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Communicating with Team Members (low elo)

The N1ckster·9/10/2014, 9:54:33 PM·3 votes·994 views

Hi all,

I find myself in the age old issue: player thinks he's better than he is seeded in ranked matches. I'm currently in B1 with an above 50% win ration and I'm having trouble cracking past here. I tend to find the biggest issue in low elo is everyone coming together with a common goal for how to win the game. People tend to not understand team comps and what their current teams comp is best suited for. I have actively read guides, watched videos and implemented gameplay choice to help myself get better (I've started out b5); however, I feel that the biggest issue I'm struggling is the have teammates unite. It really does seem to be random about which lanes feed harder - I never feed, I tend to play safe.

My question, what's the best method or how should I go about trying to unite my team behind a common goal for how a game should be won? I have a really good example here : http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1535012143/203430362 for my last game that my team came back from a 9k deficit at 24 min in. But times such as this are few an far between. This was achieved by my team listening to 5 v 5 team fights and not just random roaming that tends to plague low elo. I just feel that I've hit a bit of a brick wall that actively improves my gameplay and results in a win.

Any thoughts are experience on the matter will be greatly appreciated, I feel very disheartened by all this and it's making the game really unenjoyable that I'm not able to improve because I feel that further improving my gameplay ideas too much would alienate me from my team mates.

Cheers.

2 Comments

MrBuffington9/11/2014, 2:48:11 AM2 votes

Hey, I had a similar problem; cracked through to silver earlier in the season (now S4, started B3). Honestly, I think a lot of what got me out of bronze was luck with the teammates I was placed with; having teammates that you don't have to super-hard carry is quite a relief. A lot of times I just have to hope to play my role as best I can and hope my teammates are competent in their roles; usually that's enough to win a game at lower elo. I know it's not something you want to hear, but I felt I was playing well (almost) every game, winning lane most times and transitioning well into the later game, but even then it was somewhat of a coin flip as to whether my team sort of 'clicked' in teamfights (and sometimes it's mixed results. If I can offer one of my recent games as an example. We were getting crushed in teamfights for most of the game; I was ~40 CS and a few kills down for most of the game. I was getting focused super hard in fights and didn't have much assistance from my team; both sides just dove the other's carries; it really just got to the point later in the game where I could survive Jarvan's ult, and my team could chunk Jarvan enough before he got on top of me that I could 1v1 him, since he dove waay into the back line to get to me. We didn't even break even in terms of gold deficit; something just clicked in the last three or so teamfights and we won off of that.)

I too watch a ton of videos, high elo solo q, professional play, imls' coaching videos (highly recommended), etc. From what I've seen, even high elo players have a hard time executing effective rotations, etc, at least in solo q. I still see Diamond 1 players mindlessly shove mid even though there's nothing to pressure, just because they think they can force a teamfight and win the game. There are at least two take aways from this that I see:

  1. It's not really necessary to have fantastic rotational or strategic play in order to win solo-q games, especially at lower elo
  2. The lack of voice communication (and team familiarity, even if you're on voice chat) makes these sorts of plays really hard to execute precisely anyways (pings are usually sufficient), thus what would be a good call for a well coordinated team can turn out to be really, really bad simply because your team isn't well coordinated.

What I think is true is that there is simply a way to win more games than you lose in solo q, and that's by sort of going with the flow. A good plan is only a good plan if everyone is on board; otherwise it's just you trying to solo baron while your team mindlessly shoves mid or something. Understand that to everyone on your team, you're just a random; they don't see you as a strategic mastermind or anything, you're just a another player with an opinion on what to do. It's hard to really adapt to some brand new rotational play you hear about over chat, especially when you have tons of games worth of experience pushing you towards the same habits of that elo. Simple plans like grouping and rotating to a certain objective can work, but often times people just want to shove mid, and even if it's a sub-optimal idea, sometimes you just meet those people where they won't listen to you, so be a little flexible and win the game their way.

