League of Legends players are not happy with former esports caster turned Gameplay Designer David ‘Phreak’ Turley over his comment on the recent ping changes.
The League community has been up in arms over the recent changes to the ping system. Riot Games has removed and limited the use of certain pings due to players frequently using them in a toxic manner.
The communication system is crucial in a game like League of Legends, which has no voice communication system. Players use pings to signal who to chase, when they need help, or to ask where an enemy went without stopping to type in chat.
Players have called on Riot to revert the changes, saying that players who use pings in a toxic manner should be muted by their teammates and don’t require sweeping changes to the system as a whole.
In a video breaking down the changes in the recent League patch, Phreak incurred the wrath of the community by giving his take on the changes.
Phreak’s sly comment enrages League community
Phreak regularly breaks down the newest patch hitting the game and when it came to discussing the section about the ping system, and the former caster broke down how the changes have been mostly positive according to Riot Games’ measurements.
(conversation begins at 1:39:42)
“We ask players every single patch, ‘How do the communication tools feel?’ and it’s like always a 2.1, and suddenly it becomes a 2.7, well… the perception of communication has been better,” he said.
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However, League fans have latched onto the end of the segment where Phreak says players can also just type out their communication instead of using pings.
“You can type, ‘Karthus ult by the way,'” he said.
A Reddit poster responded to the jab by saying that League players should be able to communicate swiftly in a team-based title instead of damaging those tools to make a “safe space” for people.
“We should rather find solutions that do not restrict its most crucial communication tools, but rather combat the real issues why there is so much in-game misbehavior,” they said.
Commenters also said in response to the post that typing something like Karthus ult isn’t practical in some situations.
“Bold of him to assume I can type “Karthus ult” and not “kjrts yulrt” as I attempt to continue fighting,” one commenter said. And that’s without mentioning users who are chat restricted and can’t type at all.
Phreak has not responded to the post as of the time of writing.