Riot: The community wants you to know, we want turrets stronger, not weaker.

diamondthree·Nov 12, 2015·710 votes·55,146 views

Title.

Am I right?

Edit: I appreciate all the attention this issue (and my thread ) is receiving. I would like to respond generally to some of the comments.

1: "I'd rather have them do more damage than be stronger." ----- I actually meant "stronger" in either sense. Higher damage, higher HP, more armor, what-have-you. The community clearly wants turrets to be more meaningful and difficult objectives. Exactly how they should become more meaningful, is widely debated.

2: "Speak for yourself, I like the weaker turrets." ----- I didn't create a poll, and don't have access to any actual polling data, but it seems pretty clear, anecdotally, that those who enjoy weaker turrets are in the minority. Sorry, friends. I posted this thread less than 24 hours ago and, as of this edit, it's the 66th most upvoted thread in the entire forums (33rd most in Gameplay). At this pace, it will eclipse the number 1 most upvoted thread in this entire forum archive in just 1 week, and that thread has existed over 4 months.

3: "We need smarter turrets with better aggro decision-making, not just buffs." ----- See 1. But yeah, personally, I think these turrets are dumb and could use some more IQ. The Alistar or Mundo turret-tanking-team-dives might be a cool play and all, but it just really seems more like an exploit than a tactic.

248 Comments

Packun FlowerNov 12, 2015111 votes

Riot: yeah but I don't think I've seen you in the LCS so we don;t care. Go buy some skins though, they are pretty neato.

XonraNov 12, 201533 votes

I've seen at least a handful of LCS players echoing the same sentiments. Riot is just putting their fingers in their ears going "lalalalala" until someone agrees with what they already think.

JAGMAGNov 12, 20153 votes

which ones? most pros i here want a more snowbally lane oriented game they want to be able to take your turret if you dare tp into another lane or roam to much and honestly with the tp nerfs hopefully you wont have 5 man party bot lane anymore

and honestly if your lane opponent can tower dive you kill you and get out you are either

mechanically bad and deserve to die
really far behind your opponent in which case...you deserve to die and lose if you can beat your opponent why should you be allowed to just sit under a turret for 30 mins till you've caught up

XonraNov 12, 201525 votes

I've heard nothing about "snowbally" in a positive way from anyone. What I've heard (or more specifically read more than heard) is that they are wanting more control over finishing the game. It was even brought up in the preseason 5.22 rundown about how games have turned into "get objective. Can't get objective? Stall until can get objective". Turrets being weaker isn't the issue, the fact is, Riot can't make up their mind if they want the pushing/sieging team to have an advantage, or give the advantage for a comeback and give waveclear mechanics.

I mean at the start of season 5 we heard everything from "snowballing is bad" then "we want to speed up games" and "we don't like such a split push heavy strategy" and a week later "we like split pushing as an alternate strategy and don't want to get rid of it". Riot is trying to toss everything in a mixing bowl and can't stop playing toss everything at a wall and see what sticks.

Towers being easy to take down and minions pushing harder just gives too much of an easy advantage. Now you either try to defend your tower (because you 100% are defending it and at no point the other way around) and chance getting dove, or just give up the tower not to die. It is a lose lose.

You are thinking really short-sighted by the way saying that if someone can dive you, that you are bad and deserve to die. That is the most clueless comment I have seen. The amount of champs (especially top laners and junglers) who can dive and get out is rather high. You don't have to be far behind to die just to a 2v1 dive. You could have the jungler come over the wall and simply not have time to react. I really hope to never have you on my team in any gamemode with your mentality, if that is really what you believe.

RISE Shlack123Nov 12, 20158 votes

"Snowbally" is the opposite of what anyone wants. The problem with eSports and the LCS is the fact that the games ARE snowbally to the point that once a team gets a lead by 10 minutes, their win percentage is insanely high. People don't like predictable outcomes and games that are basically decided by 10 minutes. They want games to have comeback opportunities and want to see wild upsets, but the way the game is now, the team with the lead early on still has a high probability of victory (in competitive play).

