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The issues with League now (and my take on how to fix them)

Śhunpo··6 votes·754 views

Over the past 2-3 seasons (or even 4 if I want to stretch it) I've been starting to notice that League is no longer all that fun for me. I will bring up two sides, the casual perspective, the competitive perspective as well as the $$$ side to League to voice my opinion(s) on these topics. If you do not wish to read through it all you do not have to, I'd just love to have either feedback or the opinions you guys have on LoL as a whole.

(Feel free to watch Uberdanger's video about his view on LoL since his video was pretty spot on in terms of what LoL is like now)

Casual perspective

Uniqueness From a casual POV the game is declining in its uniqueness and ability to reward players for learning. Whether it be the removal of certain items or the entire shift of an entire class' identity (assassin update and juggernaut update) the game has been slowly losing all the literal stupid things about it. No more Sword of the Occult, no more Devourer, no more Deathfire Grasp, no more Ionic Spark, no more old Mordekaiser. You get the picture.

Every "fun" element of League is slowly been drained from it to further benefit the competitive side of it.

Custom gamemodes As for games with friends it's pretty one dimensional since even normal games are well and truly dictated by the meta. Even other gamemodes don't remedy this, because lo and behold.....there's only ARAM and 3v3, both of which are hardly that much different from normal 5v5. As for the other temporary gamemodes, they're well....temporary, and that's a huge issue. As for custom gamemodes you're still limited to 5v5 AND Crystal Scar is no longer present so all of those community driven custom gamemodes are gone...deleted. Riot hasn't even given those people some love in the form of I don't know, a new map?

"But what about URF mode, All for One and Hexakill?", yeah, they'd be great if we could actually have them permanently so that we could have some variety in our game. Having temporary gamemodes is not the way to go since it locks out some players who wish to play one specific ruleset. Not everyone wants Ascension or Poro King for the 10th time.

The obvious fix to this is to give the community access to tweaking with the game's rulesets in custom games and possibly allow people to develop their own League of Legends custom gamemode maps. I mean....Riot is a very rich and prosperous company, they can easily set aside some funding to implement something along these lines. Just make it like Overwatch where you can edit EVERY single aspect of the game (and in this instance possibly maps as well).

Just please, for the love of god show the casual playerbase some love in terms of variety since the game has a LOT of potential in this area.

The meta and how it interacts with casual players Casual players are split into two different categories: the people who want to have fun by trying different things and the people that stick to the meta and seek to win as their primary outcome. This becomes an issue when the meta becomes too prevalent. In our current preseason and in the 2-4 seasons leading up to today I've been seeing that the game is quickly losing its outcome to let players have fun and be unique in favour of making the game more about winning than actually having fun.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the meta is restricting players from actually having fun in the game. Sure, you might say "but winning is fun", but that's not the case to many people. For many people it's trying different champions or builds (usually off-meta) that end up working. This does not work for a myriad of reasons, however the main reason being Riot's intensive focus on balancing the game for competitive play. This often means that certain off-meta champs are almost completely ignored such how Nunu and Ivern right now are being ignored.

I'll touch on this more in my section on competitive play.

Competitive perspective

Balance Following on from my section regarding the meta and its interaction with casual players I will now touch upon how balance is conducted (incorrectly) for competitive play.

First and foremost....

Patches Patches happen far too often. 2 weeks is not enough time to allow players to fully soak up all the information in terms of the meta and who and what is viable. In my opinion patches should happen once every month to 2 months to adequately allow players to learn and adapt to "the meta".

"The meta" The be all and end all of current League of Legends. The meta is a curious thing since it's always changing due to patching and player experience. However, it is my honest opinion that patching is not the proper way to go about fixing issues, since often at times patching makes the situation worse.

I'm going to draw an example to Super Smash Brothers Melee here. So, in Melee there have been 0 patches apart from the regional patch of NTSC->PAL. As such the meta has evolved purely from player experience. This is a positive thing in the way that NO ONE seriously complains about any given character since nothing will ever change, you just have to "git gud" and learn how to beat certain characters or aspects in the game. This is a negative thing in the way that some characters are clearly top 10 and the rest are either sub-optimal or complete garbage.

This can relate back to League since Riot could choice to not force the meta and actually allow the player's themselves to have extensive periods of time to properly shape the meta the way they want to shape it AND then possibly step in if some characters or items are not strong enough (but even then that may cause issues).

The LCS scene and the meta Let's not beat around the bush, League is balanced almost entirely around the LCS scene. Whether it be Riot's intentions or Tencent's it doesn't matter since either way this system isn't working for anyone BUT those in the LCS.

The thing about balancing the game like this is that it's one of the main offenders to the game losing its uniqueness/flavour and its overall fun. What's that? You find Mordekaiser fun? Sorry pal, he's been reworked and now he's getting nerfed. You liked Ionic Spark? Removed from the game because it wasn't purchased enough. Examples such as Mordekaiser and Ionic Spark show us just how rapidly League is changing, and honestly it's not for the better, since too many changes makes the game not fun for a lot of people.

In regards to champion reworks they usually don't end well since they usually ruin the champion for players who learned to love their initial kit, and often at times reworks completely destroy or cloud a champion's identity and niche (such as Rengar and Katarina).

As for balancing in the LCS it's even more of a mess since the LCS and its meta is ruled by a selection of ~10-20 champs at a time. This would be fine if it were season 2 or 3, but with League having 134 champions that's a disgrace. If DOTA 2 can do a better job than League can with a slightly smaller balance team than that just shows how poorly practiced the balance team is a lot of the time. I get it though, they're not perfect, however....we've given them 8 seasons now to optimise our game to suit BOTH audiences and they have never achieved this (although they got pretty goddamn close in season 4).

Oh, also....Korea rules the LCS since the game's balance leans more towards an objective style than a RDM sort of style which merits more risk. Thus, the game is far too safe for western regions (mind you a lot of people will think I'm dead wrong, still, just putting it out there).

My view on all of this is that Riot should avoid reworking champs who DO NOT require reworks and to keep "useless" items in the game to allow players to find a niche for them. Additionally there could maybe be a separate queue for playing old champs, items etc. and one for updated League of Legends. Just saying, that would be AMAZING!

Money money money, must be funny....in Riot's world... Riot's perception of us as consumers (The cost increase of skins etc) Honestly, I'm going to speak my mind here and say that Riot only cares for us because we bring in money. That used to be different, however that's the way it is now since the playerbase is no longer kind and loving to Riot as a company. As such everything we call "microtransactions" in League have had their prices tuned and we've seen newcomers to the store.

So, gone are the days of 975 RP skins and hello to the new 1350 RP skins. "But skins are better quality now and they to hire more skilled people to do the job", somehow I don't see how a 1.6 billion USD company would ever need to increase prices. The 975 RP price tag was PERFECT since it was just the amount of RP that was affordable to ALL players. For the purpose of arguing this here's some simple math:

$5 = 520 RP Therefore each dollar = 104 RP As such 975/104 = $9.38 (rounded) Now, 1350/104 = $12.98

So, it's around about a $3.60 price increase just to get a good quality skin now. How is this a big deal to many people? Well, many people who play this game aren't actually doing that great economically, and as such the game isn't exactly embracing equality in terms of the different economical states each person has.

Why is this an issue? Well, it's essentially Riot's way of asking the famous question of "Please sir, can I have some more?" It's not fair to us as consumers since the we've seen how well Riot was doing before the price increase was made. It's just a scummy thing to do in general to the LoL community. We as consumers can afford to put so much into virtual content in this game. It's already silly enough that we're prioritising putting money into this virtual content over actual physical items, and yet it's an evergrowing industry that is usually abusive to the everyday consumer.

On a side note the $$$ to RP ratio is unfair for some countries since their currency is below that of the US's (eg. Australia where I am). Just thought I'd put that out there since it's not very fair for some countries.

