PSA: Snowballing keeps League of Legends from being a boring farmfest.

Bern·May 21, 2015·5 votes·656 views

Rather than writing up a long-winded explanation, I'll just tl;dr it: snowballing is good because it means playing aggressively and interacting with your opponent can more rewarding than playing a snorefest farm game. If you don't reward aggression, there's no reason to be aggressive, which pushes the game meta more towards an LCK-style farmfest while invalidating your LPL-style bloodbaths. Snowballing also allows early game champions to win against lategame scaling, allowing for more variety in viable champion design.

Basically, ideal play involves playing to best risk/reward. Snowballing allows aggressive play to be ideal play in certain situations, which is good for the game.

10 Comments

FooDangMay 21, 20152 votes

DrMundo vs Nasus = Most boring lane ever

WillHealForHonorMay 21, 20151 votes

i love that lane then i have an excuse not to help my team

SEKAIMay 21, 20151 votes

Not sure about the case with the current DotA2 but the original mod had the issue where the snowballing was just too great.

Everyone kinda just like walk into lane to blow each other up, after the 3rd or 4th kill is announced, everyone simply quits because any more is just pointless.

Somewhere in between sounds cool.

But I do see and agree with your points.

LarasoMay 21, 20151 votes

Incidentally, snowballing also improves champion viability in ARAM.

summoner 32

WeiseAzirMay 21, 20151 votes

unless ur annie and not zilean

BrothaMay 21, 20151 votes

Snowballing is tons of fun as well.

Just ask Nunu or your mom!

ZephyrDrakeMay 21, 20151 votes

snowballing is fine until you get to the point where if you fall even slightly behind you have no chance in hell of coming back unless your opponents are idiots then it become even more boring than a farmfest since everyone will just give up the instant they get behind in the slightest

kile147May 21, 20151 votes

Snowballing doesn't equal aggressive play. Look at the Ascension gamemode, they literally removed the concept of snowballing entirely by making it so that regardless of kda you had the same gold and xp as everyone else and yet it was an insanely aggresive game. I understand the point you're trying to make, but I found that mode fun because no matter how far you were behind you were never just out of the game, whereas a lot of snowballing champs in this game basically make the game (or at least their lane) unwinnable if they get even a single kill ahead.

Shadow GilgameshMay 21, 20151 votes

Totally true man. I just wish certain cases were balanced a little better, you have to look at ease of getting fed vs. power when fed.

I don't mind getting run over by a fed Draven because him and a blitzcrank wrecked out botlane super hard, it feels fair. But when you have Riven, who has one of the highest power when fed, and one of the easiest to get fed is where I think people start to have problems. Other examples would be like, Kat or LB that can frequently go "aw man I'm 0/0, 0/1 or 0/2 in lane, but it's k, I can just go nuke botlane and be fine"

Snowballing as a mechanic isn't bad, but it has to work in a way where the downside isn't just "but what if you don't snowball?" It should either be hard to snowball (see every ADC, since almost everyone rushes IE now) or you should hit a wall where even though you snowballed, you can't just steamroll all game (see Renekton, who falls off late even when fed)

Slamurai JackMay 21, 20151 votes

The way I see it, snowballing is a fair and balanced mechanic when I'm the one snowballing and it's anti-fun when the enemy is the one snowballing, especially if they're snowballing because of my team and not me. Riot should really get around to fixing that.