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League's Main Downfalls

Meep Man··3 votes·398 views

Over time, League of Legends has become a better game overall with good gameplay and a story that is slowly being rewritten to be so much better. However, the game has one major downside that makes it a much worse game. Repetitivness. Lately, even when I change characters and play different roles, the game feels the same. This has happened for several reasons:

  1. The Meta I'm not talking about Tank Meta or Assassin Meta or ADC Meta, Im talking about THE Meta. That being 1 Top, 1 Jungle, 1 Middle, and 2 Bottom. This format is so locked in place, especially with the new champion select, that it makes it to where every match is the same. There can't be two junglers on one team because Riot has balanced the game so strictly around one jungler. There can't not be a Jungler because there is no upside to having two Top and not having a Jungler. You can't have a Triple Lane because they have balanced experience so that a triple lane just can't survive. Due to this locked meta, every match feels the same and that makes the game stale and boring. Over time, this just pushes people away from the game. Speaking of which...

  2. Hard to Get Friends to Join This game has become stupidly hard to jump into. Riot completely missed the mark on getting people to join when they halved the experience needed to get to Level 30. Now new players who have no idea what they are doing get to play with Level 30s in Ranked much quicker and they have no idea what they are doing because this game's tutorial is honestly terrible. It doesn't explain any mechanics passed the absolute basics and just throws you out there. Not only this, but what is supposed to be a progression system just feels like a money grab/fun limitation. Champions cost an insane amount of IP for new players, each champion taking from 5 to over 60 games to unlock. Runes cost an absolutely asburd amount of IP to but as a whole and some players even now, after years of playing, still don't have all the runes. Other games such as Dota 2, Overwatch, and other MOBAs offer most if not all their characters for free with the game while League is the opposite. Most players take an incredibly long time to learn the cast of champions because it takes forever to get to play them.

  3. Static Game Environment Summoner's Rift. Summoner's Rift. Summoner's Rift. Summoner's Rift. What the heck? The game itself is almost trying to feel stale at this point. A concept a long time ago of a Piltover skin for Summoner's Rift was turned away by Riot since they wanted their game to be recognizable on streaming services. This is a huge mistake. Other games have several maps with different looks and people recognize those games. I want to fight it out in th slums of Noxus. I want to brawl in the tundra of the Freljord. I wanna go to war at the Bilgewater docks. I wish to slay the enemies of justice in the fields of Demacia and conquer them in Bandle City. I would even want to slip into madness by entering the Void to fight my foes. Having the static Summoner's Rift map just makes the game feel boring and repetitive. I don't want to fight in the rift anymore. I want to fight in different locations where I can explore the world of Runeterra in-game and not just through words and pictures!

  4. Replays I don't have to say much here. How can I learn my mistakes exactly when there is no Replay system? Do I have to search the Internet for a safe site that won't harm my computer to download a potential way to review my games? Oh I lost, why exactly in detail did his happen? I mean, seriously, this is pretty pathetic that a game that wants to call itself a Sport can't have a Replay system.

  5. Slow Production Speed/Limited Resources This may just be me, but why is it that whenever I try to figure out why something is taking so long, it ends with "We just don't have the resources." I mean, you are one of the most successful game companies out there and yet it takes 3 years to rework Yorick after he was released in a bad state? How does it take 3-4 years to figure out how to rework the guy? Some games are made in the time it takes you guys to push out 2-3 VGUs for champions. Entire games are made in that time. Can you please expand the amount of people working on your game? Hearing that it may take YEARS to get to the champion you want reworked reworked is honestly the saddest thing you can hear. YEARS RIOT! Years! Your rework schedule is starting to sound like some comedian imitating repair people. "We'll get to it next Friday. Or sometime that week. Or sometime this month. Something this year. Or the next year. We'll come over next presidential election. Maybe sometime in 22nd century."

I'm not trying to get at your throats Riot, but I feel like everyone needs a "wake up" slap from time to time and right now with Overwatch coming out as a really good game, I feel like you need it right now. I'm open to whatever you can tell me on any of these matters, but understand that this isn't me saying you stink as a company or that the game is done for or over. It's me saying what's wrong with the game in my eyes right now.

