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Gold Funneling Could Revolutionize LOL eSport

Rhlax·2/2/2015, 5:57:46 PM·7 votes·6,786 views

**EDIT2: This would be a team ranked only feature. ** **EDIT3: This is an optional team tactic. **

The concept is that the team can choose to allocate starting gold how they want. For example, CLG can funnel all gold to DoubleLift, so that DL can truely hyper carry with ~2k starting gold. What this means is that, DL can have a full 6 item build by 20 minutes, and literally 1 v 5. DL playing as Vayne, 6 items, hyper carrying, think about it.

C9, on the other hand could decide to funnel gold to Meteos and Sneaky to be semi-god like. Another team could decide not to do anything.

This is Strategic diversity. Now we have a game where superstars can be proved.

EDIT: Thanks Vixanys for the feedback. No I am not trolling and I am 100% serious. It is foreign concept; one that is derived from basketball (NBA). Some concerns/questions:

**Does this mean less team work? **

Absolutely not. Suppose we funnel all gold to ADC, the other members simply will have a slower start. The team might adjust by playing a different format say (0/1/2/2 - duo jungler and no top), and instead of being damage dealers, hard CCs and peel may be higher priority in this strategy. In this strategy, teammates are just as important, although they have less importance in damage dealing.

How does this create strategic diversity?

The meta, 1/1/1/2 (1 top/mid/jun, 2 bot) is arbitrary. This is the most efficient format in a world where every player has equal amount of starting gold. Suppose that starting gold is uneven, it creates new optimized formats (for example, duo jungler).

What does this have to do with basketball? what is the parallel?

I am an avid fan of NBA, and I see a lot of parallels between the two games. In NBA, it is really exciting because of superstars like Lebron or Kobe. When a team has a Kobe, their style of play is vastly different. Kobe has the ball ALOT in his hand. He is now the one who create plays for the offense. On the contrary, there is teams like San Antonio, where ball procession is almost equally spread between the 5 members. Between the two extremes are teams choose to play style in between. This create diversity!

**This will never work... teams will just funnel to a carry and there wouldn't be any strategic diversity at all... **

This is a strong possibility with the current set of items. In almost all scenarios, the support would likely give gold to the adc. Adding a strong non-upgradable item at 475 particularly designed for supports could solve this issue (for example a much weaker version of ohmwrecker ). Yes, there are a ton of balance issues right now, a lot more than just support.

Since this is a team-ranked only feature, riot would need to balance between lcs and solo q

This is an unkeep cost that Riot would need to pay. Balancing between LCS and solo Q is already a difficult thing. So again, it is a significant draw back.

Conclusion

The concept of gold funneling may be cool on paper, but to achieve balance between different tactics would require a massive effort. Essentially, many items in the game would need to be reconsidered and rebalanced to fit the new model. It would cause a greater rift between pro league and the gamers, and furthering damaging a portion of the community.

But boy... would it exciting if it were to be successful balanced...

{dream} *Its game 5, the team chose to max gold funnel ADC Faker as expected(who used to be a mid player). crowd roaring... Faker is going for his 2nd World Championship in 3 years. The opponent is a team oriented team C9, which no one expected to come this far. This is the final year which the members will play together. Lemonnation is now engaged and will retire after this final season. C9 pulls of an unexpected dual support/adc funnel instead of their usual standard start. why so much gold into Lemonnation? spectator wonders with curiousity.. crowd roars as the final game of XIII World Championship Hosted in Tokyo begins. more crowd roaring... in front a sold out baseball stadium of 50,000 japanse girls.. 5 minutes into the game, Faker pulls a 1 v 3 triple - kill.. it sure looked easy. coach calls timeout. game feels lost as the crowd roars... the plan seem to have failed.. * {/dream}

44 Comments

Riot jayway2/2/2015, 11:51:41 PM7 votes

This was a feature in RoC DotA (because of the WC3 engine) but it was really awesome since you could open something like... 600g top lane, 300g jungle, 1000g MageSlayer, 0g healer, 600g bot lane.

Also, whenever the healer tp'd home, everyone would funnel gold to him and he'd be able to buy specific items tailored to specific role players. While in public games, this got a bit out of hand such as everyone funneling gold to Stealth Assassin or Storm Spirit, it was quite complicated in high level inhouses where power spikes occurred at key timings of item buys (UD Hibernal Rod, Secret Shop Lavabuster, etc.)

