The civil war on your team. (How to deal with others)

I'll be forward now that the broad title is out of the way. This is my "foreign" thoughts to consider guide thing. It takes a different approach that is meant to be read between the lines, very general, yet hopefully embraceable.

A brief summary of myself: (so that you can get a good first impression then leave/ignore my advice if you want)

• 19 year old interested in psychiatry/sociology
• Casual player since mid S2
• Currently mains Tank/Tanky-fighter Top/Jungle
• Bronze in ranked
• Mostly Optimistic/Equalist beliefs
• Feels very unsatisfied with the "average" player experience and behavior
• Sarcastic for the sake of this guide

Now, I know you likely don't care who I am, but I believe I have a unique view on player behavior: yet a normal shared experience with others. The reason I put this first is that by understanding who I am, and what I value, you can save your own time if you disagree, or otherwise center your focus on what I'm trying to present. Biggest explanations needed for my bullet list above: I want to give everyone a chance because we are all humans/equals, and if we don't humor their side, how can we expect our own to be respected? Furthermore, I have a very defensive social habit: in terms of assert/receive I am quick to help the less numbered and targeted side. In essence, I believe to hold a hopeful and nurturing stance, quick to help those in need over being first to disrupt a calm situation.

Here are the steps that you could do/may already do, that some school councilor might give you (but aren't important to remember and are generally not helpfully at first) :

Step 1: Understand yourself The first thing to do, before you get into a situation you weren't in (think neutral party or before problems start) is to figure out who you are & what your role is.

You are:

• A human
• A league of legends player
• An individual

Your place:

• Learn from & enjoy the game
• Help others who need it (optional)

Step 2: Gather information (before & after a problem) We constantly look around at what happens, what's said, & what's done. However, few people have the time to create a trend of how well each lane does and what they're struggling/succeeding with. We simply see that a lane is pushed, what level/items they have, ect. Who remembers how many times top has been ganked/pushed under tower/bursted when you're bot or mid lane? However, when that player losing a tower, all that information (and much more) is required to explain why. Instead, at that moment, we can only access what we did see, and what we can with Tab menu and mini-map.

So do what you can, as an outsider to a situation (or the target) to understand what happened. Normally this requires asking and using all tools available to you.

Step 3: What can be done about it now? League is played in long games. My average SR PVP normal game is ~45 minutes long. (reminder: i don't play ranked more than ~20 games a season) So, what can you do to change the result of said problem, should it be a player dc'd, lost lane, or made a child-friendly * line? Chances are, you can (attempt to) alter the end-result. However, this step should really just be about considering what can be done, over choosing or doing it.

Step 4: What are you going to do? Decide, analyze your decision. Deciding isn't the problem in most cases. We do that very quickly, and if you base your decision off of good reasons, then analyzing why you'll do it is a lot easier to justify.

Step 5: Do it & progress Obvious first part, done and done. Second part: you just did something, took a stance and replied to the situation... now you have to continue evaluating what happens, and what you need to do.

Step 6: Remember you missed a step/continue laughing at these guidelines These rules aren't meant to be taken as seriously as your behavior therapist wants you to take theirs. But it does have a few uses, and one of them likely isn't doing each of these steps. It's understanding what you're doing and why you're doing it. For this, we use more sarcastic 4th grade/anger management jumbo stuff:

Scenario: You're bot-lane carry (Ashe or Vayne or w/e), you have a support that is decent. You rock your lane. Top lane (because you just remembered that was a thing) Lost tower. Mid lane gets ganked by jungle. Your own jungle afks. Support missed a grab. Your lag. 4/5 players (everyone but base camper) is dead. Rage. Defeat.

...Ok, let's take this serious for a second, that requires me to be your councilor thing. You and your support are rocking bot. Top lane lost tower. ... what do you do? Well, you're a human, and a league player... you are an individual. (-scrolling through my guide-) Yeah... ok, you gotta learn and have fun... and uh.. help others i guess. Now at this point you're supposed to "gather information" and stuff. so... wtf happened that made top lose lane. (If you're reading this part, then you're doing pretty good xD)

Well, lets say top lane was short on farming. you could see that with the Tab menu and their possibly low level/small build. Now: do you know much else? Maybe they were ganked or who they laned against... So lets go to the common idea that they got owned by the opponent or they're new at playing... Trundle? Ok, got it, they're a noob that picked Trundle and got countered by an obviously Gold 3 ranked Jax with the help of his Silver 1 Jungle WW. Ok, Jax sucks when fed, trundle is gonna stay weak, and WW has one less lane to worry about.

