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Strategy gameplay is constantly decline in our game and that's a bad sign.

Dolfro·11/21/2019, 8:04:33 AM·107 votes·18,412 views

Champions are becoming overloaded allowing them to do everything, killing a lot of individuality,- with extreme utility causing the big fights to be more and more unpredictable, and the small fights to be very linear shows of dominance. The insane utility in Riots game design disrespects Distance in a way that does not suit the Chess gameplay of Moba. But ofc- players enjoy being spiderman- they enjoy being that problem. So Riot has continued to supply that game-changing demand.

What was once a simple chill 5v5 Chessgame, is becoming more of a jumparound- spellflinging- combat action fueled arena - every year.

Strategy -~~ not action combat~~- is the long-lifeblood of these games. Its why we play League of Legends/DOTA for 10 years, but get bored of Battlerite after 12 days even tho its combat is beautiful. For the past 5 years, strategy gameplay has been in slow but steady decline in our game.- And crazy action combat fighting gameplay on the rise.

Creativity - has also taken many hits, but I find it to be less impactful to the deterioration of the game. creativity and strategy are often the same thing in moba tho- Runes, Builds, and the like. I miss having to choose between Wards, a Powerful item or a quick buff. some Gold-o-time or maybe something crazier. I miss my team being happy when I buy that ward, and I miss my team being mad at me when I Choose to buy some power instead,- because choices are fun. They fuel that strategic feeling. the feeling that your choices - not just your action combat OP SKILLZ - had impact.

It's sad looking at the past how League evolved from being actual strategic moba game to battle royale "stomp one lane" game.

41 Comments

Hayaishi211/21/2019, 8:43:27 AM38 votes

I miss boot enchantments. :(

I believe there's two league of legends atm. One; the older one is represented by how vision used to work before and some of the older champions who have restrains in their kit around a "power budget" and then we have a new league of legends represented by lack of vision because it forces you to play aggressive and by champions like Senna, Kaisa, Irelia, Ekko, Pyke etc where the concept "power budget" does not exist. Their power fantasy is more important than healthy gameplay and this is the philosophy that Riot wants to follow and the new dragons is a example of that.

So right now the game is stuck between its two faces. It's stuck between what Riot wants it(The new LoL) to become and what it used to be (Older LoL), every season the game turns into what Riot wants it to be at least in some way. Damage getting higher isn't a coincidence, they knew Runes reforged would take the game in the new direction that fits their vision no matter cost (IE: balance issues for 3 seasons now, less diversity in choices)

So yes, we older players (S2 here) are meant to either adapt or get the fuck out. For me the game is in a weird limbo (It has been for awhile but the last two seasons if when i've been actually feeling) it tries to be something it isn't. It wants to be fast paced but at the same time Riot reworks dragons to give them more strategic value, the new dragons change the map (strategic value) but at the same time the benefits are so front loaded stat wise that they are game changing and whatever map changes dragons give (which is the coolest thing about them) is eclipsed by the fact dragons just make you kill things better.

AquariusGine11/21/2019, 1:49:43 PM35 votes

Also the reason why I don't pay attention to LCS anymore; fights are too unpredictable. You can't objectively determine which team is more skilled because the margin for human error is too large. Say a player is jetlagged or feeling slightly feverish that day, and therefore their reaction time is slightly off, could you confidently say that they are truly the worse player/ team?

A single slip of the finger shouldn't be the deciding factor between a win and loss. That's just Overwatch/ Fortnite and we know how those turned out.

Not saying League should be like Dota2, that game has a learning curve that is too steep for casual players. Nonetheless, the old League had a nice balance. It wasn't perfect but it was certaintly respectable in terms of depth and strategy.

blindasleep11/21/2019, 8:38:27 AM18 votes

{quoted}

Champions are becoming overloaded allowing them to do everything, killing a lot of individuality,- with extreme utility causing the big fights to be more and more unpredictable, and the small fights to be very linear shows of dominance. The insane utility in Riots game design disrespects Distance in a way that does not suit the Chess gameplay of Moba. But ofc- players enjoy being spiderman- they enjoy being that problem. So Riot has continued to supply that game-changing demand.

Strategy -~~ not action combat~~- is the long-lifeblood of these games. Its why we play League of Legends/DOTA for 10 years, but get bored of Battlerite after 12 days even tho its combat is beautiful. For the past 5 years, strategy gameplay has been in slow but steady decline in our game.- And crazy action combat fighting gameplay on the rise.

