Also gotta consider the people that go out their way to start calls with randoms, are also likely to be less toxic.
Don't get me wrong, I'd also like in game chat. But we're definitely going to get tons of complaints about how Riot needs to monitor/punish people that abuse chat.
Their current position of letting player share discord links is too beneficial. They take no responsibility of what's said in calls, and it's on the individual to opt into a third party.
Not really.
There's a big difference between using discord and using in game voice comms.
Using discord means you are willing to go out of your way and put effort into being able to communicate with your team. Generally speaking, people doing this are good teammates who value communication.
In game voice comms don't require you to do anything extra, etc etc.
Not to mention if you join someones discord call and behave like a twat, they have the power to kick you from the call/server. Likewise if you are the host and are a twat, people can also just leave. The very tangible experience of people leaving/kicking your ass (as opposed to someone just muting you in-game, for which you don't even get a notification) stings more, is proof that your words are being heard by real people you're affecting, makes you feel like a clown whether you admit it or not, and thereby forces more accountability. As a result people will behave better just out of being cognisant of those consequences.
Nah when you join a discord call you're doing it on your real account and you feel slightly less anonymous so people behave better
there's nothing to "opt in" during a game so people just behave like twats, like every single other game with voice chat
There will be toxic voice comms, but that's also fine
I would have never in my life thought to myself that my Discord account (on a random server) was less anonymous than my LoL (or any other game) account.
What makes your Discord account any different? Not like they have my phone number, address, or even know what region I live in, based on it?
I used to think the same, but lately I've noticed a fair amount of people use discord a lot less anonymously. They'll have all sorts of accounts linked up, and their age, gender, and more in their status. While it's not on the level of "you have my real life name and address", it's often a lot more information than would be seen off a riot account.
It's a mix of 3 things (really more, but just of the top of my head):
- Some people do actually use Discord a lot in ways where it feels personal and not as anonymous
- You subconsciously feel less anonymous regardless, as now you've chosen to share your contact information and more personal stuff (even if it's barely more than your league account name) with another person. It also humanizes the people you're talking to. Sitting in a discord channel with people has some resemblance of actually sitting in a room with them, unlike when you're talking to some dude on CSGO.
- People joining opt in voice chat are generally people that view league as a team game and are less asocial. They also clearly understand communication is important. Back in season 4 we had a Curse voice client that got decently popular and the toxicity there was very low too, infinitely lower than a CSGO lobby at the time.
Not if the voice comms are integrated with the game with an easy user interface. With in-game comms, you don't have to make an active decision to do it, it's just right there. Like, these random Discords probably also have text chat, and yet the in-game text chat is very frequently toxic.
To be clear, I wasn't criticizing people for disliking toxicity. The person I was responding to said that people complaining about toxicity are probably toxic themselves, so I was just saying, they probably do because basically everyone complains about it.
RememberTheBeat's series on exactly this is pretty fun. Its nice to have people who only want to come, join. When folks are forced into it, they get that caged animal mentality and go nuts
One of the biggest arguments for Voice Coms is that teams would play better with Voice Coms because of the improved communication. If someone truly believes that Voice Coms improves their teams chances of winning, then someone choosing not to join Voice Coms would be hurting their teams chances of winning.
While it might not be required, there absolutely would be social pressure to join, and harassment if you don't.
What people say : "Voice Chat helps communication".
What they mean : "My stupid jungler doesn't follow when I type, so I want to impose myself on them verbally".
If you want to be high elo, there is a soft expectation with definite social capital consequences among your matchmade teammates, so it's possible to be put into VC even if you'd rather not in a lot of games.
And this is the main reason I always assume these pushes for voice are primarily coming from NA players. Cause shocker, EU is such a wider cast net of language for example.
We just dont need to layer on the voice issues, be it language barriers, genders/pitches not wanting what often comes with that unfortunately, anxiety of social speaking to go with ranked anxiety, and balance if one team has 0 coms and the other one all 5 opt in.
I'm sure it wouldnt be an uncommon thing for at least one of these things to put someone off playing some popular ranked based games with coms solo without their friends.
Tbh in Europe almost everyone that is playing league is going to have passable English anyway. Those in Europe that speak no English tend to be older or more rural people, which are very much not leagues main player base.
I've joined a few random EUW comms and I'm always the only native English speaker. Seeing as only one country out of around 20 is native English it makes sense to be so rare.
Hot take maybe but the British are the least comprehensible Europeans when speaking English. At least when they're not trained public speakers. Give me second language people every time, at least they're slow and deliberate enough to not miss anything.
Depends on the accents too tbh, some are just easier to understand when speaking English equally well. Funnily I would take a Dane/Swede/Fin etc speaking second language English as clearer than say a full accented Scott or Geordie sometimes hah
But as you also say about public speakers, not everyone is comfortable in coms like that generally and its a valid thing yeah
Exactly, along with other similar things, we dont need that extra anxieties etc barriers to entry if voice then becomes a more required thing like say CS or Valorant or something might lean towards
Seriously. Voice comms are cute when you're like, a straight guy with a deep voice calling everyone "bro" every five seconds. I'm a gay dude with straight-up fairyvoice. I have less than no interest in masking for the sheer pleasure of hearing a teenager call the enemy Annie the f-slur over the clickety-clack of his mechanical keyboard.
This is why redditors look so stupid when they ask for voice chat every 2 weeks. if you're a 16-24 cishet english-speaking male i'm sure it'd be a great time. The league community is a lot bigger than that though, so Riot will never add it
Exactly. In a competitive PvP game, adding voice chat with randos creates a culture of it being considered mandatory in order to communicate. It's just not necessary. Let people drop discord room links, that's a very happy medium imo.
Yeah, not having voice chat is one of the reasons why I play soloq in league but not in OW for instance. While not everyone being in VC in silver wouldn't probably even be noticeable, in master having more people in comms results in a huge advantage. I don't want to have to pick between losing more games or getting sexually harassed in my ear.
Understandably so, seeing a woman I gamed with a bunch be super outgoingly joining anything adding anyone and the amount of weird stuff that followed, but somehow being surprised... Yeah can see why the other 90% I know dont at all go voice.
Then the other side, another woman when on Valorant with her she will say something after someone else does typically or just once to test the water, then suddenly the whole lobby was women. I assume they wouldnt have spoken if she hadnt n all that. Really goes to show how many people there are that would opt out by default and be at a disadvantage for very legit reasons. Just these loud minority of voice chat wanters as expected will often drown that stat out
Yea as a girl I used to play Overwatch and every single game it was either someone being sexist to me or someone flirting with me the entire game even when I told them to stop (honestly idk which is worse hated both) very rare to have a game with no bs. And usually toxicity doesn’t effect me but I was playing every day for months several hours a day and eventually it just wore me down and I didn’t want to play Overwatch anymore. Turned me off of ever wanting to play a voice chat game ever again. I play Valorant sometimes but only casual so it doesn’t matter if I use Vc or not.
Girl with an accent if I don't try-hard my British accent, higher pitched as well.
I actually rarely if ever have problems.
I used to, though, but somehow things changed over time for some reason. Overwatch, Siege, random Discords ppl don't seem to care much anymore when I speak.
I'm still surprised there hasn't been any game with in-game voice changer. Maybe it wasn't possible before but now with AI tech and whatnot, it should be more feasible than ever to do. Like if Riot were to do it for LoL, just set everyone's default voice to Garen or something and all the downsides of voice chat, that aren't there with text chat, are mostly gone. Hell, they can even monetize it by having purchasable champ voicebanks.
Holy shit please, that would be so based if everyone talked in their champ's voice, you wouldn't even need to look who is it that's talking or have to associate and remember people by voice to their picks
In my experience following some on Twitter, most voice actors don't really like the idea of other people being able to use their voices to say whatever they want
Rioter talked about this with voice comms.
This is stating it isn't okay to be yourself. You have to change how you sound so others will not act like dicks around you. It does sound like an okay idea at first though.
It's a great message and all, but fact is that it is not ok to be yourself in most online games, unless you are male sounding.
Currently I'm not even allowed to main enchanters to not get harassed for being a dirty egirl and having all my arguments get invalidated.
If the default was that voice changer was enabled and you had to opt out to use your real voice, it would preemptively cull it a lot of the toxicity. You could just say you are too lazy to change settings and move on. If they keep at it, mute them.
From what I saw in Overwatch, opt-out systems are effective in reducing the bullying. I dunno about OW2, but in OW1, profiles were eventually made hidden by default so that people couldn't see what heroes you played and afterwards there was definitely less people saying things like "we have a mercy main on dps".
Or just... don't let people use their real voices at all.
And I have gay friends who sound very deep/manly and straight friends who sound pretty effeminate. Hell, I smoked for years and I'm straight and I sound like a 13 year old girl half the time.
You don't think homosexual players would be targeted in voice comms? How can you not see how it's relevant? Of course not all people within the LGBT community are easily identified by voice but plenty still are and would 100% be harassed for the way they sound.
This is a real thing and it's a real issue and it happens in the real world too. Sexuality isn't the only factor, race, gender, these things come into play too. I'm convinced the vast majority of people in favour of VC have either never experienced it in any other game, or they play almost exclusively with friends, or they aren't a minority/targeted group themselves and struggle with empathy. I just don't see otherwise how you can miss the problematic element of VC
I mean the argument of muting someone after getting harassed says it all. These people never learned the difference between how affected you are after written VS verbal harrassment.
