One of the tools in Riot Games' arsenal when it comes to dealing with asshole League of Legends players, is to temporarily ban them from the chat function in game. While that doesn't prevent them from ping-spamming the team or laughing everytime a team member makes a mistake, it does at least stop them from spending every minute of the game trying to tell everyone else how to play.
Some people recently speculated on the forum that this sort of temporary ban made it effectively impossible for some people to compete in ranked matches, but Riot says the stats show otherwise. Many of the players that are banned from chat for using disparaging language or attacking other players on their team, will actually win more games when banned from chat.
The reasoning for this is suggested that when they aren't spending all that time typing, they actually focus on playing the game. Beyond that too, their team functions better without their toxic attitude making everyone feel like crap the whole time. It keeps players focused and is proving to be a good tool in turning around some of the nastier players out there.
Riot employee Lyte did say that Riot had considered adding another tier to the bans, which would prevent players from joining ranked games when chat banned, but that it was still mulling it over.
Considering the recent success of games like Mario Kart 8 and Hearthstone, neither of which feature fully fledged chat, do you guys think that games without that function are a plus point in modern gaming?
