Comeback Mechanics
I was looking stuff up, and I was originally gonna talk about how snowbally I thought Dragon buffs were, but then I found these infographics http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/infographics/patch-7-1-infographics and it turns out the dragon buffs aren't the most snowbally part of the game. It turns out that whatever team gets the first inhibitor wins the game 90% of the time pretty consistently through the patches, and baron is about 80% of the time. This seems pretty insane. I can see why all of the "First objective" stats would be over 50%, since otherwise, it would mean getting first blood/tower meant nothing, but I dont think they should be as high as 80 or 90%. I think the only reason Baron's winrate isnt as high as Inhibitor's is because its possible to steal baron, kill the enemy team after they get baron, or even for a team to waste it by not pushing any lanes, while inhibitors are capable of pushing regardless whether the team is there or not.
I heard that Riot, at one point or another, said they want a team that's ahead to push their advantage otherwise the enemy team can catch-up, but the comeback mechanics of Minions, Kill streaks, or even stealing dragons/barons is more hoping the enemy team screws up, than something you can actively attempt to comeback. Not to mention, it doesnt really matter if the enemy team lets you catch-up if they have a late-game comp anyways. As ShadowKnight1224 pointed out in his post, the comeback mechanics are more Punishments for letting the enemy team catch-up, as opposed to the losing team having the ability to get the lead again. I would like to know where exactly Riot said these things about a leading team needing to push their advantage, but I dont think the game has any real comeback mechanic at the moment. Just punishments for screwing up or not going for an early win. The best "comeback mechanic" I can think of is Lethality scaling with the enemy's level, which even then, doesnt account for gold deficiency. Its possible to be the same level as the enemy but have way less gold than them.
One comeback mechanic I thought of was make Elder Dragon's "Ancient Grudge" buff much stronger than normal dragons, but have less health/health regen than they have now so when one team grabs every single dragon buff, the enemy team has a MUCH easier time getting elder drag. On top of that, if your team gets Elder Dragon, the enemy team might lose their dragon buffs or you might evenly temporarily gain all the currents buffs in the match. I dont want to incentivize a strategy of just not getting dragon buffs if they can turn back on you, and this could lead to the problem of "oh, they're getting baron?Lets go get drag" which is what Riot's problem with the dragons was before elementals, but It would at least give help the losing team if they weren't able to get a single elemental buff.
We could make more characters be designed for comebacks as a contrast to all the snowballing characters like Draven and Kled. Another Moba called SMITE isnt as well designed as League, but even it has "The Morrigan" and Nemesis, who can copy or steal enemy stats, meaning its far more effective when your team is behind while not being over-bearing to the enemy team if you're ahead. I'm not saying every single new champion should be designed this way (I dont want a repeat of the "%health damage" thing they give to every new champion), but at least one character designed to help a losing team would be cool
We need something in place so that our only hopes for coming back from a losing game aren't hoping the enemy screws up, stealing dragon and/or baron, Split pushing, or somehow stalling the game for 50 minutes until everyone is level 18 and full-build while you're not against a late-team comp.