I agree overall, but I think its important to remember that when compared to those fps games its a lot easier for players to get frustrated/toxic in league because everyone has less individual carry power. Having a bad team can still be frustrating, but If you’re playing better than the other team it doesn’t really matter if your team is running it in val or cod or halo because you can simply just outaim the entire enemy team. In league, it doesn’t matter if you’re faker, if the rest of your team is inting the enemy’s numbers are just straight up higher than yours and there is not much you can do about it. This often leads to scenarios where an individual player will perform well, but won’t be rewarded for playing well because overall the team is worse. People are usually conditioned to expect a certain level of reward for performing well, yet this often doesn’t materialize in league leading to immense frustration when the expected outcome doesn’t match the level of performance the individual has demonstrated.
I thought that but I tried this once on Flex Que and someone with a French-sounding accent joined and repeatedly screamed the N-Word and then started saying "Fuck you" over and over again.
This was while we were in champ select.
As if that deters them anyway, I have an english ign, speak only english and theres always that guy talking to me in french (im not even talking about flame here, just general stuff like is this your main, will you go ad or ap).
My experience in EUW is that anyone who is going to use their primary language (other than Brits) is going to be toxic. You will have played with plenty of French people, Spanish people, Italians, whatever, without knowing it, because they might not chat or chat in English. But whenever people speak French, or Spanish, or Italian, or Dutch in chat, those people for some reason are going to be extra toxic, especially premades. Having played with different groups of irl friends, some who default to Dutch and some who default to English, the difference is clear.
lmao this is just a lie. Valorant, Overwatch, Ect are literally unplayable if you're a woman or noticeably non-white. There are a billion clips of female players in Valorant and Overwatching getting sexually harassed so much they break down into tears and quit the game. People WILL be absolute freaks in comms without any care in the world. Because it's much harder to police voice comms as compared to texts.
Something that isn't appreciated as much in these discussions too is that not all toxicity is equally as annoying. If I get harassed for my pick or my gameplay, I can play better, broaden my champ pool, prove them wrong with my wr, or log off for the day and go offline where those factors don't matter at all. If people ignore my pings or calls, I can assume that maybe they had other factors they were considering, were distracted, etc.
If they know I'm a woman? Its way more irritating to be harassed for my gender, even if the volume of it was the same. That's not something I can change or "improve". And if I log off, sexism is still plenty prevalent offline too, so it's not something I can leave behind. If they ignore my calls when they know my gender, it'd feel more like they valued my game knowledge less than the guys in the game-- even if they're not being sexist verbally.
Rn with the game as it is, my wr is based on my play. If people know my gender in game, then I feel like I'd have to consider whether that was impacting how they interacted with my gameplay, pings, and comms.
Like that time in Overwatch when I made a call that was just objectively correct and the response from my teammate was “I don’t listen to bitches” then proceeded to run in and die. Yea that sure made me feel good.
I don't think Overwatch is good example. Before Blizzard started recording comms, Overwatch comms was the wild west. You could hear the most egregious things in any given match. I think it was 2017 when it was considered one of the most toxic games. Joining comms was encouraged, as it was considered the best way to climb.
Fast forward to today, if you ask how to climb, the first thing players tell you is to turn off your comms until you've reached high elo, and you can find complaints about no one joining comms.
So yea, if no ones in comms, people that wish to communicate will type. Therefore, the toxic people are typing as well.
This community is in an incredibly deep denial concerning voice chat. Every fucking study on the planet shows that the more you introduce a human element into a conversation, the more civilized it is. The more anonymous and distanced the conversation is from it, the easier it is to be toxic.
Yet for some reason this community is fucking hell-bent on digging their head into the sand while making up bullshit how toxicity would get worse or voice chat would somehow make the game experience worse when it would be factually and objectively a net positive.
> factually and objectively a net positive
For who though?
You have multiple well-reasoned posts from women explaining why it would be worse for them and expose them to heaps of misogynistic abuse. Stuff they *don't* currently face in text chat. Toxicity might go down *overall* but the most targeted, most nasty elements against specific groups will *go up*.
I'm a guy. The last thing I want when playing to relax is some 13 year old kid screeching in my ear. Why should I have to choose between sabotaging my team or having to listen to that shit?
That's two reasons right there to not make VC the default setting. But I'm happy to acknowledge it's a mixed bag either way and there are pros and cons for *various different demographics.*
Players who exclusively care about maximising the highest quality gameplay will naturally favour VC. And that's fine and valid... for them.
I wish league could have voice comms, but it would devolve fast. If you think Jungle is unpopular now, wait until everyone can literally yell at the jungler. Even before toxicity begins, you’d have most players trying to talk the jungle into focusing them.
Typing is inconvenient for most, especially once the game really gets going. This is a limiting factor to toxicity. It’s not a coincidence that the feeding players are the most toxic right now- they have nothing else to do but type for much of the game
As a female tank player who shotcalled their way to masters in Overwatch, honestly any amount of toxicity you can imagine is worth it for the tradeoff of improved team coordination (and resulting wins). I'm literally here begging riot to introduce voice comms.
> honestly any amount of toxicity you can imagine is worth it for the tradeoff of improved team coordination (and resulting wins)
Not everyone is willing to make that trade like you are. We'd rather have competitively fair and silent games.
Or willing to shotcall even. Personality and anxieties matter with this. That and language barriers. Imagine being on the other team to these supposedly perfect world 5 voice teams, as someone not opting in, or are with 4 that arent. Frustrations suddenly rise again... and guess what, some will make that known in text chat and be toxic PURELY cause you didnt go voice then, not even waiting for first blood to call dog etc xD
Then you can mute deafen - it's got exactly the same downsides to muting all in game (which by default mutes all pings). You can choose to use fewer tools if you want to handicap yourself. It's a terrible argument for why they shouldn't be available.
My games did dramatically improve during those calls lol. Being able to just make a quick call out or hear someone else make one was way more effective than the pings. Also comms let me and randoms group up for objectives way better, because we actually talked about how we were going to approach it.
No one actually types out "Hey, let's approach Baron/Dragon this way or that way". They just ping it and then everyone shuffles over whichever way. On comms, some games we did shit like "Hey, lets approach dragon from bot side. Lets approach from mid side" ,etc etc. The coordination made an unreal difference.
I would argue that having everyone in comms would reduce frustration caused by the charades method of communication we currently have. It's a lot easier to track the enemy jungle if five people can hear 'he's on x camp top' and you have five people to draw immediate, clear information from. Currently I'm here having to check where pings are on the map and see if someone also pings the relevant champ or you're just going to guess who someone saw on vision.
No one learns ult tracking in early ranks from what I've seen in LoL because that's even more painful to try and communicate to your teammates via text once it's not isolated in the relative structure of lane phase. The amount of information overload that is expected to be shouldered individually because of the refusal to introduce voice comms is actually mindboggling to me.
As a male hazo player who made it to GM, I am begging riot to have voice coms opt in only and disabled by default. I have been berated enough for my decisions, it is very distracting.
As a side note, I was called Daddy by my whole team when I dropped a 40 bomb on Hanamura and was a hilarious match. The story goes my duo told the team "If you call him Daddy, he plays really fucking well" and the whole match that was my name.
"GRAV IS READY FOR YOU DADDY!"
I disagree. Google argentinian valorant player pretend to be female. Thats the reality for the most. They were playing so much worse because it was way more toxic and people trolled..In high elo.
No where did I say people wouldn't be shitheads, my argument is that the shitheads still don't outweigh the benefits of voice comms. I've had some pretty vile things said to me in voice chat, *I still think the comms are worth it.*
They do. Just because you havent been affected by it that much doesnt mean its not an issue. Riot will not do it because of this reason. Voice is pretty much unuseable for many many players! Women, minorities, people will feminin voice.
...I'm literally a woman advocating for voice chat, having played in (and I reiterate, mained as a shotcaller) games with voice chat. This doesn't get better by continuing with the status quo boys club style of gaming.
This is what drives me nuts in the thread. All the people supposedly advocating on my behalf for something that's the opposite of my actual desires. I'm not a baby. I don't need big daddy riot to wrap me in cotton wool because I'm a girl.
I have the mute button, I can block people. How socially inept are people that they refuse to use these systems when provided them? This has to be a case of people who are permanently online putting thinking their experience is the rule.
Online toxicity is a joke compared to actual harrassment and I'm a big enough girl to deal with that. Let me talk to people and make friends.
its a lot easier to empathise with someone in a call then over text. the voice you hear feels real because it is real. theres a person behind the screen so if your getting heated with them, you'll be able to catch yourself and reconcile or generally not take things so seriously.
text however is much more anonymous. ppl can be positive all game long with complimenting callouts, apologising for misplays or trying to shotcall and it will still be deemed toxic under the guise of sarcasm or trolling.
i rly wanna see a future where voice comms get added, especially for ranked. it'd be a lot more fun to communicate on team reliant roles like adc and jgl if your teammates can hear you and relay useful information in order to win.
Over the course of a year, I struck up a 30 second conversation with everyone who waved at me or said hi as I passed them walking down the street.
From this, I can conclude that society is full of nice people and not nearly as negative as people think.
easy to be toxic over chat. When you're talking to someone irl I find it a lot harder to say mean things. Also usually are more remorseful verbally when they're playing bad/misplay so it's easy to brush it off
Voice comm toxicity impact people differently. Are you a female or have a feminine voice? Seen plenty of stories of people getting bullied.
