Is League A Single Player Game? | Broken by Concept 222 League of Legends Podcast

[@carcosa_tyrant9444]

I treat league like a roguelite. Sometimes you get bad npcs and sometimes you get good ones. Sometimes you get a really good run and sometimes you get a bad dice roll and go next. Makes the game a lot less frustrating.

[@thegraveofeinstein7820]

Really not a fan of this way of thinking myself because it completely removes my own impact from the equation. Yes, it is luck weather or not my teammates are good or bad, but thinking about that is taking mental energy away from looking at myself and how I am doing. If treated league like a dice roll, and I am climbing or dropping based on pure luck, I would be getting way more frustrated at the game because I would feel like I have no control over it.

[@oW0LFP4CKo]

​@@thegraveofeinstein7820you perfectly described how I feel every time I play. Regardless of my own mental state, how I play, how hard I try and learn and grow as a player, I still feel like it's a total dice roll and it sucks my soul out every time because games I play really well - it doesn't matter because the enemy team's fed, and games I play horribly - it doesn't matter because my team steam rolled the enemy. It really does feel like I am irrelevant. And it's sad because I've been playing this game since beta

[@thegraveofeinstein7820]

@@oW0LFP4CKo There is a reason that the “end of review” moment this podcast talks about ad nouseam happens when you have lost control of the game. Perhaps the best thing you can have in a game is control over the outcome, which is not something too easy to come by in a game like league. I wish you luck on being able to find it, friend.

[@durf88]

@@thegraveofeinstein7820 I get your point, but playing roguelites is not just a dice roll. Playing them is a combination of random dice rolls for the game environment and your own skill. It's that second part that prevents them from being "pure luck" as you suggested. Sure, you can get wildly variable outcomes for the environment part, but ignoring the user input entirely is incorrect and defeatist.

[@otsugua77]

​@@thegraveofeinstein7820 i just had a match as hecarim, i put my pick on display like my teammates, they start typing that they want a purple team, picking morgana, varus and jax, i was firat picking and instalock hecarim the jax, that is toplane, gets angry at me bc im too blue and so he picks soraka with smite, the game starts and i have no chat so at some poit he probably talked with the midlaner to sawp, he comes to my chikens lvl 1 and smites them puting me a level behind for the rest of the early game, i still didn t give up so i full clear etc. The moment he is ganked by the enemy lee he goes afk and dies. At the end of the game after smiting my things multiple times and running it down he ends the game 3/11 without having leveled up his W. How am i supposed do not think that the ppl playing this game are not random npcs? Sry just wanted to vent out a bit too mb. Now im in a loosing streak again but its all good just need to queue again and roll the dice

[@byakuya585]

i dont entirely recall purely from memory, but do correct me if i am wrong. I believe the main reason stated by LS during his conversation with curtis regarding looking at league as a single player game were for players too hold themself responsible for their actions during the game. I would assume thinking of your teammates as AI is a psychological thing to prevent yourself from hiding your mistakes/flaws as its a fairly common & easy trap too fall into when it comes to blaming your teammates.

[@confusednerd3171]

Yes this exactly!!!

[@trystan4358]

I can read this an instantly know you are emerald or higher and if not you will be soon

[@joshwisdom6715]

I wanted to chip in on the discussion about the player who afk farms up to diamond and then gets hardstuck. The immediate comparison that popped into my mind is what we in the fighting game community call the “lab monster”. This is the player who spends all their time learning the fanciest, most damaging combo. Usually these kinds of players will make it up to about platinum or diamond equivalents and then start struggling hard against the players who have a game plan and solid neutral because they can never get in and get the hit off to start the combo in the first place, making that combo essentially useless.

[@AlfAlpha56]

I think the potential benefit to pretending like your team is just advanced AI is it could help you let go of trying to please (or conversely, not piss off) your teammates, and instead focus purely on whether or not a play is high or low percentage. It eliminates the psychological interferences that can come from playing with other humans (I’m sure there are also positive psychological components that come from playing with other humans, like creativity). I’m neutral on whether or not this is the right mindset to have, but I think this is one way that mindset is validated.

[@HebiSnake]

I think it's for game review. It's a multiplayer game, but you should treat mistakes in the game as if it's a singleplayer game.

[@lihisluikku]

For me, the LS advice is what made jungle playable. Before I would constantly be overwhelmed with all the pinging, all the "omg zero ganks at x minutes" noise. And even if I muted all, I'd still feel this pressure and expectation. The judgement of another player wanting me to fix what they fucked up, as if it was my sole job. Just to put a death on the enemy laner's score so they feel better about themselves, to knock that enemy down a bit, so they didn't just die in 1v1 for nothing. But the "treat it as a single player game" and "see the enemies and allies as AI that just behave in certain patterns or sometimes unpredictably" advice, is what removed the emotional decision making from my play. I would constantly make poor choices based on emotion. "my team just inted so I have to go in as well, so they don't spam ping me and blame me for not coming to make the 2v5 a 3v5". If I see these other players as human beings, I will make terrible choices based on how I expect them to feel. If dehumanize them in my mind for the duration of the game, I only make rational choices. And focusing on my own farm, is a good strategy for low elo. YOU need to be stronger every game to climb. Having your team be stronger is good. But only half as good as YOU being stronger. You only have control over yourself not throwing. If you spent all your time going top to get a Jax fed 12/0 gifting all the kills to him and sacrificing all your farm to be there to hold his hand, that's all good. Until he decides he is a big boy, runs it down at 20 minutes and there goes your entire gold lead, the enemy takes baron and 3 turrets with it. Jax types "team gap uncarryable" and does a /ff. What now? Well you're kinda screwed now. But imagine if you just took your camps on the timer, grabbed some of the kills, maybe the Jax is only 4/1 because of it. Now it does not matter as much if Jax runs it down. YOU get to be the strong character with smite. YOU can make a pick happen and collect 4 drakes. YOU can dominate the enemy team and assist any other player on your team who you spot as a potential carry. And it is precisely the "view it as single player" tip, that allows us non-sociopath/psychopath players to disconnect our human emotions and empathy, our feelings from the game. If that Jax you helped get fed runs it down? Well he is just a variance with a probability to do that. Sometimes it happens. If it was a person whom I trusted as an ally, I'd be angry and frustrated over his behavior. But if I see it just as a simulation designed to sometimes make my game randomly harder, I can't be mad, I just have to figure out how to beat the game anyway.

