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"Communication doesn't help you win, it's your teammate's job to know what to do and be good"

Yormaughm·9/5/2016, 8:39:04 PM·38 votes·5,150 views

This is the mindset of someone who isn't trying to win.

I'm bringing this up because I got into a bit of an argument with some guys about how important communication is in League of Legends.

I said a lower skilled team, in voice comms would be able to beat a higher skilled team without them (obviously depending on the gulf between the two this isn't always true; a silver team isn't going to beat a diamond team, but it shouldn't be possible to even be matched up that way.) I said this because I spectated a game they lost and I know they weren't communicating. They very rarely pinged, or typed to their teammates during the match, unless it was to blame them for bad decisions (spectated on Twitch so I know this.) I was told I was wrong in no uncertain terms and effectively told "map awareness is the only thing that matters, and the baddies on your team who don't have it are why you lose." I was flat out told "voice comms don't help you win."

I could not disagree with that more.

The players that told me this were silver and have played for several years. I don't play ranked, and have played for several years. So they feel I can't possibly be right about anything because I don't outrank them. In my opinion, they're not bad players mechanically, but I simply can't believe anyone could ever be a truly good player when they don't believe communication is a factor that matters.

Keep in mind, They literally told me "my teammates should've known what to do and when to do it, and they didn't and that's why we lost." To which I replied, "well you could have communicated better."

Here's the thing too, they were a 4 man premade, and one of these two players who argued with me is very toxic. Extremely toxic, and flamed the solo queue guy in their team, the one guy they couldn't have possibly been communicating with in voice. The loss is the fault of the only guy you couldn't have possibly been communicating with? Or is that just a really convenient excuse for your toxicity because you know better than to blame your friends? Blame the guy you don't know for not reading your mind. Did you lose because he didn't "have map awareness" or did you lose because you refused to communicate with him? You know, like maybe an alert ping to help him have map awareness? I suggested the latter and was told I didn't know what I was talking about cause I'm an unskilled player who isn't ranked, and "communication isn't necessary past a certain point" Which I guess is Silver V.

And I've said this so many times to so many people, I can't count it anymore. This refusal to communicate is such a huge problem in League of Legends.

The guy who basically taught me this game so many years ago is platinum, and he's EXACTLY like this. I find it patently ridiculous, that this guy, who's Plat 2, will join a normal with what at the time is a brand new player. and then GO OFF on the other people on the team for not doing the right thing. Having this unvoiced expectation that the other 4 people will do exactly what you want is insane, and it's YOUR OWN FAULT for not using the tools built into a TEAM GAME to communicate.

This selfish "only I can carry and my teammates aren't doing what they should be doing so we're going to lose" mentality has no place in a team game.

Yes, you can carry, you can also help your teammates help you carry. Communicating makes it easier for all of you, having unspoken expectations is an unnecessary obstacle that YOU put there. Putting obstacles in the path of your team is not how you win, and that's a fact. Expecting your teammates to "be good" is a loser's mindset. Helping them to be good, is a winner's mindset.

I've played this game for several years and this is the trend I've noticed about toxic players. All of them are selfish, all of them hate losing, and none of them have ever deserved a loss in their life, every loss they've ever had was someone else's fault.

They think they're the best player on the team and they FLAT OUT EXPECT everyone on the team to read their mind without any communication whatsoever. If their teammates aren't psychic, and don't do exactly what the toxic players wants by reading their mind, they're the baddie and the reason for a loss.

I'm a support main and I do understand about having synergy with your teammates and reacting to what they do. If my ADC does something stupid, I have to react in time to save him, if I make a play and stun someone, my ADC has to react to me, otherwise I'm just wasting mana/cooldowns/windows of opportunity. "Reading the game" is a necessary skill, and a skill you learn over time, but it's one that's made so much easier with communication. I can ping and let them know who I'm focusing. I can type a brief message: "focusing Ashe." And, in the case where you're a 4 man premade who have access to voice comms, they're the fastest, most effective way to do this, and it doesn't even require using your fingers which takes precious milliseconds off of your mechanical abilities. Ironic that so many people won't stop to type to help their teammates win, but they'll spend minutes typing at them for doing the "wrong thing."

