Why Riot should never implement voice chat

6. It won’t help improve gameplay

One of the biggest reason proponents give as to the benefit of adding voice chat is that it would greatly benefit higher the quality of gameplay, especially in the higher MMR brackets. However, even ignoring all the problems like language barrier that might exist on the EUW or Korean servers, it’s still very likely that this new tool would not improve gameplay quality significantly, if at all. If you think that is ludicrous, remember this clip from a few years ago featuring (in)famous streamer Tarzaned during the NA scouting grounds.

These are some of the very top players, challenger players who are on the verge of making the pros, who cannot agree on the correct course of a decision. League of Legends is a game that is inherently based on limited information and competing ideas of what win conditions are at a given time. In this clip, all the players in the argument have differing opinions as to what the correct play is, causing conflict.

This is a fundamental problem that voice chat cannot fix: each player has their own opinion of how to win the game, or at least play it most optimally. Even though all five players are working towards the common goal of victory, it is unlikely that all five players will agree as to how they will achieve that goal, whether they are able to communicate more effectively or not.

Think about all the times you’re watching your favorite high diamond, master, grandmaster, or challenger streamer call out a teammate for making a mistake. He or she just completely dismissed another player of similar skill to themselves for what they perceive is a mistake. In the other player’s eyes, however, they saw an opportunity, and are themselves likely upset their teammates weren’t able to capitalize.

There will always be that one Tryndamere who insists he can split-push, that one support who insists they group against a comp with Malphite and Annie, or that one jungler who passes up gank opportunities because he doesn’t believe he and his laner have enough damage to secure the kill. It may be less likely at higher MMRs where players have the better game macro, but as the above clip shows, even those players who have such high game knowledge often won’t agree with their teammates.

You may point out recent endeavors like the Tyler1 tournament or Twitch Showdown as examples of high MMR players who are able to communicate effectively and not flame over voice chat (even though there were still a few instances of the players getting heated on comms). Unfortunately, this is not a good argument because of our next point.