[@paritybit7830]

I think the 'single-player game' view is brilliant, honestly. It means multiple things: 1, yes, don't listen to calls... you can have pings on and use them as an information source, but make a decision independently. 2, relatedly, don't expect anyone else to win the game, *you* win the game. You can use allied champions, as distractions, meat shields, automated lane pushers, whatever, to accomplish this, but *you* need to find and execute the winning strategy. 3. The allied champions opinion and feelings don't matter, if they are NPCs they don't even *have* opinions or feelings. 4. If they are just NPCs, then nothing they do is personal. Not spam pinging, not supports clearing waves with better AoE than you have, not junglers smiting your cannon in front of you, not even laners running it down mid. They're perhaps glitching out or perhaps this is a 'hard mode' match but it can't be personal if they are an NPC. In short, play exactly as if it's a single player 'escort mission' where allied deaths are penalized but not instant loss, and the win condition is to destroy the enemy nexus. Of course, you don't *have* to use the single player game analogy, but the other way to phrase it is pretty ugly and people will be fairly resistant to advice like: "Be callous and selfish. Play for yourself alone, and ignore anyone else's opinions, feelings, or desires." That sounds like being a bad person and a bad teammate -- and indeed, it would be if you were actually on a *team* and not matchmade with randoms. But you're (probably) not on a team and are matchmade with randoms and that is how you have to play. If you're already callous and selfish by nature (you probably call it 'thick skinned' to save your feelings) then you don't need the 'single-player game' analogy.

[@liamflan9553]

No but it’s not a singleplayer game, everything you do is because it’s another person. As a midlaner, I go into the enemy jungle to help my real jungler and annoy the enemy jungle(the players behind the screen)

[@wisdomandy9361]

I have to mute everyone or I'll get dragged into the toxic crap. I still get triggered sometimes but if no one is there to fuel me being triggered i can focus back into the game pretty quickly.

[@everything-has-a-handle-now]

For me the main reason to treat it as a single player game is that it allows me to emotionally disconnect from my teammates

[@liamflan9553]

Nah I love the multiplayer aspect, that when you kill someone you are directly trolling him

[@Dark2NeS]

i have been stuck plat/emerald for 3 years now. listening to your teammates pings is BY FAR the fastest way to ruin your econ and the FASTEST way to lose the game. especially on a top laner who is behind and spam pinging. As jungler laners can't accept this, you decide who gets to be helped/ganked, and they try to manipulate or shame you into being under their leadership. As a jungler, NO OTHER TEAMMATE SHOULD BE YOUR LEADER YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE IN CHARGE OR PINGING EVERY FKIN MIA AND EVERY FIGHT. most of my losses that i review my worst decision is following my worst mates idea, after he has like, 100 bad ideas. not ok. GREAT TOPIC

[@Dark2NeS]

lack of discipline in coming up with your own gameplan is extremely bad, and listening to opponents pings that are bad is just an extension of me not getting the win and lose cons. fax being lost is real even in emerald or platinum! especially during midgame!

[@fish-rm6xl]

yeah i just fullmute these days except jg and if they do a bad ping / call i just mute them too.

[@YuYuYuna_]

Yeah leaving pings/chat on is the worst thing most players and especially new players do. Just about everyone I see that comes to league treats it like a true genuine "team" game when league is basically a roguelite where you are given a bunch of variables and the only consistent one is you. Focus on getting yourself ahead i.e aim for good cs (8/9+cs/m) and stacking waves when you can to get off better recalls, etc. all the fundamentals. The trap most people fall into is trying to play League like it's team game when it's not. Focus on yourself, practice your fundamentals and most importantly /mute all or /deafen and disable chat. So many league players say "flaming helps me calm down" maybe in the moment but hurting your mindset as a player and you will never improve if you are flaming every game.

[@LettuceStop]

I thought I agreed with Curtis' perspective as opposed to LS until the comment at 9:00 where Curtis says that whether it is advanced AI or human doesn't change how you react to the scenario, but I think it absolutely does. I think a good example of this is Ender's Game (spoilers ahead, though been a while since I'd read it so may not be totally accurate). In the story, Ender is a kid being trained in military strategy by playing war games, and becomes increasingly better and better at the games. His superiors have him continue as normal commanding the fleet in what he still believes to be a game, where in the final mission he ends up sacrificing much of the fleet to ensure success. It is later revealed that the simulation was actually real, and that he lead many of his allies to their deaths, but in the end secured victory. Had Ender known that he was commanding other humans, he likely would hold back, try to preserve their lives, and jeopardize their chances of success. But by assuming that they were just AI, he didn't have to worry about the emotional weight of the decisions and could act completely rationally/mathematically to win. The same things happen in league, at least to some people. They get caught up in trying to appease their teammates and keep everyone's interests in mind. They don't want to upset others, and will obey the requests of others as to avoid flame. If you instead assume that they are just AI, you remove this component and free yourself mentally to make the correct decisions.

