The typically united League of Legends community has been thrown into discord recently owing to some controversial system modifications. The most contentious of these adjustments is the alteration of the game's ping system. Riot Games, the company responsible for the game, decided to eliminate and restrict several pings that previously allowed players a swift and effective means of communicating.
Ping communication is essential in a game like League of Legends, particularly because it lacks a traditional voice chat system. Instead, players utilize pings to convey strategies and requests during real-time gameplay. Pings are used to designate targets, request support, or to indicate the possible locations of adversaries, all without the need for the player to halt their gameplay in order to type messages in the chat box.
However, it appears that this feature has been abused by some players, thereby creating an unfavourable gaming environment. Riot Games seems to have responded to this misuse by limiting and removing the pings in question. Such actions, given the crucial role ping communication plays in gameplay, have deeply unsettled the player base.
Many players have outright demanded that Riot Games reverse these changes. They argue that the solution to misuse by a few players shouldn't involve transforming the entire system but rather implementing ways for team members to mute any individual who misuses the ping system.
David ‘Phreak’ Turley, former esports broadcaster turned Gameplay Designer for Riot Games, hashed out his perspective on the recent tweaks in a video. He reviews every new patch to the game and shared his thoughts on the changes to the ping system. His comments, however, were not well received.
Phreak’s take on the issue triggered outrage across the community. Rather than joining in the chorus of calls for a reversion of the updates, Phreak suggested the changes have been largely beneficial. His opinion was based on Riot Games' performance metrics, which according to him, reflected a significant improvement since the adjustments were made.
The former caster attempted to justify the changes, pointing to feedback received in patches gone by and showing statistics that suggested that the communication system is now better perceived by the players.
In the video, Phreak controversially suggests an alternative to using pings. The main controversy stemmed from Phreak's concluding comments, where he suggested that players needing to communicate could simply type out their messages instead.
The debate around Phreak's comments intensified when he gave as an example: 'You can type, 'Karthus ult by the way''.
The League community maintains, however, that typing out messages this way wouldn't be as timely and efficient as pings. A strong pushback was seen with players arguing that rapid and efficient communication is of essence in team-based online games like League of Legends.
One player reiterated this point by arguing that if communication tools are changed to create a 'safe space', it compromises the nature of these games which are largely strategic and team-based. The user further noted that the approach should be to confront exactly why there is so much in-game misbehavior as opposed to limiting the game's most crucial communication tools.
The sentiments were echoed by other users, many who felt that typing something like 'Karthus ult' would simply be unfeasible in certain situations. One commenter jokingly remarked: 'Bold of him to assume I can type ‘Karthus ult’ and not ‘kjrts yulrt’ as I attempt to continue fighting.'
Response to Phreak's comments underlines a crucial argument by the community that the unique nature of typing during high stakes gameplay simply is not practical. Furthermore, these suggestions do not consider situations where some users may be chat restricted and thus unable to type at all.
As of the time of writing, Phreak has yet to respond to the criticism and outpour of opinions from the League of Legends community, thus leaving the debate open and continuing.