Skip to content

This game's glaring problems

Aria··50 votes·2,079 views

I'm going to be explaining in short why I'm really frustrated with the game recently, and I'll do it in a concise way so there won't be too much detail for the sake of keeping this relatively short. That said, I'm not going to be skimping out on the core principles of what I'm saying here. The boards are full of "I quit" threads more than ever, with more anger breeding anger over and over again.

  • AD itemization. ADC's are fine as they are, but their items are far too efficient and overloaded. They have decent early games, great midgames and godly lategames. Throw in some lifesteal and they have sustain too, and you can't touch them in fights. Not to mention the horrendous amounts of protection and peel for them, it's as if the game is centered around them. **Statik Shiv in particular is the most problematic. **

  • On the reverse spectrum of this, Assassin itemization. Assassins have been gimped for the longest time, and the very, very few ones that do manage to work only do so because Duskblade is so good. Everything else was removed and they've been hardcore nerfed- most are unable to deal with ADC's, their primary targets, at all anymore. There is no point to playing an Assassin over a Diver anymore, and versing a lot of damage, Juggernauts can fill the role as well. I've been 1v1'd by a Twitch simply because he had lifesteal as Assassin Kayn with my full combo, and we both had full build. To summarize my whole post about this topic, "You know there's a problem when oneshot montages barely feature assassins and they're mostly ADC's now."

  • Riot's attitude towards their playerbase. It's so high-horsed and egoistical, and they barely address any of the things we've been asking them to. It seems like they can never, ever admit they've made a mistake. It simply feels like we're talking to the wind, and while they obviously cannot address everything, they barely address ANYTHING. It seems like as long as they have people buying RP, they don't give a shit what you think about balance. And this is true, they're a company- but they clearly have no devotion nor care to their playerbase.

  • CertainlyT is a perfect example of this. Designed 6 champs, 3 of which were insanely overpowered on release (Zyra, Yasuo, Thresh), another one who grew up to be super oppressive (Kalista) and one that was so one dimensional that it took them forever to rework him, because his kit was just so one-sided (Darius), along with now Zoe who's been getting complained about for centuries. Furthermore, given his involvement in the Mordekaiser rework, it's VERY CLEAR that this man does not take feedback nor give a shit. Except look at the most frustration players experience across the board- how many normal drafts do you have with a banned Yasuo? Nearly every second game. Zyra's oppressive to play against now, as if you don't focus her and her plants instead, she's alive and is going to kill you. If you focus her, her plants are going to kill you. Darius is still mostly one-sided in lane, unless directly counterpicked, there's no inbetween. Every champion he's made bred frustration of all kinds and he doesn't give a single shit about it, nor does he take feedback at all, he simply keeps doing this.

  • Autofill. Instead of letting us wait 2 minutes, we can instead have the GLORIOUS EXPERIENCE of being thrown into a ranked game with our Support being autofilled, whilst theirs isn't, has a major Support champion pool to counter our botlane, and much more experience. We're losing that game. You're forcing players into a far less than favorable situation right as Champ Select starts. This wastes 40 minutes of my time, rather than the 2 I'd use to queue up for a game where everyone wants to play their lane, at least.

That can sum up the root of all of these problems. Bad design choices that are egoistically defended by Riot and little to no interaction with the playerbase. If you want a good example of this, look at the Blizzard forums- Blizzard admins and mods frequently. The only big problems with the actual game are ADC items and perhaps Tanks beating out Bruisers and Juggernauts alike easily and then providing more than either of those could to teamfights, but that's it for the gameplay side, more or less.

Riot not ever responding to their mountains of mistakes and bad design choices is what really frustrates me, and a lot of people I know.

71 Comments

MalrothDragonia14 votes

I would recommend taking a look at the red tracker. A lot of what you're complaining about is on their radar and they are addressing it. Meddler will be talking about ADCs this week, Zoe is about to be uber-nerfed.

CertainlyT has made some of the most popular champs in the game, which means he must be doing something right, even if tuning is off for a lot of his champs. That probably bc it's hard to gauge the power of unique kits that don't have comparable kits to compare them to.

( If you think zyra is a balance problem you don't play zyra. Thresh's kit is one of the best designed of almost any champion, and even if he was 'busted' on release, he's fine now. Yasuo can be frustrating to play against, but he is one of the most played champs in the game, even when he's nerfed to hell.)

Autofill isn't activated when you would wait 2 min more, it's activated when people would be waiting 30+ min more. It's necessary, as much as people hate it. If you can't play all 5 roles don't play ranked, and in norms who cares? Learn some new stuff, or play a fav champ as kill-lane supp.

