Balance in LoL; Not a Riot Bashing Post
Hello Community and/or Riot,
I may have played LoL the most, or the longest. I started LoL back around the Varus/Lulu/Hecarim patch on a different account, but anyway, I'll just get right down to what I want to say.
I'm probably going to quit playing League of Legends.
I personally love the game, and really appreciate all the time and effort into making League Of Legends such a great game. The community is honestly the largest, and one of the best gaming community I've seen. The issue of the matter is balancing. I know by now any Rioter reading this probably stopped, and I don't mind. I didn't make this post for anyone but myself. This post is nothing more than a contract written by me, for me. I hereby refuse to play League of Legends if Riot does not keep their word by the time the next patch notes are released. There are too many problems coming out of the balancing team for me to continue playing this game.
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There is a public beta, but it doesn't really accomplish anything aside from bug spotting/fixing. Why give us time to test out nerfs/buffs/reworks if you're simply going to ignore any and all negative feedback, no matter how unanimous the opposition is. We may not have all the data, but simply acknowledging that there MAY be a problem with your change makes a big difference with Player Relations.
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Riot constantly uses buzzwords and makes promises they seemingly refuse to keep. Strategic Diversity being the current buzzword, means absolutely NOTHING if you don't actually do anything to promote it. You keep saying how the main reason why only a select few champs are picked is because they're picked frequently in the LCS/OGN/LPL, maybe it's because they're the most reliable champions in the game? Maybe the reason why
is unpopular is because other champs (
) are simply better? Give us a reason and a way to play the weaker junglers instead of just simply sitting around wondering why people are only picking 4-6 champs for a single role as opposed to the other 50 (viable) champions for that role. -
Everyone makes mistakes, it's one of the requirements of being human. The issue is that riot refuses to fix those mistakes, and simply ignores it until people stop talking about it.
(F.Y.I she used to be a support)
are all examples of champions who you made a change too which made them too strong or too weak, and then left them there. Can I play Lulu as a support and not spend the entire game feeling I'm just playing a worse version of
with a better laugh? You reworked Skarner because of his "low counter-play", but he's still objectively one of the worst junglers. Zac has been left to rot so long he's probably fermented already. -
Your current patch notes make absolutely no significant attempt to bring anymore "strategic diversity". It honestly makes me feel like Riot is okay with the state of the game with how little is being changed. Let's look at the current patch;
The Janna change is semi-welcome, it will likely do as expected, but also makes one of the best peelers in LoL an even better peeler.
The Jarvan change doesn't make sense. Does riot want to turn Jarvan into an assassin? Wouldn't simply making his upfront gank damage weaker make more sense? The flag and drag combo into his Passive deals FAR too much upfront damage for a "bruiser".
The Kalista change is 100% welcome and is by and far the best thing in the entire patch
The Kassadin change is just... I understand you see Kassadin as a problem, we do too, but gutting him entirely is a half-assed solution. You know this, you've said yourself you'd shy away from this kind of thing, but whatever.
The Katarina change is... Katarina is a problem because of her high speed damage (not necessarily high damage, but instant damage) and her instant speed mobility. Maybe gating those parts of her mana-less kit is a better move than simply trimming small bits of excess off an overbloated hedge.
The Lissandra change is ... too, but in a different way. Lissandra is a low range, conditional, high CC, high damage, burst mage. Maybe tweaking more of her damage into a sustained format or pushing more of her power-budget into her claw could curb her competitive reliability.
The Mordekaiser change I HOPE is a joke. I don't see why a champion who uses his own health as a resource, with no in-built sustain, has the 4th lowest health regen in the game. You also "compensation" nerfed his healthcosts down by..... absolutely nothing? All I see here is a nerf and an ult tweak, the speed is too conditional to be useful because he's the "frontline tank", while is he behind his teamate? Did you forget to buff his passive?
The Viegar change makes no sense. You buffed Ahri with a stupidly large amount of mobility on an already slippery champ to compensate DFG loss. You nerfed the only "counterplay" viegar has to mobile assassins as "compensation" for removing his core item. Buffing his AP scaling from passive isn't going to do anything if people have absolutely no reason to play the champ.
The Xerath patch is a cute one. You nerfed Ziggs because he was capable of easily clearing waves and stalling games, then reworked Xerath into a champ who does just that. Any nerf you can slap on Xerath is welcome, but simply nerfing his stun isn't going to fix the champ's inherent issues.
The Zilean change is a nice like rework. It adds power on an already strong champion, but meh, the rest of the top tier champs are already too strong to fight using a balanced kit (Overslow much?).
Riot, based on how you've treated me, I'm going to trust you. You say you have some long term fixes in the future, so I'll put some faith in you. Maybe next patch you'll fix some of the weaker champs like Zac, Eve, and Elise. Maybe Lulu will finally be a support again. Maybe top lane won't be exclusively mages. Maybe jungle won't only have 1 viable build path. Maybe there will be more diversity in ADC builds than Shiv or PD.... maybe....