Disabling /all chat in matchmade queues(leagueoflegends.com)
leagueoflegends.com
Disabling /all chat in matchmade queues
https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/disabling-all-chat/
106 comments
It is funny how Dota 2 goes completely in the opposite direction. It lets you taunt[1], spray paint[2] and high five your teammate(useful when you kill an enemy). Because this (mind game) is part of winning Dota matches. You win when the opposing team loses its spirit.
[1] https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Taunt_(Equipment)#List [2] https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Sprays
[1] https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Taunt_(Equipment)#List [2] https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Sprays
Ok, cool, that's their design choice, but that doesn't sound fun. If that' the kind of environment they want to foster, that's fine, but that seems terribly off-putting. I'm not really going to enjoy a game where my opponents are encouraged to taunt me when I lose. That just doesn't sound very fun.
Yep, and Dota’s got a fucking miserable community, too.
They have voice chat amongst teammates, though, which totally changes the way people communicate.
Toxicity is an online communication problem, and particularly a multiplayer videogame problem, and particularly a MOBA problem. There are lots of thoughts on how to fix it.
One that has not been tried very much is “take away their toys”; I, for one, am excited.
They have voice chat amongst teammates, though, which totally changes the way people communicate.
Toxicity is an online communication problem, and particularly a multiplayer videogame problem, and particularly a MOBA problem. There are lots of thoughts on how to fix it.
One that has not been tried very much is “take away their toys”; I, for one, am excited.
Its community is better than League if you have a good behavior score
Toxicity is the situation most people are that escape into video games to get a life they do not have. Toxicity is a society that treats people as replaceable cogs for low-wage jobs.
When ones snide remark on your "a minute late"-late flies into ones face in the evening, all the censoring in the world will not make that world go away. They will dance insults and write "cunt" in spells and corpses on your screen.
The reality our choices create, will buckle all attempts to paint over it.
The reality our choices create, will buckle all attempts to paint over it.
Or you know, they're just an asshole.
I got some acquaintances who taunt and jeer me face-to-face in board games, and they're well paid professionals paid 6+ figures. So yeah, I stopped playing boardgames with them and play with others.
I got some acquaintances who taunt and jeer me face-to-face in board games, and they're well paid professionals paid 6+ figures. So yeah, I stopped playing boardgames with them and play with others.
Its always fun to watch the big games at the dota leagues (like The International going on atm [0]) and half the players is just taunting and spamming voice lines which are a item you can buy where you play a bit of audio in the game. And it happens at every level of play, from my own games deep in the trench to the highest level of play.
(You can also high five your enemies for some friendly interaction)
[0]: https://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti
(You can also high five your enemies for some friendly interaction)
[0]: https://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti
> It lets you taunt[1], spray paint[2] and high five your teammate
Never played a lot of MOBAs, but those are usually all canned interactions provided by the game devs, are they? As such I imagine they have a different impact than an actual chat message that you know your opponent just thought up.
It's like spamming stickers in telegram vs having an actual conversation there.
Never played a lot of MOBAs, but those are usually all canned interactions provided by the game devs, are they? As such I imagine they have a different impact than an actual chat message that you know your opponent just thought up.
It's like spamming stickers in telegram vs having an actual conversation there.
That's just not the way to handle a community /all-chat is OPT-IN since nearly 8 years ago. That said there sure is an abundance of toxicity in League of Legends and other competitive games, it comes with the nature of competitive sports or esports.
The question is why they decide to take away an OPT-IN feature (you can also mute single players) which a huge size of their player base uses to build their own communities and friendships.
For me this is a total surrender from a dev studio that has a history of going about problems in radical/disputed ways without regards to their own communities criticism. Dynamic Que, Twisted Tree Lines, No Voice Communication, Chat Restrictions and so much more. Riots approach to solving problems is basically "If the house is on fire better call the ambulance." They will achieve their goal to save some of toxicity but they let the house burn to the ground.
There are also way more intelligent ways to combat toxicity as blizzard and other publishers show in their games. If you flame your opponents and the bad filter catches it a message like "gg ez" would be translated into something like "I’m wrestling with some insecurity issues in my life but thank you all for playing with me." or "It’s past my bedtime. Please don’t tell my mommy.". Electronic Arts is simply shadow banning players.
The most important part is the loss of player engagement. As a player you now can't distinguish if you are playing against real players or bots and I truly believe this is the real ground for concern if you watch their dev vlog about their progress with AI bots I am 100% sure that we will see AI bots in the near future on servers with a dwindling active playerbase.
The question is why they decide to take away an OPT-IN feature (you can also mute single players) which a huge size of their player base uses to build their own communities and friendships.
For me this is a total surrender from a dev studio that has a history of going about problems in radical/disputed ways without regards to their own communities criticism. Dynamic Que, Twisted Tree Lines, No Voice Communication, Chat Restrictions and so much more. Riots approach to solving problems is basically "If the house is on fire better call the ambulance." They will achieve their goal to save some of toxicity but they let the house burn to the ground.
There are also way more intelligent ways to combat toxicity as blizzard and other publishers show in their games. If you flame your opponents and the bad filter catches it a message like "gg ez" would be translated into something like "I’m wrestling with some insecurity issues in my life but thank you all for playing with me." or "It’s past my bedtime. Please don’t tell my mommy.". Electronic Arts is simply shadow banning players.
The most important part is the loss of player engagement. As a player you now can't distinguish if you are playing against real players or bots and I truly believe this is the real ground for concern if you watch their dev vlog about their progress with AI bots I am 100% sure that we will see AI bots in the near future on servers with a dwindling active playerbase.
> The problem with all-chat in League of Legends, particularly in the ranked queue, is that it can only hurt your team's chances to win. At best, you're wasting time typing; at worst, you're actively frustrating and distracting yourself from what is already a very difficult game.
