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"They are focused on pro play" line needs to end

PhantomGG··27 votes·6,985 views

-I have never heard a single pro player say "i love this patch" -I have never heard a single pro player ask for Stop watch to exist, koreans even said it was stupidly broken in the LCK -This is statistically THE WORSE year for LCS views and Twitch views for league -Riot has lost beyond vital streamers and content makers who stacked major viewers

Bricky Orchid naece Nightblue Trick2g

-League of legends has been dethroned from most views on twitch and most likely won't ever hit number one again

  • pro players over recent years who had huge followings have left the LCS in favor of twitch streaming.

You guys are literally throwing the pitch fork at the wrong group of people.

LCS viewers aren't happy Pro players aren't happy Challenger Twitch streamers aren't happy

NO ONE loves this season. The only people to blame is riot and their incompetence. The changes they make have little to nothing to do with pro play, it's just pure random bullshit that makes everyone from all sides miserable.

30 Comments

Anatera26 votes

Just because they're focused on it doesn't mean they're doing it right. They can be entirely focused on it, have the wrong mindset and fuck it up anyway, leading to pro players not liking it either. If you cater to someone, they are not obligated to like what you do just because you cater to them.

AmetDeCrypt7 votes

this is true. doesn't make me feel any better about how badly riot is fucking everything up as of late.

Rainfall3 votes

So many balance changes last year,Ryze getting nerfed to 37% winrate and for what? to get to see that clown fiesta crap with jannas lulus and galios spamming shields on an ADC every single game,quality content.Botlane ran over everyone last season,botlane will run over everyone this season but with a different keystone mastery.

Pandeonor6 votes

{quoted}

-League of legends has been dethroned from most views on twitch

Let´s have a look.

Most watched games on twitch Column "average viewers"

past 365 days: 113,359 past 180 days: 114,337 past 30 days: 114,807 past 14 days: 111,373 https://sullygnome.com/games/14/watched

.... well....

How many viewers lost?

I guess actually 0,0000 viewers lost.

The difference is that Fortnite has actually more viewers then League has. But there are a lot of new channels out there for fortnite, so the viewers to channel ration is bad and both will shrink if the first boom is over in about 1 year.

But the viewerbase seems to be stable for League wich means in other words that League is not affected (aside of NA) by the rise of Fortnite. That is another genre and there are other gamers around. MOBAs and therefore League are not able to catch all gamers and therefore the aim can not be the no 1 of the world forever.

nelogis4 votes

No they lost viewers, Twitch is growing.

Let's say at the beginning there were 100 people watching Twitch. 50 of them watch league so 50% of all viewers.

Now there is 1000 people on Twitch. Still only 50 watch league but that is only 5% of all viewers.

So League is declining when it comes to Twitch viewers.

Pandeonor2 votes

As I said. League lost it´s share. And if you look at the 5 games ranked behind League you see the same. Within 14 days there are together 300k viewers for rank 3 to 7. For last 365 days there were 265k viewers from rank 2 to 6.

Or other comparison. Top 10 skipping LoL and Fortnite:

331k Viewers (14 days average) 311k viewers (365 days average

So. Twitch viewers just grew solely for Fortnite without affecting others.

331k to 311k viewers aren´t a significant difference for 8 of the 10 most viewed games (skipping LoL+Fornite). You can call all games placed 2 to 10 that they are declining. But who "raised" then? [Bunch of indies with 1k viewers? ;)]

Hope you understand this. Fortnites raise does not have too much impact for LoL outside NA. That is the point. PUBG is kicked due to the fact that it´s same genre as Fortnite.

T4underbolt1 votes

You do realize that most viewers in lol come from ADC streamers. The only role that has agency and that's why it's watched because of flashy 2k crits oneshoting people. Sneaky Tyler qtpie are majority of views. And of course there is cowsep but he is an exception because of playing on jr/Vietnam/Chinese and being a onetrick of a champ that is easily countered usually but enjoyable tow arch when unstoppable. That's it. Lol literally is holding on because of adcs right now. Fortnite has more viewers regularly than lcs. And now riot tries the desperate EU masters series or something which barely gets 20k views. This is obvious that lol is going down. Did you notice that the rest of channels that are not Qt, gosu,snarky,cowsep are only there because they are in certain language for target viewers but let's call it global English channels that lol subchannel was rich with are dead.

Pandeonor1 votes

LoL NA is going down and LoL loses outside of NA some viewers and players wich is quite normal after that huge peak.

But if we have a look on all reliable sources and compare raw data with other games League is still more or less the biggest global player. The only one wich can compete right now is Fortnite wich drains on the other hand players out of the other big one in it´s genre PUBG.

It is sad when big channels in NA go Fortnite. NA lost 50% of it´s playerbase wich is sad also. But this is unique. It is sad if some streamers like Neace want to have more action. And so on. Sad.