^that sounds about reasonable to sarcastically assume someone might think? Good. Ok, now you can either help the tower-less lane after a decent push, ping 3 times for jungler/mid, or insert words into text box/get more fed bot. For the sake of your entertainment and my overly self-entertaining sarcasm, lets assume that no one cares what happened and not explain further on said scenario.

Quite frankly, I hate them. Fictional situations that may come up where you're given few to details and restrictions of information. So instead I'll share what happened in my most reason Shen top game.

Shen vs Darius Darius hard pushes countless times, yi jungler gets fed off killing him, I ninja dash 5/6ths of the time away from troll pull/ult/teemo jungler. Darius loses lane hard (suprise). I get the occasional assist with ulting mid or bot lane, protecting carries. And I win lane Shinobi style.

Near end game: enemies start /all "Darius feeding/ report troll" Now, with my amazing explanation skills, you probably know that Darius over extended, Yi is a cheap ***, Teemo shouldn't jungle, and I'm a ninja. However, Teemo is a bad jungle, who no one points a finger at because he got a few kills and assists, plus he's helping every lane and top has -2 towers. I'm a pure tank, running 5/25/0 masteries and 0 offense runes, with sunfire as my damage item and 0/1/6 kda. So, it's obviously Darius' fault. ...But he was 1- ganked. 2- not helped. 3- Yi'd. 4-top lane vs shen Does this mean he purposely fed, is a troll, or is toxic? According to enemies: yes. According to anyone without this information: probably. So I do my whole protect the trees Darius shpeel and defend him for just having a hard time in lane. I don't bring this up because I'm proud or w/e that I did... end of the day, he still got reported most likely. The reason I bring this up, is because he is essentially you during 1 of your 100's of games. Lets take away names and specifics: Have you ever lost lane: [x} Have you ever been reported for it [x] Have you been falsely blamed for any reason: [x] Have you considered that most likely everything that happens to you happens often to others as well?: How about that people falsely report regularly and you are likely no exception?:

The first step is understanding who you are. Well, you're a human, welcome to the league of humans. I am guilty as charged, and losing lane is but one example...

You have DC'd. It happened once. Doesn't matter why right now. You DC'd. And that is the biggest thing that may matter to one of the other 4 members of your team. Do you report people who DC? [Yes/No/Sometimes]. I can't say expect the same for you, we don't control or decide for anyone else, but circumstances may not matter. You lost lane/swore/dc/got x kdr... and who's going to try to understand why? Who's going to listen to you?

I'm not always a nice member of this community, and I'm sorry that I'm toxic. But I really want to believe I've done enough good to make up for, and that others will follow suit. Because regardless of me cursing someone out even a single time or going 0.X kdr and losing game, that ruined someone's experience. And I get that how good or bad some one is skill-wise shouldn't matter to others, we're human, and I've regrettably gotten upset about it too. To the readers of this: I know you aren't like the players who make you hate this community, but unless you're going to help them... I suggest you look to help yourselves instead. Please be considerate. Mute if you need to, someone's going to give you a hard time, and it's going to suck, but I can't believe that a community isn't seen as being bad, without having a lot of bad parts, or a lot of foul critics,

Please, even if you're a good person, can you do a little bit of that stupid uplifting stuff? Challenge yourself to look differently at your standard. Question why you do something. Every few times you try understanding yourself, you'll make it easier to help yourself, or others. The report feature in-game isn't going to help you much. Report for someone else's sake, not your own. I want to know that I'm stopping toxic players when I report them. But I think that's out of revenge, usually. They were bad enough to me, that I want them to be punished for it. Please, just... nudge someone gently before you start pushing, if you really have to. I won't lie, the report-feature in game doesn't work as I want it too, if this place is so bad... but I'm not going to change that, nor are 1,000,000 youtube, patch, and facebook messages. And before you start aiming for 2mil... perhaps just take a look at what you can do to help yourself currently?

Thank you to anyone who read this. We are 1/100,000 yet impact ourselves more than any 1 else. Perhaps now you can help me?