Remember when Riot tried to REDUCE snowballing?
Disclaimer: I am a mostly low ELO player. I've been playing since Season 3, and this season I climbed my way to Gold as a support main. I understand that what I am discussing here is mostly a problem with the low-level and non-competitive players. In higher rankings, many of Riot's S6 changes seem very reasonable. Riot should not be basing major changes on problems in low-level play, but it seems in many cases that problems in the low-levels are being completely overlooked.
I like a lot of the new changes in preseason 6, but I get the feeling that some of the mechanic "tweaks" are going overboard. It's nice that previously 'weak' champions can at least feel strong before being murdered by Graves. The general explanation for all of these changes is that Riot wants each game to be exciting and faster paced, pulling away from the recent tank meta problems people have been complaining about. The side effect of this is that every game is centered on a team snowballing their way to victory, which I don't believe is a healthy meta, and I seem to recall Riot agreeing with me before.
As a perfect example of Riot attempts to reduce snowballing in the past, take a look at Season 4 Kassadin: Between patches 4.3 and 4.14, Kassadin got buffed and/or nerfed Seven Times. > From the 4.12 Nerf on Kassadin: > Currently, our focus is on Kass's super snowballing potential where, when he's ahead, he can help both himself and his team succeed by constantly slowing and punching people in the face.
He was then nerfed two more times before being buffed twice in a row in S5.
This wasn't restricted to just Kassadin. Other balance changes to itemization, champion kits, and damage potentials were created around that time as well. On the changeover to S5, we got a change to the base stat progression of champions and champion 'types' so that riot could balance groups as well as specific kits to make sure everything was on an even playing field.
Fast Forward to now: > Patch Notes 5.22: Minions (Delayed until 5.23) >http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-522-notes#patch-minions > - If your team's average level is higher than the enemy's, your minions deal 10% bonus damage to enemy minions. If you've taken cumulatively more turrets than the enemy team, damage is further increased by 10% for each turret you have over your opponents. > - If your team's average level is at least 3 higher than the enemy's and you've taken 2 or more towers in a given lane, your minions in that lane deal 90% more damage to enemy minions
Some other buffs on minions are detailed afterwards, but in the interest of brevity, I'll just quote these ones here. For more info, I suggest you click the link and read the other buffs if you haven't already.
I recently had a ranked game where our jungler (Lee Sin) did not connect until mid-late game. Our team was getting pretty well hammered. When we were level 10, the enemy team was level 11, except for enemy jungler Xin who had gotten fed off of two jungles. This made the enemy team average level: (12+11+11+11+11) / 5 = 11.2 Our average level, having a Lv1 still sitting in the base was: (1+10+10+10+10) / 5 = 8.2 Meaning that the enemy team was 3 levels ahead on average. That coupled with the fact that we were down on towers means that if the minion buffs had been applied as intended in 5.22, then this 4v5 would have been facing minions in top lane that do +140% more damage to our minions. Luckily, the minions stayed equal, and we were able to stall until Lee Sin joined the game (after about 22 minutes) and we managed to barely win.
In the lower levels, sometimes a 4v5 is winnable. Sometimes the missing player will eventually reconnect and everything will be okay in the end. However, pending changes to the minions in 5.23, the advantage given to a 5v4 team will grow even stronger and make a 4v5 almost impossible to survive.
Aside from the soon-to-arrive "Pushing Advantage" to minions, the game is already incredibly prone to snowballing in S6. Low level games almost exclusively follow a static meta. Everyone plays standard roles in standard lanes when they want to win, and they stay in lane with little or no roaming until mid game when everyone goes to teamfight around dragon or mid lane. In S6, the first teamfight usually decides the entire game. Once one team gets the advantage, even for just 25 seconds, they can push through and take at least two towers (which have basically no armor and no magic resist with minions around) and probably an inhibitor before anyone can respawn to stop them.
In higher levels, this strategy to speed up games seems like a good idea. The issue is that it revolves around the principle that diamond+ players usually don't make mistakes. It feels like Riot spent all of Season 4 and Season 5 trying to make sure that teams could make a comeback if they were behind. Now the minute you make a mistake and fall behind, you might as well surrender, and that's what most people are doing. I've been in games where the entire team decided to surrender after the first fight because once a team starts snowballing in S6, there's almost no way to stop it.
Riot Please: There are enough new mechanics and changes in the way gold accumulates, towers fall, Rift Herald buffs, Marksman itemization, and more. Why do we need a mechanic that serves no other purpose but to help a winning team snowball even more?
