Why I hate that people don't play for fun anymore

VileKayn·Feb 15, 2019·54 votes·19,648 views

The thing that puts me off league is the intense amount of people who don't understand fun, you get modes like URF or OFA and aram etc. people play all those modes like its ranked they re-roll or vote until they get an OP champ they base stuff off items and not there own moves they try hard on drafts and counter pick etc i mean why counter pick why not just try and beat a laner in a hard match up instead of giving yourself a lane you know your gonna win kinda takes the point out of it, i get doing it in ranked, cause you wanna climb yeah but in casual modes like drafts it just takes all the fun away and what is worse is some players i have asked this question say draft counts as a form of ranked! i still play the game but i just wish somehow someday people will discover what the meaning of fun is or at least look it up in a dictionary.

73 Comments

420 gramsFeb 15, 201940 votes

It's a competitive game. Even in friendly games of basketball, you don't only try to do half court shots.

SaiannaFeb 16, 20198 votes

no...?

Shit, I've played basketball with friends wrong :(

IPromiseTomorrowFeb 16, 20193 votes

It was forced into a competetive game.

That's why there's a huge divide of people who play competetive and people who play for fun.

I enjoy the game when I'm winning that's all the enjoyment I mostly get from it now-a-days.

ﬂooFeb 17, 20191 votes

Yea right, in a game of friends I would pick all the people 2m+ on one team cuz yk. Competitive and stuff. That's definetly what it's about.

NetorareFeb 16, 201929 votes

Riot sold the fun game it once was, now its just a competitive one, it doesn't matter if its ranked or not, riot completely ruined the fun from the game with their garbage ass decisions and "balance".

NevrankroatonFeb 17, 20194 votes

Yeah yeah, it isn't like everyone wanted to be a poke champion in the first itineration of urf or abused ryze/sona/hecarim to death.... Let's not forget alistar, our bro. It isn't like people ALWAYS try to find the most optimised strategy in a game mode because WINNING is fun for them.

Urf is the best example, everyone saying how much ARURF suck but truth be told, you either took the op champ or had a miserable life. Counterpick champion would be even more insane.

Aram? Aram was FAR FAR worse before... Poke comp were insane, diver had no way to properly initiate. But the snowball summoner spell, the new item, the health shrine... It gave so much new possibility.

Make no mistake, you all ruin the game mode by yourself because what is fun soon become what is the most optimal to win, it is human, admit it already. Even nexus blitz began to find some regular champion that would be spammed.

HethaleanFeb 16, 201919 votes

This is league of legends... with bad balance, bad decisions, and completely useless developers that introduce thousands of bugs on a shitty code base each season. It's impossible to 'play for fun' as pretty much if there's an avenue that Riot can abuse to suck actual fun out of the game. They're diving head first into it.

SpecterVonBarenFeb 17, 20194 votes

Compared to what game? What competitive game can you show me that doesn't have the players constantly saying the same damn things about the games they're playing?

heroikcFeb 16, 20195 votes

It's the snowball meta; the only ones allowed to have fun are the jerks focused on winning hard.

Anu3isIIFeb 16, 20195 votes

Some people may have fun try-harding? I mean, I don't find anything wrong with trying your best in any game from time to time.

And drafts do count as much as any normals or ranked. People want to train and learn the game, they just chose a different mode. Counterpicking has always been an element of draft mode, since people are more willing to try new things in normals than ranked and if they were really tryhard, they would just pick their main champion and smash without any problem.

I personally never liked playing only 1 champion and tried to have a pretty large pool of characters from which I can pick anytime. Because of this, I also tend to have an easier time counterpicking or playing my match-up correctly since I most probably already have some experience with/against my opponent's champion.

Most All Random game modes tend to be flawed from the start since people generally play those modes for everything but the picking system. Most people want to play 1 or 2 champions and will try to reroll until they get what they want.

Overall, what I want to say is that people have always been in some measure "tryharders". It is just a matter of perspective, like "how much is too much". You find counterpicking irrational in normal drafts while other people find it normal.