I don't agree; /all is a very viable vector for giving your team a huge leg up. If you are skilled at talking shit, you can usually tilt someone on the other team so much that they become a non-factor. So many times I've seen the enemy team turn on each-other because one of their laners made some small mistake, which I capitalized on as a chance to relentlessly attack them in /all chat. They become tilted and start playing poorly, their team starts attacking them as well for the poor play, and often they will either troll, constantly call for a surrender, or even AFK in the fountain. The mental aspect of the game is just another tool in your arsenal for gaining an advantage over the enemy, and in my opinion it's just as important as the mechanical and strategic aspects.
I don't agree; /all is a very viable vector for giving your team a huge leg up. If you are skilled at talking shit, you can usually tilt someone on the other team so much that they become a non-factor. So many times I've seen the enemy team turn on each-other because one of their laners made some small mistake, which I capitalized on as a chance to relentlessly attack them in /all chat. They become tilted and start playing poorly, their team starts attacking them as well for the poor play, and often they will either troll, constantly call for a surrender, or even AFK in the fountain. The mental aspect of the game is just another tool in your arsenal for gaining an advantage over the enemy, and in my opinion it's just as important as the mechanical and strategic aspects.
Moba games are a psychological battle just as much as they are a skill based one, it is totally possible to tilt the enemy team enough to turn tide. Besides, have you ever considered that some of your teammates might play the game for, you know, fun?
The majority of interactions I have had through /all where playful ones, challenging the enemy, just having a bit of a chat. You hate the /all chat because you think this is wasted time on your way to a game victory, but I ask you, if I'm having fun, and the enemy is having fun, is it wasted time? As I see it, you are glad riot now choose your preferences as a serious gaming business kind of dude over the people who want to have actual fun playing games, and that's okay, but you could at least reflect on this.
Besides, 99% of all flame and bad mood doesn't come from the enemy team, it comes from your own team. In fact, I'd like an option to mute my team and leave the /all chat open. I don't give a fuck about why my jungler thinks I was in a position to help him when i clearly wasn't or that my botlane thinks i should danger ping them in addition to my ss.
The majority of interactions I have had through /all where playful ones, challenging the enemy, just having a bit of a chat. You hate the /all chat because you think this is wasted time on your way to a game victory, but I ask you, if I'm having fun, and the enemy is having fun, is it wasted time? As I see it, you are glad riot now choose your preferences as a serious gaming business kind of dude over the people who want to have actual fun playing games, and that's okay, but you could at least reflect on this.
Besides, 99% of all flame and bad mood doesn't come from the enemy team, it comes from your own team. In fact, I'd like an option to mute my team and leave the /all chat open. I don't give a fuck about why my jungler thinks I was in a position to help him when i clearly wasn't or that my botlane thinks i should danger ping them in addition to my ss.
/all was opt in. this is basically barrens chat from literal decades ago. I feel like things turned out ok back then. What's the difference now?
I mean in World of Warcraft, Horde and Alliance could never chat freely with each other due to the language barrier so it wasn't full of trash talk.
Servers require moderators/administrators. I hosted the counterstrike server in my university a long time ago, that's how I got into linux, and while at first I thought it would be a technical challenge it turned out to be a people problem mostly. Police language, resolve conflicts, even got into a physical fight with a banned player.
Obviously companies don't want server administrators because they want to scale without employees. But a multiplayer game is a socializing game and socializing without moderation is horrible. And I'm not talking about moderators that get reports out of context and don't know the players. A server admin, a game master, has to be in the community. You can't scale human interactions without turning them to shit.
Obviously companies don't want server administrators because they want to scale without employees. But a multiplayer game is a socializing game and socializing without moderation is horrible. And I'm not talking about moderators that get reports out of context and don't know the players. A server admin, a game master, has to be in the community. You can't scale human interactions without turning them to shit.
I'm not sure what exactly you're proposing. LoL chat is not a server-wide communication channel, it's a separate chat within each of thousands of games running at the same time. I can't imagine an efficient way to moderate all this without just relying on reports. And reports give insight into the complete chat history within that game. Not quite enough for all situations, but definitely not out of context.
This is chat in countless 10-player-games, not some Battlefield server that runs 24/7 with 64 players where moderation/admins in realtime actually make sense.
This is chat in countless 10-player-games, not some Battlefield server that runs 24/7 with 64 players where moderation/admins in realtime actually make sense.
I'm not proposing anything. I am just saying that the way the game is set up ends up sucking for human interactions. You said it yourself: "I can't imagine an efficient way to moderate all this". And for this reason I quit this kind of multiplayer games.
It’s still the same problem though - more so in mobas because leaving a game in progress completely ruins it for everyone. You can’t even just strict kick someone out of an in progress game. League and mobas in general have a reputation for toxicity because you more or less have to work together to win, even with wide skill gaps. Reports are all post game - wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t do a bunch of ML on users text reports.
> You can’t even just strict kick someone out of an in progress game.
You can, I play DotA and have seen some cases where it would be preferable to kick out a troll and continue 4 vs. 5 instead of 4 vs. 5 + troll. There is also some resource balancing present that lets even a team of two steamroll an uncoordinated enemy team. Sadly only the case of a player going afk is handled by a kick, a player actively feeding has to be worked around instead.
You can, I play DotA and have seen some cases where it would be preferable to kick out a troll and continue 4 vs. 5 instead of 4 vs. 5 + troll. There is also some resource balancing present that lets even a team of two steamroll an uncoordinated enemy team. Sadly only the case of a player going afk is handled by a kick, a player actively feeding has to be worked around instead.
Except the enemy team. They'll enjoy their free win.
> This is chat in countless 10-player-games, not some Battlefield server that runs 24/7 with 64 players where moderation/admins in realtime actually make sense.
What about griefers? People who join games only to sabotage their own team?