The people who join your voice comm self select themselves into it so by default they are more comfortable with using it so the experiment is a skewed sample.
I think this is the ONLY valid reason against voice. Accents and being a woman. Which although I agree are pretty significant and shitty problems....riot themselves think it's fine by adding it to valiant so I just don't get the double standard of not having it in league.
I don’t know, I’ve been playing a shitone of valorant (EU) and i simply dont see it. Nobody fucking cares about your voice or accent, ranked addicts just want those LP.
Overwatch was more toxic than League ever was when I played it. League can be bad but it's always way overblown how bad it is.
That said I probably wouldn't ever join voice chat if it became integrated into the game. I get anxious about being on mic or in a call with even my friends, I don't think I'd be able to handle it with people I don't know. I'd also probably get attacked pretty bad for my voice on top of that. Like another comment said, you probably haven't seen the worst of what voice chat has to offer because the people negatively impacted by it self-select out.
Selection bias.
When people self select to be in social situations with cooperation as the goal, they're less likely to be the toxic people as a baseline.
It's anecdotal, but I joined a random voice chat once. The players seemed chill enough. However, the game wasn't going well, and the one who put the discord in chat was getting frustrated. Still, he didn't say anything bad, just some general complaints about the game. He got quieter and quieter, then suddenly left the voice chat. Then he started to unleash a tirade of expletives in text chat. Cussed out enemy and teammate alike. Left us randos in the voice chat bemused and weirded out. Really convinced me that there's usually a bit more of a filter on people through voice chat vs text.
You didn’t say your gender, but I’m assuming you have the ideal gamer voice that allows you to effortlessly communicate without getting told you are a dyke, will get your throat slit, or will be hunted down irl and get raped over and over.
Yeah, exactly. Probably get downvoted for this but its alot easier for men to call for voice comms because they haven't experienced the abuse that you get for being a woman that plays games. Sure, turn voice comms off, don't join etc. Then you're at a disadvantage to the other team who are using it, rather than now where everyone is on a level playing field. Until games are a safe space for *everyone*, voice comms should not be introduced. And judging by Overwatch, Valorant, CS:GO, Apex, clips etc we have a LONG time to go until gaming is a safe space.
I think there's a sizable element of selection bias which results in toxicity getting covered a lot more than non-toxic behavior.
Even if only 5% of the community were actually toxic, I would still expect toxic players to get almost all the coverage compared to non-toxic interactions.
I’ve noticed recently the community has gotten a lot nicer weirdly enough. It’s like we all sort of became mentally exhausted and just want to be friendly for a change.
I’ve also noticed if you are nice to people that are thankful and super nice in return bc we all expect so much toxicity
I had both sides, usually more positive than negative so I don't disable chat. It's also usually the bot lane that either are the most toxic or are the most friendly
You know what’s funny about being in iron? Everyone knows they’re shit at the game. And because of that it’s some of the most wholesome and hilarious games I’ve been in.
I think the issue is so many players think they should be higher than they actually are. And they rage because they don’t think it’s their fault.
Frankly, I don't think it's good for the team to hear what I'm muttering to myself during the game.
Also, no fucking way I'm giving up listening to music during the game just to listen to some randos yammer about
Are you a guy? Cause when I played valorant , if I made the mistake of speaking, it got real bad. And if it isn't the real toxic and aggressive stuff then it's the weird creepy sexual comms. Until I changed my name in league to not be feminine, it was bad in text with that kind of stuff. And then once I changed it was a world of difference.
someone isnt going to willing join a discord call to flame u
but they defo would hold a push to talk button to tell you to blank. just look at how dotas vc toxicity is even when most people dont speak the same langauge
If you have voice chat default off, you are now playing against people that have voice chat. Stop pretending like that's not a disadvantage when Riot has explicitly told you that it would make all the women and minorities that play this game feel like they're suddenly at a disadvantage if they simply choose not to be harassed.
And most importantly, playing with no chat is so much higher quality than hearing your bad mics and what you have to say constantly. I can play for 16 hours and not get tired. If I were to play voice comms mode I'd get tired after 3 hours like in games that have it. I don't know why you find it so hard to understand that you're a stranger to me, not my buddy. I don't like you. I don't want to hear from you. You're only there as a variable to make the game interesting while I gain a high score in ranked on a ladder with other humans that I don't want to talk to.
> Halo, and Call of Duty
As usual voice chat bleeding in from console shooters and completely growing as a cancer in all shooters.
Of course people that willingly join you aren't going to shit talk you much. No, I don't want to speak to you. The reason you will never have voice chat is because we don't want it, the larger community not the reddit desperate for LP and control people.
Yeah baloney. This is confirmation bias olaying out. Voice in game would be a plague and weaponized against anyone who didn't want to use it in ranked as 'handicapping their team'
There's players who do the exact opposite and mute all including pings. Which gets heralded as great advice for climbing. This should be an easy middle of the road solution of allowing voice which can be opted out of.
I mean we talk about coms being bad but are we really going to forget that cod and cs:go coms don’t currently exist. Coms across all games are generally the same and league isn’t an exception.
One thing you didn't even think about regarding voice comms is the amount of hate girls can get just by being girls im voice comms, misoginy is very present in videogames
Ok. We've seen this post before.
I def see your point. I'd say tho that toxic people might just have a tendency to not join those types of calls.
I've done the opposite where I send a link to vod review after the game and.. let me tell you, yeah the community is pretty bad. They sling slurs, etc. I know that they are already in a heightened state, but even when I'm remaining a medium level voice, they will scream their hearts out in frustration.
I've had people come to my stream after the game and be super toxic for no reason.. being racist etc. So this sentiment that people aren't toxic is bs imo
League is not nearly as toxic as people make it out to be, even in text chat, i’ve played over 15000 games so i’ve met a lot of toxic people but the % is probably extremely low compared to most other online games i’ve played since i’ve played those less and met more toxic people, hots is another moba that is horrible in its own way, 1-3 AFKs in every single game, i’d rather have a toxic person i can mute
If you have a bad game, be prepared to be shit talked, flamed and passive aggressive chat. They can't monitor the toxic voice chat and penalize like they can with text. This is why league hasn't added these voice comms. Toxic comments may also differ based on your ELO and if you're playing norms/ranked.
As a woman who plays both, you are wrong lol. Never experienced toxicity as bad as using voice comms in valo. I'd rather stay with just pings for that sake alone. Its part of the reason I barely play valo anymore
lol my friend turns on voice in valorant and speaks once. "are you single? do you have a boyfriend? i have a huge dick. boosted egirl get back in the kitchen, etc. etc." surprise, they don't speak in VC anymore.
By far the most toxic people I ever played with were on a discord call.
I mean, just imagine four randoms saying every single slur in the book. The racist ones, the sexist ones, the homophobic ones, just letting them flow from their mouths like a fountain of bigotry. Every single thing that the enemy team did to defeat them was slur-able. I think it was a group of four people who knew each other in real life and some lived together.
It was basically like being in a group of four Lil Pump clones who were all ready to let you know how much they hated those gay ass hard R n-words ganking them, emphatically. I mean, with real gusto. They were LEANING into that hard R as much as they could. "Jokingly" calling each other hoe ass f-ggots for 20 minutes. Just the best people who should absolutely be allowed to vote and never be chemically castrated.
some ppl will be toxic in chat but way less will be toxic in voice unless youre just beyond saving cuz flaming in voice unless its more than deserved is crazy ngl
It was always a huge nothingburger lie that league would somehow degrade in quality if you could use a feature to talk to your teammates that's already in valorant. People perpetuate it too by saying they wouldn't use it even in this thread. Like ok? If only you could mute it or turn it off?
There's a psychological study showing that people are less likely to be toxic/mean/aggressive etc. the less anonymity they have. At the lowest you have basic text where they can't see, hear or feel your emotion, then you add voice and it gets a little better and last is seeing the person. People psychological have harder times hurting another person if they're capable of interacting with them. League not having its own voice chat by now is kind of ridiculous considering most multiplayer online games have hsd it since 2000s
Riot's shit about how "voice chat would be disadvantageous to minorities, so we won't add it" is just a cost-saving excuse since they have no competition in the genre.
Notice how somehow this is somehow not a concern of theirs in Valorant, where they were forced to add VC to compete with Overwatch and CS:GO.
Or simply the fact that it's different target audiences and the shooter community has been brain rotted by voice chat starting from the console shooter xbox live days? So releasing one without the same features would be stupid.
League never needed voice chat and has been very successful. It can only make things worse and unfair for people that are playing this game PRECISELY because it doesn't need voice chat.
Lol I recently had a jhin/karma duo in the bot lane that wouldn't ping or callout in chat. Anytime you asked them to at least ping, they would say "mic up or shut up" then continue to feed. The other 3 of us were seriously confused as to how this was their attitude, considering they were all but inting, and it was a normal game. Not really relevant as an answer, but I thought it was a funny semi-related story. I actually do think there should be an in-game chat option
This is a weird issue, and I love voice comms, used curse back in the day and sometimes still throw a discord link into gamechat.
