People think League is in it's worst state ever...

Mira Arya Enthe·Oct 27, 2016·125 votes·7,199 views

They seem to forget:

When Teemo's ratios and movespeed were nearly double what they are now and his shrooms lasted 10 minutes.

League of Tanks.

Win Zhao.

Kassawin 95% pick or ban.

Ashe and Annie's original models barf.

Release LeBlanc.

Any point and time Shyvana, Udyr or Yi were allowed to abuse on hit items.

AP Yi.

As well as HUNDREDS of other abominations, flaws, imbalanced designs and other BS.

This time isn't particularly bad, it has it's flaws, but it is far from the worst.

218 Comments

UnpaladinOct 27, 201667 votes

Yeah those were bad, but a lot of those are champion issues, and champions can be banned. Just keep in mind that this season brought in some changes to how games play out entirely, which is a HUGE deal. Previous seasons may have changes to the jungle or introduce new items, but this seasson has the most frequent large-scale changes of any. Multiple game mechanic changes, drastically more objective changes, and frequent roster updates make the game so different that it's no surprise there's a lot of issues with this season.

Not only that but this season has been an absolute nightmare up until now, and the fact that it's in a decent spot right now doesn't excuse this. I believe Season 5 was much better handled balance-wise and it was great that it didn't seek to change the game's formula every three patches*.

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 27, 201618 votes

The issue is that these large-scale reworks have been a long time coming. Take note that around 40-50 champions came out in season 1 and 2. Comparatively, I don't think we hit that much when you take into account Seasons 3-6. A majority of league's post launch champions came out in the span of two seasons.

Thus, Riot put off the issue of character similarity because who cares, smol company scrambling to get those dollars in quick. Except now, all that has come around to bite them in the ass. The secondary issue is that these were delayed for so long that people grew attached to things, even if they weren't healthy (Much like I am with soda. Honest to god I'm trying to cut back.)

Almost every problem currently facing League, from champion similarity to items being stat sticks (Thank god we're getting more actives) to code and client, originated from Season 1/2. We only see them now because Riot put it off until it hit the breaking point, much like their grip on the pro scene and concerns with casters.

Earl EulrichOct 27, 20163 votes

i really disagree here. the most troubling issues stem from the s5&6 chances, mainly to the vision system and to the massive increase in dmg and snowballing over time. also the addition of way too much mobility and many new problematic mechanics for the sake of uniqueness. It just really killed lots of the strategic gameplay and champion balance.

some old issues that date way back would be:

crit rng
range>>>melee

and while those a bad too, they are unfortunatly the least concern still.

Electro522Oct 27, 20168 votes

I'd say that vision is actually in its healthiest state as of right now. Yeah, there could be a debate on pink wards not revealing stealth, but that's beside the point.

Before trinkets came around, SO MUCH GOLD would be sunk into just vision. This would slow games down by a fairly drastic amount. Today, however, the only ward you ever spend gold on is the pink ward. All other vision and vision denial is essentially (unless you count buying sightstone). Also, we have vision wars. Before trinkets, you could light up the entire map, and the only thing the other team could do to counter it were to buy pink wards, which only added to overall vision in the field. Now, vision is more like a game of chess, with both teams trying to keep control over vision around big objectives. Could there be a bit more vision (like lowering the CD on yellow trinket)? Possibly. But, it's undeniable that vision is in a very good state right now.

As for damage, it might be due to the class updates. We've had Juggernauts (which were more of an experiment on Riots end.......some of them ending badly), Marksman, Mages, and now Assassins. Damage may very well stay at an all time high until Riot visits one of the tank classes (I've seen a lot of talk around Vangaurds (tanks with a hell of a lot cc), chances are they'll be next). The new Kings Vow item is just a taste of what's to come. This item alone is sparking speculation on duo bot lane bruisers, and once the Vanfaurd update comes around, chances are we'll see a somewhat dramatic change in how tankiness works.

AMYS GRAVEOct 27, 201613 votes

I believe Season 5 was much better handled balance-wise and it was great that it didn't seek to change the game's formula every three weeks.

This ^ They don't need two full class updates a year. Reworking a dozen champions per season is overkill and is more disruptive than helpful.

jaymc1130Oct 27, 201638 votes

League has been in the worst state its ever been in this season.