TheLegendaddyFeb 16, 20195 votes

If fun is being countered and standing around in lane or being pushed out of lane or being tower dove killed simply because you chose x champ then count me out

ThefrostyvikingFeb 16, 20195 votes

OP you gotta realize that even if your side doesnt try to find the "best" picks and play seriously their opponents will, and when that happens the one who has to deal with that opponent will have to deal with a game where they are relentlessly beaten back and forth for the duration of the entire match with no hope of fighting back.

Then that enemy just grows to be so strong that they takeover the game entirely, even if you have serious teammates they wont be able to stop a massively snowballing opponent.

Thats why, you have to do stuff like counterpick, you have to play meta (mostly, some exceptions do occur), you have to to be serious, because if you arent then when you meet an opponent who is you are likely to just lose and drag your team down with you.

Which is why your team will get mad when you deliberately pick like.....Annie into Anivia which is has a 35% winrate or Wukong into Yorick top which has 38%, these matchups will usually just result in a onesided stomp where the winning side snowballs and wins the game.

No one wants to lose by a landslide with no hope of making a comeback because someone else goofed off.

painkillsFeb 17, 20191 votes

I think part of the issue has become just how important winning is to fun. I don't remember losing being as upsetting when I began playing league. I definitely know it pisses me off now....

ThefrostyvikingFeb 17, 20192 votes

Losing a game where you perceive everyone to have done their best is way less maddening than losing because you think that you have something like a troll/teammate vastly inferior to enemy equivalent/AFK/DC or something else.

Who wants to lose because someone else on the team just made it impossible to win? Fine if they were beaten by a tiny margin but landslide losses just suck.

From where i sit trolling, flaming, griefing,ragequitters, boosting and defeatists have risen noticeably and they all contribute to the feeling of "cant win because team", and even if its the enemy team that has them so what? You´ll quickly win and then go on to play more where you might just end up having trolls of your own again.

MetallikaiserFeb 16, 20194 votes

Not sure what to tell you bud, I have always been like that with every game.

SaiannaFeb 16, 20194 votes

I'd love to have fun in URF playing weird builds. Sadly tryhards do what tryhards can to tryhard the game :(

painkillsFeb 17, 20193 votes

If the fun part of arurf is weird builds, you can still do that. If the "fun condition" is "I should be able to troll build and win" then maybe your expectations are the issue.

Unlucky GodFeb 16, 20194 votes

Because winning is fun Losing isn't for most people Simple as that

A55Feb 17, 20194 votes

Games are meant to be played to win, while also being fun. Lets just take a classic example: Boardgames. Boardgames were family friendly activities to get through the day, however the goal was still to win. You can play for fun while still trying to win, but ignorant SJWs like you refuse to accept any other point of view. Playing for fun doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. It's a teambased game, so don't harm your team.

ŚhunpoFeb 16, 20193 votes

Yes, I love people who play to win, playing champions they only play because they're meta, not playing them for fun. People who do that outside of ranked and who clearly aren't learning any additional techniques or strategies are the worst kind of players that plague this game.

For instance, I play Katarina for fun. If I want to win I could pick Xin Zhao jungle, Karthus or Cassiopeia, but I don't find them fun so I only bust those picks out when in ranked, and even then I still try to play for fun. However, other players who aren't like me who purely play this game to boost their ego through winning, which wouldn't be a problem if they played champs they had fun on, but that's clearly not the case since they're metaslaving every game even outside of ranked.

It's not just normal games either, all I ever see in URF are the same goddamn top tier champs because no one wants to try anything new and/or exciting when they can just wreck face with top tiers and get fun out of only winning. Like geez, stop playing Fizz and Vlad (reroll off of them) and try some picks like Cho'gath and AP Ashe. I'd love to try out some dumb shit like full AP Jhin, but I know that I'll just lose instantly because the enemy team decided to keep Garen, Tryndamere, Ezreal, Fizz and Alistar. But no, players will never do that, at least not anymore since the game only really appeals to tryhards who post their clips to "insert channel like Synapse here".

tl;dr Riot balanced the game around tryhard degenerates who only find fun out of winning and this will likely never change due to Riot's poor design choices.

painkillsFeb 17, 20192 votes

I think another possible explanation is that the game itself evolved. When league started, nobody was thinking about wave control, objective pressure and importance of warding. They were just popping in, trying out characters, items, powers and builds.

