Riot Games has today announced a significant and surprising change that is coming in the next League of Legends update in order to reduce toxicity and abuse in the MOBA – it is disabling /all chat. The decision means players will no longer be able to post messages in the in-game chat that can be seen by players on both sides of the Rift.
While this is a milestone moment in Riot’s efforts to eliminate toxicity from its online games, it’s safe to say that the move to completely disable /all chat has surprised some. Riot explains in a blog post that /all chat will be removed from all matchmade queues, which will include League of Legends ranked games, but all communications with your own team will still remain. It also says that cross-team chat will be re-enabled at the end of a match.
Riot also reassures that enemy players will still be able to see and hear your emotes and champion mastery.
“While /all chat can be the source of fun social interaction between teams, as well as some good-hearted banter, right now negative interactions outweigh the positives. We’ll evaluate the impact of this change through verbal abuse reports and penalty rates, as well as surveys and direct feedback from you all.”
In patch 11.21, we’re disabling /all chat in matchmade queues! 💬
Read more here: https://t.co/yWr3elxB6g 📒 pic.twitter.com/yEpxFCEPzC
— League of Legends // UK, IE & Nordics (@LoLUKN) October 12, 2021
/All chat will be disabled as of October 20, when League of Legends patch 11.21 rolls out. Riot says that while this decision won’t completely eradicate toxicity in LoL matches, it will some way towards its goal to make it a safer place for all players.