As some of you know I'm an ex author for old-school gamefaqs.com, so I'm a little more comfortable with straight text guides than I am with all this styling ****. You can still beat Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with 200.5% in under 5 hours using my guide... if you have it saved to your hard drive... because it doesn't exist on the internet anymore.

Don't complain about it. You were warned and I simply don't care. If you feel like raging about it or making suggestions, might I suggest sewing? Maybe model rockets? You need a hobby.

Not everything in the world has pretty pictures and colors.

Section 4 offers the "golden times" to play ranked. You could walk away from this guide with ONLY that information and probably do just fine for yourself. But I encourage you to read everything, as it may drastically change your perspective on the community itself.

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KNOW YOUR PLAYER BASE

The League of Legends demographic is only-children between the ages of 12 and 23. I'm 26 and have a brother, so I'm a glitch in the matrix. I suspect they'll come to delete me soon enough...

This statistic is something I have saved on my computer from research I did a LONG time ago for a college project and I CANNOT seem to find it again anywhere, so if someone can find a link, I'd very much prefer to have the information in this guide fully cited. I will continue to look as well.

So what does that tell us?

Well, for starters- A little basic math. That's 12 ages which make up the majority of the players you're playing with. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. 12 ages. For the sake of statistics, we'll remove 22 and 23, for an even 10 ages.

Of those 10 ages, over half aren't even considered adults, 7 of them are of age to be going to school. 8 of those ages have not reached what is known as the age of reason (19), and 8 of those ages aren't what is known as "socially developed adults" (21)

Psychologically speaking, we don't reach SOCIAL maturity until around age 22. We simply haven't been through enough hell on our lives yet to be "grown up"- and that's on average. Obviously there are exceptions to this "rule".

10 ages... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
So from these facts we can assume:

-60% of the people we play with aren't even adults.
-70% of the people we play with are still in high school
-30% of the people we play with have any sort of developed maturity
-Including all 12 ages, less than 25% of the players we play with are what most of the world accepts as MATURE.

Maturity is defined as this: In psychology, maturity is the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner. This response is generally learned rather than instinctive. Maturity also encompasses being aware of the correct time and place to behave and knowing when to act appropriately, according to the circumstances and the culture of the society one lives in.

In League of Legends, that would roughly translate into "Knowing where to be and what to do when you get there" or even more concise, "Knowing how to play effectively".

The point I'm trying to make is that League of Legends is not a game packed with trolls, that is... people who are intentionally malicious and gain satisfaction in the grief of others.

They're just kids.

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What do we do with this knowledge?

Sherlock Holmes was famous for deductive skills, and also just as famous for insisting that anyone, with proper practice and focus, could do what he did just as well as he did it.

It's very simple deductive reasoning that brings us to what I'd say is the purest key to getting out of Bronze or even getting to Platinum if you TRULY know how to play the game.

Monday through Friday, August through June, 5am PST to 4PM EST
Saturday and Sunday 6PM EST to 8am PST

Those are the golden times to play ranked.

During the week, kids are in school. During the weekend at those times adults will be coming home from work. Friday nights are the WORST time to play ranked, as are the eves of holidays. Kids don't have homework and they're going to stay up late. They're also hyped up that they have the next day or days off and are probably hyper and excitable... and therefore not thinking clearly or truly able to become serious about anything- Or focus.

They're also crawling out of the woodwork on League of Legends during these times.

If you want to have a better experience, play with people who are playing for keeps- Not kids.

It may take some self control and you may be one of those unfortunate people who have work hours that are the same as school hours... in which case you're kind of screwed.

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I am not. I am a fact-based psychology major who knows the developmenta; progression of young minds and the tendencies of underdevelopment on the attitudes of players.

Young people simply don't think the way mature people do. Why would the term "maturity" exist across hundreds of cultures or be medically, legally, and psychologically permissible if it wasn't based on years and years and years of expert observation and documentation across the entire world?

Not only that, but the definition is almost universally the same, regardless of language or demographic, or even region.

