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Change: How Riot's greatest strength is now their most controversial aspect.

ModCaptainMårvelous··76 votes·18,108 views

Change is nothing new in League. It's something we're all accustomed to and frankly, I can't think of any game that changes as much as League.

Before I delve into today, I want to talk about back in Season 1 when I started playing. I had been a WoW player for years and was used to waiting half-a-year for more content. Now the patches would always be big, sure, but around 3-4 months after I had done all the content I ran out of stuff to do. Doubly so for the classic "pre-expansion lull" that I'm experiencing now in WoW. (I guess it gives me an excuse to finish Pandaria cooking for a title?) League is nothing like that, however. I never got bored of League (and still don't) because every two weeks there's a new toy for me. There's some balance changes to check out. Maybe a champion or a rework I'm itching to try.

Back in the day it was even worse (better?) because Riot had a release schedule that would make the MCU blush. A new champion, every two weeks. Suffice to say, these champs were horribly balanced in many cases. People complain about Zoe these days but man, you should have been here for stuff like Release MF where her ult took up the whole lane or when Renekton had his spotlight filmed before a ton of number nerfs. But this isn't a balance post. My point is that Riot was a machine-gun of content and, to this day, still is.

#But we're older now.

If you haven't seen it, I'd check out Stonewall's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1HnoCrq-ac

All caught up? Nice.

Stonewall makes a great point that the game changing every two weeks is poisonous for streamers, pro players and people who have responsibilities and lives outside of the game. It wasn't a big deal 8-9~ years ago because we were young and probably in college/high school. You probably didn't work as much as you do now and maybe you didn't have, say, a family to help take care of or the quarterly report to finish in excel. You could afford for Riot to change/add massive things in the game.

But, as the bold post says, we're older now. We don't have time. Older me now has a bit more to do in WoW because I don't shotgun all the content and there's usually enough for me to make a patch like 7.3 last quite a bit of time. (Fucking Aggramar drop the fucking sword). Do you know who Riot's patch cycle appeals to? Younger players who want more things and have more time to kill.

#And about the community...

What isn't making this easier is the community. When something is busted in League, what is your initial response? I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's 50/50: Half of you probably want to let it sit and have people find counters for it naturally. The other half of you are probably screaming at me how Riot is the worst company ever and they're idiots for ever allowing it into the game. Yes, it's true that not everything can be adapted to or given time to sit. However, not everything is so busted Riot needs to act as the hand of god asap.

As we saw in Doublelift's vidoe, Pros want Riot to ease with changes. Let the game sit. Maybe a handful of hotfixes. But mostly, they want Riot hands off. Boards and the more casual community, conversely, wants Riot acting ASAP the moment something dips to a 51% win rate. This is also a sign of how the community has changed. We want more changes and Riot to act even faster on patches and balance changes. Pros just want the game to sit and be left alone for months on end. And that's not even getting into the divide between those that want faster games and those that want shorter ones.

#Closure

So normally this is some big call-to-action or a miracle solution. I don't have one. Nobody does. Any solution proposed will be inherently biased because it'll be from the angle of someone who is good at the game and wants things to be left alone or from the angle of someone who is more casual and wants to have fun more than be challenged.

It's all in Riot's hand: Do they stay the course and hold onto the doctrine of rapid-fire changes they've had for years...or do they pump the breaks and begin releasing meatier-yet-longer patches ala DOTA?

Who knows.

72 Comments

Risk of Fate20 votes

[deleted]

MorganFreemanBot6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fate Fire,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=89YL7Xvf,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-07-28T04:09:20.378+0000)

Please....Anything above 50.000001 is broken and needs to be hard nerfed.

Joking aside, I just want to make a small comment regarding "casuals" which there seems to be some confusion and I feel like it may clear up the air, even for a tiny bit. There's this idea that casuals are these ADHD caffeine drink smashers that don't have the patience to "git gud" enough to climb or what have you. <snip>

I want to piggy back off of this, quickly, and agree.

I'd say the "Casuals" aren't the ones who demand faster changes. In fact, I'd argue it's Riot's target audience who screams and cries for things to be hotfixed / immediately resolved.

At 25 and (somehow) a manager in my field (still not sure how I managed to start a career..), I've been playing League since I was.. like.. 17. It's been a long road, and I've enjoyed it. However the constant whip-lash of changes, both balance and gameplay wise, leaves me breathless.

I'm generally against the boards sentiment of "BUFFS AND NERFS NAO", and you can see this in my post history.

I argued (not much, but some) that Aatrox shouldn't be buffed on his release, because he'd been out for a freaking day.

I was skeptical of the scuttle changes, but still said that they should be allowed to stew before everyone pronounced doom and gloom (my skepticism proved prudent).

Ect ect, the list goes on.

