Boards›Gameplay

Been playing since S2 - hanging up my account now

EnvyDragon·7/15/2015, 5:20:44 AM·402 votes·26,514 views

Because I think the balance team has no idea what the fuck they're doing, the lore team hasn't kept a promise to the community since roughly September of last year (if then), new champion designs are consistently unfun bullshit, and we cannot speak to developers anymore. Nobody fucking listens.

Kalista's problem is her kit. She needs a rework. With a HACKSAW. Changing her numbers won't do shit when she gets free skillshot dodges every autoattack and her E stacks indefinitely (making it literally just a better Twitch E).

Ekko has buffs on PBE. The "utility assassin" who can still burst people risk-free is getting buffed despite a top-tier ban rate. Why? Good fucking question. If only we could talk to the reds about it.

The Magus Enchant (which was useable by the one AP jungler out there) got replaced by the Runeglaive enchant (which was useable by Mid Ezreal), allowing an exploit and solving nothing.

The Zeke's rework is going to ruin bot lane in favor of kill lanes. There's no counterplay. You just get 50% crit for free.

A lot of the champions and backstory are really cool, but we aren't allowed to see any of it except for in the week leading up to a new champion release.

Back in S2/S3, you used to be able to go on the forums and see reds responding frequently to player issues. If a champ was OP, or an item was OP, we could get someone in to say what was happening to fix it or why the changes were happening the way they were. And above all, the reds listened. If a change was unpopular, it would be reverted. Remember Slay Belle Katarina? People complained about her poledance recall. So they changed it.

I'm not being super coherent here, and I know that. I just... fuck. I'm sick of seeing a Kalista on the enemy team and knowing my bot lane is lost. I'm sick of champion releases meaning every game is a mirror match, with the new champ having 1000% more impact than any other player. I'm sick of seeing problems that every single fucking player agrees on, and seeing them go completely unaddressed.

Where are replays?

Where is Ranked Dominion?

When are you fixing Quinn's autoattack animation? (I know, this one's a little less oft-seen. Most people played her, realized she was shit, and didn't think on why.)

When are we getting lore?

When is Tribunal coming back?

When are we getting feedback to know that a player has been punished for our reports?

When can I finally play League again without the certainty that my 45-minute game is going to be ruined by one player, on my team or the other team, either through their behavior or their champion picks?

Four years is too long to be asking some of these questions. And the things that kept me satisfied with a lack of an answer are starting to fade away.

I'm gonna go play Heroes of the Storm, I think. It's kinda sad when Blizzard has more community interaction now than Riot does.

EDIT FOR SURPRISING AMOUNT OF FEEDBACK: Wow, I actually kind of expected this to die off... Only reason I posted was to vent.

To the people saying "recent news posts have mentioned their plans for the tribunal", I just went through the news feed and the most recent post that even mentions the PB&J team is this one, which predates Ekko.

Yes, we've been told there are plans for the Tribunal, but - and correct me here if I'm wrong - we don't actually have an ETA. Keep in mind that "soon, pending tech work" is exactly the same thing we were told about expanded lore... when the Shurima update went live last September.

League is the only game I've ever stuck with for more than a year or two, and I stuck with it because the game always felt like it was expanding and getting better. Old problems were being erased, new issues were being addressed and tweaked. Now old problems get ignored (or set aside for literally months on end until they can be redone from the ground up), new problems are getting progressively WORSE, and sweeping changes are made without warning and ignorant of critical feedback.

Every player seems to recognize this. No one in a position to change things seems to care.

317 Comments

Brahmsauce7/15/2015, 5:35:27 AM181 votes

" It's kinda sad when Blizzard has more community interaction now than Riot does."

Ouch.Amumu

Beerstein7/15/2015, 6:17:54 AM91 votes

Where are replays?

As of pre season 1 "very soon".

Honestly I hate that I agree with almost everything the OP said.

"(PS: They have already recently talked about what they are doing with the Tribunal in a few News of Legends articles)"

Yeah it's coming back the same time they implement replays. "Very soon" except this time that was a mere 4 months ago but there's no real indication that it wont actually be as long as the replays.

