League of Legends, then vs now

#First some clarity

Seems a lot of nostalgia goggles are blurring the issues with the game, resulting in a lot of sloppy threads about why 'League is so bad now'.

Now don't get me wrong, I agree the game is in a bad state right now, and that games are decided way too early. But before we address the problems, let's get the weeds out of the garden.

1: "It's that champion over there"! No, it actually isn't. Yes, Jayce is OP, Camille was a poor release and Vi has been damn annoying in jungle recently. With nerfs to her competition Riven is becoming too strong and Yasuo is still annoying.

Meanwhile back in ye 'ol days Morde was considered OP for two years straight, Tryndamere was an unstoppable two shotting machine, Jax got one item and won the game and nobody wanted to ever see Shaco in a game.

Nothing has changed here. Unfortunately as long as there are champions in the game, some will annoy us and some will be stronger picks than ever. Even before S1 there were 'must picks' and 'worthless picks'. And while Riot attempts to achieve nirvana in champion balance, constant patching, updating, new releases and rebalancing make true balance impossible, even if it is a final goal.

Take away power from Darius and Jayce? Oh look, Riven and Fiora are suddenly strong. Take power from them? Oh look, Kennen and Rumble are suddenly strong. etc.

No, it isn't any specific champion bringing the game down. Nor any specific group of champions. OP picks have always existed, other problems with the game are merely amplifying emotions regarding overpowered champion picks and make them seem more intense.

2: "First tower blood caused this!" No, first tower blood was probably one of the smallest contributions to this. It increased the win rate by first tower taken by 1.25%. Confirmed by Riot AND third party website LeagueOfGraphs. Yes, it did, ever-so-slightly amplify leads. But the problem was the snowball existed pre-first tower, to the point where the team taking the first tower was already assured to win. The tiny dump of gold into champion's pockets for taking it didn't cause the 72% win rate for first tower taken, pre-existing snowball caused this.

3: "Masteries caused this!" Partially true, but masteries themselves have always existed, so if you liked Season 1-2-3-4-5-6 then them existing is not the problem. Same can be said for runes.

4: "You can get more AD/AP than ever!" Caitlyn, Shaco and Draven crits of 1000+ happened in S3. Actually, the amount of AD and especially AP on items has gone down. These stats use to be more valuable. I remember playing Brand in S2 and stacking 800AP regularly in order to one combo people. This isn't the problem, as I now one combo people with 300AP.

5: "Tanks never die! Tanks die too fast!" You are contradicting yourself community. I will say this. If feels like true tanks should survive a bit longer, people like Sejauni and Leona. However this is more individual tuning as Sion and Maokai seem to survive long enough and people like Poppy survive way too long. This isn't a systemic class issue but an individual champion tuning and meta issue. However if it makes you feel better, tanks are being reworked in the mid-year-update so I have heard.

However, if you are talking about "tanks", such as Juggernauts like Darius and Shyvana or Divers like Vi and Hecarim. Who when fed become seemingly unkillable, then I could agree that their 'ahead' could be toned down a little and their 'behind' could be toned up a bit to make them less feast/famine. But in general this again comes to individual champion tuning. Because there are some Juggernauts and Divers who are utter shit right now as well.

And again, neither of these things are why games are so short and frustrating.

6: "(Insert skirmisher here) has a toxic design because they do well when ahead, this ruined the game!" As opposed to being ranged and doing too much damage when fed like mages and marksmen? Skirmishers: Are a melee carry class, when ahead they are meant to snowball, just like Marksman, Mages and Assassins. They trade being ranged for being mobile. Which makes them more feast/famine as they must go all out in team fights and risk dying, but when they succeed they cleanup just like a fed Twitch or Ziggs. They are balanced to win most 1v1 fights in melee range because they have to be in melee range to do it. Individually there are some who are too strong, and some who are not so strong at this time. But overall they objectively are doing what they are suppose to.

Before Skirmisher's existed, there were melee ADCs back in ye 'ol days of glory. Who did essentially the same thing but were more 'right clicky'. They are not responsible for the current issues with the game.

7: "Mages in every lane!" A symptom not a disease. This is a fault of the current meta, base damages, damage inflation, gold distribution and exp functionality. More on that below.

#What is at fault?