With all that said, Riot still does a better job than say....EA (LUL), it's just that some improvements would be nice (probably some generosity haha). However, there's still another issue......

Lootboxes Why? Just why would you implement an uninspired, greedy and unfair system into League? I think I know the answer to this....it's another cashgrab. Simply put they're too random, they're gambling, they're overpriced and if the shard system is garbage. We do not need these in our game, especially if you're not going to be generous with the ways in which we get free skins from them.

Blue Essence Let's be real here, it's a worse system for casual players and it's not better than IP. It's an RNG fest that will usually tempt the consumer into buying more chests, keys and XP boosts. IP was better in every single way, Riot and Tencent are just being sneaky.

Where I think League is headed I'll try to be as unbiased as I can. League seems to be heading down the path of appealing to ONLY those seeking to play it competitively (at least once they reach level 30 that is), and the game will overall be designed for elitists who have wallets big enough to sink some money into this game to feel pleased about themselves.

As for balance it seems like the game will slowly become more and more chaotic and as a result this chaos will feel monotonous, with every patch making the game feel ironically more dull every time. As a result I'm going to be biased and say that the game is slowly (or quickly to some people) being driven off of a very steep cliff.

This can all be fixed though. If Riot (and Tencent lul) can eventually make fun additions to this game and make it friendly to ALL players then it's very likely that it will once again be THE game of choice for players who either find it boring, not fun or players who have quit entirely. If it's money Riot cares about they'll make a lot more money if they entice more players to actually play their game. However, this can only be achieved by giving the game some more diversity in terms of gamemode, making the price tags more friendly and making the balance much less intensive and focused purely on professional play.

I do not wish to allow the game to die, this game means a lot to me since I essentially sacrificed my early high school years and a year of senior high school to become good at it and adore it. This game does many things, it feeds my ego, it makes me feel secure, it gives me another purpose to live and it helps me to communicate and meet with new friends (whether or not all this is worrying is up to perspective). I don't want my friends to quit, since most of them are quitting now, I want the game to become great again so I can laugh and experience the game together with them.

Please....PLEASE....PLEASE I urge Riot to make improvements to their game and make it great once more. I also ask the LoL community to band together and come to Riot to give suggestions. However, Riot, we cannot communicate with you if you hardly communicate with us. You have NO business phone we can contact you on, we have no actual guarantee that our posts will be read and we have no actual way to get you guys to answer our questions online outside of the ever so occasional AMA. We need more opportunities to talk to you guys.

If you have read through all of this I thank you, and I strongly believe that we can make changes to this game before everything collapses.

Kind regards, Lovesick

[katarina-love]

14 Comments

Thefrostyviking2 votes

I have a few points i kinda question a lot....

  • The removal of fun, examples being deathfire grasp, old mordekaiser, sword of the divine, devorer etc.

Let me be clear, the vast majority did not enjoy these items/champs, in fact they were despised.

Sure, we who played it did enjoy it, but everyone else, or even we ourselves on another role were hella miserable when having to play against it.

When i started playing in season 3 it was GG if kassadin, xin zhao or Zed got fed, they could straight up run in 1v3 and win easily while going like 5,0,0, and Rengar was basically nearly a grim reaper as well.

A niche that fits them? Custom game styles? If it kills the fun for basically all their opponents then it's not K at all, this is clearly something you, OP, have to realize.

It's also why champions like Janna and Lulu are so despised, it's pretty much the same.

  • Custom game modes.

I think the general idea here is that too much of anything is rarely fun, as seen by how even URF drops in popularity at the end of the second day or earlier when available. So we are fed bits and pieces to keep us interested but not sated.

And am fairly sure riot are trying to keep people from messing with their files by any legal means possible, so them giving out tools to modify stuff is pretty unlikely.

  • The meta and patch frequency.

The thing about the metas we have, is that they rarely ever change a lot, it's only under the seasonal updates, class reworks or such that things get really shaken up, generally you only need to keep half an eye out to spot any differences and even they won't be big, usually.

  • Game balance.

I dont play dota 2 so i can't say but haven't riot updated their games and champions a lot more frequently? This more than anything would cause things to be messy. And history has proven that small changes can lead to landslides down the road, which is why they are often hesitant to "take the easy way" on a matter.

I do not think it's always right but it's understandable.

So, gone are the days of 975 RP skins and hello to the new 1350 RP skins. "But skins are better quality now and they to hire more skilled people to do the job", somehow I don't see how a 1.6 billion USD company would ever need to increase prices. The 975 RP price tag was PERFECT since it was just the amount of RP that was affordable to ALL players. For the purpose of arguing this here's some simple math:

Duuuuude.

People at Riot put in more effort and work to make better stuff and you actually have the balls to complain about them taking a higher price for higher quality products?

And the 975 skins aren't even gone, and yet you call this bad and greedy by Riot? How damn entitled are you? You basically want improved service at the same price as the old one despite a lot more effort on the workers part, even though the old service being perfectly available.

Are you perhaps just envious that others paid real money to have new shiny toys that you can't have because you don't want to pay as much as they do? Because i really, really get that feeling reading your post.....

  • Direction of the game.

I´ll admit that the game is largely balanced around high level play and competitive, but i don't think there is any way around it, for this is not a single player game, it's meant to be played as a team.

And the direction fits that bill quite well.

And while i know it's weak to bring stereotypes up, it can't help but have the feeling that most people who complain about "unique" stuff being gone or X champ being weak are usually the ones who abused said thing to extreme success prior to nerfs.

And made all the opponents quite miserable in the process.

Like the people who want devorer back, like the people who want most of the assassins reverted "because they were perfect" (this reason being their main one) and the very same people who quite enjoyed the time lethality was first released.

These are the point i don't quite buy, but the rest i either agree on or do not have an opinion on.

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

I have a few points i kinda question a lot....

  • The removal of fun, examples being deathfire grasp, old mordekaiser, sword of the divine, devorer etc.

Let me be clear, the vast majority did not enjoy these items/champs, in fact they were despised.

Sure, we who played it did enjoy it, but everyone else, or even we ourselves on another role were hella miserable when having to play against it.

When i started playing in season 3 it was GG if kassadin, xin zhao or Zed got fed, they could straight up run in 1v3 and win easily while going like 5,0,0, and Rengar was basically nearly a grim reaper as well.

A niche that fits them? Custom game styles? If it kills the fun for basically all their opponents then it's not K at all, this is clearly something you, OP, have to realize.

It's also why champions like Janna and Lulu are so despised, it's pretty much the same.

  • Custom game modes.

I think the general idea here is that too much of anything is rarely fun, as seen by how even URF drops in popularity at the end of the second day or earlier when available. So we are fed bits and pieces to keep us interested but not sated.

And am fairly sure riot are trying to keep people from messing with their files by any legal means possible, so them giving out tools to modify stuff is pretty unlikely.

  • The meta and patch frequency.

The thing about the metas we have, is that they rarely ever change a lot, it's only under the seasonal updates, class reworks or such that things get really shaken up, generally you only need to keep half an eye out to spot any differences and even they won't be big, usually.

  • Game balance.

I dont play dota 2 so i can't say but haven't riot updated their games and champions a lot more frequently? This more than anything would cause things to be messy. And history has proven that small changes can lead to landslides down the road, which is why they are often hesitant to "take the easy way" on a matter.

I do not think it's always right but it's understandable.

Duuuuude.

People at Riot put in more effort and work to make better stuff and you actually have the balls to complain about them taking a higher price for higher quality products?

And the 975 skins aren't even gone, and yet you call this bad and greedy by Riot? How damn entitled are you? You basically want improved service at the same price as the old one despite a lot more effort on the workers part, even though the old service being perfectly available.

Are you perhaps just envious that others paid real money to have new shiny toys that you can't have because you don't want to pay as much as they do? Because i really, really get that feeling reading your post.....

  • Direction of the game.

