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I fear for the future of League of Legends

Franny··24 votes·5,650 views

Before I start I’d like to say that I am one of the thousands that applied for an internship with Riot and if what I’m about to say absolutely destroys my chances and makes the vast amount of hours I put into my submission go to waste – I’m completely okay with that. I’d rather have my voice heard than sit in silence.

Now the real starting. I have been playing League since February 2012 (the good ol’ season 2 days) and have roughly 130 days played. This is just to give some insight that what I am about to express has some value too it. I care for this game. I care for it a lot.

However, I fear for the future of League of Legends.

I want to give an example from another game. I’m sure many of us remember the glorious days of Runescape back when it was prosperous. You played it, your friends played it, and you’ve met new friends playing it. The experience from playing Runescape was unlike no other at the time. Now all we have let of it is nostalgia and a virtual wasteland on the horizon. Unfortunately nostalgia cannot bring back a once growing player base. Jagex (the company behind Runescape) proceeded to then unintentionally ruin their game. With updates including but not limited to the removal of free trade, the health changes (from 99 to 990), and the Evolution of Combat. Now, what did Jagex lose during this time which brought them so much success?

Jagex lost its simplicity. Leagues is losing its simplicity.

I’m not saying change is bad, but some change or too much change is bad and can be devastating. It seems as if Riot is forgetting how they managed to become so successful in the first place. Leagues was simple and was easy to get into than other games. The Season 5 changes are just unnecessary, inconvenient, and over complicated for no reason. From spending countless hours reading forums, various threads, comments from posts, or discussing with others, I can say with absolute confidence that I am not alone with the way I am feeling.

The word “fun” doesn’t come to mind when playing on the Rift anymore. Even “League of Legends” doesn’t come to mind when I’m on the Rift either.

If there is one thing I have ever learned from Riot and playing League of Legends, is that it is okay to make a mistake. I do not want to see the game that millions of others and myself love decline. The evolution of the game has been incredible. This is absolutely way too far.

Riot, not only do I want my game back, many other summoners do too.

There is so much more I would like to express behind these changes and my general feelings towards them, but in my eyes the sooner I post this the faster it can potentially gain some light.

Thank you for listening.

EDIT I feel like some people are missing the main point here. I'm not complaining about balance issues, I'm not one of those people that loses once and screams something is OP (hence this is my first post on the forums ever). As Kha'zix says, "change is good". Change is needed to make the game not feel stale. However, some change is not the best change. I absolutely agree, change was needed but I can't agree this was the best way to go with it. With more updates like this, what reason do we have to play League of Legends, when it's not the League of Legends we all fell in love with?

EDIT Thinking back now, I exploded in a very formal manner about these changes. Was I too hard on them? Maybe. Overall do I like the new season? No, the only thing I can do is tolerate it. Maybe in a patch or three I might end up liking it. However, I'm not saying changes to the jungle are bad, I still believe that these specific changes are not the best idea.

I just want to clarify once more that I love League of Legends more than one of Apple's consumers expressing how much they love their iPhone. I will defend it with my life, argue passionately about it until no end, and recommend it to others. League of Legends isn't just a game to me, it's apart of my life.

Lastly, for anyone reading this now, or for anyone coming back to read or check up on this. I am sorry.

105 Comments

TheFallenShaw10 votes

My Personal experience with league of legends being a new player is that, the game is fun but the playerbase should be renamed.

League of Assholes

WooBeeWoo1 votes

If you think its fun now.... then you should hope they revert some stuff cause its not all that great. In fact I'm currently playing a different moba and checking here to see if riot will ever answer any of these boards and if not.... I won't play it again. Especially as a jungle main. I feel like they took the jung decided it wasn't working and changed it to not work for really any champs. So before I had a small selection of champs I loved and could play in ranked. Now... I literally have none because I dont and wont play ww or yi.

Franny2 votes

I agree, I hope they revert all of the changes. I'm not even a jungle main and I dislike the majority. I'm losing interest, I'm not having fun, and neither are any of my friends.