1: Back to masteries Yes, they are partly at fault, but not for existing. Rather for each individual mastery holding so much power. While games use to have masteries that did things like "Your fireball now has +1% crit chance" they now have masteries like "Your fireball now chains to up to 2 additional enemies and if it crits they are all stunned".

This oddly isn't just something I see in League, but also in a lot of MMOs. Masteries have received bloated power. and drastically affect gameplay style. I think it is because the era of nerds comparing a bonus 2% attack speed for 1.5 seconds after crits to a bonus 1% attack speed static, are being forgotten by game creators. As such, even passive masteries have to be 'interesting' and have bloated power.

So instead of getting a mastery that is something like http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Executioner_(Season_Two_Mastery) as a final mastery point. We get http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Merciless_(Season_2016_Mastery) as a third tier mastery. That is the effect of a final mastery moved to one anybody can pick up even if they go into the other two trees.

Because of this kind of 'move of power' among masteries, and the introduction of keystones and new masteries, has given a massive boost to the power of masteries. This is passive power, the problem with this kind of power on masteries, is that it is not earned 'in game'. It doesn't cost gold, you don't have to accumulate a lead to earn it, it is just there from spawn. This makes early game much more toxic and mistakes much more devastating.

While conversely some of the tank masteries introduced to counter them, has done the opposite and made the game too safe for select Divers, Juggernauts and Tanks.

Masteries MUST be scaled back to minor choices for how you want to boost your champion. Or all masteries could be made to scale with your level(likely a balance nightmare, but would be awesome if they worked it out) or early game will never feel good again.

2: Pathetic Towers First tower blood would not even be problematic, if it wasn't for the fact that backing to base once can basically cost you the first tower if not the game. As somebody who plays a lot of Riven top lane, this season teleport isn't mandatory for map pressure, roaming or teleport ganks. It is necessary just to make sure that if Jayce or Fiora force me to back early I don't lose so much minion exp/gold and tower health that the lane is an automatic loss.

Towers being weak does a few things. It makes any flashy or cool plays, or aggressive tactics, far too risky. Meaning people play more passive than ever in lanes. Which of course gives way too much power to the only role that can still play aggressive, the Jungle. Suddenly one gank, sometimes even just burning a little HP or a single of the 4 summoner spells bot lane. Means that lane has lost their first tower. Because lanes cannot fight to give themselves an advantage or they risk losing their tower.

Weak towers also makes it so non-interactive tactics, such as split pushing, are objectively better than big risk tactics, like team fights.

Towers should be sieged by minions, with champion assistance. Split pushing should be an optional tactic not a standard. And a team sieging a tower shouldn't be able to kill it without hardly interacting with the defending team. My suggestion would be to buff towers Amor and MR against champions. And increase their overall HP a little. DPS champions late game can DPS them down still, champions with good AP can still chunk them late game and tanks can still tank tower shots. But just having 2 people present shouldn't automatically mean free tower before anybody can react.

I might also suggest making towers either shoot faster for smaller but more rapid doses of damage and/or re-add laser towers. This way more mobile champions like Hecarim and Lee Sin do not automatically get out without taking any shots.

I could make more drastic suggestions about towers but these two would be a good start.

3: Gold and Experience At this point, people have the game so 'figured out' and snowballing is so powerful, damage so high. That even being half an item, or a single level behind an enemy, means you have lost. Part of this is support gold, I love supports, and real supports such as Soraka, Leona, Lulu, Braum, certainly deserved more gold so they could build items. The problem is, the lack of having to buy wards and the surplus of gold from gold generation items and masteries. Means champions like Brand, Annie and Ziggs can go bot lane as supports. Some people say this is 'healthy' and 'awesome'. But then are the same people who complain there is too much damage in the game . . . Supports being a high damage role means you have taken one of only two low damage roles in the game - support and tank - and handed them a flame thrower. I get Riot is heavily focused on queue times. But taking a team with 2 high damage champions, 1 mid tier damage champion and 2 low damage champions. And making them now have 3 high damage champions, 1 mid tier damage champion and 1 low tier damage champion. Adds a huge amount of damage inflation. Potentially more than masteries do.

On top of this, high kill gold, the value of farm that people are realizing, lower passive gold, ALL tower kill gold, dragon gold and massive increase to the exp and gold in the jungle. Have made it so once your enemy has a small lead, they can press that to not a large lead, but a titanic lead. Meaning there is no coming back. The snowball just rolls down mid lane and crashes right into your Nexus.

