League of Legends, Rest in Pieces

I tend to avoid the forums and generally I directed my thoughts or criticisms to e-mails, but I'll make an exception now that LOL is on it's way out and apparently Riot doesn't read e-mails. Riot, somehow, I told you so, doesn't quite say it.

Once upon a time this was a strategic thoughtful game of wits and will just as much as skill. For years Riot has moved the game progressively towards emphasizing offensive gameplay, increasing the speed of the games, and the reliance on individual moment to moment skill rather than team work and strategy. The entire game has suffered for the ever increasing emphasis on killing champions and an unwillingness or inability in the community to maintain morale and focus over the course of longer games.

In the first place, defensive champions have been reworked into the new offensive mode. Teemo is a great example of a champion whose defensive power has been completely gutted because a lot of children in the community hated anything that could get between them and their kill. Riot stupidly pandered to the Teemo haters nerfing his ultimate into near uselessness because cry babies in the community can't play the game for fun and to win rather than caring for nothing except getting kills. These changes to Teemo, while not being largely important in themselves, reflect especially well the trend in Riot's changes to the game in general as well as the increasing childishness of the community. Teemo is one of the most under-powered champions I've ever played. He's squishy, he has little damage with his basic attack, the only thing he does is use mushrooms. Mushrooms are a static defensive ability with the power to stop enemies from escaping, and more importantly, ensure that allies manage to escape. It is an indispensable role, and universally hated by children with short tempers and even shorter attention spans whose only concern is not the team working together, not the strategy required to win, but only the momentary rush of killing enemy champions. This is the demographic Riot has been pandering to, and this is the demographic which has most influenced the latest patch.

Secondly, the most severely damaging changes since LOL started have been made to the towers. In the early days of LOL the presence of a tower could stem the tide if a steam rolling team, and give pause to players who might be technically more skilled than yourself. When you got hit by a tower almost a third of your health evaporated. Today, tower dives begin at level two. The tower is a powerless meaningless space holder. There was a time that as long as your Nexus and/or Nexus towers were still alive you still had a chance of winning. I used to play games all the time where my team won the game after being reduced to only our nexus, not even our nexus turrets. Now the towers are completely worthless. If the towers were completely removed from the game it would play almost exactly the same as it does now. There is no reason to even have towers in the game anymore. They have no damage and they fall apart like tissue paper.

All of this is aggravated and advertised by the latest patch. The minions of the winning team become hugely powerful. What constitutes the winning team is determined extremely early in the game. It is no longer necessary to push lanes, protect towers, or actively try to take them. Now, if you can get a few early kills the game is over. There is no strategy, there is no team work, there's just a question of who can successfully gank bottom lane first, and the tower in bottom lane means nothing, so anyone can end the game at level three just by ganking bottom lane. I say the game is over because after the minions become stronger everything from there is a formality. The towers have been a formality for some time and this patch just advertises that.

Overall, the changes in the last patch have been but the latest and most dramatic step in a long series of steps Riot has been taking for years to make the game less about strategic gameplay and more about a moment to moment combat. This emphasis on fast paced combat has removed morale, strategy, and wits or cunning as being a factor. No longer is there any possibility that I can outsmart an enemy who has faster reaction time than myself. No longer is there any possibility of goading an enemy who is more skilled than yourself into over-extending himself by playing on his overconfidence. No longer is there any possibility for making up for a mistake by playing conservatively and biding your time for the just the right moment to strike. The new meta is "All mid all the time," ignore the towers, get champ kills, period. The community is populated by children who instantly surrender if the game isn't going their way and constantly complain if winning takes too long. I can't count the number of times an enemy has asked my team to surrender because they were too bored to fight us anymore. Before the latest patch I was usually pleased to hear this complaint because a bored enemy is an inattentive enemy. Yet, it hardly mattered, because nine times out of ten my own team is so lacking in strategic sense and so easily demoralized that they would rather throw a game when we won't agree to surrender rather than play to win. These cry babies don't have any idea of what makes this game fun. They're only thought and compulsion is to get champion kills and that's the only form of fun in this game that they can understand. Virtually every single game I play every person on my team who isn't a friend of mine in real life can think of nothing but charging head long into every fight that's presented to them. I cannot count the number of times my team has thrown away any chance of overcoming the enemy's lead simply because they could not resist fighting fights that they could not win. These days, when my team is losing they constantly insist on giving battle when they are hopelessly far behind and have no chance of winning. When I play with people I know and we get behind the enemy we play defensively, hide behind our towers, and AVOID fighting. Knowing when to fight and when not to is the VERY DEFINITION of strategy. Anyone who thinks that the solution to losing fights is to have another fight is a child, a newbie, or an idiot. However, as the people at Riot continuously nerf towers, cut the feet out from under losing teams, and punish players with less technical skill or reaction time than average they invite what I've felt coming for years. The end of League of Legends. It's not too late Riot. Your community is loyal. If you strengthen towers, reinvigorate the possibilities for defensive gameplay, and create outlets for those in your community without the reaction time of a teenager then this debacle can still be salvaged. But, make no mistake, you are not too big to go the way of Sims Online. If you keep going down the path you've been going you will go the way of Sims Online and all I'll have to say about that is that I told you so. I've been telling you so for years.