Creativity - has also taken many hits, but I find it to be less impactful to the deterioration of the game. creativity and strategy are often the same thing in moba tho- Runes, Builds, and the like. I miss having to choose between Wards, a Powerful item or a quick buff. some Gold-o-time or maybe something crazier. I miss my team being happy when I buy that ward, and I miss my team being mad at me when I Choose to buy some power instead,- because choices are fun. They fuel that strategic feeling. the feeling that your choices - not just your action combat OP SKILLZ - had impact.

It's sad looking at the past how League evolved from being actual strategic moba game to battle royale "stomp one lane" game.

Macro slows game play in less organized games. Riot needs games to end fast so everyone feels like they're pro skill level and maybe they buy a skin on impulse high to celebrate their greatness. Got to have the best looking skin when the scouts see my (insert elo here) games and realize that it's the people that I get on my teams holding me back, because I'm the new and improved Faker/Uzi/Peanut/whoever. All about business.

OHminus11/21/2019, 3:37:09 PM15 votes

Ye - both games I played today were not decided by good jungle pathing or smart/crisp rotations. They were instead

  1. who has more broken champions?
  2. who has the better early/wining lanes?

I outjungled my jg counterparts so hard I was always 2 levels + 20 cs up while keeping up with gank speed and taking first drag. But then none of that matters, because my lanes either fed outright or threw their leads, leading to me getting collapsed on in my jungle. Nice game, riot, nice game...

Rαy11/21/2019, 6:19:32 PM15 votes

My desire to play the game has never been this low.

LordGeovanni11/21/2019, 4:37:56 PM11 votes

Don't worry Zzrots is gone so you cant punish aram mentality

Yaskamasandwich11/22/2019, 1:27:48 AM10 votes

Wall of text incoming.

When one looks at League of Legend's history, the game reaching this point isn't really at all shocking. While there are many problems with League of Legends that came from even the old guard, the ranking tier system and removal of the old banning system has caused overwhelming toxicity. For now though let us just focus on the overloaded champions problem.

This all went off the rails with Bradford 'CertainlyT' Wenban created Darius in season 3, the same CT that is now promoted to Senior Game Designer. Darius was always a problem, an overloaded champion that completely replaced Garen at the time. Everything Garen did, Darius did better. Better damage, better stats, better spin, better bully, better mobility with his old passive, better resetting ultimate which was/and still is TRUE DAMAGE, the list goes on. Instead of being fired, or leashed and forced to not create overloaded champions, Riot's higher ups kept letting CT create more and more overloaded abominations.

Why? Well I've said this in another post, and I'll just even copy paste it to get the point across, with an added tack that CT is a hack, and he most CERTAINLY is:

"CertainlyT is a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE game designer. Anyone who can code, make champions, and rub two brain cells together can easily make an overloaded broken champion that breaks the rules of the game. It takes true skill to make a balanced, play by the rules champion, that is still interesting and fun for all. What CT is a very professional at is MARKETING, which is what the new team at Riot is entirely all about. CT knows that his champions are busted and overloaded, and not only cares but counts on it. Every time a project that CT is involved, it gains more attention than any other project, including his own previous project. All the fans and haters look into his next project to see the excitement, and the eyerolls of what overloaded broken abomination is going to hit the game.

Take Zoe for instance, she had a skin, a summoner's icon, and loads of emotes given to her for not even about a month after her release, while so many other champions collect dust. That's because when Zoe was announced, she gained more attention than probably about 80% of LoL's champions BEFORE even being released. As marketing goes, whether it's good attention, or bad, it always brings $.

Look at every skin line, there is always a CT champion, and not just on the side line, but at the fore front. Yasuo was the captain of the crew in Odyssey. Warwick CT's only balanced champion because he was held down by someone way higher up, he admits it and loathed it. He wanted to overload WW to the max, but couldn't and that angered him. anyways WW is the main opposition to Pyke in the recent project skin line, Pyke being another overloaded champion. Now we have Zoe yet again as the main antagonist of the Star Guardian skin line. Not only do CT champion's gain skins faster than any other champion, they're at the forefront, never sidelined.

On top of that when CT is making a champion he targets a specific audience, and cranks that champion's concept to 11. Darius was released for the old warrior fanbase, Zed for ninjas, Yasuo for samurais, etc. This makes his already popular champions even more popular and making more $. Further proof of this is with every VS match, CT's champions win, ALWAYS! It doesn't matter who it is, CT's champion will win. Thresh won VS Lucian, Yasuo won VS Riven, Darius won VS Garen. CT's champion will always win.

