Not Welcomed As A New Player

TheSuccInSuccess·Oct 1, 2017·2 votes·818 views

I began playing around the time Xayah and Rakan were released after school occasionally and have spent more time on the game recently after I graduated and eventually had 20 champions. I probably wouldn't have taken so long to acquire 20, but I took my time to learn the game, mechanics, etc. and make decisions on who to purchase based on preference and experience. I saw that a lot of my friends play ranked and wanted to try it out. I normally play adc, but was auto-filled and put into jungle. I was also matched with people that were ranked while I am unranked. I had no idea I would be playing with and against much more skilled opponents. I thought they would be around my level. I understand that it is difficult to address someone's skill level when it is their first ranked game, and therefore could not provide enough information to match to similar players. However, it was again, my FIRST ranked game so that should've been enough to match me with fellow first-timers. Instead, the higher skilled teammates and opponents alike threatened me and insulted me, and made me feel truly unwelcome. I understand it is a competitive game, but a great amount of the community is not kind to new players, and I can say from my experience in AI games, ARAM, blind pick summoner's rift, etc. that there are just so many people that expect a new player to have the knowledge and skill equal to or greater than their own. I wish I was playing with other new players, but instead was harassed for not knowing what to do. I understand that I was the reason why the match was a loss, but I even warned them ahead of time that I had little jungle experience and no experience at all in ranked, only to receive a bunch of insults and to "stfu" pre-game. I know muting is an option, but it is a team game and being unable to communicate with your own team would make it more difficult. Besides, I was also hoping if anyone could give me any advice, though my hopes were in vain. They threatened to report me (which more than likely happened) and have my account banned. Post-game chat was nothing kinder, only one player on my team, who still reported me, gave me advice. I have spent a good amount of money on this game as I enjoy the content it offers. I would love to continue doing so, but the toxic side of the community is discouraging and I wasn't expecting to play against much higher skilled opponents, which the ladder certainly is my fault for having hope that I would play against fellow unranked players. My first ranked game certainly was depressing but I don't want this bad experience to ruin the whole for me. I just wish new players were more welcome and veteran players were more understanding that hey, we're new and we don't quite know everything yet, but maybe instead of flaming us, direct us. "Yo newbie, you should go for the blue buff which spawns soon". "Yo newbie, make sure you last hit" Etc.. Such kindness and sportsmanship would be very appreciated and lead us in the right direction. I'm going to continue studying guides and watching helpful videos and practice in hopes that I may hone my skills enough to actually be ready for next season for ranked. I at least know more of what to expect and hope I play with people more understanding and around my level. I certainly don't believe that the entire community is toxic as I have met a lot of understanding and chill people. But for me to say "this is my first ranked game, I'm sorry in advance" and get a "stfu no one cares" and the rest of the team to agree with that mentality, it is sad.

Any advice or constructive criticism is welcome. I know I made a mistake for rushing into ranked and as they say, curiosity killed the cat.

16 Comments

Kei143Oct 1, 20173 votes

Think about it, if you were only matched with new players, the system would never know where your real MMR (Match Making Rating) is. Eventually you'll have to play with the more experienced people.

You might even have to tank a few games for the system to know where you really belong.

Also, other people have no way to know that you are new, but I suggest you to /mute them at the sign of toxicity, and then report them afterwards.

REMEMBER THAT ASKING FOR REPORTS CAN BE CONSIDERED HARASSMENT.

TheSuccInSuccessOct 1, 20171 votes

Yeah, that is what I mentioned above, that I understand that it is hard to judge a new player's skill to match them with similar players. However, it was my first ranked game and I was hoping that I would be with people that were experiencing their first ranked game as well. I thought by saying that it was my first time jungle and first time ranked, that that would be enough for anyone to understand "hey, this is a newer player". I don't like the idea of having to mute teammates in a team game since communication is key and any advice through the match would have been helpful. But yeah one dude on the team asked the enemy team to report me as well and I tried to explain that I was new and had little idea what I was supposed to do, but they saw it as me justifying my terrible playing. I didn't mean to waste anyone's time and accepted every surrender vote. I learned my lesson not to go head first into something like that again, but it certainly made me sad.

Kei143Oct 1, 20171 votes

I've seen alot of these "first time ___" players, most the time I think they are just joking / trolling.

TheSuccInSuccessOct 1, 20171 votes

I mean, yeah some people do joke about it, but I think after they see how inexperienced I am, that they would know I wasn't memeing lol

Champion SkinOct 1, 20172 votes

I don't like the idea of having to mute teammates in a team game since communication is key and any advice through the match would have been helpful.

