A Deeper Look Into Toxicity and Improving in LoL
This has been something I've wanted to address for some time now, I just could never figure out how to go about it. This is solely for lower elos, but maybe higher elo players could find some use of it as well. All are welcome, but I ask that you are open minded when reading this. Also, I am not entirely sure if I placed it under the correct subboard, but if it would better fit another place, I would gladly move it.
When you decide to play League of Legends, you are a part of a massive community of other players, both like you and completely different than you. When you search for a match and hit "Accept," you will be placed with 4 allies and 5 enemies. Those 9 other players are people, just like you. Some of them want to learn and get better, some already believe they are the best, others just want to play and on rare occasion, some just want to feed.
No matter what kind of players you get paired with, there is always one common goal in a match of League of Legends; Victory. How your team goes about approaching that goal is up to the you and the 4 allies you get. This season, we have a great many of things to diversify League and the tactics we can use. Whether you want to split push or rush down mid, it starts in team select with your team composition.
Players often ignore or forget about team compositions, but this does matter. If your team picks a composition that has a weaker teamfight than the enemy team comp, you may want to avoid teamfights. If 3 or 4 people on your team can hold an inhibitor turret while someone else split pushes the enemy, that is a tactic I have found to work many times. There is always a way to win, sometimes, it just takes more effort and thought to plan and execute.
The important thing to remember, and the main reason I want to write this, is that no matter what happens, the other players in the game are human. What this community has turned to, labeling one another as "toxic," it all originated from one place or another. No one ever logged into League for the first time with the sole intent of flaming other players. That "toxic" person was created somewhere, by someone. If that person had a bad match (and we all do from time to time), they likely had someone on their team who flamed them for doing poorly. After so much of this, that person is going to do the same thing to others. Instead of getting flamed, he will do the flaming and it creates a chain reaction that may never stop.
Think back to your first match, or even your first 10 matches, and think about how clueless you may have been. This might have been your first MOBA, or maybe you came here from DoTA and just needed some time to learn how League worked as compared to DoTA. Either way, those first few matches you played, you were learning the game, and maybe you got lucky and had some nice player who knew a bit already guide you in the right direction. But when did that learning stop?
League of Legends is an ever changing, ever expanding game that constantly undergoes buffs and nerfs and tweaks to every aspect. The META is ever changing, and certain champions fall in and out of favor as the META shifts with the game balances and changes. What a lot of people seem to forget or not acknowledge at all is that the learning never stops. After your first 10 matches when you get the basics of League down, you might go on to learn a bit more, some advanced mechanics, so on, but at what point does a player learn everything there is to learn in League?
My answer is never, and here is why.
There are currently over 120 champions, which means there are over 14,000 possible lane matchups. Of a match, their are 10 possible champions that can be selected, which means there are over 150,000 possible team compositions. Including all the different build paths, summoner spells, and other variables that effect a match, there are over 1,000,000 different scenarios that can play out in a match, maybe more. Including all the different ways players can play, juke, outplay, and fail, there may be over 1,000,000,000,000 different scenarios for any given match of League of Legends.
No player, no matter how good, has seen every single scenario. No player will know exactly what to do in a new situation they have never been in before, only act on the spot and hope they are making the right decisions. With time and experience, players can think and act more quickly, reacting to these new situations and hopefully getting out of it. Even LCS Pro players face this. While they may have the experience to react quickly and effectively, I doubt that any one player has been in every possible situation and will know exactly what to do if it arises again. Part of what makes League fun is seeing how many different ways you can pit your skill against the enemy and outplay them despite the odds.
So the next time you go into a match and someone is doing poorly, think about this. Instead of raging at that player, offer them some help. If you have no help to offer, keep to yourself. Be nice, don't call them names. At one point, that might have been you, trying to learn a new champion and your first game with them didn't go to well. Instead of spreading hate, pass on what you already know and broaden someone else's knowledge of the game. The only thing hate creates is another "toxic" community member.
We cant win every game we play, but we can improve ourselves and others with every passing game. Teach someone what they did wrong and how to improve, and you might just find yourself in that same position soon enough. All you can hope for is someone else was as kind as you were and helps you in return. Rising through the ranked tiers takes time and effort. Yes, matchmaking has its flaws, but patience can overrule those flaws. In time, if you can prove that you deserve that promotion, it will come. Be patient and continue to learn and improve on the game. If you have no desire to win and just want to play the game for fun, do so, just don't be rude to other players.
Even Challenger tier players had to work to get where they are, and it did not happen overnight. Understand that if you want to rise up and make it to that level, it will require time and effort as would any other project you might set your mind to. The only "toxic" thing in this game is the one that we as a community create.