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Despairing Thoughts from a Longtime Player

HopFrogger·7/28/2016, 6:21:13 AM·7 votes·737 views

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Hey League Community,

I've been playing this game since Season 1, and have seen a lot of meta changes and shifts in the community. I've never gotten particularly amazing at this game, and usually end up somewhere in upper Gold for ranked and match up against Plat/Diamond in MMR. I only say these things because I feel like I can be honest and accurate when I say that_ this is the worst season to be playing, ever._ I say that despite loving some of the brand new champions and items.

Why is that?

1) This game snowballs harder than ever before. Because of that, simple mistakes matter more, and players rage harder when these mistakes are made. In half of my games where FB is given up by my team (or me), there is immediate rage and talk of tilting. I've never experienced this before, in all my time playing. "Tilt" is everywhere, and everyone uses it as an excuse to essentially stop putting effort into the game. That, or "It's just normals."

**2) Dynamic Queue is broken. **Matches are frequently so one-sided that it's not unsurprising that players get upset. I understand that it has great success in terms of providing 50% win rates, but I honestly feel like I'm either matched up against way, way more skilled opponents or way, way out-skill mine. It's been a long time since I can honestly say I've had a really great, even 1-on-1.

**3) League is famous. **It's awesome; lots of money rolling in, lots of fame, lots of players. That also brings lots more attitude, lots more striving towards succeeding and emulating famous players, and subsequently lots more aggressive and negative behavior.

4) There is very little impetus to be a "nice" player in league. Honor feels empty, and being rewarded with a screen border just doesn't motivate me to say, "You're a dandy player. What a groovy play!" when I see a player succeed. Does that make me implicit in the attitude of the game? Probably, but that doesn't mean there aren't solutions.

That brings me to..... _**

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Solutions!

1) Increase item costs: A big chunk of the snowballing seems to be much more rapid item spikes, leading to inflated stats too early. I know part of this was intentional, but let's scale it back a little. item 1038 for 1450, perhaps?

2) Create a reason to succeed at normals: Perhaps a special icon if you succeed in normals? A permaban for anyone who says "It's just normals"? Just an idea.

3) Showcase new players: It's easy to idolize the famous folks, but I really liked the series you guys did a couple months/years ago about random community members who play league. I watch those way more intently than "Player X on Team Y is Amazeballs, watch him REK!"

4) Provide rewards for succeeding as a friendly player: Assist sprees? Honor vote at the end of the game as a popup? IP boosts if you get an honor spree? )

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Anywho, I hope that wasn't too painful to read. I love this game, but it's getting increasingly less fun to play. I'd really like a reason to feel like part of a team again.

6 Comments

Judgemënt7/28/2016, 6:50:57 AM4 votes

Love it man, specially with 4 it would help support mains feel useful, not once have I've seen ty support for carry in endgame chat, which I feel is the reason not many people like the role. People only say every role but support carries when supports put in alot of hard work just to get no credit.

CIickTheLantern7/28/2016, 6:23:00 AM2 votes

I like your concern, but i wont waste time writing some long letter about my critique of it. I LIKE IT THO

LiveYiOrDieHard7/28/2016, 7:13:24 AM2 votes

{quoted}

2) Create a reason to succeed at normals: Perhaps a special icon if you succeed in normals? A permaban for anyone who says "It's just normals"? Just an idea.

I hope this is a joke because the "permaban everyone I don't like" train the entire league playerbase has jumped on over the last few years is one of the biggest issues with this godawful community.

Arakadia7/28/2016, 7:55:31 AM1 votes

Tower Regen would also be useful to counter snowballyness. Currently if your behind its not very safe.

I almost feel like all items should up 75g and everyone should get like 7 more armor and MR. Just because damage creep is annoying af. That might tip the balance of the game badly though.

Sire Hippington7/28/2016, 7:33:17 PM1 votes

As another pre-season 1 veteran, i agree with the problems. However, the solutions for 1 and 2 aren't great. The current snowballing is a complex issue that has many things working together. Solving it will need far more changes than just item costs. And while were at it, increasing item costs will not solve the issue at all. All it does is delaying the spike for the snowballer, but also the 'catch up' from the one behind, so no real net gain. If you want to adress snowballing via item costs, you need to increase the number of components/steps needed to complete an item and reduce the gold needed to get one step further. Defense items went into the right direction with this by haveing the samll components directly building into the bigger components, so if you recal with to little gold for a negatron, you atleast can get the null mage mantle instead. if we asume a matchup where both sodes rush negatron for whatever reason, the difference betweem the one haveing the gold for negatron and the other beeing 100-200 short for it would have been 40mr befor that change with negatron vs nothing. Now it's only 15mr difference because you have Negatron vs nullmage . And again, there are alot more factores that all together contributeong to snowballing and a lees enjoiable game

And for your idea on 2), i'll quote the 3ed issue: "...That also brings lots more attitude, lots more striving towards succeeding and emulating famous players, and subsequently lots more aggressive and negative behavior." The main thing i like about normals is that i don't have the tryhard atmosphere from rankeds. However, if there is more on the line for performing in normals, people will likely adapt the tryhard mindset from rankeds where succes and winning is everything and haveing a good time doesn't matter. As a result, we would get the same 'meta champs only and rage if anything goes wrong' attitued that we have in rankeds.