There are some problems that can only really be solved by an intelligent human watching a player for multiple games, and figuring out a pattern.
What about griefers? People who join games only to sabotage their own team?
There are some problems that can only really be solved by an intelligent human watching a player for multiple games, and figuring out a pattern.
Those intelligent humans are the other players reporting the griefer. In the case of LoL this might even be done by enemy players as well in particularly annoying cases. When a player gets daily reports for half a week that means dozens of players looked at multiple games and decided something's wrong.
No need to have someone manually review games by default.
No need to have someone manually review games by default.
What if the mob is wrong about griefing? What if there's just a downvote mob because X is a streamer and they're trolling them through the moderation system?
League of Legends and toxicity have always gone hand in hand. I used to blame the players, but I no longer think so.
1. You cannot lose the game quickly! Other genres like RTS, games can last between 3 minutes or as long as 30 minutes. Not so with MOBAs, it's rare to see a game conclude before 20 minutes.
2. You cannot surrender early. Even if a game is clearly one-sided, you're forced to play it out.
3. Small mistakes mean you fall behind and feel weak/useless. It's a rat race/red queen scenario.
4. Your teammates get upset when you die to your opponents. Your opponent becomes a lot stronger.
5. There's no reliable way to come back from being behind. You're basically waiting for your opponents to make multiple mistakes, multiple times until the game is even again.
I think all of this adds up to a feeling of frustration and helplessness. Everbody knows this about League. It feels good to get fed because then the game is easy. It sucks to fall behind since it's such an uphill battle.
These feelings come out in team-chat. People project, they blame, they rage. And you can't really escape it, since you're supposed to just play the game out.
1. You cannot lose the game quickly! Other genres like RTS, games can last between 3 minutes or as long as 30 minutes. Not so with MOBAs, it's rare to see a game conclude before 20 minutes.
2. You cannot surrender early. Even if a game is clearly one-sided, you're forced to play it out.
3. Small mistakes mean you fall behind and feel weak/useless. It's a rat race/red queen scenario.
4. Your teammates get upset when you die to your opponents. Your opponent becomes a lot stronger.
5. There's no reliable way to come back from being behind. You're basically waiting for your opponents to make multiple mistakes, multiple times until the game is even again.
I think all of this adds up to a feeling of frustration and helplessness. Everbody knows this about League. It feels good to get fed because then the game is easy. It sucks to fall behind since it's such an uphill battle.
These feelings come out in team-chat. People project, they blame, they rage. And you can't really escape it, since you're supposed to just play the game out.
> You cannot surrender early.
Not true. You can surrender after 15 minutes. The game is rarely completely lost before then. The problem comes when some players believe the game to be lost and others do not. Also, a small number of players seem to get pleasure from punishing their teammates by helping their opponents.
Not true. You can surrender after 15 minutes. The game is rarely completely lost before then. The problem comes when some players believe the game to be lost and others do not. Also, a small number of players seem to get pleasure from punishing their teammates by helping their opponents.
This is disingenuous, it typically takes 10-15 minutes to find a game and get through champ select. That 15 minutes is in reality 25-30 minutes.
I completely disagree with 2). I think surrender should be completely removed and the game should be played until the end, regardless of team balance.
It it almost impossible for me to find a game where the surrender request spam doesn't start after 30 seconds (in chat). As soon as a team mate does a couple of mistakes or s/he finds the other team stronger, s/he states the game "unwinnable" and "a waste of time".
This in my opinion is a terrible attitude where people don't improve 1) by learning to push against the odds, 2) by only wanting to play against worse players.
It it almost impossible for me to find a game where the surrender request spam doesn't start after 30 seconds (in chat). As soon as a team mate does a couple of mistakes or s/he finds the other team stronger, s/he states the game "unwinnable" and "a waste of time".
This in my opinion is a terrible attitude where people don't improve 1) by learning to push against the odds, 2) by only wanting to play against worse players.
I haven't played league in years and barely even watch it anymore (watching worlds, but didn't even bother watching NA LCS championship).
Part of the reason I stopped playing was I realized ranked wasn't competitive, it was just a different mode. If riot actually considered it competitive, autofill wouldn't be a thing.
But to your point, you're absolutely correct. There's an old video about a well known streamer (forget his name) ranting about where the toxicity in league comes from.
And he draws the following analogy.
If you're in a game of pickup basketball and someone on your team decides to start scoring for the opponent, you can simply walk away. If you do that in league you get punished for it so you're forced to stay in a game you don't want to be in.
The long and short of it is that LoL players have very little control over both their teammates, and their willingness to play with someone who decides to be an asshole.
Riot could solve a large % of the toxicity in league, but they choose not to.
Part of the reason I stopped playing was I realized ranked wasn't competitive, it was just a different mode. If riot actually considered it competitive, autofill wouldn't be a thing.
But to your point, you're absolutely correct. There's an old video about a well known streamer (forget his name) ranting about where the toxicity in league comes from.
And he draws the following analogy.
If you're in a game of pickup basketball and someone on your team decides to start scoring for the opponent, you can simply walk away. If you do that in league you get punished for it so you're forced to stay in a game you don't want to be in.
The long and short of it is that LoL players have very little control over both their teammates, and their willingness to play with someone who decides to be an asshole.
Riot could solve a large % of the toxicity in league, but they choose not to.
Unfortunate mangling of the headline – chat is only being disabled in games with auto matchmaking – but it’s still an interesting development.
Would be better as all-chat or allchat, pretty obvious what that is contextually
It should be what the other commenters are already using: "/all chat". Definitely not "all chat".
LoL is likely the game that I played the most in the past decade. And one of the first things I would do after joining a match is disabling chat. I'd be in discord with friends talking about other stuff. The amount of trolling, name calling, hate and insults in the game is just on another level. It also seems to be one of the main reasons why some people leave the game behind. Am I glad that chat was disabled? Yes in the current state of the game I am, still sad that it had to be done.
