(S9) All things Items - A discussion about the current state of Items and builds.

Introduction: Here I hope to share my criticism of the current state of Items in League of Legends and more importantly bring my ideas and innovations to the table in the hopes that I can help Riot create an item system that is user friendly, compelling, and allows for high levels of build diversity. I implore everyone who stumbles upon this post to share their opinions with me and hopefully we can convince Riot Games to push forward with new means of progression so that the game we love so dearly does not stagnate.

Personal Experience: Now, I've been playing league for a relatively long time, starting in season 4, during that time I played the game all day every day 365 (I'm not too proud about that) but my playtime has become more off and on across accounts, half of that is due to college and work and the other half I believe to be because of the current state of League of Legends. I do not think that League is a bad game all of a sudden, but there are many design choices that I personally find to be either frustrating or limiting to my individual play style. I found that League at its core was fundamentally different from something like DOTA or HOTS in that even though you are playing a champion, the way you play them can be completely different from the next guy over or so unique and specialized that your build is exciting enough to gain attention on stream or in videos; this core element of League's gameplay cycle made me want to try new things and experiment every single day, I'd spend hours researching items, efficiency, synergies, and situationalism (if that's a word) and have a blast going through every build imaginable in online matches. This was the most compelling part of League to me and it meant so much to me that I could be do something unique and awesome thanks to the number of items that exist, however, this has diminished greatly over the past five seasons, with each season cleaning the game up nicely, but at the cost of uniqueness.

Dialogue: While I think that few characters still retain the ability to go down different build 'paths' that doesn't mean very much to me as going down a predetermined path isn't very fun is it? Looking at Ezreal, you read his abilities on the surface most come to the conclusion that they can either go AP or AD, which is true, but it's also boring. Why is it boring? Because you are forced down two 'Build Paths', either you build the most optimal AD items or you build the most optimal AP items, then you realize that you're given a false choice, false 'diversity' that is just an illusion. Many would say I'm not giving him enough credit right? With objections like, "Ezreal has the blue build!", well I'd ask, when would you use the blue build? Only when you need to survive physical damage burst. So now you have three 'paths' AD, AP, and Blue, each with minimal variance in items due to some items being so much better than others. Doesn't seem so diverse does it? My point is that you are limited to reacting to the game you are in by building the most optimal way to counter your opponent, there aren't many synergies left that change the way you play the entire game; ezreal's q proccing on-hit effects is awesome, but it by nature spells out what that character does, buys on-hit items and presses q very, very often.

Ezreal is a character that has at least three viable options and in that sense I'm being generous as most champions are limited to either going AD, AP, or Tank. Many of these champs used to at least have the option of having some hybrid scaling (Talon, Mordekaiser, Khazix) and over time have had these bits in their skillkit quietly removed. Today most AD assassins are relegated to only building full AD and depending if your opponent has a tank then you build last whisper. This is a very bland track that these champion are put onto, they don't even have 'paths' to take like ezreal, but instead have a one item variance...boring...

This 'leaking' of flexibility in champion kits isn't the only way builds have been slowly constricted over the years, nearly all of the AP bruiser items have been drained from the game so the new Mordekaiser (who lost his AD scalings) can now only build rylais and liandries if he wants to efficiently deal any damage, we can see this issue for spread among AP champs with Abyssal Staff's change into a Mask becoming very mediocre in comparison, the item itself also gained mana which made it a worse item by raising the price and limiting the champs who can use it efficiently. In the case of AP items their nature has entirely changed since the Mage Update and have had problems that Riot has compensated for by limiting magic resist items and their usefulness, which in my opinion is one of the worst ways to balance around something that is an issue, to limit the resistance against them instead of tuning the items or providing more means of resistance. This type of item 'remodeling' has happened across the shop with there being many examples of flawed changes that I don't think were well thought through, like black cleaver and brutalizer changes. These two items had their gold values jacked up similar to the case of the Abyssal Mask change which resulted in some of the best midgame items that aren't super slot efficient having their entire purpose and place changed. They are no longer powerful midgame picks that we'd see sold or half built till later on, they are instead just some more of the many slot efficient slew of items in the game (I will get to slot efficiency later).

Prelude to Solutions: League is littered with 'blatant synergy' items such as guinsoo's and titanic hydra which scream to the player 'build more on-hit, build more max health, etc...' and these items are in their place for the sake of providing another false sense of build diversity, don't get me wrong, some blatant synergies can actually be productive and become the core of a build, like the Stormrazor. The Stormrazor is different as it doesn't just tell you that once you have enough gold, you'll be multiple times stronger all of a sudden, instead it gives an incremental benefit for your use of similar items, it's not too general and not too specific it only suffers as there aren't many energize effects as of now so it is incredibly niche.

