Riot will disable League of Legends /all chat due to reduce verbal abuse
League of Legends is set for a major shakeup as Riot is disabling the /all chat feature in the game. The change, which is set to take effect with patch 11.21, comes on the heels of complaints saying the feature was increasingly being used for verbal abuse this year.
In a post, League of Legends game director Andrei van Roon and lead gameplay producer Jeremy Lee acknowledged the issue, saying that negative interactions in /all chat have outweighed the positives.
“We’ll evaluate the impact of this change through verbal abuse reports and penalty rates, as well as surveys and direct feedback from you all,” they added.
According to van Roon, the restriction is temporary, and that they will look at user feedback before deciding to re-enable the feature or keep it off.
TLDR – trying a test where we turn off All Chat (team chat still exists of course). Test is driven by rate of negative interactions versus positive
Will see what people think of the experience with it off, assess whether to keep it off or re-enable. https://t.co/Ugru2ClBdV
— Andrei van Roon (@RiotMeddler) October 12, 2021
It’s worth noting that the new patch will only disable the cross-team chat feature, leaving players with only emotes and champ mastery. During end-of-game periods, team-to-team chat will be available.
Team chat will still work as usual in League of Legends, despite Riot admitting that it receives its fair share of verbal abuse.
“We’re aware that verbal abuse happens in team chat too, so disabling /all chat won’t get rid of abuse altogether. But team chat also plays an important team coordination function, so the potential value it brings is much higher, even if it can also host some negative experiences,” they added. (Read: Riot set to reveal their League of Legends fighting game soon)
“We know this sucks for those of you who just want to compliment your lane opponent’s skin, or ask for a dance party in Baron pit. But we believe the tradeoff is worth it to cut down on the growing negativity /all chat has been creating in your games.”
With this drastic move, Riot is hoping to lower the number of negative interactions people have in a League of Legends match-made queue. But will this address the in-game toxicity and verbal abuse in chats that League of Legends is known for? We’ll all find out in the next patch.
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