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A possible major factor in snowballing that's been completely overlooked

Eedat··46 votes·2,490 views

It's quite clear that the community feels that the game has become very snowbally over the years. I've been thinking about this for quite some time and I think there is a major factor that a lot of people are overlooking. Especially once you factor in that there has been a net gain of anti-snowball changes made throughout the years.

What if a major contributor is the playerbase average skill level going up?

It seems that a lot of higher ELO players are already used to the snowball because they know what to do with a lead. Maybe all the millions upon million of players watching educational videos like "Mistakes not to make in low ELO", "How to end a game", "What to do with your lead", etc are a major contributing factor. Maybe the game itself hasnt become more snowbally. Maybe it's just us getting better at the game. Maybe we make less mistakes or provide less opportunities for the enemy to come back.

I'm sure if you took a look at an average Silver player from Season 3 and compared them to one in Season 7, you would notice a drastic difference. This also explains why people can remain the same division year after year even though they've improved their gameplay. To rise in ranks you don't have to just get better at the game, you have to get better at the game at a rate faster than your peers. To remain the same rank does mean you're improving, just not improving fast enough.

I'm just having a hard time understanding how all these anti-snowball features have been added over the years yet the game still feels snowbally. I really do think that this is a contributing factor and one that has been completely overlooked. This is a really easy one to overlook as people never notice what didnt go wrong and instead will focus on what did. What if you from 3 years ago would have started the Baron with the entire enemy team in the area and gotten your team aced and thrown your lead? What if you from 3 years ago didn't understand that 3 enemies are missing from the map so you should back off from split pushing? Just a few examples but there are obviously hundreds more. Things like these are never going to be accounted for.

Just some food for thought. I honestly have no idea how an issue like this could be addressed as it's impossible to somehow make millions of players worse at the game.

60 Comments

Glory9711 votes

The average skill increasing might be true, but that's not all: -Blastcones in jungle (added preseason 7) give more gank paths, snowball potential -additional 400 gold for killing the first turret ingame (added in the end of season 6, not sure though) -rift herald rework, objective with only pupose to melt down towers (added midseason 7) -earth drakes with 10% additional true dmg against objectives (added preseason 6)

-Various abillity changes to do extra damage to towers (just a few as example): Ziggs W, Vayne Q, MF passive, Xayah W,

All these changes support snowball playstyle. And then try to recall changes that support long games... Well there was rylais changes in midseason 5 when it was beyond broken and turned midlane into a farm for ap-lategame carries resulting in longer games, but riot did their utmost to nerf that item.

Eedat10 votes

And then try to recall changes that support long games

Ok.

  • Vision. Before we had trinkets for free wards, you had to buy them. The team that was ahead could afford more of them. The support of the team that was ahead could buy an Oracles and just walk through the map which they had control of and take out all of your vision. The enemy team would then have absolute vision control while your team had none.

  • Dragon used to just straight up give gold to everyone on the enemy team. New dragon buffs arent great early but scale better into late game

  • Less first blood gold now (although counteracted by first turret gold)

  • Teams now get global shut down gold as opposed to it all getting shoveled onto a single carry.

  • You now get free timers on epic monsters. In the past there wasnt even a notification if the enemy team took dragon or baron which means the team that is behind has absolutely no clue when its respawning unless they saw it getting killed. This means the ahead team has a huge advantage when the next one comes around

  • Turrets are actually stronger now then they were in earlier seasons (believe it or not). You cant really backdoor towers without minions anymore. There were a lot of champs that could run up to towers and destroy them without a minion wave. Towers were also given Armor and MR. Tower damage ramps up faster. They're not the strongest they've ever been, but far from weakest.