TL;DR, if you want to win, there's no excuse for not communicating with your team. Period. Simply expecting your teammates to "be good" and "know how to react to me" is selfish and stupid. It's asking to lose, and then blaming the other players for the loss when you didn't take the effort to communicate with them? Maybe you're the bad player.

So who's right? This unranked player who "doesn't know anything about League of Legends?" Or these toxic Silver Gods of the game who expect everyone to literally read their minds, and feel justified in blaming them for not doing it?

46 Comments

MagicFlyingLlama9/5/2016, 8:48:18 PM12 votes

Incidentally, in this messed up season 6, most silver players are worse than unranked ones.

Communication is critically important, probably the single most important thing to a team. Personal skill has almost no impact if your team is disorderly and incapable of working as a coordinated group.

If you play with a premade group of people you know well, the difference is massive and impossible to miss, compared to playing with random carry-or-feed useless children.

jaymc11309/5/2016, 8:47:55 PM7 votes

Communication and team organizational skills are the most important factors in winning a game. Bar none.

I play in high Diamond. With what basically amounts to silver level mechanical ability. I get by pretty much PURELY on my game knowledge and an exceptional ability to communicate it.

Who ever you were arguing with is a dufus. Period. Send em my way, I'll straighten em out.

Troll for Trump9/6/2016, 7:13:55 AM6 votes

People who say that communication/voice comms don't help you win are boosted animals abusing the system :p.

Inb4 downvoted by premades

Elikain9/7/2016, 12:24:41 AM2 votes

Silver players playing for years and still haven't gotten out of that rank? Thinking you don't need communication in a team game and that you can purely get by with skills and belief that complete strangers should be on your same wavelength when it comes to decision making?

Whoever you talked to had his head up his own ass for a long ass time and he's gotten cozy. If i were you, i wouldn't have discussed the matter further but i'd be muting him if he was being ignorant and then trying to pepper his unwanted Silver knowledge all over the chat.

No disrespect to them at all but you can't reason or argue with lower ELO players if they genuinely won't accept that they honestly suck and that's why they're this low. They need to be willing to improve and absorb the knowledge from games and accept the fact that even they might be doing the wrong thing in most of their games, that is also costing them their own rank.

Brain Errör 4049/6/2016, 2:45:56 AM2 votes

Do you try to communicate with a banana? No. Why? Because banana's can't talk.

If bananas could talk, would that mean they have a brain? No. Therefore, a banana that can talk and not think is still a banana with a useless bonus.

If a banana did have a brain, would that mean they have common sense? No. Therefore, even if a banana has a brain and can think doesn't mean that they have the common sense to know what it is they're even thinking about.

We are dealing with bananas, therefore, there is no need to talk to bananas. Because bananas can't help us win games, only monkeys can. This game use to have boosted monkeys, which was tolerable. But now people are chucking bananas at us and I find no need to communicate with bananas.

Kappa.

WinTheWarOnPants9/6/2016, 4:01:57 AM2 votes

to an extent he's right though. i've had PLENTY of games where teammates just didn't have a fucking clue. i try to communicate, but i can't micro manage all 4 of my teammates(because that's seriously what it would have took to win). the games that go the smoothest aren't the games with allot of communication, they are the games where everyone simply understands what they need to do and what their role is. typing out what needs to be done in chat takes too much time and chances are(if it's solo Q) they won't listen to you anyway. the best use for chat IMO is encouragement. sure the occasional "lane tower then baron" or "lane no flash" but it's not by any means the most important thing.

