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I'm quite frankly done with these sloppy patches...

Remlap1223··72 votes·4,429 views

Either the balance team overnerfs a champion, overloads another, or they actually balance them properly, and then their servers or netcode proceed to go off the deep end.

I don't know what's going on Riot, whether it's sloppiness, laziness, deadlines, whatever, but it needs to stop. I just got a LeaverBuster penalty that stuck me in low priority queue because of the Firewall Bug, which has been complained about for at least a year, but has never been addressed. In addition, other players, including myself, are experiencing significant delays on their abilities and extreme pathing errors, yet we see no acknowledgement of this on the forums. This is completely unacceptable.

How much longer are you going to take advantage of your consumers' patience? You can only dangle the carrot of time and money investment in the game for so long before people realize that it doesn't matter that their investment was so large, because you aren't doing anything with it anymore. We all know that you don't care about your general playerbase because the only thing that your skins do is fund the LCS, which is where your real money comes in. If it isn't the case, prove me wrong. Give me some updates on the new server project that's going through. Tell me what your leeway is on these new server issues that came into the patch. Explain why you think it's 100% appropriate to take a champion as weak as Sona and continue nerfing her to this day, but Lee Sin gets a lifetime supply of NerfBlock (registered trademark of Riot Games.)

My patience is wearing thin. I'm tired of the run arounds, I'm tired of the half-assed excuses. But I'm mostly tired of my trust in a company that formerly offered the the textbook definition of a fair free to play model being taken advantage of. I want answers, and I'm not the only one in this. I want to know why bug ridden champions Azir get rushed out of the PBE despite the overwhelming majority saying he's not ready to be shipped. I want to know why it's ok to completely pull the rug out from under a champion, then continue beating to taste so hard for so long, that it becomes a meme (Irelia Sona ), and finally, I want to know why you aren't telling us the truth about your design philosophies, because of all of the free passes you're giving out to your new champions that go directly against what you believe in (RekSai Kalista LeeSin.)

70 Comments

1st HanarSpectre23 votes

Op has a decent point on a few things, but please, if you want to try and save some credibility, don't try to infer that Irelia is nerfed out of viability. Even after all the nerfs she is still a powerhouse and a constant pick in both competitive and solo queue.

OyddAWqJ5r4 votes

I want to know why it's ok to completely pull the rug out from under a champion, then continue beating to taste so hard for so long, that it becomes a meme

I must've skipped the part where he said she was nerfed out of viability. That's what you interpreted, not what he said :)

Dr Easter8 votes

This game becomes a bigger mess for every patch they release. I think they lost control somewhere around the 4.15 patch.

Rivini6 votes

To explain why some champions in League are the way they are, view this thread: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4358182

BallisticMouse4 votes

You're right, A Riot member did admit they don't want to nerf Lee SIn because of his LCSBIGPLAYS recently. It was on the boards, don't remember where.

PoE00dpWDk9 votes

You might get a kick out of this, so one day I am looking at some of the history of Skarner (these things just interest me) when I can across his original mechanics preview. In it they talk about the general concept of what his abilities do and his niche as a champion, the funny part is early on they say this.

"...we wanted to avoid an instant gap closing mechanic so there's appropriate counter-play."

I don't think that line of thinking held true for that much longer given the amount of dashes being introduce though new champs, to bad the older guys did not get the memo that dashs were in now.

Skarner's mechanics preview

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1049944

Scuttler Slayer1 votes

{quoted}

To explain why some champions in League are the way they are, view this thread: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4358182

This makes sense for some nerfs/ buffs.

But it doesn't make sense as far as the new jungle changes (5.1, 5.2)

These jungle changes just make it difficult to reliably play anything but boring junglers. Lee doesn't excel in this jungle, tbh.

Rengar, fun to watch (with brush hops, etc.), pretty fucking annoying to jungle with.

Rek'Sai, fun to watch, relatively easy to jungle with, but her latest nerfs did hurt her enough to make her not that great of a pick.

There are more...

Learn 2 Swim6 votes

10-15 junglers nerfed this season, Lee Sin untouched.

