Humility OP: Carrying With Attitude

Every time a frustrated summoner laments their solo queue experiences in a public forum such as r/leagueoflegends or the official Riot forums, one of the top comments invariably pertains to the behavior of the afflicted player. “Stay positive!” “Don’t rage” and “Communicate with pings” are always among the top suggestions from fellow summoners. Yet despite this pervasive sentiment, many players cannot stymie their bad habits, and continue to toil in their imagined “ELO Hell”.

So what new addition to the dialog can I make which might help those players who can’t seem to stop “raging”? The afformentioned advice to stay positive and focused is applicable, but that’s not enough for some players. I believe it’s the mindset you must have behind your behavior which makes advice like “stay positive” more universally applicable.

WINNING IN CHAMPION SELECT

This is one of the most prominent problems with solo queue, especially in lower divisions, and since it’s the first thing you do every game, let’s talk about it first. Everyone has heard this advice: “play carries in solo queue because you can’t trust other players to win for you”. This is the feeling of what is apparently the majority of solo queue players, which often leads to a scenario where nobody wants to play a supportive role. The outcome of this situation is normally competition – sometimes very unhealthy competition – for roles, an unhealthy argument which begins the game in the worst way. So how do you avoid the pitfalls of champ select? The simple answer is you cannot. The most important thread running through every piece of advice for solo queue is that you must control everything you have the power to control (same as the “play carries” advice), and this extends to your team’s behavior. You can’t pick your team in solo queue, and you can’t guarantee that everyone will be as smart, talented or respectful as you. What you can control is how respectful you are to others. You’ll find that by being as cordial and respectful as possible, you can turn toxic trolls into productive teammates on occasion – and when you can’t, would being rude back have done the trick? No, so being respectful is at least worth your time and effort in that it might just work.

We’ve all been stuck in champion selects like this. Can’t dodge? Be flexible. Fill the open roles, support if you have to. All the skill in the world can’t win a game if your team is demoralized and infighting.

Pick Order > “Call” Order

Sorry, it’s true. Mechanically true. Once somebody locks in Kog’Maw, what are you going to do? Convince him to support your Vayne? That kind of mindset will lose games, because if you’re stubborn enough to make defiant picks and not care about the outcome, your teammates will probably behave the same way.  Of course, it’s customary in the community to state which role you’d like to play (it’s smart to say so kindly, e.g. “Jungle/Support Pref” or “Mid/Top please”) but if first pick wants to play your role, and picks it before you have the chance, you’ve reached your first important choice of the game. How do you respond? If you’re not willing to fill another role, you’ve begun your game at odds with your team, and you’re going to lose.

Consider the following: what are your goals? To improve your skills? To win games? To climb into “gold” or “platinum” ELO? Just to have fun? The truth is all of these goals are reached by taking a common approach: try to control the game with your attitude. Being kind to your team (especially when they don’t deserve it) isn’t about being nice to them, it’s about making sure you have the best possible chance to achieve your goals. Remember your goals are to win and climb the ladder. Once your teammate has locked in the role you want you may feel like your chances of winning have diminished, but they only get even worse when you “rage” at your teammates or refuse to cooperate.

What about when another member of your team is the one whose role was taken by a higher pick? They’re raging away and poisoning your team because they don’t want to get “stuck supporting” or they “can’t ADC”. Guess whose responsibility it is to solve this problem? It’s yours, because you can’t count on others to solve your team’s problems. If you don’t do it, who will? Offer to switch your preferred role for the discontented player. Often the angry player won’t even take you up on the offer, but will immediately be a little less upset when they see some members of their team are willing to cooperate. This is your opportunity to show your team you are cool under pressure and can lead them to victory with good advice and cooperation. “If you don’t want to support, take mid from me, I can play Lulu” you’ll say. Is that player going to be as good of a solo mid as you would have been? You don’t know. What you do know is that if they had been “forced” to do something they didn’t want and had an attitude about it, your team would lose. This is a mindset thing: winning is more dependent on cooperation than individual skill. If you don’t actually believe this, you’ll never be able to make the healthy team-oriented choices that lead to wins.

WHY IS ATTITUDE SO IMPORTANT?

A team’s attitude is one of the most important factors among those that contribute to success; this is reflected in Riot-implemented systems such as the tribunal, the honor initiative and the quick in-game tips (“Did you know players who swear at their teammates lose 13% more games?”). I think most summoners who are genuinely trying to get better at League of Legends understand this concept, but find themselves frustrated by and reacting to teammates who do “rage” or “troll”. One common sentiment I’ve heard expressed by frustrated summoners is is “if I don’t say (x), that player is going to think what he is doing is OK” or “I don’t want that player to think they’re good.” This leads me to the shift in the mindset you have to have in order to successfully play with humility.