Weird how the reaction on HN is so much different from the reaction on reddit where everyone is angry at riot for this decision. I am very much sad to see /all chat go, and I see no reason to remove it since it was already opt in. Most toxicity is in team chat, not all chat. The only "toxicity" in all chat that happens regularly is your own team saying "rep [insert lane]" and a "gg ez" at the end of the game which shouldn't bother anyone sane at this point. Sucks that now will be no way to communicate with the other team except emotes and dances. Stop taking the fun out of the internet, god damn it.
The opt-in part is clearly being missed and is a huge piece of the equation.
All chat isn't a problem if you didn't explicitly go into the menu to turn it on in the first place... this also means there is a convenient way to turn it back off.
For me, this all amounts to virtue signaling by Riot towards the broader community regarding their ongoing war against toxicity.
All chat isn't a problem if you didn't explicitly go into the menu to turn it on in the first place... this also means there is a convenient way to turn it back off.
For me, this all amounts to virtue signaling by Riot towards the broader community regarding their ongoing war against toxicity.
HN headline is a bit misleading by omitting a load-bearing slash:
They are disabling /all chat, i.e. chat between enemy teams.
They are not disabling "all chat" as in "all chat functionality".
Maybe someone could change the headline?
They are disabling /all chat, i.e. chat between enemy teams.
They are not disabling "all chat" as in "all chat functionality".
Maybe someone could change the headline?
The problem is team chat. The first thing I do every match is /mute all , because the chance of me getting question ping spammed, flamed, etc. is much higher than someone actually saying something useful in chat. I've been playing this game since Fiddlesticks was released in 2009, and it has always harbored the most vile children you'll come across online. It's like back in 2005 when you'd hear squeakers calling you the n word on Xbox Live, but on steroids.
It's too hard to properly coordinate without voice chat in a real time game such as this one, frankly. That's why text chat has no use outside of flaming and flash timers.
It's too hard to properly coordinate without voice chat in a real time game such as this one, frankly. That's why text chat has no use outside of flaming and flash timers.
You've had the ability to turn off team chat in settings for quite awhile. I also turn it off, both all and team.
It's a different game without team chat. When we're loosing hard I can just invent some minigame, like go farm enemy jungle or go hide somewhere in a bush while they break into our base. Otherwise it just feels like a chill game.
The problem is that the only way to drop out is to mute everyone else. But then, psychologically, it feels like you're losing. Because you're opting out of chat while the toxic people don't.
What it should be instead is that your teammates, and the opponents can call a vote-mute for team and all-chats. This way you place the toxic person out of the social circle, not yourself.
But I guess you could also just give up, like they're doing now. Although I do want to say that 90% of toxicity happens in teamchat. Not allchat. Your opponents usually don't mind you throwing the game, your team on the other hand...
What it should be instead is that your teammates, and the opponents can call a vote-mute for team and all-chats. This way you place the toxic person out of the social circle, not yourself.
But I guess you could also just give up, like they're doing now. Although I do want to say that 90% of toxicity happens in teamchat. Not allchat. Your opponents usually don't mind you throwing the game, your team on the other hand...
I find that there are a couple of problems with vote-mute:
- the damage has already been done before the vote gets called, and often the mute only applies to subsequent communications, so the initial abusive message still appears in the chat window.
- it requires collaboration to solve the problem, when your team is likely too busy playing the game, or don't feel as strongly as you do about the comment that was made.
- the damage has already been done before the vote gets called, and often the mute only applies to subsequent communications, so the initial abusive message still appears in the chat window.
- it requires collaboration to solve the problem, when your team is likely too busy playing the game, or don't feel as strongly as you do about the comment that was made.
Maybe a dumb question, but why is toxicity in chat a problem that needs to be solved (to the point of disabling all cross team chat)?
Just kinda ruins the game, which makes people not want to play.
People get really aggressive when they built their identity around “being good at x”. So if you’re their teammate and you make a decision that they think is wrong, they see you as losing the game for them (even if you think it was right).
Same as sports, but you’re generally playing with random anonymous people online that changes every game, so there’s no incentive for long-term teamwork or relationship building.
Imagine playing casual pick-up basketball in the park on a team of 5, and you try one play that doesn’t quite work, and your teammates first reaction is to go “Wow you must really suck at basketball to try that!” Or: “Go home and quit, dumbass.” You’d probably feel a little bad, but also just never want to play with that group again. Now imagine 70% of all basketball games you try to play have people yelling at you like that. You’d probably just quit trying to play basketball.
There are also some really friendly people in these games (I always tried to be someone who shuts down the mean people), but the problem is that eventually the friendly people just don’t want to play your game at all anymore because of so many negative interactions.
They obviously want to grow the number of players, so having a reputation of a horribly toxic community makes people avoid the game, which is bad for profits (and the non-toxic players).
Not sure how much this change will help, because the bigger source of toxicity is a player’s own team. But it still could be a good step towards trying to fix their image.
People get really aggressive when they built their identity around “being good at x”. So if you’re their teammate and you make a decision that they think is wrong, they see you as losing the game for them (even if you think it was right).
Same as sports, but you’re generally playing with random anonymous people online that changes every game, so there’s no incentive for long-term teamwork or relationship building.
Imagine playing casual pick-up basketball in the park on a team of 5, and you try one play that doesn’t quite work, and your teammates first reaction is to go “Wow you must really suck at basketball to try that!” Or: “Go home and quit, dumbass.” You’d probably feel a little bad, but also just never want to play with that group again. Now imagine 70% of all basketball games you try to play have people yelling at you like that. You’d probably just quit trying to play basketball.
There are also some really friendly people in these games (I always tried to be someone who shuts down the mean people), but the problem is that eventually the friendly people just don’t want to play your game at all anymore because of so many negative interactions.
