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With the last couple of developments coming from Riot Games about League of Legends, it is becoming apparent that the publisher is putting its foot down and firmly tackling player behavior issues and toxicity in the MOBA. If you play League of Legends regularly, you would know how players do not need to use "words" to flame or be toxic towards other while in-game.
Just like how the ‘enemy missing’ or the question mark ping is used to point out the mistakes made by a player, the bait ping has turned into a spam emote in-game since it was introduced to the game.
Now, almost after an entire year, Riot Games has finally acknowledged that the bait ping is being misused by the players to spam ping and be toxic to one another in the game and will be removing it completely very soon.
Bait Ping in League of Legends Explained
(Trigger Warning: Mentions of death)
During the 2023 Preseason in League of Legends, players were introduced to jungle pets, the newly revamped Chemtech drake, and also a detailed communication system via the new communication wheel aka ping wheel. Apart from the old pings of assist, enemy missing, on my way, and danger, new pings were added to improve gameplay. They are:
All In
Bait
Hold
Push
Riot Games
However, League of Legends players have been using one the bait ping to be extremely toxic in-game to their teammates. The bait ping looks like a fishing hook but some players were very quick to recognize that it resembled a rope to an extent. Unfortunately, this ping, which was meant to signal your teammate into baiting their opponent is being used as a subtle way of players asking the other “to h*** themselves.”
On 17th November 2022, a League of Legends player wrote, “ffs I can't believe people are using the "bait" ping to tell others to h*** themselves in-game, it's just the new question mark to spam that hook on people’s head.”
In fact, the ping's design underwent a visual change so that it looks more like a bait hook and not a rope shortly after its release.
This is not the only spam ping that has caught the attention of Riot Games. It will also be changing some of the pinging systems in game for better communication, curbing means on harassment.
On 20th September, Lead Producer Chris "Auberaun" Roberts tweeted, "In 13.19 we'll be making scoreboard pings for allies visible only to yourself so pinging things like "Kha'zix - Alive" 6x can no longer be used to harass teammates. We're maintaining the allied ping functionality so that you can still see exact allied ult & item cooldowns."
The developer added, "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 pings are not the only systems undergoing changes in LoL Patch 13.19. On 19th September, Riot Games revealed that there will be a new penalty for offenders in ranked games starting with the upcoming patch.