[@Murimz]

? I have no idea what saints youve been playing with but nobody i know actually cares what their solo q teammates feel like. In the example you provided, its about human life vs a videogame. In league theres no real sacrifice lol. /mute all /mutepings all (to unmute pings) is all you need. Whether they are human or robots, the winning variable will remain the same, so nothing really changes.

[@Sentio9999]

@@Murimz oh they absolutely care. it's just not necessarily empathy. Often times they care about feeling superior to other people or they want their teammates to "feel carried" or want them to even feel bad about themselves. They aren't positive forms of caring but its still caring. Most people aren't going to talk down to or care about the perception of Bots. That is a big difference.

[@bentleysayer5812]

I think the advanced AI is more in reference to if I make a mistake, there isn’t someone pissed at me as opposed to a god complex

[@AlfAlpha56]

Personally speaking I think the “mute all” thing can turn into a superiority complex, but it’s also partly just a defense mechanism for my mental/emotional state in the game, which in turn allows me to play better for my teammates. Obviously the downside is that you sacrifice a certain element of responsive gameplay and communication with them, and it could be argued that this more negatively outweighs whatever impact my calm mental/emotional state is having on the game. It’s a tricky one to navigate.

[@shibaraccoon8740]

It’s not superiority if you know the better call for your role, and knowing that you can be influenced out of your call by a teammate begging for help. We are social creatures we are susceptible to others of our kind needing help, it’s called empathy. You need to build up your shot calling as a jungler, not the other way around, blindly trusting others calls that may or may not work, KNOW what works for your champion

[@fortcolors9887]

Generally speaking, it's safe to assume that you know your own role better than people who are equivalent level in their own role. A diamond jungler is almost certainly a better jungler than a diamond laner, simply because they're both diamond at their own specialty.

[@danielburkow5709]

Single player as AI: Don't worry about the emotional well being of teammates if your decisions don't line up with their wants. You are responsible for deciding how to evolve the game from your champion's ability and the anger/frustration/happiness of teammates is irrelevant. They are just "AI." Single player as meta-game in ranked: Only you can improve on the factors that decrease game variance (farming, pathing, rotations, team fights, etc.) by optimizing your own play and adapting (reactively or proactively) to the game state and what your champ wants to do. Teammates do not impact your decision making, teammates are not why you are losing. Your win rate is (almost) entirely in your hands. Single player as greedy "I have to carry": Mentality helps identify in what way your plays retroactively made or broke the game state. Can be interpreted as toxic if you go around stealing farm - but that's not "optimal" play, and your choice to do so is a failure on your own decision making. Interpreting it as "main character syndrome" is a failure in decision making, no one needs to be catering to you (else it wouldn't be "single player"). I think that there is a lot of good in considering it "single player" because it removes the onus of team mates doing the "right thing" onto you deciding on the "optimal strategy GIVEN your team's decisions." It's not necessarily your jungler splitting bot when baron is up that lost the game, but how you played around it. I see "single player game" as short form stand-in for a lot of these ideas. Not a static, formulaic ideology that means only "ignore team and win solo" which I see it misinterpreted as a lot.

[@zingthegnar]

30:25 this is a really frustrating point to hear As someone who was in that headspace for a long time, I did make repeated efforts to hire coaches, and they were consistently unable to explain why I had a lack of understanding or why a game wasn't a teammates fault. I could consistently explain what my teammates were doing that caused lost games. I even had one coach refund me because he watched me get hard inted in a live session

[@karenwang313]

League is 10 single player games going on at the same time. That's what makes the game so frustrating, it's too team reliant to treat as a real single player game but we're not given enough tools to actually coordinate with our teammates. That's part of the reason why comms would be so huge for the average playerbase.

[@christiansirracha3108]

As one of the of the people that jamy has coached (I’m in iron) his approach has really helped me a lot as im trying to feel out all the matchups and start to understand what on earth is going on.

[@benjaminverbel9389]

I’ve been trying to be more objective oriented lately and have seen a much bigger win percentage. Based off of trusting my junglers judgement as a mid laner has helped me climb. They might not make the best calls all of the time(like you guys said at the 12 minute mark) but eventually I can get a feel for what they need for their own win conditions. Good video

[@Ranked_Journey]

1:10:00 I feel what Curtis is saying. I find picking up new things "easy", at least it's easy to hyperfocus on it, but improving at it, gaining mastery feels super, super hard.

[@StayMad26]

At 37:00 Kid Cudi-By Design Lyrics - When you think too much you're removing what's moving.

[@Aaronsplace]

Im 400 lp this split and usually get to around 800 every season. I have deafened every single game for years at this point. Sure if I get a r1 player or something ill unmute pings but theres never an elo where your entire team deserves to be unmuted tbh

[@ummerkasana]

Hard agree. Got to diamond for the first time doing this.

[@YuYuYuna_]

@@ummerkasana Also hard agree. Same as you first time to diamond this year after being stuck in old plat and then emerald for about 1 1/2 years. So much useless info is pinged or the pings are just toxic. Whether or not ppl want to admit it those pings distract you and can affect your mental in a game. Best to deafen or mute all and grind out your fundamentals and study high elo YT vods for your champs.

[@ummerkasana]

@@YuYuYuna_ Yup. Spot on. I main support and I see a lot of good roams. So I go for them. 90% of the time my adc cries for me and tells me not to roam so much, but I can feel the impact it's having. Around low emerald, there was a point where I was 23-5 in my last 28 games. If its working, I'll abuse it more. The enemy nami is usually afk, watching 2 adcs farm. If I had actually listened to those emerald adcs and played around them, I might still be stuck in Emerald with them. I think pings should be sacred. If you want to flame, do it in chat. But people abuse pings too, so I have to mute them as well. If I get caught out by a roam or gank, I just blame myself. I should've known that guy was missing. I just hyper obsess over my own mistakes and not worry what anyone else is doing. My jungler will be 1/7/1 SOON. IT WILL HAPPEN. I'm just ready when it does and I don't rage/blame/afk. Just move on and accept variance.

