Bringing in voice comms is a BAD idea

TheGrot·Sep 15, 2016·87 votes·3,744 views

Before I get people making comments in response to the headline alone, I invite you to read what I say. Several seasons ago, I stopped playing League all together for 4-6 months, with Dota 2 being the new game I started playing. It wasn't that I didn't like league, but my friends wanted to play dota 2. After those 4-6 months, I came back to league and I've stayed here since. Dota 2 had its strengths, but it also had its weaknesses. Take my word for it, comms open up a WHOLE NEW LEVEL of toxicity and frustration. You get accents and language barriers. You hear the hate in someone's voice. And it gives people this sense of entitlement.

Do not bring voice comms to league of legends. There are plenty of options without it that you can use with your friends, but opening up the option to random solo queue players isn't a good idea.

93 Comments

Gamer Girl PaigeSep 15, 201627 votes

But it's easier not to get banned if I use voice chat to be toxic?

VivaLaKittenSep 16, 201623 votes

pls don't add voice chat, its one of the perks League has over games like Call of Duty you don't have to hear . . . the things . . . you hear

S0LST0RMERSep 16, 201615 votes

i think they should open up comms. do you know how unnatural it is to have to stop the game just to type something? its like playing football and then stopping to take a shit every couple of seconds. plus you will probably die less to rengars whilst typing. i mean it worked for xbox. having a voice chat gave xbox such a unique atmosphere and sense of excitement. sometimes you come across seriously funny people, sometimes the thrill of arguing with someone, it can take your mind off of the game. if you wanna play seriously then comms all the way, it releases the game from unnatural and random pauses. like anything if you dont like what you hear you can always mute them

Draven Wun TrickSep 16, 201613 votes

You can always disable it. just leave it open for those who want it. ( i dont want it btw)

DrCyanideSep 16, 201617 votes

I'm going to disagree with you on this point, because of the very nature of how voice chat works.

We've all, at one point or another, queued up into a game that was completely silent from our teammates. No pings, no chat, nothing. You ping, and no one responds. You don't have any of the information the rest of your team is giving you, because they're all saying it over voice chat while you're not on the call.

That's the problem with Muting Voice Chat for League. It doesn't get you back to neutral, it leaves you worse than not having voice chat in the game.

ArakadiaSep 16, 20162 votes

You could just put on the mode that lets you here them but they cant here you.

DrCyanideSep 16, 20165 votes

How would that fix anything? If you've got to mute an ally, you're still not going to hear any of their game-relevant communication.

ArakadiaSep 16, 20162 votes

You mute your mic, so they dont hear you. If you want you can listen to any allies you want or mute an allies you want.

MyLittleWindmillSep 16, 20163 votes

Most games i've played in the past with voice chat have it this way anyway, and it would have to be an option because not all computers have microphones- mine doesn't. You could always buy one, but I don't think Riot can expect everyone that doesn't have a microphone to be forced to buy one. On console games I know if you don't have a mic, you can still hear chat between people in your party that do have mics. As long as you're responding to the voice comms with ping/text-chat, it could still be efficient.

Since a lot of games work with voice comm even for those without the option, it wouldn't be that different if League had an option to opt-out.

DrCyanideSep 16, 20164 votes

What on earth are you talking about? This isn't about having a microphone or not.

The problem isn't people who don't have microphones communicating. They'll continue to ping, the exact same as they do now.

The problem is people with microphones communicating only by talking. When inevitably you have to mute some of them, you will then not get any information from them. No "MIA" pings, no "Ult in 10 seconds" pings, nothing.

By getting less information from them than you currently do, the end state of the communication in game is made worse as soon as you have to mute someone.

From what I've seen, the majority of games with voice coms don't have the same time requirements nor team reliance that League has. You leave, it's whatever, it was a 10 minute match anyway. You don't like the way people are talking to one another, you go join a different server. No one really cares that you're out of ammo right then, because they aren't as dependent on you. That's not how League is structured, so it's only logical to assume League will have different problems than those games.

TheorcheroSep 16, 201612 votes

Comparing voice comms to games like DOTA or CSGO is a HORRIBLE comparison.

Dota and CSGO use STEAM for their servers.

Steam's servers and gaming platform naturally has more language barrier simply because their servers are multi-regional, you can queue for any region's servers with friends regardless of where you signed up your account for.

Secondly, steam has been notorious for being a haven for trolls because of how lenient they are at banning douchebags in their games. It takes literally hundreds of games sometimes to ban these people; even the most egregious cases of intentional feeding only took a month for Riot to catch on, and that's when they had to investigate accounts manually instead of detecting intentionally feeding automatically.

