League of Legends and toxicity have always gone hand in hand. I used to blame the players, but I no longer think so.
1. You cannot lose the game quickly! Other genres like RTS, games can last between 3 minutes or as long as 30 minutes. Not so with MOBAs, it's rare to see a game conclude before 20 minutes.
2. You cannot surrender early. Even if a game is clearly one-sided, you're forced to play it out.
3. Small mistakes mean you fall behind and feel weak/useless. It's a rat race/red queen scenario.
4. Your teammates get upset when you die to your opponents. Your opponent becomes a lot stronger.
5. There's no reliable way to come back from being behind. You're basically waiting for your opponents to make multiple mistakes, multiple times until the game is even again.
I think all of this adds up to a feeling of frustration and helplessness. Everbody knows this about League. It feels good to get fed because then the game is easy. It sucks to fall behind since it's such an uphill battle.
These feelings come out in team-chat. People project, they blame, they rage. And you can't really escape it, since you're supposed to just play the game out.
Not true. You can surrender after 15 minutes. The game is rarely completely lost before then. The problem comes when some players believe the game to be lost and others do not. Also, a small number of players seem to get pleasure from punishing their teammates by helping their opponents.
I completely disagree with 2). I think surrender should be completely removed and the game should be played until the end, regardless of team balance.
It it almost impossible for me to find a game where the surrender request spam doesn't start after 30 seconds (in chat). As soon as a team mate does a couple of mistakes or s/he finds the other team stronger, s/he states the game "unwinnable" and "a waste of time".
This in my opinion is a terrible attitude where people don't improve 1) by learning to push against the odds, 2) by only wanting to play against worse players.
I haven't played league in years and barely even watch it anymore (watching worlds, but didn't even bother watching NA LCS championship).
Part of the reason I stopped playing was I realized ranked wasn't competitive, it was just a different mode. If riot actually considered it competitive, autofill wouldn't be a thing.
But to your point, you're absolutely correct. There's an old video about a well known streamer (forget his name) ranting about where the toxicity in league comes from.
And he draws the following analogy.
If you're in a game of pickup basketball and someone on your team decides to start scoring for the opponent, you can simply walk away. If you do that in league you get punished for it so you're forced to stay in a game you don't want to be in.
The long and short of it is that LoL players have very little control over both their teammates, and their willingness to play with someone who decides to be an asshole.
Riot could solve a large % of the toxicity in league, but they choose not to.
1. You cannot lose the game quickly! Other genres like RTS, games can last between 3 minutes or as long as 30 minutes. Not so with MOBAs, it's rare to see a game conclude before 20 minutes.
2. You cannot surrender early. Even if a game is clearly one-sided, you're forced to play it out.
3. Small mistakes mean you fall behind and feel weak/useless. It's a rat race/red queen scenario.
4. Your teammates get upset when you die to your opponents. Your opponent becomes a lot stronger.
5. There's no reliable way to come back from being behind. You're basically waiting for your opponents to make multiple mistakes, multiple times until the game is even again.
I think all of this adds up to a feeling of frustration and helplessness. Everbody knows this about League. It feels good to get fed because then the game is easy. It sucks to fall behind since it's such an uphill battle.
These feelings come out in team-chat. People project, they blame, they rage. And you can't really escape it, since you're supposed to just play the game out.