I will never give this company money again and I am borderline ready to leave this game for good.

chumbler8 votes

[{quoted}](name=Learn 2 Swim,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5MZnxcka,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-01-30T09:11:10.840+0000)

10-15 junglers nerfed this season, Lee Sin untouched.

I will never give this company money again and I am borderline ready to leave this game for good.

Just leave. There is far better out there. Stop cutting Riot slack.

Belisarius095 votes

I feel ya OP. I haven't downloaded the new patch yet, nor will I for some time. I'm playing World of Tanks in the meantime. Riot's betrayed my trust too many times. Riot hasn't adequately explained their decisions on changes, nor communicated their vision for the future.

IE "Ahri's unique role in the game was losing focus, so we set out with the goal of moving her back to her original vision as an ultra-mobile kite mage."

So she's no longer an assassin. What is she now? I'm not sure what an "ultra-mobile kite mage" is. As far as the community can tell, Ahri's new identity is "useless."

Rivini4 votes

You think Riot is terrible with balancing? You must be fortunate to have never experienced the displeasure of Ubisoft's balancing in The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot. Completely different type of game, but it has heroes much like League champions. The balancing is cringe-worthy.

I'll give you an example:

There are 2 heroes that can gain a shield based on their % max health, with one of them having 3 separate shielding abilities (you can select which abilities you want to use from a list, up to 4). In a patch that changed basically all the stats on all heroes and everyone getting a ton more health, the shielding heroes naturally became stronger. The cries for nerfs began, regardless of the fact there are 2 other heroes who are disgustingly more OP than the shielding heroes.

How did Ubisoft respond to this obvious outcome that they failed to realize would happen?

A few days later, they targeted the hero with 3 shielding abilities by taking the shield out of 2 of them and completely reworking one of them to something useless. On top of that, as "compensation", they increased the % on the one shield ability they left intact, which is blatantly counterproductive to the purpose of the changes in the first place. Despite that happened, the hero was still over-nerfed because the one shield ability left was the worst of the 3 which no one really used.

What did they do about the other shielding hero? Literally nothing. They targeted only one of them for no apparent reason. Ubisoft hates talking to their players, so no one knows what they are thinking.

It's difficult to explain it all since you would need to play it to understand, and this isn't everything to it. They ignore dozens of bugs for months at a time (sometimes longer), give no context on balance changes or anything else, quickly resort to extremes with balance changes when a minor problem arises (see above example), fill every patch with stealth changes, and worst of all, they don't listen to player feedback whatsoever. They do only what makes them happy, not the players. They fail at the most fundamental part of developing an online game, especially during open beta when feedback is most vital.

The bottom line is Ubisoft has shown me they are the most incompetent developers in the business. After experiencing their patches throughout the game's development, which is soon coming out of beta despite clearly not being in a finished state, Riot's balancing is professional in comparison.

Remlap12233 votes

That's the logical fallacy of relative privation. Just because Ubisoft has shit balancing (which I do know to be true) doesn't mean Riot's balancing decisions are any less shit. Do I need to bring up release Xin Zhao? Season 3 Kassadin? Kalista? Lee Sin?

Arveanor3 votes

Nah it's pretty reasonable. Balance by definition can't be perfect in a game even the tiniest bit complex, and how "good" balance is can easily become subjective. If you want to talk about how well a company is doing, you need some sense of scale, and it's valuable to look at how well everyone else is performing.

Sure this might leave a lot to be desired, but we're all humans here, which means we're all do a ton of stupid shit and make a lot of bad decisions, so let's all hope for the best, and give valuable feedback, but don't get too upset if a champion holds a bit of an edge on the competition.

chumbler6 votes

{quoted}

Nah it's pretty reasonable. Balance by definition can't be perfect in a game even the tiniest bit complex, and how "good" balance is can easily become subjective. If you want to talk about how well a company is doing, you need some sense of scale, and it's valuable to look at how well everyone else is performing.

Sure this might leave a lot to be desired, but we're all humans here, which means we're all do a ton of stupid shit and make a lot of bad decisions, so let's all hope for the best, and give valuable feedback, but don't get too upset if a champion holds a bit of an edge on the competition.

