Where League Started Going The Wrong Direction

its me brna·Jun 3, 2017·3 votes·729 views

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:

Constant Action, Ability To Play Super Aggressive From Level 1
Simple Champion Mechanics (Point and Click)
Fun Interactions / Abilities (Non point and click = high reward)
Multiple Strategies To Gain Advantages (Revive / TP, Camp Starts)
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.

8 Comments

inplaneJun 3, 20175 votes

I started playing League because the games were long, interesting, and in-depth. At its core, that is what an RTS game is and should be. It also has a diverse roster. Even the most proclaimed "useless" champs had their charm and use.

I think League started to go in the wrong direction when Riot began to listen to Redditers and people who have no clue what they're talking about over dedicated players. Mains are isolated and pushed away in favour of making a quick buck from the satisfied majority.

Big LincolnJun 3, 20173 votes

making league a team game was their biggest mistake, 1 bad teammate and you'll probably lose, guaranteed if that bad player is your marksman

solo carrying needs to come back

AterpaterJun 3, 20173 votes

I don't agree that this is what players want. At least neither me nor anybody I know personally. You want to turn LoL into a very simplified, "right-click-instant-fun" something. Casual fun. But actually there is a different game what is perfectly designed around these things and do a much better job in that sense than LoL could ever do . I think the basics of LoL are fine, we just need a much more static and way way better balance finally.

Though as I see the problems of LoL maybe come from the thing that they want to suit everybody. I mean, DoTA goes for the hardcore players and they accept that casuals won't even touch it, HoTS goes for the casuals and accept that they won't have a "trve HC" community. Riot tries both and at the same time they are trying to even do the "perfect imbalance - constantly changing something for the sake of change" tightrope dance - to sell a bit more champs and skins or god knows why...

its me brnaJun 4, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I don't agree that this is what players want. At least neither me nor anybody I know personally. You want to turn LoL into a very simplified, "right-click-instant-fun" something. Casual fun. But actually there is a different game what is perfectly designed around these things and do a much better job in that sense than LoL could ever do . I think the basics of LoL are fine, we just need a much more static and way way better balance finally.

Though as I see the problems of LoL maybe come from the thing that they want to suit everybody. I mean, DoTA goes for the hardcore players and they accept that casuals won't even touch it, HoTS goes for the casuals and accept that they won't have a "trve HC" community. Riot tries both and at the same time they are trying to even do the "perfect imbalance - constantly changing something for the sake of change" tightrope dance - to sell a bit more champs and skins or god knows why...

I'm not stating that I want League to be anything. I'm stating logic of how the game used to be. Maybe you haven't been around 5+ years to understand fully, maybe you have and just don't remember. Either way the fact is that everything I listed is the truth. I'm not pulling things out of the air or making anything in my post up. The key part of League that made many people play was its simplicity. As time has went on, Riot has tried to add more and more depth to the game.. however in doing so many times they create problems because at its core League of Legends was never designed to be sophisticated.

Having a game which is simple to learn, with near endless things to master, is a huge attribute that many players look for. Low skill floor with infinite skill ceiling, for a more common place term. Riot is reworking just about every champion to where they are harder and harder for players to use, and the fact is.. that's the opposite of why players began to play this game in the first place. People don't want difficult to use champions with higher skill floors, they want easy to use champions with room to grow.

AterpaterJun 4, 20171 votes

I wasn't here. I've been playing DoTA. I installed LoL a bit before preseason to have some break from DoTA. But I have friends who have been playing LoL since long long years and I did my research on the past since then.

And I read and hear the straight opposite everywhere - and even my own experiences from the last half year are different. LoL was meant to deliver the clear MOBA experience without the clumsiness of DoTA 5.84, so much that afaik in the beta version you even could deny just like in DoTA. And as almost everybody says from that point it just got more and more simple and casual-friendly. And I can't really agree on the "easy to use champs" thing either as many mechanically hard champs got reworks and fixes to make them easier to use even several times (e.g. Ryze...).

So yes, as I hear and read everywhere the complains of veteran players that LoL is getting way to casual, it was weird to read that you think it just isn't enough casual...

(Btw my personal opinion about LoL, as I finally experienced it, that the basics of the game are awesome and it's a good and streamlined presentation of what a MOBA is all about, though some details and first of all the balance and the continuous artifical "meta rotation" are just straight terrible, they really should fix it once and for all.)

its me brnaJun 5, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I wasn't here. I've been playing DoTA. I installed LoL a bit before preseason to have some break from DoTA. But I have friends who have been playing LoL since long long years and I did my research on the past since then.

And I read and hear the straight opposite everywhere - and even my own experiences from the last half year are different. LoL was meant to deliver the clear MOBA experience without the clumsiness of DoTA 5.84, so much that afaik in the beta version you even could deny just like in DoTA. And as almost everybody says from that point it just got more and more simple and casual-friendly. And I can't really agree on the "easy to use champs" thing either as many mechanically hard champs got reworks and fixes to make them easier to use even several times (e.g. Ryze...).

So yes, as I hear and read everywhere the complains of veteran players that LoL is getting way to casual, it was weird to read that you think it just isn't enough casual...