If any EU masters series or ANY other League event does decline in numers of viewers this does by far not mean that League dies. The level we are talking about is really high. That should be taken into account if claiming something. Like [for the past] "Bill Gates is becoming poor" after Windows would have sold less then a year before.

So. Stay open minded and don´t exaggerate. Prove facts as far as you are able to. Riots revenue rise. In gaming-cafes in China and Korea Leagues share of online-time remains same level. Last year there is claimed 80 million users. Meantime Overwatch declined massively. PUBG rose in the past, Fortnite rises, but they are concurrent and they did not affect League in Asia and only for a small amount in EU, in Brasil it maybe rise.

Look here http://www.gametrics.com/ here https://sullygnome.com/games/14/watched here https://www.unrankedsmurfs.com/images/upload/blog/2017/05/2017Regions.png here http://gamethk.com/Public/upload/image/201804/1523258890351107.jpeg here http://www.laoyuegou.com/x/zh-cn/lol/lol/census.html

..... and so on. Maybe just http://euw.op.gg/statistics/tier/ or (for na) http://na.op.gg/statistics/tier/ [cumulative 1,204,972 (100%) players]

And compare this perhaps with https://web.archive.org/web/20150405214508/http://na.op.gg:80/statistics/tier [5 april 2015 1,122,270 (100%) cumulative] https://web.archive.org/web/20160330072423/http://na.op.gg:80/statistics/tier/ [30 march 20106] 1,275,949 (100%) ]

This whole case in NA forum (last weeks/months) is seen out of my point of view a bit biased. Maybe naturally influenced by enviroment.

I once planned to make an "all in" posting with all so called "facts" out of available sources to counter this for only "snowballing" case of "wrong facts wich produce wrong facts out of itself".

XY (whoever) quit League. League dies. Is really annoying.

PookíeChips6 votes

"They are focused on pro play" line needs to end

But they are focused on pro play*[sg-ahri-3]*

OP Garen Support3 votes

They are focusing balance around pro play. They are doing a terrible job at it as always. No one said pros like the changes the incompetent balance team is making.

UpDownLeftRightAB2 votes

They are focused on making pro-play more flashy for viewership reasons, not because the players asking for it. Riot thinks that if they just focus on viewership, they will increase profits, since they think that because it looks fancy will make people want to play and buy skins. Haven't you heard that they make pro-players choose skins, they can't go with the default?

Riot kind of forgot one thing, if your game is fun to play, people will play it. Fun to watch does not mean fun to play.

MalrothDragonia3 votes

plenty of pros play on base skin, they get to choose. Faker specifically prefers the base champ appearance when he plays. Stop spreading misinformation.

UpDownLeftRightAB2 votes

Faker doesn't have to follow the same rules. It's good to be the king so to say.

MalrothDragonia3 votes

lol, Faker is just a high profile example. If you watched the split you would have seen several games on base skins. Nobody is forced onto skins, and sometimes they use legacy skins you can't even buy anymore, so that logic doesn't follow.

I personally like this season, if you listen to what Riot says they're trying and pay attention, you'll see they often hit the mark on their intended balance goals, and when they don't they generally admit it and try to fix it. We've also seen a decent amount of champ diversity in pro the last couple years (though I'll admit this season feels a bit lower, but you still see approx 15-20 unique champs over 5 games) which is a generally good metric for game balance.

I think statements that the game is dying/unplayable/bad right now are hyperbolic at best, salty at worst, and generally a vocal minority as most people are just playing the game and not crying about it on the boards.

UpDownLeftRightAB1 votes

I don't watch league anymore. It's about as bland as my soloq experience, same 20 champs in different orders for the most part, the occasional one off every 100 or so games. Bringing diversity to pro-play isn't going to bring diversity to the actual game,I mean look at how picks like Ryze are pretty much only used because of low ping, he doesn't see tons of use in the actual game that the rest of us play.

Pika Fox1 votes

Good for you, but you arent data.

UpDownLeftRightAB1 votes

I didn't say I was?

JustaNewb2 votes

Maple has explicitly stated they focus on Pro. Argue with the Devs.

AmWhaleIRL2 votes

Brickyorchid still plays League occasionally but rarely makes youtube videos and he explained why.

Nightblue3 quit for what 1 week? LUL

Trick2G still streaming and making YouTube videos

Naece was trash anyways.