In my personal opinion, the only people who want immediate / faster changes at the younger players. And like it or not, poles have shown that the average age of people boards is something like 14-17.

I realize remember not feeling particularly young at that age, but being where I am now I recognize that I absolutely was. Granted, I'm sure that a 35-40+ year old feels the same way about me and my tender age of 25-pushing-26.

Regardless, that's the age group which largely has the most time. Generally their only commitment is going to be highschool, which has a lot more time off than a standard job / isn't particularly difficult unless you're grinding through a ton of extra AP courses to get early college credits.

Hence, I'd like to term this group not so much "Casual" as "Casually hardcore". They're hardcore players who sink massive amounts of time into League, but they're broadly just.. How do you put it.. Not very serious about it? Generally hard-stuck in a lot of the lower ELO's, ragey, and looking to blame outside sources (champ balance, dcs, match making) for failures, rather than breaking it down and trying to become genuinely better at the game.

Eternal Torment12 votes

I agree with everything said except with one thing.

the 50 half that screams at Riot to act don't just want an ASAP activity, they want a less wrong one. Now, this is an obvious aggressive statement and i'm cursed to get mute downvotes because A it isn't passive aggressive and B I already am a not so much liked personality anyway. Prove me wrong.

That aside, What people want is for Riot to act asap with reverting the chaos that was created with the damage creep. A large part of the community is highly impatient and wants to have this game be fun again whenever it possibly can be. The anger comes with Riot mostly leaning back and saying this is all intended. It is in people's nature to activate denial for absurdity, such as someone, or a collective mass of high and capable intelligence purposely wishing a stack of mistakes to mutate into a chaos. Which is Season 8 in a nutshell.

The big problem is, because of this game's entire history being revolved around adaptivity and change, every mistake can just be disguised as another change and be done with it.

PLUS, Doublelift also made some very good points, but what really made people angry was that when his rant first came out, people got considerably mad because apparently riot disclosed his entire message as an angry rant and ignored it for the purpose of continuing this meta still. This gives valid evidence that this is all actually intended and Riot, or at least the big shots in the dev team, will go as far as to shut down and avoid anyone just to have their decision remain. That's a straight up ego problem from a textbook definition, not even kidding go look it up. And a large amount of the players have trouble understanding that because it is, from a Rational AND irrational point of view, both, too damaging for the fundamental "laws" of gameplay which were more or less set by the game's mechanics itself.

ModCaptainMårvelous11 votes

the 50 half that screams at Riot to act don't just want an ASAP activity, they want a less wrong one. Now, this is an obvious aggressive statement and i'm cursed to get mute downvotes because A it isn't passive aggressive and B I already am a not so much liked personality anyway. Prove me wrong.

Yet that's still ASAP activity. For a great, recent example? Look at Aatrox. Aatrox was meme'd to death for his low win-rate release and all manner of complaints. "His kit is clunky. Trash champ. Revert the rework". Riot catered to this, which leads to Aatrox getting a buff he might have not needed as a hotfix, which in-turn leads to him being absurd in pro play. The knee-jerk insta-reaction directly leads to more problems in the wrong, long run.

It also still proves the point that they still want reactionary balance changes. Changes that are made on whims and based on the feeling rather than letting the game sit. On occasion it also happens in pro play, such as funneling needing a fix (albeit bandage) asap.

PLUS, Doublelift also made some very good points, but what really made people angry was that when his rant first came out, people got considerably mad because apparently riot disclosed his entire message as an angry rant and ignored it for the purpose of continuing this meta still.

the fucc

They literally did not do this lmao. Ghostcrawler came out and made a big ass response (which is still on the dev corner) and commented on how they feel his pain points. I get being upset with the direction but revisionist history where Riot discredits all feeling and emotion and just writes off DL as "lol angry ranty boi" is just incorrect and wrong.

Paroe7 votes

@thread

Change for the sake of change =/= Change for the better.

Change for the sake of change results in spotlight balance, professional-chasing, misplaced priorities.
It leads to forgetting to make a good product first and foremost. Riot... Doesnt have a good product right now. They have a coasting product that could do with removing 60% of the existing roster to consolidate design philosophies.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

Change for the sake of change results in spotlight balance, professional-chasing, misplaced priorities. It leads to forgetting to make a good product first and foremost. Riot... Doesnt have a good product right now. They have a coasting product that could do with removing 60% of the existing roster to consolidate design philosophies.

I disagree with this mostly because, well, the priorities are pretty clear. In fact, the bot lane happenings were outlined months ago in their dev plans for 2018/Season 8. The thing is that this is a good product for the casual players. It's -great- for people who pick-up and play every once in a while, terrible for people who want to focus on competitive/high-tier play.