I´ll admit that the game is largely balanced around high level play and competitive, but i don't think there is any way around it, for this is not a single player game, it's meant to be played as a team.

And the direction fits that bill quite well.

And while i know it's weak to bring stereotypes up, it can't help but have the feeling that most people who complain about "unique" stuff being gone or X champ being weak are usually the ones who abused said thing to extreme success prior to nerfs.

And made all the opponents quite miserable in the process.

Like the people who want devorer back, like the people who want most of the assassins reverted "because they were perfect" (this reason being their main one) and the very same people who quite enjoyed the time lethality was first released.

These are the point i don't quite buy, but the rest i either agree on or do not have an opinion on.

I'll try to keep my responses nice and short.

The removal of fun

Yes and no. You say that the majority despised items and champions and yet here we are now in the same position. Nothing has changed since then apart from the removal of unique items (except for Ohmwrecker).

Custom gamemodes

Not true at all. Popularity of gamemodes might seem like an issue but it's really not. If the gamemode was permanent at least in customs it would please people who just want to go into that gamemode to relax (most likely with friends).

League lacks diversity and I really do think that Riot is downplaying the game's potential by making the different gamemodes such as 6v6, AFO and URF temporary as opposed to permanent. Again, popularity shouldn't be the prime focus here since these sort of gamemodes tend to be inconsistent in terms of popularity. Overwatch's arcade modes have never been "empty" or that unpopular. Certain people play them, and that's fine since it gives people the option to switch things up, which LoL desperately needs.

As for the argument regarding Riot allowing us to create our own things I do doubt it as well, but it's food for thought since Riot is far too lazy (it seems) to give the game some variety.

The meta and patch frequency Again, I would have to disagree, the meta changes quite a lot between patches. However, you are correct in saying that the usual "meta" champs usually remain meta, we just see adjustments to their placements in terms of strengths and occasionally some temporary newcomers.

I just have an issue with how Riot tackles balancing being nerf nerf nerf for most patches, and their changes are rather miniscule (like nerfing Kayle's AD by 5 lul).

Game balance Mmhmm, DOTA 2 updates less frequently in terms of balance than LoL does. I use DOTA 2 as an example since most of the heroes in the game are at least semi-viable in competitive play, unlike League where like 90% of all champions are unheard of in competitive play. I agree with DOTA 2's system more since it gives players more time to figure out "the meta". Although the downside to this is that broken heroes remain broken for longer periods of time (like 6.83 Sniper HOO HOO HAHA).

Pricing I do have the balls to say that Riot is overcharging us. Look at their annual revenue and overall worth and look at how much they've made before 1350 skins became the go-to price tag.

I'm not entitled, I just don't like how they're needlessly increasing the price tag on VIRTUAL CONTENT. It's bad enough to have microtransactions in your game, but to expect your consumers to pay more for them? I'm sorry, but that is indeed being greedy.

"But they put in more effort", are you sure about that? Because I can tell you right now that there are plenty of old 975 skins that are just as good as the current 1350 skins. You say they put in more effort however I'd have to disagree. I do understand that Riot is a business, but they're being unfair to their consumers.

"Are you perhaps just envious that others paid real money to have new shiny toys that you can't have because you don't want to pay as much as they do? Because i really, really get that feeling reading your post....."

Oh boy....you're pulling that card. I won't be rude but I will say that that's not true at all. I earn quite enough money to sustain my addiction, however that doesn't mean I can't speak my mind off of observations I make. The way I see it Riot is progressively biting off more than it can chew in its relationship with us as consumers. I do not wish for League to devolve into CS;GO in terms of how it handles microtransactions, because that's rather worrysome. Hence why I brought up lootboxes as well since they're now officially classified as gambling.

Game direction So, what you're essentially saying is that people reminisce and whine about the past and wanting it back, and you're claiming that the past was broken.

There's just one huge glaring issue with this...... The current season makes opponents miserable as well. Tristana, Vayne, Twitch, Zed, Jarvan, Cho'gath, Maokai, Ezreal etc. all make people miserable when they play against them. What makes matters worse here is that people don't universally acknowledge that they're not fun to play against, people view them as fair and the fact that champions such as these have the complete bias of the balancing team behind them.

People wanting devourer back is fine for one reason and one reason alone, ganking junglers are becoming incredibly boring to see, play as and play against. The jungle doesn't reward people who farm up as opposed to ganking.

As for the assassin reverts....I'd have to agree with them. The assassin updates were rushed, clunky, unfinished pieces of work that ended up being bigger problems than their pre-reworked states. Whether or not they're more healthy is merely a side factor since most assassins are no longer fluent, fun to play or mechanically intensive outside of Zed (because for some reason Zed is Riot's assassin lovechild). I would say that the pre-rework assassins were close to perfection for people looking to play something that fits the term "assassin".

If you're going to say that devourer and the pre-rework assassins were broken let me remind you of the current position ADCs are in, tanks in general and AP supports, because they're arguably more unfair than anything you've mentioned so far (apart from Kassadin I guess?).

We probably have conflicting views here and there, but it's nice to have feedback. Thank you.

Thefrostyviking1 votes

Yes and no. You say that the majority despised items and champions and yet here we are now in the same position. Nothing has changed since then apart from the removal of unique items (except for Ohmwrecker).

No, things have changed, we no longer have anything even nearly as OP as the champs who were strong back then, except possibly Ezreal.

And no items are as strong as deathfire or sword of the divine......except duskblade in the vision wars.

Not true at all. Popularity of gamemodes might seem like an issue but it's really not. If the gamemode was permanent at least in customs it would please people who just want to go into that gamemode to relax (most likely with friends).

I don't think the demand is big enough for riot to dedicate servers for this, i could be wrong but i am fairly sure.

Overwatch's arcade modes have never been "empty" or that unpopular. Certain people play them, and that's fine since it gives people the option to switch things up, which LoL desperately needs.

Last i checked on the blizzard forums the arcade modes were pretty unpopular compared to the normal maps.....like most of the generally unpopular weekly we have like poro king or ascension.

And maintaining those mods and keeping them open costs money, and due to riot not charging their new players and anything and even handing out free content they basically can't afford too much charity.

Just look at blizzards prices despite their still relatively well selling merch and games x)

As for the argument regarding Riot allowing us to create our own things I do doubt it as well, but it's food for thought since Riot is far too lazy (it seems) to give the game some variety.

Like, it took them proverbial ages to even get the practice mode setup and bug free, i honestly don't think they are willing to dedicate time to a even more complex and demanding tool x)

Especially since they do not want people to mess around with their files.

The meta and patch frequency Again, I would have to disagree, the meta changes quite a lot between patches. However, you are correct in saying that the usual "meta" champs usually remain meta, we just see adjustments to their placements in terms of strengths and occasionally some temporary newcomers.

You are being a little contradictory here....the meta consists of the champs and items, and items are rarely changed.

And yet despite the meta champs usually remaining meta we still somehow experience a lot of change? O_O

Honestly, for the last year we've been quite stale in terms of meta, first we had mages, then assassins, then botrk marksmen, followed by more assassins then tank update hit.

Then we basically had a ardent censer+tank meta all the way until the end, which was like 5 months with the same champs being ontop.....except Zac i think who did drop down noticeably from start to end of it.

I just have an issue with how Riot tackles balancing being nerf nerf nerf for most patches, and their changes are rather miniscule (like nerfing Kayle's AD by 5 lul).

These kinda changes are noticeable, particularly in longer fights, which kayle happens to excel in.

Game balance Mmhmm, DOTA 2 updates less frequently in terms of balance than LoL does. I use DOTA 2 as an example since most of the heroes in the game are at least semi-viable in competitive play, unlike League where like 90% of all champions are unheard of in competitive play.

We aren't usually this badly out, it was just the ardent meta that caused a huge mess.

And the juggernaut thing before that last year i think.