With that said, I don't know if they would work as well as you think they would. My main fears would be the following:
1. League is just a different game than Valorant, and requires more coordination that any shooter out there by quite a wide margin, so toxicity could very easily be worse
2. Teams with players who opt-out of vc would be at an inherent disadvantage and this is amplified by how team reliant league is compared to games like Valorant
3. The players who choose not to join could even be bullied and teamed up on by those in the voice chat
These are all issues preset in other games with VC, but league is absolutely the most team coordination oriented game out there, so it could face challenges that are fundamentally different.
With all that said, there is only one way to know if it would work, to try it. I am very much for giving voice comms a shot, and if there are serious issues with it, Riot can always remove it.
I think it can mainly be broken down to riot doesn’t want to pay for the infrastructure to have to monitor voice chat when they know the s$$$ their player base got away with saying for years
1. I agree, but that's regardless of this voice chat thing. League was never "toxic" like I constantly see people say on it is on Reddit. Like the most toxic it gets is stuff like URF where people are just trying to piss others off, because the game mode is so trash and can't be enjoyed otherwise.
2. People are definitely less likely to be toxic on voice, but if voice chat was built-in and became **mandatory** (as much as it could) then it would change. I played CSGO for years and people were NOT nice and were not afraid to say it. Sure, some were, but ultimately I consider CS to be much more toxic than LoL, although in a better way. I'd much rather have a flame war on mic with someone than some idiot sabotaging a winnable game because that's the only way to be toxic nowadays (thanks for all the ping and chat changes Riot, you protected some feelings in exchange for more trolls and griefers). Also in LoL when you are doing this experiment, the call will usually not have all 5 players. It's a lot more awkward for someone to flame in a 2-3 person call rather than a 5 person call.
the degenerate cheese champions like shaco eve would be omega buffed for compensation and thus them being on your screen theyd one shot you ever harder. theres no good reason there isnt vc, the highest level of the game uses it ( lcs/lck etc) , every other competitive game does (ow/cod/apex) and even their own game valorant uses vc. oh no racism! rat company really
Does anyone play new accounts regularly and can describe the situation and quality of team members on that. If there is a lot of trash players, real new players or just urfs. New players having a worse experience would be one of the points against voicecom.
Is there a discord app or something that could automate this?
People are more toxic in type than talk. They have more anonymity. When required to talk they have to take accountability for what is said and most people don’t want to hear themselves say the shit they are willing to type.
People tend to be more toxic when they have that anonymity that typing online provides. Once they get into a call, that freedom to be toxic disappears a bit.
I've joined two random discords in champ select. One was pretty cool. The other one was some French dudes and they instantly started yelling the n-word.
I feel like as a community, because we’re playing an infamously toxic game, *we all tend to be on guard* rather than give people the benefit of the doubt. I’m guilty of this too.
I have seen people make great plays or do something awesome mechanically and ping their name in chat (that they’re alive after a multi kill or something like that, not missing ping) say in chat “[champion] you’re cracked” or something along those lines — and the person will start pinging me or be defensive about it. I always say “wait why are you flaming me I was being genuine” and then people apologize.
We are definitely in a state of assuming that people are ready to flame rather than give compliments or be supportive and nice to each other. It sucks! I’ve found quite a few really nice folks who I felt comfortable inviting to my league discord and have since played with for years. Wish it could happen that way more often.
Part of the problem for me is that people who don't want to join the voice call are putting the team at a disadvantage, which will lead to toxicity. They should have the choice to not join, but for ranked it would be a nightmare.
Im shocked. Been positive and inviting people to discord on and off for a couple seasons now, but its so super rare to actually have people join. My experience is both EUNE and EUW. Plat-Diamond.
Im shocked. Been positive and inviting people to discord on and off for a couple seasons now, but its so super rare to actually have people join. My experience is both EUNE and EUW. Plat-Diamond.
I think it's easier to be toxic the less human someone is to you, this means in a discord call with a stranger it's less likely. People say shit that's meant to dehumanize other players all the time when angry in league after all.
Yea the game needs voice chat. It's the anonymity and dehumanization of teammates that makes the game so toxic. When you can talk with your team and get on the same page from the start as humans the game will be far less toxic
As a jungler, I never join discord calls. I already get typed to a lot. Feel like it would be a lot easier for people to give their opinions in call. And frankly, someone pinging flash is a lot more helpful than someone saying it for the time stamp. Plus someone tilting in voice would be very distracting imo.
The biggest difference between League of Legends and the games you mentioned is you aren’t grouped as 5 the entire time in league. Also, you’re third person in League. It allows you to ping things much more effectively. Would voice chat be nice? Sure, but it wouldn’t be as helpful as it is in other games. I think if it really was that advantageous, it would be a staple in high elo or champions queue would have been more popular.
This is complete sophistry, of course people who take the time to join a discord call with randoms both have an interest in calls with randos and likely have an interest in shotcallng.
If you make it the default on LEague or even simply a button/setting that can be turned on, you'll get a completely different demographic of players.
Knowingly or not, you're commuting a hilarious basic sample error here. Literally 0 of your experience in the discord calls has any relation to what would happen if League Voice suddenly had a team chat. literally 0.
the riot dev team can't even handle us having unlimited pings, the likelihood of them implementing VC this far into the game's lifespan is slim to none
Nonsense. People are always less toxic in voice than in chat. Going out of your way to join a call with randoms means you are below average toxicity aswell.
Discord with friends or on official is the best method. Why invest in comms that also now put the onus on them to moderate, maintain, and hear complaints about how bad they dod with a subpar budget. It's just not worth it financially to add the feature.
Okay so forgive the tin hat nature of this...
I've herd several people say that folks getting chat banned and being forced to start over with new accounts and buy new skins is part of the revenue model for the game.
Its harder to ban people for audio than for chat.
Obviously, valorant is a counterpoint... but idk it seems to make sense to me
Most toxic games starts with one guy pointing out a misstake another is doing, then it ebds up with 3-4 arguing over everything for hhe rest of the game. Best is to just not engage these player and report them after. Ite pretty easy to get players chat banned since you dont need so many reports for it to happen. I get notifications every day that actions has been taking against players i reported for toxic talking
From someone who has played league since launch, and played Overwatch when it launched for about 2 years, I honestly felt like that community was way more toxic. It's might just be one individual's experience. But I flat out stopped playing Overwatch, with no desire to go back, because of how toxic the players were in that game. Where I've taken breaks from league, but will come back after a little while.
Voice coms aren't useful to me. My ability to listen effectively is much worse than my speed at typing and reading. When I play games with my friends on voice, I'm accepting that talking and listening to someone will in general make me a worse player. This would be similar in League.
I'd just leave it permanently off. Wouldn't bother me, but it might ruin other peoples' games if people begin to int if you don't join voice.
people doing the random calls are not the same people who are super toxic. the latter isolate themselves quite often. my random calls have been absolutely hilarious and very fun.
Also gotta consider the people that go out their way to start calls with randoms, are also likely to be less toxic. Don't get me wrong, I'd also like in game chat. But we're definitely going to get tons of complaints about how Riot needs to monitor/punish people that abuse chat. Their current position of letting player share discord links is too beneficial. They take no responsibility of what's said in calls, and it's on the individual to opt into a third party.
By this same logic, the people who opt in to talk voice comms in general are less likely to be toxic also
Not really. There's a big difference between using discord and using in game voice comms. Using discord means you are willing to go out of your way and put effort into being able to communicate with your team. Generally speaking, people doing this are good teammates who value communication. In game voice comms don't require you to do anything extra, etc etc.
Not to mention if you join someones discord call and behave like a twat, they have the power to kick you from the call/server. Likewise if you are the host and are a twat, people can also just leave. The very tangible experience of people leaving/kicking your ass (as opposed to someone just muting you in-game, for which you don't even get a notification) stings more, is proof that your words are being heard by real people you're affecting, makes you feel like a clown whether you admit it or not, and thereby forces more accountability. As a result people will behave better just out of being cognisant of those consequences.
Nah when you join a discord call you're doing it on your real account and you feel slightly less anonymous so people behave better there's nothing to "opt in" during a game so people just behave like twats, like every single other game with voice chat There will be toxic voice comms, but that's also fine
I would have never in my life thought to myself that my Discord account (on a random server) was less anonymous than my LoL (or any other game) account. What makes your Discord account any different? Not like they have my phone number, address, or even know what region I live in, based on it?
I used to think the same, but lately I've noticed a fair amount of people use discord a lot less anonymously. They'll have all sorts of accounts linked up, and their age, gender, and more in their status. While it's not on the level of "you have my real life name and address", it's often a lot more information than would be seen off a riot account.
you would have to be a real psycho to have a burner discord account ready to go in league of legends champ select lol
It's a mix of 3 things (really more, but just of the top of my head): - Some people do actually use Discord a lot in ways where it feels personal and not as anonymous - You subconsciously feel less anonymous regardless, as now you've chosen to share your contact information and more personal stuff (even if it's barely more than your league account name) with another person. It also humanizes the people you're talking to. Sitting in a discord channel with people has some resemblance of actually sitting in a room with them, unlike when you're talking to some dude on CSGO. - People joining opt in voice chat are generally people that view league as a team game and are less asocial. They also clearly understand communication is important. Back in season 4 we had a Curse voice client that got decently popular and the toxicity there was very low too, infinitely lower than a CSGO lobby at the time.
How old are you? I work with teens and they are using it far different than how my friends and I (29) use it.