And they've actually been removing pieces of the roster in a way with champion reworks to better fit League's new design space. People tend to knee-jerk hate it and actually say reworks are bad. The most common complaint is "Make the rework a new champ and keep the old one", which further contributes to roster bloat as well as vastly confusing design discrepancies.

Casa En Fuego1 votes

Remakes SHOULD be new characters. You're allowed to have characters that are similar to each other in games. Like, how many people play Street Fighter and love Ken but hate Ryu? Not every character needs to be vastly different than everyone else. You're allowed to have overlap.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

That's true up to a point. It's nice that you touch Street Fighter because I'm big into fighting games/the FGC. The thing is that the longer these games go on, the "clone" characters either get more diverse and away from the similarity aspect while the new additions become even odder.

Take Soul Calibur. Nightmare and Siegfried have been rapidly moving away from each other even though they occupy very similar niches and functions. Nightmare's fast, heavy swings vs. siegfried's stance swapping. Asteroth was originally just a stand-in for Rock yet now the two are vastly different. The bigger point is roster bloat. Clones are more easily justifiable in a fighting game because it's a 1v1 game where execution usually takes precedence over character picks. Conversely, in a MOBA, it doesn't work as much because your character has to fill a niche or a role on your team. Hence why characters who are too similar end up smothering others. (Darius vs. Garen for example)

Anyways, I'm ok with a bit of overlap but the roster bloat is a very real issue and one often complained about. Making an "entirely new champ" would contribute to it and have further reaching consequences (Balance time allocation, skin love, overlapping an old champ to the point of them not existing, etc) that has more problems than I'd care to talk about.

Casa En Fuego1 votes

"Change for the sake of change" has been Riot's driving design philosophy for like 4-5 years now, my dude. Why do they keep changing characters that already work and people have been enjoying playing for years? Because. Just because.

Yormaughm4 votes

I think a large part of what's going on here isn't necessarily the division between "casual" and "pro" play as so many people have identified. And it's not even the "young players with a lot of time" vs "older players with more responsibilities" problem either.

I think there's multiple factors that create this situation, and I think it might have something to do with how competition itself is perceived now versus how it used to be perceived.

First let me give some background, I am someone who has been involved in the competitive side of Fighting Games since 2004, that wasn't quite the FGC's infancy, but it was definitely it's early stages. Recently, I've moved away from that though, because I no longer enjoy them due to the what I perceive to be negative influence of e-sports in that sphere. Nevertheless from a popularity standpoint, they're bigger than ever, but as a former competitive player, it's not the same to me and I don't care about the supposed "success" of the new model. In that regard, I can empathize with old League players who are just not liking the game any more, I don't think that it's because "the game/current meta is bad" though, I think it's because of a shift in what's perceived to be the "it" factor in competition in general, and the market forces (e-sports) that drive that shift.

In the recent past, at least where fighting games were concerned, there was no such thing as "patches" a game came out and that was it. If you were lucky, the same company would release the same game with a few extra words in the title and a few new characters, and a whole bunch of balance changes every 2 years or so. This is why there's 4 or 5 versions of every single Street Fighter. Capcom didn't patch the game, they just made a new one 2 years down the road and this was a "patched version" with a new name that you had to buy all over again. (Nowadays this would be called unethical business practices by some.) 2 years is a lot of time though, it allowed the best players to definitively prove they were the best. But recently fighting game developers have learned they can actually just release smaller patches more frequently, and change the experience for every player uniformly and automatically via download, like League does, and PC games have done for years. We could debate forever about whether this shift is good or bad, but what I've come to realize is, whether it's good or bad isn't relevant. What's relevant is, can you as a player still "compete" with this being the approach, what does "competition" look like now?

There's talk in this thread about "Riot needs to let patches sit" before making new changes because "players don't have time to learn and absorb the changes before new changes are introduced." This is definitely a valid point being made, but the frequency of changes isn't the problem, it's the amount and scope of changes in the patches that is. And this is something that a rabid (and mostly casual) fan base is very vocal about (namely in that they beg for changes constantly, then when they get them, they're unhappy.) In the past, like season 3 or before, Riot seemed to make patches more frequently than they do now, but they were a lot smaller and less significant. Meanwhile the amount of people complaining about what needed to be changed was basically the same really. Major impactful changes took a long time to happen. Boards would scream about how OP a champion was for 6 months, maybe a year before anything happened (unless it was actually game breaking, then usually it was addressed, but even then...) The point is, back then there was a much more relaxed attitude toward impactful changes to the game. Regardless of how vocal the masses were, this allowed "competitive" and pro players to learn the game to master their craft. The same is true of Fighting Games before the modern era. The longer something exists without changes, the more it rewards masterful players who have had time to hone their craft, this is what appealed to the (smaller) fan base of spectators back then. Seeing someone who was truly a master at their chosen character, whether you were talking about League or fighting games. Small changes over a long time meant the nature of competition was "who is the best at using their skill to win."

