Boards›Player Behavior

The design of player communication

GITROG M0NSTER·12/22/2017, 9:41:03 AM·1 votes·642 views

This is a very important issue and I would really like to discuss this in depth as much as I can in this post.

I love all amazing things we see with sound design that really make the game a joy to experience; the soothing otherworldly sounds of Bard, the unstoppable undead force of Sion and the creepy stalker vibe of Rek'sai. However a HUGE part of the game's player to player communication system has been grossly overlooked and suffers a lot from bad sound design.

Pings are meant to be a quick efficient way to communicate effectively with your teammates, and while they may be quick and efficient, they don't do the effective part very well. Your brain is attuned to natural human speaking tones and patterns, and the sound design for the current pings don't encourage the appropriate feeling for the message being communicated. The result is you are conditioned to have a negative emotional response to your teammates communication. Take the danger ping as an example, someone may be trying to politely warn you of danger, but the ping sounds angry, like they are saying "back the THE F** UP." Ideally its meant to communicate something along the lines of "woah, watch out!" but it fails at this. you can even see players using the emotions the pings evoke to harass others. The infamous question mark ping, probably the most misused ping, uses a tone that mimics the sound of "Really? (you did not just do that...)" These pings are the big offenders that can tilt a player that is already a little tilted off the face off summoners rift.

The positive pings are rarely used in harassment because they use tones that are appropriate for use in normal communication. The assist me ping is probably the easiest on the ears but can sound a little whiny. The other two are fine but they still kind of sound like buzzy alarm sounds. what I would really like to see is sound design that captures the tones that an energetic and charismatic player might use over voice communication in an exciting, intense game.

It would naturally follow that if the fastest most efficient way to communicate was also the most positive and effective way, then players would stop using pings to harass players, and the guy you were trying to help out by pinging danger wouldn't charge in resentfully because it sounds like he is being yelled at. Metallic, screechy and buzzy sounds may have their place in areas that are appropriate, but they absolutely should not be a part of player to player communication. League of Legends is a very stressful and intense game, and that is why I love it, but could definitely use some love in player communication department.

Riots current battle against toxicity has seen abstract rewards offered as carrots and bans and chat restrictions as sticks but I believe this is a very poor approach to getting players to act better in game. I focused on pings in this post but there are some problems with champion select as well that precondition players to have negative reactions. The best way to to encourage positive player interactions is to precondition them to feel good about communication and reinforce the positivity throughout the interaction in real time, not try to bribe or threaten them with abstract consequences. these are my thoughts on the issue and I really care about this game and don't want these issues to go unnoticed and I would really love to talk about some ideas for positive change in this area.

4 Comments

Ahmed Iqbal12/22/2017, 10:54:48 AM1 votes

Yeah People tend to forget Its Warning and Retreat Means " tactical withdraw " instead they think " backup coward you aint got skills to do that " and do not heed warning Sometimes people understand when i am playing jungler people who use pings to call Mias or Mid who wants to help always ping that they are on their way to help Bottom since jungler is busy with Top lane Xin/Yas ( Champions who arent meant to be played for top but ppl still choose to ). Pings are great way to communicate but people dont tend to utilize it properly

Kei14312/22/2017, 2:48:51 PM1 votes

hmmm...

I only occasionally see pings being abused in my games.

most people I've seen tend to use their pings wisely.

sleepysithlord12/22/2017, 2:51:26 PM1 votes

I only really see ping harassment in response to people inting?

Like, the famous question mark spam only comes after someone makes decisions that they know will likely result in their death, but they are trolling so they do it anyway. As long as there is no penalty for soft inting, there will be angry spam imo.

For example, I had a game the other day with a soft inting Riven. By soft inting, I mean on her op.gg, she had the most deaths of any player every game she played that day (at that point it was like 4 games in a row). She wasn't building all tears and running down mid, but she was intentionally choosing to put herself in situations where she would die for free. As long as that behavior is considered "playing the game my own way", people will spam them with question marks and death timers.

GITROG M0NSTER12/22/2017, 8:17:28 PM1 votes

Yes, most people use thier pings properly. But a big problem is people dont ping enough. If teams are able to feel more coordinated it going to elevate your experience of the game. If players feel like thier pings are more impactful in a positive way people are more likey to spam ping more. In a good way.