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I'd like opinions from the community as a whole (Reds and Arbiters too, preferably?)

A Deadly Wind·11/1/2015, 1:56:12 PM·3 votes·1,105 views

I'd like to know how everyone feels about the general player mental health in this game and how it is negatively affected, as well as a few term explanations/clarifications if I may?

Let's start first off with the most common term when it comes to PB&M: Toxicity

I think toxicity is where someone else takes their shitty mood and pushes that on to the other players in their match. This mood could be caused by outside factors or by the game itself. This then can cause the other players to get upset purely because someone else decides they need to cuss them out over a few mistakes or constantly berate them over it.

I feel like this spreading negativity is where the term toxicity comes from, because if you're "contaminated" then you're bound to spread that to others and cause them to become toxic as well and it's a giant domino effect of negativity from hell.

Once I think of other stuff to say I'll come back, but for now I need to rest. I'd like opinions from anyone who sees this.

26 Comments

ModWuks11/1/2015, 3:32:28 PM3 votes

My view of toxicity is when a player continuously spews his/her negativity into the game and onto the players in the game. An example of this can be for an individual who perhaps gets ganked top lane and immediately types in a rather aggressive and accusatory manner to criticize his/her jungler for not ganking. Toxicity is sort of a state where a player becomes so negative that the player becomes a repulsive figure that the other individuals in the game find it difficult to or are reluctant to communicate to the person in question.

Regarding general player mental health, I would say that everyone has a different mood that they bring into the game that may be influenced by outside factors (bad day at school/work, fight with a friend/significant other, losing streak). And this is completely fine; you can have a mood when you go into the game, but what you can't do is let this mood negatively affect the game or the communications that go on between players. To clarify, sure you had a bad day, but if you're going bash another player on your team because he's not performing too well, there's a good chance that you may be punished. And players who can't separate their negative attitudes outside the game from their in-game behavior are typically the ones who have a difficult time avoiding restrictions on their account; however, hopefully this new sub-board should be able to shine some light on how players can retain a positive or neutral attitude in the game, even if that's not necessarily how they feel in reality.

Thanks for the question, and thanks for reading!

Lugg11/1/2015, 3:35:45 PM3 votes

I think toxicity is where you blame teammates. Even if they are having a bad game, talking down to them is just going to make them play worse.

ModUlanopo11/1/2015, 3:36:09 PM3 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Deadly Wind,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=aNuNf5oN,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-11-01T13:56:12.324+0000)

I'd like to know how everyone feels about the general player mental health in this game and how it is negatively affected, as well as a few term explanations/clarifications if I may?

Let's start first off with the most common term when it comes to PB&M: Toxicity

I think toxicity is where someone else takes their shitty mood and pushes that on to the other players in their match. This mood could be caused by outside factors or by the game itself. This then can cause the other players to get upset purely because someone else decides they need to cuss them out over a few mistakes or constantly berate them over it.

I feel like this spreading negativity is where the term toxicity comes from, because if you're "contaminated" then you're bound to spread that to others and cause them to become toxic as well and it's a giant domino effect of negativity from hell.

Once I think of other stuff to say I'll come back, but for now I need to rest. I'd like opinions from anyone who sees this.

I think resilience, patience and morale vary a great deal from player to player and game to game (I'm sorry, I just can't bring myself ti use the phrase "player mental health"). We had a terrible ARAM last night where four of the enemy were Kayle, Kindred, Zilean and Bard. It was awful and I had a hard time keeping my temper, even though I'm somewhere between casual and competitive. After we lost, my friend and I talked about other stuff for a while to let the frustration drain out. We won the next one pretty handily.

As far as berating goes, I do my best to fight against it. First off, I try to be actively positive wherever I can, even if someone is struggling. "Well done" and "Good job" are probably the most common things I type, when I type at all. If someone starts grumbling, I try to get them to stop, but obliquely. For example, if someone coughs up first blood, I might say, "It's okay, we got this." I think that building and maintaining morale is as much of a skill as last-hitting, perhaps even more, seeing as I'm a support main.

nerak2311/1/2015, 3:40:46 PM2 votes

however, hopefully this new sub-board should be able to shine some light on how players can retain a positive or neutral attitude in the game, even if that's not necessarily how they feel in reality.