PaffWasTaken1 votes

You begin by using as your title ""They are focused on pro play" line needs to end" and your whole post is about how Riot dosen't balance around pro players. Pro players dosen't automaticaly equals pro play : pro play in the eyes of Riot is the whole industry of their esports, they really do balance on what THEY want to see in Esports. You are right when you say that they don't care about the pro players, but their sole interest in balance really is based around pro plays: what kind of plays they want to see, how long games should be, how objectives should be taken, etc etc, because they want to appeal to the most people possible. Lets be real here: a very large portion of people watching the LCS are not even people who play casually the game, they don't have any idea on how the game should go on, so Riot changes the game in a way to make it as the most popular possible: by copying popular concepts. the trend in the esports right now in general is arcade, fast paced and flashy games, hence why Riot is taking this weird direction. The huge decrease in the game's popularity is explained by the fact that the biggest part of the community, the people who actually plays the game, are being sh!t on by Riot for several months. Riot's strategy is to bring more new players to the game, while ignoring their current players, and this is done through pro play and Esports, hence why you are wrong in your title

HeeroTX1 votes

I agree with everything you said EXCEPT this "Riot's strategy is to bring more new players to the game" I don't think they're giving much attention to "bringing in new players" at all. I think for now their game tweaks focus is on bringing in more VIEWERS. The goal is to make League the eSports NFL (ie. most watched eSport), and to that end it doesn't really matter (in their eyes) how many are actually PLAYING the game. To put it in perspective, if League has 100 million active players (no idea of the real number) and 10% pay $5/year on in-game content, that's $50 million. You can match that in sponsorship dollars if you have enough viewers (a 30 second spot during the Oscars cost $2million this year, and viewership was under 30 million people (the super bowl has pulled over 100 million for the last decade)), to say nothing of merchandise and ticket sales. IF they can get League to stick as a "spectator sport", then it can be very lucrative, the problem is whether or not that will be truly sustainable longterm if their decisions alienate the playerbase.

FrostQueensPlane1 votes

Maybe it's because they're bad at their jobs and even though they focus on pro play they fail at that too.

Streams are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to "content" creating, and they're reflective of the popularity of the game, not the other way around.

Divewing1 votes

That's because Riot tries to force the meta to be what they want.

That does a solid job of stifling player creativity - of course the pros don't like it.

Riot is focused on pro play to see what THEY want. What the PROS want doesn't factor into it.

º Kindred º1 votes

Sadly its true... I REALLY dislike this season. Its just so sad to see the community getting completely ripped off just because riot is making wrong balance decisions and how incredebly unfun and frustrating this game has gotten. It doesnt reward good plays anymore and everything has just turned into a one-sided-stomp. I just hope riot can do something to save this game until its too late..

C9 Squeeky 1 votes

-League of legends has been dethroned from most views on twitch and most likely won't ever hit number one again

We are 8 years into League of Legends, it's like a new generation of gamers who like another type of genre. Before MOBAs it was MMOs and before that it was RTS. Right now, it's FPS. It like music. Disco --> Oldies --> Rock --> Alternative/Punk --> Rap/Hip-Hop. And a lot of gamers nowadays can't play (or watch) the same game for too long anymore, they get bored once they lose the "honeymoon" of a fresh game. Look what happened to Overwatch and PubG.

Pika Fox1 votes

You cant use people playing this game less after YEARS of content making using this game primarily as a reason to state no one likes this season. Its been 8+ years. People want to do other things. It happens.

Also, bricky even stated hes always done more than just league, not a good example.

Hell, i love this season more than all other previous seasons in LoL's history, and i play less because i now have a job that requires me to work 6 days a week. This is by far the greatest season in League's history.

Hyquiem1 votes

Ok? But most things that killed my favorite champ Azir was the fact pro player mid laners just loved abusing their jungler relationship for help. They didn’t even use azir’s strenghts or weaknesses they just followed up with junglers to get free kill, but who gets nerfed reworked nerfed to the trash level, dear Azir but wait I bet the rioters who made the cham probably even left since the creation was gutted..

Snowman Arc1 votes

I don't think everyone said that Stopwatch was stupid. They said it's broken and annoying, but it was a cool addition as a viewer. Having to make a dive and use 4 stopwatches to kill the enemy and survive was a cool highlight. Look at how no one picks it now though. Also, as a pro player, you don't really play for fun, but for the competition. If they tell you that Sion mid is the best meta pick, you are forced to play it, like it or not.

I assume that most mid laners love the LeBlanc rework or the Ahri buff. The patch was good for those champions, but if pro play still demands Galio and Sion mid, then they won't pick LB.

Silverjust1 votes

if they want more lcs viewers, make them play on the same patch as us

Late For Tea1 votes

{quoted}

-This is statistically THE WORSE year for LCS views and Twitch views for league

Doesn't necessarily mean the balance isn't focused on pro-play. Perhaps Riot is just doing a bad job at balancing in general, or people are tired of LoL/MOBAs and want something new (e.g. Fortnite).

{quoted}

-Riot has lost beyond vital streamers and content makers who stacked major viewers -League of legends has been dethroned from most views on twitch and most likely won't ever hit number one again

These points have nothing to do with pro-play, because they are no (longer) pro-players. They are streamers and they are tired of the same unbalanced mess as we are. Also as mentioned above, perhaps people just want something new.

{quoted}

  • pro players over recent years who had huge followings have left the LCS in favor of twitch streaming.

This has nothing to do with balancing and everything to do with money.

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