Attitude - MAJOR WALL OF TEXT WARNING

[quote=SpawnOfHell][color=#ff0000][b]Warning: this post is a huge wall of text and is purely meant for picking at your brains for a bit. If you don't like reading walls of text or if it hurts your eyes, this might not be best for you.[/b][/color] So I played a bunch of games with a good friend of mine, and after we got a bit tired of it we decided to chat on Skype about the idea of attitude in LoL. We eventually agreed that skill helps you win games, but attitude helps you become better at the game. The background: I was a Diamond tier player, and my friends irl are all around the Bronze/Silver range. I'm not up to par with proper Diamonds because my mechanics aren't solid, but I'm overall better than the people I play with. My friend (the one I spoke with) is Gold. The interesting thing is that while his mechanics are only the same or even less than the other people we play with, he's a higher rank than them, and we concluded that attitude had a lot to do with it. My friends, are, to be frank, a pain to play with. They're mechanically decent, but their mentality towards the game is god damn awful. They're stuck to this idea that each game revolves around them and that the way to win is to get as fed as possible and carry the game. But their mentality costs them a ton of games. They don't focus objectives, don't roam and pressure the map, don't ward or otherwise contest vision, and are in tunnel vision mode 24/7. Now, this wouldn't be a problem - people can get better. But they just don't. They actually got into this game earlier than I did, and that was about 3 1/2 years ago. But while I improved Season 1, got Gold elo Season 2 (good times...) and managed to crawl into the lowest depths of Diamond for a shiny border in Season 3, my friends were still where they started - Silver and Bronze. I know people play for fun and not to become amazing at the game. I can respect that. But these guys play the game wanting rank, and yet they want it delivered to them on a silver platter. They barely make efforts to improve their own plays, and whenever they make any form of mistake they're quick to blame it on an external factor (e.g. MIAs, wards, lack of ganks, etc.) But yet they clearly recognize a mistake when they see one, because they instantly point it out whenever someone else makes it. I was just dumbfounded at how they could keep up such a mindset and completely ignored common sense, but discussing it with my friend revealed a lot. They play the game for visuals. They have egos. They love it when they get 15/4/2 or whatever in games and they really really want the shiny Gold/Plat/Diamond badges to point at it and say, 'look, I'm good,' (yes I know Gold isn't 'good' by any means, but that's not my point and please don't comment on it). I'm not like that. I don't give a damn about score, or about what rank I am. I got up to Diamond and it felt purely like luck, but I know I was trying my best to get up there. I improve, and I try to win, even if I look bad doing it. I don't care if I'm 1/10/7 at the end of a game, so long as I come out with a 'Victory' screen. Most importantly, though, I can stop and say, 'I fail'. My friend was able to do the same thing. He had the same issues as the rest for a long time, but then he got his game together and decided that he just wanted to improve. He practiced, improved his plays, and managed to get Gold before S3 ended. This left me wondering, though - my friends want rank, but to get it they first have to admit that they need to do more than get kills - they need to know how to win. They seriously don't. I spectate their games often, and any game that goes past 30+ minutes either results in a loss for them or a victory that to be honest should've been achieved long before they actually got it, even if they were 20 kills up. But if they play for the sake of feeling good about getting a good score, then is a higher rank a good fit for them, since it would require them to put their ego down? Anyway, this just left me thinking - what does attitude mean in this game? Can it help you more than just playing more and getting more skilled? My two cents - skill helps you win, but your attitude is what develops your skill. I've reached the point where my mentality can only take me so far, and my lack of top notch skills is pulling me down. But I at least got to a higher level than my friends did, and I feel better knowing that I know how to actually improve. I have high hopes for my friend in Gold too. But as for my group of friends? I can't really say. What do you guys think? Is attitude really such a powerful thing in helping you improve or am I overestimating its value? Should I carry on playing the game my way or is there something better?[/quote]

[quote=Hannul]I dunno. I was 800 ELO S1, Silver for all of S2, silver 1 for most of S3 then suddenly burst straight to plat I right before preseason, and maybe going to hit Diamond around S4. I don't really consider the game revolving around me, but I do know even if I feed if I farm, or get fed somehow, the enemy team will be in extreme trouble. Unless my team fed them just as equally. Then I might be in trouble. I know how you feel about your friends, but sometimes I focus on killing before objectives because they're probably going to "bother me". It usually ends with them dying or I get gangbanged and die horribly. I won't lament the death because well, team game. Probably my fault. Can I fix the mistake? Depends who I'm playing. If they just want kills and not objectives, they should probably go AP carry so you can as the top/adc/jungle take objectives, but I wouldn't really like to MMR boost people anyways. You could just stop playing with them if they won't try to improve, but I dunno man, your choice yo.[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe]Behaviour is the one that makes you play the game. Behaviour is the one that gave you the courage to play ranked, behaviour is the one that motivates you to do everything you can to win. If someone behaves like: "Hey, I am already the best", then that guy will not be motivated (enough) to keep improving, since he believes he is already there. If one behaves like: "Hey, I just made some mistakes and I disappointed both myself and/or my team. How can I prevent this mistake from happening again?" the guy will learn from his mistakes just by his behaviour. Motivation is so important for creating a change, without it, you will just go back to the old ways eventually. Addict saying he is going to stop with his addiction? Not without actually believing that that would be best for him. Lazy man saying he is going to finish his work? Not without actually believing that that work would be worth his efforts. League of Legends player with high ego becoming challenger? Not without actually believing that there is still a lot to improve.[/quote]