League wouldn't have these problems for several reasons:

On NA, the predominant language is English. In Europe it might be a bit more of an issue, but most people that live in Europe are multi-lingual anyway. Point is, with Region-lock existing, it's much more likely that everyone on the team will speak the same language.
It's going to be entirely opt-in, not opt-out.
If people are going to be toxic, they are going to be toxic. NUMEROUS studies have proven that talking to a person over comms makes you much less likely to dehumanize them and thus be rude to them, because you realize there is a person at the other end.
Finally, it's certainly going to be tracked. If you're a douche in comms you're probably going to get banned faster than you would in text-based chat in league.

Darf RakkiSep 16, 20166 votes

I agree with most of your points, aside from the last one. it would take way more resources for them to analyze voice comms to ban toxic players. Audio is a lot more data to store and review than a few lines of text chat is.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 16, 20164 votes

In EUW we speak: three types of german (+dozens of german variances), italian, greek, spanish, dutch, french, three belgian types, danish, portuguese and also some EUNE folks who switched to euw which would include: polish, czech, croatian and several other languages. It is not as easy as it sounds. Not to forget you may run into a a premade group of let's say turkish immigrants who just rant in their own language. I never want to have voice comms in our region and i don't care if i can just "mute" because i won't get any pings or chat messages either. It is okay as it is now and i actually stopped playing CoD and other games because of voice. On my PS3 it was different. ME3 online i actually made some friends to play with thanks to voice comm but also ran into enough toxic fucks.

DehitaySep 16, 20167 votes

I'm not gonna lie. Voice communication will almost definitely increase toxicity by a significant amount. But it's the only way to make the game even remotely fair for solo players in dynamic queue. And since Riot is hell bent on making dynamic queue succeed at all cost, this is one more necessary step into hell for the glory of dynamic queue.

KeevalroySep 16, 20162 votes

I don't know why this is being downvoted.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 16, 20162 votes

it's the boards. Sometimes it is the user who triggers them to downvote him no matter what. Or OP sending his friends/smurfs. Or dynaboosted harambes who want to defend this failed Q

KeevalroySep 16, 20162 votes

Or Riot brown-nosers that are offended that someone is placing their deities in a bad light.

Palmeiras SerieBSep 16, 20166 votes

As someone that played Dota 2 too, couldn't agree more.

Sona x RubickSep 16, 20166 votes

Playing dota2 since 2013, started to use voice chat since 2015 suddenly my win rate increased by like 12% and i'm at 4k9 mmr right now.

BeatzBoyFTWSep 16, 20165 votes

I dunno, I mean I played Overwatch a hell lot of time, and I never ran into ragers who rants through the voice comm for the whole game.

KeevalroySep 16, 20164 votes

{quoted}

I dunno, I mean I played Overwatch a hell lot of time, and I never ran into ragers who rants through the voice comm for the whole game.

Overwatch also isn't free.

Oakleaf RangerSep 16, 20163 votes

the matches don't last very long either or require the same type of communication

Project RivenSep 16, 20165 votes

This just in boys, voice commands FORCES you to listen to other players.

With voice command going live, your rights to mute other players will be removed.

GlaedrSep 16, 20164 votes

What if voice comms are treated as a privilege? Anybody who had a past punishment for behavior related reasons do not get the option, while the players who know not to act like whiny kids still use it. The way I see it is voice comms give players a whole new playing field and with the insane amount of backlash Riot got for dynamic queue this past year, I don't see how it's in any way a disadvantage.

DarkRitualSep 16, 20164 votes

Voice chat should be opt-in. If you want to hear others yout have to choose to. Apps like Curse have additonal means of dealing with people. You can mute and adjust volumes of people individually. If voice chat was added, something similar would be greatly beneficial.

The best thing Riot could do, however, is open up their API to voice comms software. Allow apps to integrate, using an opt-in system (Discord doesn't even require a downloaded client, as they also have connection through browser as an option). By allowing third party software to have some integration, it removes a lot of hassle from Riot. It's opt-in, and you can choose to disable notifications or auto-invites or whatever else to keep from others knowing you could join in but choose not to.

Blackstone01Sep 16, 20163 votes

Except you aren't forced into voice comms. Fine if you don't want to use it, that's your choice. But I personally would prefer having the option.

Nami in BushSep 16, 20162 votes

How else can I spam music through comms?

Oakleaf RangerSep 16, 20162 votes

Triggered

MonkeyMadnessSep 16, 20162 votes

DotA 2 is international servers, is it not? Everyone on the NA server for LoL should (should) be speaking American English, or at least be capable of speaking it (might get some Frenchies from Quebec).

