In response to the rising issues around verbal abuse in League of Legends matches, Riot Games will be disabling the /all chat feature in every matchmade queue in Patch 11.21.
“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,” Riot said in its reveal post. “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.”
Toxicity across teams has been a documented problem in League for many years, so this change will try to lower the number of negative interactions moving forward. Riot did, however, acknowledge that toxicity within one’s own team is also a problem, but its positives can outweigh the negatives that come with it.
“We’re aware that verbal abuse happens in team chat too, so disabling /all chat won’t get rid of abuse altogether,” Riot said. “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.”
/All chat will be the only communication feature disabled in Patch 11.21, though. Players will still be able to hear and see any emotes used on Summoner’s Rift, champion mastery flashing will be enabled, CTRL-1/2/3/4 will be available to use, and post-game lobbies will still be cross-team. It’s also unknown when or if /all chat will return to the game.
Patch 11.21 is set to release on the live servers on Wednesday, Oct. 20.
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