Reports

Reports options for homophobia, racism, etc have likely been removed and replaced with just the option for abusive game chat, as there isn't really a reason to have separate options, as whenever game chat is abused, it's already pretty clear what is violating the rules.

The same can be said for the reports you are including in your screenshot. Abandoning, Colluding & Inactivity could all fall under sabotage. Though compared to text chat, it's a bit harder to figure out behavior-wise whenever someone is reported for sabotage.

Let's say I report someone for "Inactive during match", support would just have to scrub through the match to check whether or not the user was being inactive. But if we just had the 'Sabotage' option, support would have to go through the entire match to figure out whatever the user did that would be considered 'Sabotage'

Having specific report options for behavior would likely make the report reviewing process faster & easier, at least for the categories that are available. So that's probably why those options exist.

It's hard to say if people get banned for these categories, there just isn't any public information on this. These categories are usually harder to prove, especially due to the fact that there are likely a lot of 'false' reports that would be made with those categories.

To some users, playing with a specific legend, 'stealing' loot or having an aggressive playstyle, could be considered 'throwing', but it wouldn't actually violate the rules. Whether or not going AFK in-game for 30-60 seconds because something came up once or twice would likely not really result in a punishment either, but some would still report it.

So I think this is probably a combination of factors:

• These kind of reports would take longer to review because it's not as blatantly clear
• Not all reports are 'valid' in the sense that they are breaking rules
• Not all behavior would directly warrant a punishment
• The support agent reviewing the report does not know the exact definition of 'sabotage' that the user meant, so it would be hard to analyze the report and see what the user has experienced

There likely are a lot of factors, and these are just my 2 cents; though I do believe those report options can definitely be useful to EA/Respawn for handling those reports.

What do you feel that is currently missing? Would you have wanted to have one singular report option, or more descriptive ones? Or is this more something about getting feedback from reports? (e.g., We banned someone you reported for x category)

They could add a description box after the report category, as many games already do.

For example, if I report someone for inactivity, I could describe the specific period during which the person was AFK. Another example: if I report someone for sabotaging, I could describe why I believe this was the case, as you mentioned above. Actions like these could help support with the tracking process after a report is submitted.

Also, the reply email could provide a bit more information (not personal, of course) instead of just a generic “Your player report in Apex Legends helped us take action” or “We reviewed your report and didn’t take any action this time.” Did I actually help? How can I know the system is not just sending automated responses? It feels like saying, “Yes, I did what you suggested, but you won’t see any results. Trust me.” Providing more transparency would help players understand that the system works and how it works.

The game is seven years old, and we still haven’t seen any statistics/messages such as: “This year, the community helped us make the game better. We fixed this and that (quality of life improvements), and X% of players were punished for these reasons.” In addition, a large part of the player base has been complaining about toxicity and unpunished actions every single day so it feels like instead of moving forward and improving, the situation is getting worse day by day.