Colgate Minuette1 votes

Season 3 was all about mid lane. Season 4 was mostly about ADC's and Supports. Season 2 was kinda about top lane.

They're simply giving jungle some attention.

Jungle is an important role, weather you realize it or not jungle makes or breaks an entire team sometimes and they're finally giving it the attention it needed.

Franny1 votes

That's like saying mid is an important role, because if not it can make or break an entire team.

I don't think you understand what I was trying to get across. I'm not saying changes to the jungle are bad (in fact I prefer it) I'm just saying the changes that they DID make to the jungle are not the best changes they could have made, and definitely not healthy for the game.

EDG Cleanlove2 votes

Maybe you didn't experiment enough. I've been playing jungle for the past few days, and it's a pleasure to rediscover the game and to test which champion can be good in the jungle / what do they bring to the table. For instance, Shaco is definitely in a better place than he was season 4, and bruisers in general do well, each of them with their own flavor. I'd invite you to revisit the game.

WooBeeWoo1 votes

My play style as a whole doesn't work in the new jungle. And the champs I play because of my play style are mostly worse off. Naut is my best example he has been getting worse and worse as a reasonable pick and this new jungle is absolutely horrendous for him. Like when I say Naut sucks the reply is always "No! His late game tho!" what fucking late game. He never makes is there because every other champ in the game can kill him pre lvl 6 and with new jungle monsters insta killing the shield his clear is worse than ever. I literally cannot have fun with him. If no one comes and kills you in your jung its not like you can take advantage of his ganks either cause I have like 200 health so I back. Buy an item that literally does nothing for me and every lane is now a level above me. Ok I stop and take a camp to get that lvl dammit that item did shit so now I'm too low to gank because I didnt make enough gold to buy a health pot and a jung item. Early game screwed so that means no late game which means I don't really get to play. That happens with others too only a slight bit less extreme. I really really don't care to play champs that work I wanna play champs that I want to play

EDG Cleanlove1 votes

I haven't tried him in the new jungle. From what I've heard he has trouble, though I'm not sure what kind of path people use with him, or even their rune setup.

Have you tried starting at krugs? With a good leash, you barely take any damage and it still gives you level 2. The stun makes it easier to get hits off with his shield on while fighting the red buff. After getting the red, you have the life regen aura that helps stay healthy, which I imagine would probably be better than starting at his blue. After the red, you have the option of doing another camp (probably toad) or going straight to blue, depending on how much mana you have left.

Also, I think it might benefit his clear speed to have attack speed marks instead of magic penetration or whatever else. Give me some news if you haven't tried that yet.

City of Toronto7 votes

I've found a better word for a lot of what Riot is doing: gimmicks.

They're trying to use gimmicks to improve their game, and it's not really working out. I like your Runescape example. Sure they changed the health bar to 10x the original amount, because everybody likes seeing big damage numbers right?! Nope, if that's what you want go play Maplestory. Runescape was charming in its own right, seeing those 20s and 30s you hit.

You know what else I think is a good example? Quake live. Can you imagine playing Quake all boggled down with heavy graphics and visual effects like Battlefield 4? It just wouldn't be Quake anymore, what reason do I have to play it?

Too many games fall thanks to trying to meet mainstream gimmicks.

gunz 2 is nothing compared to gunz 1. You can't execute half the combos you could before because they wanted to facilitate and dumb it down. Halo 4 is nothing compared to Halo 2 or even 3. You don't need "abilities" like sprint or jetpacks. It was a lack of extra abilities that defined Halo as a straightforward game (but not without depth at all, consider how popular it was at MLG events). Runescape 3 is nothing compared to Runescape classic or even Runescape 2 pre-changes. Crysis 2 and 3 are nothing compared to Crysis 1. Crysis 1 was just raw facilitated action and natural gameplay. 2 and 3 seem forced in your options for tackling the mission, it even makes assassination melees excessively theatrical and drawn out.

Franny1 votes

I don't want to bash Riot, so I'm not sure if "gimmicks" is the right word to say. However past that, I once again agree with everything you said, especially all the perfect examples.

