Does Riot -actually- care about the quality of LoL?

EinarUlfar·Jan 9, 2017·66 votes·2,507 views

This game used to be oodles of fun with strategic dueling. Now it's League of Explosions and Fast Games. First lead tends to mean first win.

Many say it's because Riot only cares for LCS hype and** $$$$$**. Kinda plausible given they don't seem to care about the absurd damage creep and how disgusting FirstTowerBlood into Dragon tends to sway the game (not to mention the potential double kill).

Do they genuinely care about the quality of this game? It feels like they want to shape the game into whatever vision they have at that current point-in-time without considering/caring to adjust the surrounding potentially-effected factors. )= Maybe I'm overlooking something, but holywow it's really looking, to me, like the biggest mess its ever been.

87 Comments

MasterChief107Jan 9, 201722 votes

They don't seem to care about what the common League player wants. They focus mainly on what they can do to make an improvement in pro play and like you said, ways to make more money. So I would say they don't care about the quality any more. [zombie-nunu-tears]

AnidanJan 9, 201711 votes

If this were true, wouldn't Heimer have been buffed by now so that he was competitively viable? People keep saying they only balance for pro play, but frankly that's bullshit or they wouldn't remove or nerfs things the community thought was 'anti-fun' because they were simply too lazy to work around it.

DotA2 is balanced for pro play; League is balanced by a combination of pro play and casual play. Only a selective bias will lead you to believe otherwise.

Papa SlothyJan 10, 20174 votes

don't forget that DOTA 2 is also wildly imbalanced because of catering to pros

AnidanJan 10, 20173 votes

The lower MMR pubs? Sure. But that gives them something to grow into rather than letting everyone know that they can whine and moan until they get their way in terms of balance just because they don't like something. IceFrog doesn't care if you don't like something - if it's balanced, it will stay.

Papa SlothyJan 10, 20173 votes

I agree with that mentality, but I doubt a lot of the league community would last if riot actually catered to pros

AnidanJan 10, 20173 votes

I personally doubt the community would appreciate that, too. Mostly because they're used to being catered to and just don't realize it. If that were to stop it'd be very, very bad for them. I personally prefer DotA2's balancing and, as a result I prefer the game itself anymore, but League is a still a nice game to occasionally look at and talk to people on. My friends prefer League still and that is what it is, so I keep up with the balance changes and check in to see what the community is like.

Going from MOBA to MOBA, you start to get a good perspective on what each one does and how they respond to community input. In DotA2's case, they might use it to look into something, but if IceFrog finds that the statistics show that it's balanced and pro players agree that it's balacned then the odds are very low that the community will get what it wants, and they've gotten more used to that. In League, they take a lot of value in player input (even if the community disagree with what a 'a lot' means) and so some balance changes are made specifically with casual play in mind, without regard to competitive. Hence why some champions like Tryndamere and Heimer will probably never see any pro play unless major changes happen to them.

Papa SlothyJan 10, 20172 votes

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, very in depth

idontgiveabotherJan 9, 20179 votes

Its actually quite disappointing. The one game I love and the one game I actually play is the one game that really feels the most poorly managed. Don't get me wrong I enjoy pro play but thats the "1%" of league players. What about everyone else? I guess the big ass majority doesn't matter compared to some money. Or at least it seems that way.

RalanrJan 9, 20177 votes

Of course they do, but they are also a business that's the livelihood of a lot of people

So they have to make profitable decisions. If they didn't care then they'd probably whore themselves out to a bunch of apps or actually give people advantages for paying with money (making the game p2w).

I'm talking like having runes be purchasable through RP stupidity.

Is Riot perfect? Hell no. But they're not bad.

Subject 5Jan 9, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Of course they do, but they are also a business that's the livelihood of a lot of people

So they have to make profitable decisions. If they didn't care then they'd probably whore themselves out to a bunch of apps or actually give people advantages for paying with money (making the game p2w).

I'm talking like having runes be purchasable through RP stupidity.

Is Riot perfect? **** no. But they're not bad.

Riot is slowly becoming like Blizzard in due time, they are making very similar decisions that lead to the fall of WoW; matter of fact, aren't they owned by the same company that completely fucked WoW in the ass?