Well generally the best way to communicate in game is by using pings as they are quick and easy to use and less distracting than chat (also if you are tying something and then try to cast an ability because you got jumped on or something then that could be pretty bad since well the ability won't go off before you press enter to stop typing)

You can just play Normal Draft... gameplay wise it is the same as Ranked (except that people might take it less seriously and thus might play a bit differently) just without the shiny stuff at the end which means that people generally don't care as much about it so people generally find it less bad losing

TheSuccInSuccessOct 1, 20171 votes

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I don't mind pings unless it's spammed for the same thing by the same person. Like say the mid laner pinging 10 times for everyone to be careful. Or when players sarcastically spam ping the enemies missing because I or a teammate did something dumb. But pinging is helpful when not used to annoy and not distracting when not spammed. And yeah, the one person on my team in that ranked game gave me that same advice to just play normal draft. I have in the past, but even then I get discouraged as I play with a lot of gold friends of mine and end up facing golds in lane and I don't like bringing the team down and losing. I mainly play aram as it's less stressful and I enjoy learning mechanics, but one player on the ranked team used that as an insult to me saying "just go back to aram, dipshit". I've been told countless times to uninstall in normal draft so I think I will just mute and play. Just wish people had the decency and courtesy so that it wouldn't have to resort to that. Thank you again for the tips though! :D

Champion SkinOct 2, 20172 votes

Well just play more Normal draft If you lose then you play against players with lower MMR (matchmaking rating) who probably will be less skilled and if you win then well you probably are fine being where you are?

Matchmaking rating is basically just the system placing a number on what it thinks your skill is compared with other players and then lowering it or raising it when you win and using that to try and create even matches (in ranked matches it also determine how much LP you lose or gain with higher MMR you gain more LP and lose less LP but you in return you have to play against more skilled players)

TheSuccInSuccessOct 6, 20171 votes

Oh that makes sense. It doesn't help that most of my friends that want to play games with me are silver+. I've been able to stand my ground against a gold1 a few times, but after a gank or something to throw me off my groove, I go into auto pilot and lose focus. I didn't really know much of how the matchmaking worked and thus decided to post here and I'm thankful to have understanding commenters explaining it to me. As I've said, I learned my lesson and probably wont go back to ranked for a long time.

Champion SkinOct 7, 20171 votes

I don't think you should worry so much about what rank the enemy is since it doesn't always say much

Like I am around gold to platinum but sometimes I play absolutely horrible and how good someone plays depends a lot.... like some people are really good but only on a few champions so if they happen to be playing a different champion they will likely play way below what their rank would have you believe and there are lots of other stuff like them being tilted or other such stuff

As I've said, I learned my lesson and probably wont go back to ranked for a long time.

If you don't care about your rank and don't mind ending up in bronze if things go badly then it is fine to just play ranked and try to slowly improve in ranked and then eventually climb

After all there is no requirement of being good to play ranked... However if you aren't very good then you might end up in bronze but if you don't care much about rankings then being in bronze is just fine and not like there is any need to rush you can just play ranked at your pace and slowly get better and climb higher or just have fun and stay and not worry about getting better and just stay in bronze

From the looks of it (looking at the Garen and Irelia game in your match history)

If you want to improve you probably have to work on farming and getting more last hits on the minions as that will give you more gold (and gold gives you power through items) Killing about 15 minions give you about as much gold as killing the enemy once... however it is a lot easier and more reliable to kill minions most of the time

So you don't need to worry about fighting and killing your opponent it is more important to focus on getting gold from last hitting the enemy minions (this is especially true if you play champions which gets stronger later on in the game or are good in 5v5 teamfights which games often devolve into as then even if both of you get about the same gold you will still likely end up stronger)

scazzmanOct 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, that is what I mentioned above, that I understand that it is hard to judge a new player's skill to match them with similar players. However, it was my first ranked game and I was hoping that I would be with people that were experiencing their first ranked game as well. I thought by saying that it was my first time jungle and first time ranked, that that would be enough for anyone to understand "hey, this is a newer player". I don't like the idea of having to mute teammates in a team game since communication is key and any advice through the match would have been helpful. But yeah one dude on the team asked the enemy team to report me as well and I tried to explain that I was new and had little idea what I was supposed to do, but they saw it as me justifying my terrible playing. I didn't mean to waste anyone's time and accepted every surrender vote. I learned my lesson not to go head first into something like that again, but it certainly made me sad.

its hard for people to accept you're actually new because

A. it's hard to distinguish a newbie from someone intentionally playing poorly

B. pre level 30. very few people are legitimately new. most people are either banned players on new accounts, bots, or smurfs. so very few people expect to see an actual noob

HalcyonDwellerOct 1, 20172 votes

OK, first off those people were assholes, they shouldn't have been so awful to you. And I'm sorry that you had to deal with that.