They obviously want to grow the number of players, so having a reputation of a horribly toxic community makes people avoid the game, which is bad for profits (and the non-toxic players).
Not sure how much this change will help, because the bigger source of toxicity is a player’s own team. But it still could be a good step towards trying to fix their image.
>>>Imagine playing casual pick-up basketball in the park on a team of 5, and you try one play that doesn’t quite work, and your teammates first reaction is to go “Wow you must really suck at basketball to try that!” Or: “Go home and quit, dumbass.” You’d probably feel a little bad, but also just never want to play with that group again. Now imagine 70% of all basketball games you try to play have people yelling at you like that. You’d probably just quit trying to play basketball.
Have you ever played spades, dominos, or hearts? Shit-talking is absolutely part of the experience. Someone who complains about the shit-talking is unlikely to be invited to pull up a chair again. That said, shit-talking is an artform, and simplistic adolescent insults ("Fvk your mother, $ethnicSlur!") are equally frowned upon. I dunno....I'm not sure when our culture got to a point where people couldn't handle regular vitriol with a laconic smile and some verbal barbs of their own. Do they not teach "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me." to kids anymore?
Have you ever played spades, dominos, or hearts? Shit-talking is absolutely part of the experience. Someone who complains about the shit-talking is unlikely to be invited to pull up a chair again. That said, shit-talking is an artform, and simplistic adolescent insults ("Fvk your mother, $ethnicSlur!") are equally frowned upon. I dunno....I'm not sure when our culture got to a point where people couldn't handle regular vitriol with a laconic smile and some verbal barbs of their own. Do they not teach "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me." to kids anymore?
Try playing a few hours of Dota and then revising your opinion. Comparing an online game to playing hearts with friends in real life is a completely invalid comparison. Griefing on another level is possible in Dota and it can go on for 30mins to an hour, this would NEVER happen in an in real life game of cards or dominoes.
Also, when you're playing hearts with friends, your friends aren't telling you to kill yourself, it's light hearted banter.
In Dota you have to get ready to be called: "a fucking moron", "stupid bitch get back to the kitchen", every racist bit of slang you can imagine.
And it's via voice as well as text, as well as gameplay griefing. For example, repeatedly running to the enemy heroes to die on purpose and feed them more gold.
Also, when you're playing hearts with friends, your friends aren't telling you to kill yourself, it's light hearted banter.
In Dota you have to get ready to be called: "a fucking moron", "stupid bitch get back to the kitchen", every racist bit of slang you can imagine.
And it's via voice as well as text, as well as gameplay griefing. For example, repeatedly running to the enemy heroes to die on purpose and feed them more gold.
>>>Also, when you're playing hearts with friends, your friends aren't telling you to kill yourself, it's light hearted banter.
Ha! Play cards with Marines. We absolutely tell people to "suck-start their service weapon" (that means put a gun in your mouth and shoot yourself) after a particularly incompetent play.
>>>In Dota you have to get ready to be called: "a fucking moron", "stupid bitch get back to the kitchen", every racist bit of slang you can imagine.
Yeah, those are bog-standard internet noise. I expect it every time I'm at the top of the leaderboard in an FPS. Just hit them back with some superlative savagery of your own, which should be easier than breathing.
Ha! Play cards with Marines. We absolutely tell people to "suck-start their service weapon" (that means put a gun in your mouth and shoot yourself) after a particularly incompetent play.
>>>In Dota you have to get ready to be called: "a fucking moron", "stupid bitch get back to the kitchen", every racist bit of slang you can imagine.
Yeah, those are bog-standard internet noise. I expect it every time I'm at the top of the leaderboard in an FPS. Just hit them back with some superlative savagery of your own, which should be easier than breathing.
In real life there is a limit on how hard you can go or how serious you're insults can be without physical conflict or being ostracized by other players. Not so in a video game.
Maybe because a company like Riot can be held accountable for the poor content of its chats? (in the court of law I'm not sure, but in that of public opinion definitely)
Online chat has been a staple for multiplayer PC games for ages now.
Since when has a company been held accountable on a meaningful scale for what happens in chat? (No doubt in my mind that what’s said in chat is called out especially if users aren’t banned)
Sure you might get statements like X community is toxic, but that normally stems from more problems then just the game chat of said community.
Since when has a company been held accountable on a meaningful scale for what happens in chat? (No doubt in my mind that what’s said in chat is called out especially if users aren’t banned)
Sure you might get statements like X community is toxic, but that normally stems from more problems then just the game chat of said community.
I guess maybe they don't want to be dragged to a congressional hearing where they'd be shown a bunch of screenshots that'll look extra offensive out of context and have to explain to senators why they're not doing more to protect players' mental health from bullying, toxic comments, dehumanizing etc
If nothing else they may be a bit worried about the Chinese government since they're a Tencent subsidiary. There's been some significant pressure on game companies this year.
That's pretty misguided.
It's team chat that is toxic, not /all chat.
/all chat is typically full of jokes and banter. Your opponent is not going to flame you for making what they think is a mistake.
In fact /all chat can offset negative interactions you have with your team. It's not uncommon for someone from one team to give angry members of the other a "reality check" from an unbiased position, usually ending any toxicity right there.
It's team chat that is toxic, not /all chat.
/all chat is typically full of jokes and banter. Your opponent is not going to flame you for making what they think is a mistake.
In fact /all chat can offset negative interactions you have with your team. It's not uncommon for someone from one team to give angry members of the other a "reality check" from an unbiased position, usually ending any toxicity right there.
The point is not to shield people from the flame of their opponents. /mute exists, and in fact, you already have to opt in to having /all displayed in the first place.
The point of this change is to stop people from engaging.
> usually ending any toxicity right there.
Nope, nope, nope. This is online arguments 101. Engaging with angry, anonymous, online strangers does not deescalate; it makes them angrier and draws in others. Which, for what it's worth, is exactly what happens in /all.
