Backing up what you said here, I've played a few online games with (at times) abusive communities (DotA, Overwatch), and in my experience:
- Games go for 30-60 minutes on average, and generally have a clear winner by the halfway point. Players are forced to sit through a defeat, building frustration.
- Games rely on team coordination on top of individual skill, so players who are scoring high (kills, etc...) may not actually be helping complete the objective.
- On death, there is enough downtime to vent frustration at your team, and blame them for the bad situation that caused your death.
- People often try to get the rest of their team to side against an individual, calling them out as the cause of other players dying / losing objectives.
It can be extremely toxic (to the point I've moved on), but I found pushing back with civility and calling people out often helped the situation.
Whenever I noticed it starting, I'd jump in and tell the frustrated player to take charge. I'd acknowledge the valid issues they call out, and try to reword them constructively and focus on the team rather than the individual. (eg: "Don't run in until we're all there to support you, we'll follow you now and see if we can outnumber them", or: "Try moving over there, their sniper is really good, and is protecting the area you were just in")
>- On death, there is enough downtime to vent frustration at your team
Now that you mention it, dead time in LoL (not sure what the player lingo for it is, "black and white" time?) really is a special timeslot for flaming. The angriest point for a player is also the time they can most easily communicate. If communication ability was uniform throughout the game, there wouldn't be flareups. When players are in action, they have only half the will to type/communicate. Suddenly that dampener is removed.
- Games go for 30-60 minutes on average, and generally have a clear winner by the halfway point. Players are forced to sit through a defeat, building frustration.
- Games rely on team coordination on top of individual skill, so players who are scoring high (kills, etc...) may not actually be helping complete the objective.
- On death, there is enough downtime to vent frustration at your team, and blame them for the bad situation that caused your death.
- People often try to get the rest of their team to side against an individual, calling them out as the cause of other players dying / losing objectives.
It can be extremely toxic (to the point I've moved on), but I found pushing back with civility and calling people out often helped the situation.
Whenever I noticed it starting, I'd jump in and tell the frustrated player to take charge. I'd acknowledge the valid issues they call out, and try to reword them constructively and focus on the team rather than the individual. (eg: "Don't run in until we're all there to support you, we'll follow you now and see if we can outnumber them", or: "Try moving over there, their sniper is really good, and is protecting the area you were just in")