Cross-team conversation in League of Legends has been disabled, at least for the time being. On Tuesday, Riot revealed that the popular all-chat function (also known as /all talk) would be removed from League of Legends’ upcoming patch in order to curb toxicity. The function will be deactivated for a few patches as Riot evaluates how players react to it being removed from the game.
According to a blog post on the move, the League of Legends developer said that all chat is a vehicle for toxic behavior and that it expects that totally removing it would result in less negative behavior. Even while all communication in League of Legends is already turned off by default, the new adjustment shuts it off for all players — even those who initially opted in — as well.
Outside of games, the most common means to communicate with opposing teams in League of Legends is via all chat. Teams may still communicate with one another indirectly via the use of emotes, which are still accessible in-game.
The reaction to the elimination of all conversation has been overwhelmingly negative, with players recalling all of the bizarre, wonderful, and enjoyable bonding moments they’ve had with the other team while playing there. Additionally, players are memorializing terms such as “glhf” (good luck, have fun) and “gg” (good game), which will be rendered meaningless in League of Legends as a result of this change.
Riot has said that team talk is a poisonous feature of League of Legends – several players expressed their dissatisfaction with team communications in reaction to the removal of all chat by writing that they believe team communications are worse than all chat. Team chat, on the other hand, will continue to be available for team communication and coordination, according to Riot.
Just a few hours after making his statement, as well as receiving an overwhelming unfavorable reaction, League of Legends game director Andrei van Roon (the original article’s author) came to Twitter to explain a few of the things that were not addressed in the initial post.
In his tweet, van Roon notes that the modification will be deployed for a few patches as a test, after which Riot will send out surveys to see how well it worked out for everyone. Depending on the results of the poll, the developer will choose its next step, which might include deactivating the function, bringing it back intact, or even creating a unique solution for each location – among other options.
This change will be implemented, at least initially, with the release of League of Legends patch 11.21, which is slated for release sometime next week.