YormaughmNov 13, 20155 votes

So why does it look like the answer is to make what you said even more true at all levels of play?

It's like "hey teams ahead by 10 minutes usually win statistically," "Ok, well why don't we make sure teams ahead at 10 minutes are winning so hard that every game ends 10 minutes sooner?"

I mean at this point why not just come out with a game mode that's a time trial for gold? Like "game lasts 20 minutes, then ends, team with most gold wins." I'd say to factor kills into that equation too, but 99.9% of the time the team with the most kills will have the most gold, so that's really all it's about anyway.

TehoNov 13, 20157 votes

Most professional players where very uncomfortable with these changes aswell

LuggNov 12, 201547 votes

I don't mind that they are easier to take down. What needs to happen is that the damage is increased 25-50%. Fiddlesticks can dive turrets since they are so underpowered right now.

WooBeeWooNov 14, 20152 votes

I agree making them harder to take down I think would be annoying a sorta stall the game out (altough jinx trist bs is the worst). I just wish squishies had to be afraid of them

RandomoniumNov 12, 201537 votes

Agreed. Tower dives are really easy to execute and if you leave a tower alone for a couple seconds then it's gone.

Clockwork MouseNov 12, 201515 votes

Killed enemy ADC, got about 2500 GP, go to shop because i am scared of pushing when IDK where the jungler is. Before i get back into lane my turret is already gone because enemy jungler and enemy ADC decidedto just take it in that short amount of time. Going back to shop is such a risk now if you don't have someone to keep your turret safe.

ALanzoNov 13, 20156 votes

same happened to me. tp was down when i recalled and by the time i got back my tower was gone. (it was full when i left)

LlaniteNov 13, 20151 votes

Uh, you didnt have the gut to push, they did, and rewarded, so what is the problem again?

Clockwork MouseNov 13, 201514 votes

The problem is that a turret can be taken down in one push too easily.

CherysseNov 12, 201518 votes

Riot now only cares about money..

RendathNov 12, 201527 votes

Now? A for-profit company always cares about the money first and foremost...

OnanThaManNov 12, 20154 votes

But someone Like Bethesda/CD Projekt does a better job making us forget their first and foremost concern is turning a profit. Riot is a company and their main concern should be money but, to me i'm starting to regard them in the same light as Ubisoft, EA, and Activision.

And i haven't supported an Ubisoft or Activision game in years now, I bought Dragon Age Inquisition, but haven't touched an EA game since.

TolforNov 12, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=Onan the man99,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QXKFA2N0,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2015-11-12T14:12:31.275+0000)

But Bethesda cares about me!

HA HA HA

HA HA HA HA HA

Bethesda, the company that is known to consistently over-promise and under-deliver on almost all of their games, in an attempt to sell them on hype power?

Bethesda, the company that practically INVENTED the modern DLC model with its purchaseable horse armor in Oblivion?

If you want to criticize Riot, criticize Riot, but I would advise that you not become a fanboy for a COMPANY. None of them are your friends, and I really don't agree with you about Bethesda or CDPR somehow "Hiding" the fact that they're out to make money better than Riot does. Riot actually has notably good communication with its playerbase, and trying to tie current turret balance into some sort of money-grubbing scheme is a stupid and nonsensical argument in the first place.

OnanThaManNov 12, 20154 votes

Where in my statement did i say they care about me?

They release games that seem like a quality purchase to me, and sure enough when i have played Skyrim and The Witcher i had fun, which as of lately Riot is making me feel my time is better spent elsewhere instead of LoL.

I'm not so stupid to blindly buy into a game, I won't buy Battlefront at release, i didn't buy Halo 5, i probably won't with no split screen. the reason i stick around is because i have time invested in lol, but that will only keep me hooked for so long. I criticize because i care, whether a company will listen is up to them.

Hello I am BirdNov 12, 20158 votes

But the difference is they seem to only care about money now, or anything that makes them money. (LCS, Skins, ect...)