I'm not too familiar with Gunz or Crysis, but I used to be an avid quake player and that example is spot on. As for Halo, everything Bungie did past Halo 3 did not even come close to the glory or success Halo 1, 2, or 3 brought them. They changed it too much to the point where it just wasn't Halo anymore. With every new Halo, they just seem to look more and more like Call of Duty but futuristic. That is not the game I fell in love with, and now it is not a game I enjoy playing which is why I don't buy them anymore.

That is why I fear Leagues is heading down that road.

JevelFaithful1 votes

I don't want to bash Riot, so I'm not sure if "gimmicks" is the right word to say. However past that, I once again agree with everything you said, especially all the perfect examples.

No for all the renewed interest I get in the game, I think gimmick is the right word. Both in term of map (I like most of the jungle change, save for the dragon and the crab. But those are gimicks, and not all of those are perfect.) and new champions (as much as azir is fun to play. Azir, kalista and the new Lucian have a gimicky smell if you ask me).

My personnal test is this : If a single "decision" (like smiting a camp or a skill) requires more than 3 points of tooltip to explain what isn't part of the basic mecanic... You have a gimmick in my eye. Sometimes it makes for good gameplay (some of the best champions have a gimmick) sometimes it's just an overload of "special case". ANd that's a sign that you need to restart the whole game or the whole map.

Franny2 votes

Now that I understand the thought process behind the word, I agree with the both of you now.

City of Toronto4 votes

This is what I fear for every popular game I play. When it gets too popular, the company forgets the reason why they were getting popular in the first place and they literally abandon their original policies and values to go "mainstream". It's losing its competitiveness.

I liked playing League for its simple nature. Simple=/=no depth. Maybe natural is the word I'm looking for, when Riot gave us only what was needed to get running, and the player base took everything from there on out including meta, strategies, etc. Now, Riot is looking to facilitate everything and control the development of strategies to conform to their new standards. Oh, you found an effective strategy? We're going to nerf it instead of letting people innovate a counter to it. Eventually everything gets nerfed into uniformity then Riot comes out with an attempt to add diversity via overloaded kits on new champs, which prompts more patches and nerfs/buffs.

The new map looks pretty and all, but it is simply less practical than before. Sure it has a few frogs jumping about, but there are so many issues with the map that Riot doesn't seem likely to address anytime soon, not even for the sake of competitiveness/practicality. They're valuing aesthetics and superficial things over functionality.

Riot is trying to innovate too fast. There's a reason technology companies budget and limit their rate of innovation/improvement, and there's a reason that is more successful than dumping changes onto their customer base nonstop.

I would much prefer Riot uses some time to catch up on old issues and fix those issues before trying to jump ship to a completely different map and have balancing and bug issues run rampant.

Franny2 votes

I couldn't have said it better. Honestly, I agree with EVERYTHING you just said.

Matthevv4 votes

Are people seriously having this much trouble grasping the new season changes? It took me about 3 games to learn and understand the new mechanics. Now I am back to the same old same old feeling of the Rift.

in another comment another Summoner talks about similar situations with Quake, Halo, Crysis, and Gunz.

Crysis' problem was that they oversimplified their games. They went from having a huge explorable world to tight linear corridors. To cite your halo comment, Halo 3 took a huge leap forward with the introduction of forge and infection. They were additional features that overcomplicated the game. And yet people loved them and praised it. I knew people with 300 matchmade games and 5000 custom games played. Not all additions are bad.

Franny2 votes

Obviously anything is doable with time. I don't think you and I have the same thought process. It's not about learning a new jungle route or whatever. The simplicity of the game (a powerful reason why the game became so popular) is diminishing. They're changing it to the point where (this is the part where I disagree with you) it does not feel like League of Legends. It does not feel like the game millions love and adore.

Sailor Mint2 votes

The game has never been simple. MOBAs are a pain to get into, a couple small changes to a single role won't make a huge difference. If they can get past the initial hurdle, they can handle the rest.

I've gotten to Plat two seasons in a row and I have less than 10 lifetime jungle games. You don't need to know everything to get to Diamond+, even less so if you're just playing the game for fun.

