Ok, I actually have 2 blurbs, hopefully it will allow me to place them both separately. Here's the main one:
The biggest piece of advice I can give you is try to win their respect and trust. If they respect and trust you, they will be the most open to your advice when you need to tell them to play differently. This can be achieved in a number of different ways, but the best of which that I've found is through clever manipulation of the conversation via verb tense. More on this later.
Flaming rarely works. As I'm sure you already know since you're posting here looking for other ways to deal with them. Try to keep in mind that a lot of the time people make mistakes, and they aren't actively trying to lose. It helps to remember that everyone on the team wants to win (most of the time anyway) and that they are probably equally as frustrated about what went wrong as you are.
I wrote a bunch about this stuff before, so I'll quote it here since it seems like it might help you.
{quoted}
Ok for advice I've got a few things. A lot of it is written out in the post linked below, but I'll elaborate a bunch and add a few points in my comment here as well.
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/bv2m7fx4-feeders-and-toxic-teammates-got-you-down-this-may-help
Warning: Wall of text incoming. It's a lot to read, but trust me it's all useful techniques that I've used to great effect in my own games. It's worth your time if you are willing to read through it all.
1. On avoiding getting banned:
You don't want to get banned obviously, so first and foremost you should avoid being negative, passive aggressive, or insulting in any way from this point on. A good rule of thumb is this: If you wouldn't say it loudly to somebody in a public place in front of someone who's respect you hold dear, it's probably not something you should say to a stranger over the internet. Or alternatively, If you would be upset if a teammate said it to you when your situations were reversed, then you shouldn't say it to a teammate. Avoid being sarcastic, or saying anything to blame teammates.
Generally speaking, anything that you say that might anger your teammate is something that could make them report you. Whether or not their report for that statement is justified, if it triggers the IFS to review your behavior and the IFS finds something else that you said in that game that it thinks is punishable, it's going to punish you for the second thing even if the person reported you for something else.
Keep in mind that after a 14-day ban you're going to be on super thin ice. Even minor negativity may be enough to trigger another punishment, and unfortunately (and in this case, unfairly in my opinion) for you, the next punishment in the progression is a permanent ban. If you are not absolutely certain that you can talk to irritating teammates without saying something punishable, then it is better to not talk to those types of teammates at all. Mute them and don't even acknowledge what they say. You can safely report them yourself after the game and leave it in Riot's hands to deal with them.
After several months of consistently honorable (or otherwise positive) behavior, your account standing should improve and that 'thin-ice' and danger of being permabanned will loom over you much less.
2. On using past, present, and future tense to better steer discussions in a positive direction:
It especially helps to steer conversations into the future tense. reasons being this:
- The past tense is often used for assigning blame
- the present tense is often used for discussing values
- and the future tense is often used for making choices or decisions in the future.
This is a subtle twist of language that a lot of people don't realize affects their discussions with others, and they react to it on a subconscious level.
For example, picture this happening in one of your games. Person A just died to a gank because they pushed up too far and didn't ward. Here we will look at the outcomes of using different verb tenses to discuss their death.
Case 1 - Past tense:
Person B: Dude you shouldn't have been so far up <- notice the past tense, this will often make Person A feel like they are being attacked, and they are more likely to react by defending themselves instead of focusing on playing smarter the next time.
person A: I wasn't trying to die, they just caught me! It wasn't my fault!!!
Here Person A argued instead of recognizing or learning what they need to do better next time (ward and watch out for ganks).
Case 2 - Present tense:
Person B: Aww man that sucks, I'm sorry you're dead right now. it's not fair how they can pull bullshit like that.
person A: Thanks! Yeah, it's so unfair!
Here both players commiserate over the unfortunate event. Nothing is learned from it, but Person A is at least feeling supported by person B. As long as you use the present tense like this (to express support for a teammate after something bad happens), it will serve a good purpose because it will put Person A's mind at ease and they won't be worried about getting flamed by Person B every time they make a mistake.
Case 3 - Future tense:
Person B: Oof that's unfortunate. Lets try to ward next time before you push like that again, maybe it will help keep you safe.
person A: Thanks! I'll try that.
Here person B makes the discussion focus more on what to do about the problem in the future, and they do it in a helpful way. This helps Player A to see why their push ended badly for them and gives them a clear goal - a safer strategy to try the next time that they want to push.
Also, keep in mind that verb tense is more than just talking about when to do something. Telling somebody to "stop feeding/flaming" or to "feed/flame less next time" isn't really using the future tense, because it is still making the player's mistake from the past into the main focus of the discussion.
3. On maintaining team morale and preventing tilt and arguments.
A lot of the time, people begin to argue or tilt because of plays going badly. They can't accept responsibility (or fault / blame) for their mistakes, or they are upset because somebody else's mistake made the game harder to win.
A series of bad plays is sometimes all it takes to drive a team into the worst sorts of in-fighting and arguments. This is why it is super important to maintain team morale and to keep people focused on strategy and future plays.
When a play goes badly, you can head-off (or prevent) multiple problems. First you can prevent the player from tilting and getting anxious or afraid of their mistakes getting them blamed or harassed by the team. And second, you can help the whole team to not tilt by turning the focus away from the mistake and towards what can be done to prevent or make-up-for the mistake in the future.
To do this you need to use a combination of the present and future tense, in order to make the player (or team) feel supported while also giving them a clear goal of something to do better the next time around. For example, the future tense case from section 2. Notice how Player B commiserates with player A to make them feel like Player B is on their side ("oof that 's unfortunate," and then gives them an idea for what to do next time ("Maybe if we ward next time it will keep you safe.")
Maintaining team morale isn't just about preventing tilt though! You don't even have to try to make players feel better after a bad play if they are already feeling great in the first place! This is why it is important to compliment teammates whenever a play goes well.
If the jungler ganks top and they kill the enemy or force the enemy to waste resources... Say something like "good teamwork top & jungle" or "great gank" because these sorts of things will make them feel good about what they did well, and make them feel motivated to try to do such teamwork successfully again in the future.
If bottom lane gets a tower or mid lane roams and makes a successful play, compliment them for it! People love praise and it will make them feel like you have their back.
This has another benefit of making them trust you more, that way if things go wrong later and you need to give feedback or suggest they do something different, they will already think you are nice and will be less likely to take it personally or get upset when you tell them to do something differently.
Conclusion:
Phew! That was a lot, I hope it wasn't too much of a wall of text. That's most of what I have to say for now.
I've used each of these techniques to great effect in my own games, and I highly recommend you try them in your own. If you have any questions about them or you want to discuss other techniques, just let me know I'll be happy to talk more about this.
