The next step for League
Alas, we can all agree that the game is in a mess right now and below is a great video by DoubleLift that touches upon why league ended up the way it did and what it can do to improve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhI-QLG_DJU
The video in summary is about 2 points:
- More spaced out patches than they currently are
- Buffing what's weak and nerfing what's strong
As Doublelift mentioned, the fun of the game comes from feeling skilled and constant patches can reset your progress and make you lose a big investment. This is because even if the patch does not change any aspect of your champs kit, it will change the meta slightly and you would have to play around it. For an example, as an old soraka main, after the introduction of GW, I had to build more tanky than usual and now as a brand main, i always build Rylais before Liandries.
On the other hand, the logic behind point 2 is that by constantly buffing the weak and not balancing it with nerfing the strong, you are increasing the damage across the game and the consequence of that is snowbally meta.
League's objective was: 3. To force players to be more interactive and not just hug towers ( " Flashy LCS plays") 4. To shorten the length of games
I think both are commendable as long as they are not taken to extreme. The constant heavy changes each patch this year have been fatal to the game. Consequently the game are decided in the first 10 minutes and comebacks are becoming impossibly hard to pull off. We all need to understand that having too long games, farming for 20 minutes in lane and losing a winning game all feel frustrating. The trick is to find the right balance.
As such i think if riot works on point 2 and reduces damage across the board, it will more or less help point 3 and 4 by reducing: 5: Snowball
On the other hand the effect of reducing snowball will result in more team oriented playstyle. This is especially bad for lower elos but then again we have seen what's worse. The current snowball meta or the more team oriented playstyles before. These can help with those: 6. Buff tanks defensively in exchange of their offence 7. Giving items a niche so that going defensive means that you'll lose out on offence
The toxicity issue of the game are more or less related to: 8. The MMR system which i think should be mentioned in another thread.
Lastly, Ghostcrawler describes the current situation as a short term pain for a long term gain. I strongly believe the long term gain resides in point 2 currently. We have shorter games and more flashy plays as you want riot, but we have sacrificed way too much micro play (skill) as compensation. Slowly reducing DAMAGE until you feel the games are not too short but not too long and there is decent interactivity in lanes (and LCS), is the best next step i think.