Asking yourself "how does maturity relate to the play style of a summoner" will invariably bring you to the same conclusion I've reached. At certain hours of the day, general skill level and team cohesion is going to be higher based on an influx of mature players into the queue, and the absence of younger minds.

It may be upsetting or unfair to some, but it is very simple and nearly indisputable fact. I'm not writing this to make friends. I'm writing this to be correct.

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A young mind is still trying to find its place in the world.

Kids don't do these things to be difficult or piss people off. They don't do it because they logged on specifically thinking "I'm going to ruin people's promo series games and cause a huge amount of losses by disrupting the flow of as many teams as I can."

That's just unrealistic and ignorant to believe.

A young mind, psychologically speaking, is just beginning to understand the world around it and how the world relates to itself. Or at the very least, it is doing it's very best to understand this relation even if it falls short.

High schoolers are notorious for conforming to nonconformity. This is because each young mind wants to be perceived as being something unique who has its own special place in the world and special attributes to offer the entirety of social existence. They want to be recognized. They want attention. They need their individuality recognized and praised, it is a healthy stage of cognitive development- though chaotic at best for those surrounding the individual.

In game, this will manifest itself as a player who "knows best" even though they're failing horrendously and simply WILL NOT listen to anything anyone tells them. They need to be an individual and they need to be right, even if they clearly aren't... this is akin to a male child wearing skirts and dresses and black makeup and 9-inch tall hair and red lipstick in the real world. Anybody with a brain stem can tell them that they'll never be accepted socially by looking this way by most sane people... but they do it anyway.

Are they stupid? Purposely difficult? An insult to their parents? No. No they certainly aren't. They're just lost kids being lost kids trying their best to express their need to be part of something bigger... in this case, the goth community seemed to be the only people who accepted them, so that's the social norm they subscribed to. Personally, I think it's absolutely wonderful they they've begun their journey to self-acceptance in such a creative way. I'd even take that child to a metal concert so they'd feel even more accepted and at home.

Don't hate the phase, nourish it until it cements itself into something more solid over time... And it will.

It needs to be recognized that these are the building blocks to something greater, no matter what they look like. Even if you don't like the building blocks a child is building with, the worst thing you can do is TAKE AWAY THE BLOCKS. They need THEIR foundation, not YOUR foundation. Whereas a team is always trying to unify a foundation, this person is GENETICALLY set on using their own.

At the very base of it... you have a square trying to fit into a round world. Not the best circumstances for team play, is it?

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So how can I apply this to the game?

If you have someone on your team who is not doing ANYTHING the team is trying to do, doesn't understand to play more passively when they die 18 times, doesn't understand not to frontline as a carry, and generally just plays poorly overall... you're dealing with a child. Nobody attains the rank of Bronze 1 by repeating these things over and over and over and over again, so if you're above Bronze V, you can't assume that the player is just horrible overall.

They HAD to have done SOMETHING RIGHT along the lines SOMEWHERE. Makes logical sense, doesn't it? If they played like that every game, they'd never advance anywhere. So they're simply being faced with a set of circumstances that they need to adapt to, but are pre-conditioned to use strategies that have worked for them consistently and WILL NOT stray from that strategy for any reason.

A young mind operates on comfort. They face chaos in their life every day, so they cling to whatever comforts they can find. In League of Legends, you don't always get the opportunity to play in your comfort zone, and therein lies the problem.

A young mind rejects discomfort and runs from it. They don't face it or adapt- This is what causes people to scream "GG" at 6 minutes into the game. They REFUSE to face a difficult situation. It isn't because they're lazy or because they just don't care at all about winning... Trust me, that kid (with his/her volatile teenage emotions) is probably MORE pissed about losing than YOU are. They just know that what they know how to do isn't working, and have no idea how to cope with that reality.