At some point in time (which by my memory seems to be around Season 4) Riot switched to this hard "every 2 weeks" patch schedule. This is a business decision more than a player experience or even game balance decision. Riot has to justify the paychecks of their staff, so they gave them a never-ending goal to ensure they always had work to do. The balance/patch team's job is "always make the game better," and ironically, this applies even when the game is in a good state and doesn't need changes, thereby making their directive run counter to their objective some of the time. In the early years, I feel like they would just release a small patch that made some small changes to maybe a few items or a few champion abilities, and maybe was really just there to introduce the newest character to the game, and then everyone hi-fived each other and took a long lunch. Now it's massive overhauls, changes to runes, 20 or so character changes per patch and some, probably most, of these changes aren't needed, but we hired these guys so they have to have something to do at work right?

The point is, there's no going back to "the good 'ol days" this patch schedule hasn't changed in 4 years and it's not going to start. We live in a time where the nature of competition is different now. Now, pretty much across the board no matter what game you're talking about, competitive play doesn't reward the player who has spent tons and tons of time honing their craft to be a master at what they do, it now rewards the players who can adapt to changes the fastest. It doesn't always make sense to us that these two groups aren't always the same people, some of the best players ever simply can't survive in the new fast paced Competitive™ scene.

If you're an amazing player, but you need years, or months to prove it, you're a dinosaur now and you will go extinct, and I'm speaking as someone that this happened to in the games that I play competitively. It sucks but it's reality. Competitive play now isn't about being the best, it's about adapting the quickest. This doesn't actually have all that much to do with the amount of time people have to devote to the game, even though you'd think it would. You're either a quick adopter, or you're not. One of the side effects of the frequency of changes and the ever-changing meta is that it only rewards this kind of player now. Gone are the days of good players being staples for years at a time, say hello to "whoever gets it right now at this exact moment" and a revolving door of "good players" that this will create. It's not just League this is happening to, it's caused by the developers reaction to the constant demand from a fan base that for the most part, are spectators more than players, this is what it takes for companies to survive the torrent that the world of internet "instant gratification" creates. It's not anyone's fault, it's everyone's fault. The meta changes so quickly that nobody can really get a grasp on it before it changes again, in fact with a playerbase so large changes this quick might even be necessary for Riot to survive, even though it leaves some truly skilled players in the dust.

TL;DR: Have you ever bought Italian salad dressing? When you pull it off the shelf, it's completely settled, 50% is oil 50% is the sediments that give it flavor, it's had time to sit and it knows what it is, but nobody is going to put that shit on their salad without shaking it up first, it's the chaos that makes it taste good. This is what has happened to the nature of competition in any game that has an e-sports scene, we can debate whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's not going away. Chaos just tastes better.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Started reading for the fellow FGC player. Stayed for the solid fucking post. +1.

You going to EVO this year? I'll be there. o7

Yormaughm1 votes

Thanks, I know people run away from long posts.

Also, no, as I said I'm pretty much "retired" now. There isn't even a modern fighting game I like anymore, and I just can't devote the time to it that I need too. For my money, the last good fighting game was the recent Killer Instinct, it's very well balanced, but IMO it's community killed it because they don't know what makes a game good and just want something to complain about on Twitter. I just don't have the patience for that anymore. Hope you have a great time tho.

Ýisus2 votes

I think a lot of this is spot on. I have only been playing since Season 5 - I used to play A LOT - Right after work I would play several hours. Recent changes really pushed me away from the game.

#1 - The feeding / Snowballing. - It just isn't fun. Someone on your team feeds (sometimes me lol) ... and then it is just a slaughter all over the map. Sitting in a gray screen over and over just really ruins the mood ... I find myself playing League and just getting pissed off .... and what is the point in playing a video game to just get pissed off???

#2 - Changes - Constant changes / reworks turn the game from entertaining to straight work. I have to learn new builds / new paths / new meta. I don't have time to Learn a video game every 2 weeks.

#3 - Champion Changes - I know this is like #2 ... but in my short time with League ... I have really mastered 5 Junglers with anywhere from 300k - 2M mastery. Of those, 2 were reworked in a way that made me stop playing them. A great example of this is Xin Zhao ... Not saying his rework was horrible ... I just don't find it at all fun to play.

Linna Excel2 votes

Make League Great Again!

Riot should release a new champ or rework every 2 weeks like the good old days!

Exclamation point!

All that said, I'm fine if riot only updates once a month aside from hotfixes.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

Ironically that's kinda what they do now.

You get a patch once a month on-average. It just feels like it's faster because the moment a patch hits live, we get a new one on the PBE.

