Pro Tip: COMMIT!

No not the type of commitment that your girlfriend keeps pestering you about! I'm talking about Committing to a battle. I just spent a painfully long annoying stupid battle where no one on my team would commit to a battle! I was tanking as Mord and I swear it was like watching ants scurry back and forth behind me. We would initiate a battle with the other side and I would watch as my team would lay one nuke each and then scamper off like the battle was over leaving me to deal with 5 guys beating my kneecaps in with their umbrellas.

Committing to a battle is KEY! Running off because you're afraid of taking a little damage IS NOT OKAY! Running off because you are mortally wounded (such as your head is attached only by one tiny strand of flesh) IS OKAY! If there is an obvious disadvantage then yes you should run like an undead bear is chasing you, but if not then STAY AND FIGHT THE BATTLE YOU YELLOW BELLIED PANSY!

90% of the time we committed to a battle we aced the other team (WE ACED THEM 3 TIMES) But for the majority of the battles I would sit there and take damage while my team thought it would be fun to play red light green light. Heck during the end of the game I died 4 times in one battle! I don't even know how that happens (I only had Guardian Angel and Zilean) but somehow I did it! I rose from the grave 3 different times just to get my head bashed in by Jax and his silly piece of wood with nails in it, while Nunu chucked snow in my bloody pulp of a face and Sion gnawed on my legs.

Just remember kiddies. When you're running you can't do damage to them but they can do damage to you! So stay and fight until there seems to be an obvious winner! And only run if you know you can get away, otherwise you're just postponing the inevitable and you fail.

TL;DR - Commit to fights until there is a definite winner in sight. Who knows it might be you!

I know how you feel, but unfortunately I am often on the scurrying end.

It's hard (for me at least) to know when is a good time to come in, when to run and when to skitter around the edges.

It also is quite contagious, once one person starts scurrying, the others often lose a lot of confidence and everyone will scamper off. Then this becomes the norm.

Sorry if I've ever done this to you!

nah I don't think I've ever played with you

And yeah it is sort of a domino effect. Once one person starts leaving the others start leaving. It's kinda annoying.

you should obviously just mass ping the map on a hero :-P

your team will hate it so much that they will kill that champ just to make it stop

This is the main reason the most valuable member of any random team is an initiating force (ie Malphite, Alistar, Blitzcrank, etc) who can make it clear that "it's go-time" to the whole team in a dominating fashion.

And yet I cannot count how many times with the above heroes I made it abundantly clear that "it's go-time" only to see my entire team running in the opposite direction because an enemy looked at them funny.

Nothing is better than totally getting the drop on some people w/ Alistar, setting up perfect kills, only to have your own team run away for no reason, leaving you to die.

Actually, even better is when there IS a tank on your team that is in the aforementioned 'scurrying' category. Last week, I was in a game where our tank Amumu was always at least 20 feet behind me as Fiddlesticks the entire game. It was physically impossible for me to ever get behind him. I tried the entire game, but to no avail. I ended up being the tank and initiator every fight. I don't think Amumu ever dropped below 90% life the entire game. Needless to say, it didn't take long for the enemy team to catch on to this and take full advantage. It was seriously one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Everyone kept telling him to get up front and take a few hits, or heaven forbid use his ult, but he was too scared to take any damage.

Yeah, we lost that one.

But yes, I totally agree with the OP. You can't ever get kills if you never commit to a fight.

Not getting kills > feeding.

x10 with new exp system, and you are higher level.

x-10 if you are lower level.

true. though i often saw a rammus rolling around the edges of the potential killing zone just to no go so a carry and a mage end up tanking because they thought he'd roll in.

i feel the OP but i fear i sometimes do it myself when i'm not playing an initiator/tank myself...might be contagious.

Yeah coward teams are frustrating especailly when your tank is a coward or your the tank left to die as the rest of the team flees.

In general making knowing when to fight or flee is one of the most important skills in the game. In your case your teammates were failing to recognise obvious openings but there are more subtle ones that even fairly good players miss.

Be aware too that DPS players are on average of lower skill than tanks/support because they are attracted to individual scores rather than team success. I have had games where my team behaved just as your's did and then called me a feeder for dying repeatedly.