[@wintermoondaze]

21:00 This reminds me of a meme within fighting games, specifically ‘anime’ fighting games that have alot of mechanics in them (Blazblue, older versions of Guilty Gear, etc). Often times, characters in these games have super abusable offensive pressure and set ups where you can absolutely destroy people who dont know exactly how to defend or avoid these sequences, to the point where alot of players have learned these scenarios, but lack in their own ability to defend or just block to begin with

[@michaelmagwood9211]

Yesterday I played a match of League as Kayn, I was level 4 at 7m07s in game with Blue Form. I intentionally avoided my camps due to the intensity of the game. Was vs a Skarner, so similar gank angles. After that, catchup exp made up for everything I missed. I was 6 on the first 3grubs which I collect 1m later. This was in Plat/Emerald elo. I treat the game as single player, but that doesn’t mean to be oblivious. It means to not have others make up your mind for you.

[@garagavia]

I wish we got more Broken By Concept each week! Feels like the episode just flew by and now I have to wait another week for more 😢

[@Ezurial]

I think its fair to take an egocentric approach. If im going to climb, i have to believe that my plan for climbing is going to work, and then play enough ganes to test that idea. That doesn’t mean i get to blame my team when i lose, just that trusting my gameplan in the moment is always a correct choice because i will learn faster doing what i think i should and then checking it afterwards than believing that whatever random team mate i have is going to teach me the lessons that will take me to my desired goal. I AM special, because im the only person thats going to be in all of my games, im the only one that cares about climb, and im the only one who has an actual responsibility to help me improve

[@paritybit7830]

Yeah, for *years* people have been telling low Elo players to keep working on their farm until they get 10cs/min, on reddit, on the old forums, where ever. As general advice, it's crap advice. If it has to come with a caveat that it doesn't *actually* mean "get 10cs/min every game or you're doing it wrong", it's crap advice. Snippet advice should still be *fundamentally true.* It might have exceptions, because it's a snippet without extended detail, but it shouldn't be *mostly false* and 'just a mindset'... if it needs context to understand correctly, it shouldn't be snippet advice. I don't particularly blame LS for this, and maybe in his sessions he gives it the complicated context to make it not crap advice *in that setting,* but... I'm pretty sure the 10cs/min BS has been circulating for long enough that he's not the originator, just stirring the pot when people had finally started advising more realistic and rank-scaled CS target advice. Although, frankly, 'cs better' advice in *general* is crap advice. You get good CS because you have the *opportunity* to clear wave after wave because you (or your team) played the game well in ways that have nothing to do with CSing itself. You killed or forced back your opponents, you outmaneuvered your opponents to get safe pushing opportunities. If you're only working on your 'farming', you won't get better and you won't get high CS, but 'farm better' is the easy advice to give because at first glance of an op.gg, KDA and farm are all you see, so the advice is *always* either 'die less' or 'farm better'. I mean, it's free advice from public forums, and you get what you pay for I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still crap advice.

[@fortcolors9887]

i agree with most of your comments, but I want to add that "cs better" is actually pretty good advice for very very low elo players. Beginners struggling with cs will miss multiple minions per wave even when their lane opponent is in base or roaming. "cs better" is unironically good advice for them. The way I like to think about cs is 3 phases 1) getting minions where the opponent isn't pressuring you (because you have lane control or they're in base or roaming or whatever) 2) getting minions where the opponent is threatening you 3) getting more minions to appear on your screen if a player is struggling with 1, then "cs better" is very good advice for them. If a player is struggling with 2, cs better might be good advice or maybe they need to get better at other laning skills. If the player's problem is 3, then "cs better" is completely useless advice for them because its such a massive topic with so many different factors to it.

[@paritybit7830]

@@fortcolors9887 Sure, I mean, that's fair. I just feel like in modern league, that only applies to new players. Anyone complaining about being 'hard stuck' in a rank almost certainly knows how to last hit. If not they are probably hard stuck Iron IV 0LP. I have recommended people to practice farming while dodging skill shots from an intermediate bot for practice, although to me it's a dodge practice exercise, it is technically a dodge-and-farm exercise, I even call it a 'farming under pressure' exercise. (And yes, I know lol dodge game exists. Idk about that though, it doesn't feel like the real game.) But honestly, this applies to very few, very low ranked players. Bronze is probably to too high a rank for people to need this kind of remedial practice, but you'll still hear (or read more likely) 'farm better' advice given to the whole range of metal ranks at least. Pretty sure I see it given to Emerald/Diamond players too, although not as relentlessly.

[@forreal5448]

taking a break from the game helps too. I'm back after 2 years off and so far my perpective on the game is much more relax. I literaly don't take it nowhere near as serious as I did back then.Not even bothering reading the chat and when I do i find it funny when people are raging, doesn't resonate with me anymore.

[@StayMad26]

At 21:10 i have a very good example. When I was playing overwatch 1 I grinded widowmaker death match and aim train drills and normal death matches. I got so good at 1 shotting people it carried me very far. Genjis and tracers could jump me and I would 1 tap them. I had 0 awareness, horrible poitioning, poor grapple usage. Then when I got to diamond somewhere, and olayers started co-ordinating dives and focusing me properly and using sheilds ans matrix properly even with aimbot I wouldnt be able to 1 shot someone i got stuck there. Then I found a video on positioning and watched it and eventually watched every video on that guys channel. I eventually climbed to top500 with 200 ping just because I was a better quality player and not relying on just aim.

