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Mechanics vs Gameplay Knowledge

LeeEstes··5 votes·5,829 views

Hey everyone,

for the past few months (maybe the past few season already?) I've seen tons of criticism and complaints. Most of them were about champions but items and runes were also frequently addressed. I've been playing now since Lissandra got released (V3.6) and one of the reasons why I've always really enjoyed League a lot was how I could make a difference by knowing good strategies or to cooperate with my team members. I'm not a person who is good mechanically wise. Hence I prefer playing something like Janna over a champ like Katarina or Le Blanc.

I'm not saying the importance of gameplay knowledge/macroplay is completely gone nowadays but I start feeling like good mechanics start to matter more. Fast reactions seem to matter more. Especially if you don't want to get blown up by an assassin. I was just wondering how you guys felt about this. Did mechanics really start to matter more because the game feels like it became a lot faster. Did individual skill start to matter a lot more than it used to? How do you guys feel about this? Is it my perception or are more people feeling the same about this?

I only know that games tend to be a lot more snowbally, which I think is a shame because I always liked teamfights a lot more in League. Please let me know your opinion on this.

[sg-ahri-2]

15 Comments

Moody P3 votes

the latter will take you immensely farther

Marshbouy3 votes

I strongly, strongly disagree, but this is an unpopular opinion on the boards. I think that good macro play and decision making matters more than ever, and that microplay matters less.

The higher damage in the game means time to kill is much lower. If you land one CC spell in bot lane, a lot of the time you'll deal loads of damage to someone, kill them, or push them out of lane.

You have to be INCREDIBLY aware of where everyone is on the map at all times, or else you're going to get instagibbed by someone.

Warding is more important than ever because many times you won't survive a gank. You won't survive getting caught face checking a bush. You won't survive a bad baron call.

Picking a good comp is also vital, just as much as ever. I've played on teams with 4 carries (riven, kayn, yasuo, draven, I was lulu), won all 3 lanes, then got shit on later into the game because our comp was garbage and everyone had the solocarry "i am going to 1v9" mindset. This was in ranked by the way, not just people screwing around in normals.

Strategy matters more than ever now IMO, it's just that time to kill is much smaller so people get caught by a CC spell, die, and then say "game sux now GG"

Titanium701 votes

That really depends on the lane and the gamestate you're looking at.

In early Mid-Lane: CS, Pokeing, Trading, Positioning, Wavecontroll and even Warding is basicly useless.

Having Frontloaded Burst DMG, Mobility (as well as #JGL-Difference) and the ability to use those is the only thing that really matters.

That sounds like some Iron4 player - I'm well aware of that and it's really sad how true it is. The last time I could be happy to win a trade in midlane an use that to my advantage was around season 5!

Nowadays I dont trade - I 100-10 or even 100-0 my opponent - someone might call this a trade as well but.. come on...

Still you're not wrong. In an even midgame knowledge an basicly anything I called useless during early is ALOT more important - knowing how to get the objectives without being caught in rotation is most important skill during that time.

However.. that doesnt apply to a non even mid-game if one side already snowballed and that happens alot being good at thi stuff feels quite shit from time to time and really makes you wonder why you A) still play the game or B) not just use those snowballers as well.

Marshbouy1 votes

In early Mid-Lane: CS, Pokeing, Trading, Positioning, Wavecontroll and even Warding is basicly useless.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/027/475/Screen_Shot_2018-10-25_at_11.02.15_AM.png

Silly Neeko2 votes

Without game knowledge there can be no mechanics in all honesty. You NEED game knowledge in order to get the mechanics you need to play well.

Better reaction time has also always been key to being better, you dont need to persay be able to catch a speeding bullet kind of reflexes..... but you need to know what a person generally does, and what to use against certain things.... like if Yi is open and taken, you want to have a fairly reliable cc or two for your team. If you have a Yasuo on your team, you can work with him by picking Malphite, Janna, Braum, Alistar, Wukong, Orianna.... etc.

It is like learning to run before you walk. you just cant.

Psyrix2 votes

I kinda disagree with u... I understand most of what ur trying to get at, however it isn’t really what OP was getting at. Macrogame is the actual strategy: drafting a team comp, knowing when to push/shove and freeze, knowing when and how to rotate, when to take objectives, gaining and denying vision. Mechanics are based almost entirely on ur skill, positioning and reaction timing... CS does account for this as well as generally knowing the skills and cds of ur champ and the opponent, these are the microgame aspects. Macrogame is about strategy, microgame is more about mechanics.... lately however, with the damage creep, league has placed more emphasis on individual mechanics: who is able to kill and force the enemy out of lane. The macrogame strategy has become decided based on who is able to output more damage, and yes that is seemingly what always happened... however it used to have more of an element similar to chess... best recent example I can think of to showcase good macro is in Biofrost’s rookie split, tsm was able to overtake games sometimes with very few kills or even when falling behind in kills because they played a better macrogame.

