Team behavior lessons learned from playing League of Legends.

If you know what League of Legends ( abrv. LoL) is, you'll understand the irony of a game, that has established the reputation of having one of the most toxic player-communities, teaching you social skills.
If you aren't familiar with the pitch-black, time sucking hole that are MOBAs like LoL, those next paragraphs are for you. I promise to keep it as brief as possible.

League of Legends is a game of the MOBA genre (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). Your team, that is you and four other friends, or complete strangers, try to win a highly complex game against five other players. Every person on a team has a specific role, and matches take anywhere between 20 – 60 minutes. Balance in these matches is fragile, and teams with even one bad player, will have a significant disadvantage. Since matchmaking times and matches themselves are long, the time committed, and thus the stakes in every game, are high.

Even with this in mind, social behavior in League is still baffling. It can seem like people are on the edge of rage at most times and the slightest thing will set them off flying. New players who aren't familiar with the very complex etiquette of the game will get insulted, asked to uninstall the game, or get told to stop playing as their team will be better off without them.

To make this clear from the start, I'm not very good at League. I usually prefer games that tell good stories over competitive play, but the depth of the game and the social component of meeting friends i wouldn't meet in real life is what keeps me coming back.

It was only lately that i started playing ranked games with one of my friends and got to tap in the (even) more competitive parts of the game, where communication with your team isn't an asset but a necessity to win a game. This is where the game unveils it's ugliest, and to me, it's most challenging sides.

What loses me most of my games isn't a bad performance by me or another player on the team. It's a team tilting, and starting to turn against each other, when a match is far from over. Since I already coped with the fact that my mechanical play won't improve to any more significance, (pro players are considered "old" at 23) I decided that the skill that would improve my game the most, was team management. Keeping the spirits up, and helping a team communicate can be the tip on the scale of any match.

So if you ever worked in a team under high pressure, those tips might be for you.

Ping!

In League, Players use pings to tell other players where they're headed, if there's danger on the map, or if they need assistance. A player that doesn't ping, is a closed book to the team. The same thing applies in real life. The worst form of miscommunication is not communicating at all. It's also the most easiest to avoid. Let your team know what you're up to. What your plans and thoughts are. Put everything on the table. TMI is better to compensate then too little.

gj

Least players hesitate to rage when something goes wrong. But most of them remain silent if everything works out. If a situation ends up in your favor, or even if somebody is simply doing his job right, be sure to acknowledge it. I like to think of this acknowledgment as a safety net the team can fall into when shit goes south. If the bulk of communication is negative, communicating itself will become a negative experience. Which will lead to less communication, and by that, to more miscommunication.

mb

Teams in League start turning on each other pretty easily. Make one mistake and it's likely you'll end up as the teams scapegoat. One way of avoiding this is taking responsibility for your mistakes. Every time I fuck up in league, which happens fairly often, a simple „my bad", let's my team know, I'm aware of the fact that i made a mistake. At the same time it communicates that i know how to do better and that I'll try doing so next time. It's difficult to put the blame on someone, if he already acknowledged his mistake.

"muted"

You can try all you want, sometimes stuff just won't work out. Some team members may just be too toxic, sometimes you missstep too many times and your mates just aren't able to forgive you. When that happens, it's important to know when to cut the chord. Don't let the downwards spiral continue. Don't let them push your buttons. Unproductively unloading on each other never leads to better results. When shit hits the fan, muting communication and letting everyone cool off for a while should be your last resort. Silence is a virtue after all.