Franny1 votes

Small changes, huh?

Sailor Mint4 votes

What's so major about the changes? Junglers still kill monsters, secure objectives and gank lanes.

  • You get a buff from jungle mobs that may influence your starting point.
  • Jungle items give you some choice, as opposed by being completely dictated by your champion pick.
  • Dragon and Baron's rewards may have changed, but circumstances in which you kill them have not.

Every season has required some adjustment from junglers. Someone else will do the research for all the people who are too lazy/not knowledgeable enough to do so.

There's a lot of changes, but they don't revolutionize the way you play. They are harder to explain on paper than they are to understand ingame.

Matthevv3 votes

Obviously anything is doable with time. I don't think you and I have the same thought process. It's not about learning a new jungle route or whatever. The simplicity of the game (a powerful reason why the game became so popular) is diminishing. They're changing it to the point where (this is the part where I disagree with you) it does not feel like League of Legends. It does not feel like the game millions love and adore.

How long have you been playing this game? I have been playing since season 1 and let me tell you that these preseason changes do not make league feel less like league. In fact, the changes make it feel more like league than ever. This preseason is exactly like the last 3 before it.

WooBeeWoo2 votes

It doesn't feel like league to me and I have only been playing since season 3. Which actually says a lot about how fast they are deciding to change their game and how often. I learned season 3 jungle and loved it, dealt with preseason 4 am meh about how season 4's jungle actually was and now I hate it. I hate the jungle. I've been doing to the entire I've played tho so I basically get to restart the game if I wanna keep playing because I hate the role I was mastering. I'd rather find another game to put that time into so yeah I don't think it feels at all the same.

City of Toronto1 votes

Are people seriously having this much trouble grasping the new season changes? It took me about 3 games to learn and understand the new mechanics. Now I am back to the same old same old feeling of the Rift.

in another comment another Summoner talks about similar situations with Quake, Halo, Crysis, and Gunz.

Crysis' problem was that they oversimplified their games. They went from having a huge explorable world to tight linear corridors. To cite your halo comment, Halo 3 took a huge leap forward with the introduction of forge and infection. They were additional features that overcomplicated the game. And yet people loved them and praised it. I knew people with 300 matchmade games and 5000 custom games played. Not all additions are bad.

I'm not having that much trouble grasping the new season changes, but that is not say that I think it is taking an unfavourable direction nonetheless. They're forcing it to be a certain way, and this creates huge balancing issues. e.g. look at Warwick right now, and look at the other junglers that can't even clear their second buff.

As for your Crysis point, yes. They oversimplified it. What's another way to describe this? They are narrowing down our options too much, for the sake of controlling the flow of the game as they see fit. This is what I see happening in League of Legends. As for your Halo point, I'm not sure what point you are counter arguing there. Halo 3 was the last of the Halo games without stupid armor ability gimmicks, I don't see anybody saying that was bad. Forge is an add-on, does not directly impact gameplay, and you can choose to ignore it if you wished to. You can't, however, ignore armor abilities. Forge could only be good, or non existent. Not a good example.

Matthevv2 votes

The moment you started using current states of balance as evidence to your argument you lost all credibility. The preseason has just been released, the first follow up patch hasn't even happened yet. The jungle will get balanced out over time, you just need to stop being so impatient.

Wait until the preseason ends before you start screaming the sky is falling.

SIayton4 votes

How did the game get more complicated?

Wow dragon stacks a buff, so hard to understand. Smiting camps gives you a buff for each camp. SO DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER AFTER 1 GAME. The inner turrets give you a free shield?! MY BRAIN IS DONE, THIS GAME IS FOR SCIENTISTS ONLY

Wait..... there's a crab? THERE'S A CRAB? head explodes

Chessburger3 votes

Before I start I’d like to say that I am one of the thousands that applied for an internship with Riot and if what I’m about to say absolutely destroys my chances and makes the vast amount of hours I put into my submission go to waste – I’m completely okay with that. I’d rather have my voice heard than sit in silence.