S H A Y C 0Nov 12, 201515 votes

and yet the game can still be played for free.....wierd [zombie-brand-mindblown]

Hello I am BirdNov 12, 20157 votes

Yeah, I don't exactly agree with the point. But I'm just trying to explain his intent c:

S H A Y C 0Nov 12, 201519 votes

I understand. These kids have trouble understanding the world and how it really works, which honestly is normal. For example, this very line of discussion.

"Riot is all about the money" Why are we talking about this like its bad? They are a for profit company whos sole intent is to make money. Mcdonalds is all about the money too, but nobody thinks thats bad? You got your first job as a cashier....what was that for i wonder? To serve people for the joy of it??? Uh, no! You wanted an xbox or a car and you went out to get money. All these things are fine.

But, as kids often do, they dont follow their observation through to its completion. Riot is seeking money, which leads them down roads that create content that pleases the people that will give it to them. Sometimes they think they know what it is we want from them and sometimes they misunderstand.

How could they possibly not understand that all this crit is not fun?

SIMPLE...have you ever read any of the arguments about champions balance? look up zed and lee sin...any argument around them is complete chaos. how on earth could they possibly reason out what really needs to be done when the community is split 6 ways from sunday? They are trying to freshen a stale environment, and maybe it isnt perfect...give it time and we will again have a more settled atmosphere. If you can learn to present your argument with less rage and emotion, and state your case rationally...Riot "the adults" are more likely to actually listen and think about what you have said.

Riot: yeah but I don't think I've seen you in the LCS so we don;t care. Go buy some skins though, they are pretty neato.

This is a prime example of presenting your concern in a fashion that makes adults filter you as white noise. If you want your words to be more than static you will have to change your approach.

EDIT: Every "you" in this post is a general or "royal" you and is not meant to point directly at anyone.

ChrisThePlebNov 12, 201515 votes

A for-profit company only cares about money. But a for-profit company that disregards its customers input and wants, when the companies whole product range revolves around customer satisfaction and wants, fails in the long run. Riot isn't in the oil business where they supply a product others "need". They're in the business of supplying a product it's consumers want and as a result in the long run will suffer if they don't provide consumers with wants.

Riot also isn't Vavle or Activision that, while sometimes pulling of some shady ass stuff, have the power to do this stuff because of what they offer beyond a single game.

S H A Y C 0Nov 12, 20156 votes

That is correct. But it is also no reason to get emotional about it. They are a business, and are allowed to fail if they choose to. Its not about "the integrity of the game" its about what Riot as a company feels is best for them. Disagree all you want, but the reason they do what they do, IS to please the largest group people possible. The outcome isnt always as intended, but the intent is still there. Make no mistake...they have their best interests at heart and are aware of everything you just said, but people and even companies will not always come to the same conclusion as you did for what "the best" thing will be.

GorgannanNov 13, 20154 votes

"ONLY CARES ABOUT MONEY."

no. Always cares about money, but doesn't ONLY care about money.

RISE Shlack123Nov 12, 20153 votes

Everyone understands that Riot is a for-profit company. But what people don't enjoy is how they are willing to let the quality of their game dwindle instead of investing some time into polishing parts of the game that have gone stale. Instead, Riot seems more focused on cramming out more new champions, skins, and eSports merch.

I don't begrudge Riot for making money - that's how economics work. But they should stay somewhat true to what made them successful in the first place - giving the community a good game and actually listening to feedback with true substance.

S H A Y C 0Nov 12, 20154 votes

Do you have a way to show this "overwhelming majority" ? As far as i could tell there was a lot of crying out for team builder ranked and a solution to afk's feeders, etc. And it appears, whether you like the solution or not, that they did listen and implemented something new and fresh that appears to in someway address the needs of the community. So other than, their recent patch that has been live for one day...what is it they are ignoring? Reacting within minutes of people being upset with change can result in nothing or terrifying situations. Imagine that Abraham lincoln subsided to all the uproar initially when he proposed abolishing slavery. What would today look like? What about the airplane? If all the cant be done's and shouldnt be dones, and you should do what we thinkers had their way...we would never have achieved so much. So instead of drawing out such dire conclusions and assuming when a post gets 1k upvotes that is "overwhelming majority" btw, not even close, lets just calm down and give them a minute.