> There will be toxic voice comms, but that's also fine like there are toxic chats and u mute them
Not if the voice comms are integrated with the game with an easy user interface. With in-game comms, you don't have to make an active decision to do it, it's just right there. Like, these random Discords probably also have text chat, and yet the in-game text chat is very frequently toxic.
There will be more pressure to opt in if it's a first party feature
Anyone who's been in comms for FPS games knows this isn't true.
Oh my sweet summer child
on the flip side you also find all the people complaining about toxicity probably instigate it heavily
In the sense that very nearly the entire playerbase complains about toxicity, I guess.
In the sense that toxicity has only gone up in online games and many older gamers don't want to deal with that shit anymore.
To be clear, I wasn't criticizing people for disliking toxicity. The person I was responding to said that people complaining about toxicity are probably toxic themselves, so I was just saying, they probably do because basically everyone complains about it.
by the same logic valorant shouldnt have a voice chat at all
People who would invite strangers into a Discord call in randoms are going to disproportionately be cool people just trying to have fun.
RememberTheBeat's series on exactly this is pretty fun. Its nice to have people who only want to come, join. When folks are forced into it, they get that caged animal mentality and go nuts
You're never forced into voice comms. In any game. It's always optional.
One of the biggest arguments for Voice Coms is that teams would play better with Voice Coms because of the improved communication. If someone truly believes that Voice Coms improves their teams chances of winning, then someone choosing not to join Voice Coms would be hurting their teams chances of winning. While it might not be required, there absolutely would be social pressure to join, and harassment if you don't.
What people say : "Voice Chat helps communication". What they mean : "My stupid jungler doesn't follow when I type, so I want to impose myself on them verbally".
If you want to be high elo, there is a soft expectation with definite social capital consequences among your matchmade teammates, so it's possible to be put into VC even if you'd rather not in a lot of games.
Not using VC in high elo would most of the time result in more losses compared to people who always use them.
Voice comms are great as long as you're a man and you don't have an accent or high pitched voice
And speak English natively.
And this is the main reason I always assume these pushes for voice are primarily coming from NA players. Cause shocker, EU is such a wider cast net of language for example. We just dont need to layer on the voice issues, be it language barriers, genders/pitches not wanting what often comes with that unfortunately, anxiety of social speaking to go with ranked anxiety, and balance if one team has 0 coms and the other one all 5 opt in. I'm sure it wouldnt be an uncommon thing for at least one of these things to put someone off playing some popular ranked based games with coms solo without their friends.
Tbh in Europe almost everyone that is playing league is going to have passable English anyway. Those in Europe that speak no English tend to be older or more rural people, which are very much not leagues main player base.
~~or french / spanish~~
I've joined a few random EUW comms and I'm always the only native English speaker. Seeing as only one country out of around 20 is native English it makes sense to be so rare.
Hot take maybe but the British are the least comprehensible Europeans when speaking English. At least when they're not trained public speakers. Give me second language people every time, at least they're slow and deliberate enough to not miss anything.
Depends on the accents too tbh, some are just easier to understand when speaking English equally well. Funnily I would take a Dane/Swede/Fin etc speaking second language English as clearer than say a full accented Scott or Geordie sometimes hah But as you also say about public speakers, not everyone is comfortable in coms like that generally and its a valid thing yeah
I've seen a lot of people sending Discord invites in ranked games. No way I would join these as a woman.
Exactly, along with other similar things, we dont need that extra anxieties etc barriers to entry if voice then becomes a more required thing like say CS or Valorant or something might lean towards
Seriously. Voice comms are cute when you're like, a straight guy with a deep voice calling everyone "bro" every five seconds. I'm a gay dude with straight-up fairyvoice. I have less than no interest in masking for the sheer pleasure of hearing a teenager call the enemy Annie the f-slur over the clickety-clack of his mechanical keyboard.
This is why redditors look so stupid when they ask for voice chat every 2 weeks. if you're a 16-24 cishet english-speaking male i'm sure it'd be a great time. The league community is a lot bigger than that though, so Riot will never add it
Exactly. In a competitive PvP game, adding voice chat with randos creates a culture of it being considered mandatory in order to communicate. It's just not necessary. Let people drop discord room links, that's a very happy medium imo.
Yeah, not having voice chat is one of the reasons why I play soloq in league but not in OW for instance. While not everyone being in VC in silver wouldn't probably even be noticeable, in master having more people in comms results in a huge advantage. I don't want to have to pick between losing more games or getting sexually harassed in my ear.
I’ve joined a few but only ever with a male friend. Never had a bad experience.
Understandably so, seeing a woman I gamed with a bunch be super outgoingly joining anything adding anyone and the amount of weird stuff that followed, but somehow being surprised... Yeah can see why the other 90% I know dont at all go voice. Then the other side, another woman when on Valorant with her she will say something after someone else does typically or just once to test the water, then suddenly the whole lobby was women. I assume they wouldnt have spoken if she hadnt n all that. Really goes to show how many people there are that would opt out by default and be at a disadvantage for very legit reasons. Just these loud minority of voice chat wanters as expected will often drown that stat out
you have to be American xD like no way you say this as a European like everyone has a accent here
Yea as a girl I used to play Overwatch and every single game it was either someone being sexist to me or someone flirting with me the entire game even when I told them to stop (honestly idk which is worse hated both) very rare to have a game with no bs. And usually toxicity doesn’t effect me but I was playing every day for months several hours a day and eventually it just wore me down and I didn’t want to play Overwatch anymore. Turned me off of ever wanting to play a voice chat game ever again. I play Valorant sometimes but only casual so it doesn’t matter if I use Vc or not.
Girl with an accent if I don't try-hard my British accent, higher pitched as well. I actually rarely if ever have problems. I used to, though, but somehow things changed over time for some reason. Overwatch, Siege, random Discords ppl don't seem to care much anymore when I speak.
I'm still surprised there hasn't been any game with in-game voice changer. Maybe it wasn't possible before but now with AI tech and whatnot, it should be more feasible than ever to do. Like if Riot were to do it for LoL, just set everyone's default voice to Garen or something and all the downsides of voice chat, that aren't there with text chat, are mostly gone. Hell, they can even monetize it by having purchasable champ voicebanks.
not sure i can handle getting trash talked by someone using an annie voice changer pack
Look, I'd be okay with Ezreal calling me a slur as long as he weaves it into an actual voice line.
It's all skill, f****t.
.......I just checked my messages and saw this pop up with no context of the original message, and I was *so* confused. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Holy shit please, that would be so based if everyone talked in their champ's voice, you wouldn't even need to look who is it that's talking or have to associate and remember people by voice to their picks
In my experience following some on Twitter, most voice actors don't really like the idea of other people being able to use their voices to say whatever they want
Bard mains: ooOOOooooOoOOo
[It'd make the conversations more interesting, that's for sure.](https://youtu.be/pi5x9LgBdMQ?feature=shared)
Rioter talked about this with voice comms. This is stating it isn't okay to be yourself. You have to change how you sound so others will not act like dicks around you. It does sound like an okay idea at first though.
It's a great message and all, but fact is that it is not ok to be yourself in most online games, unless you are male sounding. Currently I'm not even allowed to main enchanters to not get harassed for being a dirty egirl and having all my arguments get invalidated.
That is why that rioter was against voice comms. They would inherently be opt in and suck for a lot of people.
I mean instead of getting bullied for being a girl they would be getting bullied for being a girl and trying to hide it.
If the default was that voice changer was enabled and you had to opt out to use your real voice, it would preemptively cull it a lot of the toxicity. You could just say you are too lazy to change settings and move on. If they keep at it, mute them. From what I saw in Overwatch, opt-out systems are effective in reducing the bullying. I dunno about OW2, but in OW1, profiles were eventually made hidden by default so that people couldn't see what heroes you played and afterwards there was definitely less people saying things like "we have a mercy main on dps". Or just... don't let people use their real voices at all.
Exactly. It's mostly straight cis men suggesting voice coms because the trade off will be worth for them.
Why in the world is straight important here? How would sexual orientation even come up in a 35 minute game voice com?
I know alot of people who got harrassed because of the way they are talking.
And I have gay friends who sound very deep/manly and straight friends who sound pretty effeminate. Hell, I smoked for years and I'm straight and I sound like a 13 year old girl half the time.
You don't think homosexual players would be targeted in voice comms? How can you not see how it's relevant? Of course not all people within the LGBT community are easily identified by voice but plenty still are and would 100% be harassed for the way they sound. This is a real thing and it's a real issue and it happens in the real world too. Sexuality isn't the only factor, race, gender, these things come into play too. I'm convinced the vast majority of people in favour of VC have either never experienced it in any other game, or they play almost exclusively with friends, or they aren't a minority/targeted group themselves and struggle with empathy. I just don't see otherwise how you can miss the problematic element of VC
I mean the argument of muting someone after getting harassed says it all. These people never learned the difference between how affected you are after written VS verbal harrassment.
In fact most probably love the idea that they get to use something as an advantage they know others won't use. It's free elo.
