Where League Started Going The Wrong Direction

Let's start by rewind back 4-5 seasons ago. Back in the beginning we had a lot of crazy things... Lee Sin canceling his Q mid dash with W but still doing damage, Blitzcrank and Poppy moving the Baron Nashor into towers, Champions hiding inside of the Baron Nashor, along with a host of other broken interactions which probably aren't missed by many players. League of Legends has come a long way in it's years, mostly for the better. Graphical updates, Masteries being reforged, tons of champion updates / reworks, League of Legends has become a really solid game compared with how it was years ago when it was first released.

Despite how much better the game is becoming, it's creating more problems and frustrations as it's updated. For starters, it really feels like there are way too many champions in the game. While it's nice that the game has a large and diverse pool of champions, it's creating many champions with abilities that basically do a lot of the same thing, while also making the game harder and harder for Riot to balance. While certainly Riot would never admit to such a thing, it's quite obvious to see when often times they're forced to change many of the same champions over and over again... Even completely removing one of their reworks for the first time ever (Kog'maw). How can Riot prevent these problems while continuing to create a better game for us players?

While the answer to the question is simple, creating the solution is not. To create a better game, first you need to understand what players want. League of Legends however, has a massive player base, probably the largest online gaming player base in the entire world. With this comes a wide range of interests, tastes, player skill, standards, and virtually an unlimited number of variables in need of consideration. Due to this problem, there's really only one solution, figure out what made players want to play League of Legends to begin with.

When League of Legends first came out, what attracted players to the game? When we look back at League of Legends in the past, many champions had very simple kits. While it's true that several had very confused thematic ties, the majority of champions involved point and click abilities or skills that where harder to land, but rewarding and fun to use. Another common feature present was the ability for champions to make risky plays very early into the game. When we look at League of Legends today, very few players would ever consider a level 1 or even a level 2 tower dive on an enemy. This is something that MANY champions were capable of back when Red Elixir and total AD scalings existed on a multitude of champions. When there is a lot of action, the game is fun. When more and more action is removed, the game becomes less fun. The same can also be said about champion difficulty. When a champion is easy to use, generally players will enjoy using it more. The more difficult a champion is to use, the less players will enjoy using it.

There were also other features of the game, which while often considered abuse, helped contribute to making the game more interesting for players. A couple examples of this would be Revive & Teleport and laners beginning their laning by taking Jungle monsters & camps. These features which have since been removed, added a measure of skill to the game without making the game more frustrating. Starting with a lesser Blue Minion, Krug, or Wraith, or even beginning Wolves with Teleport were often interesting and creative strategies. These types of things could have been further developed, however instead got completely ripped out for the sake of fairness in competitive play.

After all these changes, we have probably the biggest which would be the change to Dragon. When Dragon gave global gold, teams could often times make comebacks simply by playing out smart fights around the dragon to secure it. With the current Dragon, it holds less value than it did before simply because the percent statistics which it grants are less valuable on a team which is already losing than the gold which it previously granted. For a winning team, the current dragon system essentially does the same thing. Instead of giving Gold to purchase stats, instead the Dragon just gives stats directly.

Now all we need to do is to compile these into one list and we can figure out the base reasons for why many players were attracted and became hooked on League of Legends to being with:

1. Constant Action, Ability To Play Super Aggressive From Level 1
2. Simple Champion Mechanics (Point and Click)
3. Fun Interactions / Abilities (Non point and click = high reward)
4. Multiple Strategies To Gain Advantages (Revive / TP, Camp Starts)
5. Many Ways To Gain Global Gold When Behind (Towers, Dragon, Baron, etc.)

The fact is, most of these things are being constantly weeded out. These are the core things which made League of Legends fun for the vast majority of players. It's understandable that League of Legends needs to be updated to modern standards, however that doesn't mean that everything players loved and became attached too needs to be destroyed in the process.