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Can Confidence Affect The Game As Strong As Tilt Does?

ArnoldSchwarzens·9/4/2016, 2:00:27 AM·4 votes·867 views

I think our mindset and the hidden machinery of our subconscious might influence us more than we would think at first. Same way tilt makes us obviously play much worse, the thought of confidence and security makes us play a lot better without us even noticing it.

I had several Teemo games over the last few days and I kept replays of all of them. I won some and lost some, yet in my mind I thought that I was playing with the same level of skill at all of them, and that in the games I lost I may have just been unlucky, matched against better players on the enemy team / worse players on my team.

After watching both replays in a row I was amazed to find that my skill level in the games I lost was drastically lower and I did much more mistakes than in the games I won.

This might sound obvious but it gets crazier. Win rates of champions seem to also be affected by how the general view of the champion is as strongly as by how much they are affected of their actual current power level. Some picks will be at a winrate below average and without any changes to the champions kits or any buffs or nerfs, pro players, streamers or even the community will somehow find out that the champion isn't actually bad and the whole thing was just some kind of placebo effect and suddenly the winrate will rise, even though it shouldn't have since the champion was the same the whole time.

The most extreme examples are the "nerfs" that turned out to drastically buff the champion it affected or nerfs that weren't actually implemented in the game because Rito screwed up.

In the case of the nerfs that turned out to be buffs there can be several examples but the one I remember the most was Lucian in patch 4.12. There were several minor changes to his kit but there are two that stand out because of the way they affected Lucian's winrate. Because the list of changes included a nerf of Lucian's auto attack range from 550 to 500, most people were saying that he would be trash tier and that he'd lose his spot at the top. What people ignored for the most part though was that now his passive would reduce the cooldown of his E by double the amount it does right now - a mechanic that previously didn't exist. This turned out to be a massive buff for him but because of the mindset of most players the winrate would only rise quite some time later, when people realised how overpowered he was. Overpowered doesn't even describe it, he was completely insane. I mean, just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%%%4y2co01M

Even more interesting are examples of nerfs that didn't actually make it into the game. Vladimir once received a supposd nerf to the movespeed gained to his W which didn't actually go live - it didn't prevent his winrate from dropping quite significantly though.

The reason why I'm talking about this is because I and a lot of you guys can learn a lot from it. By just reminding ourselves that our mind is constantly playing tricks on us and our perception of the game, we can potentially get out of lose streaks much easier and be the first ones to create new, unexpected and strong champion picks, maybe even before the Koreans figure it out. It also shows us that a losing streak might not be because of the current high mmr that you just gained because of a winning streak but maybe just because we are not really in the mood to play LoL atm.

8 Comments

Dispelle9/4/2016, 3:04:26 AM3 votes

I really do think you have a point here. I may only have anecdotal evidence, but I still notice consistently better results in games during which I've had pretty high levels of confidence.

Itankyou9/4/2016, 6:02:53 AM1 votes

No it can't, tilt is a demi god in comparison to confidence. Confidence is futile.

Cyst9/4/2016, 6:09:28 AM1 votes

{quoted}

stuff

It can happen on small scale as well a person that is doing complete crap all games gets a single kill (300ish gold) not a lot but all the sudden they get a penta.

That is part of how "shutting down" someone works. When you die to someone you naturally think twice about going balls deep because you are trying so hard to help not harm team. That is also why insulting team mates makes it WORSE.

On other hand enemy team can be split up and easily destroyed by a balls deep "tank" that holds half the team away from other while they get demolished by rest of your team.

This stuff doesn't always work but you have to learn the signs of when it will and won't.

JackMcSnipeyz9/4/2016, 6:17:14 AM1 votes

The whole placebo effect you describe is interesting to say the least, abd i think you have a point.

bobbery59/4/2016, 3:50:00 PM1 votes

Confidence is fine, as long as it isn't blind and it doesn't turn into arrogance.

OneMustFall9/4/2016, 6:49:34 PM1 votes

The difference is you can control how bad you play but there is a limit of how well you can play if you don't have the mechanics. So tilting will always have a stronger effect on your gameplay. I feel like when I'm confident I play my best but sometimes your best still isn't good enough. That's when you tilt. Kappa.

Telephone Booth9/8/2016, 2:59:53 AM1 votes

And that's also why being a dick to teammates results in more losses. While yes, you're probably not doing that good already as a team if you're insulting your teammates, but you're also making them play even worse. You kill their confidence and they start to second guess every decision when they need to just trust their instincts and make split second decisions.