The State of the Game -- A Long-Winded Post About Game Design Flaws Throughout League of Legends

Hey, guys. My name is called Xanit, and I'm a Bronze I (Silver IV in the last preseason) player who's been playing League of Legends since Season 1. I've got the free Kayle skin and all that.

I recognize my viewpoint may be painted by the division I'm in, but I've tried to keep all of my points focused on the objective interactions between game mechanics. I think you'll find that most of my points are not related to "snowballing tendency" or "reliance on player skill." Rather, they subvert and often skew the influence the player has on the game.

I also recognize that the game is very, VERY difficult to balance, even with a huge team of designers and playtesters, but I think that there are objectively healthy and unhealthy concepts at play in all aspects of the game. The removal of these unhealthy concepts, I believe, will make the game MUCH more competitively sound, reduce the absolutely immense toxicity levels of players, and generally make the game more FUN for the players and MANAGEABLE to the developers.

--TARGETED ABILITIES, DISABLES ESPECIALLY-- Skillshots are outdone by targeted abilities. Enemies with hard mobility, such as Ahri, Shaco, Lucian, even Vayne, are all at a huge advantage when up against skillshot champions. Targeted abilities work equally well against hard mobility and soft mobility. They are binary threats that always land, and always cause massive disruption.

Ryze can instantly and effortlessly halt his enemies advances with a thought. With proper timing and co-ordinated keyboard mashing, he can do it two or three times in succession. Add to this his unique build path giving him immense tankiness, his ultimate always being off cooldown and not constrained by mana.

Warwick can sniff out people who are low on health, then instantly warp to them and kill them with his ultimate. Add to that the fact that he is a decent duelist with incredible single-target sustain, some reasonable tankiness, and only two active abilities to worry about, and you have the most poorly designed interactive piece of programming on earth. Why does he still exist in this state? It's boring AND unfair, the absolute worst.

Malzahar is in a terrible, awful spot right now, and according to the ideas outlined in the post about his mid-year rework, they are not fixing what needs to be fixed. His ultimate is a one-shot kill. His combo consists of abusing Flash to get into position, then pressing EVERY button, R last. All threats are negated by a quick R, and you must build QSS or come into the game with Cleanse to remove the disable. It doesn't even remove the damage, just the suppression, so you're probably dead anyway. When a low mobility mage whose main ideas are spreading corruption and allowing his voidlings to thrive IGNORES ALL HIS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES because of Flash, you know there's a problem.

TL;DR: INSTANT Targeted Hard CC > Targeted Hard CC > Skillshot Hard CC = Hard Mobility > Targeted Soft CC > Skillshot Soft CC = Soft Mobility It's not a rock-paper-scissors. It's a direct hierarchy.

--MOBILITY-- Yes, it is on a huge cooldown, and yes, it does have a huge number of uses, from instantly escaping from fights, to juking, to instantly bursting down your enemy with a surprise attack, to getting enough range for that last autoattack... But Flash is a serious issue.

Flash lets champions ignore their weaknesses and strengths. It blurs the lines of game balance in an already poorly balanced game. Example: Karthus gets Flash. He ignores his weaknesses (no mobility). His opponent has Flash. They ignore his strengths (big slow, concentrated AoEs, zone control). Example 2: Nasus gets Flash. He ignores his weaknesses (no mobility). His opponent has Flash. They ignore his strengths (big slow, zone control, melee range deletion power).

Although these two examples are very similar, there's one difference. Nasus is said to better synergize with Ghost. Why? That's the next section. Let me get through with mobility.

Look at Shaco. His teleport doesn't even telegraph which direction he's gone in. This leads to so much frustration, it's ridiculous. Add that to his instant deletion levels of damage, huge counterjungling potential, general confusion around his ult, and the reliability of his targeted heat-seeking knife... Shaco is cancer. Absolute cancer.

Holy crap, LeBlanc. Hard mobility incarnate. Her Distortion may be the most unreasonable ability in existence. Not only is it a dash, but couple it with her Ultimate and she is effectively SIMULTANEOUSLY IN FOUR PLACES. Add that to her instant deletion levels of damage and the inclusion of fairly reliable hard CC (because she can ignore her tether's counterplay mechanics with Distortion and Flash), and you have more total and utter cancer.

Zed is a much lesser extent of this, but he's still ungodly strong. He can be in as many as three places at once, but at least he isn't dashing every single time he creates a teleport spot. He also doesn't have the same issue as Shaco with the failure to telegraph his teleport location. Zed's damage output is highly dependent on positioning and zone control during lane, as well. If he didn't have the ultimate with damage amplification and the targeted mobility it entails, he would be a fairly balanced champion.

Okay, now look at Lissandra. I feel like this is the most important thing in this post. She has free mobility in her E, but it is TELEGRAPHED. It is telegraphed VERY CLEARLY and takes a windup to reach full distance. This is such an incredible ability. It tells you where she is going to be, and how long until she gets there, but there's still the unsure factor of whether she will activate it early. Add that to her slow mobility otherwise, and her skillshot single target slow, and you have a BEAUTIFULLY balanced champion... if Flash didn't exist to let her ignore all her weaknesses. (And if her Ultimate had a smaller range, or was a skillshot, or was only able to target herself.) This is why Flash is a tragedy on wheels. Even when champion balance WORKS and kits are PERFECT... Flash ruins them.