RalanrJan 9, 20171 votes

Idk. Does Tencent have a history with Blizzard?

Subject 5Jan 9, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Idk. Does Tencent have a history with Blizzard?

Not sure, I just know that Tencent runs popular games into the ground; they are only concerned with money and that's about it. For real though- there is a TON of misinformation about Tencent being related to Blizzard.

LAKIGRJan 9, 20172 votes

Pretty sure your thinking about ghostcrawler, the guy that most WOW plays say ruined the game and who now works for riot

ModAcademy KaynJan 10, 20173 votes

Ghostcrawler is really just the scapegoat for the communities hate, since he was the one who most actively communicated with them.

GayFluffyUnicornJan 10, 20173 votes

Well but his communication shows it is not unreasonable to blame him. "melees are all boring and need no mechanics nor skill, every melee fight is mundo vs shyvana. " "ranged are exciting, need lots of skill hurr durr".

RalanrJan 10, 20173 votes

Well he had a point when it came to melee stat checking. A lot of fights in top lane can basically boil down to who has the better stats to trade with, leaving little room for outplay potential in the past.

IMO it's getting better (in a 1v1 as Darius vs Riven with a friend, I definitely felt like there was more outplaying than stat checking because we went pretty even) but it's still noticeable at times. Even in champions designed to be more for outplaying (Camille has a lot of outplay potential in her kit but also has really high stats right now. Dueling with her is actually rather fun, but it's not fun fighting against her. Especially when you don't have comparable outplay potential).

Honestly with how melee and ranged works in this game, it's clear that there needs to be some changes in order to make things less stats focused and more outplay focused. I think their ideal game is one where even the most fed character has counterplay that can be exploited.

PermabannedGarenJan 9, 20175 votes

[{quoted}](name=Subject 5,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Qqgl6oNg,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-01-09T17:19:26.116+0000)

Riot is slowly becoming like Blizzard in due time, they are making very similar decisions that lead to the fall of WoW

People need to stop acting like WoW is dead when it's still the most-played MMO in the world.

RalanrJan 9, 20173 votes

Compared to nostalgia, everything is dead.

Earl EulrichJan 9, 20176 votes

or like it´s a bad game, it still is the best game Blizzard is currently running.

I don´t support Blizzard anymore because they started making crappy "casual" games like Hearthstone and Hots when their core audience for years had been used to their high quality "geek" games like WoW and Starcraft.

And that´s the similarity between Riot and Blizzard actually...both seem to have forgotten that what made them big in the first place had been people that actually wanted to get invested in the games they played.

EinarUlfarJan 9, 20176 votes

I get making changes from a business perspective, but the meta and the game itself has become stale beyond belief. At least in a part of S5, most champions were relatively viable and the diversity of the Jungle picks was also pretty great.

The game is currently little more than a race-to-bot-lane with hasty explosions followed by a steamroll down x lane.

EinarUlfarJan 9, 20175 votes

I do give them credit. They've done an incredible job, of course, because I can't ever put League down regardless of how much some of the changes in the game irk me as time goes on.

It's just so painful to watch the game sit in the state it's in. When problems are obvious, Riot doesn't always address them - or they appear to perceive them in a different way, proposing some of the oddest changes that don't..always work out for the best. That isn't to say I don't applaud them for experimenting, but it's confusing to me.

aspects1Jan 10, 20173 votes

they dont care about the game, they do what they want to it to get the most profit, apparently, a super snowbally meta with a ton of damage creep is how to get $$$$

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

But the game is free, the runes mastered and champions are free, everything is free except the skins... I'm so sick of you guys saying that when basically the whole game is free, for fucks sake you can be a pro at this game and never spend a dime, and now you can also get every single skin for free from chests as well, but all they care about is money eight, even though literally the WHOLE game is free. You gotta be ducking kidding me with this logic man

aspects1Jan 10, 20178 votes

the game itself is free, but riot only makes balance favor lcs, because they make money of that for example a rioter specifically said leesin would never be out of meta because they want him to be viable for lcs

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

No the whole game is free, name one thing that isn't free in league and what does lee son have to do with spending money on the game

Edit, also they base balance off lcs cause most of them know their shit

aspects1Jan 10, 20175 votes

its not fun to play an unbalanced game riot should be trying to improve its player experience, but it only listens to numbers

GayFluffyUnicornJan 10, 20175 votes

That's really the biggest grudge i hold against riot. You'll never hear: yeah we heard the community, especially master tier+ is unsatisfied with XY. All you hear is: our data shows our statistics shows Which could mean anything.