Linna Excel2 votes

I thought that the last patch cycle was long but that riot is going back to twice a month for the rest of the season.

Eternal Torment2 votes

Except this season was all about Esports and turns out the majority does not like where it is going. Maybe it is a special occasion because this is a MOBA and thus can't be logically balanced around fun AND efficiency, but the attempt to do so while focusing it for pro play only has shown to be almost entirely damaging and a misinvestment of Rather good ideas into bad practices.

ModCaptainMårvelous3 votes

Not...really.

This season has actually been more focused on the casual play and new player experience. Rune update? The main season goal of "Open up more playstyles"? More changes? All of these don't help pros but rather cater to casuals. If you want to see something cater to esports, Riot would focus predominantly on the top-end of balance, not what feels good for new/casual players.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

I would like to see how it would work with one patch every 4 weeks with a micro patch 2 weeks in to address any outliers if any.

ModCaptainMårvelous3 votes

That was how they did it recently.

People hated it and said Riot was dumb for trying it because major changes should be reserved for PRESEASON >:(

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

"How could they let a champion I don't like be strong for 4 weeks straight????" "This game is dying no patches ever" "ADC 2K18 LUL" "Nerf Zed" "Nerf Yasuo" "GG game is dead I'm leaving season 1 vet here" (links Dunkey's video for the 100,000 time) >:(

ModCaptainMårvelous3 votes

I'm gonna leave! UNINSTALLING NOW. JUST YOU WAIT. ANYONE ELSE? ANYONE ELSE UNINSTALLING? LEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT HOW YOU'RE LEAVING GUYS

Wolfeur3 votes

I'm in love with this game, I've been playing it (albeit not that much) since season 1 and I still want to go on the rift. The issue is that everyone, especially on the boards, are overly toxic towards Riot, and the community is pushing me away. All my friends have stopped playing, mostly due to the toxicity. I still want to play, but it's not as fun playing alone.

Yormaughm1 votes

I'm sorry to hear that because I know what it means. The same thing happened to me like 4 years ago. Once your friends stop playing and the toxicity gets to you, there isn't much you can do about it. Personally now I play extremely casually and not that often, but I still think this is one of the greatest games ever made. It's just not fun anymore due to factors I can't control (and it's not Riot's fault either, it's just social factors.)

StillHittinLicks1 votes

I'VE BEEN PLAYING SINCE SEASON 3 MY PEAK RANK WAS D5 NERF ZEDS SHADOW SO YOU CAN'T BLINK TO IT IM UNINSTALLING (Plays two weeks later) NERF KATARINA'S SHUNPO

Automated Riven1 votes

Wait what?

Teridax682 votes

I disagree with the reasoning. League's core playerbase wasn't collectively 12 or whatever when the game started, and there were people of all ages who were on board with the game's development. The issue isn't so much that we have grown, imo, but that League has spent enough time to no longer be considered a game in its growth phase.

When any product or company launches, its first few years tend to be a critical period of high growth. In the case of games in ongoing development, content needs to get churned out at an extremely rapid pace, and quality is placed secondary to quantity. In situations like these, rapid patch cycles are ideal, because stability is not expected as much as innovation. Similarly, player perception tends to be more accepting of rapid change, because the game is still finding its feet, and hasn't yet settled into any kind of specific mold or direction.

However, there eventually comes a time when the situation changes. Within the space of a few years, and once a solid, stable playerbase has formed, these players begin to expect stability and quality from the game. This is usually the point where the focus shifts from quantity to quality, and where players start expecting developers to fix issues within their game. This is also a point where a disconnect may happen: players may want every issue to get resolved as quickly as possible, because they don't know how much time it takes to properly do design work, or are used to a rapid pace of development, whereas professional players, who are paid to play the game to a high level and who don't want to have to relearn the game every two weeks, start to prefer a slower rate of change, one they can adapt to more adequately. In the meantime, developers are faced with a tradeoff between quicker updates, which can answer smaller pain points but can't really get into any sort of depth, and slower updates, which can address certain issues more comprehensively, at the cost of leaving players waiting.

Looking at this, what Riot has been doing for this season stands out: whereas previously we had a balance between preseason updates, which were large and disruptive, and in-season updates, which were generally focused on balance, this time we've had a big patch/little patch model, which implemented major changes on a monthly basis. Considering how players already complained when Riot started doing large mid-season updates, which were notoriously unsuccessful, it is therefore unsurprising that many players have been dissatisfied with the developers' approach this season, which has seen even more rushed and poorly thought-through updates wreak havoc upon the game's balance. Riot has been trying to have their cake and eat it too, and in the process has alienated a huge portion of their players.