Constructive criticism: League is an extremely complicated game, it takes a significant amount of play time even after reaching level 30 to gain a solid grasp of all the mechanics that would usually be required to play competitively. IMO you probably were not ready for ranked if you had such a terrible game, like you said you were matched with higher skill opponents. I'm not trying to insult you, simply saying that the situation you were placed is called for a lot more experience than you have currently. But you've already recognized that, in your words, "curiosity killed the cat." So here's some suggestions on what skills to practice before attempting ranked again:

Map awareness, learn to predict when the enemies are doing things based on what you can see (or can't see - for missing enemies) as well as which objectives are available and where enemies were seen last. These all feed into predicting and understanding what is happening on the map even when you don't have actual vision in those areas on the map.
Learn every role and map position. This is for two separate reasons. First, you're going to get auto-filled sometimes, and if you don't want it to be a terrible experience for you, you need to be prepared for it. Second, by gaining a better understanding of what each role does, you will gain a greater understanding of what your teammates can or cannot do and you will be better equipped to strategize and cooperate with them.
Lane and minion wave management, last hitting under tower, how to freeze a lane, zones of control and windows of power, shoving to deny xp & gold, etc. For this I recommend looking up SoloRenektonOnly on youtube, on his channel there is a playlist specifically for Minion wave management. <Here is a link to that series>

Youtube is a great resource, you can find lots of educational stuff on youtube to help you learn different tricks to help with the above skills. Some good ones that I recommend are; Phylol, Foxdrop, JeremyGamingCurios, Dong Huap, LS, and Gbay99.

Also it doesn't hurt to brush up on teamwork and psychology stuff, because the players you wind up in game with will be everything from the best to the worst. Knowing how to interact with them without losing your cool is important, so is learning how to get them to cooperate with you despite their selfish and rude tendencies.

I've actually written a guide for players who want to learn how to better interact with teammates to gain their cooperation without getting banned. Link below:

Feeders and toxic teammates got you down? This may help:

TheSuccInSuccessOct 1, 20171 votes

Omg thank you so much for the helpful tips!! Yeah, I definitely need to work on map awareness and decision making as well as understanding minion waves. I am able to last hit fine until there is a gank, especially if I'm adc, and I get overwhelmed and start going into auto pilot haha. Sometimes I do get tilted from toxic players as well and sometimes spend more time replying to their chat spam of insults more than focusing on the game. I definitely do appreciate all this advice and will check into the links you provided! I really do enjoy the game and hope I can eventually get better at it. I know it takes time and experience and I learned from my mistake not to rush into new things right away lol. Thank you again! :)

HalcyonDwellerOct 1, 20172 votes

Glad I could help.

And remember, strangers opinions don't matter. If someone starts being a dick, just mute them. Then you won't have to deal with their BS.

Good luck with everything!

Telephone BoothOct 3, 20172 votes

Ayyy... I hate to be "that guy" but, that wall of text is quite formiddable. Try spacing it a little with paragraphs. They don't have to make sense (like paragraphs end a certain way and start a certain way) but it just helps a lot to space out the text a little. Makes it tons easier to read.

Anyways, yeah ranked is gonna be more difficult. You get a lot more tryhards. Also, Riot has to see what you're capable of, so you'll get some high bronzies or silvers, but as you continue losing, matchmaking will become more accurate.

The flaming will never stop. I only get flamed maybe one in ten games, so maybe as you improve (hopefully) you will be flamed less often. But regardless of skill, it will happen every once and a while. Riot has given you the power of muting though so it's not a big issue, just never be toxic back or punishment will come swiftly. Don't even try reasoning with them, they are tilted and irrational. Just mute, report, and move on. Don't take it personal.

TheSuccInSuccessOct 6, 20171 votes

Sorry about that. I thought I had originally spaced it, but even in my last paragraph, it isn't double spaced like how I wanted. Can't please everyone though lol but I'll keep that in mind in case I post more on the boards in the future :)

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I've decided to just stick with pings and mute until I'm at a certain skill level where maybe I can just rank with friends or something. But for now, I'm staying far away from ranked. I wish it didn't have to come to muting since it is a team game, but flaming which potentially costs the game is not worth it.

I don't think I've ever flamed back at anyone, though sometimes I run into rude players even on aram, so I ask them "why are you being rude, are you lonely?" I would hope that isn't bad behavior because sometimes I just have to know what brings such nastiness out of people, especially on a chill mode like aram lol. If I don't mute them, I hope to at least laugh and not let it tilt me. I just wanna enjoy the game and having fun is what it is about, right?

Telephone BoothOct 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Sorry about that. I thought I had originally spaced it, but even in my last paragraph, it isn't double spaced like how I wanted. Can't please everyone though lol but I'll keep that in mind in case I post more on the boards in the future :)

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I've decided to just stick with pings and mute until I'm at a certain skill level where maybe I can just rank with friends or something. But for now, I'm staying far away from ranked. I wish it didn't have to come to muting since it is a team game, but flaming which potentially costs the game is not worth it.

I don't think I've ever flamed back at anyone, though sometimes I run into rude players even on aram, so I ask them "why are you being rude, are you lonely?" I would hope that isn't bad behavior because sometimes I just have to know what brings such nastiness out of people, especially on a chill mode like aram lol. If I don't mute them, I hope to at least laugh and not let it tilt me. I just wanna enjoy the game and having fun is what it is about, right?

Yes sir! Couldn't have said it better myself. And yes I'll throw one response in occasionally just to show em that I'm not really bothered by their flaming. Just keep it at that. Any more can quickly become "toxic" in Riots eyes.