[Article] Is League Becoming Stressful?

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The meta has become explosive with kill lanes in bot running Ignite, hard gank junglers like Vi, bursty Mages and Assassins like Katarina always taking the mid-lane with strong duelist champions like Riven in the top lane. "The best way to win the game is to deny your opponent any counter play," and "when you win, you need to win more and snowball."

Games often end with one team getting most of the dragons and the end-game becoming a massacre where the losing team barely can make 1 mistake if they want to come back into the game. The games where the game truly can go both ways are becoming rare, and immobile or support-heavy champions like Nunu, Malzahar, Lulu, Soraka, Galio or Shen are rarely ever seen.

The impact that the current meta has on the player is the feeling of being made of glass in a world of rocks. If you're caught out of position for even a split second, you're locked down in a Vi ultimate and subsequently bursted down before you can even Flash. You're on edge for the entirety of the game, knowing if you lose focus that could be the moment the play was made that decided the entire team fight.

We embrace skill like there is nothing else to the game. We completely worship the LCS like the ultimate end goal of the game. We talk to each other like skill is the only defining quality in a player. We fully accept Riot's goal with the game is centered around the dream of becoming professional players. Why is that a problem? Is it even a problem? Efficiency is the aspect of human nature that defines our very intellect, the more we learn the more effective we become at it and there's no question League's community continues to become better and better at the game.

The stress factor put on the player is real. Every good player knows it, gnawing away at them in the back of their mind. The question that begs in their mind when they queue for a game, "Will I win this?" Not because the player doubts his or her ability to win the game, but because the player fears how hard the game will be if they don't. How much enjoyment will the player have if one or two lanes end up "feeding" and the player has fight a champion that will lay waste to them in a second.

A fed Shen has never scared you like a fed Riven. It is because of that it's always the Riven that gets fed, because the community has learned and adapted and finally understood that it's the fed Riven that's more likely to carry the game. We see players devote themselves to single champions, learning every single trick and technique there is so that when they get that small lead, they can milk it for every ounce it's worth, avoid every possibility of a shutdown and keep demolishing their opponent. The stress is both on the carrying player and the losing player, knowing mistakes are the currency that decides the game and the bigger lead you get, the less you have to pay for yours.

Is it even possible to go backwards? Is it even desirable? No. The game must go forward. It's evolution, it's the way of progress and the player's right to make the game everything it can be. Riot will continue to tweak and adjust the game to keep the meta from spinning completely out of control, nerf champions that go over the edge and even remove the worst offenders, such as Deathfire Grasp.

But the real question before us is, does Riot consider the stress factor upon the player a priority in their game design? This is a complex question because there are only partial answers and only Riot could truly answer that question. We have seen indications of it, such as calling Deathfire Grasp an "unhealthy game design" in the sense that a design such explosive isn't promoting an environment where players actually enjoy the game, even if you could pan it off as "balanced."

As a player, my feelings are very clearly set on one answer: The game is evolving into a direction where stress only grows. It's becoming the law of the jungle where the only the strongest survives, or maybe it always was but we're as always taking it to the extreme. The Soraka can't throw down a lantern for the ganking Vi, the Nunu can't kick the enemy top laner back into the lane and the Malzahar can't make the turret dive and escape with only two shots. Perhaps it's the itemization that's the problem, the inability to buy survivability as anything but a tank without falling behind. Perhaps it's the balance, overpowered champions forcing the game into this direction. Or perhaps it's simply the nature of the game and the way it's meant to be played.

Either way, as a player, I wish Riot would focus more on fun. More on breathing room. As a final comment and a closing to this article, some of the most fun I've had playing League were doom bots. Not because they were overly challenging, but because they were challenging without stressing the player out.