It is fun, that's why so many players play it. The issue is a toxic userbase. But playing in a 5 stack with friends is great, as long as your friends aren't toxic dicks either. You can mute the chat and not worry about the other team saying anything.
It's the same phenomenon as road rage. You expect certain actions out of people without communicating, and when they don't conform to your expectations, you wonder why they can't just see the most obvious thing (to you).
There are different reasons for each, but very similar feelings.
I don't personally get road rage because driving isn't competitive. But I do react poorly to others raging at me (which is also a childish problem I should get over.)
Game specific diatribe incoming. Stop reading now or forever hold your peace.
Partly it's that I have some unique ideas about how support can be played. Partly it's that I'm absolutely more inclined to support somewhere else if I've lost confidence in my "partner". Partly it's that I'm actually bad at very obvious parts of the game, while it's easy to overlook what I am accomplishing. I'll take too many risks to maintain vision, for example. People get mad when I die stupidly, but don't see how they've had better than professional vision for the entire game. (Because I take too many risks for it, and bad players are even worse at clearing vision.)
TF2 players suck but at the same time it's such a good game. Like you'll hear someone spamming the n-word 200 times and you're just like "yeah that's about right" and requeue
2 cents on this, DOTA 2 is a much more complex game, with almost the exact same soft skills. I hang out in DOTA more ofter, but every year or so a family memeber askes me to patch League and I am able pick it up like an old bike. The extra mechanics such as denying your own team, traditional vision mechanics (purchasable wards) and a different balance philosophy makes it feel like a professional hockey player shows up for their local beer league.
League is a good introduction to MOBAs, but its monitozation is bad, it has a stronger focus on map timings (IIRC dragon can make or break an early game) and most importantly, there is a surrender vote. DOTA 2 does not have that (your queue is a commitment, you cant walk away from games, without being labeled as toxic and being relegated to the bad sport queue), the learning curve is steeper, and while there are no requirements to unlock the roster, everyones design philosophy is that most everyone can carry (pos1) if you try hard enough.
issue is you can't really play league without playing with the type of people to play league. that's enough for me to say no thank you, no matter the game mode or whatnot
I mean, you are definitionally correct. League players are the type of people to play League.
There are great ways to enjoy League without having to interact with League players. For one, there is the PVE digital card game Legends of Runeterra, which has a really satisfying RPG roguelike mode with long term progression. I have likely put over a hundred hours into this and spent zero dollars.
There’s also a new single player feature for Wild Rift which lets you fight AI opponents trained on player matches. You can edit the ranked skill level of the AI and pick/make them play any champion. There are dozens of hours of good times here alone. Again, completely funded by cosmetic purchases of other players and free to enjoy.
Personally, I think turning off chat and teaming up with players you got along with is more than enough to compensate for the “type of people” issue. Playing with pure randoms in any online game is not great for sanity. But lots of folks are looking to make friends and are good co-op partners if you’re willing to DM them.