  • Riot has increased the catchup XP gain if you are under-leveled over the years a few times

  • Jungle is a lot tougher now and camps don't respawn nearly as frequently

  • Gold from minions lowered while increasing base gold generation (I.E. you get more gold if you're zoned off CS and gain less of a lead if you're ahead in CS)

  • Cheesy strats like when laners would take a jungle camp at level 1, ding level 2, base, then tp back to lane with extra pots and abuse your lane opponent with your level and items advantage were removed.

Just some off the top of my head

Glory975 votes

Alright, maybe I lost this one :D

Theorchero5 votes

{quoted}

Ok.

  • Turrets are actually stronger now then they were in earlier seasons (believe it or not). You cant really backdoor towers without minions anymore. There were a lot of champs that could run up to towers and destroy them without a minion wave. Towers were also given Armor and MR. Tower damage ramps up faster. They're not the strongest they've ever been, but far from weakest.

Towers may be numerically stronger, but relative to the strength of champions and how quickly they become vulnerable (and their first shot gets ignored) they aren't stronger than they used to be.

They're paper.

Theorchero9 votes

Hahahahahahaa

no.

It's because:

  • Towers are SHIT

  • Minions auto push based off level

  • Damage creep

  • ADCs spike with two items

  • Rift herald exists, earth drake exists

  • All major objectives are extremely easy to take, even solo

  • Baron gets melted at 20 mins

  • Baroned minions are impossible to waveclear through at 20 mins

  • A single fight at 20 mins means the end of the game

  • You know which team is going to win with about 90% reliability about 10 minutes in.

DeerGreenwood11 votes

Minions auto push based off level

This is needed because back then, the winning team would just freeze wave and farm, garnering even MORE of an advantage while forcing the enemy team to take risks just to have a chance of a comeback.

Yordle Xayah2 votes

Yet the game is snowballier than ever... doesn't compute

CithriaC3 votes

You did list 8 other factors, the minions pushing just helps the losing team

The Lexer1 votes

It can, but it also makes it harder for them to get their waves pushing

CithriaC1 votes

Sorry for replying late,

When your the losing team you dont want your minions pushing too much, it will make it easier for the enemy team to farm and make it more dangerous for your own team to farm, eventually both teams will reach lvl 18 and the minion pushes will equalize, which by then both teams will have their items and be "equal" minus the dragons and champions themselves.

AirKingNeo1 votes

Never thought of it like that.

Theorchero4 votes

{quoted}

This is needed because back then, the winning team would just freeze wave and farm, garnering even MORE of an advantage while forcing the enemy team to take risks just to have a chance of a comeback.

No.

That was only during lane phase, you're talking out your ass.

DeerGreenwood2 votes

Perhaps I am, but my point still stands that the winning team could just freeze lane and farm, whether or not it's just in laning.

Theorchero2 votes

{quoted}

Perhaps I am, but my point still stands that the winning team could just freeze lane and farm, whether or not it's just in laning.

If you are freezing and farming past laning phase when you have lead then you deserve to lose because you aren't going to prevent them from catching back up that way. If you have a lead you need to press it to get shit like turrets down.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

If the enemy team froze a lane then the team that was behind could all group and push one lane, this forced the person that was freezing a lane to stop farming and help their team since the 4v5 could lead to a lost turret.

Now thanks to minion pushing, if the behind team does this then all they're doing is opening themselves up to lose turrets or objectives, they either split up to deal with the lanes that are pushing harder, leading the enemy team grouping up for objectives like Baron, Dragon, or turrets, or they group together to contest these objectives and lose turrets thanks to giant minion waves crashing down on them.

Sagan Forever1 votes
  • Rift herald exists, earth drake exists

Earth drake is statistically the weakest dragon think about it like this. Fire drake gives the team a larger stat advantage than they would have before.

Air drake increases movement helping the winning team roam quickly to get gold of off the map.

Water drake makes it so that if you get the enemy champion out of lane you will have regenerated your health/mana for when they return (this lets you stay on the map to do things).