That phase is over. As a community of players, we've largely solved those basic questions and now fun has to be found elsewhere. When there are massive changes (runes reforged) then you are allowed to do weird things again. Once it gets "solved" it's back to "try hard and stick to what's known to work so we can have fun by winning".

ŚhunpoFeb 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I think another possible explanation is that the game itself evolved. When league started, nobody was thinking about wave control, objective pressure and importance of warding. They were just popping in, trying out characters, items, powers and builds.

That phase is over. As a community of players, we've largely solved those basic questions and now fun has to be found elsewhere. When there are massive changes (runes reforged) then you are allowed to do weird things again. Once it gets "solved" it's back to "try hard and stick to what's known to work so we can have fun by winning".

Then you clearly don't understand the changes Riot has implemented. We went from somewhat strategic and diverse metagames to "Ooooh I can just play Xin or Lucian and one tap my opponent with very little counterplay". Go back and watch previous seasons in the competitive scene and in casual matches (Keyori etc.) shit was dope. Now everyone bloody hates it except the newbies who are playing their first matches (before the smurfs of course).

Most of us only play League because every so often we can have a match in these bullshit metagames where it's actually fun and invigorating, where both teams are playing for fun and not to win. Except...even in fun matches the minute things go south you get people who splitpush, which isn't really a fun strat for anyone. But then....neither is getting oneshot or chain CC'd in this metagame since there's very little counterplay to those two aspects of the game.

Once they fix damage and runes we might be ok, but I will say Runes Reforged was a mistake.

ImpossibleGTFeb 18, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Seth L9,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YtnOaAE0,comment-id=000900000000,timestamp=2019-02-17T23:56:31.096+0000)

Then you clearly don't understand the changes Riot has implemented. We went from somewhat strategic and diverse metagames to "Ooooh I can just play Xin or Lucian and one tap my opponent with very little counterplay". Go back and watch previous seasons in the competitive scene and in casual matches (Keyori etc.) shit was dope. Now everyone bloody hates it except the newbies who are playing their first matches (before the smurfs of course).

Most of us only play League because every so often we can have a match in these bullshit metagames where it's actually fun and invigorating, where both teams are playing for fun and not to win. Except...even in fun matches the minute things go south you get people who splitpush, which isn't really a fun strat for anyone. But then....neither is getting oneshot or chain CC'd in this metagame since there's very little counterplay to those two aspects of the game.

Once they fix damage and runes we might be ok, but I will say Runes Reforged was a mistake.

People are quick to blame Riot, and they certainly deserve a lot of criticism for decisions they've made, but this isn't really something you can lay at their feet. As painkills said, the lack of fun is mainly the result of players iterating on what works and what doesn't. I know I'm dating myself a bit here, but I remember when Twisted Fate's Gold Card was an AoE stun. Back then, everything was new and exciting, and the game was full of possibilities. Because players didn't know better. We were stupid back then. As the game grew, the ancillary market also grew. YouTubers made videos showing off the best strategies. Websites were made to show the best build paths. So on and so forth.

It's crazy how much information current players have internalized without even realizing it, things that were essentially unheard of by the majority of players back then. There used to be a time you had to actually convince people wards were worth buying. Just think about that for a second. Tell that to even an average player right now and they'll be like "yeah no duh vision control wins games". That was groundbreaking stuff back in the day.

The point is, this is really just the natural evolution of a game's life cycle. Players see what works, and copy it for themselves to get better. There's nothing inherently wrong about it, but it certainly does lead to the game feeling far more structured than it used to.

