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Chat seems to have a lot more negatives than positives

Great Muta·11/19/2016, 10:33:12 PM·3 votes·1,030 views

NOTE - I am probably going to trigger some members of the RBSC(Rito Butt Slappers Club). I would recommend some playdoh and a hot cocoa to relax your feelings. Viewer discretion is advised.

Let's be honest, chat is mostly used for flaming, little else. The negatives clearly outweigh the positives. Let's take a look at both:

Positives of chat:

  • Could be a medium to discuss various strategies or important messages in game

  • Can sometimes provide interesting conversations

Negatives of chat:

  • Cannot be disabled

  • Players cannot be granted chat restrictions

  • Muted players become unmuted when the game ends

  • Frequently used a place to flame and criticize others

  • Not useful in group fight or speedy situations as it takes too long to type

  • Mostly seems to exist to get players in trouble

  • Doesn't reflect intent or tone well and a lot of time, which can increase tensions

  • Mostly everything you would need to say in game could be covered by pings

Other things to think about:

  • League is famous for being the most toxic game, despite having one of the biggest stances on anti-toxicity. After 6 seasons, the problem has not been solved and it would appear that it is not going to be solved under the current direction.

  • Downtime in the game leads to people abusing chat likely more than anything else. If you are dead for 40 seconds or so after a miscommunication, there's little else to do but flame.

  • League is one of the few games without mics, even though at its highest level of play, mics are essential to victory. Mics would help humanize players and likely would decrease toxicity.

Overall, it seems the negatives outweigh the positives with chat and with no chat, the amount of reports, bans and suspensions would easily decline by 95% or more. Disabling chat would solve the toxicity problem and could make for a better overall experience for players.

48 Comments

TyrekGoldenspear11/19/2016, 11:08:13 PM4 votes

So how is this supposed to trigger anyone?

Or are you saying that it might trigger people becuase you want the implication of triggering people to trigger people?

Also you need to drop that acronym. It means nothing and people who support Riot aren't blind followers who agree with all their decsisions. It only makes you look childish when you lump up all the people who disagree with you into a category you can insult to make yourself feel better.

Deep Terror Nami11/19/2016, 10:47:40 PM4 votes

Cannot be disabled

That's somewhat true. There's no built-in feature to disable your own chat, and this would not be a bad thing to have.

Muted players become unmuted when the game ends

Blocking players will actually mute them in the lobby too. They made the in-game Mute button Block instead of Mute with the client update but it turned out to be too heavy handed so they rolled that back, but you can still /ignore people in-game and they will be blocked to achieve this. The ability to block people through the social pane (without having them as your friend) is coming back to the updated client, it's just not implemented yet.

Frequently used a place to flame and criticize others

Most people don't actually have this problem. The majority of players are pretty silent. However, humans are social creatures and the ability to chat is something we should definitely have. The people that misuse it shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us, and that's why they get punished and lose that privilege. Maybe your real issue is that chat offenses are not punished often enough?

Not useful in group fight or speedy situations as it takes too long to type

Of course you are alluding to the existence of Pings being used. Yes, they should be used in situations where you can't type, but what about the rest of the time?

Mostly seems to exist to get players in trouble

As I said before, the vast majority of players don't have that problem.

Doesn't reflect intent or tone well and a lot of time, which can increase tensions

That's unavoidable, but it's not anything new. This generation should know very well how text-only communication can be misconstrued.

Mostly everything you would need to say in game could be covered by pings

Like I said, what about everything else?

Verbal chat through microphones would be much more effective

Hell no. While it's true that voice comms are better for a more thorough message which can be used even during a tense teamfight, you open up a whole new can of worms with it. It cannot be effectively moderated, which takes most of the problems with toxic chat and magnifies it many times over. You also can't effectively talk at the same time as someone else, and not everyone likes to speak up with strangers. Riot has not yet implemented VoIP into the game yet because they want to reduce or solve those problems inherent with other games that have it.

ModUlanopo11/20/2016, 1:24:29 PM3 votes

NOTE - I am probably going to trigger some members of the RBSC(Rito Butt Slappers Club). I would recommend some playdoh and a hot cocoa to relax your feelings. Viewer discretion is advised.

If you're going to start with an ad hominem, you should probably not bother.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo11/19/2016, 10:37:23 PM2 votes

I have been saying remove chat from the game for months now

Hryna11/19/2016, 11:40:05 PM2 votes

I came for the playdough and cocoa. Where playdough where cocoa.

bad arcade kitty11/20/2016, 1:30:06 PM2 votes

yeah, sure, "don't surrender, we can win 4v5 with a good initiation" can be said with pings, if i use morse code

Bídoof11/19/2016, 11:36:21 PM2 votes

The negatives outweigh the positives for people that have no self control or are just dicks in general

For people that like to win and you know, comunicate, we use the chat

LegendaryLemur11/19/2016, 11:09:27 PM1 votes

If you start the chat with some positive comments, i find you get a pretty fair number of positive responses.

50555507_DEL11/19/2016, 10:47:10 PM1 votes

Don't know why they don't just do something like Smite does. "Attack dragon", "Running low on mana" Team chat