Parties level up!

Riot·Mar 14, 2018·3 votes·35,421 views

Playing League with friends just got boosted. Open parties are a new way to fill a lobby without spamming invites, and it’s live right now. Parties will have voice chat equipped in patch 8.6, so feel free to request a gank from your farm-loving Udyr in real audio.

Everyone’s Invited

The days of sending a bunch of invites and staring longingly at your screen for friends to accept are gone. Pick a queue and your open party will appear to your friends in their friends list. They’ll see the number of spots available and the queue you chose. With one click, they'll be in the party and their buddies have an option to join too.

So if you choose to play Draft Pick, your friends will see 1/5 spots filled for Draft and press the button next to your name to join. Once they’re in, their friends and yours will see 2/5 spots filled for Draft and choose to join as well. Once they’re in, their friends and yours will see 3/5 spots filled for Draft and choose to join as well. Once they’re in, their friends and yours will see we’re taking this joke too far.

Queue restrictions are the same, so you can’t play with more than two teammates for Twisted Treeline and you can’t enter Ranked Flex with four players.

If you’re not feeling open parties, turn the feature off with a toggle in your lobby and the client remembers your setting. If you close your party, you can still send invites to friends.

Voice for Parties in Patch 8.6: Talk Me Through It

After patch 8.6, your party can’t ignore your cries for help because they’ll hear you in voice chat. Voice chat only works for parties that queue together. If your party is a duo, you’ll only hear their voice in-game. As soon as you join a friend’s party you’ll connect to voice chat automatically and remain connected for as many games as you play together. We all have that quiet friend who doesn’t yell loudly enough when they’re getting ganked; just press tab in-game and adjust your settings to hear them. Voice works for any party of two or more players.

Start the Wombos

Test drive different team comps, play for laughs, or tryhard as an organized team. Leave questions in the comments and we’ll get you ready to party.

200 Comments

NoahNGCMar 14, 201836 votes

Now everyone can hear me yell "IT'S ME HAHAHA" Twitch

Raven RedeemedMar 14, 201834 votes

Is there a way to automatically restrict certain people from joining open parties? I don't always want those random people I friended to join a party with my real friends.

How Do You MetaMar 14, 20187 votes

Yes, there is a button that let's you change it. It's that top right button that is green with a people icon next to the invite button on it to restrict it.

Raven RedeemedMar 14, 20187 votes

The button at the top right? I think that is to open/close the party. I was talking about keeping the party open (no invites) but restricting certain people from joining, preferably controllable by folders so I could restrict any in my "random people" folder from joining.

How Do You MetaMar 14, 20186 votes

The open party stuff means people from your friend's friends can join, so if you close it then it is just people you invite. I think it's an all or nothing thing where you can't restrict certain people from joining if it's open.

ModPeriscopeMar 14, 20185 votes

People are still trying to figure this out IRL. RITO HAAALP!

RiotMontagMar 14, 201840 votes

Since Open Parties is a pretty new concept for League, we wanted to start off making it dead simple: it's either open or it's closed. We'll definitely be looking at how players use to to find ways to improve it generally, including whether it makes sense to add more control over who sees it.

Silenced WatcherMar 15, 201830 votes

Something that could be an easy way around this could be to be able to select which "Folders" of friends in your friends list can see these open games. I use these folder in my friends list to sort from real friends and friends that I add or add me from random games I play anyway. This uses a feature already in the game so not as much needs to be done.

How Do You MetaMar 14, 201816 votes

I just hope I don't get flamed at for not being in a voice chat group, because I always found talking with people distracting.

DadPlsNotTheBeltMar 14, 20187 votes

same here i usually just prefer listening to music rather than talking

SkipperOtterMar 14, 20186 votes

I mean, if you read the article it's only with premade groups, so unless your friend lists are full of jerks, I think y'all are gonna be okay

OleandervineMar 14, 20183 votes

Lord knows I don't need shit like what happens in OW on the PS4. There are mouthbreathers, kids with parents who yell at them, animals, people playing bad music, and just people who don't understand the meaning of turn your damn voice chat off if your environment is going to be making constant noise.

RiotMontagMar 14, 201810 votes

@Dean: You actually do have full control over the volume of the other players in your party in the League client and in game, and you can mute others if you need to.