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

If they only listen to numbers then why even bother making the game free anymore just make then pay for all of it for a monthly fee

aspects1Jan 11, 20171 votes

then no one would play, its not like its an exceptional game, its just a really good free game

SeaGodUrronuosJan 11, 20171 votes

Actually that's subjective, in pretty sure millions would call it the best game while. People like you are like eh, I can't control the game at will so its eh. At least riot most of the time listens to the reasonable side of the community, aka not you guys on here shut posting the whole time about a game THEY MADE and you have no right to play in the first place, they just make it so people like me and anyone else can enjoy it while people like you complain about not being a God on league and control everything on here

ShaolinToiletJan 10, 20171 votes

IMO time is money. Making me grind for runes and champions is a waste of my time.

SeaGodUrronuosJan 11, 20171 votes

Then don't play Ggez

GayFluffyUnicornJan 10, 20174 votes

You do realize pro play and casual play (even in master/challenger) is different from one another? Balancing around pro play is what brought us the current stupid meta. To prevent lane swaps they changed turrets which affects soloQ so hard that high elo games (master/challenger) end at 15 mins sometimes whereas pro play has no issue turteling for 20 mins to farm up which we have seen for a long time now. And i bet my sweet %%%got ass that riot changed the jungler solely for the LCS so more ganks happen and it's more exciting for the autistic bronze community watching these games because apparently they fell asleep when they have to use their brain and watch strategic gameplay instead of CoD clownfiestas in moba setting.

EinarUlfarJan 10, 20173 votes

{quoted}

But the game is free, the runes mastered and champions are free, everything is free except the skins... I'm so sick of you guys saying that when basically the whole game is free, for fucks sake you can be a pro at this game and never spend a dime, and now you can also get every single skin for free from chests as well, but all they care about is money eight, even though literally the WHOLE game is free. You gotta be ducking kidding me with this logic man

Every thread I see you in, you make an effort to respond to a post with the most garbled, incomprehensible comment. Not to be rude, but it's rather evident that you misunderstand what someone is trying to say - as a whole - in their posts. (Or you're just a troll) While this is okay, to an extent, you don't have to respond in such an indecent way.

To provide some clarity, I'm worried about a game I love very much because throughout it's rollercoaster of changes, it has felt - personally - as though it has been on a decline for some time. Coming from a company (Riot Games) that promotes the idea of diversity within League of Legends, this is very concerning to me. The game and meta are quite stale, and the games on the Rift aren't exactly overflowing with a diverse multitude of strategic duels, comebacks, and team compositions.

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

[deleted]

Subject 5Jan 10, 20174 votes

{quoted}

You ever think maybe English is my second language dickhead, also I'm on a phone that has bullshit autocorrect. And someone said riot only cares about the money, so I replied with no because literally the whole game is free, how is that misunderstanding anything that he said what so ever

It is possible to make more money off of a free product than a product that people need to pay 60 USD for; this has proven itself considering LoL has made more money than every other game I even know about. The game is free in the sense that a P2W game is free; even if everything mechanically in the game can be bought with enough time:

300 games for 1 30K IP rune page 70 Games for 1 7300 Champion 150 Games for the CHEAPEST rune page Additional runepage is about 70 or less games.

I can go on but I would also like to give another example: Do you know another F2P game? Planetside 2. It takes about 300 hours of time to get one gun, if that gun is even slightly ok. But the gun is 5 dollars, so why not pay for that instead? Like- I totally get that the game is F2P- yeah, you can unlock everything- but I've played this game since season 3.

