After 4 Years of Playing League...

So I had to do some searching, and realized I was wrong when I thought I started when Zed came out. I checked when my account was made via the email sent by Riot and I started back in April of 2014. None of you probably care about this, but I personally had to get that out of the way. I've also spent a total of $1695 on this game over the years I've played it. Moving on...

As shown by above, I've spent a long time playing this game. I still remember back when I first started how I saved up my IP to get the amazing champion known as Zac, who became my main and I've played him ever since (aside from a couple breaks into other champs). I was a top/jungle main and I've learned how to pretty much play any role with my worst role being ADC. Be that as it may, aside from my first placements landing me in Silver, I've always been a Bronze player. It's hard for me to continuously have to adapt to the game's constant changes, and back when I first started I dropped my mmr very low due to constant losses. I basically threw myself into what was known as elo hell. All of that aside, I now have felt that all of that time and money has been a complete waste. Yesterday I went in to play a quick game before work because I had a fun idea. I wanted to go Skarner top just to try it out and started a normals game. "Why didn't you try it in bots first?" Because bots don't tell you jack about how it works against actual people. Moving on... I tell my team that I'm going to immediately go to their topside buff to steal it, since I knew the enemy would start bottom buff. Soon as I pass the river, our jungler starts spamming pings asking for a leash to his top buff. This angers me, as I communicated exactly what I wanted to do and so he could have started the bottom buff. From then on I was agitated, as I had to go leash him so I didn't kill the red buff fast enough before vi got back. I had a horrible laning start and when my jungle ganked the enemy got a double (because Illaoi). I became tilted and a little toxic. In return for my poor performance and "whiny" behavior, everyone except for the support jumps on me. They called me things like "less than a let down", and that's just minor things. I asked them to stop treating me like garbage and the kha replied that "we wouldn't if you'd stop being it." I of course retaliate, because my momma taught me to defend myself against bullies. Afterwards I report all 3, while all 3 report me. I asked the enemy to report as well, but they either just flat out say no or that they'll report me instead. You can tell where this got me. After our mid finishes their report, I immediately receive the perma-ban. Now there were 2 other games in the log as well that attributed to this. I had a naut jungle who gave my enemy Garen first blood and red buff in one game. In the other my entire team was feeding and mid's enemy laner was constantly roaming bot (I believe in this game I was adc). In all 3 games I did show a degree of toxicity, be it because of people talking trash to me or because the feeders had finally got to me and I couldn't contain my rage much more.

Now I know what you're thinking. Having a permanent ban means you had previous bans and a warning. I did. Let me explain a few things. First of all, I tried to not be toxic on returning from my ban. I kept a cool head, tried to be positive, and if someone was irritating me I did my best to mute them. For people like me, this doesn't help a whole lot. I can be very short tempered, and when I have consecutive losses it starts to pile up my anger. "Why don't you just mute them?" Because it's hard to do that. If I mute them, it doesn't stop them from being jerks. I hate that. I can't stand by while someone is going to be a total jerk to me. "Mute all at the start of the game?" I actually feel like the chat is important for communication. Pings are really good, but there are some things you can't relay with pings. Things like "play safe" or relaying to your team tactics or what they can be doing to do better, or of course telling you that "Zac can't top" because I swear I got this in 9/10 games I go Zac top in the new season. Just because someone is suited for jungle doesn't mean they have to! ahem moving on...

I didn't just make this post to rant. I'm here to tell you that as far as I'm concerned, unless you truly enjoy yourself in every game, don't mind toxic people, are able to get past silver and into the higher elos, and aren't toxic, then you should quit League now. I personally can't remember the last time I enjoyed a game of League fully without feeling any stress whatsoever. It is stressful to have to just pray the other 4 people on your team don't feed while making sure you don't as well. Winning isn't everything, yes, but being stuck in a game where you're getting your face slammed into the ground isn't exactly what I call fun. Not only that, the game itself is the fuel for the very thing it hates. Toxic people. I'll explain...

In League, you are tasked with, at worst, queuing up with 4 other random people and just expecting they'll listen to you and do well. This of course doesn't happen. This is the equivalent of tossing 5 stray cats in a box and expecting them to work together to figure a way out. They will just end up fighting and hissing at each other. You can't expect a bunch of random people who have good coordination, and that's one big thing that separates regular League from the LCS. The LCS is a different game entirely, because not only are these very skilled League players, but they're also highly coordinated and have excellent teamwork skills. You can't expect this kind of teamwork from random people most of the time, especially if they're low bronze. Most people in that elo don't realize the importance of grouping and focusing carries (I know this from experience). They will go in one at a time, or focus trying to kill the frontline tank, and after dealing with this for multiple games it starts to wear on you. You will get mad. You will get toxic. You will rage at the fools who (at least to you) are the reason you're still in Bronze, regardless of whether or not they actually are. People like to play the blame game. Ranked in of itself is such a toxic experience. The only reason I started doing it again is because I was so tired of people calling me out for being Bronze, as if it actually matters. Again, more toxic stuff with people calling you out for being low tier when they're probably the same rank or maybe 1 rank above. So why do we continue to play this game? It's because games like this feed our competitive nature. It's addictive. Sometimes it's just because you spent too much money on the game and can't quit (cough).

