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Comeback Mechanics and Creating Windows of Opportunity

ShadowKnight1224·3/17/2016, 8:54:45 AM·3 votes·704 views

My friend and I were discussing the current state of "stomps" and "comebacks." To him, it felt like games were very stompy, that they ended very quickly and there was no hope for the losing team to come back. I pointed out that this season has given us more comeback mechanics than ever before, from minions getting stronger so that you can't be starved out of XP and gold, and the new bounty system that gives an insane amount of gold for successfully taking out those super fed champions. I brought up the official explanation for the changes, where Riot wants to see the leading team push their advantage and end the game while they still have the lead, for if they let you farm, you'll end up catching up very quickly.

He pointed out that there really wasn't a choice. If you had a lead, there was no incentive in waiting. The comeback mechanic was there, but it was more of a punishment for leading teams that dawdled rather than a meaningful choice.

So after some deliberation, we came up with an idea that we wanted to share:

For the first 25 minutes of the game, there is a buff in the area of your base. This buff makes towers more threatening against divers and more resistant to sieges, requiring that the enemy team fully commit to taking out an inhib or nexus tower. The point of this buff is to create windows of opportunity for a comeback. If you want to win the game early, you need to fully dedicate to taking out the tower, which can end disastrously if the enemy team capitalises on this opportunity. If you have a sufficient lead that allows you to win the teamfight at the enemy's base before 25 minutes and take the towers, then congratulations, you deserve the win.

The buff does have a trick: if Baron Nashor dies before the 25 minute mark, the buff ends prematurely. If the winning team has Baron, they have earnt the right to make a final push and win. If the losing team stole or sneaked Baron, they just got an advantage that they are now forced to capitalise in order to make their comeback.

Of course, this is just a bare-bones concept. How would you make the towers more threatening to dives and more resistant to sieges? That's the sort of thing that requires delicate fine-tuning to strike the sweet spot where it creates enough risk that the losing team can win a teamfight, but not oppressive enough that the winning team will just choose to ignore it and wait it out.

Let us know if you have other ideas for comeback mechanics, meaningful choices and how to create windows of opportunity for a losing team to come back. I'm sure a lot of interesting ideas can come from this discussion!

3 Comments

Teridax683/17/2016, 11:37:03 AM3 votes

While not relevant to the core point of the OP, it might just be better for the buff to expire at the 20 minute mark, to coincide with the emergence of Baron Nashor, particularly since that's usually the stage at which towers are meant to fall a lot quicker. Having a 5-minute overlap period might not really give as much strategic choice as intended, especially since only few teams attempt to take Baron that early.

To answer the OP:

  • Options for making towers more threatening against dives could include increasing their damage against champions (by switching to true damage, for example), giving allies getting dived some kind of bonus (i.e. a shield, more damage, etc.) or potentially multi-shots to affect several divers at once.
  • Options for making towers more resistant to sieges could include health regeneration (or stronger health regeneration, in the case of inhibitor/nexus turrets), regenerating shields a la Season 5, or perhaps a resistance to ranged damage.

However, the issue I take with the buff you mention is that it risks simply stretching out games, instead of enforcing comebacks. Ideally, a comeback should encourage players to become more threatening to the enemy team, i.e. through improved pushing power, kill potential, objective control, etc., whereas a team that's behind and falls back on the buff you bring up would just be harder to force out of their towers. If there were a special reward for, say, defending towers or surviving dives, such as a bonus gold bounty, then that would probably do a better job of giving teams more comeback opportunities. There definitely is an issue with towers feeling weak, and it would be interesting to see them developed in a manner that would make them feel better without prolonging game time, but doing so would likely require having them open up offensive opportunities, instead of providing better defenses.

TheMushroomWizar3/17/2016, 11:56:52 PM2 votes

I think a good idea for base turrets coudlbe that they can target more than one enemy at once, meanign that you can't just have the tank take the brunt of all its damage while the dps champs shoot away.

EcchiOtakuTM3/18/2016, 2:45:07 AM1 votes

I feel there are already enough comeback mechanics, the only real issue now are death timers TBH.

I've seen numerous amounts of comebacks these LCS if we're going official and loads of times my team has won from a disadvantage or lost even with an advantage.

And it's not even going at a "League of Throws" rate but more of a "Forced to throw" feeling now.