Asking for a friend - Is there a way to disable your own ability to chat

Siachi·12/18/2015, 4:31:48 AM·9 votes·3,883 views

(Yes, it's a friend; I should hope my icon is enough to show I probably haven't been punished this year)

He's worried about getting his account banned again, and he knows he can't help make sarcastic remarks.

Short of physically removing the enter key off his keyboard, is there anyway for him to disable his ability to chat?

Failing that, any tips you could share with him to help him calm down and be a bit less snarky? I've noticed it usually happens when an ally makes a misplay or does something that makes it harder on the rest of the team (Enemy gets fed and starts roaming, jungler not ganking a lane he thinks needs it, usual stuff really)

30 Comments

RiotRiot Whiskies12/18/2015, 3:06:33 PM12 votes

Sorry to hear about this, but I commend your friend for being worried and realizing he has a bit of an issue with his chat style. Lots of folks wouldn't even admit that they are toxic, much less want to try and control that behavior! ٩( ᐛ )و

Not sure how helpful these suggestions might be, but here are things that come to mind:

-- Get one of those half-keyboards, that only offers the essential keys for playing LoL. He could start off with a regular keyboard to chat during champ select, but then switch to the new one during a match.

-- I know people have been suggesting to /mute, but if it's not something he wants to have to configure each match, at least turn off the option to see /all chat [Interface -> Chat]

-- Make the chat scale as tiny as possible! [Interface -> Interface Size -> Chat scale]

-- If none of these options cut it... cover the chat area on the monitor with a post it! Cheap and effective ☚(ﾟヮﾟ☚)

Again, kudos to your pal, and best of luck. I hope he is able to figure out methods that work for him not only prevent him from negative behavior, but will ultimately help him to control it himself. <3

Xrusa12/18/2015, 5:19:26 AM4 votes

If someone can't help but say stupid shit, they should be banned. If you have that little self control, you shouldn't play.

Awkward Couch12/18/2015, 5:23:57 AM2 votes

You can ask Riot for a chat restriction, however they aren't real big on handing those out if its not for a punishment. You could always just move the chat off the screen. Hit enter and move it to a position where your friend won't be able to see it. That's the only way I know how. :/

kaleb bartlett12/18/2015, 5:26:21 AM2 votes

He could just NOT touch the enter key... That's a fool proof way to not worry about it.

Veraska12/18/2015, 1:37:11 PM2 votes

Say it out loud, not in game, and even without chat toxic folk will find away to harass you, I was in a game the other day with a teammate who was chat ristricted whenever I mid played they'd spam the "?" Ping on me over and over. It was really annoying

MegaShroom900012/18/2015, 2:14:42 PM2 votes

Why the down votes? Seems like a legit question. Giving people the tools to reduce flaming seems like a good option if they know they have a problem in this area. (Ya sure, its easy to say stop being a jerk, but if a feature helps them stop being a jerk, then why not?)

EndlessSorcerer12/18/2015, 5:21:05 AM2 votes

He could probably unbind the enter key from chat through the in-game settings (pretty sure that's an option).

While he would be able to enable it whenever he wanted, it would provide a few extra steps to sending a message which may give him time to catch himself or to dissuade him from typing.

Generally, I'll typically just mutter under my breath if something actually manages to get under my skin. It lets me express my frustration without actually letting any of my teammates know about it.

FlashnFuse12/18/2015, 5:51:28 PM1 votes

I've heard of people unbinding the enter key, but I'm not sure how they did it. He could try binding chat to an inconvenient key or binding flash to enter so he disincentives pressing enter.

Jubbinaut12/18/2015, 6:08:10 PM1 votes

I have heard that there are 3rd party programs that can remap your keyboard. Using something like that is the only way I know of to remap or unbind the Enter key for League.

l Helios l12/18/2015, 8:49:09 PM1 votes

Take a screwdriver and remove your enter key if all else fails. That's a rather solid way to keep you from talking :) You can reattach it if you have the necessary parts and you didn't utterly destroy the key

Koonta Kintae12/19/2015, 7:51:19 AM1 votes

I'm facing a similar situation as the person in question. When I play ranked in ELO hell, I see toxic chat in at least 80% of my matches. Bronze and Low Silver have chat toxicity as the norm. My problem is I can't resist the urge to retaliate once it starts. Yeah I may have made mistakes and fed, especially if I play after some 'excessive consumption', but if I'm baited by chat insults it's very difficult for me to ignore it and keep playing. Under the old chat restrict system I was racking up back to back restrictions to the point I had played around 1000 matches while chat restricted and one of the later punishments was a 700+ game chat restrict. Under the new 3 strikes system, I've been so paranoid as to completely avoid chatting in most of my games or at least until I'm sure my teammates won't start something. But seeing the insults will still set me off to the point that I'll intentionally play badly to throw the match because I'd rather drive them down than carry them to victory. I won't intentionally feed or assist enemy team, but I won't work with the toxic teammates to win either, I'll just play poorly.

The best solution (albeit a very poor one) I've seen suggested is just dragging the chat window off the screen at start of the match. Frankly, they should just devoice bronze and silver league entirely IMO. When toxicity is the norm and not the exception it's too easy to get caught up in it.

I think Rito tries to hide just how toxic their game chat is, particularly in ranked. I'd wager that someone uses a bad word* in at least 80% of bronze matches on NA server, and the #1 bad word used is "report".

- bad word being any of the words in Rito's toxic players dictionary which includes several common English words that in the context of this game are considered toxic. Examples include: feed, fed, feeder, reported, outplayed, rekt, etc.

Dessem12/19/2015, 8:29:18 PM1 votes

I've gotten warned for being snarky. What helped for me is that whenever I think about making a comment on my teammates' play, I yell at the monitor instead. It makes me look like a total moron (my bird would probably agree furiously), but at least you're keeping it (mostly) to yourself. When you type it out, you're a moron for all to see. o/