What's also concerning is that Riot has not only been implementing a lot of big updates in too short an amount of time, but is seemingly trying to change the entire direction of their game. A growing feeling among players is that the Riot of today is not the Riot they knew during Seasons 1 through 5, and the League that exists now is not the same League from that time either. Games end much quicker, but are also far more snowbally, and there is increasingly more of an emphasis on damage, especially front-loaded damage, above all else. The game does not seem to be any stabler or more balanced than it was three or six years ago (in fact, it feels worse), which is worrying in itself, but on top of that it feels stuck halfway through in a transition period, one that is leaving many players behind. Players who enjoyed the game's strategic and tactical aspects have found themselves alienated, and in this respect, Riot's changes have only pulled the game farther away from them.

In the end, I think what we need now more than anything else is a clear statement of where League is, and where it wants to go, from Riot. It is likely they could benefit from slowing their patch rate, particularly since they've been abusing the usage of hotfixes (we get them every other patch now), but on top of all this it feels like the devs are rushing very quickly towards some destination even they don't seem aware of. Whereas we once had a clear picture of where Riot wanted to take League, that is no longer the case, because each update has done something vastly different to the game, often in stark contrast to what was done immediately before, and sometimes in ways that do a 180 from fairly recent work. If players were brought on board Riot's development process, and knew what to expect at least, it is likely there would be much less player resistance towards whichever changes Riot puts forth in the future.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

This feels the same problem as Balancing the game. Do we balance for Casuals/The Majority or do we balance for the Pro Play?

ModCaptainMårvelous3 votes

Casual if you want more money/a larger playerbase.

Pro play if you want a better game/a more interesting esport scene.

50/50 if you want to make nobody happy.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

I'm sure Nobody appreciates the consideration ^^

chipndip12 votes

You'll make a great dad...

Tomoe Gozen2 votes

Riot has to worry about both. As you've said - there's no such thing as a good solution to this problem. The casuals will always complain that certain meta is "the worst change Riot made at that point in time since forever" while the pros would find ways to work around them for a time.

The reason why i think Riot can't side with any side is that the meta becomes boring quickly because the pros dictate what's good and what isn't. You see them ban the same champs, pick the same things and after 5 games of these back-and-forth phases, i find myself tune out of the LCS unless the game's really interesting to watch. Regional LCS matches can be fun or not but it largely depends on the picks. LCK and NA aren't picking the same stuff or running with the same strategies for example so it's always somewhat fun to watch like this.

In the end, i think that the solution will clearly always come in a form of a compromise (50/50). Because when Riot balances League for pros (1-2 patches a year), the people set themselves on fire with how much rage they manage to leave on the boards and yet, when the entirety of the year League is being balanced for "casuals", it's still not good enough and neither is for the pros.

MasterDClone1 votes

This post speakes volumes about the boards, because me and my friends are all in highschool and we follow up on every aspect of the game and i look forward to each new change because if have the time while some of my older friends that i play with from time to time hate all the changes and wish riot would just keep the game as it is or revert it back to the "good ol days".

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Honestly it fucking sucks.

I remember my first time with games when I was younger SUPER well. For WoW it was walking into Stormwind the first time and getting an earnest sense of scale for how big the game was. For League it was opening the champ menu for the first time and overwhelmed with having 10 characters, all vastly different, to pick from. (My first three champs were Gragas, Gangplank and Olaf. I'll remember that til I die because I loved the variety of a viking, pirate and drunk guy).

some of my older friends that i play with from time to time hate all the changes and wish riot would just keep the game as it is or revert it back to the "good ol days".

I kinda feel like people ask for this but it ends up becoming a case of "You want this but you're blinded by nostalgia". A lot of us remember the FEEL of Season 1-2. Reverting it won't necessarily bring that feeling back so we end up holding onto the idea of going back in time but trying to settle for sending only the game back in time. Going back to when League was new would be amazing though.

Tomoe Gozen1 votes

There's no such thing as "League Vanilla Server". How many people play Vanilla WoW anyway?

MasterDClone1 votes

League of Memories will be vanilla league if the guy actually has the time and the skill to design it

MasterDClone1 votes

Search up league of memories, its a custom project to make a league vanilla server

Casa En Fuego1 votes

No, I sincerely want Season 2 Darius, Yorick, Irelia, GP, Taric, etc. back. I actually enjoyed playing those characters.

Ifneth1 votes

I wonder if my level of commitment is too much for the average player, since I always wonder about how people can complain so much about change.

  1. Read all PBE updates
  2. Read all Dev Notes
  3. Read Gameplay board

I’m hungry to know more about the game and keep looking for more whenever I can. I actually want to cut back because I can confuse myself if PBE changes don’t come through, though they help me prepare for the coming patch. Change comes to me not by surprise but as a reasonable consequence of Riot’s work.

What about you guys?

