Are ESPORTS Players Toxic? - League of Legends 

Guys Nicolai hey here, genuinely sorry for the lack of videos recently! This time forealio, weekly videos on the way! Also, if you're interested join my Discord!: discord.gg/89Nf5kc Thank you as always for all the support lads I'll try to not let you down! CY@!

"being a selfish player" *show a picture of Yasuo*

6:46 I'll tell you exactly League is a very toxic game with a BrickyOrchid8 quote "The problem with League right now is that one person can not win you the game, they can not carry you, But one person CAN lose you the game"

I always type *YES* when someone says something toxic to me

One solution I can think of in fixing toxicity is to not ban toxic players at first offense but make them anonymous and all players they play with anonymous. They can't also chat for the punishment period. Let's say Player 1 became toxic and he was reported many times. He will be punished by the system with the following: 1. Mute him and he can't see chat, only pings both in the champ select and in game. 2. All players will be anonymous. He cant see names, borders and anything a player can point out who the player is. Both his teammates and his enemies will be anonymous. 3. In extreme cases, the offender will be matched only with players with the same offense or worse. 4. Decreased gain in LP. 5. Less queue priority. You ask why anonymous? I've been a master player and believe me, toxicity is the almost the same. When a player hates you, they'll int every game you're in and they don't care whether they lose LP or not as long as they take their revenge. If the player doesn't know who the players are and he can't see their chat, then griefing will be prevented.

Imagine all the behind the scenes toxic shit that goes down within those teams lol

"dom has learned from his mistakes and isn't toxic anymore" GIANT Kapp maybe not AS MUCH in game chat LOL

4:23 translation: This is what is known as a “pro gamer” move

a big part of toxicity in league is a psychological effect called the self-serving bias. You summed it up pretty well because summed up its pretty much where you attribute everything positive to yourself, and negative to external factors. So using this, players see kills they get as you pretty much carrying and any deaths or loses etc. to teammates or the "external factors". keeping this bias is what makes the players toxic believing that they can't make bad plays and its just their teammates being trash

I’ve watched you since 5k subs and really enjoy your videos. Your content is great and the editing also very good! You deserve more subs and i hope you get to 100k before the end of 2019! Love from Sweden 🇸🇪👊🏼

I was never a toxic player and you shouldn't be either. Being a toxic player and blaming on your teammates confuses them and makes them even worse in the game. Instead of being toxic, or flaming, inspire your teammates. Tell them that they can do it. Give them an inspiration to play the game. That will avoid you from banning and the teammates will most of the time honor you. Solution: /mute all

Toxicity and underlying mental health issues go hand in hand when playing League. The amount of rage and pure hatred some of these clowns hold would go well in any episode of How to make a serial killer. Imagine having no control over your own emotions in a video game, makes you wonder if these people have anything else going on for them in their lives to act out like that.

Honestly a lot of times people start fights with you on league and then when you burn them back to defend yourself you're considered toxic. Ok sure the most sensible thing to do is just mute them, ignore and play on but when you're 6/0 as a jungler and an 0/4 vayne top is calling you noob and bad when she has like 33 cs at the 15 minute mark it's hard to just mute her and not flame her ass in retaliation. That's my problem I never start being toxic or flame but become toxic and flame back in self defence

That renek bush swap was truly genuis haha

why is faker here? he aint toxic

"Dominic".IWD'd name is Christian,not Dominic....

Oh god that ff tactics a2 theme had me crying of happiness brotha

I’m really the kind of a person that if you ask me I will do it . No need for bad words , swap lanes no problem , help you , no problem , but when you instalock and all game blame others I will say something , but I try to be a kind person , and explain to those that this will not help you in the game at all . And to be honest there are very nice people in this game . Yesterday I did such a bad job at being a support and I apologized to my adc , and he said “ No problem, this happens to everybody, next time you will do better” at this point made me smile . And we won that game . Even with the mistakes I made . That made me think that people are not that bad .

