League players say change to ping system won’t curb toxicity

League of Legends has announced that changes are coming to the in-game ping system to help curb toxicity, but players aren’t convinced the change will help anything.

The in-game ping system for League of Legends got a facelift for Season 13, adding new ways for players to quickly communicate with their teammates without typing in the chat. However, after observing player behavior with the new system, Riot Games has decided to make some controversial changes to the system.

Chris Roberts, the Product Lead on League, announced on September 20 that in Patch 13.19 Riot will be making scoreboard pings for allies visible only to the player that pings them. This is supposedly to curb teammates from harassing each other in-game, like pinging that a teammate is alive repeatedly after a bad play.

Roberts also said Riot is removing the bait ping as the way it was being used was “unacceptable.” The reaction to the news has been overwhelmingly negative, not due to the changes themselves but because players are unconvinced this will change in-game behavior.

League players unhappy with coming ping changes

League players have made their opinions heard on social media, reposting Roberts’ initial announcement with commentary of their own.

“There’s literally a mute pings button, you’re so delusional if you think this will actually be a positive change,” one user said.

“Don’t worry players, the game itself will still be extremely toxic and riddled with the worst dogsh** imaginable since we refuse to actually police the game in any way. But now at least it won’t LOOK as bad to the outsiders, if you’re playing.. well f*** yourself,” another user said.

On Reddit, the sentiment was largely the same with users pointing out that this just removes one of the many many ways players can be toxic to each other in-game and, to them, doesn’t solve the real issue.

“They legit might as well remove chat entirely from the game and throw pings in the bin too lmao,” one Reddit user said.

Others even called for the introduction of voice chat to the game to remove toxicity through the ping system and in-game chat. Others reiterated that there is already a mute button in-game that players can use to stop harassment from specific teammates.

The new changes to the ping system will go live on September 27 as Patch 13.19 hits live servers. Once live, players can see for themselves if these changes have improved their in-game experience.