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Why is snowballing so huge?

Mira Arya Enthe··28 votes·2,644 views

Before you downvote, this isn't a game criticism but a genuine question.

Snowballing is huge, the game is usually decided fairly early, and loss of one early kill or tower can lose the game.

Yet... the matches don't seem to be any shorter. On average 30-50 minutes just like always. So can somebody with higher rank tell me exactly what this accomplished? I'm not being sarcastic, asking genuinely. Even the estimated time Riot gives for a summoner's rift match hasn't gone down. And with the dynamic queue system(which I enjoy), the time to get in, play and complete a game seems longer than ever.

So I genuinely ask somebody explain to me what the purpose of RNG dragons and massive snowballing, increased burst damage, immense mobility, no fortification on bot turrets, making bot a miserably lane(use to main support), tower first blood, making towers out of paper, etc. What these accomplished. Like I actually do want to know, and possibly a few different viewpoints.

Because to my silver self, they only made the game more toxic, snowball based and frustrating. And the matches are certainly no shorter.

Thank you for any input.

EDIT: 9/29/2016 Thank you everyone for your input and genuine answers. They have helped me a lot with information and also understanding the community at different ranks. I appreciate all of you, and all of your input, even if you don't all agree.

35 Comments

Desolas Arterius9 votes

I think the main reason why the game snowballs is the item system/gold system. Since now you can get tower first blood, you can get an advantage over the enemy team via gold which allows you to buy items that they can't get yet. Champions can't play properly without their builds, so of course if you get ahead gold wise you will tend to snowball if you keep that lead. Without key items, champions will get out dueled easily by those that do have them, thus creates snowballing.

Which in turn is why there's all these changes. And it's probably why the games on average take more than 30 minutes. Because teams try to even out that gold lead by stalling. It's a good strategy, but makes the game take quite awhile to catch up to the early lead.

If we look at another MOBA of the same style that doesn't rely on items, we see something different. Heroes of the Storm is very similar, except it focuses heavily on objective control and hero abilities. You don't need items, so you don't need to cs or farm for gold. The most you can get ahead is by level, but even then it's not that drastic. Kills are less of a focus in the game, and it's more about pushing lanes and controlling the major objectives on the map. Even minor objectives take priority over getting kills. Matches usually end in 20 minutes from my experience because of this.

I think if league didn't rely so heavily on gold and items, then it'd become less of a feast or famine type of game. However that's probably never going to happen, so we're kind of stuck with that play style :P

As for the dragons, I think they added them to add more value to dragon instead of being just another gold boost. Same with Baron and Rift Herald. Riot wanted to add more "objectives" to the game to reduce the need for snowballing, but really it just added to the snowballing. The only buff worth getting when behind is baron because of the pushing power, but if you don't have the items to back up the push you'll end up dying regardless :P

Burst and mobility aren't much of an issue. Champions were created with those specific characteristics in mind, so it's not that bad of a design.

The tower change was technically a good one, because for awhile towers took forever to take down due to their bonus MR and Armor. Not to mention the second lane tower used to give a huge shield, which made split-pushing and diving a nightmare. I don't think the towers are too bad, I just think they need better targeting AIs. More abilities need to cause aggro, and I believe Riot is currently working on that. Though some cases aren't exactly the best (See Yi alpha strike issue).

But yeah, to sum it up the game is heavily snowball in play style because of the huge need for gold to get items. Without items you can't do anything once the enemy gets some kind of lead. And with all these new ways of getting leads (tower first blood, first blood, rift herald, dragon buffs, etc), it just adds to the downward spiral of feast of famine playstyle.

I hope that makes sense :) Obviously I might be wrong on some things. But that's what I've been able to figure out using comparisons to other similar games.

Cremepie6 votes

I for one applaud your well thought out and written summary of snowballing, its gold and always will be gold for league because of how item driven the game is. Although I'd like to mention Shutdown gold is probably one of the factors why games dont end very fast as well.

