I had to put that there because I've been trying to write this post for almost a month and haven't figured out how to structure it. I talked it through with my editor wife and she was like "list all the reasons with explanations." It's not my normal format, but this makes way more sense. Thank you, Megan! I love you!
- Anonymity and an Audience
Any time you add those two A's together you end up with people losing their minds. This isn't specific to League of Legends, but it has to be mentioned. It's even worse when you add goals and responsibility for results into the mix. Nobody plays to lose. Nobody is planning on dying. Being mean to strangers because they aren't winning is a really good way to come across as a dick. You had a bad player. Now you have a bad player who's embarrassed at BEST and actively throwing the game at worst. Sure, you're not going to get a delicious knuckle sandwich for calling that dude names, but his inability to strangle you via CAT5 cable is not a good reason to treat him like an animal.
- Poor Self Evaluation (I would be in X league if Y league wasn't full of trolls)
There are well over 100 champs, 10 players per game, and 10 roles that need to be filled by this random group of 10. I am bad at math, but if you think about how many different combinations of teams there can be it should start to become clear how different each game can be. Because of that blur of variables it's difficult to have an objective way to evaluate your own play. Because it's so difficult, people tend to focus on the easy thing... kills to deaths. Okay, you've killed the other mid lane champ 3 times in the first 3 minutes... great... now how are you using that advantage to secure the game? Did you gank the top or bottom lane to help them secure the tower? Did you focus the right target in a team fight to reduce their threat or did you blow up their 0-10-0 support because it would pad your numbers? As the 0-10 support champion I can tell you nothing is more dangerous than a player with a decent score. I win more games by running away from team fights while they scramble to get that fat kill score than I do supporting. This one "objective" stat doesn't tell the story, yet you'll hear endless tales of the 30-1-0 champ losing a game because of everyone else. Ever think that with those numbers you should have been able to turn the tide of all three lanes? No? Well it's time to get back to that mirror and start looking into it. If you can't, and you're going to blame your teams, then you're just a dick.
- Free to Play = No Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry mean that people have far less to lose. There's nothing stopping someone from signing up with a different email unless they are the one person in the developed world who doesn't know of a free email host. Someone who's angry, has nothing to lose, and doesn't fear any repercussions is going to take the anonymity and audience factor and run with it. These are the 0-1-0 leavers at low level who just can't be bothered to deal with it. Oh, so you're telling me I shouldn't have died so early? Bye!
Because the game is free, it's also available world wide. People with 1k pings living in sod huts speaking languages that involve clicks and pops are probably not going to have a firm grasp on what is and is not rude in their 2nd language. I know from a million years of Spanish classes that I can barely ask where the bathroom is... I can't imagine having to explain in Spanish that someone made a mistake that could have been avoided without coming across as rude. Add in that curse words are the first words you learn in a new language and you end up with a powder keg of angry people with very few non violent means of verbal resolution.
- Pro streams set unrealistic expectations (aka Poor Teammate Evaluation)
With the easy access to professional players' games via TwitchTV it's very easy to start to expect the players in your games to play the same way. Just because Pro01 can jungle Shen doesn't mean that SomeDude01 can do the same. These streamers are so good that they make the game look easy. The stream also doesn't have a way to let you know what they are looking at, where they are focused, what they are thinking, how they are judging the game, etc also known as all the finer points. All it does it show you mechanics done right. If you are too blind to see the difference between your play and pro play then you're also too blind to see that the guys in your games aren't going to play like pros. If you expect WCG level play out of a guy who plays 3 games a week it's YOU who looks silly.
Also, most pros play a role exclusively. If you are a top lane player you play top lane. You know how every champ you could pick would behave against most other champs that could be picked for top lane. You practice everything all the time that could possibly affect your game. The people who surround these pros who are streaming typically are one to two role people who have a laser-like focus on what they are doing. These guys all know each other too, so they are picking to their personal strengths and weaknesses. It's not just a random group of 5 guys who have never played together ever playing together for the first time. Their games are as different to our games as they could possibly be. Expecting your support Blitzcrank to land grabs like DoubleLift is insanity. Being a dick to your Blitzcrank because he doesn't land them like DoubleLift is just you being a dick. You wouldn't expect the receiver for your flag football team to run patterns like Randy Moss... why should your Blitz play like a pro? And again, you had a "bad" Blitz. Now you have a "bad" Blitz that's angry. You've gained nothing.
- League of Legends is just a dumbed down DotA
If you truly believe this you aren't paying attention. DotA is its own game with its own strengths and weaknesses. If this statement was true then someone who has played DotA long enough to get most of the mechanics down would steamroll their way through the ladder on League of Legends. It just doesn't work that way. It's like saying that being good at Counter Strike makes you great at Call of Duty. It's just not the case. Apples vs Oranges. The problem with this mentality is that it hurts your ability to take what's going on seriously because you don't believe that it's possible for people to screw up something this easy. Not respecting the difficulty of League of Legends means you also fall into the "Poor Self Evaluation" category.
- League of Legends grew faster than Riot Games could handle giving rise to the "go ahead and report me, they won't do anything" generation of players
This has been "remedied" with the Tribunal giving players the ability to help sort through all the reports, but the damage was done. People who have been playing since Pre-Tribunal have seen what it means to have no accountability for your actions. It set the bar low for behavior and kept it there. Once a culture has been established it's near impossible to change. The fact that people are used to berating each other and being berated has created this hair thin barrier between calmly playing and vein pulsing rage that can be triggered by anything. "Hey, I think you should help out bottom lane instead." is just as able to freak someone out as "you suck and I hope you die" because everyone is on the defensive ALL the time.
If you put it all together, not knowing if you're doing well or not, having no idea what to expect of your teammates, knowing that a single mistake will lead to you being bad mouthed by at least one other player who knows there's nothing you can do but take it, and you get this tense, bullshit situation where nobody feels comfortable to ask questions, get help, give advice, or talk strategy with one another.
I had this conversation with a player who was from Asia... and I know this because most of his text was little white blocks unless he switched to English letters:
Him: OMG quinn ur cs
Me: It's my first time playing Quinn. Sorry. I'm trying.
Him: ur lvl30 though...
Me: Okay, I'm a bad player and first time Quinn... is that enough for you to give advice or leave me alone?
Him: ur bad.
Me: Yes. I just said that. What do you want me to do?
and here it comes... the actual advice after wading through that sea of bile and wasting all that time typing.
Him: Just stay bottom and keep last hitting. Don't worry about team fights until you have your IE.
Me: You got it.
How hard would it have been for it to go like this:
Him: Quinn, you really need more CS. Don't team fight until you have your IE. You're way behind.
Me: You're right. I'll stay bottom and just keep farming until I have my IE built.
End scene.
Both have the same result, but only because I'm aware of how the community behaves and I don't let that kind of stuff get to me [okay, that's not true, I was mad... but I wanted to win so I wanted advice]. If I wasn't trying really hard to play the nice guy I would have just told him to take it deep and we would have spent the rest of the round fighting back and forth until one of us or both of us threw the round.
Can you see why it's important to be nice to each other? Knowledge is viral. Teach one guy something new and he'll teach it to 4 others who teach it to 4 others and eventually someone in that chain will do the right thing for you in the future without you even knowing it. Behavior is viral as well. Treat your team like human beings and they may not do the same, but at least you will prove that there is at least one decent human being playing League of Legends. All it takes is a little hope to move the average.
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