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Should We Be Concerned With Game Progression?

Just 4 Memes·10/29/2018, 11:14:21 PM·1 votes·1,223 views

This is purely hypothetical, opiniated and full of questions.

Season 8 made huge strides to shorten the length of games. The updates incoming for pre season seem to further this agenda of rushing the game: Bosses such as Baron will spawn even sooner, and minions will be faster.

However, In contrast I think they are trying to make towers sturdier, and bounties more balanced, which I would think can only extend the game slightly.

My concern is for the scaling champions; the weak early game, strong late game champions. Season 8 already felt like a slight nerf to those champions. How will these champions fair in a lane against a strong early game champion in the pre season with stronger minion waves? Faster minions? Stronger towers? Even sooner spawning bosses? With the new rune setup?

Will these champions be safer because of the minion changes? Or will they be even more outdone in trades due to minion aggro? This of course would especially hurt those champions with no sustain in their kit. Will the faster minions mean more gold for these champions? Or would it mean that you will miss more gold when the early game bully your laning against forces you to back? Again, especially for those champions without sustain in their kit. Towers being stronger might help these champions, for a while maybe. But, once you lose the tower (if you do) and you are behind, does that mean that it will now be harder to get the enemy tower?

Season 8 changes were also tough on the junglers, giving incentive to playing stronger early game champions. Will reducing the spawn times of bosses and increasing minion damage (while ganking) hurt weaker early game champions much more than the latter? I'd argue that it would.

Is there any need for concern (do I have a point)?

4 Comments

DarkSoul199410/29/2018, 11:36:19 PM2 votes

I think we need to wait for the dust to settle after Riot adds stat runes and tower plates in the preseason. I'm expecting extended lane phases (~5 minutes longer) which might give us a period of time where both scaling and mid-game snowball comps are simultaneously viable.

james2k10/29/2018, 11:22:23 PM1 votes

Basically, bruisers with good sustain will be OP as fuck

woodvsmurph10/29/2018, 11:36:01 PM1 votes

I'd actually argue the complete opposite. It's more likely to be the early game champs being useless that you have to worry about. For example... jax, vayne, etc. doing just fine right now and both are hyperscaling champs. Sure you'll have a game here or there with a 17 kill darius 3v5 ending the game at 20 min. But you'll be more likely to find games where the faster gold income scales late game champs up faster even if they slightly lose lane... to the point where early game champs will have a yet smaller window to adequately punish opponents and build that critical item and xp advantage they need to continue their advantage.

You die to a fiora 2x in lane? She's gonna be 2+ items by 20 min and unkillable 1v2 (her being solo) by 20+ min or so. I mean the same can be said to an extent for the early game champs too, but since higher gold income... as long as you can soak xp and SOME cs, you'll catch up faster than before as the scaling champ. An early game champ catching up from behind though? Good luck... the quicker pace/gold income, xp income helps the scaling champ because they have a point where they reach "critical mass" and auto-win the 1v1. Same cannot be said for an early game or midgame champ trying to catch up from behind.

So in summary... you are correct that there will probably be games of extreme bullying by early game champs, but I'd argue it is more likely (higher percentage chance) that scaling champs actually take the advantage from this.

BANG BANG 5HUNNA10/29/2018, 11:17:10 PM

Riot: fuck ur thoughts