ArakadiaFeb 26, 20162 votes

"Riot is all about the money" Why are we talking about this like its bad? They are a for profit company whos sole intent is to make money. Mcdonalds is all about the money too, but nobody thinks thats bad? You got your first job as a cashier....what was that for i wonder? To serve people for the joy of it??? Uh, no! You wanted an xbox or a car and you went out to get money. All these things are fine.

Its not bad their all about the money. Its bad their having the greed take over the game. S5 was much more balanced then now imo, and the game appears to be going downhill.

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20155 votes

Correction: Low elo players who don't understand the game want turrets stronger. The ramifications of such a change never even cross their minds.

KaishaNov 12, 201535 votes

Your implication that ELO correlates to IQ is ridiculous and trivially refuted.

Slamurai JackNov 12, 201514 votes

If you actually understood this game, you wouldn't be low elo. That's not towards you specifically, but to this community in general. The biggest thing separating good and bad players in this game has always been and will always be game knowledge. People think it's mechanics but this game is honestly not that hard from a mechanical perspective. People can reach high diamond with only 1 hand, for example. But you cannot reach high diamond without having good game knowledge: when to rotate, when to pressure, when you can all in, when you're likely to be ganked, knowing your teams win condition, when to go for objectives like Baron or Dragon, when to roam and where, etc. You are never being held back by your mechanics unless they are atrociously bad. You're definitely being held back by your own lack of knowledge, and by extension, your bad decision making.

BetaDude40Nov 12, 20159 votes

Or, you know, not wanting to go through the almost literal hell that is solo queue in the first place.

Like, seriously, I would rather go back in time and be part of the assault on D-Day rather than try to climb any higher in ranked. Any fun that is to be had is nullified by feeders, trolls, AFKs, obnoxious duos, first-time champion players, and so forth. And then when you finally climb to the next division (so I've heard), it's barely different from the last.

I don't care that if I play often enough, I will eventually climb. I don't want to subject myself to torture. Many people are talking about how Solo Queue will be dead in preseason. To me, it's always been dead.

RendathNov 12, 20151 votes

True that about first-time champion players. I've been wondering how this could be fixed. It's not fun learning a new champion against bots. If only there was a way to be matched with lower ELO when I'm new on a champ.

Need Gold 4 TentNov 12, 20155 votes

Do it in normals. I for one will not complain about a first time Ashe going 0/5 in lane (considering how weak she is now lel). If one were to follow the expectations of the general community of "GO PLAY BOTS", I expect the skill level of this game to decrease over the years. Seriously, not even a brain dead player would stay around and let you gank through lane by just walking in calmly, without flash or anything, and just starting the fight to get a double kill.

A sandbox mode for mechanics practice on the other hand... well, Riot doesn't want to implement that for some reason.

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20154 votes

What makes you think Ashe is weak?

Need Gold 4 TentNov 12, 20152 votes

She lost a lot of damage in exchange for some added utility, but this meta is about who kills who in 2 seconds, not long drawn out fights that that kind of utility would be useful for.

Her new steroid is unreliable in short fights, at least until Runaan's, which as I mentioned earlier is more likely than a long poke war with all the high damage flying about. You can pretty much get away with running an assassin heavy comp when the tanks are now unable to tank properly to protect their squishies.

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20153 votes

Ashe didn't lose any damage; I don't know what you're talking about.

Need Gold 4 TentNov 12, 20152 votes

Losing the ability to crit for damage is big considering now everything has crit for on them.

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20154 votes

You misunderstand the changes friend. Her damage works exactly as it did before, merely the way her slow works and her Q were changed. If you actually play her, you'll notice that rather quickly.

BetaDude40Nov 13, 20152 votes

Dude

Is it even possible to be this blatantly wrong?

I...

I need to sit down... This is too much for me...

