A League of Legends player has asked Riot to make self-muting permanent for the rest of a match, arguing that the current version is being used as a weapon instead of a safety net.
The complaint targets a pattern that plenty of players say they’ve seen. Someone mutes themselves early, teammates get the notification, and everyone assumes that person is done talking. Then, a few minutes later, the mute comes off, a hostile message lands in team chat, and the mute goes straight back on before anyone can reply.
The proposal is simple. Once you self-mute, that’s it for the game. No unmuting, no second round, no flaming with a shield up. The restriction would reset for the next match.
Riot added dedicated commands in Patch 13.4 back in February 2023. /muteself stops you from sending text chat while still letting you read what your team writes. /deafen goes further and cuts you off from seeing chat too. Both notify your teammates, and both can be switched off by entering the command again.
That reversibility is exactly what’s under fire. Supporters of the change say a player who self-mutes is admitting they can’t trust themselves to behave, so handing them an instant undo button defeats the point. They also argue that the constant mute and unmute notifications are distracting on their own, even for people who already muted the player’s regular chat.
But plenty of players pushed back, and their reasons are hard to ignore.
Some mute themselves to cool down and unmute once the game turns around. Others need chat for calls that pings can’t handle, like deciding who buys Grievous Wounds, warning the team about a split push, or asking everyone to hold off on a fight.
Then there’s the misclick problem. Hit the wrong scoreboard button while trying to mute a teammate and you’d be silent for 30 minutes.
Critics also pointed out the obvious loophole. A player who wants to be toxic can just never self-mute in the first place, or mute everyone else while keeping their own chat wide open.
A popular middle-ground suggestion was to kill the notifications instead of the feature. Others stuck to the standard advice: mute the offender yourself, turn chat off in settings, and report after the game.
Riot hasn’t announced any changes to self-mute or deafen.
