Rather then disable pings or muting players, how would everybody feel about an option that limits the number of shown pings to just 1 every X seconds from each teammate (5 or 10 for example. ) Then to take it a step further, players with chat restriction are automatically put on this. Edit for clarity. This feature would be in tab menu like the mute button, a toggle you can do in a second and only applies to you and the player you select.
Well, I don't know that I would limit it to just 1 ping, as it's often very helpful when calling MIA to ping 2-3 times. But I would have no problems with limiting it to say 3-4 pings over 15 seconds. The only downside to limiting the pings is that some people actually use them the way they are supposed to be used. And we've all been guilty of being caught up in a trade or skirmish and not noticing the 1-2 MIA pings from our teammates until their laner is on top of you. Sometimes, it helps to have multiple pings. Conversely, it's annoying as hell to have someone spam a ??? over your dead body or every time you miss a last hit. I guess you just have to decide which is more important: having the clear communication of MIAs, OMWs, HALPs, or having the freedom from the players who decide to abuse the ping system?
For me, I think the communication is probably more important, and while I'd be willing to limit the pings some, I don't think I would want to sacrifice the benefits I do get from it just to avoid those few trolls I encounter.
I sometimes use the standard ping to trace out the guessed path of an enemy or what path I intend on taking through the jungle for a gank, so I think limiting that option away would be a problem in such situations.
I ping trails. For instance, if I know the enemy's current pathing towards a gank I ping a trail showing from which point he's originating from and where he's going.
In aram, most often the mia ping spam is used on the enemy. For example, my most recent aram the enemy Sejuani flashed in place and then dashed towards her turret. Everyone on my team who saw it, which was all of us, pinged mia a few times since it was random and done for no reason.
It was kinda like using the mia ping as a sort of "wtf?" question. Since, well, it's a question mark. It works when you're confused with what happened for certain things.
Yeah, it gets used for the wrong way but it's not the only one that does. I once had someone constantly ping me to be careful... when I'd just recalled after barely surviving a fight. No, there wasn't an Ezreal, Jinx, Ashe, Draven or Karthus on the enemy team. They just decided for whatever reason to spam ping me to be careful right after recalling.
The best way would be to limit it. The most I've seen them used at once when used correctly, was 4. Someone had caught the enemy jungler pop up on the mini map, and had pinged the 4 possible places for him to have gone. His blue, our red, dragon or bot lane as he was seen closest to bot lane. So I'd say to limit it at 4.