Slamurai JackNov 13, 20154 votes

Have you actually played Ashe at all this patch? Because I have. And it is literally the exact same as it was last patch. She still does more damage to enemies affected by frost shot and that damage is increased by crit chance, just like the last patch. The only difference is that it's not officially considered a crit. But you still do exactly the same damage with the same stats as you did last patch.

JAGMAGNov 12, 20153 votes

exactly i have a 142 IQ yet im B4 -.- fml

NakedGrannyNov 12, 20154 votes

IQ is only loosely correlated with intelligence*

*for some definitions of intelligence

RISE Shlack123Nov 12, 20154 votes

So you just blindly bash over 50% of the game's community to serve what purpose?

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20154 votes

Considering that low elo players constantly clamor for changes that would ruin the game in both high elo and professional play just to make their own bad play less punishing, I feel obligated to speak out against them. Making towers noticeably stronger would warp the game in a very negative way at higher levels of play and shouldn't be done despite the protestations of people who think that their towers should be invulnerable bastions of safety.

TraxinatorNov 13, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QXKFA2N0,comment-id=000500040000,timestamp=2015-11-12T19:45:53.597+0000)

Considering that low elo players constantly clamor for changes that would ruin the game in both high elo and professional play just to make their own bad play less punishing, I feel obligated to speak out against them.

So are you saying that it's also Rammus Ok for high elo/professional players to ask for changes that would ruin the game for low elo players?

DeynaTaggerungNov 12, 20151 votes

I think that going off that logic then low elo players would think turrets are strong enough as is because at low elo turret dives fail 80% of the time. But once you get into higher elo play they become more frequent and are more often successful. The ramifications for people playing the game well would mean that when the jungler comes at level 3 he can't chase down a kill under the turret. And moving on the coordination required to pull off a successful turret dive would need to be greater. This would requre more skill and choice rather than "oh he's low let's just dive". And considering lots of champs have some way to drop turret aggro dives might be more limited to a specific sort of comp that can effectively do so. All this seems to add more meaningful choice. And at lower levels this would allow people to have some real safety under their turrets(at least early) and would help them be more successful by covering up some minor weaknesses.

That logic aside, the reason everyone is hating on your post is because you didn't actually input anything meaningful to the discussion. You didn't say why this would be bad for the game, you didn't try to enlighten us low elo plebs why our reasoning was wrong. You just told everyone they sucked and signed out >.<

Slamurai JackNov 12, 20153 votes

The difference between a low elo player and a high elo player is that, whole both get dived, they'll have very different reactions when they die. Low elo players will blame the shitty tower for them dying. High elo players will blame themselves for taking the bad trades that got them low enough to dive in the first place, as well as not respecting their opponents threat to dive.

However, if it's actual reasons you're looking for as to why stronger towers are a bad idea, I can give you those too. Since stronger towers mean that tower dives are riskier and often no longer possible in certain situations, it affects the game in a few distinct ways. The first is that bad rotational play is no longer nearly as punishing for the defending team. The second is that early game champions are pushed out of the meta while late game champs happily farm under their tower whenever they're threatened. The third is that teams with lots of AOE waveclear can very easily stall whenever they're behind and often when severely outnumbered as well. The fourth is that split pushing as a strategy will become nearly impossible if you can reasonably send just 1 person to deal with the split pusher and hold them at bay.

All stronger tower really does is inhibit playmaking, which is not something Riot wants and it's not something we should want either. If you're up 10k gold at 30 minutes, you should be able to five their inhib tower 5v5 and win. If you make a good rotation and catch out someone under their tower 3v1, you should be able to pull off that dive, even at low level. If you've been bullying your lane opponent hard and they're just cowering under their tower, you should be able to attempt a dive with a reasonable chance of success, especially if their key cooldowns or summoners are down. You need to give players opportunities to push their advantages and gain greater leads. Towers can be a deterrent to such action, but they should not be a complete brick wall to playmaking.

kaellidorNov 13, 20154 votes

if you are up 10k gold a stronger tower wouldn't stop a fed riven or LB from destroying someone and getting out. I feel your argument is in a way supporting making pro play easier, not more strategic and rewarding.