I'm not entitled, I just don't like how they're needlessly increasing the price tag on VIRTUAL CONTENT. It's bad enough to have microtransactions in your game, but to expect your consumers to pay more for them? I'm sorry, but that is indeed being greedy.

Visual content, made with the combined effort of skilled artists, animators, coders, sound effects people and the voice actors.

If the quality of all those increase then the price increase is natural no? More work means more pay.

If you tried pulling something else as the boss of a company you´d be abandoned by your workers pretty quickly.

"But they put in more effort", are you sure about that? Because I can tell you right now that there are plenty of old 975 skins that are just as good as the current 1350 skins. You say they put in more effort however I'd have to disagree. I do understand that Riot is a business, but they're being unfair to their consumers.

What? heck no.

Most of the old 975 are outdated in some way, and several are just glorified recolors with some small extra effects.

"Are you perhaps just envious that others paid real money to have new shiny toys that you can't have because you don't want to pay as much as they do? Because i really, really get that feeling reading your post....."

Pricing I do have the balls to say that Riot is overcharging us. Look at their annual revenue and overall worth and look at how much they've made before 1350 skins became the go-to price tag.

Oh boy....you're pulling that card. I won't be rude but I will say that that's not true at all. I earn quite enough money to sustain my addiction, however that doesn't mean I can't speak my mind off of observations I make. The way I see it Riot is progressively biting off more than it can chew in its relationship with us as consumers-

You say this but the fact that you can't recognize the fact that someone working will be wanting money is worrying ._.

There is a simple universal law in the workers unions, more work = more pay, try to get around this and you are officially an asshole.

Riot are clearly not willing to go in that direction, thankfully.

And you look at their revenue rather than the end profit which is the actually important part, like what is the particular greatness of earning 1 milion of you pay 980000 in taxex?

I am pretty sure they pay their artists, voice actors and technicians a lot, and the servers probably cost a fair deal as well.

Fair enough on the lootboxes though.

Game direction So, what you're essentially saying is that people reminisce and whine about the past and wanting it back, and you're claiming that the past was broken.

Yep, this is the most standard thing, people often cry about "things being better before" while greatly glorifying their message and ignoring all the inconvenient truths.

Like the Rengar mains often do, like the old LB mains do and like the people who want the first lethality back meta do....

There's just one huge glaring issue with this...... The current season makes opponents miserable as well. Tristana, Vayne, Twitch, Zed, Jarvan, Cho'gath, Maokai, Ezreal etc. all make people miserable when they play against them.

Zed isn't so bad, he has understandable counterplay.

Trist is a product of the items she uses, she is never any good unless using a OP item.

Vayne and Twitch are old plagues that ought to have been cured but are still around for some reason, but the same could be said about Yas altho i myself find them far worse.

Jarvan isn't so bad either O_O

Cho was a pain but he disappered more or less, and maokai is strong but not impossible anymore.

Ezreal is a result of armor changes and kleptomancy, once his base damage goes down and klepto interaction is changed he´ll be down again, as before.

What makes matters worse here is that people don't universally acknowledge that they're not fun to play against, people view them as fair and the fact that champions such as these have the complete bias of the balancing team behind them.

Yeah......this is what i say when i was on about old times being bad, except balance team also felt that way.

And i guess they just don't want to leave popular champions in the gutter until they can be reworked, thats a last ditch solution.

People wanting devourer back is fine for one reason and one reason alone, ganking junglers are becoming incredibly boring to see, play as and play against.

Me and all the people who play divers/assassins/tanks and....basically every non devorer jungle will probably disagree...... We don't need or want yi or udyr back.

As for the assassin reverts....I'd have to agree with them. The assassin updates were rushed, clunky, unfinished pieces of work that ended up being bigger problems than their pre-reworked states. Whether or not they're more healthy is merely a side factor since most assassins are no longer fluent, fun to play or mechanically intensive outside of Zed (because for some reason Zed is Riot's assassin lovechild).

Zed was never as bad to play against as say LB or fizz or shaco, that's why he escaped a rework.

I would say that the pre-rework assassins were close to perfection for people looking to play something that fits the term "assassin".

Champ that instakills enemy before they can react, yea i know, i talked to them.

If you're going to say that devourer and the pre-rework assassins were broken let me remind you of the current position ADCs are in, tanks in general and AP supports, because they're arguably more unfair than anything you've mentioned so far (apart from Kassadin I guess?).

And the average marksman isn't broken or even OP, we just have a few outliers due to big changes.

Ezreal, MF, Twitch, Vayne.

Ez due to new rune, MF due to lower armor, Twitch because he is a pest and Vayne because of runes as well. ----

Actually twitch has dropped a lot in both play and winrate, he´s down to 50%.....that's actually balanced.

Even if its annoying to play against him, but Yas is the same except slightly lower winrate so <.<

We probably have conflicting views here and there, but it's nice to have feedback. Thank you.

Boards are meant for debate and discussion after all.

Śhunpo1 votes

What's broken No, I have to disagree again. You say that ONLY Ezreal is the closest thing to being as broken as past champions or items and yet you aren't acknowledging the existence of lethality, Press the Attack, supports in general (especially utility supports) and tanks in general.

You think Deathfire Grasp was bad? Now we have an improved Gunblade, Zoe's E and lethality. Duskblade is eons ahead of whatever Deathfire wanted to be. Duskblade has NO cooldown, can proc multiple times in a fight for many champions AND lethality as a stat. is grossly overpowered.

Sword of the Divine? The only real abuser of this item was release Rengar, and even then he was pretty fringe with it. The item wasn't actually a problem apart from when Rengar popped up with it.

Custom gamemodes League's servers can indeed handle multiple gametypes and their queues. Riot sinks a lot of money into these servers and with a 1.8 billion USD revenue I'm almost certain that they can find a way to make it work. Tencent has a revenue of 21 billion USD....so......that should explain a lot.

"But LoL is free to play and players don't play"....you sure? People will inevitably sink money into the game into either their favourite champion or skin. Believe it or not this game isn't "free" for a majority of people.

Additionally it should be a given that a game this large have other gamemodes apart from regular old 5v5, 3v3 and ARAM.

As for your statement about the practice tool, that didn't take them much funding, nor did it take them much time nor effort. In saying that, Riot only put the practice tool into the game because players demanded it. I don't like to say it, but Riot/Tencent may be slightly ignorant towards their playerbase at times....as it took them an entire year to actually decide to finally work on it and implement it into LoL.

Regarding your statement about Blizzard, the difference is that Blizzard releases triple A games with EVERYTHING being able to be unlocked for free at least semi-quickly. Additionally Blizzard is partnered with Activision so they're bound to get greedy. Riot is very different since the devs. show some level of care towards their game....they just don't show it in the right way yet.

The meta+game balance First off, assassins were only meta for 2-3 patches, and the only main offender was Leblanc. Kat was average, Rengar was great and Talon was underrated. That meta was actually the Courage of the Colossus meta if you think about it.

"Items are rarely changed"? Ardent Censer? Hello? That item was buffed 5 times in a row. Also the attack speed jungle enchant has constantly been tweaked, along with many other items (these are just the notable ones).

I won't argue about the Ardent meta, but I do disagree with what you're saying regarding Kayle. The point of me saying that the -5 AD nerf is pointless is because well....it's pointless. Kayle wasn't strong purely because of her damage at the time, she was strong because of her attack speed, invurn. ult and overall utility. It was a nerf made for the wrong reason(s) which ended up doing nothing in bettering the situation. I mention Kayle since small nerfs like these are pretty much all Riot do now.....

DOTA 2's balance is overall better than League's since they make big changes after a long period of time so they have ample time to scout out the meta and target who's strong and who's weak (or what is strong or weak).