Riot is one of the MOST communicative companies in the industry, so I find your complaint that they never address anything hilarious. It may not get changed on the timeline you want, but all you need to do is look at red tracker over time and see that all the complaints are on their radar and they're trying to make the game better.

Håppy4 votes

"Meddler will be talking about ADCs this week"

Oh boy, I hope it's like when he talked about top lane, which was him taking a fat rip and then hallucinating for an hour, along with literally saying nothing. Any time Meddler comes out and talks about a class or a problem, he doesn't actually say anything. You can take out everything that is not related to the problem at hand and be left with, if we take his top lane post for example, "Top lane is a lane."

But then again, we know what happens when Riot actually SAYS something. Like when they said they're going to work with Swain mains to make the Swain update something that the mains are happy with while appealing to others, and.. bam. /r/swainmains are fucking furious lmao

THE D1C2 votes

This made me laugh when I compared it to Travis Gafford’s interview of Huni that came out today.

Huni: “Top lane is top lane” Travis: “Does that mean it’s good or bad?” Huni: “Top lane is top lane”

MalrothDragonia2 votes

well, you can be mad. that's fine. Our experiences of Meddler's gameplay thoughts is clearly very different. Having read them for over a year you can look back at each one and see that what he says there generally becomes the direction they go with the game, and a lot of what he says about specific problems and their solutions turns out correct most of the time. When they do fuck up, and they for sure fuck up, they own up to it and try to fix it. If you think the game was ever 'perfect' you're simply wrong, and if you expect them to get each change 100% right 100% of the time you are not allowing for the limitations of human beings. The designers on League are talented, and they've been doing this a lot longer than you or me, and despite that they STILL take suggestions from these toxic-ass boards and implement some of them when they're good ideas.

As for top lane, he talked a bit about the new keystone aimed to give bruisers some love, he identified the problems that top lane has been having, and threw out a couple solutions they are trying (new keystone, changing resolve to have better options, adding minor runes to other trees that are more interesting in general). I don't know wtf else you want, but if you wanted to stop raging and be part of the solution I'm sure a nicely worded post with some suggestions would get a red response.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

The "live design team" is truuuuly talented. They manage to be shit at their job for years without getting fired and also made the community believe they actually know what they are doing and talking about. Maybe meddler is actually satan, the deceiver.

MalrothDragonia2 votes

if they were truly 'shit at their jobs' they would have been fired. Just bc you don't agree with their decisions doesn't make them bad at their job. In the long view the game has shown a steady trend of improvement overall, even if there are dips in quality now and again.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

As a swain main: fuck riot and fuck the new swain. Literally fuck you riot if you read this.

FCJAAAAGOOOO8 votes

CertainlyT champions are popular because they're broken.

SierraTangoDelta5 votes

Yeah his characters aren't really fun to play or interactive, they're just disgustingly overpowered.

ShaolinToilet5 votes

I'm going to assume you are being sarcastic

yoshi279012 votes
  • ADC itemazition problems: A lategame class has cheap items...

  • Assasin problems: No comment because I have no idea about assassins. IMO lichbane + hextech or duskblade is the only thing working right now

*Completely agree

*Again, Agree

*Agree, and especially in high elos this problem is huge. This sucks

WDG Devour3 votes

If ADC items don't spike quick enough all ADCs will be useless as most games are ending very early now. So when people say this I'm not surprised Riot choose to ignore it. ADCs need to be able to do decent damage within 2 to 3 items so their not completely useless from early to mid game and the last 2 items are situational for late game problems, e.g Last Whisper for tanks.

yoshi27907 votes

Most games end early because ADC spike early. --> circular argument

I'm pretty sure RIOT changed it for a small reason, like boring laning phase or just something to spin the META around but now it is a big problem and they fail to recognise it.

WDG Devour2 votes

If ADC's don't spike until 4 items they will have 0 agency in 90% of games and the class would be obsolete.

XeroKimo3 votes

Yet they went through still being required in every game since season 2

WDG Devour2 votes

Yes because they actually do some form of damage after 2 items like every damage building champion does and should. No champion should buy 2 or 3 items and be outputting 0 damage...

Barcid4 votes

It's not outputting 0 damage. It's outputting DPS.

The difference now is that DPS has been changed to Blow Everything The Fuck Up. 3 Autos hit harder than a full rotation of Annie spells at 2 items and that is saying a fucking lot.

WDG Devour2 votes

A full rotation of Annie spells has the potential to stun (passive) as well as a huge AOE that can potentially damage an entire team plus damage reduction that does damage if attacked...

