I don't know how to defuse situations where my teammate is angry at me.

CephaloPop·1/19/2019, 4:13:02 AM·10 votes·10,739 views

I play League passively, and tend not to get too concerned over my in-game performance unless I'm having fun. This is one of the reasons why I don't play ranked, so as not to damage other's standings. While I try my best, I like to call myself the "Eternal Noob" because no matter how much I read, or scour boards, I don't seem to improve at a rate above glacial. I've met some really nice people in game, but I've also met some who get extremely worked up over their teammates performance, and nothing I say seems to help. Then I end up freaking out more, and the experience is terrible for everyone. I don't want to stop playing the game, but I also don't want to get yelled at or make other people upset. Is there anything I can do to cool down situations like these?

31 Comments

Bears Dont Care1/19/2019, 4:45:38 AM8 votes

Do not respond and mute them. If you give them nothing to feed on they will stop.

TheSingularity1/19/2019, 7:17:53 AM4 votes

As others have said. Mute and move on. Your team mate isn't there to debate, he's there to rage at you and in many cases, bait a reaction. Give him nothing and all he is, is a lovely chat log to report

Auroramancer1/19/2019, 2:49:58 PM3 votes

As a player who gets angry with their teammates but doesn't flame, the best way to defuse (in my eyes) is to own up to mistakes.

For instance: "yo wtf we called for dragon 30 seconds ago and you stayed stop lane with no lane opponent?", just be like "my bad, thought I could clear my waves faster" or "you're right, but I thought my lane opponent was still here"

or "why did you have to cc the enemy away from us when we could have killed them?", just respond with "sorry, i thought my spell was going to kill them for us"

maybe they are saying "can you stop inting?", defuse with "i'm actually trying but i'm having a rough game. who do you want me to focus?"

i respond to angry teammates with stuff like that and it calms them down quite a bit, and it's so much better than escalating with them.

However, if they are flaming you "holy fuck you are terrible" or "uninstall this game you piece of shit", ignore and mute, do not respond.

sneakydoug1/19/2019, 4:22:52 AM3 votes

You are not responsible for others player behaviour. Only your own. This is not a “riot” rule of thumb, this is a general life rule.

It is not up to you to diffuse people, and don’t take it o. Yourself to do so. Some people are toxic. Mute is your best friend here.

BoringLittleF1/19/2019, 11:09:16 AM2 votes

Quit feeling bad for your teammates. They choose to get angry and their "well if you were better, I wouldn't be SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW OMG YOU'RE LITERALLY FORCING ME" is the typical "well it's YOUR fault I hit you, why would you go and provoke me like that, it's all because of you" bullshit. In both cases the best option would be not to "apologize and pacify", but to pack your stuff and isolate them from you ASAP. They demand teamplay and team respect, but fail to show any first. So, fuck them and their hypocrisy.

To preserve your mood and stop worrying, cast them all into the mute pool once the game begins and focus on your play. It is the healthiest way.

Düff McWhalen1/19/2019, 4:28:44 AM2 votes

/mute all

Change your life.

The Ecdysiast1/19/2019, 4:47:40 AM2 votes

The exact same thing you do in Call of Duty when there's a twelve year old talking about how good he is and his team sucks. I really don't get why people can't grasp the concept of a mute button.

rayzo1/19/2019, 6:41:01 AM2 votes

Mute them and listen to some good music. Ever try Can't Stop Won't Stop?

EDIT: The band, not the individual song.

ModCaptainMårvelous1/19/2019, 10:45:51 AM2 votes

Been said a lot in this thread but sometimes, you just can't defuse a situation. People want an excuse to be angry and you just happen to have the target. If you've exhausted your options in trying to lighten the situation, sometimes it's best to just let things happen and/or mute them.

While it sucks to say, there's never going to be a way to always get a teammate to relax. The best you can do as a fellow player is not exacerbate the situation and keep things as civil as possible. Plus you won't run the risk of being reported yourself for trying to fight fire with gasoline. Just keep your chin up and understand that hey, you tried your best but not everyone is gonna be reasonable.

Karfuss1/19/2019, 1:09:55 PM2 votes

I've played enough Jungle to know you don't respond to them at all.