The amount of diversity in terms of strategy is simply nonexistent. The only viable strategy this entire season has been "snowball hard in the first 10 and auto win". Nothing else has been viable competitively on the ladder. 1-3-1's died with the TP nerfs and the rise of Ghost being taken by midlaners, stall comps and turtle comps cant compete, the average game time decreased by more than 10% this season, competitive integrity on the ladder was completely done away with, the quality of ranked matches has been awful all season thanks in large part to DQ allowing a more than tripled rate of the average MMR distance between highest and lowest ranked player on a team going from an average separation of 100 MMR (about 2 divisions) to over 300 MMR (an entire tier), the client is finally SOOO buggy that it HAS to be redone because every 5th lobby causes the client to crash, the hextech crafting tab always causes the client to crash, every champion has the ability to lead his team in dmg dealt to enemy champs because of the Keystone additions which has partly helped lead to the snowball meta and the brief overly strong tank meta where item 3025 item 3068 basically made you unkillable really early in games while simultaneously giving you fighter-assassin level damage as a tank, nearly 20 % of the playerbase has decided to quit the game which has lead to longer queue times even for normal blind pick matches and can be easily seen in the fact that the total number of players to play ranked this season on most servers is down by about 20% (less than 2 million on the NA server for the first time since season 3 I think? A bit over half a million players less than last season), but the number of players in d5 and up has increased by more than 50% (about 25,000 total last season, about 22,000 the prior season, over 36,000 to date this season) confirming that boosting has been more prevalent than ever.

The game's in pretty bad shape mate.

SevixysOct 27, 20163 votes

Where do you get these numbers? They are not public information

jaymc1130Oct 27, 201612 votes

{quoted}

Where do you get these numbers? They are not public information

Various websites, not all of it is easy to find or access and I've got a boat load of data stored in my memory so some things I'm pulling straight from prior seasons of data that was available then and may not be available now without some real digging.

About the only thing you can't use is any of Riot's data since its all manipulated to spin things. Like that 100 million player bullshit they posted a while back. Lol, yeah right. I'm 16 players by myself because I play 16 accounts regularly, we all know that number is massively inflated by smurfs. Most of the usable information you can find with just google searches if you feel the need to dig through things.

Some things you will simply have to extrapolate based on other data, for example, the length of my average normal blind pick queue time. It's increased roughly 20-25% this season compared to what it was in last December. I've regularly had 20 minute blind pick waits on some smurfs because of their normal MMR being well over 2000. Even in those circumstances a year ago I never had to wait more than about 5 minutes on average for a match.

Normal blind pick wait times can only increase because of one thing: less players playing the mode. Now if we knew that there were more players playing ranked we could surmise that because they are playing ranked (or any other game mode really) there are less players playing blind pick. But we know some of these things aren't the case, for example we know there are LESS players playing ranked this season than in prior seasons (this being data you can acquire in a straightforward way) and there are less playing in other game modes as well because some of them have been removed, or other various reasons. Naturally this should mean we see an influx of players for blind pick normals and queue times would decrease over the season. Instead they have progressively gotten longer on average each month for the past 10 and a half months to the point where they are now roughly 20-25% longer on average. From this we can extrapolate that there are less players in total playing the game mode, and since this is the most played game mode we can also assume this means there are less players playing in general. Probably by about 20%.

So some of this info is directly pulled, some of it is archived data, and some of it is just common sense extrapolation.

Glory ln DeathOct 27, 20162 votes

I would argue that you are leaving out the implementation of the new champion select in the Normal Draft mode. That, more than any argument you've given, explains why fewer people are playing Blind Pick.

Why would people play Blind Pick when they can play Normal Draft and be nearly guaranteed to play their preferred role? So of course fewer people are playing in Blind - it really has nothing to draw people to it unless they play frequently banned champions.

DukuesOct 27, 20164 votes

well you don't even play the game (at least on this account) so stop pretending like you know anything about it?

Says you were silver in season 4 so really have no room to speak. I have played since season 1 and don't really see the issues.

You can't bitch about dynamic queue if you don't play the game and are not high elo. As a low elo player myself its not that bad.....

You overlook new champ select. Back fired a little at higher elos but works for the average player. Have maybe had 1 or 2 people troll all season long after 800 ranked games because they didn't get their role. That shit used to happen much more in prior seasons...... Glady wait a few minutes to get my role and not get stuck with trolls bitching over roles.

"nearly 20% of the player base has decided to quit the game" lmfao ok. I am sad that people up voted you. Your stats make hardly any sense at all. The numbers you report for ranked players especially in NA is hella wrong.

CaptnJakSparrowOct 27, 20162 votes

{quoted}

well you don't even play the game (at least on this account) so stop pretending like you know anything about it?

Says you were silver in season 4 so really have no room to speak. I have played since season 1 and don't really see the issues.

You can't bitch about dynamic queue if you don't play the game and are not high elo. As a low elo player myself its not that bad.....