This obviously implies huge sweeping changes, but is an interesting experiment...

Nameless Voice2/3/2015, 12:26:38 AM6 votes

Personally, I'd hate to play support and be expected to now give up all my gold to give it to the ADC. This, or being flamed for not doing it, is what would happen in ranked soloq.

Having no gold and not being able to buy items is not fun.

Vixanys2/2/2015, 6:09:07 PM3 votes

This, is a horrible idea. This essential lets a team not be strategic at all in terms of attempting to shut down a key player. It also goes against the entire concept of the game. It would also make the other 4 people on the team (in thought to your Doublelift example), completely useless for 20 minutes.

The only reason Doublelift does what he does, or anything other player for that matter is their team. This would not be strategic diversity and I don't know if you are trolling or serious.

Smart Kitty2/3/2015, 12:44:33 AM2 votes

I kinda like it. It's an interesting concept. It could be beneficial to certain teams, like CLG as you mentioned, who prefer to have one or two people carry. It's not something that's too good or bad, in theory it gives equal possibility. The team that doesn't funnel might have better side lanes where the team who does has to sacrifice for their carry. It could work out because their carry could snowball harder, or the carry might get crushed because the opposing team decides to shut the threat down before it takes off. They also don't necessarily have to give all their gold to the carry either. The other 4 could each give up 100 gold and now the carry can start with a pickaxe instead of long sword pots or other possibilities and the teammates would still at least be decently off. I'd actually like to see this. They could also give it to their jungler, so his early ganks are more effective to the enemies. Also, that like 10-25 gold players have left over could be given to the support to buy an extra ward.

Anatharion2/8/2015, 7:25:13 AM1 votes

This is a stupid idea. I don't want to see one person win a 1v4 at level 2. I'd rather see all champions be more equal through the whole match so that player skill out shines stat boosting.

Decrit2/3/2015, 10:33:35 AM1 votes

While interesting i am against it. I am a player of the old warcraft 3 custom maps, i remember iron defense ( or how it was called ) that was just a ripoff of Dota and that had this kind of mechanic and i will tell you, it did not help strategy at all; people only focused on a thing.

Same would happen in LoL: it will not be tactical, but mandatory, to give gold to item-scaling champions ( Yasuo, Vayne, Kog Maw, Jax, Ryze ...), thus actually removing personal tactical choice, countered only by a team full of low-item scaling champions ( supports, tanks, lee sin...). Then a meta will be forged around that, then they will dominate mid game, then Riot will be forced to nerf them and item-scaling champions as we know them will extinct, as well as itemization for every other role.

Just imagine this: let' s say every X mins in mid lane a pot of gold spawns, and you have to conquer it before the enemy; if that happens, 1k gold is given to a player of the picker' s choice. Or by voting, is the same. Who will reasonably get the golds if the team is extremely cooperative? answer: the carry. Only exception if the team has other hyper scaling dudes and then by team composition they decide to give gold to him, but then again that can be valuable only by pick and team composition, else no one will give gold to other roles ( except maybe mage, maybe). This just to give an idea of the proprieties of direct gold allocation.

EDIT: obviously i am talking on a professional/high elo/premade scenario. In a solo Q it would be a trollfest, and yet that would be enough ( and no you can' t make it possible in cherry picked pick modes, the game must be consistent)

PrinceArchie2/3/2015, 1:38:00 PM1 votes

Ok heres the difference between basketball and League. IN basketball no matter who has the ball no player's role is truly diminished because it isnt dependent on a resource. Just as on the Lakers Kobe may "always" have the ball when playing offense, Lebron for example may not have the ball all the time on the Cavaliers when Kyrie Irving is on the floor. Having the ball in basketball doesnt mean you have all the power and must "carry the game". There are point guards on teams like the New York Knicks (who are doing horrible), Lakers, Houston rockets and so on who have the responsibility of ball handling simply because it is in their job description as point guards.

Being a force on the court is more than ball hogging, its also about moving on the court without the ball, playing good defense, setting great screens and so on. There is rarely ever a time where the super star will have the ball in their hands for the entire 24 second duration just because they are the best player on the team. Ball movement is very important in basketball. With that being said I don't think funneling gold into a single player from the start is a horrible idea but it has it's major concerns. Just as ball movement is very vital to team success in basketball, it is also the case in League that other lanes and roles doing well greatly impact the success of the team.