MasterDClone2 votes

I'm the same way i read and look for every little tid-bit of information coming in, including all the lore updates and changes. i love seeing what's coming in everypatch and look forward to them

zaire901 votes

{quoted}

I wonder if my level of commitment is too much for the average player, since I always wonder about how people can complain so much about change.

  1. Read all PBE updates
  2. Read all Dev Notes
  3. Read Gameplay board

I’m hungry to know more about the game and keep looking for more whenever I can. I actually want to cut back because I can confuse myself if PBE changes don’t come through, though they help me prepare for the coming patch. Change comes to me not by surprise but as a reasonable consequence of Riot’s work.

What about you guys?

Same I remember when Ahri and Lbs reworks hit pbe and the patch after I went to play them and was surprised when they werent on live only to find out they were delayed

Ifneth1 votes

{quoted}

Same I remember when Ahri and Lbs reworks hit pbe and the patch after I went to play them and was surprised when they werent on live only to find out they were delayed

That embarrassing moment of confusion. I know how you feel. XD

Vlada Cut1 votes

Riot's strength: To balance without playing. Psychic powers intensifies.

DarkKatalyst1 votes

You can't tune a game for pro-play, ignore casual players, and keep it fresh with frequent changes at the same time without alienating everyone. Riot is trying to do too much at the same time, and are paying the price for the low quality that results. They've lost their footing.

LordGeovanni1 votes

Idk about season 1 but season 2 and 3 i know that balance changes followed consistent trends in what they wanted from each class. They still do that but at the point of the change from season3 to season 4 they changed what they wanted from each class and the direction is not what people who used to play those classes want from their classes some classes do get what they want from their classes but still feel like other classes arent where they want them due to the sped up pace of the game forces many champions to play. You cant know that no one has a miracle solution just because you dont have it and riot hasnt presented it just that either riot doesnt have it or doesnt want to use it and you dont have it.

deadlychuck1 votes

The problem is that change isn't a strength, adaptability is a strength, but just as failure to change with environment will kill something, changing in a consistent environment will kill something too. Riot's failure to adapt to the stagnated player base is why what was once was seen as a strength is now seen as a weakness.

The environment: The players The creature: League of legends

Changes to the environment warrant consideration of changing the creature, not always but sometimes. That said, the creature is divided between different environments (regions) and at some point it becomes necessary to allow them to diverge and develop independently from the others and become a new species.

Everyone would be more than happy, if riot had split the development team by regions, and that over time the Chinese/Korean version of league would have shorter games with more mobility, the NA/EU version had longer CDs and longer games, and then maybe a "professional" version, which anyone could play, but was universally consistent across all regions, with it's own development team.

Now, that doesn't mean that they need multiple art teams, but it would generally mean that they'd need to duplicate their balance teams and their design teams.

Mimr1 votes

Personally I'm on the verge of quitting for good (after rage-uninstalling for the umpteenth time in several weeks) because of another point Stonewall makes: player toxicity. I'll live with and adapt to most of the gameplay system changes because overall I'm still pretty positive about most of them and I can see the effort Riot is putting in to balance things and provide a better experience. Thing is, S8 is pretty much a beta-test season for the new rune system combined with other big packages of changes that were long overdue (crit item rework being the primary one). I think no one, including Riot themselves anticipated the balance uproar the new rune system would create and they're still busy dealing with the fallout of that nuke. I do hope they will slow down in S9 however.

But anyway, back to my original point, the community. In all my long years of gaming I don't think I've ever had to deal with a more toxic community (for a game that I played anyway). Another game I play a lot is World of Warcraft and people complain quite a bit about player toxicity over there as well. And while the WoW community is far from the best I've ever seen let me tell you that WoW players are saints compared to the people I meet here. I guess this has to do with the target audience for this game (teenage boys are rather prone to anger outbursts on the internet thanks to (relative) anonimity, hormones and general inexperience at life) but also, and I think this is far worse, Riot is both indirectly and directly encouraging such behaviour.

Indirectly by trying to market the game as a sport. It's all about climbing, getting better and winning. Just having fun with the game does not seem to get much attention anymore. It's esports this, pro's that. This makes people feel that if you don't win and climb, you're a lesser player/ less valued customer than someone who does. Resulting in a lot of flame and rage if you're on the losing team. Particularly if you're doing well but your teammate has a bad game and fed their Yasuo who now 1v5s you.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, climbing the ranks and getting better at something, but I still primarily play the game to unwind and have fun. Winning is a goal of course, but I have much more fun in a close 40-minute game that I ultimately lose than a sub-20 minute stomp that I win. Riot should start market this game as a well, game, again instead of a sport, much less with the delusion of grandeur that they do now, trying to get League to become as ingrained in our collective sports-consciousness as football, athletics and chess (I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read that particular developer commentary. Then again, that was from I think 2016 so here's to hoping they're back in reality once again).

