So, as someone with a lot of very strong opinions about both League of Legends and online communication, I am wildly in favor of this decision.
The problem with all-chat in League of Legends, particularly in the ranked queue, is that it can only hurt your team's chances to win. At best, you're wasting time typing; at worst, you're actively frustrating and distracting yourself from what is already a very difficult game.
All-chat, as some have already noted, is actually an opt-in feature already; you have to turn it on. I've had it turned off for about two years. I don't like it; it makes me play worse. That is beside the point.
In my opinion, the point of this change (from Riot's perspective) is not to shield you, individually, from your opponents' flame. /mute exists, and if you want, you can turn /all off entirely. What you can’t do is turn it off for your teammates, and that’s the problem.
The point of this decision is to stop people from engaging. And for that, I am grateful. I can count many, many games that I knew my team could win, if only they would stop getting tilted and typing back at what the enemy team was yelling at them in /all. All I want -- and apparently, all Riot wants -- is for people to just stop yelling and play a gosh darn videogame.
The complaint, as far as I can tell, is that you lose beneficial interactions from this, too; "glhf [good luck, have fun]" at the start of the game, or "nice play" from someone you just killed.
I have played a lot of this game; comfortably thousands of hours. I understand that this is anecdata from some guy on the internet, but I feel extremely confident in saying that the positive interactions are a minority; even if they're not, I would be hard-pressed to say that they outweigh the games that I've lost, or the anger/frustration I have seen teammates feel, as a result of /all.
It is funny how Dota 2 goes completely in the opposite direction. It lets you taunt[1], spray paint[2] and high five your teammate(useful when you kill an enemy). Because this (mind game) is part of winning Dota matches. You win when the opposing team loses its spirit.
Ok, cool, that's their design choice, but that doesn't sound fun. If that' the kind of environment they want to foster, that's fine, but that seems terribly off-putting. I'm not really going to enjoy a game where my opponents are encouraged to taunt me when I lose. That just doesn't sound very fun.
Yep, and Dota’s got a fucking miserable community, too.
They have voice chat amongst teammates, though, which totally changes the way people communicate.
Toxicity is an online communication problem, and particularly a multiplayer videogame problem, and particularly a MOBA problem. There are lots of thoughts on how to fix it.
One that has not been tried very much is “take away their toys”; I, for one, am excited.
Toxicity is the situation most people are that escape into video games to get a life they do not have. Toxicity is a society that treats people as replaceable cogs for low-wage jobs.
When ones snide remark on your "a minute late"-late flies into ones face in the evening, all the censoring in the world will not make that world go away. They will dance insults and write "cunt" in spells and corpses on your screen.
The reality our choices create, will buckle all attempts to paint over it.
I got some acquaintances who taunt and jeer me face-to-face in board games, and they're well paid professionals paid 6+ figures. So yeah, I stopped playing boardgames with them and play with others.
Its always fun to watch the big games at the dota leagues (like The International going on atm [0]) and half the players is just taunting and spamming voice lines which are a item you can buy where you play a bit of audio in the game. And it happens at every level of play, from my own games deep in the trench to the highest level of play.
(You can also high five your enemies for some friendly interaction)
> It lets you taunt[1], spray paint[2] and high five your teammate
Never played a lot of MOBAs, but those are usually all canned interactions provided by the game devs, are they? As such I imagine they have a different impact than an actual chat message that you know your opponent just thought up.
It's like spamming stickers in telegram vs having an actual conversation there.
That's just not the way to handle a community /all-chat is OPT-IN since nearly 8 years ago. That said there sure is an abundance of toxicity in League of Legends and other competitive games, it comes with the nature of competitive sports or esports.
The question is why they decide to take away an OPT-IN feature (you can also mute single players) which a huge size of their player base uses to build their own communities and friendships.
