Is it time for League to add voice chat?

With the introduction of champion's queue in North America, players have been able to watch pros face off in a competitive and organised environment. Champion's Queue simulates pro games, meaning voice comms are enabled and encouraged.

With the best players from around every region joining champion's queue for Worlds, the contentious conversation of whether voice chat should be added to solo queue has been reignited.

Champion's Queue Is Not Solo Queue

Voice comms have worked wonderfully in Champion's Queue; pros are able to communicate quickly, come up with complex strats, and adapt their plans on the fly. If pros could only use the ping system and chat box, they would be much more restricted and the quality of gameplay would suffer drastically.

It's easy to think that if voice comms work so well in champion's queue, then it should work just as well in solo queue. However, it's important to remember that the two are completely different and shouldn't be perceived as the same experience.

Considering many champion's queue games are streamed, the players' voice comms are public. If somebody were to be toxic over voice comms, the consequences would be severe, including community backlash, fines, and suspension from pro play.

These punishments are much more severe for pros compared to a regular solo queue player, who would only be risking a temporary ban. Therefore, you can't ensure the wider community won't be toxic over voice comms just because the pros aren't toxic in champion's queue.

What About Other Games?

On the other hand, there are a plethora of other competitive games that have voice comms enabled, including Valorant. Toxicity is unfortunately an issue in every competitive game, but these games aren't dominated by toxic voice comms that some League players may be fearful of.

In fact, League players may be less toxic over voice comms because it's much easier to be toxic while anonymously typing. Players may be less likely to insult their teammates if they have to do it with their own voice, compared to the safety of anonymously bashing away at a keyboard.

Moving Forward

Unfortunately, League is still not a welcoming environment to players and toxicity remains as an extremely problematic issue in the community. A lot of progress needs to be made by the playerbase and Riot before voice comms can be introduced and everybody feels safe to use them.

Nevertheless, the potential benefits of adding voice comms should not be discounted; players could pull off intricate strats with their allies to improve the overall quality of gameplay. Additionally, it would increase the opportunity for positive interactions between players and meaningful friendships to be developed.

Considering Riot added voice chat for premade groups a little while ago, this may suggest they're willing to make voice comms accessible for all at some point in the future. In the mean time, our communication options will be augmented in preseason with an expanded ping wheel.