Also:
> Your opponent is not going to flame you for making what they think is a mistake.
You... may not have not played very much League of Legends. This is, like, the literal number one use of /all.
The point of this change is to stop people from engaging.
> usually ending any toxicity right there.
Nope, nope, nope. This is online arguments 101. Engaging with angry, anonymous, online strangers does not deescalate; it makes them angrier and draws in others. Which, for what it's worth, is exactly what happens in /all.
Also:
> Your opponent is not going to flame you for making what they think is a mistake.
You... may not have not played very much League of Legends. This is, like, the literal number one use of /all.
> This is, like, the literal number one use of /all.
as someone whe spend way to many hours of his life in bronze: yes, it is.
[3rd edit or so]: oh, that and "gg easy" which is not a nice thing to say as well.
as someone whe spend way to many hours of his life in bronze: yes, it is.
[3rd edit or so]: oh, that and "gg easy" which is not a nice thing to say as well.
There might be some variations based on rank here.
Higher ranked people need to have at least some ability to reason about the game and look at (their own) gameplay objectively to improve - even if that ability can get overridden by anger.
They're probably going to be slightly more "tilt resistant" as well.
Additionally I know there's regional differences, because of culture and simply language barriers. Anyone who has heard of korean servers will know what I mean.
Higher ranked people need to have at least some ability to reason about the game and look at (their own) gameplay objectively to improve - even if that ability can get overridden by anger.
They're probably going to be slightly more "tilt resistant" as well.
Additionally I know there's regional differences, because of culture and simply language barriers. Anyone who has heard of korean servers will know what I mean.
Funny thing is that you can already disable /all chat, and it is disabled by default.
> All Chat is automatically disabled when you first download League.[1]
[1] https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/artic...
> All Chat is automatically disabled when you first download League.[1]
[1] https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/artic...
I feel that this is really an experiment to gather data on how dynamics change. A fairly radical one, but not something that they think is going to be "a solution" in itself. It's true in my (very old and short) experience with LoL, that the worst toxicity came from random teammates, but disabling team chat is not so easy to experiment. I would still bet that the solution lies in better in-game tools to replace team chat, but that's a huge problem to solve (the low hanging fruit with map pings etc is already in place).
Instead of blocking a form of chat I'd just make the system auto-mute anyone using certain key words and phrases. Before the message is even shown. Reading or reacting to those kinds of messages doesn't help anyone, and the game already has a completely ineffective version of this in the form of censoring words (in the default setting).
> That's pretty misguided.
Seems to about sum up Riot's management these days.
Seems to about sum up Riot's management these days.
My experience hasn't been the same. All chat is toxic just as often as team chat. ggez, lots of taunts and jests after getting a kill on you, and the laner who lost lane against you rubbing it in your face after his team carries you -- all of these are extremely common.
[deleted]
I never really played LoL but that was my experience with Dota 2 - with the exception of the end of the game when the enemy team might well flame you if you're doing badly.
You are mostly right that team chat is more toxic than all, but I’ve seen all chat be very toxic on a regular basis.
And there's always `/mute enemy` to mute all emotes and chat messages from the enemy in that game.
[deleted]
This will kill league of legends.
The most fun I've ever had in this game was playing, and winning the "psychological war" by intentionally tilting the other team. The moment I'd get a hint of internal strife within the other team, myself and my friends would do whatever we could (not offensive) to encourage keyboard warrioring because it literally would win us games. They'd get sloppy, spend time typing, and would occasionally rage quit.
The fact that this aspect of the game is lost means I am instantly dropping it, and switching to Dota 2. Many of my long time (like since 2010) league friends feel the same way, regardless of how much they have spent in the past.
This is super ironic since Riot has a bunch of internal culture problems with sexism (especially compared to pro-speech valve).
League of legends was already a dying game, but this is a pretty epic self-pwn.
The most fun I've ever had in this game was playing, and winning the "psychological war" by intentionally tilting the other team. The moment I'd get a hint of internal strife within the other team, myself and my friends would do whatever we could (not offensive) to encourage keyboard warrioring because it literally would win us games. They'd get sloppy, spend time typing, and would occasionally rage quit.
The fact that this aspect of the game is lost means I am instantly dropping it, and switching to Dota 2. Many of my long time (like since 2010) league friends feel the same way, regardless of how much they have spent in the past.
This is super ironic since Riot has a bunch of internal culture problems with sexism (especially compared to pro-speech valve).
League of legends was already a dying game, but this is a pretty epic self-pwn.
Lmao you're the exact reason they're turning off all chat. The most fun you've had in the game is tilting other people in all-chat. AKA being the keyboard warrior you claim to bring out in other people. Bye.
[deleted]
And good riddance? Why would anybody want to play a game with somebody toxic like you? Why is it so fun for you to make people feel bad? That doesn't seem downright sociopathic to you?
Seems to be a good move to make the game more enjoyable.
Not sure if this is a smart move businesswise.
As recent events suggest, FB keeps engagement up through negativity.
Maybe the tilt, strong emotional ups and downs, etc are a big contribution to what makes LoL so engaging?
But I guess riot has some data on this.
As recent events suggest, FB keeps engagement up through negativity.
Maybe the tilt, strong emotional ups and downs, etc are a big contribution to what makes LoL so engaging?
But I guess riot has some data on this.
Ctrl-f'd "bot" and I didn't see any comments so I'll throw in my 2c.
I play LoL very casually and I'm pretty new at the game, but I know some people in Platinum/Diamond/Challenger and they all hate this decision. To paraphrase one friend who is in and out of Challenger:
"/all chat is not the major source of flaming and BM, it's game design.