No. Riot is beyond the point of "Cut them a little slack." They are either incompetent, don't give a shit, or are actively lying and picking favored champions to be the good ones. They completely ignore feedback (see: Cassiopeia rework, among other things). They've had years on balancing and developing this game and have learned literally nothing besides how to mollify idiots like you who keep giving them license to do a terrible job.

Arveanor1 votes

It may be you have left out some possibilities...

SpongebobIsLife5 votes

Well, Riot has overnerfed many many champions and left those who need nerfs alone. You cannot deny this.

Arveanor2 votes

Sure, riot has made balance changes that haven't worked out perfectly, and continue to make decisions that to many in the community seem absurd, but let's not mistake a difference of opinions as "sloppy patches", as far as balance goes.

And I mean, even though there is a big list of things we might point to and think "oh that's really shitty, why haven't they changed that?", if you really step back and consider for a few minutes, none most of the issues aren't that huge in terms of how much stronger or weaker than average a character is. I mean, even the strongest of champions in the game won't have much over 50% win rate (barring an odd patch here and there), so how heinous is the situation, really?

I would dare to argue that perhaps the reason some of these issues seem so blatantly terrible is because the background environment we are speaking out of is on such a high level. I think overall Riot has done a pretty good job of making everyone decently in line, so when there are some problems, they seem worse by comparison than they are.

Unless, of course, you want to say that something like 51% win rates are hugely problematic, which, to be fair I can't refute. It get's a bit subjective when you start talking about "how strong is to strong" etc.

SpongebobIsLife3 votes

I mean there's always going to be balance issues, and win rate isn't the best way to judge in many cases. It's just, the community hates that there are many champions that need buffs and they go unnoticed, and vice versa. And then when you compare to this game to dota 2, in which every character is arguably just as strong and viable as the other, one can't help but get upset.

Arveanor1 votes

If you want a balanced game, it implies that you want a fair shot at winning for any champion (assuming they synergize decently with the rest of team etc etc). If a champion statistically has a coin toss as to whether or not they win the games that they play then something must be working out well.

Also, I won't try to make tie ins with dota since I don't know it well, but forgive me my cynicism in that I believe in balanced games about how i believe in fairies and such. Their are simply to many factors in play, and I think the best that can be done is to make everything OP for it's own purpose and hope for the best, but that's an entirely different discussion to be had on the greater philosophy of balance.

SpongebobIsLife2 votes

well trying playing it once or twice. league is more fun imo, but they have they can learn from the game, and it isn't that i want a more balanced game, I just want a game in which not everyone picks the same champs over and over again bc they are much better than the options. That's what dota has that's better than league. There really isn't a "meta" to the game, and each hero is as strong as the other. Sorry for rambling lol.

Arveanor2 votes

Please don't apologize, I'm enjoying our little chat.

I have played dota 2 once, and the original dota was actually my introduction into mobas, so I guess you could say I've taken your advice.

Also, at the expense of getting into some really deep waters and forgetting what this thread was ever even about, I'd like to suggest that the meta in LoL doesn't necessarily exist simply because of balance not being good, I think a lot of it has to do with how the community and the pro scene homes in on certain picks. Characters in the top lane that were weak 3 months ago might be suddenly pick-ban, not because of any nerfs or buffs to themselves, or even to other top lane picks, but because of a complicated series of implications leading back to a balance tweak at the support role.

Maybe this all is a result of poor balance that allows these things to happen, but I believe there is something in the culture, if you will, of league of legends that makes the meta so strict as much as any balance decisions by riot.

I mean, we all know there are characters like poppy who can just really run away with a game but you'll never see played because... well, reasons...

chumbler2 votes

{quoted}

Please don't apologize, I'm enjoying our little chat.

I have played dota 2 once, and the original dota was actually my introduction into mobas, so I guess you could say I've taken your advice.