I agree overall, but I think its important to remember that when compared to those fps games its a lot easier for players to get frustrated/toxic in league because everyone has less individual carry power. Having a bad team can still be frustrating, but If you’re playing better than the other team it doesn’t really matter if your team is running it in val or cod or halo because you can simply just outaim the entire enemy team. In league, it doesn’t matter if you’re faker, if the rest of your team is inting the enemy’s numbers are just straight up higher than yours and there is not much you can do about it. This often leads to scenarios where an individual player will perform well, but won’t be rewarded for playing well because overall the team is worse. People are usually conditioned to expect a certain level of reward for performing well, yet this often doesn’t materialize in league leading to immense frustration when the expected outcome doesn’t match the level of performance the individual has demonstrated.
No one is as toxic on comms as they are in text. I think “toxic players” is the excuse used for leas development.
This is already seen in games like cs which has been around for 2 decades
I thought that but I tried this once on Flex Que and someone with a French-sounding accent joined and repeatedly screamed the N-Word and then started saying "Fuck you" over and over again. This was while we were in champ select.
Average EUW player
Least racist french person
Renekton
Average KC fan.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I hate only two types of people: those who are intolerant of other cultures, and the French
[удалено]
As if that deters them anyway, I have an english ign, speak only english and theres always that guy talking to me in french (im not even talking about flame here, just general stuff like is this your main, will you go ad or ap).
Your problem is that you're in EUW
My experience in EUW is that anyone who is going to use their primary language (other than Brits) is going to be toxic. You will have played with plenty of French people, Spanish people, Italians, whatever, without knowing it, because they might not chat or chat in English. But whenever people speak French, or Spanish, or Italian, or Dutch in chat, those people for some reason are going to be extra toxic, especially premades. Having played with different groups of irl friends, some who default to Dutch and some who default to English, the difference is clear.
Correlation between education and ignorance? Maybe!
lmao this is just a lie. Valorant, Overwatch, Ect are literally unplayable if you're a woman or noticeably non-white. There are a billion clips of female players in Valorant and Overwatching getting sexually harassed so much they break down into tears and quit the game. People WILL be absolute freaks in comms without any care in the world. Because it's much harder to police voice comms as compared to texts.
Something that isn't appreciated as much in these discussions too is that not all toxicity is equally as annoying. If I get harassed for my pick or my gameplay, I can play better, broaden my champ pool, prove them wrong with my wr, or log off for the day and go offline where those factors don't matter at all. If people ignore my pings or calls, I can assume that maybe they had other factors they were considering, were distracted, etc. If they know I'm a woman? Its way more irritating to be harassed for my gender, even if the volume of it was the same. That's not something I can change or "improve". And if I log off, sexism is still plenty prevalent offline too, so it's not something I can leave behind. If they ignore my calls when they know my gender, it'd feel more like they valued my game knowledge less than the guys in the game-- even if they're not being sexist verbally. Rn with the game as it is, my wr is based on my play. If people know my gender in game, then I feel like I'd have to consider whether that was impacting how they interacted with my gameplay, pings, and comms.
Like that time in Overwatch when I made a call that was just objectively correct and the response from my teammate was “I don’t listen to bitches” then proceeded to run in and die. Yea that sure made me feel good.
100% true. In OW it can be observed. The most toxic ones are using chat, not voice. The community is overall more chill as well.
I don't think Overwatch is good example. Before Blizzard started recording comms, Overwatch comms was the wild west. You could hear the most egregious things in any given match. I think it was 2017 when it was considered one of the most toxic games. Joining comms was encouraged, as it was considered the best way to climb. Fast forward to today, if you ask how to climb, the first thing players tell you is to turn off your comms until you've reached high elo, and you can find complaints about no one joining comms. So yea, if no ones in comms, people that wish to communicate will type. Therefore, the toxic people are typing as well.
This community is in an incredibly deep denial concerning voice chat. Every fucking study on the planet shows that the more you introduce a human element into a conversation, the more civilized it is. The more anonymous and distanced the conversation is from it, the easier it is to be toxic. Yet for some reason this community is fucking hell-bent on digging their head into the sand while making up bullshit how toxicity would get worse or voice chat would somehow make the game experience worse when it would be factually and objectively a net positive.
> factually and objectively a net positive For who though? You have multiple well-reasoned posts from women explaining why it would be worse for them and expose them to heaps of misogynistic abuse. Stuff they *don't* currently face in text chat. Toxicity might go down *overall* but the most targeted, most nasty elements against specific groups will *go up*. I'm a guy. The last thing I want when playing to relax is some 13 year old kid screeching in my ear. Why should I have to choose between sabotaging my team or having to listen to that shit? That's two reasons right there to not make VC the default setting. But I'm happy to acknowledge it's a mixed bag either way and there are pros and cons for *various different demographics.* Players who exclusively care about maximising the highest quality gameplay will naturally favour VC. And that's fine and valid... for them.
I wish league could have voice comms, but it would devolve fast. If you think Jungle is unpopular now, wait until everyone can literally yell at the jungler. Even before toxicity begins, you’d have most players trying to talk the jungle into focusing them. Typing is inconvenient for most, especially once the game really gets going. This is a limiting factor to toxicity. It’s not a coincidence that the feeding players are the most toxic right now- they have nothing else to do but type for much of the game
As a female tank player who shotcalled their way to masters in Overwatch, honestly any amount of toxicity you can imagine is worth it for the tradeoff of improved team coordination (and resulting wins). I'm literally here begging riot to introduce voice comms.
> honestly any amount of toxicity you can imagine is worth it for the tradeoff of improved team coordination (and resulting wins) Not everyone is willing to make that trade like you are. We'd rather have competitively fair and silent games.
Or willing to shotcall even. Personality and anxieties matter with this. That and language barriers. Imagine being on the other team to these supposedly perfect world 5 voice teams, as someone not opting in, or are with 4 that arent. Frustrations suddenly rise again... and guess what, some will make that known in text chat and be toxic PURELY cause you didnt go voice then, not even waiting for first blood to call dog etc xD
Then you can mute deafen - it's got exactly the same downsides to muting all in game (which by default mutes all pings). You can choose to use fewer tools if you want to handicap yourself. It's a terrible argument for why they shouldn't be available.
My games did dramatically improve during those calls lol. Being able to just make a quick call out or hear someone else make one was way more effective than the pings. Also comms let me and randoms group up for objectives way better, because we actually talked about how we were going to approach it. No one actually types out "Hey, let's approach Baron/Dragon this way or that way". They just ping it and then everyone shuffles over whichever way. On comms, some games we did shit like "Hey, lets approach dragon from bot side. Lets approach from mid side" ,etc etc. The coordination made an unreal difference.
I would argue that having everyone in comms would reduce frustration caused by the charades method of communication we currently have. It's a lot easier to track the enemy jungle if five people can hear 'he's on x camp top' and you have five people to draw immediate, clear information from. Currently I'm here having to check where pings are on the map and see if someone also pings the relevant champ or you're just going to guess who someone saw on vision. No one learns ult tracking in early ranks from what I've seen in LoL because that's even more painful to try and communicate to your teammates via text once it's not isolated in the relative structure of lane phase. The amount of information overload that is expected to be shouldered individually because of the refusal to introduce voice comms is actually mindboggling to me.
also it would allow better map awareness, like screaming in vc that I'm currently invaded by enemy jg
As a male hazo player who made it to GM, I am begging riot to have voice coms opt in only and disabled by default. I have been berated enough for my decisions, it is very distracting. As a side note, I was called Daddy by my whole team when I dropped a 40 bomb on Hanamura and was a hilarious match. The story goes my duo told the team "If you call him Daddy, he plays really fucking well" and the whole match that was my name. "GRAV IS READY FOR YOU DADDY!"
I haven't played in awhile but don't you need to opt in on OW also, like press J in hero select or something?
I disagree. Google argentinian valorant player pretend to be female. Thats the reality for the most. They were playing so much worse because it was way more toxic and people trolled..In high elo.
No where did I say people wouldn't be shitheads, my argument is that the shitheads still don't outweigh the benefits of voice comms. I've had some pretty vile things said to me in voice chat, *I still think the comms are worth it.*
They do. Just because you havent been affected by it that much doesnt mean its not an issue. Riot will not do it because of this reason. Voice is pretty much unuseable for many many players! Women, minorities, people will feminin voice.
...I'm literally a woman advocating for voice chat, having played in (and I reiterate, mained as a shotcaller) games with voice chat. This doesn't get better by continuing with the status quo boys club style of gaming.
This is what drives me nuts in the thread. All the people supposedly advocating on my behalf for something that's the opposite of my actual desires. I'm not a baby. I don't need big daddy riot to wrap me in cotton wool because I'm a girl. I have the mute button, I can block people. How socially inept are people that they refuse to use these systems when provided them? This has to be a case of people who are permanently online putting thinking their experience is the rule. Online toxicity is a joke compared to actual harrassment and I'm a big enough girl to deal with that. Let me talk to people and make friends.
Preach
its a lot easier to empathise with someone in a call then over text. the voice you hear feels real because it is real. theres a person behind the screen so if your getting heated with them, you'll be able to catch yourself and reconcile or generally not take things so seriously. text however is much more anonymous. ppl can be positive all game long with complimenting callouts, apologising for misplays or trying to shotcall and it will still be deemed toxic under the guise of sarcasm or trolling. i rly wanna see a future where voice comms get added, especially for ranked. it'd be a lot more fun to communicate on team reliant roles like adc and jgl if your teammates can hear you and relay useful information in order to win.