Now the real starting. I have been playing League since February 2012 (the good ol’ season 2 days) and have roughly 130 days played. This is just to give some insight that what I am about to express has some value too it. I care for this game. I care for it a lot.

**However, I fear for the future of League of Legends. **

I want to give an example from another game. I’m sure many of us remember the glorious days of Runescape back when it was prosperous. You played it, your friends played it, and you’ve met new friends playing it. The experience from playing Runescape was unlike no other at the time. Now all we have let of it is nostalgia and a virtual wasteland on the horizon. Unfortunately nostalgia cannot bring back a once growing player base. Jagex (the company behind Runescape) proceeded to then unintentionally ruin their game. With updates including but not limited to the removal of free trade, the health changes (from 99 to 990), and the Evolution of Combat. Now, what did Jagex lose during this time which brought them so much success?

**Jagex lost its simplicity. Leagues is losing its simplicity. **

I’m not saying change is bad, but some change or too much change is bad and can be devastating. It seems as if Riot is forgetting how they managed to become so successful in the first place. Leagues was simple and was easy to get into than other games. The Season 5 changes are just unnecessary, inconvenient, and over complicated for no reason. From spending countless hours reading forums, various threads, comments from posts, or discussing with others, I can say with absolute confidence that I am not alone with the way I am feeling.

The word “fun” doesn’t come to mind when playing on the Rift anymore. Even “League of Legends” doesn’t come to mind when I’m on the Rift either.

If there is one thing I have ever learned from Riot and playing League of Legends, is that it is okay to make a mistake. I do not want to see the game that millions of others and myself love decline. The evolution of the game has been incredible. This is absolutely way too far.

**Riot, not only do I want my game back, many other summoners do too. **

There is so much more I would like to express behind these changes and my general feelings towards them, but in my eyes the sooner I post this the faster it can potentially gain some light.

Thank you for listening.

EDIT I feel like some people are missing the main point here. I'm not complaining about balance issues, I'm not one of those people that loses once and screams something is OP (hence this is my first post on the forums ever). As Kha'zix says, "change is good". Change is needed to make the game not feel stale. However, some change is not the best change. I absolutely agree, change was needed but I can't agree this was the best way to go with it. With more updates like this, what reason do we have to play League of Legends, when it's not the League of Legends we all fell in love with?

Remember, remember the 10th of December of the year '07... I lost all taste for the game that day, tried getting back into it a few times and it never felt the same. 'Twas like a flick of a switch, hope Riot doesn't achieve that.

SmokingPuffin3 votes

I feel like some people are missing the main point here.

Certainly I didn't get it. Can you state it more clearly? What specific changes are bothering you?

I think the only group of players who can really complain about complexity creep are the junglers. In related news, I think the season 4 jungle was vastly less complicated and interesting than the season 1 jungle.

Franny1 votes

Some people were commenting saying things along the lines of "QQ OP" and "It's preseason stop complaining". Which is exactly what I'm not trying to pinpoint here. I'm trying to pinpoint the trend that LoL is following which has lead other huge successes into destroying their brand.

I didn't really mention anything about the map in my initial post, but the map literally looks like a remake of the Dota2 map, down to the textures and colours. Which really just makes me think, why? Why make yourself look like another game when you had a distinct look and feel to differentiate yourself from others? The map probably could have used an upgrade, but changing it to look like something else was not the right direction.

As much as I dislike the map, and many others that I've talked to dislike the map - it's not the main reason why I came here to post.

At the end of Season 4, the jungle was starting to have a lot of diversity. As stated in another post, at the end of LCS/Worlds and after it we started to see a plethora of champion picks and all of which were viable. We went from seeing strictly Kha'Zix and Lee Sin every game too others like Shaco, Fiddles, Pantheon, and Rengar to a great degree of success. From my personal experiences in Solo Queue and normals, I have seen more junglers come into play and also come out with success. Examples being Nocturne, Naut, Xin, Hecarim and Diana to name a few. The game was starting to feel healthy for once. Damage focused junglers and tank junglers could be viable in the same meta, and it felt right. The same with other lanes. All the supports were strong picks, a large amount of mids were strong, and almost the ADC's were strong. Top lane probably had the least amount of diversity to it, but there was still a handful of picks. It didn't feel like the same 15-20 champions every game.

