In response to growing issues with verbal abuse in League of Legends matches, Riot Games will disable the /all chat feature in every matchmaking match in Patch 11.21.
“/all chats can be the source of some good-hearted jokes as well as fun social interaction between teams, but right now the negative interactions outweigh the positives,” Riot said in a post. “We will assess the impact of this change through verbal abuse reports and penalty rates, as well as surveys and direct feedback from all of you.”
Cross-team toxicity has been a documented issue in League for years, so this change will attempt to reduce the number of negative interactions going forward.
“We are aware that verbal abuse also happens in team chat, so disabling /all chat will not completely get rid of the abuse,” Riot said. “But team chat also plays an important team coordination function, so even if it hosts some negative experiences, the potential value it brings is much higher.”
/all chat will be the only communication feature disabled in 11.21 Patch. Players will still hear and see all emotes used in Summoner's Rift, champion mastery flash will be enabled, CTRL-1/2/3/4 will be available, and post-game lobbies will continue to be cross-team. It is also unknown when the /all chat will return to the game.
Patch 11.21 will hit servers on Wednesday, October 20.