How To Flame Your Teammates
Sometimes it’s hard to accept that you’re not the perfect Dota player, who can Blink Dagger a perfect 1200 range, place perfect observer wards, de-ward opponent’s wards on cue, and last hit perfectly. It’s easier, by far, to say your teammate sucks. Welcome to flaming 101, or in other words: how to exempt yourself from blame by blaming others. As a team game, Dota relies on the interplay of each member, each with unique roles and responsibilities, and it’s inevitable that there will be a time with a fair amount of finger pointing. However, there is a better way to go about it than to flame.
What Can You Control?
In psychology, the concept of “locus of control” refers to what you believe you can control in the events happening around you. Your locus is “internal” if you believe that you can control the event, and it’s “external” if you believe other forces are responsible. Which of these you believe will lead to why you tend to blame yourself or others. In Dota, there’s an interplay of both of these internal and external dimensions, yet the habit is often to drift towards blaming others. Sometimes it’s often validated by the fact that Dota is a team game and it requires the success of others to accomplish a task, such as a gank. Blame, however, comes after the fact, and it’s rarely a productive approach. Maybe that player will remember your words and play better next game. The only constant, however, is you. You’re the one who will be playing with different people from game to game, and finding what you can control, and improving on how you can do that, produces more change than trying to change everything else.
Furion, Can You TP?
“Furion, Can you TP” was the repeated phrase by EternalEnvy bemoaning his teammate to help him with a gank. He said it over voice chat eight times, before pausing the game and asking again. I would commend Envy here, for being proactive, rather than reactive, in trying to lead his team. He saw the opportunity and put his team in a position to take advantage of it. It also gave his teammate an option. Does he even want to TP top? And does he understand what for? After a late reaction, Envy paused, and he asked “Do you want to lose?” That’s where the conducive conversation stopped.
A valid MMR climbing tactic is to incite your team to internally combust by all chatting, “easy mid.” The urge to scapegoat others is often the first step where team chemistry falls apart. First, it’s unproductive. Take a common hot topic, such as your mid player feeding, and find a more productive approach to the problem, especially one that involves the efforts of others rather than bashing your player for what may be inescapable faults. Is your mid player dying because it’s an unfavorable matchup? Stack the jungle and tell, don’t ask, your player to play safe, be patient, and catch up later. Is he the victim of ganks? Look at what yourself and your teammates can do to fix that. Dota is a team game, a fact often forgotten when it’s easy to point fingers at one person.
To be fair, individual mistakes do occur from time to time. It happens even to the best players. It’s better to learn from those mistakes and move on. The same goes for the teammates. What good would a flame or a sarcastic “Well Played!” from the chat wheel serve, other than being a dick?
The Chat Wheel
The chat wheel is one of the best innovations of Dota to efficiently communicate with others. Typing can be cumbersome and inefficient when trying to move your hero at the same time. Voice chat can be a conduit of emotions and it’s also a familiar avenue for condescending remarks. The chat wheel, however, is universal and just. Words from the chat wheel are automatically translated to everyone’s native language, and there’s no misinterpretation of “Buy a courier please.” (On the other hand, there’s also the chat wheel choice of “Can anyone upgrade the courier?”, which is like a passive aggressive post-it note that’s asking for someone other than yourself to do this, while expressing your dissatisfaction.)
The chat wheel is proactive. It commands with phrases such as “Pull creeps please” or “Get Back!” There’s no option that allows you to whine about how your teammates are feeding. There are needy phrases, often used after a death, such as “We need detection” or “We need wards.” But these words look ahead, rather than ones that look back to say “why didn’t you have dust?”
The chat wheel motivates and improves morale. It rewards teammates with compliments of “Well Played!” and “Nice.” It rallies your teammates with war cries of “Don’t Give Up!” And with phrases such as “My bad” or “I immediately regret my decision” it pre-empts blame in a way that tells your team that you understand what happened.
Though the chat wheel can’t issue complex orders, it’s an instructive tool on how to effectively communicate with others. Words in Dota need to have a strategic purpose instead of a vindictive one.
Why You Have To Be Mad?
“It’s only game” is a good reminder to have perspective when playing Dota. That's where useful chat wheel phrases such as "Relax" and "Game is hard" can help. Winning is fun and losing sucks, but you will lose. Losing is inexorable, despite our best efforts to have a 100% win rate on our records. There will be times where not everything falls into place, if by your fault or others. What we can control in the end is whether we can still have fun in the process.
