5 Things League of Legends Taught Me About Human Behavior

For most people, League of Legends is a Video Game. Some players see it as a fighting simulator, others see it like chess on steroids, while there are still some who look for “fun” in it; whatever this means in the context of League of Legends.

For all the people who don’t know what League of Legends is, it’s hard to explain. But at its basic core, it’s a multiplayer Game in which two five-man teams compete over virtual resources that make them stronger (Experience for Levels, Gold for Items, etc.) while destroying each other’s base. The team that can get access to the most resources tends to win, but the win-condition is not dependent on having the most Gold but destroying the enemy, Nexus; a building protected by towers that need to be destroyed first. After 30 to 45mins, you either win or lose; and based on your results, the next time you play, you either get matched with a slightly better or slightly worse opponent (btw: this is achieved with Elo-Rating-System; really interesting!)

From this short explanation, I’m sure you can already see some similarities to situations we encounter in real life:

Individuals competing over resources
Individuals cooperating to achieve a shared goal
One group of people competing against another group of people with diametrically opposing goals

In other words, League of Legends is a closed system with conscious agents competing over different objectives. The rules may differ from the rules we experience in the real world (laws of nature, laws of states, laws of society, etc.), but it’s still a group of smart monkeys cooperating against another group of smart monkeys. Comparing our behaviors in both systems and finding the similarities can help us learn more about ourselves.

Disclaimer: Everything I’m mentioning in this list is based on subjective personal experience.

1. Humans Don’t Perform Well Under Stress

By the nature of the game, you can’t control everything. There will be certain games where one of your teammates just fails over and over again, giving your opponent the edge, and single-handedly losing you the game. For a lot of League of Legends players, this can be very frustrating.

What they don’t realize is that there is a good chance that they are part of this problem, even though they aren’t actually the one under-performing in critical situations.

How? Well, you have to know that getting killed by the enemy is usually no great feeling. Now, the enemy has the advantage, therefore he is able to kill you even quicker. To get back into the game, a player has to be as disciplined and controlled as he can, trying to get enough resources to claw his way back into relevance without dying over and over again. The absolute worst thing that can happen to him now is tilting.

For those who are not familiar with this term, it originated in poker:

Tilt is a poker term for a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming over-aggressive.

So, this is one of the biggest problems in league of legends. The first person making a mistake will usually get flamed and attacked by his teammates through a chat box. This puts the player under a lot of stress, increasing the chance of a tilt.

Every player does make mistakes. But this is not comparable to a tilted player. A tilted player is not only making way more mistakes than usual, but he rattles the cages of the other monkeys too. And once there are at least two tilted players, they will blame and flame each other, tilting the rest of the team until they are all busy figuring out whose fault it was in the first place, instead of focusing on a strategy to gain control of the game. This is a very certain road to failure.

So, if someone does a mistake, even in a critical situation, the first thing you should do is not say anything.

If another player reacts, ignore that as well. Starting a discussion through chat about the degree of “fucked” you are because of that teammate’s mistake won’t help him be chill and focused.

If you are good at “reading the room” and you find the right encouraging words, this can prevent any tilt. Most of the time, these words shouldn’t have anything to do with your teammate’s mistake, but rather it should be something game relevant. There are several objectives in the game that are way easier to get to with your team members. Calling an objective is a great way to steer the group’s focus to a more pressing matter, while generating momentum and an atmosphere that reduces stress, and therefore, tilt.

2. Great Performance Inspires Greatness in Others

This was a real Eureka Moment for me. I first experienced this myself without realizing it. A few years ago, when I was playing way more actively than I’m doing now, I played with two groups of people. One group was considerable worse than the other. Even though playing with the “bad” group gave me way easier opponents through the matchmaking algorithm (Elo), I really under-performed most of the time.

Playing with the good group matched me against greater players (High-Dia up to Challenger). And even though the enemy should be crushing me, I generally played really well, surprising myself with focused and controlled plays.

Why is that? There are some reasons that I believe are plausible:

If your teammates perform well, this removes some stress factors
If your teammates control the flow of the game well, finding the right mix of aggression and calmness, you tend to be less tilted
If your teammate makes a great play and he gets positive comments from his other team members, you are more likely to be at your best

This is something that translated really well to my real-life projects. Once I internalized this principle, I noticed that me working hard on a project inspired my team members to put in extra work as well. This led to way more projects being completed at a faster rate; and all I had to do was put in more work :)

3. Humans want to be in the spotlight — Supporting them leads to more wins

Why do players play this game in the first place? I think for most people it’s not about winning but about being the person who contributed most to the win (and having every other person notice this).

