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Ghostcrawler balances the game around pro-play, and does a horrendous job at it.

KING XXXI·7/17/2018, 4:33:29 PM·44 votes·9,947 views

What everyone seems to be complaining about right now is the fact that solo queue is a gigantic mess, and that Riot's intentions are solely to balance pro-play.

But Ghostcrawler's incompetence doesn't stop there, no. The thing that everyone seems to be ignoring right now is that, at the expense of the entire rest of the player base, he's completely and absolutely garbaging pro-play.

All Ghostcrawler ever cares about is flashy plays. Gotta get that solo kill every game! Am I right fellas?! And everyone cheers at Riot for how much of a creative genius he is.

Oh? The more flashy solo kills the better! Let's make it so that flashy plays are so easy to get so that we can have flashy plays every game! More flashy plays means our viewers will be excited and our viewership will skyrocket! Flashy plays flashy plays flashy plays every game!!

But look at the health of the pro-play scene. Viewership is plummeting, people are not caring about the game.

The reason solo kills back then were so exciting is because they were so rare, there were times when players would go hundreds of games without getting solo killed, so when it actually happened it blew you away.

Now Riot crams it in our faces every game because they want exciting flashy games every game. The problem with making solo kills so easy to obtain is that people start to not care.

It's sort of like inflation, the more kills that are in the game, the less value they have on the viewer.

They've made damage so high that the only thing that matters right now is flashy plays for the first 15 minutes, and when everyone's had their fun, just quickly end the game so that they can move onto the next. This is clearly evident by the fact that turrets get weaker and weaker the closer they are to the nexus.

Ghostcrawler, I watch pro-play for the strategic and teamwork value of the game. You suck at balance and need to be fired ASAP before you put yet another game on the list of games that you Armageddoned.

51 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer7/17/2018, 4:54:30 PM18 votes

  • Ghostcrawler doesn’t balance the game.

  • They primarily focus on higher elo (not pros). They do however pay attention to both pro play and low elo to address things there if needed.

Kairoptra7/17/2018, 6:50:11 PM12 votes

{quoted}

I don't balance the game. You wouldn't want me to. I do help set the direction and philosophy for how we balance.

D357R0Y3R7/17/2018, 4:52:10 PM7 votes

He said Riot targets balance around high plat/Low diamond where changes have the highest amount of impact across the game

Please stop creating bandwagons

HalcyonDweller7/17/2018, 10:36:38 PM6 votes

You had me going there with the discussion of inflation and such. But then you ruined it by calling for CT's head on a pike instead of suggesting ways to fix the problems you identified.

Something something near miss, something something Carlin.
SugeMinPikk7/17/2018, 9:42:25 PM6 votes

While I agree that the game is in a hilariously bad state, I'm a bit tired of the whole "ghostcrawler single-handedly does everything involving balance" meme..

Whisper877/17/2018, 5:24:43 PM4 votes

I'm on board with you buddy. I don't know if it necessarily is all because of balancing around pro play. I also think the following elements are in place.

-Casual Players: they like to give classes/items there moment in the spotlight to draw fair weather fans back in. Ardent Censor meta is here! Come all you kog maw and janna mains! Alright that had it's time to shine, now we nerf that into the ground and it's going to be the year of the fighter and tanks are out! YUCK

-Gaming climate: this is related to the casual players thing. But I feel like Riot is trying to jump on board with the battle royale game hype by making shorter action packed games that folks can spam and not really care about winning or losing. Horrible idea to try and move that ideology into a game like LOL which, in it's best iterations, is primarily a cerebral game. LOL is a thinking man's game, not a fighting game. It is already more dynamic and exciting than any of the other games of the same genre like HOTS, Smite, Dota 2. You don't need to try to pull it even farther out.

Here's a really big travesty. Riot made all these changes so now we get to play fighter mid and mages or fighters bot and we have funneling, which are all really cool and I'm glad that they are here BUUUUUUUT....we have had to sacrifice too much to get that level of variety across roles. Sure the meta is play whatever you want. But the game has become so homogenized in terms of win conditions and over all strat.

Every game in ranked and pro play is 1. win lane 2. snowball through mid game 3. take baron 4. win

That's it, every game so similar. Every single role is trying to fight and skirmish in the early and mid games to get a snowball going, everyone is trying to hit the earliest item timings possible. it's always about up front damage and aggression and engage. The champion variety has gone way up sure, that's cool, but our macro variety is in the freaking dirt. Let game knowledge and game sense and patience win the day again. Let decision making and macro play be on equal value levels with mechanics again. With up front burst damage so high right now, the matchup knowledge doesn't even matter too much any more. It's seriously just whoever get's the jump on the other person has the advantage hand's down. Forget about windows and openings. It's so freaking boring when all that matters is mechanics on your select 2-3 champs you main and snowball through and/or out of lane phase.