[@ETFigureunboxingE]

Low elo players don’t even know “what they should want”

[@coolbrotherf127]

I think it's good to not let the social interaction part not ruin the focus. Although, it is important to remember that every player is still human and will make human mistakes. A lot of climbing and doing well in the game is mental and out smarting the opponents.

[@mrwater2033]

in Soloq/ranked games ask yourself: What is my goal with this? Do you need to prove yourself? Are you attempting to go pro/play for 5 man premade team? Playing in duoq makes soloq a lot more enjoyable. If you already know your consistent rank I don't think it's worth playing alone coming from someone who has done 90-95% soloq games since s3. You can have fun while being serious at the same time in duoq. Though if you do decide to soloq alone then the positive thing is that you can just mute all and do your own decisions. I wouldn't mute the midlaner's pings though for the early game.

[@kazeryuu3603]

From my understanding of what LS said is more related to playing jungle effectively. One of the junglers he likes a lot is Fiddlesticks and what Fiddle wants to do in a game? Farm to level 6 and land good ultimates. In this context I think LS may be right. In low elo if you farm efficiently and do only high percentage plays you'll definitely climb. I would also add that on the LS church terminology there's a term of sinner and saint. Sinner is a champion that needs to win early and will do anything to achieve that (even doing high risk plays). Saint is a champion that will win the game by scaling (doing nothing) so he doesn't need to force anything because in a neutral game state he will win. As you can guess he often recomends scaling champions which match the single-player mentality.

[@marcusscribner1603]

I think the 10 cs per minute guide line is good as a new player. I just think there needs to be elaboration. Focus on last hitting well. Understanding your champions kit. How to farm under tower. And thinking critically about how to obtain such a large amount of cs WITHOUT dying then leads to them figuring out they need to undersrand wave states and catching side lane farm and not just araming. In the long run might lose a lot of games but it helped me at the beginning of my ranked journey😊

[@siegpasta]

League is OBVIOUSLY not a single player game. It's multi player. I think everyone who plays the game no matter what rank or even normals, knows this FACT. But... to treat it as a single player game when you are learning, treating everyone else as NPC's is just the best way to learn. Because otherwise you will get worked up and attatch emotions to certain things, bla bla. If you just go on the sigma male grind and expect it to be a single player game, that also means you must take responsability for everything that happens in the game even if you didn't cause it directly and I think this is what LS means... but he just refined it into fewer words. I think refined thoughts are better than longer ones, because if you want to learn then you can. If you want to figure out what "treat it as a single player game" means then you can. But if you get stuck up on the word single player, such as you should just say "fuck off" to your team and troll them? Then you obviously are just getting stuck up on words when the meaning doesn't make any sense because it was said in the context of learning the game. I just think you made a mountain out of an anthill here.

[@YuYuYuna_]

I mean for the purposes of you learning the game properly and knowing what purpose/function your role plays in the game is vital to your ability to progress as a player. League is a "team" or "multiplayer" game only in the sense that you all are required to work together at certain times. When people refer to league as a single player game they just mean to not treat it as a genuine multiplayer/team game. That's the misconception most players make with league. You'll hear your friends or people in chats asking streamers "how can I know when to help my team and when not to? I don't want to not help them and be that shitty teammate" and it shows they've completely misread what League is. League is a game where you should go into every match thinking about YOUR matchup, who the enemy JG champ is, think about how you want to manage your wave, can you get lvl 2 first? etc. If you ever want to help your team you need to ask yourself "If i rotate does my champion change anything about that fight?" If the answer is yes i.e. you have lux q to root the master yi so he can't get into auto range and you can kill, then yes move. If the answer is no and you moving changes nothing because your champ's kit won't change the outcome then don't move. Once you start viewing league in those terms you start to realize how easy most common situations are to solve. The "single player" term usage is to get people's view of decision making in league more in-line with what is actually needed to get better, to improve, and as a result to climb. You can help your team out on a bad play and die with them or be forced to flash and be low hp so you have to base and miss several waves, etc. OR you can play with the mindset/thought process of "Does me moving here change anything? Do I have the abilities/CC/dmg to change the outcome of the fight?" The former will keep you stuck in low elo for years and years wondering if your account is bricked or if your just really unlucky and are getting bad players every game, etc. The latter will make you self reliant. THAT is the main takeaway from all of this really. You want to be as self reliant in League as possible and that means both in your thought process/decision making and your gameplay. If you can help your team and you're not going to fall massively behind and the play will decide the game, then move. If it's a dumb fight and you moving does nothing, ignore it and farm. This is where disabling chat and /muting or /deafening comes in. The bad players in your games that have been stuck there for years (probably like you) will spam ??? ping you and flame you in chat. They don't understand the game and even if you think you can help them understand by explaining in chat... it won't help them. They just want an excuse so they don't have to mentally admit they played bad.

[@Manifibell]

I wish there was an option to remove the border from Loading Screens. The border can mess with one's mentality.

[@MHGFTW]

8.5CS is the most I've had so far. Sometimes I have as low as 5. Generally I have around 6. I haven't even unlocked ranked yet, so as long as it's a metric I keep in mind, I'm not too worried about is. There's so much I can work on. Getting CS and good trades in lane is a nice goal, but often I play against champs I don't fully know the abilities and ranges of.

