A voice comms feature in League of Legends has been highly divisive as some people think it would lead to more toxic players, but others like Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng think it could make the game much better.
In a game that demands a united front among the five players who make up a team, a built-in feature to give players a voice outside of their party could prove to be highly beneficial.
There would naturally be pitfalls, of course, but it could also be the difference between faltering in a match that should be all but a loss or producing an epic comeback to steal a win.
“I think League would actually be way more fun to play,” Doublelift said. “Solo queue would be way more fun to play with voice comms.”
He found himself in a tricky match on his May 8 stream when issues outside of League caused the star ADC to reconnect to a game with a level-one Miss Fortune at six minutes. They were behind, by a lot.
The majority of the team, including DL, had already agreed to the idea of an ‘open’ when they were down one kill to five, but one headstrong Hecarim wanted to play it out.
A couple of spicy teamfights later, along with patient laning, eventually gave Doublelift’s doomed duo and the rest of the team a 14-9 scoreline.
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The game was saved! But, as with all leads in League, a throw was starting to brew. One bad engagement after other bad decisions started to slowly drain the lead they had surprisingly amassed.
Though they were bleeding, they weren’t exactly out for the count – and in this situation, voice comms could have easily helped the team stay afloat.
“There will be the occasional [toxic League] player,” DL explained. “But overall this is going to be so much better [with voice comms]. So enjoyable. Tell people not to do dumb s**t like this.”
Eventually DL’s team let their fragile lead slip causing a ‘Surrender vote’ to end the game. But with tighter communications and players able to efficiently sync, they could have conceivably pulled out a win.
The League community reacted to DL’s take on voice comms and, though they addressed the same points, were in favor of stronger voice options in LoL.
“I’m a toxic player,” user ‘PrinceKeno’ admitted before explaining how voice comms make League less tilting. “I joined a champ select discord call for my first time ever, and oh my god it changed my attitude. My inting top laner went from a waste-of-time player, to a guy I genuinely felt bad for because I could tell from coms he really tries very hard, but he just wasn’t very good. Made the game a whole lot less tilting.”
It will be interesting to see if Riot Games expands the League voice option for their game, as more players are noticing the benefits of having the option to talk to your teammates.