Earth drake lets you take the objects you would already take slightly faster. It is only really good to end a game quickly from an ace, or with a dedicated split pusher. But a split pusher would prefer ocean to stay out on the map, or an air drake to rotate more quickly.

Earth drake is literally the least snowbally drake in the game.

Theorchero1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sagan Forever,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EOx3LuAy,comment-id=000a0001,timestamp=2017-08-30T03:31:22.494+0000)

Earth drake is statistically the weakest dragon think about it like this. Fire drake gives the team a larger stat advantage than they would have before.

Air drake increases movement helping the winning team roam quickly to get gold of off the map.

Water drake makes it so that if you get the enemy champion out of lane you will have regenerated your health/mana for when they return (this lets you stay on the map to do things).

Earth drake lets you take the objects you would already take slightly faster. It is only really good to end a game quickly from an ace, or with a dedicated split pusher. But a split pusher would prefer ocean to stay out on the map, or an air drake to rotate more quickly.

Earth drake is literally the least snowbally drake in the game.

Has nothing to do with snowballling as much as it enables taking shit like towers and baron extremely fast.

Mael bro1 votes

Yet you forget the one single damn thing that has pushed this game into dumpster tier:

  • Minion Block
Aptest7 votes

I attribute the increased snowballing to three factors.

1

ADCs in the past were just as valuable to the success of the team, but they were much more vulnerable. Supports were much weaker due to lack of items, and assassins were very capable of instantly popping an ADC regardless of whether a support was present or not - even when behind.

Consequently the win condition of the ahead team was put into a character that could be easily dealt with even from behind. Even the "let's just trade ADCs and fight 4v4" meta that existed for a while did not negate that.

2

The single character carry situation that existed, although it was obnoxious for other reasons, lends itself to comebacks much more than full team carry. Because a single character, even when ahead, generally can not 1v2 VS a CC + burst combo.

This gives the behind team a good venue to countering the ahead team's win condition.

3

Mobility creep allows ahead team to not die.

Hensetsu3 votes

I agree with your point, and it's not just that, the game in itself has become more snowbally.

For instance, Turrets are now much weaker, and provide less safety than they used to. This makes early sieging much easier than it used to be. You would fear turrets until about 30 minutes in. Now you can completely bypass them at 20 minutes if you have one HP/Armor item.

Dragons now scale into the game. In the past, they gave a flat gold bonus. They were better for teams that were behind than the other way around. Sneaking dragons was a nice way to give your team some gold to help them scale better, but now, you NEED to take advantage of the dragon for it to be useful, which is often hard when you're massively behind.

Rift Herald didn't exist in previous seasons, and now, the only team that can realistically take major advantage of it is a team that is already so ahead that they can just win a teamfight and push in with Herald.

On top of all of this, Baron's are easier to take, and the game has taken a turn in the direction that favours damage. Getting ahead with damage carries is much stronger than it used to be.

I think that Riot hates passivity in their game. In turn they've slowly taken away all the more passive methods of helping your team without taking a risk. A risk that gets bigger the further behind you are.

These probably aren't all the changes introduced but overall the game does feel more snowbally.

SpecterVonBaren3 votes

Especially once you factor in that there has been a net gain of anti-snowball changes made throughout the years.

???

Dragon being changed to give permanent buffs instead of gold means that the team that does well earlier will always have more power than the other team as apposed to when it gave gold and the enemy team could catch up in power by holding out until they got more gold.

Minions pushing lanes harder if one team is behind in levels makes it so it becomes harder to contest objectives.

Baron buff being changed to give less stats and more minion empowerment makes it so getting Baron will pretty much let you end the game.

ADC's have had the cost of their items reduced meaning that doing well early nets you more stats faster, causing the ADC to snowball out of control by reaching their late game build faster.

Excessive CDR and lower mana costs makes it so an enemy that gets a kill will have their abilities up more often and at lower cost so they can continue to bully and kill their enemy laner who can't get any breathing room by taking advantage abilities being on CD.