DarkKatalystMar 14, 201815 votes

Voice chat only works for parties that queue together.

How Do You MetaMar 14, 20186 votes

And yet I still don't want to be forced to talk to my premades.

trueboy012Mar 14, 201814 votes

nice to see you guys add voice chat but i gotta ask: why is it only for parties?

ItsTheM0NSTERMar 14, 20188 votes

true, they could make it team-wide and u can mute them in tab menu.

TheEvilQueen135Mar 14, 201816 votes

probably so there is less bickering?

HorcruxiaMar 14, 201815 votes

I think it is there so that there are less of a chance of being grouped with a practitioner of the Salt and you can go with peopleyou are sure of

SkipperOtterMar 14, 201814 votes

It's probably the easiest way to test it out with the general public. Once they've run it for a little while, and had the time to bugfix and make changes/improvements, it's quite possible we'll see it brought in on a higher level, such as a staple in all ranked games

DarkKatalystMar 14, 201836 votes

Many reasons.

Some people are used to playing without it, and have no interest being asked to use it.
Imagine how tilting it would be to see a troll inting, AND hear what they have to say.
How is Riot going to handle flaming through voice chat? It's an extra layer they don't want to touch.
People who aren't used to each other are probably going to argue about strategy. Or there's going to be nitpicking. Complaining. And instead of easy to ignore text chat, it will be voices.

Moist KuhntMar 14, 201811 votes

That you should be able to mute..... just saying. [sg-ahri-1]

R2D2uMar 15, 20185 votes

you tell em RealNuckChorris...Dota has it and works good...hope it wont make the game lag or something. [vlad-salute]
Teemo Teemo

LuckismMar 14, 20184 votes

Toxicity i'm assuming. Just from games with everyone, like csgo and the like, there's always that one guy that is super annoying. So this is to prevent that. If you happen to really like someone, u can add them to your party afterwards

sKz Aaron DMar 14, 20186 votes

Because it's infeasible for them to police audio of every game for behavior that is against the rules. By only allowing party members to speak to each other, it prevents most trolls that type obscenities all game from screaming them at you instead.

Talon JesusMar 14, 20181 votes

There is a thing called reporting for flaming and if enough reports are put against a person their is clearly something wrong

Talon JesusMar 14, 20184 votes

Infact most multiplayer competitive games have a voice chat League is just slow.

LewdmyMar 14, 201812 votes

[deleted]

CatsixMar 14, 201812 votes

That would be a great option, even if it was just something like "hey three of your teammates are in a voice chat, want to join?" and they can accept or ignore it.

LuckismMar 14, 20185 votes

facts

RiotMarshmallowBobMar 14, 201811 votes

Not right now; it's just restricted to premades only.

RiotMontagMar 14, 201810 votes

You can't add them during the game, but you can invite them to your party on the end of game screen by hovering over their row and clicking the invite to party button.

NanoAiMar 15, 201812 votes

What do you guys think about having optional position based voice? So when someone on your team screams "help" you can actually tell where they are relative to your character based on the sound of their voice.

SKWALOMar 15, 20184 votes

lol i like this

BallermikeMar 14, 201810 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

RiotMontagMar 14, 201812 votes

[slayer-jinx-catface]

RuneeternalMar 14, 20187 votes

Gj Riot, one of the first community boards I have posted too, and one of the first I have seen an apparent positive community response. I think this is a great idea and a step into making sure league stays relevant into the future. [katarina-love]

XaafiraMar 14, 20185 votes

[galio-happy]

V ıMar 14, 20186 votes

Is there a way to turn off voice chat if we prefer to use other voice methods?

PhosphophyliteMar 14, 20189 votes

You can disconnect from the voice chat, or even turn it off entirely and it will remember your settings.

XaafiraMar 14, 20187 votes

Yep, you can opt out and control the volumes /mute any member in your voice chat from the lobby and in-game too.

AznTruebladeMar 14, 20186 votes

Is it possible to disable the voice tab from automatically coming up when holding down Tab? Its rather annoying having it blocking the view in the lower right hand corner

RiotMontagMar 14, 201810 votes

Yup, we're looking at making that configurable.