Improper use of pings
A great deal of the time, players use some smart ping for other than their intended purpose. I think we have all have seen a player using MIA pings to flame a teammate for in their opinion of bad a play. This is behavior that I have found to be part of some toxic players. Even respected culture figures like streamers do this (maybe not often enough to be considered toxic). The problem in my opinion is a ping is a quick and simple way to flame, doesn't use the chat and it has become accepted by the community. Players know it's not okay to flame (extreme flaming is a form of toxicity) and some even defend their teammates. This is not the case for pings. No one says anything when a player is getting bullied with pings. I think this needs to change. To kick off the conversation here is what I think could help this issue in order of my perceived long term effectiveness:
- Educate the community.
- Add a report option for improper use of pings.
- Make a mute player pings button in game.
- Re-purpose or change how MIA pings look in game.
- Mute for a longer time when a player pings too many times.
Other pings get used improperly to a lesser degree but are still spammed heavily. I have focused on MIA pings but other pings can be just as bad when spammed.
Searching the forums I could only find misplaced or unrelated threads. Hopefully this actually gets some attention.
tl;dr Smart pings are an unsanctioned form of toxicity.