[@Actimelv]

genuine question (day 1): I got placed bronze II in 2022 when i just did my placement games. Didn't know anything about the game, macro, micro and all that. I was just bad. I quit after that due to uni and stuff. 4 weeks ago I started to take it more serious and watch some youtube vids. Picked up mid lane orianna and did really well in normals. Sometimes getting over 15 or even 20 kills, taking multiple turrets and not dying a lot, with 6-7 cs/min. So I decided to go ranked and got placed into iron IV. After 60+ games, im still at 25 LP in iron IV with a 37% win rate. So my question is: was I really better when I was winging it, or did iron IV players just become better? I get -25 LP for a loss and +25 for a win no matter how good or bad I play. I don't like the victim mentality of blaming my teammates (although sometimes that's easier said than done but I never flame them). I'm just wondering if orianna is a bad pick in iron (it seems like not many players know her kit), or that I just need to keep playing her.

[@Actimelv]

note: i can accept the rank, but at the same time I feel so hopeless given that i played like an absolute noob and got placed in bronze II back then. That's why I want to know if it did actually get so much harder, or if I screwed myself by picking ori.

[@dianacarolina3399]

Regarding the need to play different roles to get a wholistic view of the game: I didn't think it's necessary if you have friends that play those other roles and actually have discussions with them. Even though we have this view that league is a single player game, it doesn't have to be. I'm a support main (Velkoz), my spouse is a top main (Irelia), most of our friends that still play are mid/bot/ARAM players, obviously we get filled into jungle at times. Often times in champ select/loading screen I ask about my team's matchups if it's unfamiliar or a champion's power spikes on SR - even when we're spectating or watching games (streamers or pro play). We're very well versed on champions due to all the ARAMs we play, and bot lane sees all types of champs so i can make informed decisions about my own lane matchups, but I use the information from my friends to help establish our macro/win conditions. When i climb solo i tend to remember those discussions/insights. If i lose or have a question about a game i can go to my friends and talk about it to get the perspective of people more familiar with those roles. I don't have a desire to learn other lanes, i just have to understand enough to win the game or to be able to review for feedback. I don't have the mental capacity or desire to learn another role inside out, i know enough for those roles for when i get filled to make it to my champions' power spikes and then play the game out the best that i can.

[@FoxiestLia]

I feel that there are both positives and negatives of looking at your teammates as Bots instead of humans. Personally if I could do that I’d be far less frustrated when I see absolutely wild stuff that just breaks my mind by proximity psychological damage. But I can see how it also creates a ground for a superiority complex. Personally I know what I suck at, I just do not know how to improve. (Have several friends way better than me who have tried to help me improve, but my brain does not comprehend I guess)

[@fortcolors9887]

i didnt know about the debate so i went and watched it just now before watching this video (44 mins into that rn) god damn curtis was so crystal clear about why annie is bad for low elo players i'm so glad he was able to express his position well. As someone who has played very little midlane I was definitely convinced to not play Annie. I also think it's such a huge leap from the time when he used Annie as the example champion in the "bronze is easy" video he did back before he started the low elo MLS

[@relentless3589]

I think the main point of the "Treat it like a single player game" was because players get into the habit of focusing on what everyone else is doing that could sabotage or lose them the game. With a game like league you are the only common denominator in all of your games, if you focus on yourself and treat everyone else like bots it forces you to learn from your mistakes and take accountability. It helps you focus on what you could be doing in the game actively(getting high farm, doing objectives, looking for opportunities to get ahead and helps prevent tilt from the "AI" making the game harder. I don't think it was intended to come off elitist, LS was simply trying to saying that you have to be self sufficient and focus on yourself to improve and saying it in a way that would give you the right mindset not to fall into the trap of blaming others for the outcomes of your games which tends to hold LOTS of players back from reaching their goals.

[@GuiltyDM]

I currently treat the game as single player with randomly generated AIchatBots with different skill levels and temperments I do believe a part of winning the game is team management. There are some high quality statements you can say at the beginning of the game that actually help the team. My pings are also inputs. If im playing Liss or Malz and ping my A&F up that often results in the jungler or support rotating to my lane. All of this falls in line with the game at its core being a game of situational analysis and puzzle solving with a focus on logic and reasoning.

[@dumpsterplayer2700]

a martial arts example i can think of in regards to locked cam junglers. Imagine a fighter that was really good at a roundhouse kick, it's strong fast and is flexible but wasn't very good at other kicks. What happens when he runs into a fighter in intermidate who can defend against that kick? he has nothing else in his kit to get ahead. It's good to specialise, but should have a diversity of tactics..

[@Alexcv215]

We are all incompetent but when it occurs am i allowed to think i am slightly more competent than the yummi top laner? @7:38 i wanted you to go even deeper here. so lets say that a little ping can go a long way. i pan my camera over and analyze the wave state or I hotkey to look at that laner and I add that information to my mental stack as an iron or as aa bronze. The likelyhood that its bad information and a distraction is not worth it. And if it's important enough i should be able to grow enough to see it through vod reviews or through becoming a better solo player. Mute is not only better for lower elo players but i would argue a must to manage your own mental stack. the discipline it takes to "ignore a ping" is far too great and detrimental of a practice when in high elo you may need that awareness and can't afford to just turn it off in your mind. Imaging going from Iron to plat and just ignoring pings is how you play....might as well be mute and turn it on later when you have players that ping valuable information.

[@cutegirls2932]

I just checked as a farming jg main on leagueofgraphs when +2 kills @10 minutes I have 100%wr in 70 games I do dodge and remake for favorable games anyway so if I get a little lead and dark seal it's just insanely free

[@DerpSerpi]

the single-player thing sounds like stage 4 issues to me. people get ranked anxiety because they're disappointing real people with their gameplay in a bad game and it's real people pinging them etc., so it's more comfortable to imagine them as AIs. it's kinda like that old tip of imagining your audience naked to be less nervous imo edit: ftr i'm not a fan of this, feels like you're missing out on a chance to grow as a person and be less independent of what people think of your actions if you do this

[@MHGFTW]

I don't think the game would do as well if you could only que up with pre made squads of 5. People have different schedules. Not everyone can get a group of 5 together or a regular basis. During the week days, there will always be days when someone is tired from work or has to stay longer, or do something in the house ornwith the family. Weekends coupd be more consistent, but even then, you don't always want to lock your time down. I have friends that I sometimes play other games with. I would have to let my "team" down a lot because I just want to do something else, or because I'm busy.