No more green wards means that someone that's behind can't keep vision up to see if the enemy jungler or roaming laners are coming. If that person gets behind then it'll be almost impossible for them to get any vision since they can't protect a red ward.

More and more armor pen, percentage max health, and true damage in champ kits makes it so building defensively in response to an enemy that's stronger is far less effective than before and defensive items, armor items lost flat armor in exchange for health, making it so tanks die faster since ADC's with DPS don't care about that extra health and fighters and assassins with penetration are invalidating more of their purchase.

Rift Herald is almost a guaranteed free turret to the team that does well early which makes them win harder with the global gold and one less structure between them and the nexus.

Catchup XP in the jungle means that a jungler that ganks often and gets their laners ahead doesn't lose anything for doing so, meaning they can continue to hammer on lanes and get them to keep being ahead.

Even in the cases where Riot made a change to prevent snowballing, all it did was make snowballing easier. What anti-snowballing mechanics are you seeing that I'm not?

Eedat1 votes

Dragon changes were actually a nerf to snowballing. Old dragon gave a bunch of gold all at once. New dragon gives scaling buffs that are pretty shit early but scale better.

Minions pushing lanes harder was added specifically as an anti-snowball feature. What was happening was that a team that was ahead could just freeze the waves indefinitely whenever they wanted. The minions changes prevented this.

I dont see how changing baron to buff minions is somehow more snowbally than a throwing a massive amount of stats to one team.

The vision changes were a absolutely massive ANTI snowball change. Since you dont seem to remember that you had to BUY wards, you obviously wouldnt remember that a team that was behind couldn't afford to buy these wards without putting themselves even further behind. The team was ahead would just have their support take out all the enemies vision with an oracle's and the team that was behind couldn't contest it without dying. The vision changes put both teams on a level playing field when it comes to vision whether ahead in gold or behind. Huge anti-snowballing feature

"armor items lost flat armor in exchange for health" you literally have that backwards. I dont even understand this point because ts literally the complete opposite of what actually happened in the tank update. Items gained armor, lost health. Randuins lost 150 HP and gained more crit resistance. Deadmans lost 75 HP and gained 10 armor. Sunfire also lost 75 HP and gained 10 armor. The only one to gain HP is thornmail when it was reworked. What are you even talking about?

"More and more armor pen" again wrong. The complete opposite. LW went from 35% total armor to 35% bonus armor which not only nerfed it early against tanks, but made it 100% completely useless again enemy squishies. BC went from 30% to 24% and takes longer to stack (used to be 4 stacks for 30%, now is 6 stacks for 24%) not to mention it gave 10 flat armor pen on top. Flat armor pen now scales with level instead of being all upfront. There is actually less armor pen now.

For all the % HP damage, there has also been a fuck ton of % damage reduction added as well. You're just neglecting this part because it doesnt agree with your point.

There are some legitimate pints that you have, but theres also a lot that are either straight up falsehoods or anti-snowbal features that you've twisted toagree with your point. A few that you missed

You now get free timers on epic monsters. In the past there wasnt even a notification if the enemy team took dragon or baron which means the team that is behind has absolutely no clue when its respawning unless they saw it getting killed. This means the ahead team has a huge advantage when the next one comes around

Teams now get global shut down gold as opposed to it all getting shoveled onto a single carry.

Gold from minions lowered while increasing base gold generation (I.E. you get more gold if you're zoned off CS and gain less of a lead if you're ahead in CS)

Jungle is a lot tougher now and camps don't respawn nearly as frequently. Gone are the days where mid would farm raptors and wolves and have them respawn by the time the jungler got back to them

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

{quoted}

Dragon changes were actually a nerf to snowballing. Old dragon gave a bunch of gold all at once. New dragon gives scaling buffs that are pretty shit early but scale better.

That doesn't talk about my point at all. Dragon buffs make it so a team that's good early will scale into late as apposed to old dragon gold where a gold defect would become less and less important as the game went on, leading to a snowball petering out if it couldn't close out a game.