Pricing I think that it's false in saying that a $3.60 price increase for a skin will make much of a difference for the people employed by Riot to make the skin. After all I've said this before, Riot has a 1.8 billion USD revenue and Tencent has a 21 billion USD revenue. Even if you exclude Tencent's revenue Riot has more than enough to fund the people they hire even if they reduced your average skin place down to 975 RP.

You mention worker's union and that's not what a worker's union is. A worker's union is a political thing moreso than it is a business thing. I guess you meant to say that Riot has people band together and pays them equally? In which case I doubt that's true.

More work =/= more pay if your company is enormous in its economy. Workers could easily get paid fairly if the skin tags were brought down since people buy the (excuse my french) ever-living fuck out of skins they like. If a skin is done well it will sell insanely well.

As for the tax part....Riot doesn't actually pay all that much in tax compared to how they make. This is basic commercial maths and I'm sure you'll find that this is true.

Ah yes, you say the servers cost a fair deal. If they cost a fair deal they MUST be amazing, right? If that's the case then surely the servers can support other gamemodes apart from the permanent 3 available.

Overall statements Devourer was fine since it gives incentive for some junglers to hard farm. This is/was healthy since it's a nice break from the current junglers who only reward ganking (outside of possibly Kayn early game). Ganking junglers are fine, but a meta dominated by them in the jungle is boring and becomes stagnant and dull very quickly. Junglers should be rewarded for farming, and ganking junglers should have to use their brains more when going for plays. E.g. vs a devourer jungler you should counterjungle when possible as a ganking/duelist jungler.

ADCs in general are broken. There are outliers, but the position is universally flawed since their items are a lot cheaper, more efficient and more powerful than any of the builds other positions go for. Additionally everything that is a real threat to ADCs, being assassins, have been changed immensely to no longer counter them all too much (except for a few specific champs).

Ok, so you say that Jarvan is fine, but uhhhh....you might want to check his popularity and success in Korea. Full Lethality Jarvan is currently the new Lee Sin on the Korean server, and he's making huge impacts on westerns servers as well.

Ezreal isn't a problem just because of runes, he was a problem even before that. It's because of the tear buff and the overall meta being more safe and forgiving for the ADC position. The new runes certainly help a lot, however he's an issue for many other reasons.

Twitch may have dropped in playrate and winrate, but that's because it's preseason. Give it a patch or two and we'll see Twitch again (he's still top 5 ADC atm anyway).

You also say that Zed is fine to play against. Please face a Zed who knows how to play when he's ahead and come back and tell me about it.

"Champ that instakills enemy before they can react, yea i know, i talked to them."

So Cho'gath? The champion you said was disappearing? The champion who was one shotting everyone at Worlds with a TARGETED TRUE DAMAGE NUKE ON A TANK? Also full lethality Jarvan kills any squishy post early duskblade with a mere auto->R or R->auto a lot of the time. That's one button.....at least actual assassins had to work for it with actual combos. MF and Tristana also can one shot people with very little effort. Before you say otherwise, Tristana can 1-2 shot you when she's even slightly ahead...from a right click. You can't react to that unless you're someone like Zed, Vlad, Fizz or Yasuo.

There are more champions than just assassins who one shot. Ironically enough assassins aren't even the one shot gods anymore, that title now goes to ADCs, mages and divers/bruisers (except for Zed because as mentioned before he's Riot's special snowflake).

Thefrostyviking1 votes

Because they have all been nered and their statistics reflect on this properly as well, and the strongest supports botside at this moment would be leo, taric, shen alistar and blitz.

Only one outa them that is half utility focused is Taric.

. Duskblade is eons ahead of whatever Deathfire wanted to be.

DFG was bad because it made it possible for mages to 100 to 0 tanks in a single rotation, particularly malzahar did that number well.

Duskblade has a vision limit and can't be activated whenever you want it to, this is why we don't really consider the damage aspect OP, what is OP is how it always lets you know where the enemy does have vision though.

Sword of the Divine? The only real abuser of this item was release Rengar, and even then he was pretty fringe with it. The item wasn't actually a problem apart from when Rengar popped up with it.

Draven and talon could also use it well, it was a bit awkward to learn it but it was really good.

Custom gamemodes . Tencent has a revenue of 21 billion USD.

Tencent is a Chinese company specialized in investing into other companies.....they don't give a flying fuck about anything except profit, expecting them to help with something so uncertain is pointless x)

And revenue and net revenue are different, revenue is what you have before expenses are counted and net revenue is what comes after, the profit you have earned in the end.

And that isn't made public, speculating about how much it is pointless since we don't know what their expenses are and how much they paid for those.

"But LoL is free to play and players don't play"....you sure? People will inevitably sink money into the game into either their favourite champion or skin.

Inevitably? I myself didnt sink a buck into the game until like one and a half year after i started playing, and that was to send a gift in return for a given one.

And there are patitent souls that wait for sales and bundles, one of my friends has never bought a skin or mystery gift that wasnt on sale.

Additionally it should be a given that a game this large have other gamemodes apart from regular old 5v5, 3v3 and ARAM.

Like, riot are already up to their necks trying to manage 5b5 and keep it working and balanced, they have already shown that they can barely keep 3v3 and aram going due to a lack of manpower.

And they clearly don't want to take in more people.

In saying that, Riot only put the practice tool into the game because players demanded it.

I read their comments on this, they knew years ahead, like it was a topic back in season 3 already. But when they dediced to think about it in season 4 it was already pretty much decided to work on a new client.

Thus it was postponed, but even after the client was launched and the demand for it the practice tool still took months to fix, because it wasn't easy and it took a long time to make it work from dedicated people.

Regarding your statement about Blizzard, the difference is that Blizzard releases triple A games with EVERYTHING being able to be unlocked for free at least semi-quickly.

Man get your rose colored glasses off O_O

Blizzard have done plenty of micro transactions too, just look at overwatch, HOTS, Diablo and even starcraft 2 which they split into 2 parts and sold separately, for a higher price.

And heartstone? You basically need to buy a few sets of cards with real cash to stand a chance against those who do, otherwise you´ll get smashed easily.

Heck, even WOW has and had custom mounts and pets that were only available in their stores, and i think they´ve only increased the amount of stuff available there.

I played all those games ._.

The meta+game balance First off, assassins were only meta for 2-3 patches, and the only main offender was Leblanc. Kat was average, Rengar was great and Talon was underrated. That meta was actually the Courage of the Colossus meta if you think about it.

I was referring to the lethality meta ._. We didn't have a single tank at that point.

"Items are rarely changed"? Ardent Censer? Hello? That item was buffed 5 times in a row.

But only 2 buffs really mattered, the on hit heal and the attackspeed, it wasn't until they got kicked down that it finally dropped.

I won't argue about the Ardent meta, but I do disagree with what you're saying regarding Kayle. The point of me saying that the -5 AD nerf is pointless.

On the contrary, 5 AD translates into pretty much 5 damage given her AA, fervor and E at the time.

Over the span of 20 attacks that´s 100 damage lost, which is a lot early when you have like 800-1000 health, so we can clearly see that this was a nerf aimed at her early game.

#Dota's balance time.

The issue with it is that people instead get immensly frustrated by the same thing being OP for ages, we already have one like that in league and people are tearing their hairs out over a single one.

I don't wana know what dota's forums look like with more of that.

You mention worker's union and that's not what a worker's union is. A worker's union is a political thing moreso than it is a business thing.

Eh....poor translation from my language, it's basically a sort of workers group that ensures the legal and work ethic rights for their members. It was created to protect lone or small groups workers from the pressure of big companies trying to get the workers to work under extremely poor conditions with no compensation by half threatening them.

More work =/= more pay if your company is enormous in its economy.

Eh no, that's not how it works ._.

If a new way of doing things requires more work, more people and higher skills then clearly the money needed to make the new method work will be higher than before.

It works like that everywhere you go, and the new skins have more steps in production and more a higher degree of work invested. Thus the end price is higher.