This may sound petty, but honestly, almost everything humans do is to impress others and/or make themselves feel good. I mean, when was the last time you contributed food for a group event, like baking a cake for a friend? If you’ve tried that, I bet you $50 that while working your ass off you fantasized about your cake being the best anyone would ever taste. First, the guests would ask the host who baked this delightful greatness. After the host points at you, you are surrounded by everyone asking you about the recipe. You’ll be the center of attention, everybody will love you and you will be happy. At least, in your fantasy, right?

Every human wants to get attention from other humans, and feel special. It’s just the way we evolved; after all, we are just a (smart) group animal.

So, this applies especially to a video-game catering to our more primal motivations like fighting and dominating our enemies.

The problem is, because the resources a team can get are limited, most of the time only 1–3 people played the first 10–20min well enough to be in a spotlight position. If you aren’t one of those players, the smart thing you should do is support them, let them lead, and adapt your plays according to what they are doing. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is force the enemy to attack you instead of your more valuable teammate, even if this increases your risk of dying.

But doing this means accepting that a stranger played better than you. And adjusting your play-style to help him excel will only put him more in the spotlight and you further away from that.

This is really counter-intuitive, because most of us were told that WE are the special ones. Nobody taught us the value of being a good second or third. Nobody taught us that real greatness can be doing the thing that helps another to achieve your goals with you, even if it means that someone will get the praise for it instead of you.

4. Positive Reinforcement >> Negative Feedback

This one is something that ties in with the reasoning of the above-mentioned points. We already learned that negative feedback, aka flame, increases the number of tilted players in your game.

Positive Reinforcement is one of the most basic core loops of human behavior.

Telling your team members “good job” for something done well helps you steer the course of the game. There are some ‘obvious’ good plays; most of the time these are the riskier but flashier plays. Also, there are lots of great plays happening that don’t look that impressive because it was more a feat of control and discipline, rather than reflexes and skillfulness. Positively reinforcing these plays greatly increases your overall win rate as it encourages your team members to repeat such plays.

This works really well in real life too. If you are ever interested in steering the course of a group slightly in one direction or the other while increasing overall performance, positive reinforcement should be the first thing to consider.

Possible Side Effects: People will perform better, often do the things you want them to do, and they will tend to like you more as you are the one giving them the gratification they crave.

5. There is no growth if you blame others for your situation

This one is really important. This is like the ultimate lesson you can take away from this 7-year long running experiment.

So, in League of Legends, you can climb a ranking-ladder. It goes like this Bronze->Silver->Gold->Platinum->Diamond->Maters->Challenger. The distribution looks something like this:

Generally speaking, the more you play, the better you get; and the better you get, the higher you will climb.

But there is a phenomenon I first discovered with a friend of mine. He decided to play just one champion, making him a one-trick player. Generally speaking, if you spend all your time playing just one champion, you will be able to play him to his fullest potential. Generally speaking.

But even though he played more games than me and my other friends combined, and even though he focused his efforts on only one single champion, he still couldn’t get out of silver while we were already climbing our way to platinum.

Why didn’t he excel like we did?

The difference was the mindset. After every game he lost, he came raging in our TeamSpeak, complaining about how he always gets the bad teammates, teammates that make it impossible for him to climb.

Well, the problem was just that. Not the bad teammates but him focusing on the bad teammates. Every time he lost a game he tried to rationalize why it wasn’t his fault. Short term, this might protect him from feeling bad, but on a long term, this makes it unable for him to improve. After all, how can you improve if you can't see your own mistakes?

Players in higher-elo know the only thing they can change are themselves. Even if their teammates play bad and are seemingly the reason their team loses, most high-ranked players don’t see this as a reason to flame and discourage their teammates, but instead they are motivated to improve even more so next time they will be strong enough to compensate for that.

They are focused on their own performance instead of that of their teammates, and this is the only way to improve, not only in video games but everywhere in life.

In Conclusion

If you haven’t noticed, or maybe you skipped to the conclusion, the word “teammate” refers to both the people in your team in-game and those you meet in the real world.

If a teammate is stressed, don’t push their buttons.
If you want to inspire your teammates to greatness, give it everything you got.
It’s okay to not be the person in the spotlight. While everyone wants to play the leading role, they need the support of other people so they can really shine.
Use positive feedback to motivate your teammates and to reinforce the kind of behavior you want to see more often.
The only way to improve is to accept full accountability for your mistakes and to acknowledge them.