In preseason 6 riot introduced a mechanic where the winning team has stronger minions which made the game really snowbally. I just played a 4v5 where even though we were doing ok, we just can't make sidelanes push on their own because they did like 40% bonus damage to our minions. This is a really dumb mechanic.
Kloqdq53 votesOne of many changes intended to make games shorter, but only caused more snowballing.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo24 votesso it worked as intended ?
snowballing = shorter games ?
10110011100038 votesHaving the goal of shorter games shouldn't mean that everything should be snowbally. You can make a game shorter to a significant degree without making it snowbally.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo4 votesthen how do you purpose to shorten the game but not effect the increased snowballing ?
Kloqdq13 votesThis is a difficult question to answer. I think the main issue with league is not that it's short games but that it is often very one sided. If a team pulls even the slightest edge, they will typically just snowball from there and make games impossible to come back. There is a lop-side of power here. If towers were more threating and the minion pushing was removed the game would be less snowball - less people will just dive because towers actually mean something, and minions won't just trash towers as easily - it is likely the game lengths will remain the same but nobody will just gain massive advantages because they got 1 kill and now we can just dive bot and win.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo4 votesyet part of the reason for the changes was the player base wanting shorter games cuz the old 40-55min games people said took to much time
so now the average game is 32mins ish
they added rift to make the game faster... the team that gets it gets at least 1 turret out of it which equates to alot of map control/pressure and team gold
but yet they took this element from drag for team gold?
now you have to decide between baron or elder... if you get a pick or two and have a 3 vs 5 and lanes pushing then you can legit split and get both further snowballing.
i cant tell you how many games i see 1st blood in under 3 mins. its like no one knows how to play and farm at all people just wanna all in at lvl 1 /2 and dont realize that most at those early levels if you just trade and make the enemy in lane draw agro from the minions that will do more damage then what you are gonna do with autos. (game i just finish jax on my team gave 1st blood to teemo top before minions got to lane fml )
another thing that pushes game time is the gold/experience obtained jungle and support now ... sometimes i will be equal to or higher lvl then solo laners in either position so in the past seasons where solo lanes were super gold fed early and adcs were stronger mid game and jungle and supports had slightly less but if they were involved in a lot of objectives or asst they would be on par. now every one is rich... which in itself creates a power shift to certain champs
then we take a look at the element drags ... and the randomness it provides ... if a team was able to obtain two early infernal drags they clearly have an stat/gold advantage that just scale more with items and levels
but if you wanted to try to combat this at next drag and it ends up cloud/water drag you are kinda fuked if behind. mountain and infernal are truly the only ones worth contesting ( imo )
but with the changes to turrets , and the 1st turret bonus gold it escalates agro play and dives which can legit lose a game. then we add in the reworked masteries from season 6 with the balance nightmare they caused with keystones (bout to do the same fukin thing with runes FML ) and with the super agro meta, snowball games etc with having to rework more and more champs, buffs, nerfs, item changes etc balance to me is more of an issue then it ever been
just my thoughts
Kloqdq5 votesYou are completely right. All these changes over time have really brought us to this point and we haven't done anything. I don't mind the game lengths. I think they are good. But the elements in the game that cause heavy snowballing/advantages are what bug me the most. (Fire and Mountain Drakes hold a ton of power and if a team ahead gets those it's pretty freaking impossible to win) Rift always removes a tower, towers not being strength to help prevent the bronze dives that happen a lot but the rewards for just doing it are so high with so little threat it's stupid not to abuse it. Tools like the plants also add to the snowball because it allows people that are ahead to abuse their lead and came from different angles, clear wards, or just stay healthier. All these things and many more just add up and Riot only keep adding more elements that increase the snowballing.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votesand basically im on a razor thin edge on whether ill continue to play with the mess the new rune system is gonna create. they will have a rune if you go over the cdr cap either 40 or 45% it turns the bonus cdr into ad/ap based on your champ and build items
i swear they just keep dumbing down the game... its like you get rewarded for making bad decisions ooopps i invested too much gold resources into CD its ok it turns into damage !! in the past if you did this it cost you... you had to think and plan your items/builds and learn how to get the most gold efficiency in your items
Kloqdq2 votesI like the ideas but it is starting to get out of hand. Everything is just piling up and it may come to break the camels back sooner or later.
10110011100045 votesYou literally just make everything happen faster. Increase EXP and gold gains by 50%, make baron spawn at 15 rather than 20 but make the buff 30% less effective early, reduce dragon spawn timer, reduce the cost of all items by 20% percent.
