@humanpotatoe what bennis means is that on your end you should be perfectly able to match up with higher players and just play.
if they join your host that means that they are willing and perfectly happy. don't take the toxics to be the spokespeople of the entire community, they're not.
in fact you'll quickly find that statistics disagree with them.
people will join your hosts and play with you.
Host it, try it and you'll see. also step out of your comfort zone a bit, try more frontal and aggressive spots, these spots have less responsibility tied to them.
everyone that was playing in the team gets the same amount of victory points even if they were dead when the team finally wins.
which is why sometimes sacrifices can be acceptable. I get the feeling you've been mostly playing slots where sacrifices wern't acceptable.
anyways I get your pain. bottom line is we've all obviously been where you are now. and we've found ways to break the cycle and are trying to help others break out too.