Doublelift Brings Up an Age Old Problem in League Solo Queue

Cover Image and thumbnail Courtesy  Fredrick Tendong / Unsplash

• Riot already have voice comms for premade parties.
• Solo queue is already plagued with toxicity, voice comms could make it worse.
• However, ranked play could also benefit, giving players a competitive advantage.

After much anticipation, voice chat went live on League servers in March 2018. However, it was only implemented for premade parties, so you couldn’t chat with randomly assigned teammates unless you invited them to your party after your game. This also worked with the open party system as any people you queue with would be in voice chat. 

Some players are hoping voice comms get expanded beyond premade groups, especially in Solo Queue where the stakes are high. However, Riot has refrained from this so far. In Riot’s voice chat FAQ, the developer stated that “We could have made voice chat opt-in, but that creates a lot of pressure for players to opt-in for the sake of competitive advantage. We're going to keep voice chat parties-only for now.”

Solo queue is already facing a toxicity problem with numerous players on Reddit saying they’re quitting the game because of toxic/troll players. Even content creators like Voyboy and TF Blade are facing the wrath of solo queue toxicity. Riot will certainly not want to promote any further toxicity as they develop plans to combat the current situation. 

TSM ADC Doublelift thinks the solo queue experience would be improved if voice comms were put into the game. 

Many others think the voice chat helps humanize players and would go a long way in reducing overall toxicity. Apart from this, comms has other benefits like allowing players to communicate in the pick and ban phase, for better coordination and brainstorming team compositions. It will also partly replace the ping system which is an annoyance at times and help players communicate more effectively, especially where the chat is lost in translation. One could also argue that a heated text exchange is worse than a verbal argument, where the chat window can become a distraction. Even if Riot does decide to implement voice chat, they will most likely include a mute button so you can block anyone who’s toxic in comms. 

The community is still divided on whether League should implement in-game voice communication for ranked solo games. There are plenty of problems that could rise up from introducing a voice communication system for solo queue due to toxicity, but the benefits cannot be ignored either.