What makes criticism constructive?

Busty Demoness·10/26/2018, 9:04:55 PM·2 votes·888 views

People claim that saying "you're bad" is constructive criticism, rather than being harassment.

Well, that's not true. It's criticism, but it's still harassment on the grounds that you're not basing it on anything and therefore it becomes an insult. Qualifying it with "You're bad at X role" still doesn't become constructive. So what do you need to do to make it constructive? Be more specific while keeping insults out of it.

"You CS worse than a one-handed retard with spastic hands" is harassment. It's clear where the player needs work, but you're still turning it into an insult.

"Why didn't you go in?" is borderline harassment. It aims to put full blame on the other person rather than attempting to see if the mistake was on the speaker's part. If the person going in didn't see why the situation was dangerous or why he didn't need to go in, saying this means they are not looking at the possibility they made the mistake. I've dealt with this a number of times on bloodthirsty supports and a few have trolled over the misplay they made because they didn't (and often refuse to) see why they were at fault for that.

"Stop fighting" is arguably harassment. It implies that a lane is continually choosing to fight outside of any safe zone rather than being tower dived constantly. If someone is dying repeatedly under their turret, more than likely they're avoiding fighting already but are losing lane badly enough they can't stop dives.

"Stop dying" is harassment. Unless a player is super high or inebriated, chances are they're fully aware that they've died and died often. Perhaps they can't catch a break. Perhaps they're being targeted by a fed assassin they don't have the tools to deal with. Maybe they're just making a ton of stupid plays because they're tilted and/or desperate to make a comeback. In some cases, they're using their low gold reward as an excuse to split push because it means the enemy will gain less from splitting off to kill them and they don't bother fighting back because they know they won't win.

Constructive means give them something specific to improve on and without insulting them. Lines like the above are toxic because they don't give a player something to focus on doing better and implies that said player is unaware of what's going on.

3 Comments

Elite4Runner10/26/2018, 9:17:50 PM1 votes

Adding a small bit to your "Stop fighting" comment can make it constructive.

I would say that something like "Stop fighting. We lose team fights." is at least closer to being constructive criticism because it is informative.

I had a match a few days ago where there was a Darius facing off in the top lane against a Vayne. I knew in champion select that was going to end up being a problem. I was playing as the jungler so I decided I was going to plan on going top lane early to try and set her behind early. I typed in chat before my bot and support set up the leash for me "Darius, let her push out. I'm going blue, then scuttle, then coming top." I actually don't recall if he replied, but that is exactly what we did. However, as I was walking into lane, I pinged OMW and he stood there until I was on top of her while she was retreating. I was Warwick btw. He finally snapped out of his daze and came to help. We nearly got her, but she got away.

The reason I'm saying this is because what I said in chat to him was questionable. I said something along the lines of, "I need you to react a little faster, Darius." He said "sry" .. I don't think it really came across as rude. I was annoyed, but it was informative. If he had honestly been in the fight for 1 more auto attack she probably would have died.

She went on to become a MASSIVE problem, and I can't help but think if that gank was successful, that match might have been totally different.

RAT IN GAME UwU 10/26/2018, 9:42:00 PM1 votes

What makes it constructive is equally how you receive it, and how it's said

saying you suck isn't criticism like many would say it is, it's just an insult

constructive criticism is when you do something wrong and someone says the right thing to do

since it's league 999/1000 players will take no responsibility for their wrong doings and will just flame you, while 1 player will realize it was wrong and say yeah i know, or nothing and try to make that change when they have the opportunity again.

knobblez10/27/2018, 3:22:00 AM1 votes

eh idk about alot of that...

calling "why didnt you go in?" harrassment...? ive asked and been asked this before and it just needs an honest answer. "i had no mana" 'oh shit mb' is not a big deal. in-fact i get worried when someone starts typing a lot in chat(we dont need entire punctuated polite sentences, just communication(or none is chill tbh)).

ive even made a terrible play top and had my teammates be like "wtf man". ive responded "sorry ill fix it bby" and had them respond "ok". truth is some people are already heated from playing too many games and come in expecting anger back. some messages can be read either angry or neutral depending on how you read it in your head. if youre angry, you might read chat angrily and think everyones talking shit when its probably not the case.

ive had someone tell me "stop dying" and i understood their point. i had died 2 times by 5 minutes. The person was absolutely right.(if they would have dragged on about it, thats not cool).

its really about walking on eggshells because people are sensitive af and easily distracted from the game. IN REALITY NOBODY SHOULD BE LETTING CHAT COMMENTS DISTRACT THEM FROM THE PRIZE. If you keep your eye on the prize you will drop the garbage chat messages from your mind and YOU WILL BE OKAY.