DemainaNyx9/5/2016, 11:24:28 PM2 votes

Agreed. Technically I think some things should be obvious (your midlaner just got killed by the enemy midlaner so top/bot/jng may be ganked by them), but there are things that also need to be communicated (I see the enemy midlaner wandering towards bot, I should ping incase they missed it).

I'm still a relatively new player, but I'm even surprised by the number of things people mess up on. We ace the enemy team and instead of taking the inhib tower and possibly inhib, my team goes to baron. There is an enemy Vlad/Swain/Illaoi/Darius/Mundo/self-healer and no one has built a item 3123 item 3033 or item 3165 (had a game as support Morgana where I built Morello but my all AD comp didn't build EC vs Vlad/Soraka until I mentioned it (yeah, EC doesn't work against Soraka's heal or ult, but it does against her regen from Q)). The enemy team has armor (only enemy ADC didn't) but my ADC goes triple Zeal items instead of item 3035 item and they aren't playing Vayne/Kog (maybe Kalista?). The ADC gets hooked during lane phase by the enemy Blitzcrank/Thresh and the support uses CC and attacks the Blitzcrank/Thresh instead of the enemy ADC.

I'll watch a video of someone playing League and they complain in the video that someone needs to engage or they say they wish their support would poke/ult. They never type that in chat or ping or anything, they just keep complaining to their viewers without telling their teammates. If you at least say "amumu, go in" and he responds "stfu", then fine, I can understand not wanting to say something after, but if you never convey your desire, then it's your fault they aren't doing what you want.

Shifune9/6/2016, 1:58:33 PM1 votes

I've had a few ranked games where literally no one on my team said a word all game. Ironically, those were some of the most well-coordinated games that I have ever played. The only thing we had was a few pings going off here and there.

Bagguette9/6/2016, 2:15:07 PM1 votes

I tell my teammates when im going in, you need to do this as riven cause its kind of instant lol

Athenes Lulu9/6/2016, 5:41:14 PM1 votes

I hope that guy is only joking around, though you are giving us the impression that he's legitimately serious.

Is that your typical "boosted animal" in its natural habitat? Sounds like it!

Because even some of the greatest loser support mains that legit depend on her teammates to carry her carry and win the game together know that it's communication that helps people win, not just crossing your fingers and hope your teammates do something.

Soggy Doggy7/5/2017, 3:00:41 AM1 votes

Doesnt matter if the team just tell you to eat a dick and mutes you.

hi ìm groot11/20/2017, 1:00:56 PM1 votes

Are you talking about just pinging? Or are you talking about typing out what you're going to do? From skimming over the wall of text I'd have to say yall are both a little right and a little wrong. Alot of the difference I saw climbing was with peoples ability to make plays cohesively, and they would get better at their pings, letting people know of SS timers and such, but there is kind of an expectation that an obvious play will be recognized and followed up on that u wouldnt have time to communicate. Like a counter gank or a dive, your teammate should be able to tell what you're going to do based on your movements. But in a lower elo I would probably just not worry about that kind of stuff as much and focus more on solo plays unless a teammate proved themselves reliable enough to play around.

MobileSuitGaren10/18/2018, 2:43:28 AM1 votes

I got told to stop crying when after they told me to stfu for communicating. These players smh

JerulEon9/6/2016, 4:29:43 AM1 votes

The statement is kinda true in solo Q, but comms empower you to make big plays. I was on Yasuo a few patches ago with a 5 man. The games were super fun and intense, and proper shot-calling allowed me to make risky engages that we knew we could win because my team had my back, leading us to victory. It was literally one of the most fun experiences I have ever had in league.

Sylvant9/6/2016, 7:01:49 AM1 votes

communication can be important ofc, but if your team is bad even that cant help and often they wont even listen or understand what you say, or they would do the totally opposite

Mannysmoker9/5/2016, 8:57:03 PM1 votes

Outside of the games I went in a intentional feed spree, I haven't send a msg to anyone of my teammates since a long time and 95% of the times it ends up being a good strategy since I don't rely on them for my success...