[Guide] How to determine if you are a toxic player
Hey everyone, after having a couple of games with especially toxic teammates, I thought I'd put together a short, hopefully helpful guide to help you determine if you are, in fact, a toxic player. I am convinced that most toxic players do not realize just how toxic they are -- they think they are the "good guy" and that their grievances are a justified response to other players.
First, insults. The following statements, if you ever type them, are always toxic. If you type any of those, then you are toxic and can/should be reported as such for prompt chat restriction or a ban. Again, there is no circumstance in which it is okay to use these:
- anything chastising a person's sexual preference
- anything suggesting a person should die
- especially anything suggesting a person should commit suicide
- anything chastising a person's race, ethnicity, or nationality
- anything chastising a person's gender/sexual identification
- anything referring to mental disabilities
- anything referring to weight
- anything referring to height
- anything referring to any other physical or developmental disability
Those all sound pretty obvious when you read them in a list like that, but it is surprisingly easy for some players to forget when they get upset and go back to them. Especially when you realize this: "Defending yourself" is still toxicity!
The old "he started it" arguments do not work in this environment. Even if more than one person is being mean to you, that is no excuse for you to stoop to their level. In fact, consider this: some players are such twisted people that they create smurf accounts for the sole purpose of enticing people into getting themselves banned. If you, even when being mercilessly insulted, say anything back that can be considered an attack on a member of your team, then you will likely be subjected to a ban. In fact, this chance is even higher because a player who is trolling you will definitely take advantage of your loss-of-control and report you after the game so that they can hurt you more. Don't let them win -- stay calm and do not respond!
Finally, in the vein of verbal toxicity, there is this last one that will probably be surprising to a lot of players:
Do not ask other players in a game to report people!
This is, in fact, toxic behavior! The only acceptable response to toxic behavior is to ignore it! Asking other players to report is an attack on the player you are trying to get reported. They can (and will!) report you for verbal abuse and you will receive punishment. But, take heart -- it is not necessary for more than a single player to report someone. Once a report is filed, Riot has an automated system (aka a computer program) that parses the game and looks for toxic behavior. It is a computer program. It does not care if 1 person or 9 people report -- all it cares about is what it finds when it looks through the game. So by asking other players to report, you are not actually increasing the likelihood of punishment against the offending player. Instead, you are only increasing the likelihood of punishment against yourself!
Ok, next up is behavioral toxicity. These are things that you can do, without ever typing anything, that will get you banned. It is never ok to do these things:
- If you purposefully feed kills to the enemy team, that is never ok. This means you should not run up the middle dying over and over until you are worth less than a cannon minion. If you are a support, you should not retaliate against your jerk teammate adc by walking up to the enemy adc and auto-attacking them until they kill you. Purposeful feeding is very easy to spot, and the excuse of "er meh gerd it wuz just mah bad strategeez" will be discovered upon examination by Riot.
- Griefing your own teammates by doing things such as denying them farm at the cost of your team's health is never ok. Here are some scenarios: Top Lane kills his opponent, then teleports bottom. Though the bot lane adc yells at him for doing it, he kills all of the minions on bot lane and pushes the tower. Afterwards, he recalls and goes back to top lane. This is perfectly acceptable -- your intention is to help the team! Top Lane sees that the bot lane is doing poorly and dies multiple times. He teleports bottom and starts last-hitting minions before the adc can. He does not push lane. He just steals farm. At the same time, his own opponent is freely able to push the top lane. He never leaves, and the adc is unable to recover. When the adc attempts to go top lane where there is obviously farm available, Top Lane follows him there and continues stealing farm. This is not ok! You are purposefully hurting your team! Mid lane wants the jungler to help him. However, his team's jungler keeps farming the jungle. Mid lane has been ganked numerous times by the enemy jungler and is falling behind. He gets upset and decides, "fine, if jungler won't help me, I'll hurt him!" He then follows his jungler around attempting to last hit everything the jungler tries to kill. Now both the jungle and mid lane will be behind. This also is not ok!
- Threatening to throw the game if players do not do what you want is always bad. (E.g. threatening to AFK/feed if they don't surrender) It does not matter if you "were joking" or if you have a change of heart and end up winning the game. Threatening your team is always toxic and is ban-worthy offense.
- Any act taken with the intention of making it harder for your team to win is toxic. This means if you buy 6 mobility boots, try to solo the baron over and over as Syndra, or actively avoid helping your team (such as teleport top to farm minions while your base is being seiged to avoid teamfighting) is toxic and can be reported.
Hopefully this post will help someone. Although, deep down in my heart, I know that the only players who will read it are those who already put enough thought into their actions to not be toxic in the first place. Maybe I'll be wrong, though, and a few players will be like, "oh shit! I had no idea I was such a toxic player!" and change their ways.