They haven't learned those life skills yet. They haven't had to work for a boss they hate, they haven't had to pay car payments on a car that was stolen 2 years ago. They haven't had to pay credit card payments for 4 years on a guitar effects pedal that a meth head pawned off 2 days after they bought it. They don't know how to handle an unfavorable situation with faith and determination. They can't yet look for the light at the end of the tunnel. They can't look for weaknesses in the enemy's plays and capitalize because that just isn't how they're wired to think. Yet.

They're wired to wall off the situation and ignore it, just like they do with the bully at school. Just like they do with their parents fighting at home. Just like they do with the homework they forgot to do. Just like they do with their smoking habits their parents don't know about. You have to put yourself in the mind of a young person to understand why they do what they do.

So if you want to get a young person to play favorably with your team and improve their attitude, what's the worst thing you can possibly do? Flame them. A young mind will never go "They're right, I'm a moron and I need to improve." a young mind will flip you the bird, steal beer out of your fridge in the garage, and tell all his friends what an idiot parent you are. Same thing in the game- They're either going to ignore you and continue what they're doing, stop playing and start a typing war to defend themselves, or just troll your game completely.

If you want a young person to "shape up", you need to establish trust. If you scratch their back, they'll most likely scratch yours considering that any young mind wants to make a connection with someone - more than anything in the world.

Are they feeding? 5 deaths in less than 15 minutes? Camp them. Gank that lane. Tell them to hang in there. DO NOT give them advice on how to play or what to do, because it will be perceived as an attack. Even if you're polite about it, it will be taken as hostile. Even if you were the nicest guy in the world, you very simply do not tell a teenager how to play a video game. You're just some moron on the internet among the droves of millions and you mean nothing. ACTION is the only way to speak to a young mind.

Don't even get me started on "not spanking your child". Who's brilliant freakin idea.... ugh.

Help them in ANY way that you can and DO NOT flame them or tell them what to do or when to do it or even how YOU would do it. In fact, don't talk to them at all until after you've done them a favor. Don't tell them to stop being toxic. Don't tell them not to say "GG". Don't tell them ANYTHING that could even be MILDLY CONSTRUED by an insane mind as even 0.01% hostile, which is just about everything. You're walking on glass, on eggshells. If you haven't done anything for this player, you had better believe it's in your best interest to say NOTHING to them, and proceed to act in a way that might gain their trust so that you CAN advise them if needed.

After you've recovered their lane, or perhaps gotten the rest of your team to HELP you recover their lane if it's bad enough to require more than one person, you STILL need to be careful what you say and how you say it to them. If any of this seems drastic, you've obviously never had to handle a "unique" teenage "individual". Some call them "problem children", and I think that's a hell of an ignorant way to look at it.

"Hey man, I ganked your lane like 8 times, I can't do anything else for you. Figure it out"

That's an example of something a teammate of mine said to a horrendously feeding tristana.

To which tristana intelligently replied

"If u guys are just gonna abandon me im afk."

...and fed 4 more deaths before we lost. And yes. She went AFK.

My opinion? Should have just ganked the lane 8 times and left her on her own. Don't say a word. When all was said and done while she was still in lane, she was 5/7/2 and had caught up in CS. She could have been a viable part of the team at that point if people would have just LEFT HER ALONE.

What was our jungler looking for? Approval? Validation? Why announce that you've done what you've done? Why announce that she's on her own now? Why announce anything at all? You recovered the lane- let it be what it is and move on. Let her do what she's going to do. As long as that lane is no longer feeding to the ends of the earth and caught up a bit, nothing else needs to happen.


To make an endlessly long rant a lot shorter... The way to handle an immature teammate is to handle them the same way any adult would handle any child that they are in charge of. Make their problems into your problems and don't complain about the responsibility. If you want to win, you essentially need to think like a parent.

Would you let people bully your child around and do nothing about it? Then don't let mid lane, bottom lane, and the jungler bully this tristana. Don't let people bully your kid.

If we know we have kids on our team, why not treat them like OUR kids? Kids will piss you off and do stupid **** until your hair turns gray, just ask my dad. He still loves me though. I can assure you I love the hell out of him too for loving me despite what a little demon I was.

Teamwork OP.