Like disciplining a child, you put them in a corner and don't even show them any hint of attention until they start behaving. Same principle with League, you have to remember the main demographic attracted to this game.

They're looking for someone to blame, looking for a reaction, for you to retaliate and give them attention. They'll then feed off that, use it as some convoluted justification and they'll be even more toxic for even more of a reaction. If you don't respond, and they continue, they make themselves look like asshats and player behaviour systems will pick them up. As a general rule they'll give up, and those that don't, will be punished harder.

WatchYourHeadM81/19/2019, 10:59:02 PM2 votes

Learn the lesson most people learned from their job and sports: competitive environments are toxic. That’s how it is and always will be because there’s someone getting negative effects from your existence and they’re gonna get irritated. The two choices this gives you are

A. Listen and learn/disregard crap tip

B. Completely ignore and learn on your own

The Day toxicity ceases to exist in competitive environments is the day strategy and intelligence dies. Ik the snowflakes here won’t like that but hey that’s how it goes you need to accept your environment for what it is and adjust to it because people are being toxic for a reason. When you are consistently making the same mistakes then they will be consistently brought up by someone who knows better or thinks they do. If you find yourself unable to grow and become smarter as you play then you need to realize it’s gonna bother the people actively trying to move forward who view you as a detriment

NepgearDesu1/19/2019, 9:13:01 AM1 votes

A light-hearted joke or wordplay usually does the trick for me. It won't always make the rewd person more joyous, but at least it lets me have a good time, which is what this game is all about in my perspective.

DUDE BRO1/19/2019, 9:53:30 AM1 votes

"Sorry im trying my best"

Works every time. If you defend yourself they'll get angrier, if you just accept it and say something like ^, people usually chill out. If not, then yeah mute that one specific person.

Tuition Fee1/20/2019, 9:32:51 PM1 votes

Just mute them. If you feel like it, you can even tease them a bit. I remember I had a friend who had a real knack of getting people perma banned by tweaking peoples' whiskers in just the right way, to make them say one of the zero tolerance words.

Paravozikchoocho1/19/2019, 5:34:07 AM1 votes

Assuming mute all is not an option a) Make him feel like you got what he said and agree with this. Words mean nothing actually, you basically manipulate flamers this way. It can even make him look like a fool, if you keep agreeing with him, but actually not give a shit. b) Just ignore ? it won't go any further than his flame, in fact he can notice it is uselss to talk with you. c) Try to transfer agression into joke/funny situation. Like "Yes daddy, just don't beat me".

IG Ziko1/19/2019, 12:00:21 PM1 votes

Ignore them. People can completely try new things or champions for the 1st time in normal. If those who flame you were any better, why they don't show their challenger level skills in ranked games instead of playing normal and ruining people fun?

Saezio1/21/2019, 2:30:43 PM1 votes

For me the best way to compare how you should talk to an abusive teammate is how you would talk to your parents if they treated you unfairly.(not as a kid, as an adult that respects their opinion but wants to showcase their own) Talk back with respect and reason and you will have no problem. Admitting your mistakes also takes most of the anger out. Just a simple "Sorry, I am playing like crap team" will work wonders.

As for all the /mute fans out there, I am personally not a fan of that because I enjoy monitoring human reactions to stuff but its only my personal quirk and would encourage anyone that has even once let a flamer get under their skin to simply mute at the first sign of bad behaviour.

fatherdarius1/19/2019, 2:31:47 PM1 votes

Just mute 'em, and go where YOU think you need to go.

CytheGuy1/19/2019, 5:27:45 AM1 votes

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do that Riot would approve of. Easiest and most preached option is the mute & report buttons, although these never made me happy at all, because I wasn't doing anything to make the community better (or at least it feels like it). There have been times where I've been able to make good enough points (sometimes rudely worded, admittedly) to get them to shut up for one reason or another, and there have also been a few times in my 9 years where I've gotten the "lol ok" which always indicates a win in the argument. Like I said though, Riot takes a "any talking back is toxic and you're equally at fault regardless of how rudely you talk back and how rudely they talked at you" stance so be careful with what you say so they don't immediately think to report you back.