Riot trying to decrease the length of games caused them to put more of an emphasis on snowballing... they did say they’re tying to drawback on the snowballing, but dmg creep actively works against this... and honestly some of it does come as a result of the runes: electrocute, conqueror and even Dark Harvest (tho less so now). Ignite needs a nerf... it got buffed to counter the ardent meta where healing and shielding was strong... those items were nerfed as well as healing/shielding in general, yet ignite hasn’t been touched as of yet. The fact it also procs electrocute makes it less fun.

Silly Neeko2 votes

What i am saying is, and this has been proven time and time again, just because you have kills does not mean you have the win. So many people lose simply because someone split push to their nexus and people were so caught up in killing the 4 people again, for the 10th time, that the one person then is allowed to end the game. Even still, except for in low ranked games where there is a fairly big flux in game knowledge AND mechanics, there is much fewer kills in a game generally. For example, the worlds stuff that we were forced to watch for rewards (which i wanted, so i watched some).... the kills in the games were a bit higher than what i heard they normally were in the past, but not dramatically like everyone seems to make it out to seem.

Also, my point is that the two are very closely related, but you cant really have good mechanics unless you have good game knowledge. Wave management and knowing when to leave and when to not, are part of the same boat. The way i think of it, think of the game knowledge as formulating the plan, and mechanics being the plan put into action. You know that Velkoz has a knock up that requires a ball of energy to make it to the circle on the ground, so you as Yasuo wind wall and block it and avoid the ability. if you did not know what the velkoz had, you could not tell if you should wind wall or not, or if it even is able to be wind walled.

Mechanics increase your game knowledge, and game knowledge is required to have something to use mechanics with.

That being said, i am saying that i find both highly valuable, but that you can not have one without the other. You said yourself that game knowledge and strategy is drafting a team comp for example.... and then you said that league has more emphasis on who is able to kill and force the enemy out of lane. How do they do this? They pick a champion that they feel works well for the situation, or that they are comfortable with. Those that beat the people out of lane, generally have fought against that matchup before. Thus, bringing their game knowledge and strategy's from other games, they show better mechanics and win the lane and force the enemy out.

There is no way to separate the two things. There can be no emphasis taken on either side of it, because you can not have mechanics without game knowledge, and the only way to have game knowledge but no mechanics is watching someone else be playing while you are not playing at all and then you join in the game with all this game knowledge...... but absolutely no clue how to apply it or when to apply it. However, once they start playing, they get mechanics right away. They may be bad and sloppy, but they get better because of the game knowledge and knowing what to practice on first.... what champ they may want to get better at first... etc. Like if a new player actually took the advice to go to a custom game and last hit with no items to try to get around 100ish in 10 mins. They would apply the game knowledge on how to get mechanics and then they would have that mechanic. People view less things as strategy and more of "what you should be doing anyways"...

Strategy: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

Killing the enemy adc, is in fact a strategy of Rengar's and Zeds for example. Then they kill whoever else. It is a plan, it is thought about, then it is put into action. They decide whether it is better to use their ulti to kill or not, if they should ignite or not, if they should flash for your death or not, etc. Usually this comes from hundreds of games with a certain champ to be very efficient with it. Further enforcing the fact that there can not be mechanics without game knowledge.

What you are refering to is more complex strategies, strategies that require multiple things going in a set way for the desired result, hopefully with steps that force the results to be the one desired.... which still work very well. For example the knock up comp of Malphite, Orianna, Wukong, Miss Fortune, and Yasuo for example... you see brute force, i see a well thought out plan that if executed could be very bad for the enemy team.

Psyrix1 votes

In this I agree very much with what ur saying, but there’s an additional facet, yes mechanics and game knowledge are intrinsically linked, however there’s also the fact that some people are better at 1 over the other. Killing is a strategy, yes... but lately it feels like the “only strategy”. And lol Yh, kinda weird to say about a game based on fighting but that’s where the point of dmg creep comes in. Dmg creep is what OP seems to be getting at imo. It often seems Riot is trying to go along the lines of “if everyone is strong/op then everyone is balanced”...rather than really focusing on the problematic champs/items/runes and nerfing them. The recent changes do feel along the right line of balancing the game (towers etc) and slowing down/managing the snowball.

LeeEstes1 votes

{quoted}

I kinda disagree with u... I understand most of what ur trying to get at, however it isn’t really what OP was getting at. Macrogame is the actual strategy: drafting a team comp, knowing when to push/shove and freeze, knowing when and how to rotate, when to take objectives, gaining and denying vision. Mechanics are based almost entirely on ur skill, positioning and reaction timing... CS does account for this as well as generally knowing the skills and cds of ur champ and the opponent, these are the microgame aspects. Macrogame is about strategy, microgame is more about mechanics.... lately however, with the damage creep, league has placed more emphasis on individual mechanics: who is able to kill and force the enemy out of lane. The macrogame strategy has become decided based on who is able to output more damage, and yes that is seemingly what always happened... however it used to have more of an element similar to chess... best recent example I can think of to showcase good macro is in Biofrost’s rookie split, tsm was able to overtake games sometimes with very few kills or even when falling behind in kills because they played a better macrogame.

Riot trying to decrease the length of games caused them to put more of an emphasis on snowballing... they did say they’re tying to drawback on the snowballing, but dmg creep actively works against this... and honestly some of it does come as a result of the runes: electrocute, conqueror and even Dark Harvest (tho less so now). Ignite needs a nerf... it got buffed to counter the ardent meta where healing and shielding was strong... those items were nerfed as well as healing/shielding in general, yet ignite hasn’t been touched as of yet. The fact it also procs electrocute makes it less fun.

Yes, I think you're wording pretty well what I'm getting at ^^" Thank you

Pandemic Punch2 votes

I think a lot of people in this thread are forgetting how bad someone's mechanics can be.

There are people who never took typing class or never adjusted to using a keyboard properly. Their fingers will miss the correct keys 50% or more of the time during fights. There are people who lose their cursor on the screen and can't use targeted abilities quick enough as a result. There are people who can only use mouse only. There are people who can only play on locked screen. There are people who can't multitask well enough to even look at the mini map.

This argument depends on the EXTENT of someone's mechanics + the EXTENT of someone's game knowledge. For Example:

Someone who is extremely good mechanically with Yasuo or Ekko but has poor game knowledge, should still EASILY be able to sweep through every division up to low Platinum. However, someone with high game knowledge but Iron 4 mechanics will struggle through the lower divisions because they will only be able to play champions who HIGHLY depend on the team. Imagine someone so bad that they actually MISS Janna shields or Soraka heals. Mechanics are far more important in this regard. It just depends on HOW BAD ARE THEY REALLY with mechanics?

LeeEstes1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pandemic Punch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PdnNgsG4,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2019-01-02T15:20:40.489+0000)

I think a lot of people in this thread are forgetting how bad someone's mechanics can be.

There are people who never took typing class or never adjusted to using a keyboard properly. Their fingers will miss the correct keys 50% or more of the time during fights. There are people who lose their cursor on the screen and can't use targeted abilities quick enough as a result. There are people who can only use mouse only. There are people who can only play on locked screen. There are people who can't multitask well enough to even look at the mini map.

This argument depends on the EXTENT of someone's mechanics + the EXTENT of someone's game knowledge. For Example:

Someone who is extremely good mechanically with Yasuo or Ekko but has poor game knowledge, should still EASILY be able to sweep through every division up to low Platinum. However, someone with high game knowledge but Iron 4 mechanics will struggle through the lower divisions because they will only be able to play champions who HIGHLY depend on the team. Imagine someone so bad that they actually MISS Janna shields or Soraka heals. Mechanics are far more important in this regard. It just depends on HOW BAD ARE THEY REALLY with mechanics?

This is kinda what I'm getting at yes. I would say my mechanics are below average. For example, I can only play with screen locked. I can't play without and attempts at trying didn't work. I can't play shooters because I cannot deal with a camera. I would say things like Zelda, breath of the Wild, is the maximum I'm able to do as a player. I'm not saying I deserve plat or anything, because I don't care (I have never finished my promos).

I was just indeed referring to the example you made with Yasuo and Ekko. They are mechanically better at the game but do not have the game knowledge, yet nowadays seem to reach higher. I'm the person that is indeed highly dependable on my team. That's fine, I know we have the argument; "If you can't carry, you don't deserve to win", but I'm a pretty good shotcaller and it felt like that used to be more effective in earlier seasons than it seems to be nowadays. And then I'm talking about low elo of course.

Hügö1 votes

Just ask yourself this question. Do you need game knowledge/decision making in a team deathmatch? Or do you just need to perma fight your enemy?

Lovelle1 votes

Riot has nerfed and/or removed a lot of defensive options/scaling over the years. This not only reduces strategic elements, but makes the game easier to get into and play (this one in particular is their primary aim imo).

This has also happened with some popular fighting games and MMOs, the removal/nerfing of defensive power to shorten the gap between veterans and newer players, which supposedly makes the game more appealing to a wider audience.

LeeEstes1 votes

{quoted}

Riot has nerfed and/or removed a lot of defensive options/scaling over the years. This not only reduces strategic elements, but makes the game easier to get into and play (this one in particular is their primary aim imo).

This has also happened with some popular fighting games and MMOs, the removal/nerfing of defensive power to shorten the gap between veterans and newer players, which supposedly makes the game more appealing to a wider audience.

That could very much be it yes, but sadly I'm probably not one of those wider audience then :') I like the strategic elements, and it just saddens me they at least seem/are reduced. And yes, I'm not a person who plays fighting games. I'm happily missing out on smash bros.

LeeEstes1 votes

I think an example of what I mean is a Rengar vs Janna matchup I was in. I could ping precisely where he was, I knew he was focusing me, I did shield and did stay away far from the bush. however if he ults and flashed and then kills me in 0.02 secs that I'm not the person who presses my Janna ult fast enough to knock him away, hence I end up dying even though I knew what was going to happen, yet mechanically wise I'm not fast enough. I'm not sure if this is a decent example but I hope it gives a better view of what I'm getting at

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