Rocket League adds 20-word Language Ban system that will 'evolve over time'

As its community continues to grow, people are getting ridiculously good at Rocket League. But the downside of an ever-growing playerbase is an unfortunately inevitable increase of abusive players. "The cornerstone of addressing in-game harassment is our 'Player Mute' and 'Report' systems," says Psyonix in a new blog post—which is something the developer's new 'Language Ban' hopes to address even further.

Billed as a "new layer of automation" to the game's pre-existing report-ban setup, the Language Ban system will automatically ban abusive players from online matches as per reports filed by players.

"While we have an initial list of over 20 words and variants, this list (which we will not be making public) will continue to evolve over time, and include words and phrases from multiple languages," says Psyonix. "Each word has its own threshold, and once a threshold for any word has been reached, that player will be automatically subject to a ban. These bans will typically start at 24 hours, then escalate to 72 hours, one week, and finally, a permanent ban."

Psyonix continues to say that of the thousands of daily reports it receives, the "majority" involve in-game harassment and abuse. The new system is designed to help the devs address reports more expeditiously, however it notes that it'll still monitor the likes of Reddit and other social media for feedback.

Psyonix adds: "We will organically update our ban policies and system logic as time goes on, of course, but the Rocket League community is the most important element of them all. So, if you see another player using abusive language during your match, please report them, mute them, and let us take care of the rest."

Thanks, Eurogamer.