Minions pushing lanes harder was added specifically as an anti-snowball feature. What was happening was that a team that was ahead could just freeze the waves indefinitely whenever they wanted. The minions changes prevented this.

The issue is that if an enemy froze the lane then their opponent had the option to take advantage of them staying in lane farming by grouping with their team and taking objectives, leading to the person that froze the lane having to choose between staying and farming, hope their team handles a 4v5 on their own, start pushing the wave to attempt to take an inner turret (Which since they froze in front of their own turret, could take a while) or leave their lane and group with their team. Now the team that's behind HAS to farm their lane while the enemy that got ahead is free to take their advantage and push it by getting objectives.

I dont see how changing baron to buff minions is somehow more snowbally than a throwing a massive amount of stats to one team.

Because, and this is also influenced by the other points I brought up, it allows them to just end the game with brute force. A team that's ahead getting a bunch of stats doesn't mean anything if the behind team can keep the waves cleared without getting caught by the enemy. With Baron buff minions this is impossible, you HAVE to force a fight with a team that's ahead of you in stats because you can't stop their push with Baron minions. If the enemy team is just getting stats from Baron then you have the option to avoid contact with them and farm, but when Baron gives them extreme pushing power then you either have to force a fight with a superior enemy to try and stop them or you just let them take turrets.

The vision changes were a absolutely massive ANTI snowball change. Since you dont seem to remember that you had to BUY wards, you obviously wouldnt remember that a team that was behind couldn't afford to buy these wards without putting themselves even further behind. The team was ahead would just have their support take out all the enemies vision with an oracle's and the team that was behind couldn't contest it without dying. The vision changes put both teams on a level playing field when it comes to vision whether ahead in gold or behind. Huge anti-snowballing feature

The issue is that it helped for defusing a snowball already in progress but in addition it aided in making a snowball start.

"armor items lost flat armor in exchange for health" you literally have that backwards. I dont even understand this point because ts literally the complete opposite of what actually happened in the tank update. Items gained armor, lost health. Randuins lost 150 HP and gained more crit resistance. Deadmans lost 75 HP and gained 10 armor. Sunfire also lost 75 HP and gained 10 armor. The only one to gain HP is thornmail when it was reworked. What are you even talking about?

Correct, I remembered that, thank you for correcting me.

"More and more armor pen" again wrong. The complete opposite. LW went from 35% total armor to 35% bonus armor which not only nerfed it early against tanks, but made it 100% completely useless again enemy squishies. BC went from 30% to 24% and takes longer to stack (used to be 4 stacks for 30%, now is 6 stacks for 24%) not to mention it gave 10 flat armor pen on top. Flat armor pen now scales with level instead of being all upfront. There is actually less armor pen now.

No, the amount of FLAT pen in the game is a lot higher. Haven't you noticed that we no longer have teams that are shooting themselves in the foot by going all AD? There are more items with armor pen than there were before. The change to Last Whisper was beneficial to helping squishes but it also made it so if a team is all AD that a tank building armor to deal with that is losing more out of their purchases than before.

For all the % HP damage, there has also been a fuck ton of % damage reduction added as well. You're just neglecting this part because it doesnt agree with your point.

Damage will always outscale defense and the difference is that one person with % HP damage can kill multiple tanks faster while also killing squishies faster but a tank with damage reduction only has it for themselves and it still won't be able to stand up to all the damage in the game. Fruther, you notice that its only those tanks with big defensive steroids that can stand up to all that increased damage. There are still many more tanks that don't have these, the amount of percentage damage increasers far outnumbers the number of damage reducers.