You overlook new champ select. Back fired a little at higher elos but works for the average player. Have maybe had 1 or 2 people troll all season long after 800 ranked games because they didn't get their role. That shit used to happen much more in prior seasons...... Glady wait a few minutes to get my role and not get stuck with trolls bitching over roles.

"nearly 20% of the player base has decided to quit the game" lmfao ok. I am sad that people up voted you. Your stats make hardly any sense at all. The numbers you report for ranked players especially in NA is hella wrong.

You don't seem to be aware that a very large chunk of players gold+ literally do nothing but log on once a month and play a single game, if that. Also there are more people in diamond than usual, and a very large portion them were indeed boosted or scripting or both. And you know what they do? Log in once a month and play one game to avoid getting caught. He other players get tired of playing skill level rng team mates. So, they quit.

Also Jaymc has like 10 accounts sitting in diamond. So.

DukuesOct 27, 20163 votes

{quoted}

You don't seem to be aware that a very large chunk of players gold+ literally do nothing but log on once a month and play a single game, if that.

You seem to be unaware that gold no longer decays..... Also, this literally has happens every single season. Players hit their desired rank and stop playing......

_Also there are more people in diamond than usual, _

Does seem to be True.

and a very large portion them were indeed boosted or scripting or both.

Your making an assumption that can't be proved. Yes it is reasonable to assume a chunk of these players were boosted or used scripts but hard to say the exact number.

And you know what they do? Log in once a month and play one game to avoid getting caught.

Again, no shit... people do this every season.

He other players get tired of playing skill level rng team mates. So, they quit.

People get tired of games yea....

Also Jaymc has like 10 accounts sitting in diamond. So.

What does that have to do with anything? Lots of players have multiple accounts. That only helps prove that a lot of these "inflated diamond accounts" are most likely smurfs more than just boosted players and scripters. Hell Imaqtpie has 4 accounts in challenger.... Dyrus has at least 2. Lots of the numbers in this game are bs because their taken up by smurf accounts. As far as player populations its hard to say. Ranked account numbers are similar to past years, more I believe actually. Riot isn't the best at sharing this information so its hard to prove it either way.

Don't understand your response at all or what point you are trying to make.

WoonStruckOct 27, 201631 votes

**The state of the game isn't necessarily the state of balance. **

The game legitimately feels less fun than previous seasons to me.

Previous seasons were more diverse, and despite over-tuned things, the game was still enjoyable. Most were quickly fixed anyway.

Yeah, some games are alright, but the majority of them now are praying that your bot lane doesn't open up a buffet or that your jungle Nidalee or Graves actually knows how to jungle.

Yeah, those both had related factors in previous seasons, but they impact the game WAY more than they ever have this season.

Not only that, but almost every champion played now has significant disengage. There's little to no risk on a good portion of new/reworked champions for overextending. This leads to them literally being at your tower harassing you without fear of being punished in a lot of cases. This makes a lot of games infuriatingly one-sided unless your jungler is actually a good player, which doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Throw in the absurd amount of damage in the game now, and it just leads to a completely one-sided experience in the majority of games.

One-sided games aren't all that fun, whether you're on the winning side or losing side.

Virtual BinaryOct 27, 201620 votes

Oh but it is. Back when kassadin was perma banned it didnt even matter it was still the most fun period of league and anyone who has been playing as long as I have will agree that season 2/3 were the most fun seasons. The things you are describing are alot better than you make it seem rofl.

dynamic que ROFL nuff said
Plants
matchmaking timers up for everyone 4.matchmaking is worse for everyone 5.autofill

The list can go for days but im not that bored. I know you are the "oh everythings not that bad man" average player but from a hardcore player perspective the game has been shit for a very long time and def going down hill. There have been so many players being boosted so that they dont have to play this season. If you follow the highest ups of league and the non casual players you will see that 3/4 the people are extremely discontent with how the game is the last couple of years and you can see it almost every day on twitter/social media.

SlythionOct 27, 201618 votes

Don't forget Dodge Mechanic

or release Rek'Sai

Virtual BinaryOct 27, 201633 votes

can tell you havent been playing very long if you think release rek sai was anything special LOL

ApocalypsicOct 27, 201610 votes

But they also mentioned Dodge chance...

