League of Legends introduces Ranked Restrictions for toxic players

Anyone who plays League of Legends is likely familiar with the toxic behavior that can accompany the stress of a match, particularly a competitive ranked match. Although developer Riot Games has does things in the past to curb this sort of inappropriate behavior, the Competitive and Behavior teams have been working on a new system known as "Ranked Restrictions" which will hopefully help foster "both a fun and competitive environment in ranked play."

Basically, the "experiment" with Ranked Restrictions essentially restricted the in-game chat of negative players and prevented them from joining ranked queues until they completed the required number of games. Seeing it successful on the Public Beta Environment, Riot has decided to roll it out on the NA and EU servers.

"When Ranked Restrictions go live on NA and EU, restricted players will be unable to queue up for ranked until they complete a certain number of games in Normal Draft," Riot explained. Ranked Restricted players will still have their chat restricted in other queues, and can still be reported if they continue to display negative behavior while playing with the restrictions. After the restricted player finishes a predetermined number of games, Riot will perform a "final evaluation" to see if their actual in-game behavior has improved. Those who don't show improvement will continue to be restricted. Riot didn't explain that the evaluation will consist of.

Taking things a step further, Riot has also decided that Ranked Restricted players will also be ineligible to earn the end of season rewards (loading screen borders, Victorious Morgana champion skin, etc.). And let's be honest, if you aren't getting those rewards, it kind of makes ranked not worth playing.

Riot notes that the majority of League of Legends players will "not be affected" by this new feature which is fine since it's usually a minority of players who can make an entire experience sour anyway. I commend Riot for implementing such strict rules in the League of Legends competitive space.

[Riot Games]