The problem is when you try to make the game faster by giving one side a distinct advantage, rather than by cutting down the barriers the developers put in place to control the flow of the game.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo3 voteslol how does that not increase snowballing... if you give more experience and gold and all that who ever gets that 1st kill or 1st turret just has more gold to get more with and with reduced cost it would be easier
getting a baron at 15mins some champs can solo it as it is ... so now people would have barons earlier giving more of snowball effect and not to mention increasing the super agro meta we already have by 10 fold
10110011100023 votesI'm talking about ambient gold gains and minion farming, I should've been more specific.
And I already said Baron buff would have reduced effectiveness if it spawned earlier.
Making items cost less gold means ANYONE can get an item faster and makes full build late game happen earlier for EVERYONE.
It's obviously possible to make the game faster without snowballing, but it means that laning, mid-game, and literally everything else has to show up and happen faster by consequence. Making barons and dragons spawn faster would be naturally necessary, since you can't expect the pace of the game to go faster if the global objective pushing objective still spawns at the 20-minute mark.
13900 Essence3 votesIf you shorten the power curve of all champions proportionately, it makes the game shorter without increasing snowballing.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votesno, the games are short the snowballing effect is there. if i gain more gold and experience faster in a faster meta... those who get the slightest advantage snowballs faster ...
like if you were to lane vs a champ and you get a solo kill in the scenario at hand... your experience gained from the solo kill plus the passive experience that is now turned up and the passive gold is turned up just leads to you gaining a faster advantage which in turn would make 1 kill more likely to turn into a snowball effect
Seekêr1 voteseff all those changes all they need to do is up the death timer scaling to the point where a death at 20 minutes was punishing and game making.
1011001110005 votesMaking death timers longer just means the people who die play the game slower, which is the opposite of what you want. If you want a game to feel faster, it has to feel faster for everyone, and making death timers longer just makes people play safer and makes the game longer.
Seekêr1 voteslike they made this change before and games were going for less than 20 so they changed the deathtimers to be shorter and made the game less snowbally
1011001110004 votesThey made death timers longer and low elo saw 10 minute close-outs while high elo and LC$ were 50-minute snoozefests because deaths mattered too much.
deadlychuck3 votesThe problem is that it has to be. The shorter the game gets, the tighter you get stuck between a "snowballing" style game and a 1-push-win style game.
If they don't want the game to feel like it snowballs too much, and they don't want the game to feel like losing a single fight in an even match loses you the game, then they've got to extend the length of the match. It's all about how many objectives can be secured in the time after a team fight, both from a 5:0 exchange and a 3:2 exchange. As well as how often those exchanges occur.
There are other ways to fix this problem without necessarily changing game time, but those would be things like changing the scale of the map.
SpecterVonBaren1 votesThey said it was to help the behind team get XP but.... yeah....
Kloqdq1 votesWhich is stupid when you consider teams can just get side lanes beginning to push then force fights on the other side of the map, forcing them to fight and lose tower or send someone and for sure lose the fight.
SpecterVonBaren2 votesYep, I fully agree with you on that.
MeDicenWera2 votesOne of many changes intended to make games shorter, but only caused more snowballing.
I didn't liked the excuse of "we do this so the losing team has to be proactive to win" tho.
Kalarepa1 votesWhy do games have to be short? I'd rather play one 50 minutes back to back game, than two 25 minutes snowballs. Same with watching LCS, snowballs are boring, long games with epic endings are the most exciting.
Kloqdq1 votesMy feelings exactly! The back and forth, long struggles are my favourites. It's when both teams are trying their best and every mistake is heavy. Snowballs aren't fun to play or watch. Just stomping a team and winning in 20 minutes is a real snooze fest.
JESUSSAYSNO15 votesIt was designed as a comeback mechanic. As a losing team, you never want the wave on the enemy's side of the river, it's not safe to farm. If waves are frozen across the river, and the enemy is in your jungle, you have 0 form of income and can be hard locked out of a game with literally 0 counterplay.
However most players didn't use or abuse this mechanic like they could and should have, so the effective change is that winning teams have their minions slow push by default. This is good and bad. On one hand, it's free map pressure, on the other, farming from ahead tends to be harder, as you lose more creeps to your waves, which may or may not be relevant.
deadlychuck8 votesThe problem is that the enemies controlling your jungle is worth more than the ability to keep waves on your side of the map.
Towers are generally how the jungle control lines get drawn, and because of this mechanic you tend to only be able to freeze these waves properly after the 2nd tier towers have fallen for that lane. At which point you've forfeited control of that side of the jungle.
Psybicilin1 votesThe minion waves are far more valuable than the jungle camps in the time they take to respawn.