What do we have now? An absolute mess. A mess that is limiting, which is not fun nor enjoyable.

I can't for the life of me agree with the Dragon or Baron changes. They promote more of a team snowball than anything which isn't fun. The jungle item changes where you can smite players and get different buffs from smiting monsters/players are irrelevant. That's not Leagues. That's like if Leagues implemented a creep deny system similar to HoN/Dota2. I don't even know what to comment on the turret changes. But the scuttlebug, lol the scuttlebug.

The only thing I can really say I enjoy/don't mind are the non-jungle item changes. The Righteous Glory is similar to Talisman, but provides tank stats. A top laner can buy it, a support can buy it, a jungler can buy it. It's useful, it's relevant. Having all the Magic Resist items build from one item now is a quality of life upgrade, it doesn't change the game in a negative way, and it still keeps League of Legends as League of Legends. The rest of the S5 changes, do not.

There have been many examples posted thus far of other games making changes to their game that was not for the better, and the changes were so severe it changed the whole reason why players enjoyed it in the first place which then resulted in a decline of players and ultimately success. I love League of Legends with all my heart, and these changes are not for the better.

SmokingPuffin2 votes

We went from seeing strictly Kha'Zix and Lee Sin every game too others like Shaco, Fiddles, Pantheon, and Rengar to a great degree of success.

This is a good illustration of the problem. The old jungle made farming the jungle trivial, so the only thing that matters is how OP your ganks were.

From my personal experiences in Solo Queue and normals, I have seen more junglers come into play and also come out with success. Examples being Nocturne, Naut, Xin, Hecarim and Diana to name a few.

You could play anything, so long as you weren't concerned with how good it was compared to Lee and Kha. It turns out that's still true.

The game was starting to feel healthy for once. Damage focused junglers and tank junglers could be viable in the same meta, and it felt right.

I think this is false. Tank junglers sucked in season 4. Amumu kind of worked. When Maokai was a permaban top, he was at least okay in the jungle. However, these picks pale in comparison to the damage-oriented fast clear, fast gank junglers that were dominating the meta.

Everything was "viable" in the sense that it could clear the jungle. It was obvious which kind of junglers to pick. Being a jungler with high sustain or high mitigation was pointless, because even the squishiest, most damage oriented jungler could clear at full health.

What do we have now? An absolute mess. A mess that is limiting, which is not fun nor enjoyable.

I agree, balance is currently a mess. I think jungle balance will be better after they get the balance to a reasonable quality level. There is now a reason to pick stuff that isn't the fastest clear speed, and the best early gankers are now paying something for that ganking power.

The jungle item changes where you can smite players and get different buffs from smiting monsters/players are irrelevant. That's not Leagues. That's like if Leagues implemented a creep deny system similar to HoN/Dota2.

I don't understand how denies and buffs from using smite are at all similar.

Franny1 votes

I am talking during the end of Season 4. Not many people would have dared pick other junglers if it wasn't showcased on a large stage and proven to be successful. The end started to feel like many picks were viable and perform well rather than just the usual 4-5ish. During the end, we saw a lot of Jarvan, Amumu, Shaco, Fiddles and many others ON TOP of the Kha'Zix and Lee. During the end, I think people started to realize that tank junglers didn't suck (hello, Rammus?) and could be played to high degree of effectiveness to do well in games. During the end, there was just as much of a reason to pick Rammus, Fiddles or Naut over Kha/Lee. There was so much diversity then, then there will be in S5.

Besides the fact that we both agree on S5 being a mess, I disagree with the rest of what you have stated and I think I have proven why. We clearly have two different opinions here, and this argument is just going to go in circles resulting in nothing.

SmokingPuffin2 votes

During the end, there was just as much of a reason to pick Rammus, Fiddles or Naut over Kha/Lee. There was so much diversity then, then there will be in S5.