Sadistic Cheese7/15/2015, 2:10:28 PM79 votes

If I may, I'd like to point out a small counter-point to the idea that they don't listen/don't communicate:

Riot is a business, yes. Their business relies on keeping us as community happy, yes. However their business is made up of people, and presumably those people have feelings and preferences of their own. Presumably they're not soul-less machines who exist to either screw us over or bend to our every whim. They have feelings, they have limits, and I'd imagine their jobs can get rather stressful at times. Maybe not often since it's not a handful of guys working out of one of their basements or anything, but still. I'd imagine there's some pretty significant challenges now and again. But I'm rambling...

My point is...perhaps they're not communicating because they've found that no matter what they say, the community is going to whine/complain/ask for something else/be angry at them?

Since Blizzard was mentioned, let's look at Ghostcrawler.

Greg seems like a cool guy for the most part. yes, yes, wah wah ruined mages ruined wow wah wah cry whine complain wah. Possibly poor decisions doesn't change the fact that the guy seems cool, and during my years on WoW I remember him being one of the most active blizzard employees in terms of interacting with the community. Which, needless to say, was whiny and assinine to him at just about every turn. PARTICULARLY when he had to deliver or justify bad news such as nerfs or other major changes.

I remember when I first started reading his posts, he was really very reasonable. He was polite, tried to respond to everyone he could, tried to address valid concerns, etc. But over the years I noticed he....changed. The language of his posts got more blunt, a little sharper. It was a slow progression, really. A creeping little change. It wasn't like he just woke up one day and decided to be colder towards the community, I think. To me it felt like he just....got worn down.

He got worn down by the constant, never-ending, bitching, moaning, crying, raging, stupid questions, unrealistic demands, snide remarks. You want flying, now you don't, you want harder dungeons, now you don't, you want attunements back and rep-grinding to be less tedious and new zones and bgs to be balanced because ROGUES ARE BULLSHIT! but next week it'll be warlocks and the week after that it's hunters because it's ALWAYS hunters and every change needs to be NOW NOW NOW all at the same time...

Given attitudes like that, I felt like it was no surprise the tone of his posts had changed. Given that League's community has people with similar attitudes, it would be of no surprise to me that Rioters don't feel comfortable posting much if at all anymore. At least as themselves.

I understand where the OP is coming from. It seems like Riot doesn't care to interact with us much anymore and that's one hell of a shame. A lot of promises have in fact been left undelivered. But for years we've been doing the whole 'gnash our teeth, cry and rage, threaten to quit' dance over stuff and where has it led us to? What has it gotten us? What was the price we paid?

Sure, we may have gotten some things we as a community really wanted or felt the game needed, but it appears to be at the cost of interaction with developers. They're either so busy or we're so hostile as a community that they're driven away. They may also not care, I'm perfectly willing to concede that as a possibility. If they don't, I think it's also somewhat understandable. A community this size, with everyone yelling for something different constantly? It would be no surprise to me if we're....'background noise' so to speak by now.

I suppose my point is that perhaps part of the reason they don't interact with us is because of our attitudes. Perhaps we need to find a better way to express ourselves and how we feel towards things. Perhaps we should prioritize better, push for the right things that give us long-term benefit such as a better client, better servers (which we're getting by the way), and more transparency in the development process. (the latter could possibly be used to help understand why we're seeing more Red posts or why we're NOT seeing more Red posts, or when is a good time to address certain issues.)

Saying "This game has tons of problems! I QUIT!" Is valid, and it's an understandable thing to do. But if that's all we're going to ever do, is it any surprise they don't talk to us?

A Miss Fortune7/15/2015, 6:11:02 AM37 votes

I hope Riot looks at this and rethink some of their issues.