LordGeovanniFeb 16, 20193 votes

You should play for fun to keep yourself from tilting but you should also play with the intention and goal of winning and getting better. they are not mutually exclusive ideas and it kinda pisses me off where people use fun as an excuse to not try or that if they are trying they cant have fun.

RaiyzaFeb 16, 20193 votes

People like to win. That is the goal of each game, after all.

General MattyFeb 16, 20193 votes

I still play for fun. Just group up with a couple friends and have a blast.

DurzakaFeb 17, 20193 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxAabW7JfTQ

Pretty heavy handed, but still makes some good points.

The fact of the matter is, that as a competitive game, its always going to happen as the game gets older. You basically cant avoid it.

What you call "fun" back then was just people not knowing any better, being uneducated.

On top of that, "fun" for a lot of people is playing to win. And how do you get better at doing that if you don't try? Just because draft isnt ranked doesnt mean its an excuse to fuck off. Its a place to go to get better without harming your rank, but you still are playing to win.

Psychø ßetaFeb 16, 20192 votes

People should play normally at Drafts, but URF and Blind pfu pick should be for fun.

sphinxthelion7Feb 16, 20192 votes

The fun modes I play for fun, but ranked is serious business.

omegalopolisFeb 16, 20192 votes

blame the Esport kids that think they can be the next pro and "pro's" don't like to lose. Riot manipulated people into thinking this game is an actual sport for the sake of profit.

LovelleFeb 16, 20192 votes

That's Riot's fault, not the playerbase. Not only is there little to no variety concerning alternative game modes, but we rarely get rgms anymore. Kind of hard to have fun when we're given such little room for creativity or relaxing gameplay.

AstrovertFeb 17, 20192 votes

winning is fun losing horribly not so fun

EvenFeb 17, 20192 votes

Because winning usually feels better than losing ????

BlackDragon1200Sep 7, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Because winning usually feels better than losing ????

Not really. As long as you have fun it doesnt matter if you win or lose. I had more fun losing because we all fucked around with the enemy team . its fun. it shouldnt be about winning. but thats how it. sadly :/

CronofugeFeb 17, 20192 votes

I know that this is a crazy concept for some people, but what if I have fun by winning? What if my version of fun is trying the best I can and seeing how far I can go?

Granted I don't go for high tier picks only, I started picking random in urf in the last rotation of the non random version of urf so I was pretty happy when I heard it was going to be random. But whatever champion I end up on you can be sure I'll be trying my best strategically and mechanically. I hate the idea of people demonizing "tryhards" because it doesn't line up with their idea of fun. I have fun when I'm winning and people who do "fun builds" make that harder but guess what. Tough luck. That's kinda just how things go. They had their fun. Who am I to tell them not to do that.

SõnaFeb 17, 20191 votes

that's why I stopped playing, it gave me stress on my brain and heart.

AseraanFeb 17, 20191 votes

Winning is fun.

5StackUltOneShotFeb 17, 20191 votes

I mean, you come back after college, you want a nice relaxing game and you go vs toplane Vayne as an immobile tank.

How am I supposed to have fun lol

jukkittenFeb 17, 20191 votes

the name of the post is wrong, let me fix it

yasuo is still the same

muted team chatFeb 17, 20191 votes

The lack of periods made reading that unfun. Will you change your ways?

rtbf225618241Feb 17, 20191 votes

League used to be extremely addictive, and a lot of people from those days have gotten extremely competitive over time because even the worst players will become decent after 10 years of potential training.

It's not fun, because everyone is competitive now. Everyone, even the idiots have safety nets that they can use to ruin your game.

Rage1ncarnateFeb 17, 20191 votes

There still are people that play for fun. I tend to find old friends or randoms that dont take it to seriously then I add them to create a small go-to community of fun players. That or just learn to ignore the chat in general.