2:38 you didn't show the context, that guy (Jason Vu) was flaming Dom and his teammates

I have taken A few pychology classes and I believe I see a pychological phenomon known as "learned helplessness" going on here. Learned helplessness occurs when bad things happen and it feels one has no control over it. So if you have 4 games in a row with Tristana and your KDA looks like 15/3/8 on each game and you lose all of them you may deveolop learned helplessness.I think this is possibly whg we have those 4000 games Zed mains stuck in B4. They have developed learned helplessness and just expect bad things to "happen" to them that they can't change.

Back at it again with the great vids!!!

Hi I really like your videos! can you make a video in which you talk about those pro players who have been toxic before but now days they are examples for redemptions, like your say in your video if how you play league of legends some how shows how are you in real life, then you can say, that play league of legends could change how you are in real life. Examples of this, are Tayler1 and Jensen, like you put them in the video. Thanks for the videos, I am a new subcriber, and I been wathc a lot of your videos! Keep it going!

"Why are players toxic" Well there's many reasons. When you are 16/0 as the ADC but top is 0/22, mid is 2/12 and the jungler keeps dying trying to help them so he's 3/10, there's a preeeeeetty good chance you may be a liiiittle upset. When you are fighting to get into a higher division and you can't doddge, yet your team picks soraka jungle, sona top, janna mid y adc blitz... there's a liiiiitle bit of a chance you may be upset. When your support xin zao goes 0/22 because he wants to go to the beach so he wants the team to surrender soon, and you wonder 'then why the hell did you queue to play in the first place!?' there's also a chance you may be upset And then again, some guys are just assholes

"I make your families salary in 2 streams" BRUHHH LMAO

I think someone else put it nicely, it's the fact that one person can't win you the game, but one person can lose you the game. We also need to divide "toxicity" into two main categories; people who initiate it and people who react to it. Some people have the attitude of "it's just a game" which is a toxic attitude by default. It's because it's a game that we can be serious about it. No one is playing games out of necessity, people play games because they enjoy it. If we can't be serious about things we enjoy, then why do we bother living? When a person ruins a game because "they don't care, it's just a game" can you really blame others for being toxic against this person? Something we're serious about is getting belittled by their toxic attitude since they can't enjoy their sad pathetic lives and try to ruin other people's enjoyment, how can people not respond in a toxic way? It's like, if you're enthusiastic about cars, and you get a beautiful brand new car, then someone who doesn't give a crap hits you in the back and goes, "well, I don't care" I think you have all the right to be pissed and be toxic about it. The same can be said for games. Rito just doesn't prioritise their bans correctly though. People who respond to this toxicity is punished more severely than the people who initiate it, unfortunately. It's literally like the perpetrator hitting your car gets slapped with a fine, but you get jailed for shouting and screaming at him. That's how Rito operates, and that's why the community won't improve, because it's not fair and it's not just.

The reason were being toxic, is because our brains refuse to accept that someone else is better than us at something.

I think that people are toxic because deep down, they want to win. When they want to win, they try hard. When other people don’t try as hard, they get mad. When they get mad, their mind races like so: this guy isn’t trying, must mean he’s not good, he needs to get better if we’re gonna win, what’s the quickest way to get better; realize you have a problem; what’s the only way you’re gonna know you have a problem; if I tell you what it is, what is the problem; “you’re bad” aaand que toxicity. It’s why a lot of people hate LS. Because they don’t want to admit that they’re bad.

I agree 100%! I've had people play duo with me and flame everyone else in the game and my mind I'm like "I know you'd be flaming me too if I wasn't in a call with you." Then after the game I tell them that I'm not down to play with people who are like that and one of two things happen: Either all the flame they held back because of us being premades comes out to prove my thought process was right or they go "no you actually played well" and you can just hear the lies in it. If someone duos with me and chooses to be toxic to others I'm done with them.

Hello, I am a concept artist and in my free time I quite like to play League. I believe from a game designer perspective, League of Legends has underlying psychological effects that promote such aggressive and selfish behavior in its playerbase; this is only amplified by the handling of Riot. So, it is a team, rts, resource management game, but resources are not shared. Exp, gold, levels, items, kills, must be earned by individuals, but there is a finite amount of these resources. So teammates almost compete with each other as well as with the opponent team. Then, the simple design of laners creates a sense of isolation for the first half of the game, you can't zoom out much, and subtly laners feel their lane is all there is. Moreso toplane especially since its far away from 4 people and dragons in bot Lane. With Riots promotions of ranked play, displaying ranked icons and borders at every profile, loading screen, party, lobby, etc, and then promotional cinematic of climbing the ranked ladder, the game really quite pressures players into feeling like the whole point of the game is to accrue high rank. Add in Riots enabling of emotes that all are just variations of taunting faces, and have this psychological effect multiplied across millions of players around the world, it almost nurtures this behavior. At least that is my perspective on the situation and so many more factors in game design, but I feel I already ranted too long! Well made video, well done.