As for the tax part....Riot doesn't actually pay all that much in tax compared to how they make. This is basic commercial maths and I'm sure you'll find that this is true.

I know for a fact that big companies pay a ton of taxes for all manners of reasons, not just income, heck there is a tax just for having employees.

The servers can support other gamemodes apart from the permanent 3 available.

Except they are kinda using those already.

Overall statements Devourer was fine since it gives incentive for some junglers to hard farm.

Except this was a impossible concept to make it work, devorer needed the jungler to farm a metric ton, and in exchange they got to be super strong, which of course resulted in people building their teams around it.

And it proved super effective, as long as they had a bit of safety to farm early they´d easily outperform all other jungles and crush the competition, and despite attempting a number of changes Riot just couldn't find a middle group between OP and not working.

So it was disposed of, naturally.

ADCs in general are broken. There are outliers, but the position is universally flawed since their items are a lot cheaper, more efficient and more powerful than any of the builds other positions go for.

Admittedly, as mentioned, static shiv is OP and it makes no sense as for why it was buffed.

But the rest except Vayne and Twitch? Nope not at all......or well Ezeal too as off now.

While their items are strong most marksmen compensate pretty harshly for it by being really, really damn weak until they manage to get any items, and even then until they get enough of them.

Ashe, varus and cait are perfect examples of this.

Ok, so you say that Jarvan is fine, but uhhhh....you might want to check his popularity and success in Korea.

.....His playstyle is fine but it seems the armor reductions have benefited him too much x)

Ezreal isn't a problem just because of runes, he was a problem even before that. It's because of the tear buff and the overall meta being more safe and forgiving for the ADC position.

What, the actual, heck, are you on about.

Ardent meta was widely acknowledged as the safest botlane meta we´ve had in proverbial ages, there has never been a safer time.

Damage and assassins have skyrocketed in popularity as well, and even mr Lee made a comeback with the early meta back in full swing.

How is this a safe time for botlane? 4 man ganks are already a thing again.

Twitch may have dropped in playrate and winrate, but that's because it's preseason. Give it a patch or two and we'll see Twitch again (he's still top 5 ADC atm anyway).

Being top 5 with 50% winrate is pretty much indication that the class is in fact balanced.......it's only when the top 5 got more that we have an issue.

Average playrate for a top marksman with average winrate overall is pretty well balanced....

You also say that Zed is fine to play against. Please face a Zed who knows how to play when he's ahead and come back and tell me about it.

This argument is invalid because its based on the champ being ahead, all champs are busted when ahead.

Cho and worlds.

Worlds was played under a different patch and game had like 3 big patches and a preseason update since then.....let dead dogs lie.

Lethality Jarvan.

Yes, yes, it's preseason and big changes happened so stuff like this is bound to happen.

Tristana can 1-2 shot you when she's even slightly ahead...from a right click.

Arguments for champ balance made on the assumption that a champ is fed are pointless, we'd nerf everything to hell if this was a thing.

TIronically enough assassins aren't even the one shot gods anymore.

There never were meant to be any unconditional one shot gods, this is something you have to realize, mages are allowed because they all have conditions, and the ones who didn't were reworked or nerfed. (syndra, ahri, LB, malz.)

Jarvan is a accidental byproduct, much like Ezreal.

And ez, was hot garbage for nearly an entire year, it's a joke that you´d say he was anywhere near decent before preseason ._.

I ran outa writing space for more.

Śhunpo1 votes

Arguments regarding champion balance I brought up those champs when fed since that's the primary reason why assassins were reworked, because they were quite good when fed. Now you know how silly that argument sounds.

Although in terms of Tristana she will 1-2 shot you with 2-3 items whether she's fed or not. I brought up Zed since people rarely complain about his consistently good burst damage, despite the fact he's designed to have delays. What breaks him is Duskblade. Even when not fed he will still one shot you. I brought up a fed Zed since that feels ten times worse than any of the assassins before their reworks bar Fizz. At least you could CC them, you can't CC a half decent Zed.

Duskblade You say this item isn't broken for the damage aspect and yet that's the primary reason people buy it, for the damage aspect of it. The passive is just an added bonus and honestly the item would still be broken without it. The damage from this item is what allows AD assassins and assassin-like bruisers to output insane amounts of burst damage (hello Jarvan).

It's eons ahead of DFG because it does what it was meant to do in flying colours. DFG was always a side issue compared to other things such as the new jungle items (such as Spirit of the Elder Lizard) and tanks. What duskblade does it that it pushes AD assassins almost to the forefront to the point where they're more than just a side issue. AP assassins right now are easy to itemise against, however AD assassins are not since armour does not inherently counter them since lethality ignores quite a bit of it unless you purchase premium armour items such as Randuin's, Frozen Heart or Thornmail.

The lethality meta It was hardly a meta since it hardly lasted a full patch. But I will agree that tanks had an issue with that time.

Balance changes Actually the -5 AD to Kayle did nothing to her. She still remained the #1 contested pick or ban champion up until the jungle became an issue and she had some proper nerfs aimed at her such as increasing the CD on her ult. The -5 AD didn't even help since she just remedied that with runes if she wanted to.

DOTA 2's balance I agree with that since that is what CAN happen. However, people do get over that and find out how to counter the forefront picks of the meta, so it's not all bad.

$$$ talk Ok, that's all true, however that hardly applies to Riot since a majority of their overall profits don't even directly reach them. With that in mind it's safe to assume that money would still be consistently coming in, enough to pay their workers extremely well even if the skin prices were lower.

That's still an assumption since Riot has never openly discussed their business practices with the community, however I find it to be extremely likely.

As for their taxable income it's not as bad as you think. The typical tax to the current annual income of Riot is ~70 million USD.

Devourer None of this was true. In solo queue people would just pick strong early game gankers and duelist junglers to shut down the jungler with devourer before they became an issue. In competitive this would happen only the other lanes would join in on the fun either through wards, CC or raw damage.

Devourer junglers never really outperformed anyone who was at the top of the meta, except for Shyvana, who was then toned down once devourer required "too much" farm (being 30 camps, which is ridiculous).

In devourer being removed there's no real point to actually powerfarming the jungle anymore since ganking will usually give you twice as much gold if you're consistently successful.

ADCs and their items Actually, Varus and Ashe are both really strong. As for Cait I'd argue that she's borderline broken right now given Press the Attack's current strength and her insane synergy with crit.+attack speed (along with her really safe laning phase). If you want an example of a "balanced" ADC right now it's Sivir.

But I do agree that Shiv is inherently an issue since Runaan's was hard nerfed and PD doesn't give enough to be consistely good.

Lethality Jarvan Yes, the armour reductions do help him, however I think the real offenders here are Duskblade and Electrocute. With Duskblade he's allowed to get away with 1 shotting squishies with only R+one auto attack. With Electrocute he can output insane amounts of burst damage throughtout the game.

Ezreal and the ADC position What the actual heck am I going on about? Well, jungle Ezreal of course, and ADC Ezreal going into the world's patch.

Jungle Ezreal was and still is insanely good, and he's likely here to stay unless Riot nerfs him really hard. Amazing clear speed, great ganks (despite having no CC), good scaling, great dueling and insane snowballing potential. All of these make him a good jungler.

As for ADC Ezreal he was viable before the rune changes due to Riot's buff to tear, allowing Ezreal to stack it even faster (since it now goes on CD after 3 spells). Additionally he was and is pretty decent with Ardent and the champions who provide it (especially Janna).

The ADC position is safe and forgiving. 4 man ganks are great and all, however most of the currently great ADCs have amazing escapes. Additionally you forget that this is preseason and everyone's damage is off the charts. Once runes get toned down and towers get buffed we'll likely see less 4 man ganks down in the bot lane.

Assassins might be good now, but just give it 1-3 patches and they'll be garbage again.