The number one problem Riot has is bots. There's already some fairly strict filters in place to ban players who say bad things to each other, but it doesn't really matter when you can go online and buy an account for $10 and be instantly back in the game. I myself have many multiple accounts for a variety of reasons. Many high-level players I know have multiple accounts and some of them have been banned at one point; they're all still playing. Riot knows this but they basically can't stop people botting to 30 and flipping the account, and they can't stop the online marketplaces that sell the accounts, so they don't try. Instead they make less effective decisions that players don't want, such as disabling /all. If they could get rid of botting people would actually be scared of bans because losing access to Ranked and all your stuff (champs, skins, etc.) becomes a real danger.
Add this to the fact that it is so ridiculously easy to throw games and deny early surrenders, and you get a dangerous cocktail where a small amount of players can instantly run the fun of nine other people with very little consequence."
I'm not 100% sure I buy this but these people collectively have >10K hours in the game and I have less than 50, so I defer to them.
I play LoL very casually and I'm pretty new at the game, but I know some people in Platinum/Diamond/Challenger and they all hate this decision. To paraphrase one friend who is in and out of Challenger:
"/all chat is not the major source of flaming and BM, it's game design.
The number one problem Riot has is bots. There's already some fairly strict filters in place to ban players who say bad things to each other, but it doesn't really matter when you can go online and buy an account for $10 and be instantly back in the game. I myself have many multiple accounts for a variety of reasons. Many high-level players I know have multiple accounts and some of them have been banned at one point; they're all still playing. Riot knows this but they basically can't stop people botting to 30 and flipping the account, and they can't stop the online marketplaces that sell the accounts, so they don't try. Instead they make less effective decisions that players don't want, such as disabling /all. If they could get rid of botting people would actually be scared of bans because losing access to Ranked and all your stuff (champs, skins, etc.) becomes a real danger.
Add this to the fact that it is so ridiculously easy to throw games and deny early surrenders, and you get a dangerous cocktail where a small amount of players can instantly run the fun of nine other people with very little consequence."
I'm not 100% sure I buy this but these people collectively have >10K hours in the game and I have less than 50, so I defer to them.
Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I get it, all chat can be a source of twisted toxic wasteland. But on the other hand, sometimes it's fun, so let people communicate and solve the toxic wasteland some other way.
A simpler fix for me would've been give the users the option to hide/deactivate the all chat. If they want to talk they'll keep it on if the other team is a bunch of dicks they'll report them and hide the all chat. Easy.
A simpler fix for me would've been give the users the option to hide/deactivate the all chat. If they want to talk they'll keep it on if the other team is a bunch of dicks they'll report them and hide the all chat. Easy.
I dunno, at this point "LOL toxic" is such a meme that it's probably a reasonable barrier to entry for folks,so they're probably trying to address that. And "sometimes fun" isn't enough to get over "usually not fun".
And it isn't entirely unreasonable, I thought the toxicity was overstated until I tried league, and my first game I got yelled at and called various slurs for not playing right, same for the next 2 games I played until I quit forever (because there are other fun games, sure that was years ago but why bother trying again when I can just play X), and that was from my own teammates (in wood tier), not even the other team.
Anecdotal for sure, but I suspect not terribly unusual if not that fast, and from the player side it's less "I'm offended" and more "huh, I could just play anything else". Especially if dealing with the toxicity is opt-out rather than opt-in, or gives the player fomo, like an option to disable all chat would implicitly be/do.
Edit: I replied to this one because it made the most context sense, but it's not really a direct agreement or refute of anything in the parent
And it isn't entirely unreasonable, I thought the toxicity was overstated until I tried league, and my first game I got yelled at and called various slurs for not playing right, same for the next 2 games I played until I quit forever (because there are other fun games, sure that was years ago but why bother trying again when I can just play X), and that was from my own teammates (in wood tier), not even the other team.
Anecdotal for sure, but I suspect not terribly unusual if not that fast, and from the player side it's less "I'm offended" and more "huh, I could just play anything else". Especially if dealing with the toxicity is opt-out rather than opt-in, or gives the player fomo, like an option to disable all chat would implicitly be/do.
Edit: I replied to this one because it made the most context sense, but it's not really a direct agreement or refute of anything in the parent
Yea, was any of that in all chat, or team chat?
Your team generally cares if you play well. The other team is looking at a free win, what do they care.
Sometimes it might be toxic, but likely 9/10 times the toxicity is from your own team (200 games in the last year).
Your team generally cares if you play well. The other team is looking at a free win, what do they care.
Sometimes it might be toxic, but likely 9/10 times the toxicity is from your own team (200 games in the last year).
> A simpler fix for me would've been give the users the option to hide/deactivate the all chat.
B-but they can already do that, and it is disabled by default.
> All Chat is automatically disabled when you first download League.[1]
[1] https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/artic...
B-but they can already do that, and it is disabled by default.
> All Chat is automatically disabled when you first download League.[1]
[1] https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/artic...
Oh that's nice. I haven't played League in a long time so I didn't know they had already done this.
So then I don't understand what are we gaining for blocking all chat.
So then I don't understand what are we gaining for blocking all chat.
all chat is actually disabled by default, you have to opt-in to it through the settings.
Here's the deal as I picture it... As the platform moderator you can either moderate and have something that's acceptable banter but it'll cost a lot of money to moderate, it'll give players a feeling of being nannied, and no matter your decision you'll constantly be called out either as too repressive or too permissive or both at once. Alt: you can censor everything. Congrats trolls, you won.
I think the problem is making people opt out of interacting with douchebags. Let people opt into it.
It shouldn't be easier to be abusive than it is to avoid an abuser. So long as that's the case, it's sort of enabling the shitty behavior.
It shouldn't be easier to be abusive than it is to avoid an abuser. So long as that's the case, it's sort of enabling the shitty behavior.
This point is addressed in the article:
> "While /all chat can be the source of fun social interaction between teams, as well as some good-hearted banter, right now negative interactions outweigh the positives."
