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League has a Pay to Win Problem

Cdore·1/27/2020, 4:01:37 PM·2 votes·1,394 views

There are several fundamentals of game design that are broken when your business model is:

* Release new champions every year
* Having over 150+ champions
* Keep champion design to a minimum to keep people from being overloaded by complicated mechanics (example: Dota champion abilities). Though Riot is breaking even this rule of theirs for the "rule of cool" (ex: Aphelios, Sylas, Zoe).
* Sell skins and give the best skins to the most popular champions.
* Release a patch every two weeks.

As a result, this has changed league from a competitive game to a true "play for free with our new cool toys every month" game. Which I suppose was the endgame for League to begin with. We all knew they wouldn't be able to last on the model of a game where you just kept releasing champions. And now, we're at the cliff where champions overlap each other in abilities, champions can always feel outdated, and there exists a trend where you get the phenomenon that we all dread: "pay to win" champions.

The current pay to win champions are those who cheat the game balance for the sake of feeling cool and selling well, resulting in lopsided balance. It's easy to figure out which ones they are. Just look at the ones who are given a lot of press time, competitive time, and skin focus. I'll list the obvious ones:

  • Senna (Senna is the definition of a broken design. She would do well in a game like Dota where they allow multi build champ, but League is not a game that has been balanced around this concept, resulting in this champ standing out way too hard.)
  • Aphelios
  • Akali
  • Pyke
  • Qiyana
  • Zoe (at one point. Had to be nerfed hard to balance)
  • Kaisa
  • Sett (His low mobility is a good weakness, but it sucks having another tank buster)
  • Ekko
  • Fizz
  • Darius (hesitant to put him, but he does a lot of cheating for his supposed balance)
  • Yasuo
  • A lot of mid AP mages and AP + AD assassins

Pay to Win champions are the result of the consequence of Riot's business choices finally coming to head. The community denied this was happening for a long time saying that the game is fairly balanced, but we're now ten years later into this design cycle and we have enough evidence to say to the contrary.

So has the community accepted this reality or are we just going to continue to pretend it doesn't exist?

21 Comments

Jimmy Rustles1/27/2020, 4:04:50 PM13 votes

Yea nothing you said is p2w

Skins are cosmetic, you can unlock all champs for free

At most it's pay to skip grind, which is not p2w

Cind3rkick1/27/2020, 4:34:50 PM6 votes

Nothing you said is P2W,

All you did is describe the meta and riot's great marketing.

Release new champions every year Having over 150+ champions

Hurray for variance, I hate seeing the same 10 champions each game. Riot keeps expanding the game and theres nothing wrong with that? They release 3-4 a year to keep the game fresh and exciting.

Keep champion design to a minimum to keep people from being overloaded by complicated mechanics (example: Dota champion abilities). Though Riot is breaking even this rule of theirs for the "rule of cool" (ex: Aphelios, Sylas, Zoe).

Woo! So new players can hop into a game without having to watch 10 different videos explaining how the champion MUST be played? Also, Zoe and Sylas are in no way complicated. They simply need a basic understanding of other parts of the game.

Sell skins and give the best skins to the most popular champions.

Trust me, a pink sword does no more damage than a blue one. Faker himself, the god of league, never uses a skin and he is considered the best player ever. He even has 3 skins named after him. Infact, as im thinking about it, this point you made is the exact reason why league ISNT p2w. Riot gets the money from selling cosmetics. That means they dont need to charge us for anything else. We dont have to pay for an account, or pay to go up a rank. Everything is available for free.

Release a patch every two weeks.

Hurray for varience, I hate seeing the same 10 champions each game. Riot keeps shifting the meta so every champion gets its time in the spotlight to keep the game fresh and exciting.

Nothing here links league to p2w. I feel you misunderstand the term and should go look it up.

The current pay to win champions are those who cheat the game balance for the sake of feeling cool and selling well, resulting in lopsided balance. It's easy to figure out which ones they are. Just look at the ones who are given a lot of press time, competitive time, and skin focus. I'll list the obvious ones:

First of all. "pay to win champions" arent a thing. You dont pay 1500Rp for a champion that has 300 start AD and 4000 health with no items. Every champion is as strong as the other when it really comes down to it.

Many of the champions you then listed are almost never seen in pro-play, you know... the scene where you NEED every little advantage you can get. None of the champions you mentioned (Aside from Sett and Aphelios, who are slighly inflated at the moment since they are newly released) are any stronger than the other champions.

As a final note:

Over the years, Ive had multiple accounts (with no money spent) where I have completed my champion roster, which is the only thing that remotely gives an advantage.

On this account, I went from bronze all the way to gold with a grand total of 5 champions. I can create a new account right now and get them all within a couple of hours playing.

Players like Annie Bot, Rat IRL and ScrubNoob are all top tier players on champions that have been out for years, if those champions arent as good as the ones you previously mentioned, then how are they maintaining their ranks at the top of their region?

Posui Gart1/27/2020, 4:15:24 PM3 votes

The current pay to win champions are those who cheat the game balance for the sake of feeling cool and selling well, resulting in lopsided balance

You either don't know what "pay to win" is, or are trying to lie. There will always be champions that are strong, popular, or both. This doesn't make the game "pay to win" by itself. Also, in your list of p2w champions Aphelios, Akali, Qiyana, Zoe, Kaisa, Darius, Yasuo all have <50% winrate

A lot of mid AP mages and AP + AD assassins

Well, midlane is played by mages and assassins, they can't all be op

Bulshlaka1/27/2020, 4:05:10 PM3 votes

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=annie+bot he was challenger for a while last season ended up grandmasters 450 BE champion available since the dawn of league

pay to win

are you sure about that? ashe is currently very high tier sivir was top tier for 2 seasons straight soraka janna were pick ban for 2 seasons also people are capable of buying the new champions straight on release every time there is like 3 months downtime between champion releases and if you can't acquire 6300-7800 or w/e BE in that time it's your own problem

are you sure about that pay to win ?

this thread should be moved to memes and something

Quiet Dude1/27/2020, 5:22:18 PM2 votes

I'm surprised to see so many folks get baited by OP.

Kroda131/27/2020, 4:15:38 PM2 votes

There is nothing that is p2w about this game

MrEnds1/27/2020, 5:34:02 PM1 votes

my man maybe you should try making a game of your own that becomes even a 10th as successful as league of legends, i bet you couldn't even come close to doing that let alone making the game balanced while ALSO having everything be free to obtain through play time and performance.

Kroda131/27/2020, 4:34:35 PM1 votes

omg you really dont know what pay 2 win means do you thats so sad lol

Cdore1/27/2020, 5:03:30 PM1 votes

I'm waiting for you guys to realize how you just justified my point. =)