Reading my mind ? lol Nicely said :)

nerak2311/1/2015, 3:36:41 PM2 votes

I feel like this spreading negativity is where the term toxicity comes from, because if you're "contaminated" then you're bound to spread that to others and cause them to become toxic as well and it's a giant domino effect of negativity from hell.

I understand where you are coming from, really I do ! But I also feel like we as a community can spread positive attitudes also.

This is an issue I'd like to see addressed eventually here. I'm not sure how to do it or what it is or even if it'd would help most, but it's worth a try.

For instance when I'm in-game and someone starts being negative, right away I will ask Nicely for them to stop...and I mean things like 'hey, relax we don't want to hear this' or something easy going like that..but I try to never engage the person in a word war, ever...If they continue to make comments I try to encourage the person they are picking at and if I can help that player.

After the game if I fell like they we over the top then I hit the report button but I Never ask anyone else to do this. I hope we can start to learn to deal with toxic people and after reading the reasons some people may rage It should help understand where we need to start imploring any new strategies about easing a competitive game.

Lord Boltrix11/3/2015, 12:03:46 AM1 votes

Mordekaiser

"Misery loves company."

Toxicity in a nutshell.

Because people who are toxic are miserable on some level for various reasons, and find that they can't just make themselves happy, so they have to drag other people down to their level of misery to feel content to some degree.

Shac Norris11/1/2015, 4:33:03 PM1 votes

I would say that Ranked queues bring the most toxicity, but i do see alot of toxic players in normals..

It's just that when you really want to win, and to win, you have to rely on other people, but to be honest, not everybody have the same mindset, when one says: engage, another will say : Disengage. And when anyone is doing poorly, instead of being constructive, they just crap on the player that did poorly and blames him for the whole game.

It happened to me the last game i played :P I played Shaco support, so i'm already used to getting screamed at anyway, The enemies just assumed i was Pink Ward (A well known ap shaco player) And they harassed me non-stop everytime i died, at some point even my ally jumped in lol

AV3NKA11/2/2015, 3:18:49 AM1 votes

Hate breeds hate. Blame makes everyone feel like crap. Mental health wise I have finally uninstalled the game as theres nothing worse that when u want to escape your world to just have fun somehow on your own it back fires. I have suggested riot create some form or at least donate or something for mental illness its not ok for people to give any negativity to anyone. Its a fun game that creates teamwork responsibility kinship and forgiveness and FUN FUN FUN ppl who take it way too seriously and breed negativity because their pride in winning a game is more important than another human being sitting on the otherside of the computer is not ok. I would say truly reward the mentors, encouraging people and fun ones to make this community and people better. Each individual needs to view responsibly that they are dealing with human beings and just because its not face to face gives no one the right to not treat them like a human being.

jaymc113011/2/2015, 7:07:47 AM1 votes

To be honest, as an adult, I've never cared what people said in chat in game for the most part. Being upset or rude or hateful never really bugged me. I'd just mute you. Trash talk? Muted. I mean, riot gave us a button to filter that filth and since I'm old enough to comprehend it's purpose I used it for that purpose. That type of toxic action in my 5 years of playing wasn't ever something that bugged me greatly or was cause to bicker back in chat or demand everyone spam the report feature against the offending player.

What always bugged me, and still does to this day, are toxic actions taken by players. Players who intentionally feed, intentionally throw games, disrupt laning and farming, steal jungle camps out of spite, afk from the game, use third party cheats like loldrop or scripts. Those types of toxic actions don't have an in game solution, I don't have a button to kick the guy who's afk from the team and get a new useful team member. This type of thing affecting my ranking was always the primary source of frustration with the game and would cause me to want to rip the offending player's head off.

To me, the only toxicity worth caring about are the types of toxic actions the eliminate winning the game as a real possibility. I can win the game with a rager, I can't win with a duo who refuses to cooperate with the team and sit in base spamming dance/taunt. The fact that those types of toxic actions often lead to verbal toxicity has always been my issue with the way riot handles the situation, particularly after tribunal went down and we saw a dramatic increase in trolling in games since there were no longer repercussions and trolling could be used to bait players into raging.

In the end I guess I'll likely always be frustrated at the lack of tools to combat the actual root causes of toxicity in game as it seems there is very little riot is willing to do to solve some of those issues.

Archon X11/1/2015, 1:58:32 PM1 votes

people are toxic because sometimes allies play like absolute garbage

get better at the game then people aren't toxic to you, works every time