Eldeazar1/19/2019, 3:03:00 PM1 votes

Those players are usually just venting frustration on others. Muting them is your best option

DestroyerDa0071/19/2019, 5:10:34 PM1 votes

Personally I stopped playing back in S5 because of the high levels of toxicity in the game, and recently I came back and nothing has changed. Imo the attitude of a boat load of people is that unless you are on their level you are Trash.

I play for fun which means ill pick certain champions even if they are out of meta or im not good at them because i have fun while playing them. However to a lot of people thats #1 sin. The problem is that toxic people are never removed or punished from the game.

My tip is to do 2 things.

/mute all. Usually this is the main Method that most people recommend when people start tilting at you in a game because it instantly silences them and gives you peace of mind.
Report them. Give a detailed (but not too long explanation of their antics) In my exp reports without comment are usually filtered so they are never looked at while reports with texts seem (no stats to back this up) have a higher amount of response rates (this is only when the individual is being extremely toxic.

EvilDustMan1/19/2019, 5:23:15 PM1 votes

"Hey man, I'm trying my best." "I hear you, it isn't easy over here."

After that, just mute, report, move on. They are usually more frustrated with the fact they can't fix your situation than you.

Phhase1/19/2019, 10:45:11 PM1 votes

Just hit em' with the "lol xd" or something like that. If they're not gonna engage with you in good faith, ain't no reason for you to. Not to say you should be toxic, but just make it clear that you don't care.

Doge20201/23/2019, 9:01:05 PM1 votes

Maybe try Find a duo partner or make a premade group with people who have a similar mindset/attitude as you so you don’t really need to respond to toxic people.

Small story time: this past weekend I was playing Quinn top, my bot was a duo and they were cho apc and morg supp with double ignite, I also had a kayn jungle, I forgot who the mid was lol. But anyways we all popped off hard and moved on to our next games, but I actually ended up playing against them while the duo bot and the solo kayn were on the same team. I went top again but even though I popped off my team lost the game pretty hard. But I didn’t care that we lost because I had so much fun playing against the people I just played with lol. After that game we made a premade of all 4 of us, one of my friends did join us to be our midlane for a few games because I forgot to turn off the auto join thing. But anyways we played for 2-3 more hours and we all had a blast. And the best part was that nobody was toxic and didn’t really get angry.

Beacon Academy1/19/2019, 6:38:48 AM1 votes

Why are you concerned about what they are saying?

They're just programmed to say those things, so you shouldn't worry about it since they are bots.

Larriet1/19/2019, 11:05:01 PM1 votes

It's not something you can give tips on. Unless you already know how to diffuse these kinds of situations IRL, it's gonna be hard learning how to do it online, so for most people the best advice really is just mute and ignore them.

Phieldworker1/19/2019, 5:59:22 AM1 votes

Haven’t met you before but I already like you.

With that being said I had a bit of anxiety when I first started league. Played bots from 2014 until probably 2016. Only played a few pvp when my friends would play since I knew they knew I sucked. I finally took the dive mid 2016 and hopped in to pvp regularly. I was still afraid to disappoint teammates but then I finally had the thought, I can mute them.

I know sometimes you wanna know what’s going on in chat but if it’s at the cost of your fun in the game or worse mental health you should mute teammates/enemies. I’m not saying do it at the beginning of the match but as soon as you see that negative chat towards you that makes you feel flustered just slap that mute on them. I promise you it’ll minimize the stress. And you’ll be able to play better or at least focus. I hope there are helpful tips in there. Good luck in future games and have fun.

Ps play with friends.

5StackUltOneShot1/19/2019, 7:53:19 AM1 votes

As someone who has been perma banned around 5 times for toxicity (So far im improving its been 4 months and I havent flamed) usually you cant, when someone is flaming its because they are angry and annoyed, theyre flamed is meant to make u feel the same way. Saying 'sorry' to someone whos wishing cancer upon your family wont help.

BUT, IF THE TEAM MATE IS JUST SAYING 'Man, you pissed me off why did you leave me to die?', you can take 10 seconds to type in something like 'sorry dude my bad didnt mean to' which should untilt him.