[@tr1ss223]

Smart Goals were taught to me during school and were preached in the last 5 ish years or so, I would say that for me it didn't feel very applicable in my hobbies as defining success down to one number or something measurable often made me often lose the learning of other aspects because I was so focused on just the measurable goal. That we defined in the classroom.

[@wendellflowersmusic]

I found myself strugglign to figure out how I have fun playing League. Mid lane is miserable for me, Support is worse. ADC is insufferable. Top and Jungle seems to be the best way to play League as a solo player game.

[@MHGFTW]

I think mute all isn't the way to go. I throw pings out a lot, with the idea that they can figure out what they want to do. I'm just giving them extra info to make a decision. If I see the jungler pass by mid, and see him go to bot where they're pushed in towatd the tower. Then I'll ping "Be carefull" on the river right next to their lane. Sometimes I see them fall back. If they die, they can't blame it on anything. They got a warning a solid 10-15 seconds ahead of time. They can't be like "Wow I got ganked. I'm just unlucky.". No, you overextended (not a bad thing in itself), didn't see the jungler moving on the map (need to work on your map awareness), and ignored a ping (made a conscious decision). Now you have to accept that you made the mistake. It's not the end of the world, but at leasg take some accountability and don't look for something or someone else to blame.

[@AlfAlpha56]

Yeah I’ve just been muting all chat, not pings.

[@Reeeeder]

bro curtis you prob wont see this but you bicep is poppin you are lookin really good

[@YuYuYuna_]

League is 100% a single player game. It's more about aligning your mentality/thought process more than anything. You want to be as self reliant as possible. Don't just blindly go and help your team. Move your camera over, and ask yourself "can my champion with the abilities it has change the outcome of that fight?" If yes -> move, if no -> stick to your gameplan and farm. So many players especially in low elo say "but I feel bad if I don't help" League just isn't that type of "team" game. It's about as much of a "team" game as a group project in school/college is. You're only a team as much as you're hoping the others in the group don't fuck up and slack enough to where you get fucked on your grade. Same with League, help your team when you absolutely have to but assess the situation first before you move and ask that question. You'll misjudge plenty of situations at first but you'll learn with time what situations you can ACTUALLY give meaningful help in vs situations where your help is nothing more than moral support because you don't want to get flamed.

[@byakuya585]

24:10 regarding the enlightenment & elitist part here & how its being related to LS "single player AI" statement. I'd like too preface that for some its absolutely applicable, but equally this sort of attitude & behaviour existed even in SALTU. Back when i was a member there. It wasnt uncommon for a small but vocal group of people to look down on or think lesser of other members solely due too them not following the "saltu process" to the T. no matter what philosophy or view you have regarding the game as long as you have fostered & grown a community there always will be a small part of the community who will have quite an "elitist" view on things.

[@fish-rm6xl]

i been saying this like. league is not really a team game anymore lol. and what's the fun of playing a team game solo. even in plat or emerald you get players who are playing at like... bronze, silver level. its just not fun. (jungle players usually)

[@jinzok]

Mute all, KS everything, perma ping and afk farming. took me to emerald

[@claasmachens3858]

I kinda disagree with the interpretation of the single player game. For me it might be less about ignoring pings or muting them, just treating them as "something is happening there" and more about responsibility. If you don't have a coach holding you to account, a lot of people will ignore some of the games they could learn a lot from argueing "that one was a team diff". If you treat the game as a single player game there might be more force to look at games (even if you were on a griefing team) and search for things you can improove.

[@blaynestrippelhoff9637]

Curtis looking buff today

[@netherby4335]

I think you're completely wrong. Pings are game changing. There is too much going on and pings give you a bunch of information for a much lower mental stack cost. The good pings are missing, danger and showing where you intend to go, pinging your ult timer etc. Doesn't mean you should be following orders or giving them, just provide and receive information so everyone has more idea what's going on.

[@iamthemanhuehueheu]

I really feel like every split depends on what’s meta (ofc) but like last season I first time in my life hit emerald. I jungled graves and he felt really good with the crit items. Since these items are nerfed and tanks are way more powerful I realized it just don’t work for me. I made my 5 games and got gold 4 ranked. I tried out a lot because I really like to play any Lane. So yesterday I hit rock bottom with silver 3. I must say I know I don’t play too decent but some games really just not feel playable just draft wise. Nobody wants to pick a frontline and all want to be the damage dealer. Since I know started playing seju I win every game again and hit silver 1 in 2 hours.. it really is the comb for teams and those early fight and a frontline that’s always missing in my opinion.

[@tikari3987]

Man I have been waiting for someone to say this for years :D Literally every game I lose is because enemy team had a better frontline or just ran us over with several bruisers. Which is why I personally always end up maining a bruiser, then you always know you have some form of a frontline while still being able to kill people yourself. Playing a bruiser top/jungle literally raises your winrate +5-10 by the simple fact that you will then have more matches where your team has some form of a frontline. I think pure tanks can end up with team compositions sometimes where your team doesnt have enough dmg so bruiser is the best all around answer.

[@Flame1500]

Notification squad

[@Azula777]

first time watching the podcast and love it so far, just wondering who is the guy on the right ?