Some games you're going to lose, and that's okay; if you're getting stronger as a player, you'll win the majority of your games, and that's usually enough to climb the ladder. At most you can suggest things to your teammates; if they agree, they'll probably do it, if not, there's not much point fighting; hey, maybe you even made a bad call: it happens to the best of us. There are many ways to win the game, and a lot of times, just being on the same page as your team is more important than making the perfect call. Sometimes you'll meet that toxic player, and there's not much you can say to persuade them; just report them and move on. I've found that most teammates are actually fairly understanding

ShadowKnight12249/12/2014, 1:38:33 AM2 votes

I main support, so this is the daily struggle for me.

Basically what I do is start talking from champ select. Don't fill the screen, but just establish yourself as a friendly person that has game knowledge. Compliment the first pick on ban choices, or on someone for making a shrewd choice. Voice your concern about your team comp ("Guys, we are kinda squishy" is something I have to say in most of my games...) and/or point out a flaw in theirs ("Taric and Cait have anti-synergy, she will stay all the way back and Taric is better the closer he is to you" or "He picked Trynd into Maokai, he will just split-push all day, while Mao will win us teamfights"). This establishes you as a person that has done the reading and has game knowledge. This predisposes the team to listen to you later.

I use the loading screen to think of suggestions for my team. When we're waiting for 1:55, I throw around some suggestions, like "hey midlaner, you might want to rush Zhonya's against Zed" or "I'll get spooky ghosts against rango"). This further cements what you did in champ select.

After that, I play the laning phase and mostly communicate with my ADC. If I'm not bot lane, I communicate more often with the team, keeping an eye out for opportunities (I take TP when I go top so I can roam), and basically I make myself known to the team that I'm watching out for them. Whenever I go top I pick something like Lissandra and build her tanky (instead of damage) so I can become a tanky CC monster that sets up plays for the others. If I go mid, I often pick something anti-assassin (like Lissandra or AP Nasus) and focus on becoming an AP tank with CC, leaving the damage to the rest of my team. A willingness to let the others get the glory is what gets them to trust you and follow your advice (which you solidify by complimenting them on good plays). It's then up to you to cement that with advice and calls.

One time, an Akali was wrecking our Vel'Koz so I advised him to rush Abyssal and then get Banshee's after Deathcap. When he did, he was able to kill Akali when she dove him, and I pointed out "See? She can't assassinate you now." I also went there when I noticed Akali was starting to kill him, and basically camped his lane (as a support) in order to prevent him from feeling helpless and going on tilt. I feel that if I hadn't jumped on the problem the second I noticed it, we might have lost the game to a fed Akali and a raging or fatalist Vel'Koz.

I see my job as a support, other than setting up plays, to be about managing the emotional balance of 4 strangers. I have to test the waters and do some cold reading to figure out how to appeal to them, but I generally find that being the emotional rock of the team can be invaluable in order to galvanise the team into a winning force.

Establishing yourself as a knowledgeable figure that sets up plays for others can get people to listen when you want them to do something. It gives you credibility when things go wrong and people start fighting and you have to throw some verbal ice at the situation to cool it down, or when you need to advise a teammate to change strategy. Maybe you need to tell your top laner to stop trying to 1v1 the Yasuo and instead set up a bait so that the entire team can kill him when he overconfidently split-pushes and then rotate mid to force a 4v5 and gain a tower out of that. This has a way higher chance of succeeding if you've done what I said earlier and you frame your requests as logical suggestions. It's also important to type what you want to say as if you were saying it out loud to a person. Adding touches like "guys, don't worry" before you state your plan to come back makes you appear friendlier. It's also important to phrase your suggestions as plans rather than in an accusatory fashion. Rather than being like "akali stop diving, they blow you up immediately", you can be like "hey Akali, I notice that they focus you a lot, why don't you hide and wait for them to blow their cooldowns on us before you jump in?"

It's just a matter of practice and diplomacy.