1. Role diversity

Yes it would be cool if my Favorite bot lane duo had all the gold literately in their lane at the start of the game. Problem is everyone else on the team is severely diminished and for the entirety of the game are solely reliant on doublelift to make use of thier gold and 1v5 from the start. Just because CLG may want to use this strategy and feel doublelift can do it, doesnt mean the other team has to or will mimic tier tactics. It may be better for their members to start off with normal amounts of gold and thus have an items advantage (sustain, defense or damage) over their counter parts.

The early game in League of legends matters a lot, theres a reason why the optimal archetype of lanes is the way it is. Each member is supplied with the resources they need to perform optimally throughout the game. so even if they run a team comp around "protect the adc", another role in jungler, mid, or top who has also been generating gold and doing well may be able to be the other driving force, or priority target to give enough time for that adc to ramp up.

Hypothetical example if CLG ran Lissandra top, LuLu Mid, J4 Jungle, Vayne adc and Janna support, both mid and top lane could have great laning phases where they dominated their opponents. Jungler could also be quite ahead given such solo lane success as well, especially if bot lane had a rocky start due to being focused. Those other three roles could then be driving forces in the early and mid game, locking down opponents, pressuring the map and peeling for double lift in team fights so that he gets the necessary farm and kills to be a late game monster.

But by the same token if these lanes and roles decided to not take their necessary gold at the start of the game and give it all to doublift, then Xsmithie would not be able to jungle and even if he managed to get a camp it wouldnt be as efficient as the enemy jungler who started pots and a hunters machete. Link would get wrecked in lane, Zion would be camped to no avail and never come back. IF these guys decided to all stay together you would have two or three other free lanes and or positions to take all the minions and jungle monsters uncontested. This would essentially make their team weaker and fail.

Unlike in basketball League has stages in the game where some players are by nature better than others due to the champion they select. Vayne is not a monster early game but is late game, as opposed to Kevin Durant who could have 60 points in an entire game, having had a hot streak ever since the start of the first quarter. If all the other roles have no gold, junglers wouldnt be able to jungle, solo laners wouldnt really be able to solo lane effectively and you may have a team comprised of 4 strict utility roles to make up for the lack of sustain they individually have.

** 2. Does not promote team play**

While I do see your argument that funneling gold into your carry is a from of team strategy everyone can buy into; players can already do this by selecting champions and playing the map properly. Not every champion can carry the game as effectively as another, even if they aren't late game hyper carries. While some champions are very powerful in the early or mid game resulting in swift victories, a champion such as Sona will neither carry your team to victory in the early, mid or late game on her back alone.

By essentially starving the player and champion of any gold early you are taking away the potential growth, utility and overall presence of the player and champion. If all my team has to do is kill the enemy ADC who has all 2.4k gold, we could pick a heavy engage team with summoners such as ignite and exhaust, run boots or cloth pots 5 then subsequently pile onto and destroy that "carry". Just because that player has 2.4k gold doesnt mean they have all their skills or levels over anyone. They now have the gold of the entire team and have the burden of outplaying 5 other players at level one with one skill and a few summoners.

The other members wouldnt last in an extended teamfight, much less being picked off in a 1v1 skirmish. These other players whether they be professional or not would then be entirely reliant on one individual and would never be able to impact the game at any stage because they are far too weak.

In conclusion

The idea is neat but it can be done without denying the other 4 members of the party autonomy. Sacrificing a huge responsibility in certain areas of the game at certain intervals through champion select or relinquishing buffs, jungle monsters or lane creepes can already be done without completely snubbing them out of the early game.

Jungle Lux God2/6/2015, 1:43:12 AM1 votes

How does this create diversity?

I feel that everyone on the team would funnel gold into one of their team's carries outside of the jungler, who needs his jungle items in order to remain somewhat relevant. This would cause a lot of unbalance, as either both teams would have a lane already snowballing or two lanes have no gold for items while the remaining lane can start 1/2 an item ahead of the other lanes and cause a massive disbalance in the laning phase that boils down to whoever can roam better will win.