I've spent:

1.783 Hours in-game Which is total to 74 Days of playing non-stop, no sleep- eating- drinking.

And I only own several rune pages, I don't own every champion and I am dirt ass poor when it comes to IP because like I said- I am still trying to get runes and rune pages; because I am at an inherent disadvantage when I am forced into a role I don't have a runepage for. I have rune pages for specialties and generalized runepages- but it isn't enough. It really isn't okay in a ranked enviornment- if everybody were able to play ranked with the same advantages and disadvantages- it would take about 4-5 years for them to even be able to play ranked. (Because then they will own all of the champions/runes/Runepages.)

Do you really think if I set up a lemonade stand right beside the "free jump roping sessions" is going to be free? Fuck no, they can jump rope all they want. They can pay for my delicious ass lemonade and lick my fingers- if they don't like the lemonade FUCK THEM. Because the 1% pay more than the 99% of the people that come to my business.

General Esdeath Jan 10, 20172 votes

Runes are free

Sure...free. This is called Freemium. It's "free" because you can spend 30 days on the game for runes or save the IP by purchasing champs and buying IP boosts with real money.

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

Yea if you want to spend money from your mothers credit card that's fine, but make sure she knows that even with it you still suck at the game

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

I swear man all the people on this thread are whiney crybaby if you don't like the game then quit otherwise shut the fuck up and play without whining about a bunch of thing that you bandwagon on.

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

Riot has already put in serious nerfs for the jungle being too meta and learn shit before you shit post for something they are already changing in the next patch idiot, and the people I swear idiots come in groups now a days its disgusting

General Esdeath Jan 10, 20174 votes

Man you're sitting here whining to yourself LOL

SeaGodUrronuosJan 10, 20171 votes

People like you make this game trash Your not worth my time

General Esdeath Jan 10, 20172 votes

I don't intentionally feed, I don't troll, nor do I flame and use hate speech. I don't think I'm making the game trash. Maybe that's toxic people like you :)

EinarUlfarJan 9, 20172 votes

I've only been around since S5 (which I loved, personally), but I heard in the old days / old seasons, it was very evident that Riot cared deeply for their community. Assuming I heard right, when did that change?

Earl EulrichJan 10, 20177 votes

i´d say quality went (slowly) downhill when morello switched from lead design to R&D and Meddler took over.

Though for things like this to blame it all on one person is a bit much...i guess there had been other changes aswell that weren´t as public.

GayFluffyUnicornJan 10, 20173 votes

I think it changed around s3-s4. I can't specifically say why, maybe tencent, maybe the answer from Don Eulrich. Maybe the LCS growing more and more popular.

WolfeurJan 10, 20172 votes

Nostalgia goggles. I've been there since season 1, the game just keeps getting better. And Riot is deeply attached to their community, even if they don't always look like it. They could do so much less for the game yet we keep getting reworks, new champs, music, cinematics, short stories and art, all for free, plus the board game, the art book, the skins, Riot trying to communicate better (we can at least appreciate the try).

People just don't like change and remember their early days as the best ones.

Dabrick01Jan 10, 20174 votes

As Companies get bigger, not trying to release information can sometimes blend with not communicating. I feel like they'll get better liek you said, though and I hope they really try.

Earl EulrichJan 9, 20171 votes

If they cared about LCS they probably would keep it strategic, as that would keep more viewers long term...watching one onesided game after another gets boring pretty fast. So i don´t think that is a valid concern.

And i don´t see any reasons they wouldn´t care, as its sort of the only thing right now that earns them money.

So in conclusions it´s not that they don´t care - it´s just that they don´t have any idea how to make it right ever since S3 ended.

EinarUlfarJan 9, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Don Eulrich,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Qqgl6oNg,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2017-01-09T22:43:55.177+0000)

If they cared about LCS they probably would keep it strategic, as that would keep more viewers long term...watching one onesided game after another gets boring pretty fast. So i don´t think that is a valid concern.

And i don´t see any reasons they wouldn´t care, as its sort of the only thing right now that earns them money.

So in conclusions it´s not that they don´t care - it´s just that they don´t have any idea how to make it right ever since S3 ended.

You've got a good point there. I always viewed it as, "A lot of viewers get excited over the flashy/fast/explosive plays, so screw trying to fix damage creep."

What was S3 like in comparison to the later seasons? (if you don't mind explaining, I wasn't around then) Veteran S1 friend of mine swears S3 was the best, so I'm intrigued to more-or-less hear that remark again. (=