5 Comments

Caítlyn3 votes

I miss S1 when there was no meta and people played whatever they wanted in whatever lane.

aLawfulFalafel1 votes

i wish i knew how awesome that was :p

i started pre-S3 and things have changed so much since then, i miss S3 XD

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

The Meta

This one where I disagree massive, tri-laning or two Top doesn't add anything new or interesting to the game because of how much they detract the game health for the sake of allowing them to be viable, because playing against a tri-lane as a duo lane or a 2x top lane as solo top are both highly frustrating experiences designed to shut someone down unequally putting extreme pressure on the jungler to equalize it or snowball another lane heavily. Thus the game is better for not allowing them because of the frustration factor they generate.

And as for double jungle, sure we never see a second dedicate jungler with smite, but in the lane swap at higher tier play, it's very common to see a double jungle start, which fairly close to it.

every match feels the same and that makes the game stale and boring.

And I utterly disagree with this notion and riot had the rotating game mode now, so if you want something different every weekend or so there is something different to play for a change.

Runes cost an absolutely asburd amount of IP to but as a whole and some players even now, after years of playing, still don't have all the runes.

Riot made t2 runes cost 1 IP, you can use those as hold overs now AND they halved the IP cost of the most commonly used T3 runes, so I'd say the rune circumstances have vastly improved compared to these changes, and no one needs all the runes lots of them are highly niche or outright bad generally (see death timer runes).

Meep Man1 votes

You misunderstand and aren't thinking big enough. Riot has designed and balanced champions and items to where tri-lanes and double jungles and double Top IS bad to play against. That's the point, they haven't added any reasons to play it or any ways to play against it if it was possible.

The rotating game mode only works for so long. After a while, it still feels like Summoner's Rift, just with mods. Only Ascension and Hexakill make use of other maps, with only Ascension adding something really unique.

Tier 2 Runes are incredibly weak and even runes that have had their rune costs halved still takes a good while to complete a rune page. So many of my friends have tried to get into the game, only to see they need to get tons of IP to be at an equal level to other players. Plus, rune pages cost a ton so unless they want to change their runes every other game, they have to farm tons for those too. I want the game to let new players in, but tons of my friends who like the champions and gameplay are locked out by a wall of IP costs.

UnwardiI1 votes

So, just about all of the things you listed as weaknesses I actually list as strengths. I would say the opposite actually, that Riot tries to enforce meta shifts too rapidly in order to create diversity where I don't want it. I'm firmly in Meteos' camp about this where I would metaphorically rather play Elise vs Lee Sin until the end of time than ever have to deal with a fucking WW.

The first Moba that I fell in love with had a total of 18 individual champs and they were further subdivided in that each side could only pick from 9. So you had light side with a possible pool of 9 and Dark side with a pool of 9. Almost every game the same 6 would get picked (it was 6 on 6 not 5 on 5). You would have Leto, Musashi, Icecow, Malf, Jean, Cat Rider against Jimmy, Warden, Pirate, Dotm, Sion, Troll. MAYBE if you had a really good Inquisitor player you might swap him for the Ice cow and Maybe you play blood mage instead of Jean, but if you did that the enemy might pull out the Drow ranger and steal your elementals...

The point is, it was a very very stale meta with very little options.

And I FUCKING LOVED IT cause I was literally the best Leto in the world. Fucking nobody could lay down the golden path like me. Nobody could spread their cleave damage across a whole team like me. Nobody could blink dodge CC while at the same time getting to the back line like me... I mean, not many people played the game, but I was in the top 3% of people who did.

And I was a pretty damn terrifying Pirate on Dark side too. I practically invented the crab box into reverse boat and basically defined the level 6 all in team fight presure play. My friend was a great Sion and together we could dominate the early game on those two.

As you can see, even in a very very limited pool of champs, I picked one from each side that I liked the best and just played the shit out of them. Oh sure, I could play all of them to high proficiency, but I was only the best at Leto and Pirate.

So I love me some stale meta, so long as there's something in it that I really like doing. The only times I've really HATED the game play of league is when I don't have the option to play Jarvan basically whenever I want and am forced to do other things. So like, all of season 5 basically. Either he was banned or he was worthless. He's good now, I'm happy about that.

Anyways, point is, I'm sure there's plenty of one trick ponies out there who don't get bored with the game, but that doesn't mean I'm saying you're wrong. What I think Riot should do is open up the world of League to other developers to create parallel content which uses the world and characters of League but does other things with them. Or they could do it themselves I guess, but they're probably too busy designing Teemo another skin...

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