Really Fixing The #FeelsBad Through Education?
So, very clearly a lot of people are upset at the game right now. I still don't tend to think the game is nearly as broken as people think. But there may be merit to one of the oft-repeated criticisms:
TOPIC 1:
- One really great performance can't always carry a game, but one really, really underskilled player is almost always a guaranteed loss. It's much harder to go 10-0 than it is to go 0-10 - and the 0-10 player usually feeds several enemy team members.
I don't think this is necessarily fixable in pure balance without drastically changing the mechanics of the game - specifically, removing the level cap to allow solo hypercarries, a la DOTA. That would change League so much it might not be recognizable afterwards, and even then it wouldn't change anything much except the extreme late game.
EDIT : Jbels has proposed an alternate route: further decreasing the rewards from kills on repeatedly dying in-lane champions that have degraded to snacks, or the LCS announcers' "walking bag of gold" if you prefer. This idea may have merit.
Thoughts?
TOPIC 2 I also want to propose a different concept:
- More training, education, and requirements to play more advanced modes, such as draft and ranked - and things people can't just skip! I am still constantly seeing players in draft who literally cannot play more than a single champion in a role. Those people are not ready for draft or ranked! And I am constantly still seeing players who skipped the basic tutorial and don't even get the idea of pushing behind the wave. Those people are not ready to play League at all!
The idea I was playing with had several pieces:
A. NO SKIPPING THE BASIC TUTORIAL
The most effective way to end up in Zinc 10 is still to have skipped the very basics of how to play - specifically, the fact that this is a game about gathering resources and managing and scavenging from armies far more so than it is about yelling and swinging swords or slinging spells at other champions. I constantly am still running across people who don't understand the importance of pushing behind the wave. I bet I'm still seeing people who have never even heard of the concept. It is one of the first lessons in the tutorial, but I constantly see players run in front of their waves, run past all their vision, and get fried - and I have every faith that these are players who just routinely get blown to bits in just about every game en route to Pewter 38.
Stop letting players skip it! It's 15 minutes and I would bet more players still skip the tutorial than not - and in that direction lies a lot of the bad feeling that goes on in games. Make players actually finish the tutorial to be able to play an online match with others!
B. PER ROLE TUTORIALS
I feel like this concept is so crucial. People really get thrown into roles and have no idea what they're all about or even how to play them at all. Require per-role tutorials in order to play draft/ranked!
- A support tutorial that explains that support is not just "walk around behind your ADC and fight sometimes". The basics of playing position to help your ADC get CS and to deny the enemy duo CS should be explained. The importance of sustain, shields, escapes, and so on should be explained. How to use support items to get gold without CS should be explained.
- An ADC tutorial that explains what it means to attempt to carry the game in the botlane (usually as a marksman) - the importance of CS, how to judge all-ins properly, how to understand power spikes on your character, how to work with supports to set picks and make plays, and the importance of roaming after a turret take or turret loss.
- A mid tutorial that explains what it means to attempt to carry the game as a mid (often as a mage or assassin) - surviving the lane that sees the most crossover ganks, how to maximize damage, and the importance of mid roams generally due to mid's role in the center of the map.
- A top tutorial that explains what it means to play the "long lane" - the importance of survivability and really good 1v1 technical fundamentals, the way that you are alone for longer periods than any other role and how important it is to be able to fight 1v1 and CS well, and the ins and outs of high-level wave management.
- A jungle tutorial that explains the game's true swing position - how jungle is really about bringing jungle gold and experience to the lanes to help get kills and take objectives, not just doing camp after camp after camp - the basics of gank etiquette, what makes for a good gank opportunity (low health or a pushed-in wave), how to take and steal neutral objectives, and the importance of vision and map awareness.
C. NEW MASTERY REQUIREMENTS FOR DRAFT OR RANKED?
I also feel like people need to understand that draft and then ranked are a step up from normals. People need to understand how bans and swaps work - and that they really need to be able to play two champions in each of two roles in order to have the best chance of success. Should playing draft require a certain number of Mastery 4-5's? Should Ranked require at least one Mastery 6-7, four or five Mastery 4-5's, etc.?
D. ALLOW PLAYERS TO TURN OFF AUTOFILL
Yes, it will take them ten minutes to find a match sometimes - but some players just can't play outside of their chosen roles. Let those who can play any role use autofill, and let those who can only play a few positions avoid playing outside of their comfort zones, even if it takes longer.
I feel like the chance that Riot would do all of this is probably low, and I understand why they wouldn't - because a lot of people would just go "I have to learn? This is boring!" and never make it past the tutorial. And if it's bad for sales, well, that affects decisions more than anything else in this industry, because sales are how Riot pays its developers to be able to live.
But still - this is a difficult game with an insanely high skill cap, and a lot of the bad feelings are still coming from games where people are just terribly underskilled for the matchup.
So, a poll:
