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Games are Snowballing too Easily/Quickly; very noticeable in LCS, kinda makes it boring, gimmicky

diamondlight·1/16/2016, 8:41:11 AM·116 votes·6,605 views

Watching LCS in EU and asia I have noticed it, and in my own games I have noticed it. The game has become TOO snowbally. You get a few turrets down and your minion waves keep pressure for you allowing you to roam very easily.

Before this minion strengthening stuff, you could bounce a wave and the other team had to deal with it, lose potential gold, or lose pressure. The tighter you did the bounce (minimize the differential between ally and minion waves to build up slowly into a huge wave rather than fast push), the more you could time the minion wave crashing into their base as a mega wave. This isn't possible as a losing team ever now.

Now, if you are the team that is behind, you can't bounce a wave hardly at all, so the enemy team that is ahead in a lot of ways has a free mini-zzrot built into the minions, the bounced wave gets neutralized by minions rather than champions.

I think the end result is that the game has lost some strategy, come from behind, and recourse; once you build a lead, it's SO MUCH EASIER to keep the lead. Watching LCS it actually was pretty boring. It reminded me of earlier seasons that could be very snowbally, like feed an assassin: ff@20. That disappeared, and it got competitive, but now it seems to have returned but for a different reason.

91 Comments

Nogrim1/16/2016, 9:20:55 AM22 votes

this season has made me not want to bother playing, as far as i am concerned Riot is the reason im going to give smite a second chance.

Xelvi1/16/2016, 3:28:46 PM21 votes

This season is horrible, honestly.

diamondlight1/16/2016, 9:10:42 AM21 votes

Average game went down from 35 mins to 30 mins. I am talking about snowballing and loss of strategy.

62 minute games were... pretty damn rare, and well sucks to lose them, what a relief to win. That's not what Riot was addressing, they were addressing 45 minute games, and honestly 5th dragon was rare.

The minon waves auto-push, the turrets are weaker and easier to kill. So now, you take down all the Tier 1's, you do one teamfight, if you win, you get baron and you end game in 25 minutes. I wish I was exaggerating. Who cares about dragon? No one. Not when you can end the game at 25 mins just by taking down turrets and having minions consta-push every lane.

Earl Eulrich1/16/2016, 12:45:30 PM11 votes

yea, really sucks right now - and Riot is still acting as if everything is alright in their patchnotes and memos.

If this goes on they will crash into a massive wall with their game - aswell as with the esports they invested so much into. Most players are into this game and esports because of the strategic elements, not because they want to brawl around for 10-15min and then one side just closes out their early advantage. If i want a 15min Brawler i play SupperSmashBrothers, far better game for that.

LankPants1/16/2016, 12:22:07 PM8 votes

I've said it before and I'll say it again, even if Riot wanted shorter games they shouldn't have touched death timers. I feel like this is a large part of the reason why it feels so hard to come back at least in non-competitive games. People get picked at 30 minutes and you have 50 seconds of no map pressure. Not to mention how much it sucks to die for 50 seconds at 30 minutes. That's my opinion anyway.

YossarianSensei1/16/2016, 11:52:42 PM5 votes

game doesn't feel like League anymore

It feels a lot like Heroes of the Storm and that game is terrible. Yet at this point I might as well go back to playing HoTS because at least they dont have Dynamic Queue anymore

Jasiwel1/16/2016, 9:53:02 PM5 votes

I'm just a bit surprised Riot is already planning to start Season 6 in just a week...like have they not seen the instability in the game right now? Why is it cool to watch every game become a stomp at high ELO? At low to average ELO, sure, come backs happen more now than when Pre-Season started...but high ELO is still controlled by moments of utter stomps and it feels like the first 10-15 minutes were about as eventful as the first 3/4 of a basketball game. Then some games end at 15 minutes and the remainder of the match is just a 10+ minute death animation for the losing team.

Middle and ADC lanes are being dominated by a fistful of champions. Top lane sees diversity when the meta picks are banned (almost mandatory) every game. The jungle has the potential for a lot of diversity...but why would I pick anything other than Lee Sin/Vi/Rek'Sai/Kindred/Nidalee? Those champions literally cover every base you would ever need at High ELO where players care more about who has less counterplay than who is fun. Support might arguably be the only role that isn't outright dominated by certain champions.

Riot, as much as I'd love to see the new Season begin, you need another patch cycle to sort through some of the current issues. You did a wonderful job in Season 5 in terms of allowing diversity into the game...but now that feels as if it was just an allowance and not an intention.

We, the spectators, want to see games that leave us excited and inspired. We don't want games where we know the likely winners within the first 10 minutes.

We, the players, want to play games that feel meaningful and reflect our skill, not reflect the snowballing effects of the current meta.

Metleon1/17/2016, 4:59:48 AM3 votes

The main thing I've noticed is that you immediately lose any kind of vision control after your outer turrets go down. Since you can't by Stealth Wards, the best way to gain vision has been to simply take towers. You're now left trying to ward your own jungle as well as river to spot dragon or baron attempts while the enemy can simply ward river. And if they clear some of your wards, it can be difficult to get them back up as pretty much only the support will have any way to ward outside of a CD based Trinket.

CrazedPorcupine1/17/2016, 1:55:27 AM3 votes

I personally think that Buying a Zz'rot and a Banner of Command, and putting them both into a single lane wouldn't be a bad move right now. You have a constant form of counterpush in a single lane for 3 minutes helping prevent a slow push in a single lane.

pE4CbxDPQO1/16/2016, 9:00:56 AM3 votes

Good. 45-55 minute games are the worst. I'd like games to be 14-27 minutes personally. Too emotionally draining if you are on the losing end of a 62 minute, 4th baron, 7th dragon, omg malphite whiffed his marathonfest.

TonyTonyMordecai1/17/2016, 8:04:41 AM2 votes

This literally happened when I watched team liquid (I think) this afternoon, and it was the dumbest thing to watch. It was like watching people trying to play with 300 ping. They took a tower at 3 minutes, then another tower a minute later. Only one kill happened for how much I watched, but I was getting frustrated with how little killing and action was happening. I expect more from E-Sports.

Mr Vulcanator1/16/2016, 9:06:28 PM2 votes

Yep. Then it's just both teams hovering around one turret until someone gets caught out a little to far and then their team gets demolished in the ensuing chaos.

Dishcandanty1/17/2016, 5:06:25 AM2 votes

Kinda miss old season. been playing new patch for months... miss old one still

Erockandroll1/16/2016, 3:43:27 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=II kOS II,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PlIXEBsm,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-01-16T08:41:11.663+0000)

Watching LCS in EU and asia I have noticed it, and in my own games I have noticed it. The game has become TOO snowbally. You get a few turrets down and your minion waves keep pressure for you allowing you to roam very easily.

Before this minion strengthening stuff, you could bounce a wave and the other team had to deal with it, lose potential gold, or lose pressure. The tighter you did the bounce (minimize the differential between ally and minion waves to build up slowly into a huge wave rather than fast push), the more you could time the minion wave crashing into their base as a mega wave. This isn't possible as a losing team ever now.

Now, if you are the team that is behind, you can't bounce a wave hardly at all, so the enemy team that is ahead in a lot of ways has a free mini-zzrot built into the minions, the bounced wave gets neutralized by minions rather than champions.

I think the end result is that the game has lost some strategy, come from behind, and recourse; once you build a lead, it's SO MUCH EASIER to keep the lead. Watching LCS it actually was pretty boring. It reminded me of earlier seasons that could be very snowbally, like feed an assassin: ff@20. That disappeared, and it got competitive, but now it seems to have returned but for a different reason.

I don't actually feel that to be the case though. Granted that the pushing power of the minions help them close out games, it also prevents them from freezing the lane. So they can't actually starve you out. The change was designed to be helpful for both sides.

As for game length. I'd have no problem with shorter game averages. (I thought most games were too long anyways.) Yet they should adjust Dragon as well as hyper carries to compensate for these changes. (Otherwise, the games, like they are now, will be about snowballing.)