Worst part is Riot figured this out, now every other champion designer is doing the same thing. Balance is thrown out the window for the sake of marketing. Sadly it works, hence forth the whole buff the champion, release a skin, rinse and repeat. Pyke was already overloaded with his ult, and was uniquely designed as a carry support instead of traditional support, and because of that became popular and became the forefront of the project skins, thus getting even more buffs. Champions that are already overloaded and broken become more buffed, while unpopular champions collect more dust. That is until they get reworked, become an entirely different champion to which the name might as well be changed, and become overloaded and broken, and then nerfed down so another overloaded champion can get the spotlight Aatrox anyone?"

I've said this a while ago, and it still holds true. Marketing is where it is at now, not strategy, not balance, it is all about the money, which to be fair for a FREE TO PLAY game, money is very important. At some point though, the balance of the game needs to come first or else the game starts loosing steam, or does it? We are of the old player base, the old vanguard, we don't matter anymore. Just look at the new champion releases, look at the overloaded Pyke and Senna two damaging supports. Why play a normal support like Janna now? There is no point. I've already mentioned Thresh and he is still king of supports, and being set to the forefront thanks to Senna.

Look at the reworks, especially the most controversial rework Aatrox Jeevun 'Jag' Sidhu who reworked him stated that "The rework is not meant for Aatrox's old players." Basically flipping us old fans the bird in sacrifice to the new fans. Jag is also responsible for creating the overloaded Kaisa too btw. So now not only was CT the exception, but is now the rule of how to make overloaded champions. Make an overloaded champion > preview overloaded champion > make them at the forefront of the skin line > put the at the forefront of other marketing projects (Yasuo, Darius, and Thresh are all previewed in "Legends of Runeterra") > Make them extremely popular (said three champions are usually on the forefront of Riot) > profit.

Now something to be added on, it wasn't totally all of CT's fault too though, it wasn't just the balancing team's that lets his abominations go through either, it was the player bases'. Ironically the overloaded champion machine didn't start with Darius … it started with LeeSin . Lee Sin was the very first overloaded champion, a champion that Old Riot was going to put on the chopping block because he seemed too powerful. It was the fan base that spared Lee Sin, and kept him to be released as planned. CT and Jag saw this, and decided to successfully capitalize on it. For no matter how annoying it is to face an overloaded champion, they will always have a bigger fan base than the balanced champions. They're giving what the players want, and now it is time for us old players to go in favour of the new ones, and the cycle will repeat again and again until the game dies.

Sir Inugami11/22/2019, 3:36:38 AM9 votes

Strategy as a whole has been in decline. It's largely due to the increasing smaller attention spans of younger audiences and the prominence of eSports around FPS/TPS games.

Strategy based board games such as Risk, Chess, Stratego and more have seen drastic sale drops compared to other shorter ones. Real-Time Strategy games such as StarCraft, Age of Empires and the like saw a massive and rapid decline in playerbase due to the aforementioned attention span reason.

Fact of the matter is that for the foreseeable future; strategy has no mainstream appeal in games. People are not willing to put in the time needed to learn them, and prefer the instant gratification of kills, plays and flashy lights.

League's champion playrates are key pieces of evidence for this. League's top three most played champions - Kai'sa, Yasuo and Lee Sin - are overloaded, simplistic and have-it-all type champions who reward their players with incredible kit-to-item synergies and easy-to-use skills. League's top three least played champions - Aurelion Sol, Anivia, Ivern - are unique and complex champions who reward their players with incredible tenacity and time spent learning all the facets of their kits as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

p3tm4ster11/22/2019, 5:20:13 AM9 votes

This game has become primarily who can play the best broken meta champion. That's all it is now, there is nothing even remotely fun about that, especially for people who main 1 or 2 champs, they're fucked if those champs aren't in the meta.

Harden Stepback11/22/2019, 1:04:35 AM8 votes

This game requires no strategy anymore, Riot removed so many unique playstyles you can play and killed the overall diversity of the game.

BestGmers11/21/2019, 8:26:38 PM8 votes

When you see mages have 3k hp and you are a tank that has only mr and armor with 4k hp and no damage :( pls buff top laners jesus christ just tanks in general , Imagine getting killed in 5 seconds as a tank

Freaktory11/22/2019, 12:45:27 PM5 votes

I just find it hillarious. I said a long time ago that season 9 would be the last season before riot fell off a cliff. Every time I said that the game sold its soul, I was mocked and shut down.

I wasnt building >insert popular meta< I wasnt playing >insert popular champ< I was focused on winning, not sitting around patting myself on the back.