I disagree with both points here. I think we're talking about a totally different game, actually.

The way I see it, you're talking about pubstompers. They are good at exploiting mistakes -- Rammus punishes overextension, Fiddlesticks punishes poor warding, Nautilus punishes weak jungler opposition. In a serious game, contested by competent players, it is very hard to argue for any of those. Fiddle is maybe interesting for some team compositions.

To the extent that season 4 jungling has diversity, it has a diversity of powerful early gankers -- Elise Pantheon Rengar and so on. I want there to be a reason to pick Sejuani JarvanIV Malphite Shyvana Diana , as well as the early ganking champions, and I see no way to get there with the mechanics of the season 4 jungle.

Ironclad Dragon2 votes

The funny thing about the new map and only the new map... if we went back to it, where would we go from there? Have amazing character models on an old map until the end of time?

Schuster2 votes

This kid is obviously and idiot, his horrid comments make me wanna item 3070

WooBeeWoo2 votes

The major thing is it severly limits the viable jungle champion pool. making it stupid to play. You clearly don't know waht you are talking about

MotherChurch2 votes

I do think the new jungle/dragon are needlessly complex and kind of a drag on the gameplay experience. I am ok with the rest of the changes though, including the new towers and baron buff.

Newbert Newman1 votes

And people QQ who can't tell that this is the Preseason from the front page......

Franny2 votes

Dude. We all understand it's preseason. The issue is the trend LoL is now following. A trend that lead other top games to either their demise, or a hefty decline.

Hex the FenFen1 votes

What is League of Legends? I have been playing League of Gap-Closers. Or AKA League of Lee Sin.

Franny1 votes

AKA fun is no longer being had this season.

Hex the FenFen1 votes

AKA Rito hates ranged casters

Onegarion1 votes

You have to look at if from a new players point of view. We all can agree that Mobas by no means are simple otherwise bronze wouldn't be look as in the same light. Yet with all these changes its adding a lot more intake from new players.

When i started it was early season 3 and Zac was just released. Even the simplest of champions seemed hard to me. Yet the game itself had a few simple concepts that let me learn better and improve. I'm not sure I'd stick with the game if I were to start today. While it may be a bit more fun to watch this season its not as easy to get into.

If Riot really wants to make this a lasting esport they need to keep things more like how it grew. It didn't grow with flashy graphics (even though the new SR looks amazing) and intricate/difficult (for a moba) gameplay. This is how i view dota. I tried playing an there is so much more to learn that I turned away really fast. It was overwhelming. I feel like RIot is going in this direction which isn't that great.

Franny1 votes

Myself, and many others agree with you.

Onegarion1 votes

You have to look at the other side too. There are those like us that have been here a while and don't get affected by it. WIth simplicity its hard to really have balance. We've seen this in every season so far and they've added new things to force diversity with varying degrees of success. I started playing early season 3 just for some scope here.

Season 4 brought changes to supports to make them feel more powerful and be more relevant than a simple ward machine. This added a bit of diversity to the league and more supports are actually viable now. The same goes with the new jungle items. Both season I've played have been dominated by a handful of junglers. Solo que itself saw a small pool of actual champs that would consistently excel. Like another person has explained that the other champs that were picked for mistake abusers. We still missed out on our tanky junglers last season. They were void from the rift bar a few people who played them.

The new changes now are actually allowing Riot more options to change and make it easier for more junglers to actually be played. Instead of having the akali/blitz/twitch junglers who weren't designed to jungle, they are able to allow champs like Hec (who actually still has a hard time), trundle, Sej to come out and be viable options.

These changes themselves aren't only a bad thing for new players, but for seasoned players its actually a very good thing. This lets players do more with what they want and have more options. Watching Nightblue3 stream last season he was almost forced to play certain junglers against others if he actually wanted to win. If a kha or lee was picked at the end of last season he had to pick specific champs to be relevant. Same went for panth/Elise/eve in the early parts of the season. This is what Riot is aiming to avoid. They don't want it so strangled by a couple of champs.