"it's only a game" - lel
NUMBER 2 NOT NUMBER 1 ITS PSII"S FAULT NOOB :P
South American players should read this post!
Currently the Enchanted Mango only has a 34.43% win rate. Together, we as a community, have the ability to fix this problem and end this horrific tragedy. Please help. It is our duty as gamers to give this item the respect it is due.
SEA people should read this, specially malayshit, singayporean and indoge.
and pinoys shoud learn some "manners"
south american players should defitinely read this post!
lol that mango-comment - it's in every post.....
Not only south american players should! It feels like almost everyone should improve their communication-skills.
Or at least be more friendly.
everything stated in this post might be true and should be minded by some flamers out there.....
In the case I meet somebody in my matches who has a hard to time, i try to support them with ingame actions rather than communication with voice chat or chat wheel, looks like one thing i can improve ^^
south american players need ready this post 85 % is fucking flame tards
wew lad we need 6.86 right now guys, afew more shitposts and this community will collapse on itself
i wish they will allow us to make our own chat wheel phrases, it would be way easier to spam someone ''you suck pls uninstal the game'' (or something like that) than to stop playing and write it myself. I could really use that in my games. Long live flaming idiots lel
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
I couldn't say better
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RioAje
3 hours ago
SEA people should read this, specially malayshit, singayporean and indoge.
and pinoys shoud learn some "manners"
--------------------
Xenophobic sentence --> says others need to learn manners.
Priceless.
I usually am kind to my teammates, even when they make mistakes. That is until they flame me... It's rarely something constructive and most of the times comes from the one guy who is throwing the match. The best solution is to mute ASAP... You can never convince a Dota player of anything, don't even try. If he says dogs fly, say goodbye to him and mute. That way you can start focusing on the match again.
There are some people traumatized by the "Well Played!" up to the point they only see it as an insult, and think there's a very elaborate joke when you are congratulating them. Also, every time I see the command "We need wards" I get upset, especially when there already are wards on the map, I have barely seen anyone ask for wards when there are none in the map, and got the idea that everyone asking for wards is just wanting to mess with the supports. Every other phrase is useful though.
you CAN make your own chat wheel phrases... and scripts...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dota+2+custom+chat+wheel
SEA PLAYERS PLEASE READ THIS... PLEASE I BEG YOU, MY MENTAL SUFFER SO MUCH FROM SUPPORTING DUMB SHIT CARRY, YET STILL GET BLAME FOR "DOING NOTHING"
I love how everyone reads this article and immediately disregards it to start flaming South American's in the comments.
ALL PINOYS MUST KNOW THIS, THE MOST SLOWBRAIN SEA PLAYER
The sarcastic Well Played also pisses me off that I actually removed it even though i used to use it exclusively when a game ends. A lot of players are know-it-alls and pro wannabes that think they're better than a lot of people, so lo and behold their core picks and the infamous "Let me mid". I also despise those players telling people to report the player with the most mistakes or some newb or noob, be it ally or opponent, they cannot grasp what the report button is for. Hopefully a lot of people can read this post, good read.
Just mute everyone at the start of each game
BRAZILIAN SHOULD READ THIS EVEN PERUVIAN IS BETTER THAN BRAZILIAN
@_mmc If getting pissed off at Peruvians for using English servers and flaming is xenophobic, then I'm a proud Dota 2 xenophobe.
most common words on SEA server
well played =PuTANG INA MO!
the one who got flame the most is support. I FEEL YA . WE NEED WARDS XD.
having a name such as fucking russians die or slavic inferiority isnt nuff ?