Strategy in the game was slowly being stripped away, teamwork went out the window. It was no longer a game of "Work as a team to take down towers and destroy the enemy nexus" instead it became a game of "compete WITH your teammates to see who can get the most kills till one side gives up and surrenders"

I used to be a team player, happy to "take the bullet" for an adc so they could then go on, take the tower and help the team win. Now I couldnt give a rats ass about any of the egotistical Toddlers that make up the league community. the ones who throw a fit at the mere notion of having to share any spotlight with anyone else on thier team.

The way I put it is simple. Players no longer Que up to find 4 teammates, but rather que up to find their personal 4-man cheerleader section. Teamwork is gone Strategy is gone creativity in builds and champs? Gone. You try playing anything outside the pre-approved "meta" and you will hear so many calls of "ur greifing" it will make your head spin.

I have started taking gold from my adcs for 2 reasons.

  1. there is no rule saying I cant, and most of the times my adcs are too busy flattering themselves to care about winning, they are more concerned with going on about how hard they are "Carrying this trash team" and 2) Its a test: You can usually tell what kind of adc you have by how they react after you take a minion. The mature, adaptable players will do just that. They will adapt, we both scale..and I may even back off and slide into a traditional support role, easing off the farm and letting them push ahead to win. Usually these players are much more mature, flexible, forgiving, and more focused on actually WINNING then how hard the team is sucking them off. Or There is the toddler, The spoiled, entitled child who will spamm "?" on you till your ears fall off in protest. The one who will grind the entire game to a halt so they can drop to the ground in mid lane, kicking and screaming till the entire team promises to "9x the greifer, lets get them banned". and if the team doesnt side with them, they will intentionally throw the game to punish the team because "team doesnt deserve to win". Uncontested farm is a COURTESY, NOT A RULE. This means if a teammate is more focused on farming 300cs and 30 kills, they arent interested in winning.

But back to what I was saying, people treat meta like its the witch trials. If you build anything outside the pre-approved, you are "Greifing"

Creativity and strategy are being stripped out of the game, People arent allowed to have thier own strategy, thier own build path. Thier own play styles. I play aggressive, poke-heavy..."death by 1000 papercuts" so now I am gonna have to just sit back, shut up, and be a good little healbot because...1000 gold? WOOOOOW. How generous, and all it cost the game was everything that made it appealing.

I said it before, and I will say it now. Season 10 will be when League goes off a cliff. It stripped creativity, it stripped away strategy...and you can see it now. ITS CHASING AWAY ITS OWN PLAYERBASE. (Seriously how many threads did I see of "as a Season ___ player, I am done" or "Season 10 patch, I quit") Good job riot. Just shut down league and become an animation studio instead. Your player base is falling off a cliff anyways.

Nipsahoy11/21/2019, 8:14:07 PM3 votes

Always nice when a Soraka is healing people to full in two casts while half HPing your adc with 2 spells as well. Really good design Riot.

CominTowardsYa11/22/2019, 4:49:38 PM2 votes

Riot hates URF but makes the game more like URF, even though its still slow, and unfun, but has inflated damage.

ZephyrDrake11/22/2019, 5:30:36 AM2 votes

"Strategy" running aimlessly like headless chickens for 50 mins apparently was strategy

Vonyalo11/21/2019, 8:53:29 PM2 votes

It works as you can see, 4 million viewers at worlds. Great numbers there, quite impressive. Why change the game?

Żügżwäng11/22/2019, 4:48:02 PM2 votes

The new upcoming champion has FIVE weapons! WOW He can now kill people FIVE times as fast, and kill FIVE times as many people (1v5).

Tuition Fee11/23/2019, 8:55:37 AM1 votes

Literally jumped from silver to plat by abusing S tier champions. It's honestly all about team comp, and what champs you're playing. I've seen diamond and master Azir, Yuumi and Karma mains get shit on by low elo players playing shit like Fiora Fizz Jax Tryndamere

Toolmaker11/22/2019, 6:23:13 AM1 votes

I mean, there is still strategy involved, it's just that you are going to die even more, and if you are at a disadvantage, you are not going to be able to play the game, and that's a problem. There is also too much in-between with walking to lane and death timers. These are the types of things that can make a game no fun for me.

RyzeRework11/22/2019, 2:37:42 PM1 votes

Ok boomer

MasterDClone11/23/2019, 12:01:45 AM1 votes

The drags, the reduce in damage and the jg changes are all signs that the game is going back to being far more skill expressive than it has been in a while