Also, at the expense of getting into some really deep waters and forgetting what this thread was ever even about, I'd like to suggest that the meta in LoL doesn't necessarily exist simply because of balance not being good, I think a lot of it has to do with how the community and the pro scene homes in on certain picks. Characters in the top lane that were weak 3 months ago might be suddenly pick-ban, not because of any nerfs or buffs to themselves, or even to other top lane picks, but because of a complicated series of implications leading back to a balance tweak at the support role.

Maybe this all is a result of poor balance that allows these things to happen, but I believe there is something in the culture, if you will, of league of legends that makes the meta so strict as much as any balance decisions by riot.

I mean, we all know there are characters like poppy who can just really run away with a game but you'll never see played because... well, reasons...

You've got it backwards. The meta doesn't exist because of bad balance. Balance is bad because Riot wants to force a meta and specific champions.

Arveanor1 votes

I never said that the meta is the result of bad balance. Riot does not desire to force a meta or any subset of champions.

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

well I can see where he is coming from, due to the fact that many of the "meta" champions, need nerfs, such as lissandra, need nerfs, but they rarely do you see them happen. So to most people, it seems as though Riot does force upon a meta by allowing op champions to run rampant, and I do agree with your above statement, but I believe there is a meta. When Riot nerfs a strong champion, another champion shines, and this becomes the op. Take the nerfs on Lucian. Now we have graves being overplayed instead of Luc. Riot's buffs and nerfs effect the meta heavily.

chumbler1 votes

{quoted}

I never said that the meta is the result of bad balance. Riot does not desire to force a meta or any subset of champions.

Yeah uhhhh no. They absolutely do. You must not have been paying attention to the extremely ham fisted nerfs to early pushes and the fact that their favorites barely get touched. while others get absolutely ruined by "reworks".

Arveanor1 votes

Riot might not be the best at allowing multiple team strategies to exist, but when they make their balancing decisions, they are not doing so with the hopes to keep a stringent meta enforced, they are doing so because they believe a certain off-meta strategy is simply too good.

Arveanor1 votes

I'm not sure which statement you mean, and I'm certainly not doubting the existence of a meta.

Yeah, graves is really interesting. I think plenty of people during this era of huge graves play have probably felt like he is overbearing. I'm not talking about off-meta bot lanes, I'm talking about a jungler or mid getting blown up in a teamfight and questioning why a sustained damage champ can burst that hard, or w/e else that gets them going.

6 months ago, these same players would've thought graves hardly worth focusing in a teamfight, even if he did have one or two plays in the pros.

My main point is that the difference in power you need to have to go from "omgholyshitsobroken" to "trolladcpickedgraves" isn't that huge.

(disclaimer, hyperbole is present in this post, read with caution)

chumbler1 votes

{quoted}

Riot might not be the best at allowing multiple team strategies to exist, but when they make their balancing decisions, they are not doing so with the hopes to keep a stringent meta enforced, they are doing so because they believe a certain off-meta strategy is simply too good.

That's called enforcing the meta. They want one strategy to be played, and that's it.

Arveanor1 votes

They are not enforcing the meta. They are happy with any strategy being used, and would no doubt love a variety of strategies being viable at once.

But every time there is an interesting off-meta strategy, they have decided in those situations that those strategies need nerfed. Not because they aren't in the meta, it's just because that particular instance they find to be poorly designed or balanced, and they attempt to make it balanced.

Sammystorm4 votes

Well Sona was legitimately strong until her most recent nerfs. Kalista is widely recognized as not very good. Lee sin is in the pipeline to be nerfed and is considered balanced by a lot of people. Rek'Sai literally got nerfed a little while back. Servers are also in the pipeline. Riot made a video just for us to enjoy at huge expanse to them with 0 profit returned for it (amumu video).

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

I'm not sure where you are looking, but Kalista is a very good adc. She just has the highest skill cap out of the adcs, but the plays you can make with her are ridiculous. If you ever play against a good kalista, you would know how scary she can be.

Sammystorm1 votes

her atk range is very low. Her ult is very situational. She loses most of her damage and her ult if she pairs with the jungler. Her passive doesn't really matter with how much cc assassins and gap closers are running around right now. She is pretty much ashe just with better damage. I would still rather have ashe though for her engage not actually requiring a commitment. I really like kalista. I think she has potential but the fact is most other adc's either out range her or out damage her. I might see her picked up if a team doesn't really need more damage and needs more of a utility adc but even then I think teams would default more to ashe.

