[Theory] Riot is intentionally making league awful to play to make room for their new game

PhantomPrankster·Jul 12, 2018·1 votes·1,083 views

Riot's co-founders are going back to making new games

thoughts?

5 Comments

RalanrJul 12, 20185 votes

I don’t think Riot is trying to cripple their cash cow for something they don’t know will work or not.

That’s not taking a risk, that’s walking to a cliff with a blindfold.

PhantomPranksterJul 12, 20182 votes

{quoted}

I don’t think Riot is trying to cripple their cash cow for something they don’t know will work or not.

That’s not taking a risk, that’s walking to a cliff with a blindfold.

you do realize riot has made MORE than enough money to take a few risks. you also realize this game is already crippled as is right and showing no signs of being fixed?

OleandervineJul 12, 20184 votes

{quoted}

you do realize riot has made MORE than enough money to take a few risks. you also realize this game is already crippled as is right and showing no signs of being fixed?

You do realize that to take a risk, you don't murder your safety net?

RekSai CoffeeCoJul 12, 20183 votes

I am guessing since there wasn't an 8.10 revert the new game will be called League of Scuttle Crab?

Whisper87Jul 12, 20181 votes

I just think this season's changes are hilarious because people always talk about how LOL is better than Dota and how they don't want to make some of the same mistake valve does (games too long, huge game knowledge curve that is very impactful, champs who can 1v9, highly specialized champions that are actually valuable, hardcore natural predators, too big a variety of roll/lane flexibility, champion select being too important, etc etc).

Now, every change that has come out since the new runes were released has made all this stuff happen anyway, except for longer games & highly specialized champions. Let's have quick rundown:

game knowledge curve: the variety of items and viable champions currently out there now is amazing, don't get me wrong. But it's so important now that having winning lanes is essential, so you have to know every single matchup, and with champion diversity so big now, you have to be able to know every matchup across basically every class. (again I like this, I enjoy LOL more when it is in a state where veterans have an upper hand and your mind>mechanics, but I think it's funny how folks complain about stuff like not being able to be as aggressive as they want and play any champ anywhere, then these changes hit and game knowledge is suddenly even more important. The backfire is laughable. Obviously this doesn't apply to very high elo players who have both skill and game knowledge, but for the 85%, this is hilarious to me)
Champ select/hardcore natural predators: similar to wha't above. You have to have 2/4 head to head winning matchups across the three lanes and jungle in order to have a good chance. The champions/roles you feel comfortable blind picking has shrunk A LOT. Things like Irelia mid into 0 tank comps has made the 1v9 real, same for Yasuo. A lot of the heavy engage and burst damage has now made all but the S tier marksmen feel useless (which is only like 3 of them right now). The ability to take ignite into teleport without having a high chance of being punished for it has heavily skewed things top and mid to focus on the lane matchup/counterpick even more. Riot has made it harder to neutralize top and mid lanes with mana/tank nerfs, and now that supports actually deal good damage, bot lane has the same problem.
roll/lane flexibility: counterpicking and matchups are now more important than ever, but thanks to every champ being viable in at least 2 rolls if not 3, and in a couple select cases 4...it's now harder than ever. So if it didn't already feel that way enough, a lot of games feel like a big game of chance.

We can go on here, but I digress. The last big kicker here that I will mention is that if Riot was not so afraid of longer game times and stopped putting generalist champions up on a pedestal, the game would actually probably look LESS like Dota than it does now. LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Let me put an example out there. Heimerdinger is currently an LCS caliber champion which can realistically be played in all 3 lanes. If you just make him really good at lane control and pushing, as in like, best in class good at it. Then he doesn't have to be that great in terms of damage output, and he will rely on taking towers through the early and mid game, and it's ok if he doesn't do great damage to champs because he's not built for that and if he is doing well his team should be ahead globally anyway. Clear line of play, clear weakness, unique win condition specific to your team comp = engaging and fun matches that feel different from game to game. Where as right now every game is a slugfest which reminds me of another game which was...oh what was it again? DOTA!!!

I love Riot, but right now it looks more than ever like they do something I've been hypothesizing for a long time, and that's look at their patches in a vacuum. Like they set out with a goal of accomplishing goal A with changes, making sure that it does not negatively impact variables B and C. Now they know they can't possibly account for every result so they just stop there, with no effort to make sure D,E,F, and G all don't happen too. Which is why I think Riot should increase the duration of their internal and public test play efforts by about 50% for any changes besides number tweaks. There are too many champs and people are too good now to just toss changes out there and see what happens.