ShadragonOct 27, 201618 votes

Remember when item 3072 had to build up stacks to reach 100 AD, and if you died you lost half your stacks? Remember when item 3083 had to build up stacks to reach full effectiveness? Remember when item 3041 had sister items in the form of Sword of the Occult(AD) and Leviathan(Health) and champions like Shaco could build all three to become unkillable gods? Remember when item 3123 was a complete item and gave lifesteal and crit chance? Remember when item 3105 gave armor, health, MR and attack damage? Remember Soul Shroud? That item that gave mana regen and 15% CDR as an aura? Remember those shitty tenacity items like Cloak and Dagger and Eleisa's Miracle? Remember Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold and Kage's Lucky Pick and Avarice Blade back when you could build all 4 and passively earn tons of money? Remember Wriggle's Lantern? Remember FERAL FLARE? Remember spending 2000 gold on wards and covering the entire map in them so you could see literally everything all at once? Remember when people thought Koreans sucked and didn't know how to play League because they build "bad" items like item 3136 and played "bad" champions like Ahri and Leblanc ? Remember when people found out that Koreans were way better at the game than we were and that we were the ones who sucked? Remember when the recommended items were so bad that building them on a champion could actually get you reported for trolling? Remember the tribunal? And how everyone just spammed PUNISH for every case so they could get their majority vote IP? Remember when Twitch could run around in stealth for like an entire year, and would just mercilessly slaughter everything on the map over and over and over until you surrendered or he soloed your entire base? Remember when summoner 4 summoner 14 were the only viable summoners and the only exceptions were junglers and summoner 6 on Singed ? Remember Surge, Promote, Fortify and Rally? Remember when Katarina was an AD champion? Remember the holy trinity, Graves Ezreal Corki ? Remember when playing support Annie or Morgana would get you banned for trolling? Remember when Yorick was the most cancerous thing in the universe and just automatically won top lane by zerging you with 800 million ghouls, each of which could kill you in a 1v1? Remember when Soraka had a point and click silence that was also a nuke that synergized with her AoE MR shred nuke and massive heal+armor boost that made her impossible to 1v1? Remember when she could heal herself AND give herself mana? Remember when Yasuo was supposed to go botlane with a support? Remember item 3003 item 3102 item 3110 item 3027 Ryze ? Remember when the damage from item 3068 stacked? Remember Deathfire Grasp? Remember how everyone thought it was a trash item that should never be built on anyone except Veigar until the Koreans started building it? Remember when item 3071 built out of a item 1038 and a item 1042 and was one of the worst items in the game? Remember when first got reworked, and every single stat stacked and so you had champions like Talon with endgame builds like item 3117 item 3074 ? Remember when item 3077 was a complete item, gave mana regeneration, allowed ranged champions to cleave, and stacked fully so that by the time you had three of them you were doing more damage to the guy next to your target than you were doing to the guy you actually attacked? Remember that time Froggen built item 3083 on Anivia and people were freaking out about it for months? Remember when Jax gained health for building AD and AP, which he turned into more AD with his Atma's Impaler which he turned into more health with his passive?

Fun times.

Sahn UzalOct 27, 20163 votes

'member*

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--cJq1pb1m--/t_Preview/b_rgb:191919,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1474073671/production/designs/685741_1.jpg

SSJTribeOct 27, 20165 votes

https://memecrunch.com/meme/BGMLQ/pepperidge-farm-remembers/image.png?w=448&c=1

6SfoolOct 27, 201617 votes

Eh, I think the damage meta is worse for the game than any number of those. It makes or a total of 20 sec of combat in a 45 min game. The rest just cost you a ban.

Naturally, those abuse cases get taken out over time. The damage meta is something Riot intentionally created, and it's just not what League is about.

Big LincolnOct 27, 201615 votes

Taric has been taken away from me and all fun stripped from his kit, i have one support i get to enjoy playing now Bard

season 6 has been terrible through and through

OokamiNoSoraOct 27, 20163 votes

my old main has been destroyed for me by a rework so I know how it feels =[

go commit dieOct 27, 20164 votes

Lol sorry ur support was given mechanics and a reason to play over any other one

Big LincolnOct 27, 20165 votes

oh yeah boi that sweet skillshot mechonix, just what i want on every fucking rework, more generic CC bots and an invuln ult :)))))

Toplane FencerOct 27, 20162 votes

Could you give me one way Taric was better before his rework than he is now?

Big LincolnOct 27, 20165 votes

his heal wasn't dog shit and he had armor shred and an aura on his W, instead of a shield that's literally nothing on your carries and his armor being limited to 2 people

I'm not complaining about good. He's very good. Is he fun? No. Is he Taric? No. I wanted a fighter support with good all-round utility and buffs for his team. Not a moving Kindred ult and a gimmick on his W

KirbyCakeOct 27, 201615 votes

those seasons only had a few problematic champions that had enough bans to ban out.

this season there are far more

deadlychuckOct 27, 201615 votes

I'd rather have a few flaws within the system, than a flawed system.