While the jungle is by no means perfect right now we haven't even seen a new patch. You can't really complain about imbalance on the first real iteration. The PBE is extremely small and you have to wait till live to get a real feel for it. Once the changes take root and we get some real balance then we can revisit this.

Franny1 votes

I really appreciate how well thought out your response is. You're not really agreeing or disagreeing with what I have said and what I fear for.

I understand patience is key here and I've done a lot of thinking about this. I'm not having fun with leagues anymore on this patch to the point where my friends and I don't even have a desire to play.

Having said that, I take into account everything you have said and will wait it out even though I still firmly believe that change was necessary, but these changes are not for the better.

Onegarion2 votes

What we need to worry about is when they start making items have special abilities like Dota2. Thats when we really need to worry or they completely change how gold is received. Or make objectives to mainstream (HotS). Thats when we really need to worry.

There is only so much that can be done when it comes to buff/nerfing champs. Only so many numbers can be changed before we just start going in circles. Items are can be a good way to change things for the better. Its yet to be seen if the current changes are actually going to help. Clearly this first iteration isn't good with champs starting to take smite and jungle items to lane with them because its just flat out better. We are also starting to have Devourer become more of a problem liek FF when it first came out. Its not exactly that bad, but its getting there with some champs and the loaded stats it has with smite.

Its hard to find a happy medium in balancing with so many variables. Since if you nerf 1 thing maybe something else is not OP or god tier. If you buff something you can screw over a lot of other things if you buff it to much. Also not nerfing/buffing the right things can cause little change or a drastic change, but never solving the problem (looking to a lot of the Kha nerfs here since they never solve the problem).

Sadly the truth is we need to wait about 2-3 patches to truly know how this is going to turn out.

RedPannda1 votes

I really appreciate how well thought out your response is. You're not really agreeing or disagreeing with what I have said and what I fear for.

I understand patience is key here and I've done a lot of thinking about this. I'm not having fun with leagues anymore on this patch to the point where my friends and I don't even have a desire to play.

Having said that, I take into account everything you have said and will wait it out even though I still firmly believe that change was necessary, but these changes are not for the better.

I totally get the whole not liking change. I can't tell you how many times my favorite game has gotten a change I just hated. I am excited but also dreading the eventual new ultimate skin because I have always wanted an ultimate skin but I am afraid I will not like whatever they wind up going with or not liking the champ they chose. But thats the breaks with a game this large. You either have to find something about it that makes you happy and focus on that or sometimes a short break can refresh your love for the game. You don't like the new map, thats fine, everyone has different tastes. But given enough time even if you don't grow to love it eventually you will get used to it and not even notice it as a bother anymore and eventually your brain just takes it as the new norm. Like you said Patience is the key, glad to see someone that loves the game enough to argue about it so passionately. Hope to see you around for a long time to come.

RedPannda1 votes

So what would you have had them do with the new map? Diablo 2 pitch blackness and heads on pikes scattered around? The fact of the matter is I have spent almost 1k hours in dota 2 and just as many if not more in lol and both maps have a unique feel to them. And like someone else said all mobas have a huge learning curve and everything takes time to understand. These jungle changes are minute in the grand scheme of the game and cannot be blamed for any supposed "downfall" of the game. Just like wow lost millions of subs at certain points and yet remains the number one moba ten years later. Nothing stays perfect forever, there is always a waxing and waning. But things really feel like they are going in a good direction and I could not be more excited about the new season.

2 years ago I was so into dota 2 I couldn't have imagined myself trying a new game. But there comes a point when you spend so long with a game you lose the ability to look at the game as a whole and start to find the most minor details to complain about because you are looking for a reason to let yourself take a break from the game. There is nothing wrong with wanting to try something different.

Franny1 votes

Haha, my brain actually took it as the new norm the second or so time playing on it :P It's merely just the fact (more or less my opinion here) that when I play on the map, it doesn't look or feel like something Riot would create and that's really what irks me. However as expressed, patience is truly the word here.

I really appreciate the compliment my friend, I hope as well that I'll be around for a long time to come and I wish you nothing but the best in the future.

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