P.S. the map play is also so dumb in solo . Everyone plays around bot side, the attempted 4 man gank into drake and bot tower first blood is virtually guaranteed. I would like more options for a big play to get the early game going. Let's see something on the top half that is as desirable and easy to play around as drake. Let's find reasons for mid and jungle to show up top instead of always coming bot. I'll admit this is a little better in pro play, but not much. And herald takes so GD long to take and is not consistently good enough for teams to build a play around it, it's 99% of the time an icing on the cake take after you already made a big play. There has got to be something put somewhere else on the map that has just as much of a chance of drawing the first group play of the game as much as the bot tower into drake play does.

saltran7/17/2018, 5:52:01 PM4 votes

CGrawler = bad

Upvotes to the left, thank you.

Shobek7/18/2018, 5:51:19 AM3 votes

Dude. What do you expect? Ghostcrawler ruined wow pvp. He was a dev for a PVE game. When I found out Riot hired him I was super upset.

He straight up gave up on 2v2 in World of Warcraft. It was the games largest PVP draw and the most active bracket.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/655393-Upcoming-Arena-2v2-Bracket-Changes/page6

Just go back and look at the transformation of wow pvp from one of the biggest e sports opportunities of the decade to a shadow of its former glory. Seasons 2-5 were MEGA hyped.

And all of the esports hype was created by the playerbase and external companies! Blizzard didnt fund it.

Riot also needs to stop deleting champions.

Re works are garbage; and riot is alienating their player base.

STOP IT!

Just make more new champs!

execratory7/18/2018, 3:03:18 AM3 votes

wth, riot hired ghostcrawler from blizzard? are they nuts? GC is a horrible dev, was riot not aware of the damage he has done to WoW?

Naon7/18/2018, 12:40:47 PM3 votes

I think it's a bit obvious how messed up the pro scene is just by watching Faker playing. He used to be top of the top with his skill cap champs like Zed. Yes Zed, because to master him on the level Faker played him took a ton of skill. He predicted outcomes on the spot and reacted as necessary.

Now if you look at LCS it doesn't require nearly as much skill. If you go back through the years and watch older videos you will find that the games required more skill to play and itemization was more diverse then what there is now. More champs required Skill Shots and didn't have access to blinks / dashes. They were forced to commit instead of being able to escape easily. There was punishment for mistakes and rewards for playing well.

There was a bigger diversity in champion roster being used then the same mainstream 10 champs now. There was joy in the surprise pick of seeing a champion such as Gragas joining the fray instead of seeing a Lee Sin picked.

What has made this game stale is how much Riot pushes certain champs out of the game. Kayle was seeing competitive play for a little bit and they nerfed her and removed her steroid on her Q. Meanwhile you see certain champs getting a lot of favored love for the LCS because they are "flashy" like Lee Sin or Thresh. Riot allows these champs to continue for years at a time in the cycle and even buffs some of them once they fall out of favor.

This is stagnating the pool and pro scene. It's not rewarding actual players for being skill based. Now it feels like those who can be pro are the ones who join a game house or spend endless hours just grinding away LP. Don't get me wrong, there are good players who deserve challenger for sure. However I feel like the quality needed to get to challenger has dropped. This is just because I see a lot more mistakes being made now days with players in challenger then I did see before. But ofc now that everything has a blink it feels like, the player is easily forgiven by pressing their "get out of jail free" card.

Daddy Ants7/18/2018, 9:17:29 AM2 votes

Meddler and the joke that is called the Live Gameplay Team are in charge of balance.

ChaddyFantome7/17/2018, 10:23:32 PM2 votes

League should not be balanced around pro play to begin with. Instead, proplay should be restricted based in its own problems. A huge amount of Lols fundamental game design rules do not even function when you balance around proplay.

The biggest example imo are high skill cap champions. How do you implement High skill cap champions into the game without them inherently being overgeneralizing in pro play? You can't. Meanwhile, in of itself, high skill cap champions aren't a problem because they take more skill to pull of successfully, and measurement of skill is the whole point of ranked.

These champions however area problem because they become overgeneralizing in pro play, and as a result they become gutted to the point where they are trash unless played to the utmost perfect level, at which point, why even go through the headache of playing them when you can play something easier for the same or better results more consistently?.

I could go on, but this is kinda the catalyst of my opinion when it comes to Riots insistence on balancing the game for pro play AND casual play. it just isn't gonna work.

Linna Excel12/11/2018, 1:11:39 AM2 votes

Ghostcrawler isn't working on league anymore. We've been in the meddler balance era for awhile now.

Wingklip12/11/2018, 1:17:08 AM1 votes

Is anyone at riot competent enough to nerf the core problem of all these gamebreaking issues, conqueror? Almost all the cancer champs take it, and they are nearly able to 1v5 every single game they take it if they aren't a boosted bronzie and know what to build