Be “Selfishly Humble”

Drawing a line between what you feel and what you communicate to your fellow summoners is important for your success in solo queue. Yes, the ADC who is feeding bottom lane is doing something wrong. Yes, the FOTM in mid lane is building incorrectly. Yes, your jungler is screaming and cursing in all-chat about how bad you are; and while you may feel as though these obstacles have made your game unwinnable – sometimes these obstacles make you feel like you don’t even want to win – you still have influence over the outcome of the game. You are 1/5th of your team. You know that the most productive response to somebody who is criticizing your build is not “STFU” or some derivation thereof, but sometimes the player in question is so wrong, or so toxic to you that you want to throw good sense to the wind and flame back. Humbly accepting the criticism of someone who you know is wrong, or who is rude in their critique can seem impossible for some summoners. So why should you be humble?

Who cares if some “scrub” in solo queue insta-locks and builds incorrectly? If a fellow summoner is hostile to you, or does not want to take advice, there’s nothing you can do except try to mitigate the stress their bad play puts on a team, and being mean or crude only puts more stress which in turn lowers the likelihood you’ll win your game. When you respond to a build criticism or a flame after a botched play (“WTF! Don’t tower dive, noob!”) you have a few options, let’s consider each of them and the impact they might have on your team and the game.

1) Ignore the troll

This is a pretty common approach which in practice delivers mixed (and therefore generally negative) results. A loud, discontented player generally only escalates their aggression when they don’t feel they’ve been heard. If you give no credence to their words, often that player will complain loudly to the rest of the team, or worse to the enemy team in all chat (“[ALL] omg this Ahri!”). Why is this bad? A few reasons. First – the more time your teammates spend flaming you in chat, the less focus and attention they have on the game. Second – if the enemy team gets the sense that you are disorganized or not on the same page, they will exploit that weakness. Expect extra ganks top lane if it becomes apparent that your top lane is not content with the play of your jungler. Finally – one poisoned player often “infects” other players on their team with negativity. A few rude comments from one player can quickly frustrate others and turn your whole team against one another. Very often I see players who struggle with team behavior claiming that they have to carry every game with their skill, that they have to play ADC or mid because they can’t trust solo queue players to carry for them; this same attitude applies to behavior: you cannot count on your teammates to control unruly players. Remember, you’re 1/5th of your team. If you’re not going to control the trolls, what are the odds someone else will?

2) Rage back

Has this ever worked for you? Ever? Have you ever once swore at another player, or told someone to “STFU” and gotten desirable results?

3) Control the Troll (hint: choose this one)

Most often when someone is “raging” at their team in solo queue, it’s because they are feeling frustration that you can probably identify with. Sometimes, decent players will express this frustration in controlled bursts at first (e.g. “Xin we need u to build damage”). This is the best time to address the problem before it gets out of control. You shouldn’t spend an excess of time explaining your every move, but a simple acknowledgement of the criticism is usually enough to placate a frustrated player. Taking the previous example, responding with acknowledgement (“I’m working on it”/”Buying a brutalizer next”) or a brief explanation of your plan (“Yep, need a few wards first”/”Want to finish Warmog’s, BoTRK is next”) is usually enough to communicate the following to the angry summoner: you’ve heard them and you’re not another solo queue jerk who thinks he knows everything. Remember, you’re not the only good summoner who deals with toxic trolls on a daily basis. Everyone expects to run into unfriendly and rude summoners, appearing to be one of the “good guys” is an easy way to mitigate the damage done by unruly teammates.

Even though you may not always agree with the critiques of your team, even though you may not think they’re worth listening to, simply acknowledging them and trying to be kind will often curb most of the problems presented by these “troll players”.

BE THE PLAYER YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH

I think like.. Gandhi said that, or something.

Everyone wants to be on a team with a total man-mode monster who carries with a  20/0/10 score, but you can’t guarantee you’ll play that well every game. What you can control – every game – is your attitude and your treatment of fellow summoners. Nobody wants someone on their team who spends the whole game cursing at their jungler, nobody wants a teammate who keeps talking about how “everyone at this ELO is a noob” and that they were “diamond in season 2”. Don’t be that guy. Model the kind of behavior you want from  your team in your own conduct, and sometimes your team will rise to the occasion. Time respawns, (“next dragon: 16:12”) thank teammates, (“good gank, Lee”) place wards, and be supportive when things go wrong (“nice try, ping me next time”).

Your own positive mindset will not win you 100% of your games. Being positive will not make every troll change their ways. Sometimes it will seem like you are the only one who cares about winning, and maybe you are. In that case, it’s even more important you’re focused on increasing your team’s chances of winning. If you feel like you can’t be calm enough to be respectful and kind to your team, you should take a break! Skip the next game and watch a stream, see what the pros are doing while you cool down; go take a walk, get a snack. When you come back, get ready because it’s going to be your positive attitude which will carry you to victory.

March 8, 2013 | Categories: advice, general strategy, new player guides, opnion | Tags: ADC, be positive, Behavior, blog, carry, carrying, carrying with attitude, champion select, column, dont rage, draft mode, duo queue, ELO hell, game, guides, humility op, League of Legends, LoL, MOBA, new player, newbie, normals, opinion, rage, ranked, rift, riot games, rules, solo queue, stay positive, tribunal, Video game, win games | Leave a comment