LoL devs plan to remove bait ping feature after slamming “unacceptable” abuse

League of Legends developer Riot Auberaun has slammed the current usage of the bait ping feature, revealing plans to remove and replace it in the near future.

Riot’s ever-popular MOBA League of Legends isn’t known for having the nicest of communities. The incredibly competitive 5v5 often sees tension rising and keyboards being slammed. This makes it particularly difficult to coordinate plays with your teammates, especially if they’re not reading or have muted the chat.

Fortunately, League of Legends has a robust ping system that allows players to communicate with one another without the need for chat. You can ping various commands like ‘on the way, enemy missing, and danger,’ providing useful information to your teammates on the go.

However, one of the more divisive pings that were added into the game is the bait ping. Added in the ping wheel update, the icon is supposed to look like a fish hook, but many toxic players in the League of Legends community used it for far more sinister imagery. This might come to a close soon though, as product lead Riot Auberaun revealed in a tweet.

LoL dev reveals plans to remove bait ping feature

When speaking about reducing toxicity in the ping system, Riot Auberaun shared that they’d be making changes to scoreboard pinging. Alongside the scoreboard changes, Auberaun slammed players’ usage of the bait ping.

“Also, the way the bait ping is commonly being used today is unacceptable and we will be removing and replacing it the near future,” the tweet reads.

The bait ping, which is supposed to look like a hook has been repurposed by the LoL community to tell someone else to kill themselves. Many pointed out that the hook icon looks similar to a noose, which started the toxic trend in the first place.

While we don’t have a timeline for when exactly Riot plans on removing this feature, it’s just another step in Riot’s continued involvement in removing toxicity from League of Legends.