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Leaverbuster, Depression & Cake

KatSenpai3·10/24/2017, 7:28:09 PM·1 votes·268 views

(I lied about the cake) In my opinion, leaverbuster is not a very kind mechanic to players that fit into one of four categories:

  1. People who play before they have to do an important thing, or who are called to do something important during a game
  2. People who have poor internet
  3. People who experience hardware/software problems
  4. People who experience severe depression

I know people who fit into each category, with myself personally fitting into the fourth of these. I'm sure there are thousands of (archived) posts about the first three reasons and their impact on people's leaverbuster score, so I won't bore any potential readers with that. However, I haven't seen yet any posts talking about the effects depression can have on a person's game of LoL, so, here I go I guess.

To start, I'll pose a simple question to you: Have you ever played a game of LoL and just given up? I'm sure many of you can attest to this feeling, and it's understandable, sometimes teams don't click right, sometimes someone is trolling or flaming, or sometimes your midlaner chose yasuo. Now, presumably, normal people can just deal with this and carry on with their game or their life. But as a sufferer of severe depression, sometimes the despair I feel from being completely crushed in a game (by my team or theirs) can push me over and into an abyss of self-loathing and depression. Completely paralyzing, utterly soul-destroying depression. I can't move properly, I can't think properly, I just flop and contemplate the suffering I've experienced throughout my life.

Not sure if you're aware, but the best way to escape such a horrible feeling is to remove yourself from the situation entirely- Which brings me to the leaverbuster issue. When I'm emotionally at a low point in a game, I'm inclined to leave. But there's that part of me that yells that I'm not allowed to have fun in your frankly amazing game for the next 5 games if I leave. It's such a shame that I'm punished for trying to escape from reality by playing your game if things go wrong. This makes it risky to play, frankly.

I don't propose a solution to this problem, but I was wondering if anyone else did or has had a similar experience to me. Thanks, KatSenpai3 Kindred

12 Comments

ModThe Djinn10/24/2017, 7:32:48 PM2 votes

As someone who gets occasional periods of depression, I totally understand this feeling. While I don't encourage leaving games, mental health is always far more important, so if you have to do so then it's the best course of action.

I don't think there should be a "solution" to this though -- ultimately, even if it's something you need to do for your own health, you do end up leaving behind 4 teammates who were counting on you, and 5 enemies who suddenly don't have the game they thought they would. Some sort of penalty is necessary to keep players from simply leaving any game they think is a loss and just doing something else because, while you might not exploit that, there ARE people who WILL, and the system can't possibly judge intent or circumstance. It's one of those cases where the potential damage to the community at large outweighs the use of the feature to a small portion of it, simply because the system CAN'T do both and so a choice has to be made.

ShinkoMinori10/24/2017, 7:55:25 PM1 votes

I have crippling depression but I dont just fucking leave the game and let 4 or 9 others with a sucking problem.... just either play or dont start the game is that hard?

ShinkoMinori10/24/2017, 10:09:46 PM1 votes

Also, as a side note I dont think league is a good game when you are depressed just saying, its frustrating.

Modi10/25/2017, 3:49:42 AM1 votes

https://orig00.deviantart.net/b527/f/2010/017/9/9/the_cake_is_a_lie_by_keeah16.gif