Disabling chat in Bronze/Silve/Gold Solo Que
Specifically after champion select, the chat feature in game provides little to meaningful use, especially if the game is not going well after the first two to five minutes. Often times, in games I play, what little meaningful information is provided in chat isn't acted on anyways. Typically there is always one, or several, players on any given team who feel the need to justify or deflect the smallest mistake leading to a kill. By typically, I mean this seems to happen in every game. I made a mistake, I didn't pay attention, I died. Well, this looks we might lose, time to go into chat and tell the team that it was not my fault I just died and maybe even blame some set of circumstances beyond my control, or perhaps another player. Every game it happens, and from that point on chat is worthless and just a gigantic argument. To make matters worse and to provide an example, in the last three games I've played, I watched an early game situation go bad because 'that guy' was standing still telling the team 'how it is' in chat while getting grabbed by the numerous unhealthy Q's in the game (Blitz, Thresh, Morg). In all three games it led to an unanswered loss of the very next tower. These were just three examples in my mind, seems to happen all the time. I don't think anyone can disagree with me in saying that at low elo we hardly know at what and where to be looking anyways but player map awareness only declines greatly when they are busy in chat with issues not relevant to the present or future of the current game. This is not just an issue with 'learn to use the ignore feature' the quality of the game goes sour still even if I ignore the argumentative player, or the whole team. It seems difficult for others to not fall into the trap of hitting enter and arguing back. So even if I've done what I can with the ignore feature, as of now, one person can turn a slightly grim situation at 3 minutes into a 40+ minute argument in chat that is unproductive, and unhealthy, to the current game in every way.
Maybe in a higher tier the chat feature may have some use after champion select, but where I am at there seems to be little meaningful information supplied. Other than some minor detail explaining a ping like 'wards here' or 'no wards here'. Really, I think a global mute in lower elo ranked que's would mean a lot in developing a quality gaming experience. Sure, after the game is over, cut to the score screen, enable chat, and let the kids start the crying. I'll gladly close the window before I have to hear one detail and be happy in knowing that my teammates didn't have chat distracting them and they spent all that unproductive time screaming at the monitor, beating their keyboard, verbally abusing their mom, or whatever else these types of players have to do to cope with making a mistake.