While I like the idea of some items having a bit of armor pen or magic pen similar to Guinsoo's, overloading an item till its so slot efficient that you have to buy it is the wrong direction to go in this case, on top of already screaming blatant synergy Guinsoo's became a waste of a cool design. More unique synergies like a Liandry's burn or a Sunfire aura that can't be found in other games is necessary for the players to be compelled to make something out of it, let's say that Rylai's actually procced on Sunfire, now you have two items that are usually sold late game morph you into a valuable utility monster. More unique effects springing up instead of pure stats provides such a fresh change to core gameplay that I can't see why it isn't capitalized upon yet, I thought that when Deadman's plate was added that this was a good sign, but since then there haven't been any real additions.

I will leave my comments on the item interface and user-friendliness to another post as there is much I believe that can be innovated in regards to the shop design, item presentation, and build method.

Solutions:

Do's -

• Items based on new lore (Ixchal region) or unused lore like void items
• Items with unique mechanics akin to Sunfire Cape and Frozen Gauntlet that are useful without being linked to stats
• Items that are cheap to full build but aren't slot efficient similar to the Protobelt or the old Abyssal Staff
• Items that are blatantly overpriced but incredibly slot efficient to pivot to in the late game instead of purely relying on ways to speed up map pressure artificially through absurd minion speeds and death timers.
• Items that have deep synergies with other items like Rylais/Liandryls
• AP crit chance item
• Taking a very careful look at what items have mana to avoid obtrusiveness with non-mana champs
• Items that take advantage of unique resources such as fury and rage
• Reintroduction of minor spellvamp items
• Items with stacking passives, similar to the old Bloodthirster stacking of yore
• Items that bear individual reactions to individual champions, such as an item that can upgrade a champion's Q ability in a different way for every single champion (at the cost of slot efficiency)
• This is a big one that surprisingly hasn't been utilized properly, creating sets of items that are limited to champion classes (Tanks, Fighters, Marksmen, Mages) to allow for crazier items that can avoid being overpowered in specific classes. We see something similar in the case of Runaan's and the Hydra line, but this would be class restricted instead.
• Generalist Items, items that aren't all about slot efficiency and provide a stat spread similar to the old Triforce which brang a bit of crit onto a character that you normally would not buy crit items on; generalist items can bring so much to the table and round out unique builds in ways that wouldn't normally be considered.
• Ratio Conversion Items,that can convert a champion's ratios entirely to something new and cool, such as an abilities ratio from AD to being AP or scale based on movespeed. Just a few of these oddballs can turn someone slow like amumu into a physical damage speedcar.
• Item Drawbacks, items that have both positive benefits and negative drawbacks, such as lowering movespeed by X% in exchange for either a large amount of attack range, attack speed, self shield bonus etc...again this could make champion like vayne less mobile but have a slightly safer auto range completely changing the dynamic between vayne and her team.
• Unique Stat Items, items that provide less straightforward stat bonuses and more unique stat bonuses, such as increased self-shield/healing power or increasing the duration of particular abilities/items (Morde ult, Sion ult, Fiddle w), this can make a champ like Diana give up some burst for a massive self shield boost, allowing for playing a unique type of spellsword instead of just a bursty moon assassin.
• More varied jungle item options
• More varied potion options instead of refillables
• Stealth detecting items
• More variations in boots with the aforementioned mechanics (self-shielding bonus, magi-crit, etc...)

Don'ts -

• Do not provide items that are reactionary in nature like the Adaptive Helm, they truly damage unintended targets
• Avoid reliance on On-Hit items and champs that proc them, they don't actually provide real diversity (guinsoos...)
• Avoid the removal of options instead of modifying or adding new options
• Don't avoid items that can manipulate character's individually
• The removal of refillable potions, these types of potions remove the entire dynamic of tactical potion buying and investing varied and useful potions, corrupting and friends are fine but making them refillable has been very destructive to the laning phase.
• Avoid slot efficient items unless they cost a premium to the player

Conclusion: As you can see, there are many more do's that don'ts meaning that I find the state of the game to be bearable, but needs a big nudge in direction and am glad that there aren't too many things I have a problem with (other than map-wise) hopefully I gave a bit of insight into my thoughts and thought processes. Overall, I value uniqueness, the rewarding of playstyle shifts, and benefits that are outside the realm of pure stats; If anyone would like to see a list of items I came up with just let me know and I have a dozen items that I think could put zest into the gameplay loop of League of Legends. The reason I came out with this post is that I've been working on a personal project that has opened my eyes to the fun nature of game balance and design which is integral to any video game that hopes to have any level of depth. Hopefully I've conveyed my investment into League, how much I love it, and what I'd like to see changed and added, let me know about your own opinions, your experiences, how I can improve and most importantly, your awesome ideas!