Sightless667/15/2015, 2:56:11 PM23 votes

I get that you're sick of shit, and that really is completely understandable and a very fair way to feel and I sympathize with your complaints, but don't go throwing around Riot's past like it's something to be proud of. They were even worse back in seasons 2 and 3. A lot of this really strikes me as being major rose-tinted glasses. I remember season 2 and season 3, and I remember a lot less communication from Rioters. I remember patch notes that just came out without any kind of context or explanation for the changes, and there was plenty of stuff in those patch notes that needed explanation. I remember champions getting literally destroyed with no communication for many patches afterwards. I remember people bitching about champion designs and being completely ignored. I remember waiting a year for announced reworks that drew tons of criticism and were so hated they needed additional reworks months later. I remember people begging for Nautilus buffs, being ignored forever, then being told that buffs wouldn't be good because "what if we buff tanks later and that makes Nautilus OP?", even though he was the worst tank at the time and ended up getting the buffs a season and a half later anyway. Season 2 was the exact point when lore died in League. There has barely been any significant non-backstory lore development since season 1, when the Journal of Justice ended.

There are so many terrible things you're forgetting about from seasons 2/3. Riot hasn't suddenly become terrible. They communicate more than they used to. It's not good enough, but this isn't a problem of them getting worse. Our expectations for their behavior are higher, so it's more annoying when they don't live up to those expectations.

Aside from that, a lot of these complaints are things that Riot HAS communicated about in the past.

Where are replays?

According to what Riot most recently said, they'll be coming around when the server migration and upgrades come, which has been stated to be within the next 6 months. A lack of server capacity is supposedly what it causing the problems with replays. We'll see if they live up to that timeline, but at least they have given some answer that isn't just "soon".

Where is Ranked Dominion?

Not coming. They've said that this was cancelled.

When are we getting lore?

According to Jareden (or however you spell his name), sometime within the next month. He's been on a major apology spree for the lack of lore for the past 3 months. It's probably more discussion from the lore team than there has been in the last 3 years combined. I doubt it will amount to anything major, but that would just be fitting the trend from the last 3 years.

The Zeke's rework is going to ruin bot lane in favor of kill lanes. There's no counterplay. You just get 50% crit for free.

No it won't. I've been on the PBE. It just won't. You're not going to get a force multiplier item that early, and even if you do, it can be dealt with because it advertises exactly when it is going to give a power spike. This is not going to throw kill lanes into the mix. It will likely lead to an increase in mage supports, and it will make AD carries even stronger in the midgame and lategame but that's it.

I really, really understand being pissed with Riot. I get it. Just don't go on like they had some amazing past that they should be trying to reclaim. They spent all of seasons 2 and 3 fucking up communication, and as bad as shit is now, it used to be even worse.

Final statement: If you're going to heroes of the storm for good balance and community interaction, prepare for disappointment. ETC, Diablo and Brightwing are all feeling the pains of the "rework" hammer. Kael laughs atop his throne. Major changes come with the most placid assurances that "they'll be ok, we promise". They have patch previews that somehow completely ignore the largest changes in the patches. Hell, their matchmaking is still randomly assigning new players to high-level games. I'm a rank 1 player, I shouldn't be getting quick match games with or against someone who only has 15 games under their belt.

I'm really salty about HoTS. I've been playing it since the beta and Blizzard has managed to screw up a lot more than I thought they would in even that short period. I'm only back here because the recent patch screwed up so much that I just got sick of it. Every balance change just seems like "let's take turns at being OP". A hero gets their time being stupidly strong, they get nerfed to a 44% winrate, and then get left there until everyone else gets nerfed down too. It's like someone read only about Olafing and decided to make that their entire balance policy.

NapaIm7/15/2015, 6:15:20 AM11 votes

I love HoTS. I am a filthy nova main, so maybe that's why.

Islam Is Right7/15/2015, 8:21:38 AM8 votes

{quoted}

Because I think the balance team has no idea what the fuck they're doing, the lore team hasn't kept a promise to the community since roughly September of last year (if then), new champion designs are consistently unfun bullshit, and we cannot speak to developers anymore. Nobody fucking listens.