I don't have a direct solution for mage supports. But gold and exp active rewards being so high are likely the largest contributor to the snowball in the game. Obviously leads need to exist, and the leading team needs the opportunity to expand their lead and close out. But it is too much at the moment. Some suggestions would be adding passive exp and slightly lowering minion/kill/camp exp while increasing passive gold gen while lowering kill gold ever so slightly. These would have to be small changes, to prevent leads from becoming useless. Another possible solution would be just to decrease gold value of people who have died a lot even more, and make them reach the minimum faster, and slightly boost shutdown gold.

I am sure the boards/Riot could come up with more eloquent solutions. But keep in mind, lowering the punishment for taking risks, means low elo will be less toxic, high elo will take more risks, and LCS will likely be more exciting. As taking risks won't become the end of the world.

The best thing about passive gold/exp gen is they encourage roaming tactics as missing 3 minions no longer loses the lane.

4: Cooldown Reduction Because I love low cooldowns(urf anyone?), I wouldn't mind keeping all the CDR in the game. If Riot could deflate snowballing and overall damage, League could be more spammy without being Toxic. But one of the fastest ways to reduce overall snowball and damage inflation in the game, would be to remove a lot of the CDR items have been given, potentially rework the CDR mastery as well. A lot of champions who were otherwise fine are now way too spammy, while oddly enough Tanks(not Divers or Juggernauts), have a hard time accessing their best stat.

Subsequently if this made Basic Attack champions stronger perhaps Attack Speed and Crit could be look at as well.

Personally I'd rather keep the CDR and Attack speed in the game, and balance the game around it being there. But if that is not possible, or unwanted it would be a quick route to Nirvana.

5: Base Damage/Base Stats Base damage, it is meant to be 'anti-snowball' right? Because unlike scaling you cannot actively increase it, so when people are ahead with lots of items it doesn't increase, right? WRONG! Base damages are increased by champion level. Fighters, Juggernauts, Tanks and other non-carries thrive off of levels, because it increases their high base stats, but also gives them more points into abilities. For them this means increased base damage, increase utilities and decreased cooldowns(to go with all that CDR they buy). Is this a problem? No, getting a level on Darius as meant to be as rewarding as buying an item component on Ashe. The problem comes when certain outliers have TOO much in their base stats/damages, such as Poppy, or when people who shouldn't really have base damages have too much(see mage supports) or some carries who just get more base stats and damage than they should, or more in-kit-power to amplify the stats they already have going for them.

In the case of Fighters, Juggernauts and Tanks it is a matter of tuning. For mages it is an identity crisis. See mages use to scale really well with level, which is why they took the solo lane mid, just as fighters did for top. The problem is, they also scale well off of items, like a carry does. A mage can scale in two different ways. This means mages can essentially go into any role and do well. Which is why we have mage supports, who contribute to damage inflation. But it also means a mage ahead of the enemy mage, is ahead in TWO ways. This applies to all classes, but more to mages than anybody. Recently, this problem has been creeping into Fighters, Tanks and Juggernauts as they have gained better items and the meta shifted.

Don't get me wrong, the game can be balanced with this in mind. But base damage and base stats are some of the most deceptively powerful things in the game. And are largely responsible for many of the current problems in League. Champions who should have better base stats don't and therefore are trash even if their abilities are fine. And champions who shouldn't have good base damages/stats have too much, so even if their abilities are fine, they tend to be way too strong.

6: Kits and Items than amplify power This is a brief one, but more and more I have been seeing utilities, steroids and abilities in kits and items that amplify existing damage and stats. This again goes back to "I use to have 800AP to one shot people now I do it with 300AP". These kind of kits and items MIGHT be acceptable if the snowball overall is reduced and damage in general is scaled back. Back in the day it was just DFG and a few select abilities. But nowadays the amount of items that give more scaling to your kit, the amount of kits that just get huge boosts to their benefits from items, and the way they interact with masteries and runes, are just absurd.

#Conclusion The problem isn't one thing, it is a cumulative stacking of multiple things. Let's make sure we assign blame correctly so the problem can be fixed. If you have anything to add, any criticisms of my stances or any ideas on fixes, put them below. Thank you for reading.

299 Upvote update Riven loves you all too :] thank you all for the support. Imma go apply for rito games job now(jk).