[quote=Wayne3100][quote=SpawnOfHell]Is attitude really such a powerful thing in helping you improve or am I overestimating its value?[/quote] You're definitely not overestimating it imo, though parts of what you are describing (your friends not roaming the map, getting objectives etc.) sound more like a lack of game knowledge than having the wrong mentality. Mentality is extremely important in LoL, easily one of the most important factors in playing this game. That goes for both how you approach the game (whether you care about improving and are able to recognise whose fault it is when things go wrong, especially when it's yours) as well as in what kind of mood you are (already feeling bad will inevitably lead to tilting easier and playing worse overall).[/quote]

[quote=SpawnOfHell]That's the point I want to make. If you want to improve you should know you need to improve. The issue with these guys is that they want rank, but the only way to get it is if they stop doing what they want to do (killing and getting good scores) in favor of what they should do (communicating, pushing leads, creating pressure). At the same time, they want to have fun, so it doesn't seem like there's any solution that satisfies them. The unacceptable part is how they treat the ones who get above them. Aside from myself, I've got a Plat friend who could easily get Diamond, and two Gold friends. I remember once I got Plat last year they literally just stopped inviting me to their custom 5v5 all premade games, and when I play normals with them, instead of using me as a resource to improve (and believe me, I try to help them) they joke about my rank with things like "diamond player will carry us hurr durr" and it just irritates me. I'm not the only one treated like this either, my Gold friend gets challenged because they don't believe he's better than them, which is true from a skill point of view, but he is, undoubtedly, a better player. I just find this behavior disgusting. Edit to avoid double post: [quote=Wayne3100]You're definitely not overestimating it imo, though parts of what you are describing (your friends not roaming the map, getting objectives etc.) sound more like a lack of game knowledge than having the wrong mentality.[/quote] My bad, I explained this bit poorly. They know that they [i]should[/i] be pressuring and building advantages, they just don't. They care more about their own satisfaction and visual scores than actually making sure they win the game. Which is stupid, because then they get mad when they lose and point at their scores like they did nothing wrong. Lacking game knowledge can be fixed. Absolutely refusing to acknowledge that you need to do certain things to improve is a lot harder. Worst part is, they actually seem to believe that they can win games while making mistakes as long as they get fed, which isn't true and only causes them to blame everything else.[/quote]

[quote=Hannul]it's clearly all your fault (no sarcasm here trust me)[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe][quote=Hannul] it's clearly all your fault (no sarcasm here trust me) [/quote] In all situations that includes multiple aspects, everyone is at fault, because all those aspects have an influence on the outcome. It's not really fair to blame a certain outcome all on just one person, because in the end it isn't totally his fault. There are ways to try to motivate them to improvement, but it isn't really easy and can actually be quite manipulative. If they cannot improve and you cannot convince them to become better, then so be it.[/quote]

[quote=SpawnOfHell]I'd just like to clarify one more thing: I'm not making this discussion because I don't like playing with my friends. I rarely do, and when I do play with them I can generally make up for them not trying to win games the right way. It just really frustrates me that I [i]need[/i] to pick up after them while they dick around and suicide for kills. It's not fun for me and it's not fun for them either if we end up losing, particularly since they start blaming. I generally escape the blame but it just confuses me how contradictory they can be: they want rank, but they don't want to get better to achieve it, but at the same time they don't like to lose. So is there any possible way to satisfy them?[/quote]

[quote=Hannul][quote=SpawnOfHell] I'd just like to clarify one more thing: I'm not making this discussion because I don't like playing with my friends. I rarely do, and when I do play with them I can generally make up for them not trying to win games the right way. It just really frustrates me that I [i]need[/i] to pick up after them while they dick around and suicide for kills. It's not fun for me and it's not fun for them either if we end up losing, particularly since they start blaming. I generally escape the blame but it just confuses me how contradictory they can be: they want rank, but they don't want to get better to achieve it, but at the same time they don't like to lose. So is there any possible way to satisfy them? [/quote] no[/quote]

[quote=EndingLegacy]I'm Diamond 1 with almost the exact situation. Started in and Climbed out of Bronze in August S3. Friends are Silver/Bronze. While their attitudes towards the game are okay, I personally feel like developing a better attitude has helped me improve overall. The reason why they can't go up is because they are lacking in mechanics and decision making. I used to play Competetive CS:GO and other FPS games, where flaming and shit talk was everyday. So I had really good mechanics and a bad attitude, which was what kept me in bronze/silver for the first 2 weeks. tl;dr Attitude does help, but you need good mechanics and decision making as well. Having all three is the special recipe to climbing elo. Except in bronze/silver having a good attitude is the most important because people will RQ/troll if you talk shit.[/quote]