Desolas Arterius3 votes

Haha thank you :) I was hoping it wasn't too long since I'm pretty prone to writing very long-winded essays regarding topics I enjoy ^^;

And yeah shutdown gold is a huge factor in reducing the lead. Which contributes to the games going on longer because the gold lead diminishes with each shutdown like you said. I mostly just mentioned farming and stalling (defending the base heavily but not pushing team fights) since it's easier to do early and mid game when behind, whereas shutdowns can sometimes require risky plays to go after their most fed player who already has an advantage over you. But I definitely agree with your point :)

Sire Hippington5 votes

Firstoff, alot off the things contributeing heavily to snowballing are rather subtile and were probably not intendet to increase snowballing. Some others have very little impact, the botlane no-fortification is not much of a deal, in ~90% of the games you wouldn't deal much damage to the tower within the first 5 min anyway. Also, the purpose of that, as well as that of the clearly snowbally tower-FB, was not to increase snowball but to deter from laneswaps which were the standart strategie in proplay at the time.

For what all the snowballing accmplishes: For experienced and coordinated teams, gametimes are actually lower, though i do have no data at hand. Lowering the gametime also was riots intendet goal with many of the changes in preseason, though it wasn't very succesfull in average. But whenever i play with 2+ premades and we snowball early, we usually can close it in less than 25min. The issue is that cloesing out games still is the most difficult part of league and requires alot coordination and decisive calls, which in soloQ, esepcially in lower elos, simply doesn't happen, so most games still drag out and become a game of throws despite the heavy snowball.

For my personal oppinion: I would vastly prefer less snowbally games and happily have 5-10 min more per game in average(though i asume for soloQ it owuldnt change the average gametime so much), the S6 stompfests kinda suck and most of the things leading to the heavysnowball imo make that game rather less fun and carry away from it's roots.

DaBloodyFreak3 votes

The thing about snowballing is when you're playing a champion that can be in two places at once- not literally (Yorick item 3070 ) then people are going to be expecting and/or afraid of you being there to kill you. When the enemy LeBlanc gets a double kill in the laning phase, I ward my blue buff because now she has the potential to be up in my shit. same goes for lanes. a 13/2 Ahri is a lot more map presence than a 0/3 zed.

So what you're asking:

Dragons: its a small number, but definitely benefits late game if you can pull it off early.

Snowballing: no one on the enemy team thinks they're safe.

Increased burst DMG: you're more likely to put some distance between someone who can kill you before you can flash than a small DOT champ like singed.

Immense mobility: if other lanes aren't watching when you leave and you are the new sonic, they probably wont even know that you're gone before you show up and do the Gagnam style #ProjectYi on their corpse.

No fortification on bot turrets: with bot turret down your ADC and support have increased risk from a mid/jgl gank or a teleport so they are no longer safe CSing.

Making bot a miserable lane: ADCs do the most damage on the team usually. If they are behind, your overall damage is reduced and you cant kill them, plus everyone's favorite, the Salt ADC

Tower first blood: sometimes signals the end of laning phase, bonus gold for the whole team.

So hopefully I've answered some of your questions, feel free to message me if you want me to describe something you don't understand, keep in mind I am in bronze but I feel like I have a better game awareness than what my ELO says, I'm working on climbing now.

Also, did I mention it's mating season?Nidalee

Oh Look Kaede2 votes

Your getting more items which means either more tankiness or damage. You can't stop a snowball in the game, there's always at least one until you reach higher elo

Michael7022 votes

I hope you know that dynamic queue is NOT role selection.

Riot made the game snowbally at the beginning of the season. This was their intent. What they forgot to do was decrease the FF time from 20 minutes. So even though the game is more snowbally, the game still lasts about the same time.

LegendmakerGX2 votes

I disagree with this even if you fall behind 1 simple ACE or a kill on a enemy that has 450 gold bounty can seriously change the game. At my rank when i rank in platinum i hate when idiots never understand that you can still win the game by just farming to 25 min which practically ends up who has the smarter team fight. That's why you even see the pros always farming over kills which they use to go, not saying we are LCS level but they show if you just farm even when the enemy is fed pass the 30 minute mark then you can win with a smart team fight.