Twitch Stats. can only go so far to tell us about a champion. People said Twitch was balanced in season 6 and yet he was arguably THE best ADC pick throughout the season.

Zed Refer to first paragraph**

Cho'gath He's still broken. He still one shots people. Everyone is just too busy running more aggressive champions to want to pick Cho, since he's a boring champ to play.

One shotting Mages should not be allowed to one shot either. If you're going to eliminate one shots than you should eliminate them universally since people say they're unfun to play against.

Syndra's one shot is still infuriating. Leblanc is weak asf right now. Malzahar is arguably THE best mid lane pick and has been for ages now, and he can "one shot" to an extent. Ahri is still decent, but that's a good thing since she's usually either really underwhelming or really good.

Jarvan is hardly an accidental byproduct since he was always an issue when built full AD, it's just that Duskblade became a huge issue and then Electrocute came along to further build upon what full AD Jarvan does best, being burst damage. Ezreal was indeed an accidental byproduct, however, for the time being Kleptomancy is the problem, not Ezreal. However he needs a base damage change on his Q.

Ezreal was a joke before preseason? Jungle Ezreal???? Granted, if you mean ADC Ezreal he wasn't in a great spot at all, although he wasn't "bad".

Thefrostyviking1 votes

Arguments regarding champion balance I brought up those champs when fed since that's the primary reason why assassins were reworked, because they were quite good when fed. Now you know how silly that argument sounds.

The issue with most of the assassins is that they were feast or famine based, either they snowballed and dominated or they were straight trash and the match was lost. Riot had no way to balance them except reworking.

Tristana

Tristana is made by her items, and since static+RFC+IE is OP so is she x) She was bad until those 3 were buffed so much.

Zed.

Zed just oneshots if you have no armor, so sure, it might feel weird that you have to buy armor to survive him but it's not really terrible. I kinda consider it the same as having to buy MR to survive LB,fizz or Syndra.

Duskblade You say this item isn't broken for the damage aspect and yet that's the primary reason people buy it, for the damage aspect of it. The passive is just an added bonus and honestly the item would still be broken without it.

As long as you have even a little armor it's not too bad, but what's really OP is how it lets you always pick favorable fights and surprise attacks since you always know where the enemy wards are.

The damage from this item is what allows AD assassins and assassin-like bruisers to output insane amounts of burst damage (hello Jarvan).

Its more of a combination between the passive and the lethality, honestly a reduction in resistance's is often devastating to one's durability. That's why pro´s always said that Eve's W was really good in terms of effect even if it was so slow to activate.

Deathfire grasp.

It was by no means a side issue, it was the main issue of all AP champs, every single one that wasn't Xerath or someone that stays equally far away always bought it, even Syndra did-

It was simply too good and killed varierity......which makes it even weirder that Riot enforced a morello meta afterwards.

Lethality VS armor.

You´d be surprised actually, you only need ninja tabi+ about 20 armor to actually fully negate all the lethality an assassin buys. With that in hand you stand a good chance to react and survive.

The lethality meta It was hardly a meta since it hardly lasted a full patch. But I will agree that tanks had an issue with that time.

Everyone except AD champs that used lethality had an issue x)

Balance changes&kayle.

Since they didn't revert it i think it added up <.<

DOTA 2's balance I agree with that since that is what CAN happen. However, people do get over that and find out how to counter the forefront picks of the meta, so it's not all bad.

We tried that in league as well, yet everyone still hates the existence of Twitch and Vayne.

$$$ talk Ok, that's all true, however that hardly applies to Riot since a majority of their overall profits don't even directly reach them. With that in mind it's safe to assume that money would still be consistently coming in, enough to pay their workers extremely well even if the skin prices were lower.

They probably do pay the related personnel quite well, skilled artists and voice actors are hot cakes in the gaming industry right now.

Animators and programmers probably get paid less....x)

That's still an assumption since Riot has never openly discussed their business practices with the community, however I find it to be extremely likely.

I do believe that they rake in a huge profit, but i will still hold some reservations since i know government and land owners will try to leech of as much money as possible from the "big sheep",

Them and everyone else who can do it.

As for their taxable income it's not as bad as you think. The typical tax to the current annual income of Riot is ~70 million USD.

Ok that wasn't too terrible, figured it would be more since their income was so high already.

Devourer None of this was true. In solo queue people would just pick strong early game gankers and duelist junglers to shut down the jungler with devourer before they became an issue. In competitive this would happen only the other lanes would join in on the fun either through wards, CC or raw damage. Devourer junglers never really outperformed anyone who was at the top of the meta, except for Shyvana, who was then toned down once devourer required "too much" farm (being 30 camps, which is ridiculous).

Correction, you would try to shut them down but with a protecitce enemy team it was really difficult, udyr, yi and Shyv all thrived in that enviroment.

Oh and xin zhao&kayle did as well, altho not quite as much as the first 3.

But you are not wrong about the invades, they did happens a lot more back then.

In devourer being removed there's no real point to actually powerfarming the jungle anymore since ganking will usually give you twice as much gold if you're consistently successful.

Did you really read the patch notes back then? O_O

Marksmen.

Ashe&varus are actually decent, in the right teamcomps against the right teams, but both struggle ironically a lot against j4 and other mobile murder trains.

Cait is good if played well but she is bad against Ez and MF, who are at the top of the ladders right now.

Sivir is....bad last i checked, her lack of range is making things difficult for her.

But I do agree that Shiv is inherently an issue since Runaan's was hard nerfed and PD doesn't give enough to be consistely good.

I second that.

Lethality Jarvan Yes, the armour reductions do help him, however I think the real offenders here are Duskblade and Electrocute. With Duskblade he's allowed to get away with 1 shotting squishies with only R+one auto attack. With Electrocute he can output insane amounts of burst damage throughtout the game.

Yeah i underestimated electrolute, played Diana last night and oh damn if it wasn't a lot more than i had thoughts.

Ezreal and the ADC position What the actual heck am I going on about? Well, jungle Ezreal of course, and ADC Ezreal going into the world's patch.

Didn't the worlds guys call him the nidalee v2? He was good if he snowballed but kinda meh if he didn't.

.....i did forget about him though, my bad.

Jungle Ezreal was and still is insanely good, and he's likely here to stay unless Riot nerfs him really hard. Amazing clear speed, great ganks (despite having no CC), good scaling, great dueling and insane snowballing potential. All of these make him a good jungler.

His scaling isn't really the best but his early game is monstrous, more so with resistance's down.

He is legit terrifying in soloq.

As for ADC Ezreal he was viable before the rune changes due to Riot's buff to tear, allowing Ezreal to stack it even faster (since it now goes on CD after 3 spells). Additionally he was and is pretty decent with Ardent and the champions who provide it (especially Janna).

It wasn't enough to let him compete with other marksmen in the botlane, it was like giving him a steel dagger instead of a iron one to fight a entire pack of wolves, no matter how skilled he still got run over.

The ADC position is safe and forgiving. 4 man ganks are great and all, however most of the currently great ADCs have amazing escapes. Additionally you forget that this is preseason and everyone's damage is off the charts. Once runes get toned down and towers get buffed we'll likely see less 4 man ganks down in the bot lane.

Among the top marksmen only Trist really has a good escape, she and Vayne with ulti and E.

Assassins might be good now, but just give it 1-3 patches and they'll be garbage again.

I wonder....

Twitch Stats. can only go so far to tell us about a champion. People said Twitch was balanced in season 6 and yet he was arguably THE best ADC pick throughout the season.

He was, truly , i banned him the entire time.

Cho'gath He's still broken. He still one shots people. Everyone is just too busy running more aggressive champions to want to pick Cho, since he's a boring champ to play.

He kinda needs mid/lategame to oneshot, i´m thinking he´s like a lesser version of veigar....but he is a tank.

One shotting Mages should not be allowed to one shot either. If you're going to eliminate one shots than you should eliminate them universally since people say they're unfun to play against.

