able to continue playing ranked games for a while, reducing the chances of getting the same players in subsequent lobbies, a common thing in the higher ends of the solo queue ladder.

The potential downside is having toxic players being redirected to casual game modes, where new potential toxicity issues might arise. Since casual game modes have been purposely created to avoid highly competitive environments where toxicity usually lies, casual players might not be totally fond of this change. Ultimately, it will depend on how Riot will set the system and what kind of “rules” there are around the penalties.

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