Vallalan2 votes

I'm in plat so I'll tell you the difference between a few kills early in low elo vs high elo.

in low elo, if a solo laner gets a kill on you it typically means they will play exactly the same on your stupid aggressive. meaning they wont push their lead, or they will simply think they are so fed already they can just play completely stupid rather than methodically zone you out and kill you again.

in high elo the lane is GG without jungle intervention as the laner who got ahead will zone the enemy out from farming and if they try to farm they get traded on hard. after a couple times of that they either die again or have to back constantly and fall even more behind. the laner who gets ahead will then start to affect other lanes was the lane who is behind now has to stay in lane just to catch up the 20-30 cs they are behind. if they try to follow their laners roams they run the risk of falling even MORE behind and being 100% useless so they have no choice.

and in high elo the roams are good. a jungler who gets ahead is even scarier because his ganks are now pretty much guaranteed kills and you sure as shit know your jungler isnt going to safely farm their own jungle anymore.

the only lane that isnt instantly GG even in high elo is bot lane. and thats because ADCs are the hardest role to snowball/carry with. but even bot lane can snowball if you are extremely good simply by continuously pushing bot pressure or lane swapping after fucking the enemy bot.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Pls don't talk about "high" and "low" elo when you are in plat 4 >.> High elo is dia 2+. Better refer to higher elo.

Vallalan1 votes

in the grand scheme of things you can keep saying that about any elo higher than plat. to be truly honest anyone higher up in the game even those in d2 know the only good players at this game are challenger and master.

in the grand scheme of things even though plat/d5 sucks dick. (wont argue with you there) they are still top 8% of all league players. so yes, you can still call them high elo when looking at the bigger picture.

Shadòw1 votes

The Game was already in a more snowbally state imo

SlashStriker1 votes

In Dota 1 Death = GG you die you lose gold

League always being toxic cause its competitive multiplayer game. Call of Duty is pretty much the same i think Bloodline Champions? Same shit

Also the League is snowbally to make the games shorter. There was time that people complain alot that each match is too long and unfun so Riot made it shorter

Drugoth4 votes

Bloodline champions was dropped. Battlerite on the other hand doesn't have any runes/masteries, gold or items. Hell you don't even level up in that game. Snowballing is almost non-existant in it and I've never felt butthurt about losing in it yet. (granted I've only played like 5 hours so far)

Desolas Arterius3 votes

Battlerite does have the "Battlerite" ability boosters though. So technically it does have some kind of build path. Take the wrong abilities and you'll end up doing poorly, but you are right in that there is no feast or famine playstyle. It's all about how well you know your character and what abilities to take and when. You can't get a lead because everyone gets the option to choose a battlerite. So it's honestly a really fair game :)

It also doesn't have a "meta" and you can play the characters any way you want which is nice! Definitely reminds me of the Warcraft 3 days or arena fighter games.

Drugoth3 votes

I'm a huge fan of Croak. His playstyle is really fun. I feel like there's no wrong choice in the Battlerites cards though. Some are geared for more damage while others are for utility. I feel like they're all pretty viable choices for the most part and it depends on your playstyle.

Desolas Arterius2 votes

I like playing Paloma, Freya, and Ashka! I play 3s with my fiance and our friend so depending on what we need more of I generally like to switch :)

There isn't a "wrong" choice, but there are some that work better than others in certain situations. Like if I'm playing Freya I will most likely pick her battlerite that makes her E pull my enemies towards me. Especially against more flighty ones like Croak. But if I'm going against more stationary ranged characters then I like to buff my storm mace or Q.

It's more so pick what works best, but if you're good with the character you can pretty much make everything work. I guess in Meta terms, there are some abilities that work better than others and are more staple picks, but you can still play fine with the "off-meta" battlerites as long as you know what you're doing and why you're choosing it.

Thankfully the meta doesn't apply to characters. All of them are great which is a huge plus :)

Drugoth3 votes

One of my absolute favorite things about Battlerite is the WASD movement vs league. It's a real nice break for my right hand which tends to cramp from playing too much league.

Desolas Arterius2 votes

I'm still not entirely used to that. Most games I play don't require using WASD to move, so it's odd for me haha.

Matezoide4 votes

Dota is nowhere near as snowbally since spells dont scale with stats near as much as LoL (Therefore, a behind mage can still burst down squishies if he keeps up with levels), early-game heroes actually fall off (Like Axe), hard carries are actually a thing (Hey Medusa), shut down gold can get pretty huge and spells are extremely powerful even without gold behind them (A well placed Enigma or Tidehunter ult are going to turn teamfights around regardless of how many items they have).

SlashStriker1 votes

I didn't mean Dota is snowbally I meant the League is snowbally to make the game shorter.