> "While /all chat can be the source of fun social interaction between teams, as well as some good-hearted banter, right now negative interactions outweigh the positives."
But it's already disabled by default. People have to opt-in to those negative interactions.
That said, I suppose it's still a headache for Riot to manage some of those interactions regardless.
That said, I suppose it's still a headache for Riot to manage some of those interactions regardless.
From long experience with Eugene's Wargame series, this is a good decision. Wargame's "all chat" nicknamed Warchat is an horrible place that too many take as a competition in toxicity. It is now legendary bad, bordering on the comical - but really it is just ugly. Good matchmaking and intra-team chat are all a game needs.
I have a friend who plays DotA 2 reguarly who alleges that toxicity is much less of a problem with that community because players can call out good or bad sportsmanship at the match end and this is taken into account by the matchmaking system. This results in all the trollers and flamers and griefers mostly getting matched up with each other in a mutually contstructed cesspit while the fun games happen elsewhere.
Does this match others' experience, or is it a bit of a rose-tinted glasses situation?
Does this match others' experience, or is it a bit of a rose-tinted glasses situation?
From my experience playing DotA 2, it does help, but it's not a magic bullet. You will have a lot less people griefing/throwing, but you'll still have a hyper-competitive atmosphere where people will shit on each other for fucking up. So trolling is rarer, griefing is rarer, but flaming is still pretty common.
A bit rose-tintet. All chat is not the problem usually. It's team chat.
They’re finally copying the best designed MOBA that was unfortunately late to the party, Heroes of the Storm. The lack of cross-team chat greatly reduces toxicity compared to League and DOTA even though MOBAs as a whole tend to be a bit toxic. Blizzard also put in some other mechanics like team experience instead of individual experience so that you don’t have one person at a much higher level raging at the rest of the team to “get good”
If the game was more enjoyable even when you're losing this would have never been an issue.
If it wasn't so miserable to lose for 30+ minutes, winning wouldn't be so awesome by comparison and no one would participate.
The whole point of the game for many is to get taken for a bit of an unpredictable ride. If it's always going to be fun and easy, the novel experience evaporates.
I think this is on the same spectrum as casual vs hard-core gaming. Casual is always going to feel at least OK, but it's never going to give you that same rush that you get when a single skillshot seals the victory for your team after a sweaty 55 minute slugfest.
The whole point of the game for many is to get taken for a bit of an unpredictable ride. If it's always going to be fun and easy, the novel experience evaporates.
I think this is on the same spectrum as casual vs hard-core gaming. Casual is always going to feel at least OK, but it's never going to give you that same rush that you get when a single skillshot seals the victory for your team after a sweaty 55 minute slugfest.
As a smite player, I'm just amazed LoL even has this. I don't see what the point would be of letting players interact before the end of the game (and if you really care, /whisper is the tool for you)
This suites the paternalistic approach style by Riot.
On the other side, Dota2 having a player allchat a triggering "?" in a pro match is one of the most epic moments.
On the other side, Dota2 having a player allchat a triggering "?" in a pro match is one of the most epic moments.
Sad. I’m also reminded of a UX change a few years back that I felt significantly reduced chat engagement in the post-game screen.
gg ez
Good move by Riot Games, this will definitely promotes healthy game play and coordination.
I don't follow League of Legends, but I assume the real reason for this would be to help disguise bots?
No. That assumption would be incorrect.
>I don't follow League of Legends
You should've stopped there.
You should've stopped there.
At this point, League of Legends is completely irrelevant. Watch/Play Dota2 - it was where it started and where it’s at (although to be exact Warcraft III’s DotA Allstars spawned from Warcraft III’s AOS custom map). The game has a team voice chat which eliminates toxicity almost completely, and taunts/high-fives/spray tags which gives interaction a positive twist. The game mechanics are so much more complex, and thus challenging and entertaining than the copycat League of Legends.
The International 10 tournament is actually ongoing (without crowd unfortunately this year) and the prize pool is set at $40M - including $18M for the top #1 team.
The International 10 tournament is actually ongoing (without crowd unfortunately this year) and the prize pool is set at $40M - including $18M for the top #1 team.
Irrelevant to whom? You? League is one of the most played games in the world. At this very moment, it is the third most-streamed game on twitch, with 16k more people watching than dota 2.
It's frankly impressive how even 10 years down the line the dota playerbase still holds a grudge.
Even as a Dota fan of 10+ years, this comment misses the mark. This website’s audience is mostly North American. LoL dominates that region by a wide margin.
The problem with all-chat in League of Legends, particularly in the ranked queue, is that it can only hurt your team's chances to win. At best, you're wasting time typing; at worst, you're actively frustrating and distracting yourself from what is already a very difficult game.
All-chat, as some have already noted, is actually an opt-in feature already; you have to turn it on. I've had it turned off for about two years. I don't like it; it makes me play worse. That is beside the point.
In my opinion, the point of this change (from Riot's perspective) is not to shield you, individually, from your opponents' flame. /mute exists, and if you want, you can turn /all off entirely. What you can’t do is turn it off for your teammates, and that’s the problem.
The point of this decision is to stop people from engaging. And for that, I am grateful. I can count many, many games that I knew my team could win, if only they would stop getting tilted and typing back at what the enemy team was yelling at them in /all. All I want -- and apparently, all Riot wants -- is for people to just stop yelling and play a gosh darn videogame.
The complaint, as far as I can tell, is that you lose beneficial interactions from this, too; "glhf [good luck, have fun]" at the start of the game, or "nice play" from someone you just killed.
I have played a lot of this game; comfortably thousands of hours. I understand that this is anecdata from some guy on the internet, but I feel extremely confident in saying that the positive interactions are a minority; even if they're not, I would be hard-pressed to say that they outweigh the games that I've lost, or the anger/frustration I have seen teammates feel, as a result of /all.