I have a little ritual with new League of Legends matches that I’ve developed just recently whenever I’m not feeling my best. I queue, load in, and immediately mute everyone. I leave pings unmuted, so folks can have some way to communicate with me, but y’all, I am tired. I’m tired of watching toxic teammates throw around slurs, cruel language, and getting everyone so fired up they all tilt. And that’s why Pokemon Unite is my dream come true – I don’t talk to anyone, and they don’t talk to me.
Look, I get it, a teammate that refuses to communicate is a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but who can blame me at this point? You can make one tiny mistake in League – or be carrying, trolls don’t care – and someone will threaten to burn your house down. League’s in-game chat has ruined one too many of my nights, so relying on pings has helped me do what Riot won’t and moderate my experience into something tolerable. Pokemon Unite has a chat function too, but no one ever uses it.
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Apparently, you can even enable voice chat in Pokemon Unite at level six, so you aren’t gated to text-speech. But in all of my games, I’ve literally not heard one peep out of anyone. I finally just went in and turned it all off in the menu so I don’t need to risk it, but I thought it was incredible that even with it on, no one speaks.
Personally, I find that in-game pings work just fine. Sure, I think Pokemon Unite could do with a few others that League of Legends has, like “enemy is missing,” but I’m confident we’ll see more updates come. My win rate in Pokemon Unite seems to suggest I don’t need to run my mouth and call my teammates a bunch of rude names in order to get someone to do what I need them to do, and I’ve found that plenty of other players are making liberal use of that ping system, too.
On the flip side, those incessant “need help” pings may drive you a bit mad, but I’ll take those any day over someone using a bunch of hateful slurs trying to get what they want. There’s a part of me that even wonders if these folks know Pokemon Unite has a voice chat, but regardless, I’m glad it remains undiscovered.
League of Legends has a reputation for hosting some of gaming’s worst, and I don’t think it’s even an unfair portrayal of the community. While I’ve experienced hell in just about every online gaming lobby you can imagine, the folks duking it out on Summoner’s Rift somehow create an experience worse than most. That’s why, unless Nintendo just absolutely forces me to, I’ll keep playing Pokemon Unite muted, without a care in the world. I realize that may mean I’ll never make it to some of the highest ranks, but that’s okay. I’ve never been Diamond in League, and I don’t need that to enjoy Unite.
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