Well Veigar does exist.....As does Syndra.....both would have to be reworked into completely different champs to really stop x)

But generally mages are more alright since they work with skillshots and delays that you can use to protect yourself.

Syndra's one shot is still infuriating. Leblanc is weak asf right now. Malzahar is arguably THE best mid lane pick and has been for ages now, and he can "one shot" to an extent. Ahri is still decent, but that's a good thing since she's usually either really underwhelming or really good.

Syndra doesn't really oneshot though? A lvl 10 one with item 3020 item 3802 item 3191 vs lvl 10 zed with item 3155 item 3134 can't kill him with a 6 spheres ultimate even if he sits at 40% health.

He´ll lose 200 health and be able to back out safely.

Not terribly impressive, that.

Malz is definitely too consistent given how easy he is to play.

Ahri could use a bit of help, i do find her underwhelming compared to pretty much everyone else.

Jarvan and sudden murders.

True enough i guess, he did benefit a lot in the end of it all.

Ezreal was indeed an accidental byproduct, however, for the time being Kleptomancy is the problem, not Ezreal. However he needs a base damage change on his Q.

The reason that's needed is due to resistance nerfs.

Ezreal was a joke before preseason? Jungle Ezreal???? Granted, if you mean ADC Ezreal he wasn't in a great spot at all, although he wasn't "bad".

I forgot .....haha.......

I was thinking about ADC Ez who was at the rock bottom of marksman ladders.

Penns1 votes

moly thats long m8 all i need is 1 sentence: riot loves adcs and broken tanks and hates ap assassins hehe xd

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

moly thats long m8 all i need is 1 sentence: riot loves adcs and broken tanks and hates ap assassins hehe xd

Yeah, but that's been done far too many times and I don't think anyone gives a damn about that statement anymore.

Plus, people constantly complain arguments aren't long enough or convincing enough to be valid. So, I decided to go all out.

But yes, AP assassins are garbage, AD assassins are a clunky unbalanced mess, tank supports are average, utility support are still broken, AP burst+poke+ control mages are still THE go to mid lane picks, ADCs are broken pieces of shit, tanks are broken and the new runes are a complete failure and do the complete opposite of what the were supposed to being the ability to pick your own playstyle AND they look to be extremely difficult to balance.

Tychusfindlay9181 votes

Unfortunately tencent isn't going anywhere. Besides, if you look at it from Riot's perspective... if you were in the shoes of the owners, would you rather keep your game or take home hundreds of millions?

While there is no doubt that tencent is probably pressuring Riot to monetize more aspects of the game, I doubt a lot of it was tencent's bidding, and I generally despise foreign ownership of American companies.

I agree that the meta seems much more oppressive, or in scarra's words, restrictive.

Let it be known to all here that a meta ought to be judged by how restrictive it is. That is, a good meta can be described as one where the meta champions, although stronger than most other champions, have many ways of being shut down or at least played around by the off-meta. A bad meta can be described as one where you essentially play the meta and have a chance of winning or go off meta and assuredly lose. The ardent censor meta was probably the most horrid example in recent history of a restrictive meta. Preseason is looking a tiny bit better, and with a few more tweaks with regards to lowering overall damage output, I think preseason has a good chance of crafting something enjoyable compared to the ardent censor meta (not that that's particularly difficult).

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

Unfortunately tencent isn't going anywhere. Besides, if you look at it from Riot's perspective... if you were in the shoes of the owners, would you rather keep your game or take home hundreds of millions?

While there is no doubt that tencent is probably pressuring Riot to monetize more aspects of the game, I doubt a lot of it was tencent's bidding, and I generally despise foreign ownership of American companies.

I agree that the meta seems much more oppressive, or in scarra's words, restrictive.

Let it be known to all here that a meta ought to be judged by how restrictive it is. That is, a good meta can be described as one where the meta champions, although stronger than most other champions, have many ways of being shut down or at least played around by the off-meta. A bad meta can be described as one where you essentially play the meta and have a chance of winning or go off meta and assuredly lose. The ardent censor meta was probably the most horrid example in recent history of a restrictive meta. Preseason is looking a tiny bit better, and with a few more tweaks with regards to lowering overall damage output, I think preseason has a good chance of crafting something enjoyable compared to the ardent censor meta (not that that's particularly difficult).

I'd rather keep my game since that will increase me and my company's reputation with the general community (the consumers).

I am aware that Tencent is a huge part of the problem here, hence why I don't fully blame Riot for their decisions.

Yeah, the meta's restrictive and anti-fun. The new runes ironically enough restrict the meta further since certain champs outperform others by a large amount.

As for your paragraph on the meta and what is good and bad, I think that we can achieve a good meta if Riot patches less frequently and actually chooses to use their brain a lil' more when patching (since let's be real, -5 ad isn't much of a balance change).

Tychusfindlay9181 votes

{quoted}

I'd rather keep my game since that will increase me and my company's reputation with the general community (the consumers).

I am aware that Tencent is a huge part of the problem here, hence why I don't fully blame Riot for their decisions.

Yeah, the meta's restrictive and anti-fun. The new runes ironically enough restrict the meta further since certain champs outperform others by a large amount.

As for your paragraph on the meta and what is good and bad, I think that we can achieve a good meta if Riot patches less frequently and actually chooses to use their brain a lil' more when patching (since let's be real, -5 ad isn't much of a balance change).

I won't go so far as to say I do not believe you, because in the end who am I to say that I know you more than you.

All I can say is you can be surprised at what offers of inordinate amounts of money can do to people.

Plus, tencent probably stated during negotiations that riot would still retain a lot of its autonomy (tencent is merely an investment company, it wants returns and will manage acquisitions, but ultimately knows that a good acquisition will only stay good if the people that made it good in the first place keep managing it for them) and it wouldn't replace the leadership, and it hasn't to be fair. Of course it will put pressure to monetize the game further, but the rhetoric of making a deal can be very enticing. There's a reason companies like tencent pay people millions to secure these multi million deals, these people are no joke at what they do.

Don't hype your ideals up too much in hypothetical scenarios, unless they are as solid as the earth, and are something you would be willing to die for.

deadlychuck1 votes

I said this for a while.

There's literally no reason to cater to competitive players, because of the competitive mindset. Competitive players want to use things which are completely broken, as much as they don't want to play against them, generally with no regard for what they personally enjoy. This is why you'll see people learning the FotM champion every time something slips past the PBE (so like every other patch).

However, non-competitive players don't want to play, or play against, some of the most powerful designs that the game offers, because they're simply not appealing to the player.

Śhunpo1 votes

{quoted}

I said this for a while.

There's literally no reason to cater to competitive players, because of the competitive mindset. Competitive players want to use things which are completely broken, as much as they don't want to play against them, generally with no regard for what they personally enjoy. This is why you'll see people learning the FotM champion every time something slips past the PBE (so like every other patch).

However, non-competitive players don't want to play, or play against, some of the most powerful designs that the game offers, because they're simply not appealing to the player.

Exactly. Competitive players DO NOT need change in order to find and abuse broken champions or items. Also, broken champions and items will always exist given the fact that the game has far too many champions, matchups and items to control. If Riot were to suddenly stop patching the game entirely the meta might actually drastically change once people are given enough time to find out everything there is to know about the game as opposed to having the option to whine to Riot to nerf the next broken thing that occurs.

Non-competitive players do not want to play against broken champions, items, strategies etc., however this issue will not ever be fixed given the current direction of League's balancing. As such I find it incredibly annoying when well designed and much loved champs like Rengar, Katarina, Talon, Twitch, Graves and Cho'gath must be reworked just to appeal to the meta or to sate the numerous people who dislike them. There are many more examples but those are all I can think of at 5:17AM haha. My point being that when Riot does aim to balance towards the casual playerbase they usually ruin certain champions, items or even aspects of the game.

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