No respite for players who suck (A talk about normals)

I've been playing this game since season 3. I have maybe 4k games on my main account and won maybe half of those games. In my time playing this game I've kept coming across the same problems more often than not in each game.

If you're one of THOSE people, then it may be relevant to say that im bronze 2. Been stuck there for the past year and cant seem to get out. Stopped playing ranked all together becuase of the same issues i'm going to state.

1. Players who suck get reported the most: Anyone who's played a game not in bots can agree that it can be upsetting to have to play with a low skilled player. I have been that player a majority of those games played. However, people don't see players who aren't good at the game as just that. They insist that these guys have to be "Trolls" or "Intentional feeders". Why should they have to be labeled as such? Because you feel you should get back at them for them not being as good as you want them to be? Everyone has good and bad games. Not EVERYONE is good at a game. I'll be the first to raise my hand and admit im not a good gamer. If I end up feeding, it doesnt HAVE to mean Im doing it on purpose.

2. People who do something different get harassed: If you're in a game and you're trying to do what the "Team" or the "Meta" says is best, sometimes it just doesn't mesh with what works best with you. So you go and figure out what works with you and what doesn't. If you're one of those people who finds something that works, but doesn't fit in the meta or teams expectations, then you more than likely end up getting harassed by the team.

If you're getting demolished under tower and it's still the laning phase, then perhaps going back to hugging that tower because the laning phase is not over yet maybe isn't the best move.

If you gank a lane and more often then not you get destroyed when you do it for THAT particular lane, maybe ganking that lane isn't the best course of action. But if the team keeps pinging/capsing at you to do something and you don't do it because you feel it's not going to work, then by their definition you're a troll/griefer. I understand the game is a team-based game but this doesn't mean that the team knows what's best all the time. I understand that not every choice is a good one but if you keep doing something that just doesn't work with you, then it's just pure insanity to keep doing it knowing it's not going to work. The meta doesn't work well with me personally, so yes I have to do something different to find/do something that does.

3. Toxic players breed toxic players: A fun bit of biology really. I'm sure Riots "Experts" have said something to the same point before but this one is a personal observation. People just LOVE to be jerks to other people here. That seems to be a reocurring theme here. I can guarentee that in maybe half to a third of your games, you have at least one person who just loves to be a jerk to someone. That person probably doesnt even deserve it. These particular people I've seen love to use those 3 letter acronyms (OMG, WTF, SMH) that takes no effort to type yet conveys the biggest of messages.

I can say that when I started this game I had every intention of getting better and being a decent person to people who needs it. ESPECIALLY to those people not doing well. However due to repeated exposure to these toxic, immoral, horrid players I keep running into, the thick skin I used to have had long since wore away to them. Unfortunately I also went through a period where I was that toxic player. I felt like everyone was trolling me, took offense to just about everyone talking to me, and more often than not thought people encouraging me to be better were just mocking me to a certain degree. I guess it can be looked at as a looking down on me kind of vibe. Granted this can be applicable to any player, the vast majority of toxic players (That I've encountered) are bad or somewhat decent at this game. If you're good at the game and you KNOW that you're good, it's fairly easy to shrug it off. But when you are bad at a game and you keep running into these people who just suck the fun out of the game because they're bad, but a little bit better than you (Or using a no skill/OP champ to make themselves seem the better person) it can be very easy to get this impression that you are as horrible as this person says you are.

These 3 points are just a few I was able to find a common theme that makes being a bad player a truly bad thing to be in this game. Having played 4k games and still be maybe a halfway decent player in certain roles is not a great thing to admit. However I still truely enjoy this game. To suck at a game is no reason to not play it. It's about having fun at it. People, my opinion, have taken to winning games = fun to such lengths that they're not truely enjoying the game the way games should be played. Im sure I'm going to get a lot of hate from my next statement but this line of thinking took me out of the toxic state of mind and has been working for the past 4 months.

"If it's normals, dont play to win"

A bad thing to say I know, but hear me out. If you think about it, why do you play normals? 1) To get better at the game? Sure. What better way to test where you're strong/weak at then against other players. You can do bots sure, but bots dont do anything new. Players on the other hand can always show you a different way to do things, even if they're not on your team. 2) To have fun? A great reason. Just keep in mind that you dont HAVE to win in order to have a good time. You can have games you won but still feel angry for multiple reasons (U sucked that game, other player was dogging you all game, couldn't team fight for s**t, etc). Find the fun in everything you do. 3) For IP? You can get IP no matter what mode you're playing. Even better, YOU GET IP NO MATTER IF YOU WIN OR LOSE. Sure you get more if you win, but it's not like you get nothing if you lose. 4) To get a really high win/lose ratio on my stats? Ha hahhh. Sorry. But if you're the average player, then this would be a poor reason to play. If you think about it, what do you get if you get this? Bragging rights sure. That feeling of superiority? Ehh, that's purely subjective. You can say you won a lot of games but you cant really say that it's all you. I have a 50/50 win/lose ratio and I can say for certain that most of those wins were not won purely from my efforts. So other than those to things, what do you really get from having that win/lose ratio? Not much from my perspective.

The list can go on for reasons to play normals. In the end it's the reasons you play the game that can cause the most damage when you're trying to have fun. "Dont play to win" By having this in mind, you can take away the condition "Im not having fun unless I win" By taking this condition out of equation, you see the game just as a metaphorical playground. You can find fun in ANY part of it. From doing well in a lane, to a sick play that was done (By you or the enemy) to thinking you're about to destroy someone and 3 people come out of nowhere to evaporate you. Because in the end, what did you really lose? Nothing. You didnt lose the ability to get IP. You didn't lose anything by losing a game. You didn't lose anything even by playing poorly. Because you're not here to win. You're here to have fun. If you get better at a game, then by association, you can have more fun. But until then, don't worry about it. Play to have fun.