There are some legitimate pints that you have, but theres also a lot that are either straight up falsehoods or anti-snowbal features that you've twisted toagree with your point. A few that you missed

I have not missed the point. And I don't twist my words, if what I believe is incorrect then it's because I'm not seeing it correctly, not that I've decided to twist the facts to suit myself so don't insult me with that accusation when you don't know anything about me. I'm more than willing to have an intelligent and civil discussion with you about this so please devolve this discussion into being about who's trying to twist the facts.

Eedat1 votes

Dragon buffs make it so a team that's good early will scale into late as apposed to old dragon gold where a gold defect would become less and less important as the game went on, leading to a snowball petering out if it couldn't close out a game.

In the context of snowballing, you're kind of agreeing with me. Old Dragon was better for snowballing as it gave more upfront value with less scaling. New dragon gives less upfront value in exchange for better scaling. Hence why new Dragon isnt as good at snowballing.

The issue is that if an enemy froze the lane then their opponent had the option to take advantage of them staying in lane farming by grouping with their team and taking objectives, leading to the person that froze the lane having to choose between staying and farming, hope their team handles a 4v5 on their own, start pushing the wave to attempt to take an inner turret (Which since they froze in front of their own turret, could take a while) or leave their lane and group with their team. Now the team that's behind HAS to farm their lane while the enemy that got ahead is free to take their advantage and push it by getting objectives.

Except when the enemy can just permanently freeze the wave on their side of the map. Hell, even leave it frozen there and come back later, which is exactly what was happening hence why it was changed. Or just sit there with TP and keep your opponent 100% zoned off farm for as long as you felt like it.

The issue is that it helped for defusing a snowball already in progress but in addition it aided in making a snowball start.

But it actually gives you more vision. Especially early when you couldnt afford to buy any wards at all at the beginning of the game. You get a free ward every 90 seconds. There is no way you could afford to do that when you had to buy them. When you were behind, you didnt have the gold to buy green wards. Buying wards would set you even further behind. Trinkets leveled the playing field. They assured both teams had equal access to vision whether they could afford them or not.

No, the amount of FLAT pen in the game is a lot higher. Haven't you noticed that we no longer have teams that are shooting themselves in the foot by going all AD? There are more items with armor pen than there were before. The change to Last Whisper was beneficial to helping squishes but it also made it so if a team is all AD that a tank building armor to deal with that is losing more out of their purchases than before.

There still isnt. There is no way to stack 3 Lethality items "early" and even if you did flat armor pen is intentionally gated by level which literally makes it weaker early to prevent snowballing. Not to mention that Lethality is hard countered by Armor as it is much, much more expensive to buy 30 Lethality than it is to buy a chain vest that more than voids it. Armor pen has had overall nerfs across the boards. Flat armor pen is now gated by level. BC gives less armor pen and is harder to apply it. LW items are literally 100% useless against squishies. Remember when LW was 35% total armor and assassins would build it 2nd-3rd to burst squishies with and it practically was core on all marksmen as a third item? Now its not even more effective on tanks.

Damage will always outscale defense and the difference is that one person with % HP damage can kill multiple tanks faster while also killing squishies faster but a tank with damage reduction only has it for themselves and it still won't be able to stand up to all the damage in the game.

The reason why Riot has been pumping out a lot of % damage reduction is that its the only form of defense that doesn't get outscaled because it can't be negated. Also, %HP damage is very poor at dealing with squishies. Higher flat damage values are better at this task.

Kloqdq2 votes

That can be considered a good part of the issue but there has been many little things added that do add to the problem. Players getting better just lead to people learning what to abuse and how to abuse it but that doesn't change the fact that there was something to abuse in the first place. Then it leads to the game adding new things that add to that little thing the player based originally abused and well, we end up at Season 7.

Eedat16 votes

Or maybe just having a lead isn't "abusing" anything? I don't understand how playing better than your opponent is somehow "abusing" something

Kloqdq2 votes

I am talking about abusing champions, items, etc. Elements that draw players to the strongest straits and learning how to "abuse" that. This also comes to them knowing how to react and act in certain situations a game of league may put them in, in turn "abusing" those openings. These would often be considered just the fundamentals. I use abuse/abusing loosely here.

