Attention: Do not feed the troll! Dealing with flamers in LoL



Hello fellow summoners, in this article I will try to lend you my opinion on how to deal with some situations you might find when you play your casual game of League of legends. Although flaming and refusing to communicate is more common in the low tiers and the normal game matchmaking, it is actually a community wide problem with which many do not know how to handle in a way that either makes the game go the way it is supposed to or, at least, doesn't make it any worse. I’ll break the articles into two main parts, definitions of concepts and how to deal with each situation.

 

Definition of Concepts

What is flaming?

Most of the times flaming arrives in the form of a harsh insult be it racial, family or sexual orientation related. Still through my point of view any kind of destructive criticism can be considered flaming. Calling someone a “noob” is not going to help that person improve neither will it make his performance any better, the only thing this claim will bring on you is a flame war and a report from the other player.

What can be considered a refusal to communicate?

Communication is a key point in any League of Legends match, most of the times in ranked solo queue or normal solo queue the teams who has the advantage is the one who can communicate the better, simply because they act more as a team rather than five players playing in the same match. With the introduction of the smart ping function this problem was partially solved since language won’t be such an obstacle but sill some players don’t know how to use it and others just won’t use it since they just don’t want to communicate. It is a hard situation to be in since the amount of information you receive is low which forces you to find alternate ways all the key bits of info from other sources.

How to deal with these situations

Dealing with flamers

From the experience I have in normal and low tiers of ranked games the best way of dealing with these toxic behavior is the ignore path. Pay no attention to the insults and realize they are most of the times either a release of frustration from the other player or a desperate attempt to be a so called troll which will take any answer you give him as a reason to continue with his path of destruction.

Now, even being a great tool, the chat ignore button you can use in game will also refrain you from obtaining some sort of useful information that the said flamer might be chatting about. My advice and take home message on this would be: when playing with a player like this, mentally ignore every message apart from what is game relevant, avoid ceasing communication with him in what is important for both of you to succeed in achieving that win.

Dealing with the low information situation

This is a very hard to deal with situation but the number one thing not to do is, flame. Flaming will take you nowhere and will most likely grant you some reports at the end of the match. It is annoying to play with someone who doesn't ping or communicates at all with you and your team but you still have better chances of winning if you keep the communication flowing between the remaining members.

The best you can do is to take the game as an opportunity to improve your map awareness since you have much less information to work with. In the lanning phase for example you will have to be more aware of the minimap and have a better ward coverage. Dealing with teamfights is something way harder in these cases and should be a very cautious move, once again good ward coverage and clearing the enemies’ wards might give you and edge when you are handicapped in this way.
At the end of the game if you feel that the player deserves so, report him for his refusal to communicate.

I know some of you might think that what is said here is something obvious but many of the new players in the league don't know how to handle with these situations so I thought about bringing my insight on the subject. Always remember, doesn't matter if it is a flaming, non communicating or general troll player don't flame back/star flaming, it will only make your game experience even worse and grant you some reports which might get you banned. Do not feed the troll.