League of Legends' Tribunal "Probably Isn't Coming Back" Anytime Soon

The Tribunal system in League of Legends that allowed players to pass judgement on their peers and [...]

League of Legends Tribunal
(Photo: Riot Games)

The Tribunal system in League of Legends that allowed players to pass judgement on their peers and dish out punishments for reportable behavior likely won't be coming back anytime soon, Riot Games' Ben "Riot Draggles" Forbes said.

New League players who have joined the game within the past few years have never experienced anything different than the punishment system that's in place now, but there used to be a Tribunal in place that let actual players judge cases as they were reported. There were systems in place to limit the players participating in the Tribunal to those who would fairly judge cases, a feature that gave players some agency when it came to taking action against League's unsportsmanlike players.

Several years ago, Riot Games decided to retire the Tribunal system for a while to work on improving it. Another feature was also previewed that would let Tribunal members spotlight the most sportsmanlike players, and though that might sound like the current Honor system, it's worth mentioning that the game already had an Honor system when the Tribunal was put into maintenance.

"We're going to temporarily put the Tribunal in maintenance mode while we upgrade the overall system to ensure players who deserve punishments receive them much faster than they currently do," Riot Lyte said years ago. "We'll also be adding the ability to review and reward players who exemplify the best sportsmanship in League of Legends."

As players recently discussed the Tribunal's absence in the League subreddit, Riot Draggles commented to say that the system's probably not returning anytime soon.

"So real talk – many of you have already mentioned this, but Tribunal probably isn't coming back any time soon," Riot Draggles said.

He went on to say that Riot Games learned a lot from the Tribunal and said that the system helped created the abusive chat detection program that's in place right now. He added that it's slow and inefficient though and can sometimes be "wildly inaccurate" but acknowledged that there were some things the Tribunal did that Riot Games hasn't capitalized on since removing it.

"There's a couple of things we know Tribunal brought that we know we haven't tackled in a big way – more focus on trolling and inting detection (in the interim, please use the player support channels for the cases you feel need a human eye on them. I personally had an ally Fizz who decided to stop participating in teamfights, tell the enemy team where we were, and push sidewaves just enough so they wouldn't take down towers (upside down smile emoji) – and this was manually reviewed by player support and a penalty was issued) – and more agency to make it feel like you're really having an impact."

The Rioter said that progress is being made to correct abusive chat and find inappropriate names, but players are still encouraged to use the report feature to bring cases to Riot's attention.

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