Cowseed3 votes

"What's up guys it's your boy RedMercy here with another top ten OP Champions video" "Hey what's up guys it's your boy, RedMercy back with another video listing all the new OP champs in patch 7.17" "Oh my god this champ is so broken" "PBE Ornn New broken champ?"

Kloqdq1 votes

Basically lol

RainXBlade1 votes

I remembered when Redmercy actually put out quality content and not bullshit like:

"Hey guys, these are the best champions you can abuse for 2 weeks until the next patch arrives and when it arrives, I'll make another video like this! Have fun XD."

Cowseed1 votes

That was the case with an EU player I used to watch often, Phylol. He used to make vids about playing the game with the occasional 'what koreans are doing', 'adc tier list' and a few vids here and there like that. Same with Foxdrop. Now everyone is making these vids about busted strategies or champs. I will never support these vids anymore though. Analysing these I conclude that these slowly make the game staler and more of a 'who can spam x champ better fest'.

I'm just waiting here for the new runes to drop and put all the hive mind thinking in the shitter for a while.

RainXBlade1 votes

I can't remember the last time League actually was entertaining and not so try-hardy. Nowadays, people are so desperate at winning their games to where these formerly professional League youtubers downgraded to being like newscasters that repeat the same shit over and over again with their:

"Hey guys, these are the best champions XD."

This doesn't apply to just Redmercy like what you said Cowseed. Many long-time League youtubers have been doing this.

I feel like League is now becoming a stupid case of clickbait being abused all over Youtube.

Nea1042 votes

Flawed matchmaking (forcing 50% win ratio) :D

Kyunsei2 votes

People play better. But, they play better a game that let them snowball.

Exemple : Most jungler got it now that you just have to camp bot and then get from time to times Raptor/Krugs to catch-up level easily. Exemple 2 : Most player understood now that Marksmen are the strongest carry currently, so they play around that (either completely crushing enemy ADC or heavily supporting your ADC)

So for the OP post : Yes and No. Games get snow bally sure cause people play better, but also cause they more and more exploit a "broken" system.

DariusDemiurge1 votes

Lol. No.

Gameplay being gameplay as always.

Eedat7 votes

Really you're the one who sounds like the boards. You dismissed my point without any counterargument at all outside of 'hurr durr the boards'

HeeroTX1 votes

If this is true, then EITHER the balance team is TERRIBLE at their job or (entirely possibly) the matchmaking is absolutely GAWD-AWFUL-SHYTE. Look at games like baseball, football, soccer, etc. In ANY of those games, player skill has no impact on overall flow of the AVERAGE game unless there is a ridiculous skill disparity. Yeah, you might have a random 5 - 0 soccer game or a 44 - 7 football blowout against comparable teams, but those are the EXCEPTIONS rather than the norm. One or two mistakes should not mean the game is over (unless we're talking a close game RIGHT at the end, but League currently has this affect closer to the beginning). Part of this is fragile player mentalities (once you fall behind, a LOT of players go on tilt... which is the anti-thesis of your theory) but the game has gotten worse about allowing players to play "defensively" when behind. It isn't impossible to do so, but it IS more difficult than it used to be.

nyakasgoods1 votes

Age of traditional competitive sports

vs

age of League of Legends.

HeeroTX1 votes

That's irrelevant. If matchmaking is good, then skill should be evenly distributed. "Good play" should not be a reason one team snowballs the other unless the game is badly balanced. A "fair" game shouldn't have BUILT-IN snowball mechanics.

nyakasgoods1 votes

League inherently has snowball because it rewards good play numerically with gold and exp. League might not be "fair" and it certainly will never be "balanced", because there are far too many factors at play to actually balance a game like League. However, saying that snowball is inherently unfair is a bit incorrect imo, since the person who got the snowball started actually had to outplay you in some way to do so.

