Stale ARAM

ScyPhan790··3 votes·469 views

As the title says, I'm wondering if anyone else feels the same that ARAM is getting stale and repetitive. Rift makes sense that it doesn't really get stale because there's a lot of variety in champion expectancy, the length of time it takes to get through a match, and all that can ensue between the beginning and end.

I know ARAM is supposed to be a simplified game and the gimmick is "random" champions; but regardless of what champions either team gets, it seems like it's played the exact same way every time. Whoever gets the poke heavy team will control early game pretty well, but whoever has the strong CC team will have the better engage and possible late game. The champs that are mid range poke heavy just hide in bush close to tower and throw out abilities that people either aren't paying attention to or that they can't do anything about. Granted if you have skill shots you can poke back into the bush to try and keep them out, but then that takes away from the front line offense; also you may just not have poke to prevent them from staying in bush. These are what I like to call "Bush Wookies" and usually the only way to get them back is to literally play the exact same and poke from bush where they can't see you.

In a skill based game, this isn't very skillful or hard to accomplish when you're just handed a champ to do this with. Too many times I've heard people say "it's just ARAM, why are you taking it so seriously?" when I try to bring up legitimate questions to strange occurrences or so seemingly broken mechanics that show in ARAM but aren't present in Rift. I usually don't give a response further because I try not to engage with people who don't actually care what I have to say and are just trying to get me riled up or get me "triggered" further. As someone who enjoys playing ARAM over Rift because you don't have to worry about comps or investing 30 min - 1 hour of your time into one match, I do take ARAM relatively seriously. Not to the point of ranked, but at least to the point where I expect people to try and not just walk head first into the enemy team feeding them and ultimately just wasting everyone's time.

So I just wanted to bring up that maybe we could get alternate version of ARAM every now and then. Not as differing or as frequent as the game mode rotation, but just a little change every 2-3 weeks so it's not the same repetitive situations every time you play, as mentioned above. Maybe remove bushes entirely. Or you could even maybe make like an URF for ARAM (though that would be a larger difference than my previous suggestion). I'm not entirely sure what all you could do, but I at least wanted to share my opinion on the situation to maybe start a conversation to change things up a little.

8 Comments

Minarde3 votes

There's three large sources of staleness in ARAM: lack of balance changes, lack of randomness, and lack of incentive.

With the lack of balance changes, champs and builds lack variation. The champs that are currently strong are roughly the same champs that have been strong for months/years, and likewise for weak champs. If you roll a Mage, you're probably still rushing a Morello. If you're a Tank, you're probably going Abyssal/Visage into Warmog's. If you're playing anything in recent months, you're probably running Dark Harvest. Things feel same-y.

Furthermore, the lack of randomness exacerbates the balancing issues. Champs being limited to owned+free enables ARAM-optimized accounts, which makes certain champs frustratingly common. Rerolls, while helpful for occasionally mitigating unfavorable teams or champs, serve to further concentrate that champion pool.

Finally, there isn't much incentive to invest time into ARAM. Even when SR feels stale, there's at least ranked rewards to work towards. Meanwhile, you can't even earn Mastery tokens in ARAM. It's harder to overlook gameplay flaws when gameplay is essentially the only thing offered.

Sporadically throwing a new gimmick into the mode (e.g. no brushes, URF) would just be a temporary solution that doesn't address the underlying problems. It'd only work for as long as there's noticeably new gimmicks to try.

ScyPhan7902 votes

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed these problems. Granted you have addressed them to a much more detailed degree and have gotten to the core of each of the problems, while I only really have surface knowledge of the problems.

In regards to the randomness, why don't they just make every champ available? That way they don't have to worry about ARAM only accounts, and also so they can make the random system ACTUALLY random and not based on owned + free champs.

As for balancing issues, you're going to run into issues regardless. You could easily get a dull team of tanks to a full team of adcs (which has happened to me before). But if they were able to make every champ available, like mentioned above, I think they would be able to control how random comps are formed. They would be able to tell the randomizer to give them team a specific kind of comp; like 1 tank, 2 assassins, 2 mages, and the game would randomly choose those champs. And from there, based on which kind of champ they had, it would reroll into that same type of champ, that way comps are kept consistent.

But even still, some champs are just better than others. Too many times I've gone up against a team that was given a Jinx and a perfect team to protect her with heals/shields and mages to poke so no one could easily engage. While my team got semi-sustain based champs, but nothing to poke back as well as the other team. Granted this kind of thing can happen from time to time, but for me, I usually just expect it whenever I go in.

And I do agree with you, my suggestions to "spice up" ARAM would only temporarily "fix" the problems that are at the core of what makes ARAM stale.

Minarde2 votes

Enabling all champs isn't quite so straight-forward. The main issue with that approach is that it muddles the sense of player investment. Normally when you unlock a champ, you invest a bunch of resources to do so, whether time (essence) or money (RP). If all champs are just available, then there's a risk of players feeling less attached to their accounts and either leaving or not investing as much into their accounts. Additionally, there's a significant part of the playerbase, often casuals, who don't want all champs available. Perhaps because of relative champ strength or even personal taste, these players only enjoy playing certain champs. While that idea might not match the spirit of ARAM, that is how the mode has worked since its inception, and those players could rightfully feel frustrated at the change.

In terms of balancing, that's not quite what I meant. As you mentioned, some champ kits are simply better suited for ARAM than others. It's not reasonable to try to balance every champ to be roughly equal in strength. What balancing can do is to try to narrow the gap between the strongest and the weakest champs so that things don't feel quite so frustrating. Godly teamcomps will still happen from time to time, and sporadic games will be lost simply due to teamcomp, but ARAM as a whole should feel better over the long-term, across a number of games. Along with champ balance, item and rune balance could also be adjusted. If some builds were less generically-optimal, there'd be more room for customization and situational builds.

Nea1042 votes

They can't fix their main mode, I don't think they will ever fix Aram, sadly :P

ScyPhan7902 votes

More insightful and constructive thoughts.

Ya Bois Timbs1 votes

lol he's salty and downvotes all the joke/fact replies

Ya Bois Timbs1 votes

just dont play aram ecks dee

ScyPhan7902 votes

Thanks for the useful and insightful comment.

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