League of Legends and toxicity
League of Legends is always on the discussion when the topic is toxicity, in several online communities the game is criticized over its toxic community and it is not something new. But why a game focused on team play would go down a route to get widely known as toxic?
Every game these days have some sort of "toxicity", at least any competitive game does, anonymous people on the internet will always say things that they wouldn't say on your face, and they spread a lot of hate online while protected behind their screens. With League of Legends, it is not different, in a regular game you have other four teammates who depend on you to win the game or otherwise lose a match that can usually last more than 20 minutes.
The word toxic has lately become a lazy way to indicate any kind of negativity, and it can make an article on this topic get misunderstood, when we refer to toxicity here we will be focusing on when someone on your team or on the enemy team is being an annoyance where attempting to talk with them gets pointless and muting is the way to go.
Toxic players are there to attempt to hurt you mentally, annoy, intentionally make you lose the game, or anything detrimental just for the sake of giving you that stress, or for whatever reason they engage in this kind of behavior, sometimes the hate is way over the board and it is surprising to see how angry someone can get while interacting to others in a game.
There are a lot, and I say again, a whole lot of histories online about toxic behavior in League of Legends, and while some look like a fairy tale, a great majority does seem legit and they sadly spark this dark fact about how the game has a very hateful relationship between its players, and how some people do truly get hurt or at least very disappointed with the experience.
And truly, one can always mute players who treat others with almost no respect, and for the sake of transparency, League of Legends has a reporting system and it is often relatively fast compared to other games, some in which your report may never get feedback.
League of Legends and toxicity have always been a recurrent topic in its own community and outside it, the amount of hate in its game chats and unnecessary conflicts can make even players who are used to the game lose their patience sometimes.
Different mindsets
League of Legends has a wide range of players with different mindsets, and many of those will happily disagree with each other, the game has a lot of possibilities when it comes to how you approach it, how you play the game can be in a totally different way someone else does, not only in skill but in mindset, this is bound to disagreement.
Some players attempt to coordinate others as if they were a coach of some esports team, some players don't have their own skill where their mouth is at, some like a more individual playstyle, others will only play with a single friend, others will play only with a full team to avoid any random players, and so on.
The only small thing every single one of them has in common is that they want to win the game(although this is arguable in certain situations), and in various aspects of the game, you will be pushed into the need for your team to have relatively acceptable performance in the game for you to have a chance to win.
Shifting blame happens often in such an environment, as does pointing out each one of someone's mistakes, carefully paying attention to every single step they do, so you can shift the blame to them in case something goes bad in the game, and you can keep being a good player, at least in your mind.
It is not that bad
While the community can really disappoint you sometimes, not everyone playing the game is a bad person, and some part of the audience is mature and have been educated on the basic ways of behavior and conversation with another human being, you can go multiple games without getting a single signal of toxicity.
You can have good moments in the game, and if you're cool-minded you won't really get bothered most of the time, and playing with friends will totally eliminate random people on your own team to be toxic and give you a hard time, these days there is a lot of places to find players who approach the game like you to queue together.
Reporting is almost useless
League of Legends doesn't have a bad report system, they do seem to pay attention to reports and it can be fast(with automated checks), but it falls short. The reporting system itself is quickly turned into a tool to attempt to get people temporarily punished for no reason, and while most of the time it does the right thing, it is not enough.
In fact, it is rarely enough, in any game you have around, reporting is sadly an endless cycle as people reported are back eventually and there are just way too many people doing reportable things, in the end, things are what they are.
So know that while you should keep reporting people who are way over the board with toxicity, muting is always your best friend in this kind of situation. Muting all doesn't make you lose anything in the game, you know yourself that the chat is rarely used for something useful, so there is no reason to keep it if you are uncomfortable about someone's behavior.
The game could just not be for you
Sadly, in the end, it is what it is, League of Legends is as toxic as it ever was and there is no scheduled date for the community to learn manners and stop going off others due to their insecurities, no change made in the game since launch was able to make League games less toxic and doubtfully it ever will be.
If your day can be ruined by the most disgusting things League of Legends toxic players will type in chat and at the same time you refuse to mute all, it is useless to keep playing and think that the community will magically be fixed overnight, it simply won't, and there is no effort being made to change this reality.
Having fun and enjoying what you're doing is a priority on video games and it can't be different with League of Legends, some players are unaffected emotionally by the clown fiesta in the game chat and keep playing and having fun in the game without raising their stress level, while others may take it very seriously and bring it with them after a game, this can turn something that was supposed to be enjoyable into a nightmare.
Toxic players, for whatever reason they are toxic, aren't worth a headache, or to live rent-free in your head, and you may know already that sometimes you can get more than one bad apple in the match or even a toxic premade(what one should be able to opt-out but sadly doesn't happen), and this can tilt you pretty fast if you stop thinking about those people as trolls or whatever they are.
The game is still very popular(this can be arguable), so all the toxicity in the community didn't make it die out, nor it ever will, because the game is believe or not, still enjoyable and will keep moving on the way it is, sadly losing some people due to its community nature and other reasons, League of Legends is definitely not for everybody, like many other games with their own flaws as well, but League has a big one in their community, what should be instead a positive aspect. If you think for five seconds, you could already figure out methods in your mind to make the environment more bearable or to filter out bad apples from a more mature audience, but nothing is done or tried, as it is definitely not a priority for the game.
As a final word, League of Legends isn't worth losing your mental health and the toxic players in its community shouldn't in any given way be taken seriously, they speak hate for the sole purpose of doing it, and their words aren't said with any sign of logical reason or intelligent life behind them.
