League Players Are Asking: What Happened To Riot’s Griefing Detection?

Almost a year and a half ago, Riot announced major improvements to the detection of inting and griefing. Since then, several new systems have been rolled out, from better detection to account linking. But a recent Reddit thread shows that many players are still not convinced the Solo Queue experience has actually improved in a noticeable way.

Riot Had Promised Major Improvements

In April 2025, Riot openly admitted that it had not kept up quickly enough with the development of problematic player behavior when it came to griefing detection. With Patch 25.09, significantly better systems were supposed to be introduced to detect intentional feeding, trolling, and other forms of game-ruining behavior more reliably.

At the time, Riot also gave a concrete expectation: the new systems were supposed to result in around ten times more legitimate bans per day for game-ruining behavior than the previous gameplay detections. At the same time, Riot emphasized that it would not reveal exactly what the system looks for, because players could otherwise find ways to avoid it more easily.

That is understandable in principle. No developer can fully explain an anti-griefing system without also creating a guide on how to avoid it. The problem is that if players cannot see what is happening in the background, they are left mainly with their own Solo Queue experience. And that feeling remains mixed across the community.

Many Players See Too Little Change in Their Games

The current Reddit thread picks up exactly there. The author points back to Riot’s announcement at the time and asks whether Riot has since abandoned the topic. Their reasoning: they still see streamers griefing on secondary accounts, players with purchased or botted accounts, suspected boosting, and obvious inting without the consequences being clearly visible.

Some comments share that perception. Several players say they have not noticed any real improvement yet. One common criticism is that systems may detect very obvious behavior but still fail when it comes to more subtle griefing. Someone running straight into towers or standing in base permanently is easy to identify. It becomes much harder with players who intentionally make bad decisions while still being able to pretend they are simply having a bad game.

That is the core problem. League is too complex to cleanly separate every case of intentional misconduct from poor performance. A player who constantly rage-splits, ignores objectives, or deliberately never groups can ruin a game heavily. At the same time, an automated system cannot simply punish every bad split push or every wrong macro decision without risking far too many false positives.

Account Linking Was the Next Major Step

Riot has not simply dropped the topic, however. Later, the company announced measures against purchased, botted, and shared accounts. The most important part is penalty linking: punishments can be applied across multiple accounts if Riot is highly confident that they belong to the same person.

That addresses one of the community’s biggest problems: disposable accounts. If a player ints on a smurf, gets banned, and then immediately continues on the next account, every punishment feels toothless. Riot explained that account linking uses different hardware and behavioral data but only triggers when the connection is extremely reliable.

That makes sense but again shows the conflict. High certainty reduces wrongful punishments but potentially lets more offenders slip through. More aggressive detection could hit more problematic players but would also increase the risk of punishing innocent accounts. Riot has to be very careful here, because account linking can have much harsher consequences than a normal single-account penalty.

Community Frustration Also Revolves Around Bots and Scam Accounts

Interestingly, the Reddit thread is not only about classic inting. Many comments also talk about level-one accounts adding players after matches, often seemingly to lure them onto Discord or other platforms. For many, that feels like another sign that Riot’s measures against bots and disposable accounts are not visibly effective enough.

Riot has communicated major ban waves against botted and purchased accounts before, including hundreds of thousands of ranked accounts and millions of accounts that had been sold or were waiting to be sold. Still, the problem remains visible in everyday play for some players. That creates the impression: if I still receive bot friend requests after almost every game, how much has really improved?

This may not be exactly the same problem as soft-inting, but it belongs to the same perception. Players do not judge the health of the game based on internal ban numbers. They judge it based on what they see in their lobbies, friend requests, and match histories.

The Truth Is Probably Somewhere in the Middle

The community reactions are not completely one-sided. Some players report that AFK detection feels stronger or that they do notice real improvements. Others argue that ban waves cannot be immediately visible by design, because botters and griefers would otherwise learn faster what triggered them. So there is some understanding that Riot cannot explain every measure publicly.

Still, a communication problem remains. Riot announced concrete progress in 2025 and promised further follow-ups. If players are still asking almost a year and a half later whether anything has actually changed, “a lot is happening in the background” is no longer enough. Even if the systems are better, players need to feel that reports matter and that repeat offenders cannot simply move to new accounts.

In the end, griefing detection is one of the hardest problems in League. Punishing obvious inting is relatively easy. Reliably detecting soft-inting, rage-splitting, intentionally bad macros, and disposable accounts without punishing normal bad games is much harder.

Riot probably has not abandoned the issue. But the current discussion shows that the community needs more visible results. Not necessarily exact detection details, but clear updates: what is working better? Where are there still problems? And how often are account linking and new punishments actually taking effect? As long as those answers are missing, every new Solo Queue disaster will feel to many players like proof that nothing has changed.