Flash's inclusion, since the dawn of time, has made this game incredibly focused on targeted abilities and hard disables, when EVERY option, skillshots and slows included, should be equally viable in their own ways. It also ruins champion balance by letting everyone ignore their weaknesses and ignore other peoples' strengths. It is unhealthy for the state of the game, and should have been removed a long time ago.

--THE JUGGERNAUT FANTASY-- Riot has gone on record saying that they want to preserve the feeling of going up against a raid boss, but more often than not, these champions are just incredibly tanky and incredibly damaging for no good reason. It's not a matter of items or build path. They all have mechanics that keep them relevant and in charge regardless of how well they are doing. It's not acceptable to give a player a gigantic advantage in everything EXCEPT a 1v5. Especially in a meta where tanks are tasked with the protection of "real damage dealers." Why do tanks get to do JUST AS MUCH damage?

Nasus has incredible built-in sustain and is naturally tanky. He scales on how long he can farm minions, and all of his assets give him a huge advantage in the laning phase, especially with the meta the way it is now. You are forced to pick Teemo, or some other obnoxious ranged toplaner, to push him out of lane, and even then, it still requires a lot of skill with said particular champion. You cannot pick your favorite champion against Nasus. You must counterpick, or lose.

Darius has been taking steps towards the ideal of fairness, giving his Q a telegraph, and his W some fun laning uses, but with a pull so fast and with such a range that negates any melee champion's efforts, a Q that punishes you for doing the one thing that you SHOULD do (run) and an execution move that ENCOURAGES siphoning kills straight out of his teammates' scores, Darius is an absolute balance nightmare. They grouped him in with the other incredibly tanky 100-to-0 damage dealers, and have lauded his successes as "healthy," but they are ANYTHING but.

Garen is in such a state that he is rewarded for losing trades, for playing sloppily, and anything short of a ranged champion or a dual lane will not be able to keep his health in check. Lategame he is given a license to spin into your entire team, ult your carry, and move on. You need targeted instant disables to deal with him, and this is an absolute shame.

The juggernaut fantasy is turning many matches into a race -- who can reach their win condition first? This fantasy serves a singular player, and alienates everyone on the juggernaut's team as well as those on the opposite team. It's impossible to focus both the Tank and the Marksman, and choosing one lets the other demolish you. Teamfights are lose/lose when Juggernauts are involved.

--RESOURCES-- Manaless champions are a serious issue, and cooldowns are not a suitable tradeoff for mana. This idea disrupts the balance of laning phase being not only a battle of poking and scoring creeps, but also of managing yourself, knowing your limits, and working within those constraints. Manaless champions completely throw out the strategy of laning phase out the window, losing something they need to worry about, and giving them an instant edge.

It's said manaless champions always have a tradeoff that makes them on par with mana requiring champions, but more often than not, these manaless champions are subject to the other horrible trends I've already outlined. Katarina has free targeted damage every few seconds, can instantly teleport, and has seriously strong damage potential for how easy her combo is to pull off. I think she's in a much better place now than she was before, but it doesn't change the fact that her skills are unhealthy. Often people say "katarina's cooldowns are what limit her" but she has smaller cooldowns than many mana champions, and has a function that reduces them.

Champions based on Energy often have costs that are balanced around their bread-and-butter combo, and I think it's a really fun and fair change of pace from using Mana. It gives them frequent and clear periods of weakness when compared to the EVENTUAL period of weakness of Mana-based champions and the NONEXISTENT or UNCLEAR period of weakness in manaless champions.

Cooldowns are not an acceptable tradeoff for the removal of mana as a resource.

--DEVOURER-- Devourer is such a strong option right now. I mean, all the jungle items are really good in their own way, but none buff their targeted champion type so much as Devourer. The idea of doubling your autoattacks was strong enough on Master Yi. In his kit, it's actually built AROUND the double attack. Adding ANOTHER double attack to it buffs it into absolute terrorville, and it demolishes the cohesiveness of other champions' kits. I'll outline a bunch of them here.

Oh, Jesus, save us... Master Yi is an unstoppable force at the moment, and there is no excuse for it. First off, he has a targeted dash which allows him to dodge all abilities and attacks, and it's on a cooldown that Devourer makes 0. Although he has no CC, this allows him to ignore others' CC, others' soft AND HARD mobility, and his ultimate alloes him to permanently ignore soft CC. When you realize that this guy can one-shot Tahm Kench with no counterplay, you know what Hell truly is.

Why does Xin have a heal that scales off his damage? He already has lifesteal. He doesn't need permanent, reliable, and REALLY STRONG sustain beyond it. He was already strong before this last buff... Good lord. He has another targeted hard mobility move, easy targeted CC, and a straight up "I don't even have to WORK to peel your teammates off you" move. He's also really tanky, and can survive just because he's deleting people. Then you have Devourer, which makes his heal happen every two hits, and his stun happen instantly. You can't even flash out of it anymore, because autoattacks go through even if you leave their range. That's a fine mechanic on its own, but not when it's coupled with something this instant and impossible to predict.