This begs the question...is the game itself toxic? Since it can turn the community toxic? Maybe not instantly, but eventually...

The problem also starts with the ban system. It angers people in the way where they get banned for saying something but when they see someone doing the same, they arent punished which feels unfair and annoying. The perma ban system only makes people more toxic if anything, Dota 2, cs.go has no ban system yet they have a less toxic community, at least based on my own experience with those games.

I think I heard 'Snow Halation' play on the background at the ending part. Anyone?

Something that helps with toxicity is not knowing your teamates: If you see someone made a few mistakes, you might think they are bad when that isnt the case, what you considered a bad play was just a different strategy to the same situation. Team sports require a lot of trust in your teamates and if you cant trust your teamates because you think they are bad, then you have a problem. Some people tend to think giving orders will make the 'bad' player play well, and that order can get to really bad tone. Some others tend to generalize: they had 3 'bad' supports in a row, then every support is bad. On top of that, teenagers tend to have stronger emotions and to think less, and e-sports are full of them (they have lots of free time). The next time you see someone playing 'bad', just think that they have your elo because they do 'good' things too, just try to discover them. Maybe they miss farm but they play well in teamfights. Maybe they lack of map awarness but they listen to warnings. Maybe they farm well, they do most things well but they get angry very easily and they destroy team spirit. Last scenario is usually a selfish one, and we are playing a team game ;)

I think that toxic behavior can be deeply related to the reason they are playing the game, it can be for fun, it can be for self esteem, is can be to run away from problems of life or even to get closer to some people, when one can’t achieve what they search, he/she will get angry, this can change though personalities however, some people let all anger go away by forgetting, endure it or even use it at his/her favor, some people can and express all their anger in different ways, being toxic is one of them.

the worst thing I did when I got pissed beyond belief was that I just sat there contemplating my life. I bet most of the player base does this which makes us automatically better at reacting to these things

This is quality content. I feel like you deserve more cake than you get.

As a jinx main I approve of this message.

Dyrus was my favorite toxic pro. He was just toxic to the other team though not his own.

Y'all be talking about how toxic League Players are but nobody is talking about how toxic our Society is... smh

I think it has to do mostly with pride. Some players just think they're better than others, are actually insecure in real life, or their success went to their head. There are players (in many games, not just LoL) who think they can get away with anything because they accomplished something like going to worlds, won a big tournament, gained popularity, etc. Others because the game is all they have going for them, thus take it way too seriously, so they get mad when someone isn't playing the game 'properly'. Others are just plain proud delusional pricks.

To be honest, i dont understand why people are toxic. I got honor level 5 in the summer and i didnt do anything for it. Being not toxic is so easy!

There are 2 people of playing a game, the ones, who just want to have fun by gaming and being with other people which do not mind if they loose and the other ones, who where born as pro /best player in the world and can not loose ;) Instead of teaching they go toxic. I appreciate good players, who help you with tips, how to do better or to try a better fitting champ. Well and for toxic players I have no time to listen to and just play my game as good as I can. Thats what I think.

Most of it probably stems from loss aversion and the requirement of relying on your team

That Law and Order music at 2:00 makes me laugh so hard

I really like this video and the point you're making. It's not that league of legends in and of itself is a toxic game. It's that it triggers guys who already have a toxic personality. LoL triggers guys who are dickheads and have major ego issues.

how not to be toxic step one: take off your enter keycap (and switch)

Really Good video , i got banned permanently because every time I got banned it was because i got really frustrated and angry ,besides having a shitty day and i couldnt stop typing . I took a long break from this game (enough for the toxic thoughts and minds to get out of me ) and came back , and I think that they should make a reform system or something . Players that actually are no longer toxic should be unbanned , like me ( yes call me a cunt , shut up ) and some of us truly deserve a second chance