Whatever the reason, the game remains strong for 9 years now, and that's impressive. During those 9 years a lot has changed. When they reworked my main Zac I actually quit the game for a few months (legit was angry at first but then loved him again). The game isn't entirely bad, though. On the contrary, it's a good game. However there are many things that make it worse than it could be. The community is one of the worst in existences, but really all MOBAs can have toxic communities because it's the way MOBAs are structured. The ranking system is ridiculous, which brings me to another point. If you are considering trying to climb out of bronze, be aware what you are in for. If you're starting from Bronze 5, and assuming you're making an average of 20 LP per match, you will have to win 7 games in a row in each tier. Each of those games can last anywhere from 20 (No one ever agrees to ff at 15) to 40 minutes. Sometimes even longer. If we assume it's taking an average of 30 minutes per game, each tier (if you win every game) will take you 3 and a half hours to get through. Winning all games it'll take you 17 and a half hours just to get out of bronze at those times. That's if your LP earnings stay the same and at an average of 30 minutes per game. That's also if you win every game, which is highly unlikely. This is a game that requires a lot of teamwork, and that's hard when your team doesn't want to work together. The MMR system is terrible as well, because you get 0 redemption. Yes there are "soft resets" but those barely help at all. If you're bronze, you don't get a second chance to redeem yourself out of it. On top of that, the game in bronze is very different from gaming in the higher ranks. The champions and strategies are much different, and this is why it's so hard to balance the game (that and there are 140 champions to balance).

There's one more thing I have to get out of the way, and that's that banning toxic people doesn't fix the problem at all. First of all, unless you're me, most toxic people will just make a new account when they're banned. All you need to do is make a new email. It isn't hard at all. Not only that, but as I said earlier the game itself helps push you into being toxic. Then there's all the new players who are toxic people. I half want to think that they do this for money, as every time they ban an account, that person can make a new account and spend money to get their stuff back. But we all know RIOT isn't greedy... right? Well I mean for the price of a couple of skins you could just buy yourself a new game, but... Hmm...

Anyways, you end up with scenarios where players who aren't just toxic a-holes get banned. I'm not referring to myself of course, but I'm saying other people can have the same thing happen where an entire team of toxic jerks reports you and you get banned just because you were on the wrong side of their sword. This means all the nice people realize how much they dislike the game and leave, but the toxics remain. A much better solution would be to instead of, you know, banning someone permanently and making sure all their money spent was an absolute waste (I could literally buy an old car with the money I spent... something I actually need.), you can do chat bans. "Didn't we already try chat bans and it didn't work out?" Things have changed my friends. A great solution would be that people get chat bans, and I'm not talking about the limited chat restrictions they gave before. I'm saying you essentially have no chat. You wouldn't be able to see ally or enemy messages. Only pings and system notifications. This could be an over the course of a few games thing. You would say, get chat banned for 4 games. Afterwards, continuing to be toxic gets you banned this time for 6 games. Each time you're too toxic, the amount raises. Eventually if you're really dedicated to being toxic, you will essentially have an almost permanent chat ban. This is so much better, because it legitimately stops true toxic people from being toxic. "What if they just start inting in retaliation?" Inting is a reportable AND ban-able offense, so... They just get banned. And btw kids, you can't just report someone for inting just because they fed. There's a difference between intentionally handing someone kills and just having a bad game.

All of this aside, I actually feel a rush of relief. Because of this permanent ban I am able to break this horrible addiction. Will I miss this game? Yes. You'd miss anything if you spent 4 years with it. I'm going to of course regret the handful of champions I didn't get to play, and the fact RIOT banned me right before finishing the collection (I had 5 champs left to unlock). However, this is for the best. When I quit after the Zac rework, I was a much better person. I had less frustration and stress. It's hard having to deal with a stressful life and job, and then you go to relax by playing a video game that... stresses you out more. Video games aren't supposed to do that. While yes this is my own experience and not everyone else gets stressed playing, I'm trying to say that if you feel the same that there are other options. There are plenty of other f2p games. Sure not all of them will be as non-p2w as League is, but you may still have more fun. I personally have literally hundreds of other games that I now have more time to play. I also have more time to catch up on my shows list, which has been ever growing and expanding since I put so much of my time into League. So as I hit that uninstall button, I'm going to let out a sigh of relief. This long battle with MOBAddiction is finally going to end. Goodbye, my friends. I hope you all have better experiences than I did...

... Wait, I still have my alt acc-