For me this is a total surrender from a dev studio that has a history of going about problems in radical/disputed ways without regards to their own communities criticism. Dynamic Que, Twisted Tree Lines, No Voice Communication, Chat Restrictions and so much more. Riots approach to solving problems is basically "If the house is on fire better call the ambulance." They will achieve their goal to save some of toxicity but they let the house burn to the ground.
There are also way more intelligent ways to combat toxicity as blizzard and other publishers show in their games. If you flame your opponents and the bad filter catches it a message like "gg ez" would be translated into something like "I’m wrestling with some insecurity issues in my life but thank you all for playing with me." or "It’s past my bedtime. Please don’t tell my mommy.". Electronic Arts is simply shadow banning players.
The most important part is the loss of player engagement. As a player you now can't distinguish if you are playing against real players or bots and I truly believe this is the real ground for concern if you watch their dev vlog about their progress with AI bots I am 100% sure that we will see AI bots in the near future on servers with a dwindling active playerbase.
> The problem with all-chat in League of Legends, particularly in the ranked queue, is that it can only hurt your team's chances to win. At best, you're wasting time typing; at worst, you're actively frustrating and distracting yourself from what is already a very difficult game.
I don't agree; /all is a very viable vector for giving your team a huge leg up. If you are skilled at talking shit, you can usually tilt someone on the other team so much that they become a non-factor. So many times I've seen the enemy team turn on each-other because one of their laners made some small mistake, which I capitalized on as a chance to relentlessly attack them in /all chat. They become tilted and start playing poorly, their team starts attacking them as well for the poor play, and often they will either troll, constantly call for a surrender, or even AFK in the fountain. The mental aspect of the game is just another tool in your arsenal for gaining an advantage over the enemy, and in my opinion it's just as important as the mechanical and strategic aspects.
Moba games are a psychological battle just as much as they are a skill based one, it is totally possible to tilt the enemy team enough to turn tide. Besides, have you ever considered that some of your teammates might play the game for, you know, fun?
The majority of interactions I have had through /all where playful ones, challenging the enemy, just having a bit of a chat. You hate the /all chat because you think this is wasted time on your way to a game victory, but I ask you, if I'm having fun, and the enemy is having fun, is it wasted time? As I see it, you are glad riot now choose your preferences as a serious gaming business kind of dude over the people who want to have actual fun playing games, and that's okay, but you could at least reflect on this.
Besides, 99% of all flame and bad mood doesn't come from the enemy team, it comes from your own team. In fact, I'd like an option to mute my team and leave the /all chat open. I don't give a fuck about why my jungler thinks I was in a position to help him when i clearly wasn't or that my botlane thinks i should danger ping them in addition to my ss.
The problem with all-chat in League of Legends, particularly in the ranked queue, is that it can only hurt your team's chances to win. At best, you're wasting time typing; at worst, you're actively frustrating and distracting yourself from what is already a very difficult game.
All-chat, as some have already noted, is actually an opt-in feature already; you have to turn it on. I've had it turned off for about two years. I don't like it; it makes me play worse. That is beside the point.
In my opinion, the point of this change (from Riot's perspective) is not to shield you, individually, from your opponents' flame. /mute exists, and if you want, you can turn /all off entirely. What you can’t do is turn it off for your teammates, and that’s the problem.
The point of this decision is to stop people from engaging. And for that, I am grateful. I can count many, many games that I knew my team could win, if only they would stop getting tilted and typing back at what the enemy team was yelling at them in /all. All I want -- and apparently, all Riot wants -- is for people to just stop yelling and play a gosh darn videogame.
The complaint, as far as I can tell, is that you lose beneficial interactions from this, too; "glhf [good luck, have fun]" at the start of the game, or "nice play" from someone you just killed.
I have played a lot of this game; comfortably thousands of hours. I understand that this is anecdata from some guy on the internet, but I feel extremely confident in saying that the positive interactions are a minority; even if they're not, I would be hard-pressed to say that they outweigh the games that I've lost, or the anger/frustration I have seen teammates feel, as a result of /all.