[@SaveTheImage]

Fire thumbnail holy crap!

[@blackhawk2671]

Amazing content

[@christiansirracha3108]

Giving advice that can be helpful for some when they can break down all the parts of it on their own but harmful to those who take it as it is can be very harmful in any field. As a voice teacher I view “place your voice forward in the mask” as similar style of bad advice because people who take it at its face value aren’t aware of the fact that those are sympathetic vibrations and that the feeling comes from space in the back of the throat. It’s a huge pedagogical disagreement amongst voice teachers and I have had arguments with other teachers about it myself. So the 10 cs per min standard which LS is saying I think is a language thing that happens across all forms of teaching/coaching where the goal comes above the process in terms of communication. The pattern of communicating only the goal and not the how to get there in an efficient and non harmful manner is what makes those who preach the process frustrated. I’m sure there’s a personality and that personal experiences also play a factor in what makes the advice helpful for you or not though.

[@FairyTailFTW]

in my experience those language disagreements in teaching in coaching often comes from "what audience are you teaching" say if you are teaching elementary to high school, you NEED to teach things in a more generic way that makes everyone just get it, because most of those tiers of learning have the mindset of "no man left behind". the further up you go though, the more you see the kind of advice that requires student to unpack and seek out further questions, mostly because if they dont have that inquisitive mindset already, they most likely arent making it very far in the field. put simply its teaching to the lowest common denominator vs teaching people to be the top x%. i dont know about voice coaching, but in many fields you really cant teach effectively at the higher levels if you are still appealing ot the lowest common denominator.

[@benthecarman]

this podcast is really gonna be about the one ls convo for the next year isnt it

[@adamb306]

As a plat/emerald shen main I cant stand the "league is a single player/mute all" mentality. It ruins so many good ults.

[@pesmerga4862]

the whole actual problem with this game, is the fact that you can't play solo. SEPERATE THE QUES. tired of facing duos who troll or team up while the solo players suffer. take that shit to flex que.

[@Aanenk]

whoever is editor here missed big opportunity. Just use LS anywhere and probs get more viewers guaranteed

[@AxeDropper4000]

Curtis is jacked.

[@petormaculan5424]

wish league creators would spend less time arguing and spend more time finding common ground and talking about what they like about the game.

[@cj-vp9rf]

I am going to save everyone 1 hour and 16 minutes. Yes, until a certain elo - look at League like a singleplayer game, you can even mute everyone every game and assume everyone is AI - this actually improves your ability to focus on YOUR OWN game a lot. Junglers need to focus on this. Focus on effeciently PVE'ing rather than responding to silver pings, perfect your full clear and getting ahead on tempo, cs, gold, xp to your enemy jungler - even if he pulls off that early gank, he's now fucked his tempo and given you an opportunity to snowball the game in the craziest way once the understanding comes too you. ASSUME UNTIL MID EMERALD EVERYONE IS A BOT AND YOU ARE PLAYING SINGLEPLAYER.

[@cj-vp9rf]

Also on top of this, if you employ this method - DO NOT USE CHAT. Or in general, do not use chat. Certain games can be instantly lost from using chat, even if you didn't type anythingg negative. It takes NPC's focus away, it can take yours away slightly on the optimal play at the right time. DO NOT USE CHAT. JUST THINK TO YOURSELF, IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE AND FOCUS ON YOUR PATHING!!! IF YOU DO THIS, YOU WILL EVENTUALLY CLIMB TO AN ELO WHERE YOU CAN ACTUALLY PLAY A REAL TEAM GAME

[@2g4u56]

Recommended squad

[@HebiSnake]

It is not, but you should treat it like it is when analyzing what went wrong in the game.

[@FairyTailFTW]

i might just have a different viewpoint, but the whoel single player view discussion just sounded like you both just never played single player games with AI, or the only type of AI you know of is the league one. obviously there is the part of the singleplayer mindset of personal accountability, a specific teammate's play is only going to be relevant for that single game, and if your goal is to improve that single game does not matter at all. the parts about ai being random and treating the ai like inferior beings, when does that ever happen in singleplayer games? most games have AI with many different difficulty levels, different playstyles etc. i would realy urge you guys to really think over how you play singleplayer games and how you really treat ai teammates in those games, i strongly doubt you treat them how you descriped in this video.

[@vistington3145]

kid cudi - by design curtis cx

[@garagavia]

I think the cat is not part of the game unless you make it, so pucker up 👆

[@EndeavorEUW]

😎👍

[@dojadoug]

the hashtag is EUW IN HELL not EU WIN HELL 🤣

[@SoundQuester]

31:36 says who? That's just a guy's opinion

[@satoiify]

BAU BAU

[@blackhawk2671]

I love these talks, too bad tik tok generation cant focus on something for more than 15 seconds and you dont get more views

[@dragonliger]

So after listening to the LS debate and listening to this. Curtis, remember when LS said he didn’t like you calling what he said rhetoric? That’s because rhetoric is often times seen as deceitful or seeking to convince others, what you mean is analogy, viewing the game as a single player game is an analogy not rhetoric 😂

[@jacksonmagas9698]

Rhetoric is trying to convince people, but it is not necessarily decietful. If you know that something is true you still use rhetoric to convince people of the truth, and if you are bad at rhetoric you may fail to convince people of something even though it is true.

[@wrwinter]

you're dragging the average League IQ down with this comment dawg

[@joelbarrera4372]

its genuinely sad how delusional you guys actually are, its so unfortunate.

[@16011160]

lol. League is not a solo player game. The concept is a mentality not a literal actuality. It's advice for climbing but the reality is it is not a single player game even in the slightest and its one of the worst designed multi player games. I would obliterate ANYONE ANNNYONE in a debate about this