The fundamental principle of toxic behavior to your teammates: it hurts you!

ChillWeGotDis·Jun 25, 2017·3 votes·342 views

Toxic behavior directed at your teammates during the game is self-defeating. It distracts your teammates, distracts yourself, hurts team morale, makes teammates less likely to help, and in general makes a bad gaming experience for everyone.

You're more likely to lose when you're toxic to your own teammates.

And yet, we see players being toxic to their own teammates during the game. I guess league players really have no control over their emotions.

6 Comments

Cornerstone1Jun 25, 20172 votes

Too reasonable to matter for people who have anger issues. Anger and irrationality often go hand in hand, and no amount of clear thinking about results will intrude on the angry rager (until well after the fact, when the damage is done).

Inting PillowJun 25, 20171 votes

Wow it's almost like people being toxic actually don't care about the game, and would rather you be mad at them than win.

Winters DawnJun 25, 20171 votes

people getting angry in an online video game is nothing new.

woodvsmurphJun 25, 20171 votes

give away doublekill bot - no response

force a 2v2 with no wards by enemy tower and at low hp with no sums - die to 3v2 - can you guys try to ward when you push up?

overstay 2 hits from dead trying to force a 2v2 at enemy tower with no wards or sums; feed another kill - can you guys pls hug tower and just play safer?

force a 2v3 fight vs enemy bot lane and jungler at dragon with no wards; feed 2 kills and blow their summoners - just stay at your tower and farm pls

.... ..... ......

4 "mistakes" later ... ....

Snuck a baron and won our first teamfight after having lost about 5 straight. Still way behind. Just play safe, ward flanks and let baron minions shove lane. As long as you keep 3 or 4 (insert lane here), I can 1v1 or 1v2 pressure (insert other lane here). I will tp if they dive you, but let me set up wave before I join you. Same people as before force a 4v5 engage, lose 2 people before I could even start my tp or set up a push in another lane that will get us a tower. I can't stay in side lane and push because they will 5 man collapse on me before I get anything. - Why would you take such an idiot engage? I just told you to play SAFE and let me pressure.

Am I toxic for saying they made an idiot engage? Sure maybe. But what about their intentional feeding? You know the 8 times they took bad fights where they were obviously going to lose but took them anyways? When they had better options spelled out for them? Or when they try to blame the last fight on me for not being able to tp in instantly or continuing to split and grab a tower 1v5? Is that not toxic? So if you weigh it out on a scale, how many times can someone else do the same toxic thing and go unpunished while the person who has been toxically ignored all game, been asked to carry inting teammates, and been giving helpful advice loses their cool and THEY get punished while the other people don't? It's not "having a bad game" when you do the same "mistake" 10x in one game. If a cop catches you speeding they might let you off once if it was a mistake and you forgot the speed limit for that area or didn't notice it changed. But if they catch you a 4th time speeding in the same area? Yeah, that's not a mistake anymore. Same with making the same bad plays in game. If these people were properly punished - so they weren't so frequent - and so people putting up with them had hope they wouldn't have to KEEP dealing with them game after game after game - maybe the "toxic" players having to put up with such people wouldn't BE toxic...

ChillWeGotDisJun 26, 20172 votes

Am I toxic for saying they made an idiot engage? Sure maybe.

And this is the crux of what being toxic is: language and tone. If you say "Guys, please don't engage by their towers when outnumbered", that is not toxic. If you say: "WTF was that!? You're absolute trash! Kill yourself!", then that is toxic.

Just to be clear, giving feedback or expressing disappointment is not toxic behavior. The flip side of this are the overly-sensitive players. The ones who become whiny and toxic in their own way in response to benign statements like: "Please play more carefully." I would consider overly-sensitive players just as bad as toxic players.

The point is, suppose you were dealt a bad hand and got a couple of D players on your game. If you engage them and give legit advice, they may even become C- players. But if you're toxic and distracting, they will be F players and you'll lose the game for sure.

woodvsmurphJun 26, 20171 votes

And that's the point - I do try to stay positive. I give encouraging helpful advice; until I'm ignored for about 20+ min and they are still repeating the same bad plays - not even making new mistakes; the same ones. Like how hard is it to learn and at least TRY something different? Ward up when you push please. Guys you are behind, just farm at towers; we don't need to force fights right now. Let's not chase people blind halfways across the map when they are all fed and we have no vision beyond our inner towers. We need vision in our jungle. Group and ward baron so I can hold bot and tp if they force it. (One of them goes top, one goes bot cuz they "need" the cs - enemy forces baron or someone solo facechecks and dies because they wait 30 sec after I tell them to before going to ward and don't do it as team). Push bot as 4; don't force a fight. Just keep pressure up with baron minions. I will push top, pull 1 or 2, then we can tower dive bot with my tp. (Team forces 4v5 or 4v4 the second they see an enemy - usually blowing everything on a tank support and failing to kill; lose 2 before my tp can finish; is it even worth tp at that point?)

Stuff like that time after time after time even when you spell it out for them exactly what needs to be done. The only reason I spell it out is because their play before that tells me they don't know this on their own; even though they should based on rank. And still they ignore an easy obvious win condition and try to make it as hard as possible to win all game. Like let's go bot alone as an adc who lost lane and can't 1v1 any enemy carry when we need to stall respawning enemy from 5v3 rushing baron and ending with their lead. Either the adc dies and the enemy gets baron, or they get baron, the adc gets wow 10 cs and 1/4 damage on outer tower #worth guys lol. Thanks sivir. You are so helpful. I try to be positive and helpful - that's my point. But at some point after getting ignored and having team intentionally throw all game long I lose it. A human being can only be asked to take so much before they start being rude in response. I think 20 min ish of positive, helpful comments and patience is quite a bit in said situation. Where you've seen 1 individual throw away game-winning plays/pushes at least a dozen times; not to mention how many times others have thrown. Meanwhile you have sacrificed all your advantages to set the TEAM up to get these winning plays; advantages you earned alone - sometimes 1v2. I think asking the team to listen to logical simple good shotcalls when you are in that situation shouldn't be too much to ask. Sure you ignore me once or twice and keep trying your bad shotcall instead - whatever I don't care. But after you've seen 4 times now that it is bad and doesn't work, at least try listening to me or someone else who might have a better idea.