FastBreakProdigyFeb 17, 20191 votes

As someone said already, people, like me, find fun in winning. I get discouraged from playing another game after going on a lose streak in ranked, but I'm also stuck in silver. :)

CaveslothFeb 18, 20191 votes

Well once Riot made the game so binary last season that it was hard to have fun if you aren't winning, and made playing off meta and just messing around so much harder, is it ANY surprise to ANYONE that the only people left playing are those that only find winning fun? Pretty much anyone that didn't left last season. So don't blame the players, blame Riot.

manolis201Feb 18, 20191 votes

I still play for fun but is just not possible i cant win my rankeds anymore im sitting at 39% winrate just cause i only play for fun and try new builds its sad back in the day the original game wasnt like this it was all about fun all :(

OrangeMarineFeb 18, 20191 votes

The game has become so snowball obsessive such that small leads result in massive power discrepancies. The power shift from, let's say, 1-kill and the subsequent 1 level XP gap has become huge. You go from having a skill matchup (considering counters, might not be totally skill based)...but basically the better player can use the strength of their champ and come out on top.

Give up 1 kill, whether it was an outplay, a mistake, a gank, and suddenly that 50/50, 55-45, toss-up becomes an 80-20 matchup if that makes sense.

And so once you get so far behind, the game demands tryhardness to even have a possibility of catching up and swinging the game.

the alternative is to get repeatedly dickstomped into the ground with your only option being a hail mary baron to 'maybe' come back.

Or you can mess around and have fun despite the slaughter, and risk getting banned for griefing/inting/ etc.

so people have become trained to play tryhard because that's how you have to play unless you give zero fucks about winning; and let's be honest, even if ur playing for fun, winning is always fun too.

just the way the game has changed; leads are too out of control that even a player holding their own gets massively punished for their teammates' mistakes

Toxic Doku RiverFeb 18, 20191 votes

I got banned before cause I would leave games riot said: "You have to try your best and don't ruin other games." I don't play rank so its either aram or normals. I come across so many people who don't even try to win in my games. I get ap Lucian's that goes 0/5 but for some reason, he isn't ruining anyone game but if I leave I am. then they also say this shit "it's not rank" t that's the excuse for doing dumb shit over and over.

Big WánkFeb 18, 20191 votes

I've noticed this trend of pointless toxicity as well. I've been spamming a lot of urf with my friends on one of my alt accounts (my friends and I are like silver and our alt accounts are like lvl 20 so not really smurfing that hard). Even tho my friends and I aren't even a high enough level to play ranked, we always get like 2 really toxic teammates who just try hard all game. We have to put up with their shit while the enemy team is all BMing in all chat for no reason either. Even when one of my friends or myself would unintentionally feed, some other teammate would always call "9x" in all chat, not seeing that 3 of his teammates share club tags. I think the problem is that back in S7 there was weekly rotating game modes which used to be a chill place where people would play and winning or losing generally didn't mean to much. In the older game modes people would try new champions or just chill with friends so there wasn't really a huge incentive to try hard for the dub. Now that fun game modes like Blitz and ARURF are like the only game modes we get and it's usually biannually people seem to forget to turn off their hyper competitive side and have a little fun.

BlackDragon1200Sep 7, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Blinko HighHeels,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YtnOaAE0,comment-id=0034,timestamp=2019-02-18T04:54:53.520+0000)

I've noticed this trend of pointless toxicity as well. I've been spamming a lot of urf with my friends on one of my alt accounts (my friends and I are like silver and our alt accounts are like lvl 20 so not really smurfing that hard). Even tho my friends and I aren't even a high enough level to play ranked, we always get like 2 really toxic teammates who just try hard all game. We have to put up with their shit while the enemy team is all BMing in all chat for no reason either. Even when one of my friends or myself would unintentionally feed, some other teammate would always call "9x" in all chat, not seeing that 3 of his teammates share club tags. I think the problem is that back in S7 there was weekly rotating game modes which used to be a chill place where people would play and winning or losing generally didn't mean to much. In the older game modes people would try new champions or just chill with friends so there wasn't really a huge incentive to try hard for the dub. Now that fun game modes like Blitz and ARURF are like the only game modes we get and it's usually biannually people seem to forget to turn off their hyper competitive side and have a little fun.

I feel like Riot wants to suck all the fun out of the game. But thats just my opinion.