i dont think the people got the point of this post
i think chatting is the most easy way to lose focus in a match...this very opportunity being given to us to make our feeling known can be counter productive
we then start spending more time coming up with words that can do the most damage in all chat flaming rather than buckle down and do something in the game
the game itself then becomes trivial to the point of being a farce, with our sole focus being on coming out on top in the flaming war with a team mate or the enemy
at that point the game itself doesn't even matter...its happened to me countless times...i actually consider myself to be a pro flamer/ abuser
the game needs to be more designed in a way that people play to WIN in ALL situations and not lose focus at the first sign of conflict
once immersed in the war of words with your own team the game is definitely lost because you cant try to get a wind out of someone and focus on a way back into the game at the same time
maybe communication with only chat wheel is the solution? and only people in a party can communicate thru voice channels
this will help foster a more team based approach since everyone knows that playing with friends will probably result in better co-ordinated game play
i think there exists too much communication between team mates than is necessary....the general population can quite frankly not be trusted with this much freedom and this results in the toxic environment that we know and love so much
valve needs to start looking at this just as much game content
Nice article. But let me add, if it doesnt work and u know that that person are gonna blow up and will ruin ur game, mute him and enjoy the silence of the forest.
mid or feed........
MONSTRUMS
So in America, it's South Americans they don't want to play with. And in Europe it's Russians they don't want to play with. It is clear to me that the US and EU are racist. Kappa
cyka blyad
I kind of resent the idea of "It's only a game."
In my own experience it just feels very patronizing because you're implying my feelings are unjustified and invalid because "It's only a game."
We're all playing the game to have fun and when we stop having fun we're likely going to feel mad for many reasons. Team mates, sudden loss, lots of deaths. Anything can make you mad in Dota.
So please don't tell people that it's just a game. I can guarantee you're not going to ground somebodies emotions by saying so. 100% chance that it'll just make them more angry.
Dota is a team game is right in an extend. It's only a team game when you play in a party where there is a communication and understanding. In solo, it's you vs 5 in the other team and 4 of your teammates. Just face the truth. Flaming happens in all MMR, no matter if it's 3k, 4k, 5k or 6k. It's the individual skills tell good and bad players apart. Being able to adapt to any situations and different type of teammates is also a skill and it's individual skill. You don't just tell a bad player to play better (or stop feeding) and he get better. You have to overcome all the negatives if you want to raise your mmr. The end of story: mute all 4 of your teammates (and unmute them at the end of game) and play by yourself.
putang ina mo
oh god, did the author ever queue with this russki retards, incapable of anything except flaming and feeding?
stay on your fockin putinserver and stop queuing westeurope
tl;dr
mute everyone and focus on your game and you'll probably have a better time / win rate
cuz lets face it, there are dumb-asses and jerks that play dota
there's a ton of noobs / new players too (and hey, you may be one yourself!)
but the bottom line is that you want to win and "communication", more often than not, only makes people lose focus on the game.
Kids who just started playing Dota should read this.
Bullshit. Volvo's retarded matchmaking is to blame.
Its only a game thats i care about and spend a lot of money to make a good lokking
of course i will get mad
its not easy to get money when ur a kid and if we ask our parrents for money,then they will ask "for what" if i say dota they will kill me so i need to get money on my own
thats what i get mad for
not easy get money this genaration.what should i do?
sell drugs
what i can do if there a teammates like a stupid as a shit
report? and lose still lose, cant do anything
(NOT MAD,JUST OPINION)
Mangoes don't win games, they win lanes.
Don't expect Pinoys to change attitude. See this totally related picture:
Pinoys are like Kobe. They go on the internet (yes, it's not only in Dota), then act hostile towards EVERYONE. It's the culture here in the Philippines that's the problem. Going to an internet cafe full of uneducated kids who skipped school to play Dota and being watched over by another uneducated, trashtalking and prefers-to-play-MMORPGs-than-feed-wife-and-kids shop owner, Pinoys are exposed to a culture of only one build works, if you don't agree with their opinion you're wrong, always take mid, reply putang ina mo to everything and probably, the most dangerous of all, the I'm better than everyone attitude.
@the guy above that said pinoys should learn manners: Nope. Not an easy task to do. Teaching them manners would have to involve making them realize that they have the capability to learn something other than a cookie cutter build in Dota. You can't even tell them to take a bath let alone teach them manners.
INB4 Pinoys in Dotabuff: "Putang ina mo. Ako mid"
CHI LONG QUA!!!!!!!
CHI LONG QUA is the best DOTA 2 PSYCHOLOGIST THE WORLD HAS FUCKING EVER SEEN !!!!!!
You can tell by the tone of the article it was written by someone who usually feeds a lot and gets flamed. You CAN control your feeding, eggs, whether you tell us you can or not.
4.99 deaths across 2k+ matches doesn't seem like feeding, does it? Try again.