BoilTheOilOct 27, 201612 votes

league of tanks was this year once

win zhao was this year after his buffs

yi abused on hit items this year and was also able to be played ap

and dont forget the 3 adcs per team this year

SnowplosionOct 27, 20168 votes

Win Zhao was his release.

hunterspecOct 27, 201610 votes

you mean when the game was actually fun? And you list ashe and annie but no jax? or TF? downvoted.

BakedLotionOct 27, 201610 votes

league of tanks was the most balanced meta in a long time though

Mecha MaIphiteOct 27, 20168 votes

And people had cited League of Cinderhulk as being the healthiest (no pun intended) meta, too.

That meta was hilarious. I'd walk around doing nothing while everyone died to my thornmail and cinderhulk burn, and waddle away with half my health remaining. It's like people think that just because people weren't getting blown up, it meant that everything was healthy and normal.

No, people weren't getting blown up because you couldn't blow them up. I'd argue that there was more counterplay to a Zed jumping on your face than a wall of slow, lumbering meat grinders that steamrolled over you, slowly but surely.

KVbqbFsC8eOct 27, 20167 votes

Dynamic que was the worst thing to ever happen to League. This season was unquestionably the worst.

Critmaster GarenOct 27, 20167 votes

its also not in the best state ever.

the best state was at the end of season 5, after juggernauts were balanced out and the initial overtuned releases were nerfed into a state were they were decent, but not weak. the only class that was generally lacking a bit at the time were mages. but even then, certain mages were played effectively. every class was equally relevant.

at worst it was a couple individual champions being slightly too weak or in need of reworks.

TeCoolMageOct 27, 20167 votes

Evelynn item 3117 item 3068

RIP

NodaYame127Oct 27, 20166 votes

It's funny that so many items are made for drawn out fights but no fight lasts over a few seconds now since it isn't hard to one shot almost anyone can do it given the right runes masteries items and ignite.

windwhispersOct 27, 20166 votes

I've never seen the game in a worse state than this since like the Season 2 "arms race." Granted, it is more polished than it used to be, but the games are drawn out and boring. They are snowball-y to the point where there is almost no coming back from an early disadvantage, and even though you know the outcome at 10 min, there's still another 30 min of boredom before the inevitable winner can end it. The game has never had so little back and forth..it's all one way traffic. Teamwork has never mattered so little..the game is starting to feel like a bad version of DoTA.

Also, I seriously think the math for AD is broken as most phys. damage characters can 100% you in one combo and knock down turrets in 5 seconds, while building armor doesn't seem to mitigate the damage at all.

MarshbouyOct 27, 20164 votes

IKR. It's the good ol' days bias. Every season gets worse when they are about the same (except DQ was actually pretty terrible)

oSEXYPLATYPUSoOct 27, 20161 votes

lol we thought the league of damage was upon us nope its on the horizon

MarshbouyOct 27, 20167 votes

Can't wait for the assassin meta. Shaco-40% winrate Rengar-56% winrate

Tychusfindlay919Oct 27, 20164 votes

This fresh blood nonsense theyre thinking of putting in the pre season can potentially make many top lane melees already struggling, extinct.

CaptnJakSparrowOct 27, 20161 votes

I'm more concerned with the fact I had to dynamic boost my friend to gold playing on a smurf account because on avg the enemy team is a bunch of diamond plat players.

Silver has become who can boost harder. It was never like that before lol.

Mira Arya EntheOct 27, 20161 votes

I've been climbing fine. Haven't noticed.

CaptnJakSparrowOct 27, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3QNABEkr,comment-id=00490000,timestamp=2016-10-27T15:30:53.995+0000)

I've been climbing fine. Haven't noticed.

You're 8 games positive in silver 2. That's not really climbing.

Leon EtoileOct 27, 20163 votes

A positive win rate is all you need to climb

CaptnJakSparrowOct 27, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Leon Etoile,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3QNABEkr,comment-id=0049000000000000,timestamp=2016-10-27T16:38:47.137+0000)

A positive win rate is all you need to climb

With an 8 game positive w/l in diamond you'll gain 15 lp and lose 20+. So, good luck.

It also shows he's going to plateau around S1 if he even makes it without help..

Again. Not really climbing

Leon EtoileOct 27, 20161 votes

He's not Diamond or with Diamond MMR.

That would still be climbing.

CaptnJakSparrowOct 27, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Leon Etoile,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3QNABEkr,comment-id=004900000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-10-27T17:18:51.773+0000)

He's not Diamond or with Diamond MMR.

That would still be climbing.

It's actually not. It's plateauing. Now if he hits gold in a week well talk, but I already know he won't.