6:50 "And depending on your luck, there should be one individual human being behind each player" Pretty much just sums up why people are so toxic in this game

Something that frustrates me is how no matter good i do i end up losing cause someone else feeded. Losing cause of someone else's mistakes feels so bad. Tho im not toxic the most toxic things I've done is spam pinging some times

The biggest problem is that they are behind a computer screen and feel invincible. Nothing physical can be done and they talk pretty big, because the best they have is words. A little bit of encouragement and some kind words can go a long way. Hate begets hate and won't make you a better player. For a little story, I was playing mid-lane as Aurelion Sol in a bot game. I had two jugglers (Zac and Graves), both of them was in my lane taking my CS. We lost as I wasn't strong enough and couldn't get anything done. A player messaged me asking did I know those two players. I said no and they wasn't toxic or anything, but I'm sure they was upset with those two ruining my laning.

i really hope valissli or whatever his name was gets some help, like i thought i had anger issues but this???

Where is my butttttt at 7:29 word?... I didnt see it.. Put it

Vassili didn't physically assualt his girlfriend, he was just screaming at her. She confirmed she was never touched and broke up with him, he just has serious mental problems and hopes the best for him.

This is why im toxic. When someone insta lock ys 1/10/0/team feed / keep. Blaming someone

Errr to answer your question as to why league is toxic a called gbay99 explained it years ago. When we start to lose on a consistent basis we go on tilt which basically triggers a fight or flight response. Essentially we are tricking our minds into believing we're in danger so that releases a crap ton of adrenaline into our system. It can be different for individuals tho for example getting camped tilts me might be different for others

not just in pvp games, pve games like monster hunter you can find toxic players as well.

So what about this scenario; You are a cool player, you are so good for example like faker. You dont make mistakes , like never , or simple mistakes that doesnt cost you to lose the game statistically. And you lose the game because of 2-3 players who are worse than you, and the enemy team has 2-3 players who are way better than your avarage team. Its okay right? Just 1 lose. But what about, losing 3 , 4 or maybe 5 games in a row JUST because your teammates. Any chill man would be mad. If your purpose is ranking up, and you lose 5 games (which is approximately 3.5 hours) , you simply feel mad , and sad because you waste your time and get nothing because of some banana heads. I mean this has nothing to do with being a cool,chill player who respect the game and the enemy team. This is just a simple unfairness that Riot cant fix. So , in my opinnion , being mad in the game CAN BE reasonable. And there is nothing to do to fix it.

now a days, IwD is in a team with T1 thats hilarious

A major Reason why People are so toxic to their Teammates is because they never played a traditional Teamsports. There is a lot of toxic Behaviour in the Team in every traditional Teamsports but you learn to swallow it and play for the Team while you are on the Field. When you never learned that you can just win as a Team, you start seeing your Teammates as Enemys that are holding you back on your Way up. And you start playing against them by Trolling and Flaming them if they are missplaying and lower your Chance to win the Game.

Not all esports player are toxic, there are levels of play style and you really have to be good in order to set things in motion or the turns of event may fall upon you and cost the whole game. Early game you can be passive and farm all day without a care and poke a bit. Or be aggressive and poke enemy champs as much as possible and get lane lead. But since these guys are pro players you'll have to put both of those mindset into one. You are now both passively and aggressively player who have to instantly make decisions. Those decision then becomes an instant plan for your teammates. So they too have to do something within that short period of time and think what's comes first or is the best options. But if the person who initiate the plan didn't have anyone to help em commit to it. Ofc they'll have something toxic to say. But if the initiated plan went well there isn't much toxic or any to be said. It is still after all a team game, communication is key with teammates, same or similar mindsets as teammates, quick wise, wit, and sly critical thinking/action.

just discovered your channel...glad i did

This editing is A1 tbh and Nicolai, as you know I am a psych major, and I can definitely say the toxicity involves some psychological reasoning I WANT A WHOLE VIDEO ON THAT PLS also 5:15 LMFAO

I love your videos, and i think you deserve a lot more subs

i dont watch the video, but the video surely says "yes"

maybe dont feed or pick random champs that u dont pkay well wittg them in rank and u will see less toxicity towards u