3 auto attacks from an ADC has 0 potential to stun or damage several enemies simultaneously (unless you have Statikk Shiv) or provide a ricocheting damage reduction shield....

Your over exaggerating the damage that comes from a basic attacking champion bearing in mind that's basically all ADCs do. It doesn't blow everything the fuck up but it sure does do sustained DPS as ADCs are intended to do....

I'm pretty sure any good Annie player can blow up any player more instantaneously then any ADCs 3 auto attacks considering her loaded mage kit enables it, with her stun, shield, reduction, aoe etc... it's very easy to run from ADC auto attacks compared to an Annie flash stun spell rotation combo....

Barcid1 votes

On a single target, an ADC bursts as hard in three autos. On multiple targets, Annie is in danger range since she's so short ranged while the most used ADC's sit from a safe distance and pound their enemies into the dirt. Annie also only gets the one rotation after which she's pretty much meh while ADC's never run out of autos (unless you're Jhin). And they will still blow everything the fuck up with that.

But, if you really want to get technical, I'll just throw Twitch out there and let you explain that one.

WDG Devour2 votes

Technically if Twitch fires 3 auto attacks even with R it does not stun, provide a shield, reduce and ricoochet damage like a full rotation of Annie spells would do...

Barcid1 votes

Why would you need literally any of those if you can just kill everyone at an extended range?

WDG Devour1 votes

Exactly, that's the trade off, raw sustained damage from range with no real utility or self protection....

Your the one who compared Annie s spell rotation to any ADCs 3 auto attacks... what you have to realise is that although Annie has to get close she has to tools to survive being close to her target as well as being able blow anyone up instantly if she does her spell rotation right.

ADCs auto attacks just do damage and that's it and that's what their supposed to do, don't you understand or see what the trade off is in comparison to a midlaner like Annie? I don't think I have to explain it for the 10th time...I think I've made it pretty clear...

Barcid1 votes

You're explaining the part that I already obviously get.

The part you obviously don't already get is that if I had to choose between taking a mage that is in permanent danger of being stunlocked into oblivion any time she decides she wants to go for a full combo or picking an ADC that can far more easily nuke the entire enemy team from 1000 units away outside the range of the vast majority of the champions of the game, I'm going to have to always go with option number 2, no contest.

Twitch before this ADC fiasco could be found and blown up just as easily as he could cause mayhem and murder everyone. He had some risk to his reward, making your assertion far more logical. However, your statement is just irrelevant now - hard CC means literally nothing now since it's far easier to just take the path of murdering the other team. That's the point that you are completely failing to grasp.

XeroKimo1 votes

What I'm saying is, season 2 and 3, adcs still managed to be relevant even though they took 3-4 items to come online

WDG Devour1 votes

I know nothing about Season 2 and 3. So your saying that ADCs where "offline" until 3 to 4 items back then?

If they only come "online" at 3 - 4 items they were not relevant before than as it would mean they where "offline"... That is not a good a thing and maybe that's why Riot has changed it so ADCs come online sooner. You surely can't be relevant but offline at the same time....

Anyways no champion should be "offline" until 3 to 4 items, that is a extremely long time to wait before you can actually come "online" and be relevant enough to impact the game in some way.... especially considering this current meta where games are ending in 25 - 30 minutes.

yoshi27902 votes

there's a difference between doing ok damage at 2 items and spiking at 2 items.

Yes, they should deal damage at 1-2 items. No they should not be totally unstoppable at 1-2 items.

WDG Devour2 votes

No ADC is unstoppable at 1 to 2 items, this is a big exaggeration or misconception. No ADC hits 2 items and solo kills everything on the map and gets aces solo at 2 items... UNLESS they spiked super hard early compared to everyone else (basically is massively fed 10-0) or have a great team and support that enabled that ADC to snowball by giving the ADC more kills in team fights/solo turret gold etc which is very rare.

ADCs currently do "ok" damage at 2 items... they are not unstoppable or unkillable at just 2 items.

Warlord Dienekes2 votes

That'd be interesting to open up design space. Currently, ADCs are the only class that's guaranteed to be in its position. Top can be bruisers, tanks, assassins, or mages, Mid can be assassins or mages, Jungler can be well, anything with a jungle clear, Support can be tanks, healers, or mages. But ADC is just ADC.

Making it so that they aren't the most useful class and they do work best for specific team comps could be interesting.