SpecterVonBaren1 votesWho said this had anything to do with farm? Losing control of your jungle means losing control of map objectives.
deadlychuck1 votesThat's not in any respect what i'm talking about.
Controlling the enemies jungle has worth, by means of preventing them from safely lane swapping, and controlling neutral river objectives. Not to mention, other tactical advantages it provides.
Pale Pirate2 votesBut it was after this update that huge enemy waves starting gathering at the second-tier turret of the losing team. If they aren't dealt with, they may even take the tower. Is the lost tower really worth the extra gold from farming and does this new situation even make sense?
JESUSSAYSNO1 votesIf you're behind, you should be avoiding fights and putting your efforts towards farming and denying enemy play potential. If you're not catching the wave, you're furthering the enemy snowball instead of stopping it.
The creeps are free for you, what on the map is more important than a 4 wave ball of creeps? I'd argue that it's worth more than a skrimish easily, and seeing as you have little chance to win a teamfight from behind, I'd argue that it's worth more than the fight as well. It's a 0 risk way to close the gap between you and the enemy team. 4 waves of creeps, 6x4x19=456, This is your gold gained from catching the wave. Instead of fighting, look to close the gap via farm. You have the potential to lose the fight, and the odds are stacked against you, so catch the wave and ignore the fight.
Not only that, but each wave comes every 30 seconds. You have a LOOOOONG warning before the wave actually crashes.
6KEMBE4ORBA2 votesGiving away map pressure (PRESSURE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, YEA I'M WRITING THIS IN CAPS) and correspondingly:
.... is way, way more punishing/useful than 1 or 2 waves pushing on their own towards the teams that's behind.
What actually happens is:
Which means, you can't make plays or you are severely limited to make such. Which itself means that you can't do much while behind and the winning team will most probably win and you will not only "feel" like you can't do anything about it, but that will actually be the case = the SNOWBALL META that we have right now.
It was and still is a retarded change, much like countless other things.
And this whole EARLY DEATHMATCH SNOWBALL META is cause Riot wants shorter games (they admitted that) to compete with HOTS/Overwatch etc.
What we have at the bottom is "profit" at the expense of match quality.
Starcraft243ver13 votesIt's an anti-freeze mecanics designed to also help comeback and not seing someone being zone away from the farm for 20 minuts.
Trashy McGarbage5 votesDidn't work very well. Freezing is still alive and well.
Gubaguy6 votesAnd here i thought jsut champions had too much damage, turns out, its everything, cept towers, the ONE THING IN GAME that shoudl have too much damage.
Michael7025 votesThat's interesting. Got a link?
Michael70211 votesI'm dumbfounded. Why would they add such a thing? That's just asinine.
Starcraft243ver14 votesThey added this so when you lose your lane, the opponent has a harder time freezing forever.
I remember a game playing nasus, the ennemy riven was ahead, she froze for 20 minuts. I truly didnt touch a single CS for 20 minuts.
JESUSSAYSNO3 votesBut the thing is now, you can still freeze lock, you just need to set up for it, and if you're that far behind, it's basically impossible to stop the setup, as you can't shove the wave to break the freeze. The change made it harder, not impossible.
XeroKimo5 votesI'm pretty sure the actual goal of that change was so the losing team can get more access to minions to make a comeback, as back then winning teams would freeze the lane in their side when they have the chance, making it impossible for the losing team to farm
TwitchInMyPants5 votesThey buffed assassins and the auto push is a buff to AoE mages with great waveclear, they become more valuable for mid-late game because of that advantage and the health they get leveling. Its a trade off IMO. Removing it would help low waveclear characters for sure, though I think its possible to keep it fair if they either reduce the effect or buff champions affected by it the most.
BoilTheOil3 votesThis is a thing? wtf
UnboundHades3 votesyes this is a thing
sddghyufjasdklhu3 votesthey did this so teams behind can wait for farm to eventually come to them and then have a chance to get back into the game if they arent getting obliterated. Otherwise someone in silver pushes a wave and the enemy keeps it on their side and boom, 1 lane is unsafe to farm now.
HeeroTX4 votesRiot Logic:
For gawd's sake, just add a damn "deathmatch" mode with everyone starting around level 10 or so with + 500 gold/min or something and be done with it. Hell, people will probably stop asking for URF then too.
AwesomeGuyDj2 votesThis isnt a thing? Both minion sides have the exact same stats.
UnboundHades4 votesyou are very wrong
korg0232 votesI remember when this was introduced and i said back then its retarded, Riot will do anything to make games last shorter and this just looks dumb. Also aside from that its literally invisible power and i heard that riot doesent like invisible power in their game.