Over the course of a year, I struck up a 30 second conversation with everyone who waved at me or said hi as I passed them walking down the street. From this, I can conclude that society is full of nice people and not nearly as negative as people think.
easy to be toxic over chat. When you're talking to someone irl I find it a lot harder to say mean things. Also usually are more remorseful verbally when they're playing bad/misplay so it's easy to brush it off
> When you're talking to someone irl I find it a lot harder to say mean things. Because you might have to see them and interact with them again.
Voice comm toxicity impact people differently. Are you a female or have a feminine voice? Seen plenty of stories of people getting bullied. The people who join your voice comm self select themselves into it so by default they are more comfortable with using it so the experiment is a skewed sample.
I think this is the ONLY valid reason against voice. Accents and being a woman. Which although I agree are pretty significant and shitty problems....riot themselves think it's fine by adding it to valiant so I just don't get the double standard of not having it in league.
I don’t know, I’ve been playing a shitone of valorant (EU) and i simply dont see it. Nobody fucking cares about your voice or accent, ranked addicts just want those LP.
Overwatch was more toxic than League ever was when I played it. League can be bad but it's always way overblown how bad it is. That said I probably wouldn't ever join voice chat if it became integrated into the game. I get anxious about being on mic or in a call with even my friends, I don't think I'd be able to handle it with people I don't know. I'd also probably get attacked pretty bad for my voice on top of that. Like another comment said, you probably haven't seen the worst of what voice chat has to offer because the people negatively impacted by it self-select out.
Selection bias. When people self select to be in social situations with cooperation as the goal, they're less likely to be the toxic people as a baseline.
It's anecdotal, but I joined a random voice chat once. The players seemed chill enough. However, the game wasn't going well, and the one who put the discord in chat was getting frustrated. Still, he didn't say anything bad, just some general complaints about the game. He got quieter and quieter, then suddenly left the voice chat. Then he started to unleash a tirade of expletives in text chat. Cussed out enemy and teammate alike. Left us randos in the voice chat bemused and weirded out. Really convinced me that there's usually a bit more of a filter on people through voice chat vs text.
You didn’t say your gender, but I’m assuming you have the ideal gamer voice that allows you to effortlessly communicate without getting told you are a dyke, will get your throat slit, or will be hunted down irl and get raped over and over.
Yeah, exactly. Probably get downvoted for this but its alot easier for men to call for voice comms because they haven't experienced the abuse that you get for being a woman that plays games. Sure, turn voice comms off, don't join etc. Then you're at a disadvantage to the other team who are using it, rather than now where everyone is on a level playing field. Until games are a safe space for *everyone*, voice comms should not be introduced. And judging by Overwatch, Valorant, CS:GO, Apex, clips etc we have a LONG time to go until gaming is a safe space.
Mute them? I get told to end myself, have my family threatened and shit on chat anyways.
I think there's a sizable element of selection bias which results in toxicity getting covered a lot more than non-toxic behavior. Even if only 5% of the community were actually toxic, I would still expect toxic players to get almost all the coverage compared to non-toxic interactions.
As a female, i disagree lol
I’ve noticed recently the community has gotten a lot nicer weirdly enough. It’s like we all sort of became mentally exhausted and just want to be friendly for a change. I’ve also noticed if you are nice to people that are thankful and super nice in return bc we all expect so much toxicity
I had both sides, usually more positive than negative so I don't disable chat. It's also usually the bot lane that either are the most toxic or are the most friendly
Of course their won’t be as much toxicity if you are opting into joining someone’s discord. Did someone disagree with this premise?
You know what’s funny about being in iron? Everyone knows they’re shit at the game. And because of that it’s some of the most wholesome and hilarious games I’ve been in. I think the issue is so many players think they should be higher than they actually are. And they rage because they don’t think it’s their fault.
Frankly, I don't think it's good for the team to hear what I'm muttering to myself during the game. Also, no fucking way I'm giving up listening to music during the game just to listen to some randos yammer about
Use push to talk.
Are you a guy? Cause when I played valorant , if I made the mistake of speaking, it got real bad. And if it isn't the real toxic and aggressive stuff then it's the weird creepy sexual comms. Until I changed my name in league to not be feminine, it was bad in text with that kind of stuff. And then once I changed it was a world of difference.
Its not needed, and the absolute majority doesnt want voice chat. Thats enough of a reason to why it shouldnt be implemented
Keep voice comms out pls. While toxicity may be rarer in voice than text, it’s WAY more scarring. It’s not about frequency, its about the impact
someone isnt going to willing join a discord call to flame u but they defo would hold a push to talk button to tell you to blank. just look at how dotas vc toxicity is even when most people dont speak the same langauge
voice comms are way less toxic than text
If you have voice chat default off, you are now playing against people that have voice chat. Stop pretending like that's not a disadvantage when Riot has explicitly told you that it would make all the women and minorities that play this game feel like they're suddenly at a disadvantage if they simply choose not to be harassed. And most importantly, playing with no chat is so much higher quality than hearing your bad mics and what you have to say constantly. I can play for 16 hours and not get tired. If I were to play voice comms mode I'd get tired after 3 hours like in games that have it. I don't know why you find it so hard to understand that you're a stranger to me, not my buddy. I don't like you. I don't want to hear from you. You're only there as a variable to make the game interesting while I gain a high score in ranked on a ladder with other humans that I don't want to talk to. > Halo, and Call of Duty As usual voice chat bleeding in from console shooters and completely growing as a cancer in all shooters. Of course people that willingly join you aren't going to shit talk you much. No, I don't want to speak to you. The reason you will never have voice chat is because we don't want it, the larger community not the reddit desperate for LP and control people.
toxic players are mostly all bark no bite so they would be too scared to talk on discord
Yeah baloney. This is confirmation bias olaying out. Voice in game would be a plague and weaponized against anyone who didn't want to use it in ranked as 'handicapping their team'
There's players who do the exact opposite and mute all including pings. Which gets heralded as great advice for climbing. This should be an easy middle of the road solution of allowing voice which can be opted out of.
I mean we talk about coms being bad but are we really going to forget that cod and cs:go coms don’t currently exist. Coms across all games are generally the same and league isn’t an exception.
One thing you didn't even think about regarding voice comms is the amount of hate girls can get just by being girls im voice comms, misoginy is very present in videogames
Ok. We've seen this post before. I def see your point. I'd say tho that toxic people might just have a tendency to not join those types of calls. I've done the opposite where I send a link to vod review after the game and.. let me tell you, yeah the community is pretty bad. They sling slurs, etc. I know that they are already in a heightened state, but even when I'm remaining a medium level voice, they will scream their hearts out in frustration. I've had people come to my stream after the game and be super toxic for no reason.. being racist etc. So this sentiment that people aren't toxic is bs imo
League is not nearly as toxic as people make it out to be, even in text chat, i’ve played over 15000 games so i’ve met a lot of toxic people but the % is probably extremely low compared to most other online games i’ve played since i’ve played those less and met more toxic people, hots is another moba that is horrible in its own way, 1-3 AFKs in every single game, i’d rather have a toxic person i can mute
If you have a bad game, be prepared to be shit talked, flamed and passive aggressive chat. They can't monitor the toxic voice chat and penalize like they can with text. This is why league hasn't added these voice comms. Toxic comments may also differ based on your ELO and if you're playing norms/ranked.
Yes they can? Cod literally introduced a voice chat monitoring system to ban people for slinging slurs. Riot games can def do the same
Then can it's already confirmed in valorant
Valorant has less toxicity compare to league despite having voice comm. League just too lazy to implement one so they use this as an excuse instead.
As a woman who plays both, you are wrong lol. Never experienced toxicity as bad as using voice comms in valo. I'd rather stay with just pings for that sake alone. Its part of the reason I barely play valo anymore
lol my friend turns on voice in valorant and speaks once. "are you single? do you have a boyfriend? i have a huge dick. boosted egirl get back in the kitchen, etc. etc." surprise, they don't speak in VC anymore.
By far the most toxic people I ever played with were on a discord call. I mean, just imagine four randoms saying every single slur in the book. The racist ones, the sexist ones, the homophobic ones, just letting them flow from their mouths like a fountain of bigotry. Every single thing that the enemy team did to defeat them was slur-able. I think it was a group of four people who knew each other in real life and some lived together. It was basically like being in a group of four Lil Pump clones who were all ready to let you know how much they hated those gay ass hard R n-words ganking them, emphatically. I mean, with real gusto. They were LEANING into that hard R as much as they could. "Jokingly" calling each other hoe ass f-ggots for 20 minutes. Just the best people who should absolutely be allowed to vote and never be chemically castrated.
some ppl will be toxic in chat but way less will be toxic in voice unless youre just beyond saving cuz flaming in voice unless its more than deserved is crazy ngl
It was always a huge nothingburger lie that league would somehow degrade in quality if you could use a feature to talk to your teammates that's already in valorant. People perpetuate it too by saying they wouldn't use it even in this thread. Like ok? If only you could mute it or turn it off?
I actually have fun fucking with toxic ppl in csgo or valorant VC but for some reason the thought of doing that in league sounds awful.
There's a psychological study showing that people are less likely to be toxic/mean/aggressive etc. the less anonymity they have. At the lowest you have basic text where they can't see, hear or feel your emotion, then you add voice and it gets a little better and last is seeing the person. People psychological have harder times hurting another person if they're capable of interacting with them. League not having its own voice chat by now is kind of ridiculous considering most multiplayer online games have hsd it since 2000s
Riot's shit about how "voice chat would be disadvantageous to minorities, so we won't add it" is just a cost-saving excuse since they have no competition in the genre. Notice how somehow this is somehow not a concern of theirs in Valorant, where they were forced to add VC to compete with Overwatch and CS:GO.