WDG Devour1 votes

Riot has already confirmed they are looking to make ADCs not guaranteed to be in its position by looking to make mages viable in the bot lane so don't worry, ADCs soon will no longer be a "must have" class for every team comp to be viable.

Warlord Dienekes1 votes

I'm curious how. The reason why ADCs are the must-have class is because of the supreme effectiveness of ranged auto-attacks. After 2-3 items you're looking at a point and click 100-200% AD scaling ranged attack that heals you twice a second. That makes them so efficient at killing damage sponges likes tanks and bruisers.

I don't think there are any abilities in the game given to any mage that has the sheer damage and survivability as an ADC's auto-attack.

WDG Devour1 votes

I'm also extremely curious as to how this is even possible but I'm sure Riot has a big team putting their IQ together to make it possible.

Yes ADC's have effective ranged auto attacks but although it may not seem like it many mages have similar if not higher auto attack ranges. (Ziggs 550 range - Lucian 500 range) The only thing that makes Lucian or regular ADCs effective is their attack speed scales harder. Meaning they simply output more DPS on their ranged auto attacks.

As you said ADCs currently are efficient at killing due to their AD scaled ranged AA, attack speed, healing etc and your right no mage has abilities with the DPS of ADCs auto attacks.

Based on this I'd say it's pretty obvious they will introduce items (they have already mentioned introducing a starting item for mages in bot lane) designed to help make a mage more of a sustained DPS like ADCs currently are and that would be something that increases the mages attack speed and AP scalings on their auto attacks so their efficient.

I think taking mages bot lane is going to be a very tough project for Riot to implement into the game and it clearly is considering how long their taking.

hhaavviikk6 votes

{quoted}

If ADC items don't spike quick enough all ADCs will be useless as most games are ending very early now. So when people say this I'm not surprised Riot choose to ignore it. ADCs need to be able to do decent damage within 2 to 3 items so their not completely useless from early to mid game and the last 2 items are situational for late game problems, e.g Last Whisper for tanks.

but why not simply have ADC's phased out then? remove ADC's, put in some strong early game mages to take their place, just because games are ending early doesn't mean they should be buffed ot make them useful early game otherwise it throws off the balance, what's next? we going to buff all early game champions once games last longer again because ''games last too long''?

ADC's being weak early game is a sacrifice that should be there, at the moment it isn't, they can go top, mid and bot and win lane or be even in lane, ADC's shouldn't be able to do that, look at renekton, people hated fighting against him because his early game is great but what about his late game? it's shit and that's called balance yet riot wants ADC's to be great early, mid and late game, how is that fair?

WDG Devour3 votes

ADC are weak in the early game and are squishy throughout the entire duration of a game...

An ADC can't go top solo mid and bot win every lane unless fed or with a good support who follows the ADC to snowball.

ADCs are not great early game, hence why they get 5 man dove under turret by 6 minutes.

hhaavviikk2 votes

{quoted}

ADC are weak in the early game and are squishy throughout the entire duration of a game...

An ADC can't go top solo mid and bot win every lane unless fed or with a good support who follows the ADC to snowball.

ADCs are not great early game, hence why they get 5 man dove under turret by 6 minutes.

just because they're squishy doesn't mean they're weak, that doesn't even make any sense.

vayne top, lucian mid, they can actually win their lane, these late game ADC's can win a lane early on.

again that doesn't prove anything, any champion can get turret dived by 5 enemies and die, however it's not happening with just any champions it's happening with ADC's the most because the ADC is the most important champion on the team because they're that strong

AmazoX4 votes

{quoted}

  • ADC itemazition problems: A lategame class has cheap items...

  • Assasin problems: No comment because I have no idea about assassins. IMO lichbane + hextech or duskblade is the only thing working right now

*Completely agree

*Again, Agree

*Agree, and especially in high elos this problem is huge. This sucks

AD Assassins only problem right now is Duskblade and IT'S ONLY A PROBLEM BECAUSE of ADCs being harder to kill than they have ever been since the first day of League of Legends on Live Servers.

Spicy Rice1 votes

The problem with assassins was that in their best scenarios (For the assassin) they were eliminating their target with little to no counterplay. As a community, we said that it shouldn't be that way, and so assassins were slowly nerfed into their current state.

Unfortunately, we now realize they were a necessary evil containing the pandora's box that is the Marksman class.

To fix assassins in their current state is neigh impossible, as you would have to tune them up to such an extent, that they would blow up everyone.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Eh don't know who this "community" is but pretty much the only ones complaining about fighter and assassins were low elo. Thing is you can always get gudder at the game and handle the things you deemed op. Instead we just fuck the entire game so that low elo doesn't have to get better at the game. Great logic.