EriduSep 16, 20162 votes

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JorenciceSep 16, 20165 votes

Actually english is the first language of over 80% of americans.

And of that 20% that dont a good majority of them are older arabic or spanish people who wouldnt be playing an online competitive game anyway.

So yea....

The VAST MAJORITY of people on the american server will be speaking english.

GG.

EriduSep 16, 20162 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 16, 20163 votes

All I can tell you is that literally every other competitive online game uses voice chat, and no one complains about a lack of comms. Oh, and did anyone tell you that you can mute in voice chat too??? WOW what a concept...

You also clearly do not understand the population profile of the United States. While there will OBVIOUSLY be people that speak languages other than English, the VAST majority of them will also speak English (kind of a requirement for living here, we generally don't speak other languages) and those that don't speak it (like the above guy said) are older people that came here later in life (who will not be playing League). Stop with your pc bullshit and accept the fact that voice chat >>> typed chat for the purposes of coordination. Oh, and one other crucial point: IF THEY DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH THEY SURE AS SHIT WON'T BE ABLE TO TYPE IT EITHER, so basically your point is invalid on all fronts. Good day to you.

EriduSep 16, 20161 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 16, 20162 votes

Have you tried out Overwatch yet dude? That's an NA server and I have yet to even hear a strange accent on that game. Everyone that I've played with so far speaks perfect English and is entirely understandable. Also, here's a thought: people don't speak with an accent, YOU (personally you, not the more vague "one") listen with an accent.

Stop saying that voice chat doesn't work, because we have cited multiple cases of games where it does, and you are nitpicking at hedge cases of very specific inconveniences.

JorenciceSep 16, 20163 votes

What... Who give a shit if they are multi cultural.

I dont think you understood the statistic.

80 FUCKING PERCENT OF AMERICA CAN SPEAK ENGLISH

OF THE TWENTY PERCENT THAT CANT A GOOD 18% ARENT EVEN IN THE SAME DEMOGRAPIC AS LOL.

Jesh...

Almost every single 13-30 year old in america can speak english. Period. Especially if you also limit that age group by video gamers.

Also the server isnt north america.

Its canada/USA

Everyone else has their own server.

EriduSep 16, 20162 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 16, 20162 votes

You must be 5 kid. Learn to understand accents or you will utterly fail if you ever get to college. Like, literally, you will fail. Miserably. There is not a TA at a public institution that speaks fluid English, and they are responsible for your grade, at least partially.

MonkeyMadnessSep 16, 20162 votes

Also, wtf does "culture" have to with anything? English is English, idc if you're black, hispanic, French, or w/e. If you speak English, I will understand you. And if you for some reason have some barrier here, that is YOUR problem, stop perpetuating it on me.

EriduSep 18, 20161 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 18, 20161 votes

posting numbers without a source doesn't do much of anything

Good thing I didn't do that...excellent citation here, kid.

not much of this was even relevant and more idiotic assumptions. bravo.

100% of it was relevant given your complaints, so I'm not sure how to respond to this.

a TA doesn't lecture a class so unless you have a problem with a mark on a paper or exam you have little contact with a TA.)

You are so fucked in college that it actually makes me laugh.

EriduSep 18, 20161 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 18, 20161 votes

It is actually NOT an assumption that the majority of the US speaks English. That is common knowledge, except apparently for you...

And the rest is NOT laughable. In fact, being able to "listen with an accent" is one of the most important life skills a person can acquire. If you don't understand other accents, that makes you borderline intolerant. Not to mention, straight up retarded.

EriduSep 18, 20161 votes

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MonkeyMadnessSep 18, 20161 votes

Facts are facts: pros use voice chat because it's BETTER. Other games use voice chat because it's BETTER. I have more friends on Overwatch (random people that I met, not irl friends) in 4 months than I do on LoL solely because of how easy it is to form a cohesive community via voice chat. These are factual examples from a real person, not hypotheticals from some shitty ass biased company.

MonkeyMadnessSep 21, 20161 votes

Very well. Enjoy this completely non-cohesive community, while a very nice friendly group of people is only one voice chat away.

AhristocatsSep 16, 20162 votes

i never had anyone abusing the voice chat in dota2, i feel like it's a mythe at least where i played (eune+euw) and even i find one i just press the mute button.

ElishevaSep 16, 20162 votes

Invitation declined. If you don't like it, don't use it.

Hot Belly DancerSep 16, 20162 votes

voice comm would be funny lmao, hearing those high pitched 12 years old voice crying about ks " riport ks" or "teem nob" rofl or how they banged my mother xD