Where is the reference that faker got fined? I honestly couldn't find it anywhere

I think that the root of the problem with ranked in LoL is that there is no voice communication. Thats atleast where i find most of my frustration. It is beyond my understanding how a competitive enviroment can thrive without being able to have a direct source of communication with ur teammates. I find it so fucking frustrating when im in a team without any synergy whatsoever, this can in other games be countered by good voice comms, but this is not the case in league. If ur team isnt naturally synergizing, you are basically stuck in a game that is practically impossible to have a significant impact on, idk about others, but i feel so powerless, and it pisses me the fuck off, and this frustration often translates to toxicity, because it makes me enter a state of mind where anger just takes over. I play multiple other competetive titles like CSGO and Overwatch, and this is something i almost never experience in these games because of the voice chat. When it comes to league voice chat, i often see people being very sceptical about this because they think this will make games even more cancerous and aids, i say thats absolute bullshit. Voice chat is literally exactly the same as the chat, just way more effective. If you think some1 acts cancerous in the chat, you mute them, and its the same with voice chat. But voice chat provides a million times better communication and the overall game experience when you actually get in a team with people with the same mental as yourself, the enjoyment of competitive play just skyrockets.

What i really hate is when team doesnt follow my calls, even tho they are the right ones, then we lose the game and at the end they are flaming me

I think reducing ff timers could help reduce toxic behaviour. If a game is lost at 5-10 minutes, on one wants to wait until 15 (often times longer).

Hey man, I noticed you were calling IWD Dominic at multiple times, and I checked the captions to make sure. His first name is Christian, just an FYI!

idk, but the pub theme kinda takes me back lmao

I'm surprised you didn't talk about Ocelot.

Riot doesn't ban toxic players anyway. The only people they ban are the ones that trigger key words in chat. They don't ban the people who int, afk, passive aggressively int, rage-split push, etc, which are way more of a problem than the people in chat. Seriously the only reason Tyler 1 was banned was because of his chat logs. If he had not typed and just inted, he would have never been banned. Shaclone is easily 10x worse than Tyler but he's still not banned from the game because he doesn't type as much, instead just ints when he's pissed off

Here's few tips how to reduce your toxicity: 1. Make up some funny insults. (Yellow snow eater). 2. If some1 takes your role warn them in chat: if you lose lane i'll call you poopy head (go for: "i'll fist your mom if you are really mad). 3. Before sending toxic message think if that info is actually new to him. Most of the times i come to the conclusion that "he knows" and just hit ESC to delete the message. 4. If you are really mad, dont wish cancer on them. Wish something like: i hope you get diariah in your next twerking contest... Well this should be enouh

A lot of why is because games are 20+ minutes. When you have explicitly bad teammates or make a bad mistake, the consequence of said mistake leads to a domino effect where more and more goes wrong. you are forced to play the game out because you get banned if you leave too many games. This basically puts people in limbo, always playing from behind and therefore basically being a spectator of their own games while the fed enemy team just collects gold and objectives for free In high elo it's VERY hard to come back from losing games since opponents don't dick around and play to close out games. So this fact reigns even more true then. One missplay and the whole team has to face the consequences of it for 20+ mins

I think the most competitive players are the most toxic ones.

I wanted to watch one video of you. Now its 3 am. keep it up

3 Chinese farmer....

Hey man if I'm in my promos and you start inting and go 0/23 you're gonna hear some shit from me

Here is my theory. If you fail at something but did not really try, you did not really fail. At least, your ego will suffer a lot less. When a player feel like their chances of success decreased, sometime just by a little bit, their ego is menaced. Because if they fail *while trying to succeed* they'll feel like a offence to their persona. So they run it down. So not only can they say ; so they can think that they didn't fail. They lose LP, but not self esteem. Now. Think about it. Think how mentally weak someone has to be. Being personally attacked on one's ego for a videogame lost. Being incapable of playing a 40% winnable game because they would rather lost than try the 40%. You can not play the game for the other. This is not an option you have. Just play the game for yourselves. Thank you.