EasternBladeStar1 votes

Pretty sure the game's become less snowbally until just recently.

sobi9991 votes

It is an interesting concept that you put forward but tbh the game changes drastically from patch to patch and hence riot could be adding anti-snowball mechanics and snowball mechanics unintentionally. This is because most of the changes that occur happen indirectly i.e. a champ gets affected because of the change in itemisation and etc. While riot might be implementing anti-snowball mechanics into the game, i strongly believe that riot has been putting snowball mechanics with it. It eventually balances out to the point where riot is making no net change to the time limit of matches.

Gubaguy1 votes

No actaully the issue has been constant rising damage on all champions for no reason, at all. I miss havign a 20 minute long laning phase to farm, i really do, i ahte seeing players come into games with all AD and movespeed runes because they know taht getting 2 level 1-3 kills seals the game.

Weasel Kensei1 votes

I'm just having a hard time understanding how all these anti-snowball features have been added over the years yet the game still feels snowbally.

I stopped reading right there...

Are you serious?

For any anti-snowballing feature, the have stuff like the Rift Herald (largely a luxury of the team thats winning and in control) around to shorten the time it takes to get to the enemy base.

Can you really not "understand" the Rift Herald and its "snowbally" nature? I know that sounds kinda condescending, but ugh... that thing is pretty much good for taking out 1.5 towers on its own, and fast. You honestly dont see how anti-snowball mechanics are undermined by bigger snowball mechanics?

For Riot and snowballing its simple case of 2 steps forward, 2 steps back. For every couple of things that change to address an issue, a couple more change to keep it a problem.

KawaiiShroom1 votes

Hum ya this makes sense

DunkinNoobs1 votes

People really seem to focus on the changes that increase snowballing while dismissing the changes that reduce it. What changes reduce snowballing, you ask?

Increased passive gold gain significantly reduces the value of gold gained from kills and farm while also shortening the window that teams that are ahead have to close the game.

Catchup exp on jungle camps.

Higher exp gain from kills and assists on enemies that are higher level than you.

Nerfs to general tankiness make bruisers and tanks far less oppressive when ahead.

Cheaper anti-snowball itemization: Banshees, GA, Zhonyas, etc.

Spoofghoul1 votes

I like to point out that Rito has made some dumb af anti snowball mechanics

they help snowballing more then counter it

the minion push for example was supposed to grant the losing/defending team more xp/gold

what happened?

winning team gets free map pressure wins vision game steals all jungle and takes every drake and wins anyway

and that about sums up every single anti snowball measure by rito gaems

really seems like they have zero clue what they are doing most of the time

Squey1 votes

Yes players are getting better. Yes players are using there lead to snowball harder and faster. However,passive gold generation went up, support gold went up, item cost across the board have went down, and 1 more major thing. Adc+support itemization is sooooo stupidly good right now that is has literally forced the meta to focus on snowballing faster and harder. Right now you have to win before the adc's get too big to deal with other wise you become damn near useless.

Sire Hippington1 votes

Wouldn't say it's a najor factor. Low elo's still have a much longer average gametime and are very prone to throws, and high elo's always were rather good at expanding a lead in comparision. I really don't think that the overall level of play increased really that much to make this more than a minor factor at best.

makkii1 votes

ironic as it is, one major factor of snowballing is catchup xp and diminished gold on death streaks. catchup xp means that no matter how much you deny your lane opponent, the xp theyve lost from you doing so can be regained from you dying two sometimes only one time, which means the weakest link on the more coordinated team, is not as much of a detriment, and that the strongest link on the less coordinated team is not as much of a problem, because them dying, even if they are ahead of the whole team, will ensure a catchup boost. diminished gold on death streaks ensures that a single player, or even a couple are unable to capitalize on just exploiting one weak player. when these things combine, it essentially means, the TEAM that is ahead, stays ahead

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