Jax's empowered autoattacks are enabled to be procced at an insane rate. He already has yet another targeted hard mobility skill and an AOE INSTANT STUN which allows him to IGNORE ALL AUTOATTACKS. And this is in a meta where Devourer enables autoattackers to be astronomically strong. This isn't acceptable.

HELP ME... Tryndamere has free hard mobility. Literally free, he's manaless. I'm not about to say Crit chance is broken, but having a free chance to crit without buying items is. It's not fair that at level 1 he can outplay you simply by standing still and relying on luck. It's not fair that he can heal off his luck in lane or that he can ignore weaknesses with a non-telegraphed invulnerability that DOES NOT REDUCE HIS ABILITY TO MOVE AND ATTACK like with Lissandra's, and to a lesser extent, Fizz's, and Vladimir's. Add Flash to that, and you end up with this early-game split pusher that can kill a turret before seven minutes, and a late-game win button who can do upwards of two thousand damage a hit, with no counter to his mobility. He ignores the game, and just kills you.

Okay, bear with me. Udyr is an absolute menace to society, but he is allowed to abuse healthy mechanics to do so. He is the KING of soft mobility, having an essientially permanent boost. This is kind of uncool, but he would actually be kiteable... if he didn't have Flash. Flash makes it so this guy can ignore his already limited weaknesses so he can get in range to abuse the hell out of Devourer and ruin everyone's day in an instant. Someone so tanky should not be able to delete others so easily. I think he would be actually very balanced if Flash was not in the game, due to how easily he can be kited. Yet another testament to Flash's toxicity. It's a shock, even to me, that I would say this, but I cannot deny it.

--PREVALENCE OF THE META-- Does anyone remember when dual bruiser bot was fun? When mages could jungle? Well, with things like Gragas, Karma, and Ekko jungle, Corki mid, and Quinn top, we're getting closer to having more diversity in the ability to pick roles. I keep seeing content creators show off the successes of off-meta picks and combinations of champions you almost never see.

However, we see things like Runic Echoes being reworked twelve times, but Devourer rising to supreme relevance. Interesting off-meta junglers are smitten from candidacy with a single patch note, and the outliers in power, the strong champions that abuse unfair game mechanics, are not frequently nerfed, or simply stay in a strong state without regard for the game's health.

In some specific cases, we can see the diversity of build paths being bolstered, but in others we see the forcing of certain playstyles blatantly obvious. Kindred single-handedly made Devourer a melee-only buff. Kalista was just nerfed in every role EXCEPT ADC. Karma was changed from a support to a mage. I imagine we'll see something that takes Corki out of the midlane, soon. This isn't cool.

Flash is picked in every single game. Is this part of the meta? I'm not sure at this point. It's just a trend that makes it the SINGLE AND ONLY THING YOU CAN DO. At least, if you're picking a reasonable champion. This isn't fun or diverse or interesting in the slightest. More often than not, it just defuses a fight that should have happened, lets people ignore their mistakes, or instantly delete people who didn't even MAKE a mistake.

--COUNTERPICKING AND BANNING-- There are champions (or combinations of champions) who are so strong in their role that you must choose specific champions to stand a chance. And, if you're playing a particular character, and the enemy chooses one that utterly ruins you... What can you do? You are forced to spend the whole game in obscurity, maybe trade lanes and become a slave to the meta as that mage pokes you to death and forces you outside of EXP range. With the state of the game as it is -- unfair mechanics on so many champions, dominators of particular meta-enforced roles with no room for new roles, champion strength so imbalanced -- the player's freedom is severely limited, even in their ability to choose champions.

As I outlined in this rant so far, there are a HUGE NUMBER of champions who are unfair, unfun, unbalanced, and generally ruinous to your game. You, as a single player can only ban one. That's fine, I guess. I mean, ban your counter, right? Two of your teammates CANNOT ban their counters, and even if you're trying to play fair, THERE ARE SO MANY UNFAIR CHAMPIONS THAT SIX BANS IS NOT ENOUGH.

Counterpicking and banning are concepts that work FAR BETTER in professional play, with the knowledge of the other team's tendencies after several games. I think that, of all the concepts outlined in this post so far, banning should be changed SEPARATELY between regular play and pro play.

I propose that bans should be increased to ten for normal draft and ranked draft up to a point, say, Platinum Ranked games and below.

...so, those are my thoughts. Thanks for listening, if you've actually read this far! And, if you skipped some... Please look back up and read my thoughts on Lissandra and Udyr, under the headings --MOBILITY-- and --DEVOURER--, respectively. They are probably the most palatable and positive thoughts in this post, and I'm a bit confident that they're well developed and worth hearing.

Again, I really do think that the prevalence of these unhealthy game mechanics is reducing the quality of entertainment and competition in this entire community. I think that many of the troubles the developers face in balancing and maintaining the game and the community can be narrowed down into these mechanics and the combination of other mechanics similar to them. I sincerely hope that this game becomes something we can all be proud of, even more than we are today.