(Btw my personal opinion about LoL, as I finally experienced it, that the basics of the game are awesome and it's a good and streamlined presentation of what a MOBA is all about, though some details and first of all the balance and the continuous artifical "meta rotation" are just straight terrible, they really should fix it once and for all.)

That is the problem with why the game is getting worse. What "people" want is different for every single person. Riot tends to listen to what is voiced the most however this is often times the worst possible solution for actually improving the game. Statistically, the majority of people on the planet are actually uneducated or below what would be called standard. Just because a majority of people want something, does not always mean it's in their best interests. Take for example something from history itself. For an extremely long time most of the world believed the earth was Flat. Sailors believed that if you went too far, you'd fall off the edge of the earth. Anyone who tried to claim otherwise was taken for a fool and laughed at. Was this widespread acceptance of a flat Earth the truth? Of course not.

For another way of looking at things -- most people can see clearly that Riot tends to balance many things completely around professional play. There's a good reason for this. Those at the complete highest tier of play are able to often overlook or see beyond the common misconceptions believed by the majority of players. These players create the meta, others are able to see how effective their methods are, however the players at these tiers in themselves do not follow any set meta. Professional players will abuse anything and everything which they can tell is the best method to win without caring about what another player thinks. For a developer such as Riot Games, these players are dangerous, however they are also the best source of information when it comes to figuring out what they are doing right and wrong balancing the game.

I am not suggestion League of Legends be casual. I don't quite understand how you could deduct that from anything in my thread however that is far from what I am inferring. The 5 things which I listed are points of interest which attracted the vast majority of players to League of Legends and gave this game its rise to fame. These are things which Riot hasn't completely destroyed, however is starting to steer away from slowly over time. For example, many champions in League of Legends still have simple kits. With every new champion made however, the kits become more and more detailed and complex. Instead of creating more champions with basic kits like Garen, Riven, and Annie, Riot instead combines features from several different champions removing all point and click elements to make a full skill oriented champion which requires too much time to master. These type of champions are not always a bad thing, but too many of them make the game frustrating due to the variance of skill present between those who are learning and those who have mastered the champion.

As per your comments about Ryze, he has been reworked because of two things:

Ryze would take far too long to learn and players would feed tons and tons of games until they mastered him.
Ryze has always been too powerful when mastered with no counter play available for the enemy team.

Old Ryze was still a very simple champion. He had 3 point and click abilities with an ultimate for buffing his stats.. this made him enjoyable for players to learn and use. The latest Ryze is only slightly more complex however is extremely frustrating to play when first learning.

As per champion design, the #1 best example of every champion in the entire game would be Blitzcrank. Blitz has multiple ways to be useful very early into the game (Lv. 1 -3). He's an aggressive champion, however very simple. His W is a speed up boost, his E you can use just by right clicking on an enemy. Blitz's Q (his grab) is a skill shot however has high reward and generally is a fun to use ability. Blitzcrank is also able to utilize #4 in the list by providing different strategies in using him. He's able to deny the enemy Jungler by moving the Jungle camps into his team, if he so chooses, or he can simply walk to lane. These are the type of things players enjoy. Simple is not casual. Simple does not mean skill-less. Being simple does not make a champion useless or weak.

AterpaterJun 7, 20171 votes

Ok, I think I got you about this "simple isn't casual" thing and in a sense you are right. But I would argue on a few points:

Balancing gameplay around competitive play is actually a good thing. Every sport does this and with a reason. The problem with LoL's balancing isn't this but that they're trying to "rotate meta", artifically force ideas and playstyles and they're playing favourites when selecting "valid" champions. E.g. DoTA is balancing stuff perfectly around competitive play but it doesn't try to determine the meta as it is - the result is that about 90% of the hero pool are valid meta picks and that the meta is constantly changing to interesting directions on it's own, just by players figuring out newer and newer srategies and approaches (what they don't try to shut down immediately like LoL...)
You are right about the lack of simple-kit champs, though with the more complicated kits Riot pretty much implementing way more simple and straightforward playstyles. I mean look at Singed for example: He has a damn simple and mechanically easy kit, there's nothing complicated about it. But at the same time it gives room for several very different playstyle, from proxy Singed to smite-support Singed and so on. And this should be a priority to give champs several valid build paths and make them able to suit 2-3 roles as a strong pick with different builds. On the other hand many new and mechanically harder champs only work with a single approach and playstyle and only for one single role. So, actually many new complex champ design make the game more bland and simple practically. I think they should give enough freedom to the players to figure out how they want to play a champ and where instead of already designing it from the start to fill some role (it's so sad to see when they're trying to force a champ in a role where they won't fit and making it useless in a role where it's actually played, just to deliver some original design idea... )

Out of topic but just FYI :)

People with any minimal degree of education weren't thinking that the Earth is flat since the ancient times. Since Pythagoras in 6th c. B.C. we are aware that the Earth is spherical and this thing became widely accepted quick and this remained the main scientific approach even in the Middle Ages (like just look at archbishop Isidore of Seville's map from the 12th century). Though there were always some people who thought otherwise and we even have them today in the 21th century... Btw many of these kind of popular misconceptions about the Dark Ages were fabricated during the Age of Reason to have a better contrast by showing the Middle Ages way more dumb and backward than it actually was (I do apologise - too much classes on cultural history... :) )