Kalista's problem is her kit. She needs a rework. With a HACKSAW. Changing her numbers won't do shit when she gets free skillshot dodges every autoattack and her E stacks indefinitely (making it literally just a better Twitch E).

Ekko has buffs on PBE. The "utility assassin" who can still burst people risk-free is getting buffed despite a top-tier ban rate. Why? Good fucking question. If only we could talk to the reds about it.

The Magus Enchant (which was useable by the one AP jungler out there) got replaced by the Runeglaive enchant (which was useable by Mid Ezreal), allowing an exploit and solving nothing.

The Zeke's rework is going to ruin bot lane in favor of kill lanes. There's no counterplay. You just get 50% crit for free.

A lot of the champions and backstory are really cool, but we aren't allowed to see any of it except for in the week leading up to a new champion release.

Back in S2/S3, you used to be able to go on the forums and see reds responding frequently to player issues. If a champ was OP, or an item was OP, we could get someone in to say what was happening to fix it or why the changes were happening the way they were. And above all, the reds listened. If a change was unpopular, it would be reverted. Remember Slay Belle Katarina? People complained about her poledance recall. So they changed it.

I'm not being super coherent here, and I know that. I just... fuck. I'm sick of seeing a Kalista on the enemy team and knowing my bot lane is lost. I'm sick of champion releases meaning every game is a mirror match, with the new champ having 1000% more impact than any other player. I'm sick of seeing problems that every single fucking player agrees on, and seeing them go completely unaddressed.

Where are replays?

Where is Ranked Dominion?

When are you fixing Quinn's autoattack animation? (I know, this one's a little less oft-seen. Most people played her, realized she was shit, and didn't think on why.)

When are we getting lore?

When is Tribunal coming back?

When are we getting feedback to know that a player has been punished for our reports?

When can I finally play League again without the certainty that my 45-minute game is going to be ruined by one player, on my team or the other team, either through their behavior or their champion picks?

Four years is too long to be asking some of these questions. And the things that kept me satisfied with a lack of an answer are starting to fade away.

I'm gonna go play Heroes of the Storm, I think. It's kinda sad when Blizzard has more community interaction now than Riot does.

whats your battletag,ill play some hots,im ranked 1

FlashnFuse7/15/2015, 10:08:06 AM8 votes

The one thing keeping me away from heroes of the storm is that fact that it doesn't properly work on my Nvidia graphic card. All my friends play it, and i think i would enjoy getting into it.

I'm also a bit sick and fucking tired of radio silence from riot on everything. Anyone remember this invisible nidalee spear bug i was able to recreate? Silence from riot. I'll admit that I'm not so badly phased by their balance team as everyone else is, but my propensity for suffering easily from poor balance comes from years of playing the yugioh TCG.

Does anyone remember riot's live gameplay Q&A? Neither do they.

As for replays I recommend everyone check out "replay.gg" when it's back up (its down for me right now).

CreationFlaw7/15/2015, 7:14:03 AM6 votes

Lmao, "When are you fixing Quinn's autoattack animation? (I know, this one's a little less oft-seen. Most people played her, realized she was shit, and didn't think on why.)" The real fucking questions

lB2kGRlc8y7/15/2015, 6:14:42 AM5 votes

I thought you'd mention the butchering of classic champions, but since some of the reworks were a success (Sion being the only one) I can see you glossing over it. If you are going over to HotS, be aware that the player base is super casual, and that since there are no items to balance out what strengths a champion can get, the game is won by the innate design flaws of the character. Be prepared to see Anub'Arak in every game for the eternity of your time there. Past that, I can say its definitely fun when you're not with a "try hard of die hard" player that so often makes games of LoL toxic.

Trias0007/15/2015, 11:31:35 PM1 votes

{quoted} new champion designs are consistently unfun bullshit

This can't be any less true. Bard Ekko Azir TahmKench Kalista are very fun to play. And they're difficult to master, which makes playing them a challenge, so even more fun.

LittleBlast7/16/2015, 1:20:39 AM1 votes

Things take TIME. They cant shit everything out of their ass immediately.