Kindness costs us nothing, but is worth more than gold.

Hey all, it's me again, Lazy cat, the same guy who wrote a post earlier about how mindfulness and kindness can exponentially increase your gameplay expierience.

I am here again with a better title and a better understanding after living under the same mindset aforementioned of positivity and kindness, taking ownership of your mistakes and not criticizing others for theirs, along with a few other things a little on the side of extreme kindness and thoughtfulness that actually distracted me from gameplay, but also made me look patronizing and arrogant to some, while also being heavily impractical and overly dramatic.

I guess why I wanted to make this post is that I see more and more posts about quitting, which I say now I totally respect them for there decisions, but in so much anger or misery that I don't want them and others to give up on the great game called League of Legends.

I love League of Legends, It's practically part of my second nature, familiarized with the lore, champions, builds, comps, champions and so on built with my respectable 3.5 years of playing this game(sense SG Udyr). I know others do to, but I also know sometimes we forget why we play this game for. We play games for many reasons, to play with friends, to escape reality, to feel better about oneself, or even for a living for the select few. However, overall we all play it to have fun. Games are meant to be played for fun, winning is fun, and generally we have the most fun when we win, rather than when we lose. It becomes so tunnel visioned into winning and losing that we forget why we play, to have fun, and instead try to force ourselves to win at any cost, and anything in the way is to be tossed aside into the dirt.

Winning and losing are part of why I really hate conflict, the sole mentality of win or lose situations equates to ones values, such as happiness, self worth, and personal enjoyment is too single factored for the complex game of League of Legends. Identifying that fact, and realizing why you play is part of knowing how to have more fun playing League of Legends.

So if winning and losing is not having fun, what is having fun in League of Legends? My personal opinion is the enjoyment of support, and encouragement in a team, to work together and trust each other is an awesome feeling to me, and I believe others forget that it's not just about personal achievement, although a factor, is not the sole factor in how much fun you have. Make a sick Combo? You and your team made that happen! Do a successful roam? You and your team made it possible! The achievements working as a team is great. When a team doesn't live up to your expectations, it can be frustrating, you may want to blame them for the mistakes you thought they made. This is where most of the people who recognize everything up to this point often swerve off and get frustrated, although sometimes may not show it in chat, but in other ways too, start to go awry. Aggression against your own team only eliminates any chance of having any trust in each other. Being in a team of strangers, we may not all be on the same page, which you must know is normal and totally acceptable. Every player has different consequences and mindsets, and if you don't accept that, and attack them for it, you will forget why you play.

Forgiving people for there mistakes may seem hard, but the fact is that people make mistakes, there is no world where people don't ever make mistakes. Right now my mind is flipping back to when my upper school level English class talked about Absurdism(with the capital A) and how people deal with the fact that life is essentially, meaningless, and many people have different ways of dealing with it. Suicide, Anger, Religion, etc. But ultimately, Albert Camus, a huge voice in the Absurdist movement stated the best way to deal with the absurd is to accept it. Accepting the Absurd is the best way for human to reach maximum happiness without having a deeper purpose or meaning. The same is true for League of Legends, accepting the absolutes of this world is something we must all do if we wish to achieve the maximum that we wish to be. The absolute here being people make mistakes, we all do, accepting that, forgiving them, and supporting is the best way to encourage improvement.

Practically speaking, lets say you have a coach who has been coaching you team in say, base ball for the entire season, and you are in the biggest game of your high school career, and it's the final part of the game. You are sitting in the outer field waiting for the opposing teams big star to go up to bat. You know he is going to hit it, and hard too. It's your responsibility to catch that ball or receive it to minimize the impending damage. He goes up, takes stance, and WHACK! It's a long ball, right towards you. It looks like an easy catch! But, oh no! You fumble and drop it! And while you scramble to receive it, the said star player and all his team mates on the bases score. You lost the game because of your mistake. You feel terrible. You feel terrible not only because you messed it up, but you are preparing mentally for the assault from your team and coach about you're severely embarrassing mistake.

What would make you feel better, your coach berating you for your mistake, or your coach saying: "It's okay, we all make mistakes, but I am sure you'll learn something form this and that is what is important." To me it's a pretty obvious choice. You want the support, you want to feel better, you don't want to be scarred from playing the game you worked so hard for only to be knocked down by one thing and then knocked even further down by people who relied on you. Now flip this, you are the coach, your kid just made perhaps the biggest mistake you have ever seen, costing the game for the entire team. What do you want to do? What should you do?

It's the same for League of Legends, you must support your team, encourage them to play well, forgive there mistakes, congratulated them for there plays. Understand that everyone is different, but what does not change is that everyone feels better when they are supported rather than fearing attack if they make a mistake. Do you fear toxicity? Do you fear someone who makes a lot of mistakes and perhaps costs you the game so much so you really want to let them know it by unloading your entire arsenal of fireworks on them like a wrathful god? Do you fear the person who may be intentionally messing up the game to get a reaction? What if you where in there shoes? What caused them to act like that? Were they attacked? Did real life put them into such a spot?

Understand them. Trust them. Sometimes the #1 thing people need is support. Don't ignore them, disregard them, attack them. The thing is with online gaming is that everyone may bring their own personal problems with them into the game. And every interaction can chain outwards and negatively affect a lot of people, despite intention.

So thats why I plea to the players, be kind, be respectful, and be forgiving. We can create a better environment, an environment where everyone has more fun, feels way better, and is generally more happy because they don't have to fear for interpersonal conflict.

This is not a TL:DR, but a general list of tips to be more positive in League of Legends.

• It's normal for people to mistakes, tell them it's okay, and that you believe in them still instead of attacking them with "WTH was that" and "WTF, You are garbage(Insert long stream of vulgar insults here.)"
• If you make a mistake, apologize, it's easier to acknowledge mistakes and show the team that you are willing to redeem yourself than to blame your mistakes on the team. E.G "My bad, I probably shouldnt have split push so far with no vision and enemies all MIA" or "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize I was going solo there" or "Whoops, I forgot I had heal, I am sorry Thresh" as opposed to "Where is my TEAM!" "WTF kha you left me!" and "Thresh you are bad, learn to trade idiot."
• If your team mate does something note-worthy, like first blood, tower, drag, or even trading kills in a 2v1, congratulate them, recognize they did something good and they will feel better and play better. "Nice Job!" "Good call!" "nice you manage to take one with you!"
• Avoid conflict at all costs, between teammate conflict is the best way to tear a team apart and quickly become a hub of negativity, think before you type, or if someone else is the aggressor, simply ignore them or try to think of a positive way to nullify conflict quickly. Guy A: "Jesus bot side is useless! 3-10" You: "Don't worry to much about bot KD, they have good farm, I think we can still win this if we do it as a team!"

Anyhow, thank you for reading my rant, or at least hopefully my list of suggestions. Hopefully this post was meaningful to you and may impact your mindset and approach to League of Legends! I love you all! Keep on playing and having fun!