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

well, assassins are going downhill and she does very very well against teams with a lot of skillshots. I assure you, in the coming weeks, you will see a lot of Kalista play.

Sammystorm1 votes

Who goes bot lane isn't really determined by whether assasin's are meta or not. It is more determined by who goes bot. How can kalista compete with the damage out put of a graves, the poke of corki, or the mobility of sivir? On the same note; how can kalista deal with tanky initiators like leona who stick hard? How can she deal with poke or sustain? The answer I run into over and over is that she can't handle bot lane very well. She might be an ok bully top lane.

AquariusGine4 votes

Have fun in dota2, I hear it is really balanced. haha xD

Learn 2 Swim14 votes

{quoted}

Have fun in dota2, I hear it is really balanced.

I dont know if this is sarcasm or not but at least DOTA2 understands that constantly nerfing every champion over and over in cycles destroys games not "balances" them. There is also a counter for all abilities in DOTA, where Riot nerfs everything and then releases new champions with insane mobility/AOE that are better than 95% of the current champion roster.

This game is going down hill very fast.

chumbler12 votes

{quoted}

Have fun in dota2, I hear it is really balanced. haha xD

Yeah, actually, it is. Because they don't do Riot's method of revolving door nerfs coupled with terrible design and favored champions being immune.

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

Yet.

ARCDASH4 votes

In case you forget, while Dota 2 is relatively new, Dota has been around longer than LoL has, and it's always been like that. Small nerfs, and nerfing in ways that won't destroy the heros's strengths.

Chromatic Eagle1 votes

The point is that in the future, Dota is going to design new champions. Original champions. As frustrating it is to deal with Riot's balancing while trying to be innovative, Dota could have similar results.

ARCDASH2 votes

Could, but usually don't. New champs in Dota 2 tend to be much more specialized than new LoL champs. When a new champ gets added to Dota 2, they're not the do-all types of characters than get added to LoL. Even the ones that are overpowered on release are only overpowered if given 20 minutes of free farm.

OblongOtter1 votes

Even Bloodseeker is still good, and they made his Q worse and gave him that weird AoE nuke.

Raptamei4 votes

{quoted}

Have fun in dota2, I hear it is really balanced. haha xD

It actually is. ~80% viable heroes in competitive play. League 20%.

Getting pubstomped by Sniper and crying doesn't count.

Treyen3 votes

A thread that mentions overnerfing memes that didn't include Olafing? It's ok Olaf I still believe in you.

Rivini1 votes

To be fair, I didn't say Riot was flawless in balancing. I know where their faults lie.

View the thread I posted to explain Kassadin, Kalista and Lee Sin.

Back when Xin was released, he was only tested internally. We didn't have players testing champions until Lulu hit the PBE, meaning up until that point, there weren't a ton of people testing how balanced champions were before release. It's why we had release Xin, Vayne, and so on.

Remlap12235 votes

Very true. But saying a shit smells better than a paper mill doesn't disregard the fact that the shit still smells like shit. That's the point I'm trying to make. And the fact that we now have the PBE is more of an argument against what is going on right now. Why the hell did they bother putting the effort into the PBE if they're just going to push shit out regardless? Azir was (and actually still is) a fucking mess. Gnar was extremely weak on his release. Lissandra had her ultimate bugged since her release, and it was only fixed recently. We can't let Riot get a free pass just because they're better than Ubisoft and EA. That's like saying Nixon was better than Hitler, there's not exactly a whole lot of people worse than Hitler.

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

Azir is actually fine right now. All of his bugs have been addressed and taken care of.

MAZZ1M01 votes

Just stop playing while this patch is live. I'm done till patch 5.3. 5.2 is a blasted mess.

chumbler2 votes

{quoted}

Just stop playing while this patch is live. I'm done till patch 5.3. 5.2 is a blasted mess.

5.3 is only going to be worse.

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