User blog comment:StrategicMagic/The Mute/Ignore Problem/@comment-109.144.212.159-20121202232845/@comment-5194571-20121203001009

The problem with pings is that they aren't as clear as words. This is especially true if people don't know which ping means what and also use the wrong pings. Ever had someone spam retreat pings somewhere on the map, so you back off and that person spamming the retreat ping rages at you for not going there and picking up a kill on a recalling enemy? I have.

People in my elo (1.2k ish) tend to ignore pings anyway unless you spam. 3 simple pings to say "eve going this way" just gets ignored by the players themselves, then it's your fault for not saying anything. I just resort to saying "eve go bot" or something now. It says exactly what I want to while pings are abiguous.

Also helps with Trinunal. There's always that one rager that reports their entire team when most of the loss was their fault. Pings don't show up in chat, but actually saying something does, so you can pull the "I warned you" card, so if you do get raged at/reported for "no ss" then it backfires.

I do agree however, so long as people know what to do with pings, they are great.

PS: The most common reason for correct use of the retreat ping I have seen is "back off, I want that farm".