3:10 np bois

Or maybe riot could completely get ride of crosschat and team chat keep it pinged based

There is 2 reason why player toxic 1. Noob teammate who don't even know how to play the game. Trying champions in rank. 2. Trollers and inter and 0 teamwork teammate. 3. Added 1 more I personally played 3 round of league . And my teammate ban my champ in champ selection . 3 game 3 different people do that . So ya I am toxic.

You're saying that, on a team with 5 players, everyone believes that they know what's best. You're saying that out of these 5 people, they will all blame each other as they start fucking things up. Well what if, and stay with me here, WHAT IF... One of those people started inting? Can we blame the player that inted then? Or are we still douchebags that think they know what's best? Because that's the mess I find myself in almost every game. Example where I play support: - Jungler tries to gank botlane, right after ADC gets hooked and dies. - Jungler finds himself in a 2v1, because I backed off due to having 10% health. - Jungler ignores pings to go back and dives 2v1, dies. - Jungler blames botlane, tells them he won't gank anymore. - Jungler redirects to top, starts camping top, ints there and proceeds to do the same on mid. - All lanes lose and enemy jungler gets a free pass on all map objectives. - The game is lost before 15 minutes and an argument starts in the post-game chat: jungler truly believes it was botlane's fault that he lost the game. In this example it's pretty obvious that only 1 person is responsible for destroying the entire flow of the game. Am I still a dick for thinking it is one person's fault?

6:24 the reason why we're toxic sometimes is because our limit cap of patience breaks after what could have easily been a good game, some players try Champs in ranked which is completely stupid, and some boast a lot and gaslight us. The psychological reason is we're not gonna get those 30mins of our lives back so wasting our time

I think league players become toxic because they forget games are supposed to be fun. Regardless of it's difficulty. Now, while pve games have a difficulty setting. PvP don't. You might want an easy game but due to circumstances beyond your control it becomes difficult. Or it could be because of yourself it becomes difficult. From there you rage and become toxic. Not realizing that while you can cussed at the boss/champion in a pve, you cannot do so in a PvP because that's an actual person. Most times we actually cussed at ourselves and not the game. But since it's PvP we cuss at others and blame them as well.

We toxic because neeko 130% AD scaling

According to animal welfare studies, a lack of control over a situation and lack of predictability/change in expectancy of something can cause immense frustration (and/or stress). Given this, LoL is likely to be full of toxic players not because it attracts that type of player, but because the environment and game is set up in a way to cause frustration. A player cannot win on their own (lack of control) and if they end up losing, this is a conflict in expectenacy, ergo resulting in frustration. Of course there will be individual variation (how someone deals with frustration). It would be interesting to see if there is a difference in pre-made matches (behaviour towards teammates) and solo queues (behaviour towards teammates).

40 seconds of ad... very disappointing

what happens if you dont pay the fine you are issued from riot?

holy shit is that final fantasy tactics music? That brought some memories back

I'm not toxic in real life, in fact my father even says that he never sees me get angry except due to this game. And he's right. Something about league just brings out a negative side of a person. How mgk or lily stay positive is a mystery. For me, I HATE seeing my champion die, (and yes i know she's just 1's and 0's) she just seems too innocent for it, and when she dies she sounds excruciatingly in pain. (Yes, I'm also aware dying is painful probably in this game.) Can you hate me for caring about my favorite champion alot?! Probably.

Does anyone know about the video of Uzi kicking his teammate after losing to SKT in worlds 2019?

*Multiplayer video games have always been toxic* 1 vs 1 skill based video game players are usually cool players since they have no one else to blame except for themselves.

Are eSports players toxic? Well no shit! They are at the pinnacle of their craft! In case you didn't know, any cutthroat environment based on high performance is going to be toxic. If you work at Microsoft, Louis Vuitton, etc. Get good, or get the fuck out. It's no different in major sports leagues (Euro soccer, NBA), law firms with high-end clienteles, Michelin star restaurants, etc. Get good, or get out. Have people ever listened to Kobe's or MJ's legendary cursing and trash talk on court, or in practice?

What did faker say?

I love the “BUT” joke xD

Also Bro I've played with toxic spamming people. They're pretty Chill IRL, even in stressful situations.

A toxic game deserves a toxic community.

I quit LoL on the first day of playing due to toxic players, never played it since.