JoeMG11 votes

A glaring problem, you say?

Cassiopeia

Raiyza8 votes

You forgot to mention matchmaking. I'm so sick of getting placed with unranked players. I have over 2000 games on my account. I'm getting paired with players with only a few hundred.

That. Fucking. Sucks.

FCJAAAAGOOOO2 votes

It does. Especially in ranked. Coming from someone who has an alt with about as many games on it.

AquariusGine5 votes

High-horsed and egotistical.

I couldn't agree more.

no to toxic3 votes

I don`t get the complain about auto fill. You are basically getting mad that a player who sucks at the game sucks in another lane. Say what you want but a auotfilled top main being support and feeding is not the fault of him being autofilled it´s the fault of him being bad at the game. You can´t even argue against it since you saying that it´s not okay for people who are bad at the game to lose, makes you look like a communist.

Håppy4 votes

????? Honestly what the fuck are you even saying. Every role has a different job and someone can know one job really well while not having any experience with another job. That's like saying someone who worked the line at McDonalds for 4 years should be good at selling cars, and if they aren't, then they're just bad at working.

no to toxic2 votes

Nah not really. Every role has the same job. Deal damage ,protect your teammates if you can and destroy towers. The difference beetwen how you do it is in wich lane you are and what you build otherwise everything else is the same. Unless I forgot the update where you can only move as Kassadin by using your Wii mote. Also not having experience with support is not possible unless you don´t play the game outside of practice mode. So now your argument was bad ill informed and too much cars salesman wich means you are a communist

Aria5 votes

You're out of your mind. Top lane focuses around Zoning XP, trades here and there and CS'ing, while having map awareness to TP gank. These skills are mostly inclusive to Top, as freezing/resetting waves is most actively done there, and so is zoning, as it's mostly melee characters and thus they can be zoned properly. Someone very skilled with Irelia and divers in general can provide so much to a team, yet send them botlane as support and they have little to no knowledge of intricate lane mechanics and what actually wins lane.

Midlane focuses on burst damage and quick fights to kill off your laner, rather than prolonged trades such as Toplane does. These little intricacies exist in each lane and ignoring them is your own decision, but it's one that will ultimately lead you away from Macro play and make you a worse player. So on and so forth.

Either you're really not capable of reading, or you're a troll. Either way, you are very, very much wrong.

no to toxic1 votes

Too lazy to reply but this

[{quoted}](name=bad girlfriend,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gpc0fJrq,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2018-02-13T22:53:06.770+0000) Midlane focuses on burst damage and quick fights to kill off your laner.

Vladimir Malzahar Swain Azir Cassiopeia Ryze Corki

Blue Moon Wolf2 votes

It seems like they can never, ever admit they've made a mistake. It simply feels like we're talking to the wind, and while they obviously cannot address everything, they barely address ANYTHING.

Could not agree more. I can not count the Wukong posts that me and others have made, including asking Rioters like Meddler and such to comment on him, with nothing to show for it aside from a comment saying "he comes up some times in meetings" which could mean anything. Can't help but feel like Riot is just ignoring us cause he's not profitable enough for them to care.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

Riot and especially guys like meddler are pretty much your prototype shady politician. They can go on and on for hours talking about your questions and in the end you are so confused you just don't even care anymore or he manipulated you long enough so that you believe your problems are taken care off until you realize nothing happened a month later and the cycle continues.

Chromatic Eagle2 votes

Riot's attitude towards their playerbase. It's so high-horsed and egoistical, and they barely address any of the things we've been asking them to. It seems like they can never, ever admit they've made a mistake. It simply feels like we're talking to the wind, and while they obviously cannot address everything, they barely address ANYTHING. It seems like as long as they have people buying RP, they don't give a shit what you think about balance. And this is true, they're a company- but they clearly have no devotion nor care to their playerbase.

They admitted to mistakes several times. They just don't always admit it when players demand it.

GayFluffyUnicorn2 votes

Which ones? The "well we removed dynamicQ because you guys couldnt stop bitching but actually we are still right and dynamicQ is the best thing ever since the invention of the wheel". Or "yeah we kinda scammed you with our algorithm to make extra money but it's no biggy haHAA look at my memes i'm such a goofball, love me reddit hahHAAA". or "galio q is balanced you shitters. We tested it, him oneshotting everyone doesn't happen. " silently nerfs it in a hotfix I could go on and on but riot never admits a mistake and if they do they won't apologize or make you believe in the end they are still right.

More from Gameplay

More by Aria