Dota can be snowbally backwards cause you die you lose gold and you already lose enough gold by not being in lane

Not to mention how your teammates steal your own items from your courier which was one thing i hated alot in Dota

Imperial Japan1 votes

Because people don't know how to prevent snowballs and how to push leads

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

gold distribution.

Noblewind1 votes

I don't have the stats on me but I'm pretty sure games are shorter on average this season to last. I mean, when I started playing this game mid season 5, I remember there being many more 45+min games than there are now

Dealth1 votes

The real reason snowballing exists is because one team is better than the other. If one team can win while equal with the other, they can win even harder with an advantage.

LateCustomer1 votes

To me, snowballing means someone on a team gets so far ahead early on that there's no stopping them and they end the game early (20 minutes or so). If the game drags out to 35-45 minutes (average game) that means that the team facing the so-called snowball knew how to get their teamwork together and do something about it, or the team WITH the snowballer didn't know how to close out the game despite having such an advantage.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

level 1: snowballing doesn't exist, you are an idiot and everything you do is most likely wrong but you are having fun, nobody cares except tryhards who also suck

level 2: Snowballing starts to matter because people know how to end a game sortof... or try to.

level 3: ok snowballing is everything now, there is nothing else but ahri

level 4: you realize how bounties work and begin to understand the mechanics of the game

level 5: You understand what you know and what you do not know.. there is an answer, you have experienced this answer. Snowballing is just a symptom of something you have the answer to. You are free to be creative now.

juju adventures1 votes

I played this game just a few minutes ago. I'm gold 1, in low plat elo. http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2305533328/49286408 As you can see, our adc and support were 0/4 each, 10 min into the game. Rather than flame, give constructive criticism. If they seem to be ticked off, just dont say anything, or give them motivation. Also, you can see I was playing akali into a darius, which is definitely one of the harder matchups akali can get. However, good communication with a jungler can lead to game changing moments before 10 minute mark. I was letting darius shove lane, and skarner came top once and got me an assist, and darius teleported back and skarner came back one more time right after, and gave me another assist. That was the major game changing play, despite the bot lane struggle going on in my team. Our mid lane was also doing poorly, but not as poorly as bot lane. From then on, I was able to snowball off darius, and then I got my hextech gunblade and started roaming. Keep in mind: This is by no means high elo, so the enemy lucian did not expect me to be able to kill him, the guy who was 8/0. I all inned him, killed him, and proceeded to zone them off by putting a shroud down. We continued to work together without flaming, and managed to win the game. You can see in the link I provided the gold deficit we were in before pulling up at the end.

TL;DR : Make smart plays, communicate with your jungler.

Skia Asteri1 votes

Because if there is no building an advantage based on what you do there is no reason for matches to last more than 5 minutes.

Bisaknosp1 votes

because ppl cant play passive they always go for flashy plays and end up flashing into 5 people and getting deleted

DunkinNoobs1 votes

Anyone who says the game is too snowbally now clearly doesn't remember Season 3. Riven gets a couple kills early in lane back in season 3? Everyone just go afk because that 2/0 Riven is about to make the other 9 players in the game irrelevant.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Riven item 3071 item 3071 item 3071 item 3071 item 3071 item 3071 or item 3072 item 3072 item 3072 item 3072 item 3072 item 3072

Poske1 votes

I actually think that snowball is at great level atm ...

I wouldnt change a thing

Go back in time for like 10 months if you want snowball

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Thank you everyone for your input and genuine answers. They have helped me a lot with information and also understanding the community at different ranks. I appreciate all of you, and all of your input, even if you don't all agree.

ForFoxSakes1 votes

There has to be a reward for getting a kill otherwise it wouldnt feel satisfying. A kill in higher ELO not only means bonus gold but higher farm for when the dead opponent is missing in lane, so that 300g kill really comes out to maybe 600g+ since they can CS optimally, on top of an exp bonus from being in lane for those creep kills and champ kills.

What would be your alternative then? No gold on kill? Counters the shutdown gold mechanic which helps comebacks No exp on kill? Would prevent lower levels killing a stronger higher level from catching up faster Lower death respawn timer? Still have to walk into lanes, timer already much lower early on and death timers are needed Global gold on kills? Will start to snowball others lanes too and not just the one that landed the kill Global exp on kills? Same as above

Cant stop snowballing unless you make kills totally unrewarding and make CS meaningless

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