The End of League of Legends

You heard it here first. Remember this, months, years from now.

At its core, the enjoyment derived from any game comes from mental stimulation. It is meant to create the ability to improvise, overcoming obstacles, generating the reward neurotransmitter dopamine when victories are gained.

Dota, originally, created what seemed to be a potent environment for this mechanism due to the large number of variations it presented, along with a closed system that could be manipulated through ingenuity. Remember that phrase.

It is only through the manipulation through ingenuity, or creativity, that the game provides satisfaction to the intellectual brain. The less one is able to react to obstacles in creative manners, the less dopamine is generated.

This is the first form of dopamine generation, and it is a genuine one. Generally, life is driven by the pursuit of this kind of reward, and it is what evolves mankind.

A second form of dopamine generation, albeit far more inferior, is derived through mimicked problems and solutions. This necessarily produces far less dopamine for the same amount of effort. An example: Purposely spilling milk on the floor, absorbing the view of a dirty floor, then cleaning it, and generating dopamine upon viewing the now clean floor. As can be surmised through this small example, there is a reward produced in this situation, but it is arbitrary, and has no sustenance because at the core, the human brain is aware that this is a contrived obstacle-reward scenario. Doing it ten times would result in less utility derived each and every time, to the point where it would produce an insignificant amount of dopamine.

As League proceeds to generate increased amounts of exposure and revenue for RIOT, they have gone from 'balancing' the game to 'normalizing' it. What this means is, they are, through observation and reports, finding ways in which people use ingenuity to overcome obstacles. However, rather than balance methods such as these that would create otherwise unfair advantages, they are arbitrating the method with which one is able to overcome these obstacles.

What priority exists in their mind is still not completely clear. However, over time, it has gravitated, through subtle changes to heroes such as Twitch, Katarina, and Eve, along with free wards, and now this juggernaut update, that RIOT is creating an environment where one must farm from the safety of one's tower, in any game, to remain as victorious as possible. In addition, one must completely rely upon planned team mechanics in order to proceed with any action, for every individual character in and of itself is insufficient in most cases to do much independently.

What this means is, every hero is being 'normalized' to play a very specific role in a team mechanic. On the surface, this sounds fine, since we all know this to be a team game. However, if you look at it from a more absolute perspective, you then start to notice that every hero can really only be played in one manner to be successful. If the team is a weapon, then one hero is the arrow, the other the bow, the other the shield, etc.

The problem with this, of course, is that the more 'normalized' these heroes become, the less dynamic they are, and the less one's ingenuity plays a part in the success of overcoming obstacles. The bow is always the bow, and generally, there is one main way of using that bow.

You can see the differences in these champs from early champs to new champs. Malzahar's kit is unique - nothing necessarily works absolutely together, but it's a kit you can fool around with. Katarina also had a unique kit, but she has been heavily normalized. Shaco, above all else, has a completely unique kit that they have been trying to normalize, who still remains a reminder of how fun and cool heroes were in the past.

Now, you have heroes like Riven, Talon, Tahm, Ekko, Rek-sai, Azir - you 'can' play them in different ways, but there is only one successful way to play them best in most scenarios. They are heroes created and maintained to play in the manner that RIOT wants them to be played in.

And therein lies the reason why I created this post, and why this is the beginning of the end for League of Legends.

The only reason we play this game is to generate dopamine. We sometimes generate it by stomping an enemy player, but overall, the only real sustenance is derived through creative responses to obstacles. By arbitrating and restricting how we play different heroes, RIOT is removing our ability to play different champs creatively. And this may be financially beneficial for them, because they can then create more heroes with more skins that fill gaps in creativity, hoping that we will generate the same amount of dopamine from this game by playing 4 different heroes in their respective manners, rather than one in 4 different ways.

Mathematically, however, the sustenance of the game is based on how many permutations exist in how each game can be played. If you can play one hero in 4 different ways, and those 4 different ways need to overcome the 4 different ways each other hero can be played, one can derive a great many number of permutations out of the same 5v5 matchup. However, with 'normalized' heroes, once you play vs a hero as one hero, the mechanics as to how that can be played don't change. All you can do is get better at learning how the arbitrated mechanics of that duel work, research what items to buy, and then find the solution. Once it is found, dopamine reduces.

If you're following this and understood it all thus far, then you will, of your own accord, understand quite clearly that League of Legends will necessarily produce less dopamine for the average player as the player 'memorizes' these combinations. As dopamine reduces, players will play less because competing sources of the obstacle-reward dance will present opportunities. As players play less, League will slowly fade.

Right now, as it is, if you sit under your tower and farm, ward the bushes, and wait for 20 minutes repeating the same last hitting technique, you will be able to buy items that complete the formula that makes your champ an effective tool to overcome the obstacle that is the opposing team. There is very little variance in this regard. Sometimes ganks will come, sometimes an early dragon will be taken, sometimes an invade will occur, but overall, the gameplay is standardized.

Then, once your team has its kit ready, and everyone is sufficiently farmed, you seek an attractive engagement with the opposing team. Depending on your hero makeup, the engagement proceeds, someone does this, another person does that, the kits collide, and one team is victorious. This happens over and over until one team is successful.

Imagine this a thousand times. Then imagine it a hundred thousand times. If this is the effective formula, then how does one continue to derive enjoyment and dopamine if the process to reward is always the same? Well, it must be differentiated. You must be able to find different ways of farming, or building your kit, or being aggressive, or playing your hero.

The problem is, RIOT is actively reducing the number of ways you can alter this formula. Every champ's kit can generally be played in only one manner, using their skills in only one manner. And worst of all, they are applying this to past heroes as well. What new 'metas' show up every month should be an everyday occurrence.

It is therefore quite predictable that given the increasing limits RIOT is playing on ingenuity in general gameplay and the way these champs can be manipulated, the overall dopamine generated through playing League will continue to reduce. New heroes that come out will start replicating the mechanics of past heroes to fit the mold of the 'weapon' that is the team (as is being demonstrated by the effusive number of people complaining about champs being inferior in every way to another one, yet containing the same 'mechanics'), and unfortunately, RIOT will have sabotaged their own game by trying to control how players play instead of just creating a world to play in, and keeping it balanced.