Riot is closing Solo Q for Toxic Players

In an effort to counteract League of Legends' pervasive toxicity, Riot has boosted the development of new features over the past six months. The in-game report feature, along with other mute and deafening capabilities, is being added as one more measure to actually deter people from acting like jerks in solo queue.

TimTamMonster mentioned in a blog entry from May 24, 2023, that players who have displayed toxic behavior will be banned from the ranking queue and made to play in alternative lines in its place. As a result, players that engage in disruptive behavior of any kind will be required to play in other queues rather than the solo queue.

Who will get Solo Q Restrictions?

Players that were flagged for purposeful feeding, going AFK, or chat abuse will receive this punishment. Players who have received a punishment for engaging in this behavior must play different queues in order to unlock their ranked queue once more.

According to Riot:

While there may be concerns around disruptive players moving to other queues, we recognize that the environment of the Ranked queue results in considerably more disruptive behavior. 

Players that frequently engage in inappropriate conduct in their games will not only be barred from the ranked queue, but Riot will also penalize them as usual with account bans and longer queue wait times.

It was also indicated that the team would closely monitor conduct in other queue types when the ranked lockout went live to see whether disruptive behavior would increase there or not. Hopefully, you won't get any teemo junglers any time soon, and if you do, you'll have to take a nicer approach to the situation.

Is Smurfing the real problem?

In League of Legends, Smurf accounts are incredibly affordable. For just a few dollars, players can start playing by purchasing level 30 accounts. However, boosted accounts can also be purchased everywhere, which allows anyone to play at any elo level provided they have enough money, despite these accounts being banned every week. The cherry on top is that these accounts are being banned for being sold, not for being boosted!

Although the solo queue lockout seems like a nice concept in theory, a lot of players feel that it won't address the root of the problem because so many players use alt accounts or purchased smurf identities to play and behave. The gamers are also not concerned with any of the penalties Riot imposes because they won't have an impact on their primary account because these accounts aren't theirs.

These are usually discardable accounts they use for a couple of games until they get unavoidably banned.

On Reddit, a player proposed that everyone register their phone number. Accounts associated with the same person can be linked by adding their phone number, which means that if one person's account in smurf games is toxic and they are kicked from the solo queue, all the accounts associated with that phone number will also be kicked out of their queues.

It is unclear whether Riot will take this approach, but one thing is for sure: they are acting against toxicity.

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