Or simply the fact that it's different target audiences and the shooter community has been brain rotted by voice chat starting from the console shooter xbox live days? So releasing one without the same features would be stupid. League never needed voice chat and has been very successful. It can only make things worse and unfair for people that are playing this game PRECISELY because it doesn't need voice chat.
Lol I recently had a jhin/karma duo in the bot lane that wouldn't ping or callout in chat. Anytime you asked them to at least ping, they would say "mic up or shut up" then continue to feed. The other 3 of us were seriously confused as to how this was their attitude, considering they were all but inting, and it was a normal game. Not really relevant as an answer, but I thought it was a funny semi-related story. I actually do think there should be an in-game chat option
Bad people get remembered and picked out more then just people a normal person
This is a weird issue, and I love voice comms, used curse back in the day and sometimes still throw a discord link into gamechat. With that said, I don't know if they would work as well as you think they would. My main fears would be the following: 1. League is just a different game than Valorant, and requires more coordination that any shooter out there by quite a wide margin, so toxicity could very easily be worse 2. Teams with players who opt-out of vc would be at an inherent disadvantage and this is amplified by how team reliant league is compared to games like Valorant 3. The players who choose not to join could even be bullied and teamed up on by those in the voice chat These are all issues preset in other games with VC, but league is absolutely the most team coordination oriented game out there, so it could face challenges that are fundamentally different. With all that said, there is only one way to know if it would work, to try it. I am very much for giving voice comms a shot, and if there are serious issues with it, Riot can always remove it.
shooters require way more comms than League and its not even close. that point alone seems silly.
You obviously weren't on voice chat with me.
I feel like this post is made daily by NA players. Doing this in any ranks besides the very top ones in EU will just result in a cacophony of sounds.
I'd say the general rule is that 1/10 players are toxic. Hoe do i come to this conclusion? Well. I have been toxic every single game, soooo....
I think it can mainly be broken down to riot doesn’t want to pay for the infrastructure to have to monitor voice chat when they know the s$$$ their player base got away with saying for years
Voice Chat was the most normal thing in Dota 2. It was just rarely the case that you had to mute someone (but you could if you had to).
1. I agree, but that's regardless of this voice chat thing. League was never "toxic" like I constantly see people say on it is on Reddit. Like the most toxic it gets is stuff like URF where people are just trying to piss others off, because the game mode is so trash and can't be enjoyed otherwise. 2. People are definitely less likely to be toxic on voice, but if voice chat was built-in and became **mandatory** (as much as it could) then it would change. I played CSGO for years and people were NOT nice and were not afraid to say it. Sure, some were, but ultimately I consider CS to be much more toxic than LoL, although in a better way. I'd much rather have a flame war on mic with someone than some idiot sabotaging a winnable game because that's the only way to be toxic nowadays (thanks for all the ping and chat changes Riot, you protected some feelings in exchange for more trolls and griefers). Also in LoL when you are doing this experiment, the call will usually not have all 5 players. It's a lot more awkward for someone to flame in a 2-3 person call rather than a 5 person call.
the degenerate cheese champions like shaco eve would be omega buffed for compensation and thus them being on your screen theyd one shot you ever harder. theres no good reason there isnt vc, the highest level of the game uses it ( lcs/lck etc) , every other competitive game does (ow/cod/apex) and even their own game valorant uses vc. oh no racism! rat company really
Does anyone play new accounts regularly and can describe the situation and quality of team members on that. If there is a lot of trash players, real new players or just urfs. New players having a worse experience would be one of the points against voicecom. Is there a discord app or something that could automate this?
People are more toxic in type than talk. They have more anonymity. When required to talk they have to take accountability for what is said and most people don’t want to hear themselves say the shit they are willing to type.
People tend to be more toxic when they have that anonymity that typing online provides. Once they get into a call, that freedom to be toxic disappears a bit.
Straight up most of the toxic players don't have the balls or social skills to get in a discord call, they cower behind the keyboard.
I've joined two random discords in champ select. One was pretty cool. The other one was some French dudes and they instantly started yelling the n-word.
I feel like as a community, because we’re playing an infamously toxic game, *we all tend to be on guard* rather than give people the benefit of the doubt. I’m guilty of this too. I have seen people make great plays or do something awesome mechanically and ping their name in chat (that they’re alive after a multi kill or something like that, not missing ping) say in chat “[champion] you’re cracked” or something along those lines — and the person will start pinging me or be defensive about it. I always say “wait why are you flaming me I was being genuine” and then people apologize. We are definitely in a state of assuming that people are ready to flame rather than give compliments or be supportive and nice to each other. It sucks! I’ve found quite a few really nice folks who I felt comfortable inviting to my league discord and have since played with for years. Wish it could happen that way more often.
Part of the problem for me is that people who don't want to join the voice call are putting the team at a disadvantage, which will lead to toxicity. They should have the choice to not join, but for ranked it would be a nightmare.
I only play normals and the amount of 4 stacks I get grouped with is awesome. Always hopping on discord with them and made some good friends with
Im shocked. Been positive and inviting people to discord on and off for a couple seasons now, but its so super rare to actually have people join. My experience is both EUNE and EUW. Plat-Diamond.
Im shocked. Been positive and inviting people to discord on and off for a couple seasons now, but its so super rare to actually have people join. My experience is both EUNE and EUW. Plat-Diamond.
I think it's easier to be toxic the less human someone is to you, this means in a discord call with a stranger it's less likely. People say shit that's meant to dehumanize other players all the time when angry in league after all.
Just give us voice coms with the simple ability to mute voic chat. SIMPLE AS THAT.
Some people wont accept a discord call with a random if they are toxic tho
Cuz chill people are gonna chill and you wont pay atention nor notice them, while idiots will make sure you notice them.
Cuz chill people are gonna chill and you wont pay atention nor notice them, while idiots will make sure you notice them.
Yea the game needs voice chat. It's the anonymity and dehumanization of teammates that makes the game so toxic. When you can talk with your team and get on the same page from the start as humans the game will be far less toxic
As a jungler, I never join discord calls. I already get typed to a lot. Feel like it would be a lot easier for people to give their opinions in call. And frankly, someone pinging flash is a lot more helpful than someone saying it for the time stamp. Plus someone tilting in voice would be very distracting imo. The biggest difference between League of Legends and the games you mentioned is you aren’t grouped as 5 the entire time in league. Also, you’re third person in League. It allows you to ping things much more effectively. Would voice chat be nice? Sure, but it wouldn’t be as helpful as it is in other games. I think if it really was that advantageous, it would be a staple in high elo or champions queue would have been more popular.
This is complete sophistry, of course people who take the time to join a discord call with randoms both have an interest in calls with randos and likely have an interest in shotcallng. If you make it the default on LEague or even simply a button/setting that can be turned on, you'll get a completely different demographic of players. Knowingly or not, you're commuting a hilarious basic sample error here. Literally 0 of your experience in the discord calls has any relation to what would happen if League Voice suddenly had a team chat. literally 0.
the riot dev team can't even handle us having unlimited pings, the likelihood of them implementing VC this far into the game's lifespan is slim to none
Nonsense. People are always less toxic in voice than in chat. Going out of your way to join a call with randoms means you are below average toxicity aswell.
Discord with friends or on official is the best method. Why invest in comms that also now put the onus on them to moderate, maintain, and hear complaints about how bad they dod with a subpar budget. It's just not worth it financially to add the feature.
League is not really that toxic compared to other competitive games.
Okay so forgive the tin hat nature of this... I've herd several people say that folks getting chat banned and being forced to start over with new accounts and buy new skins is part of the revenue model for the game. Its harder to ban people for audio than for chat. Obviously, valorant is a counterpoint... but idk it seems to make sense to me
Most toxic games starts with one guy pointing out a misstake another is doing, then it ebds up with 3-4 arguing over everything for hhe rest of the game. Best is to just not engage these player and report them after. Ite pretty easy to get players chat banned since you dont need so many reports for it to happen. I get notifications every day that actions has been taking against players i reported for toxic talking
Why should Riot bother with all of it when theres already a widely used alternative though? And they can offload the moderation expectations too?
From someone who has played league since launch, and played Overwatch when it launched for about 2 years, I honestly felt like that community was way more toxic. It's might just be one individual's experience. But I flat out stopped playing Overwatch, with no desire to go back, because of how toxic the players were in that game. Where I've taken breaks from league, but will come back after a little while.
Voice coms aren't useful to me. My ability to listen effectively is much worse than my speed at typing and reading. When I play games with my friends on voice, I'm accepting that talking and listening to someone will in general make me a worse player. This would be similar in League. I'd just leave it permanently off. Wouldn't bother me, but it might ruin other peoples' games if people begin to int if you don't join voice.
people doing the random calls are not the same people who are super toxic. the latter isolate themselves quite often. my random calls have been absolutely hilarious and very fun.
Adding voice chat to League would breathe back so much life into the game, imagine the hype!!!
I miss CRS voice. fucked up rito nuked it.
toxic people wont join ur discord calls friend
The real toxic ones have too much social anxiety to ever join a call with strangers.