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League's design is what makes the community toxic

the weeaboo·1/30/2017, 9:02:22 PM·1 votes·1,112 views

Used to play Dota 2 (1.3k hours) now i have about 800 hours in league. And something makes me really mad/toxic in this game that never occurred in Dota. I was never toxic in Dota. Can't think of a single occasion. But with League I find myself tilting, flaming, getting really mad. I don't know why.

I have several speculations about why this is:

  1. Rank - In league rank is everything. If you're bronze you are the refuse of the community. Good luck being taken seriously by ANYONE even Silvers. It really makes the community more toxic than it needs to be by slapping a label on everything and having it all over your profile. In Dota you have visible MMR and nobody cares. You could be 1k or 5k MMR but nobody is gonna say "oh you're just a stupid 1k player you don't know shit", everyone just kinda accepts everyone is bad

  2. Unfair mechanics - League has a lot more diversity in terms of what a champ can do mechanically. Unfortunately this makes it inheritly impossible to balance certain mechanics. In Dota there is heroes that were annoying like Pudge (think Blitz hook + Sion HP stacking + Mundo Toggle + WW ult) but I never felt any hero was "broken" or made me extremely tilted just to play against the mechanics. Things like Fizz's E, Yasuo's Windwall, Ivern's Instant Clear, etc. are just NEVER going to be balanced because they take control away from the player. it doesn't matter what you do to these abilities, unless you come,steely remove them it's always going to be a frustrating thing. Having an Ursa one shot you? Okay. Having a Fizz one shot you from across your screen? Not okay.

  3. Snowball - it's fucking miserable to lose. It never feels like losses are friendly. I had a lot of those in Dota but in League you never get any gratification from losing. You end up angry and tilted because the entire game was decided on how well the 4 man tank bot went. Most of the time you kill both landers then push both towers and into base and then it's over because they have such an advantage. There needs to be so,etching done against roaming. Remove First Tower Blood and the changes to ranged minion HP. Just stop this terrible snowball that makes you feel like it was a waste of 20 minutes to queue up.

2 Comments

Magical Player1/30/2017, 9:04:37 PM3 votes

These sound like user errors rather than game errors

elduris1/30/2017, 11:08:04 PM1 votes

I think these are frustrating things to deal with, but I don't agree that they cause toxicity. I'll address these point-by-point.

  1. Rank - Honestly, it seems like it doesn't really matter what your rank is, you're never taken seriously by a majority of the community. Even Diamond players are brushed off because they aren't Master or Challenger. And even then, if you got to Challenger playing only one champion, you're disregarded as "just a one-trick". The only exception I can think of is Faker who is undeniably the best player in the entire world. But nobody should hold themselves to his standard.

  2. Mechanics - There are a lot of abilities that feel frustrating to play against. Yasuo's Wind Wall, Fizz's Playful/Trickster, etc. The one I find most annoying are the big AoE slows. Miss Fortune's Make it Rain is so frustrating to play against in lane, especially as she ranks it up. Zyra's plants have the longest range and most annoying AI I've ever seen. Don't even get me started on Malzahar. (Yes, I play a lot of bot lane, lol.) But does that inherently make the game proliferate toxicity? I don't think so. It's more on the person reacting to figure out a way to deal with the problem instead of getting frustrated and lashing out. That goes for all facets of life too, not just League of Legends. You'll always find something to annoy you, it's how you respond that matters.

  3. Snowball - This is more of a problem in the lower ranks, as many people there don't know how to play the map instead of play for kills. A lot of times, you'll find that snowball champions can do very little on their own in terms of map pressure. Be mindful of what side of the map the snowball champion is playing toward, then go push opposite them. They'll either be forced to deal with you or continue their push. If you have enough defensive forces, you should be able to stave off an assault on one lane long enough to wedge out an advantage in a different lane.