TL;DR:

We’re making some changes to the LCS rules landscape based on feedback and observations we’ve made over the last year.

There are three initial changes we’re making:

• Penalty index: To create consistency and set clear expectations around penalties, we are releasing a “penalty index,” or list of common offenses and their associated penalties, to make penalties more predictable and transparent.
• Penalty tracker: We will be maintaining a public-facing penalty tracker which will keep track of all penalties levied during the LCS season.
• Increased dialogue with pro players and owners: We’re ramping up our efforts to incorporate more dialogue with pro players and owners into the LCS disciplinary process and structure.

This is pretty long, so buckle up.

Now that the 2016 season is underway, we wanted to take some time to discuss the role that rulesets play within the LCS and global leagues. Most importantly, we’d like to take a closer look at how we approach setting and enforcing rules, why we believe they’re important to the health of the league, and what new measures we’ll be taking to streamline the process in 2016.  

Our goal for League of Legends esports is to showcase the highest quality of play and sportsmanship in competitive League of of Legends. To meet that standard, we need to establish and uphold goalposts to ensure a fair and stable ecosystem for players, teams, and the league.

The goal of both regional and global rules is very simple: to deter and penalize behavior which is at odds with the health of the league. They’re also designed to offer a clear and transparent set of guidelines for players and teams to be able to fully understand the consequences of any rules broken. We believe that evolving how we present the ruleset will help us improve this experience and offer greater transparency – and we’re implementing three significant changes to make the league disciplinary process for the 2016 season more consistent and predictable.

PENALTY INDEXES

Moving forward we’re going to be introducing two complementary ways to track penalties for typical offenses in competitive play: (1) An LCS penalty index  (and EU LCS version) which typically cover common or minor offenses which warrant a suspension of less than 3 competitive months, and (2) A global penalty index which applies to major offenses warranting a suspension of 3 competitive months or more, and whose penalties will be the standard across all global leagues.

Over the last few seasons our approach to penalties has meant that each league across the world has looked at all fines and suspensions on a case-by-case basis, with penalties tailored to each case. While the intent was to be as fair as possible, in practice, this approach has had some drawbacks:

• Inconsistency: Different approaches and philosophical changes over time led to inconsistencies in how players in different regions, or even within the same region, were punished for similar offenses.
• Unpredictability: Teams, players, and fans have sometimes felt surprised by penalties, whether too heavy or unexpectedly lenient. We want to make sure that rulings feel consistent and penalties are predictable yet effective deterrents.
• Delayed Decisions: Reinventing the wheel on what an appropriate penalty is after each incident rather than working within a preset range has led to significant delays in taking action, sometimes leaving teams and orgs in limbo. We want to cut down on the delay between investigations and rulings so the affected parties can plan accordingly.

To be clear, our intent in streamlining our disciplinary process isn’t to penalize more frequently. Instead, we hope that clearer communication about league discipline sets expectations, disincentivizes misconduct, and educates teams and players.

PENALTY TRACKER

Transparency is something we value highly, and is one of the reasons we publicly disclose every fine and suspension related to violations of league rules via competitive rulings. Though there are many different types of misconduct ranging from turning in paperwork late to extreme toxicity, up until now we’ve used one mechanism to publicly disclose penalties for all of them. We think there are better ways to give context about fines and suspensions than producing uniform posts for all offences, minor or major.

Moving forward we’ll be using a public-facing penalty tracker which will document all penalties levied during the LCS season. Penalty tracker entries will be less detailed than competitive rulings but will be covering more straightforward violations (e.g. a uniform violation or missed roster deadline) – this will also help us respond more quickly to minor offenses. For more complex offenses such as poaching or extreme toxicity we’ll still issue competitive rulings where we’ll provide context about the penalty in question, and they will be linked on the penalty tracker to make it easier for teams to search for past records of disciplinary action and better understand precedent.

INCREASED DIALOGUE WITH PRO PLAYERS AND OWNERS

Towards the end of the 2015 Summer Split we started piloting the idea of an “LCS Pro Player Panel,” inviting every team to send one player representative chosen by their teammates to the Riot offices to meet with us periodically to give their feedback on a wide range of topics ranging from the league format and player welfare to the 2016 penalty index. The feedback we received on a number of topics ranging from the LCS format to player protections was valuable and has helped inform our offseason plans including our Summer Split format changes and changes to player-team contracts to improve the league in 2016.

While we’ve been speaking with players informally about these kinds of issues since the formation of the LCS, having an organized and consistent channel for that feedback really levels up our process. We first introduced the penalty index to this group last year – their feedback and input helped us to refine and make tweaks before this final version.

The LCS Pro Player Panel is still in its early stages, but we’ll continue seeking feedback on ongoing developments and changes in the future. We’ll proactively discuss league rules and best practices (amongst other things) regularly with this group, as well as meet individually with players who’ve been penalized to make sure they have an opportunity to ask for clarification about potential penalties and how they can avoid them in the future. This is something we’ve done informally in the past, but we’d like to make it a formal part of the LCS moving forward.

We’re similarly looking to meet with LCS owners more frequently than we have in the past to discuss pressing concerns in the league and improve our ability to incorporate their feedback into our disciplinary policies and vision for the league’s future. As with players, we’ve already had feedback from owners inform our some offseason plans, including our overhaul of the promotion-relegation system.

All of this is part of a larger effort to incorporate more dialogue with pro players and owners into the league disciplinary process and structure. Since one of our goals behind league rules is to encourage teams to behave professionally and exhibit good sportsmanship, it makes sense to engage in a more consistent dialogue with players and owners about what exactly that means.

CONCLUSION

Penalty indexes and the LCS ruleset aren’t intended to be stone tablets from above – LoL esports is still young and we’re learning how exactly leagues are best governed. As such, we expect the system to evolve over time.  As always, we’ll monitor the results of these changes and make adjustments as needed to better serve the ecosystem.

Thanks for reading!