The worst part is directly encouraging and it through various emotes, the mastery ones in particular. This is just a legal way of saying "GG EZ n00b". You can even see that Riot knows damn well what kind of effect the Mastery emotes have on the game by looking at some of the lines the Aatrox rework has, gloating at and insulting players who flash them. Now you can say "words don't hurt" but science has proven multiple times over that they, in fact, do, because things like insults, heartbreak and overly harsh critique is in fact handled by the same part of the brain that handles physical pain. So no, it is, in fact, not "just grow a pair". Now I'm not advocating a "My Little Pony-environment" as far as language and general conduct goes and having the occasional bad day should not immediately lead to severe punishments but Riot should be MUCH stricter when it comes to player toxicity. From flaming your teammate who has a bad game to smurfing. If you cannot appreciate the effort and time other people put in to provide you with the matches you play you have no place here. I also know that with the technology we have it's very hard to get offenders out of your game for good but that's no excuse for not trying.

Anyway, that was my little rant, have a nice day.

Kledy McKledFace1 votes

{quoted}

Change is nothing new in League. It&#039;s something we&#039;re all accustomed to and frankly, I can&#039;t think of any game that changes as much as League.

Before I delve into today, I want to talk about back in Season 1 when I started playing. I had been a WoW player for years and was used to waiting half-a-year for more content. Now the patches would always be big, sure, but around 3-4 months after I had done all the content I ran out of stuff to do. Doubly so for the classic &quot;pre-expansion lull&quot; that I&#039;m experiencing now in WoW. (I guess it gives me an excuse to finish Pandaria cooking for a title?) League is nothing like that, however. I never got bored of League (and still don&#039;t) because every two weeks there&#039;s a new toy for me. There&#039;s some balance changes to check out. Maybe a champion or a rework I&#039;m itching to try.

Back in the day it was even worse (better?) because Riot had a release schedule that would make the MCU blush. A new champion, every two weeks. Suffice to say, these champs were horribly balanced in many cases. People complain about Zoe these days but man, you should have been here for stuff like Release MF where her ult took up the whole lane or when Renekton had his spotlight filmed before a ton of number nerfs. But this isn&#039;t a balance post. My point is that Riot was a machine-gun of content and, to this day, still is.

#But we&#039;re older now.

If you haven&#039;t seen it, I&#039;d check out Stonewall&#039;s video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1HnoCrq-ac

All caught up? Nice.

Stonewall makes a great point that the game changing every two weeks is poisonous for streamers, pro players and people who have responsibilities and lives outside of the game. It wasn&#039;t a big deal 8-9~ years ago because we were young and probably in college/high school. You probably didn&#039;t work as much as you do now and maybe you didn&#039;t have, say, a family to help take care of or the quarterly report to finish in excel. You could afford for Riot to change/add massive things in the game.

But, as the bold post says, we&#039;re older now. We don&#039;t have time. Older me now has a bit more to do in WoW because I don&#039;t shotgun all the content and there&#039;s usually enough for me to make a patch like 7.3 last quite a bit of time. (Fucking Aggramar drop the fucking sword). Do you know who Riot&#039;s patch cycle appeals to? Younger players who want more things and have more time to kill.

#And about the community...

What isn&#039;t making this easier is the community. When something is busted in League, what is your initial response? I&#039;m going to go out on a limb and say it&#039;s 50/50: Half of you probably want to let it sit and have people find counters for it naturally. The other half of you are probably screaming at me how Riot is the worst company ever and they&#039;re idiots for ever allowing it into the game. Yes, it&#039;s true that not everything can be adapted to or given time to sit. However, not everything is so busted Riot needs to act as the hand of god asap.

As we saw in Doublelift&#039;s vidoe, Pros want Riot to ease with changes. Let the game sit. Maybe a handful of hotfixes. But mostly, they want Riot hands off. Boards and the more casual community, conversely, wants Riot acting ASAP the moment something dips to a 51% win rate. This is also a sign of how the community has changed. We want more changes and Riot to act even faster on patches and balance changes. Pros just want the game to sit and be left alone for months on end. And that&#039;s not even getting into the divide between those that want faster games and those that want shorter ones.

#Closure

So normally this is some big call-to-action or a miracle solution. I don&#039;t have one. Nobody does. Any solution proposed will be inherently biased because it&#039;ll be from the angle of someone who is good at the game and wants things to be left alone or from the angle of someone who is more casual and wants to have fun more than be challenged.

It&#039;s all in Riot&#039;s hand: Do they stay the course and hold onto the doctrine of rapid-fire changes they&#039;ve had for years...or do they pump the breaks and begin releasing meatier-yet-longer patches ala DOTA?

Who knows.

What's an archivist on those boards?

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