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Burst damage makes it harder to appreciate pro skills

Josh Sand·10/4/2019, 8:53:09 PM·80 votes·17,210 views

Honestly, this season has been the worst experience for me playing league as of late, which is ironic considering this is the first season I finally climbed out of Gold. I should really be enjoying my progression, but the game state manages to regularly deliver a frustrating and boring experience whenever I play.

But I still had some hope come Worlds. A lot of people talk about how exciting the game is to watch now, so I thought i would give it a shot.

Mind you, I was a long time spectator and LCS/LCK fan before this season. I have 4 LCS jerseys, a couple of hoodies, and over a dozen dif team shirts - I've been an enthusiastic fan for some years now.

But trying to watch Worlds this year has been challenging. The game quality just isnt there right now.

Team fights dont play out like they used to. Theres no back and forth play that used to happen between all of the players before.

In teamfights of the past, you would see players adjust their position throughout combat, baiting people to overextend, or closing in after critical cooldowns have been spent.

Right now, the tempo of pro team fights look really similar to the clown fiestas in solo q. Just run around until you can instantly blow one enemy up, then get into a mad scramble to win a 4v5.

Pro teams used to make a name for themselves with things like smart map movements, objective trading, clever gank routes, intelligent team fighting, or just relentless aggression.

Now that the main requirement to win feels like its "just blow one guy up" theres no nuance or distinction between the teams' ability to team fight. It feels like its more about the first salvo than anything else, and that is insanely boring.

There used to be so much strategic nuance to this game, that it took several minutes for someone like Zirene to break down a team fight that lasted maybe 10+ seconds.

Now it feels like its just, "catch and kill a wandering dude before everyone in the shed starts throwing grenades at each other. "

Not a fun viewing experience when you know what this game used to play like.

28 Comments

Dasdi9610/4/2019, 9:08:27 PM31 votes

Even in pro play players don't know how to teamfight, I am literally seeing adc players frontlining and dying 1st.

XJ9999999999999910/5/2019, 1:30:34 AM18 votes

lol when i came back to this game in feb i was watching tournies on their website and it was fun at first...

then it was just the same champions... every single game... with the same movement... with the same builds... with the same strats...

wow... its like im watching the same game... very fun............... wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hong Kong Annie10/4/2019, 11:45:11 PM11 votes

Honestly I have to agree. I used to watch the LCS regularly, follow a few team to catch all of their games, but now I haven't watched a match this last split and have not seen a game of worlds yet. It's just not as fun to watch anymore.

Slogg10/6/2019, 4:04:28 PM6 votes

I'm just gunna say this, and it could be totally inaccurate, but it was how the game felt to me.

Back when it was tank meta, it felt like only certain tank champions were broken. Where teams would fight and say, "Man, Cho'gath is BS, he is literally unkillable."

Now, it feels like the entire game is busted. There is so much nonsense in this game now that it's hard to know where to start. The damage is out of control, the CC is out of control, the snowballing is out of control, etc. If we are to stay in this meta, Riot needs to do what Blizzard realized very early on in WoW's PvP, and introduce a trinket that everyone can get with a cooldown to remove cc from you. There is so much CC on champions now, players can't have any skill expression anymore. Oh look, I dodged 3 Blitzcrank Qs, a Syndra E and Xayah E, I'm doing awesome!!! Oh wait, Qiyana R knocked me into a wall for 70% of my HP and I'm dead now. All the fun is taken out of the game when it becomes not just nigh impossible, but almost pointless to even bother trying to out play someone at that point.

Morbys10/5/2019, 2:08:23 AM6 votes

I mean, it opens up worlds to anyone, but that isnt necessarily a good thing. Some random scrub can show up just because their ability to play safe and then blow people up later has been honed. Zero skill, just pick the right champ or counter and go from there.

Rαy10/6/2019, 10:36:17 AM4 votes

True. You actually can't tell the skill level of a player a lot of times by watching him fight, because his enemy just dies during the first spell rotation.

Silver players are killing diamonds if they land one combo, because hey, they completed their first item! It's... weird.

ó w ò10/5/2019, 2:25:34 AM4 votes

[{quoted}](name=ixi Josh Sand,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=flXkdui7,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-10-04T20:53:09.914+0000)

Honestly, this season has been the worst experience for me playing league as of late, which is ironic considering this is the first season I finally climbed out of Gold. I should really be enjoying my progression, but the game state manages to regularly deliver a frustrating and boring experience whenever I play.

But I still had some hope come Worlds. A lot of people talk about how exciting the game is to watch now, so I thought i would give it a shot.

Mind you, I was a long time spectator and LCS/LCK fan before this season. I have 4 LCS jerseys, a couple of hoodies, and over a dozen dif team shirts - I've been an enthusiastic fan for some years now.

But trying to watch Worlds this year has been challenging. The game quality just isnt there right now.

Team fights dont play out like they used to. Theres no back and forth play that used to happen between all of the players before.

In teamfights of the past, you would see players adjust their position throughout combat, baiting people to overextend, or closing in after critical cooldowns have been spent.

Right now, the tempo of pro team fights look really similar to the clown fiestas in solo q. Just run around until you can instantly blow one enemy up, then get into a mad scramble to win a 4v5.

Pro teams used to make a name for themselves with things like smart map movements, objective trading, clever gank routes, intelligent team fighting, or just relentless aggression.

Now that the main requirement to win feels like its "just blow one guy up" theres no nuance or distinction between the teams' ability to team fight. It feels like its more about the first salvo than anything else, and that is insanely boring.

There used to be so much strategic nuance to this game, that it took several minutes for someone like Zirene to break down a team fight that lasted maybe 10+ seconds.

Now it feels like its just, "catch and kill a wandering dude before everyone in the shed starts throwing grenades at each other. "

Not a fun viewing experience when you know what this game used to play like.

this

Escalan10/5/2019, 10:20:10 PM3 votes

I feel the same. I used to play almost every day since season 3, now I barely stand one game in a week. I will quit eventually.

It is at an end10/5/2019, 11:03:17 PM2 votes

Em.... So you want it to be back at the Korean way of League: Ezreal vs Sivir at bot, Azir vs Corki at mid and Sejuani vs Jarvan in the JG. No kills until 30 mins, when one team makes a drake play the other team immediately retreats, when one team pushes for tower the other team backs. At 33 mins they finally decide to fight. Two teams wander around the baron pit for 1 min, Jarvan gets an engage on Ezreal and Ezreal Es away. Nobody follows up. At 40 mins Sivir team takes baron, and Ezreal team doesn't even try to fight it. Sivir team pushes. Ezreal team loses Azir and Maokai from Top. Sejuani ulted but went back to fountain. Sivir team won. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE FUN TO YOU?

SFHFWill10/5/2019, 7:35:51 AM2 votes

I completely disagree. I see ADC's constantly changing their position and the best ADC champs are the ones that do that the best.

Ezreal Tristana Kaisa Xayah

Those are considered the best ADC's to play and they all have one thing in common, mobility. There are low mobility comps that will use things like Varus Ashe and they play differently. Watch DFM vs ISG, final game of their double round robin for day 3. Incredibly back and forth, lots of trading, aggressive movements.

The problem isn't the game balance, the problem is skill. Pros are so insanely good at CSing and maximizing gold that even without a lot of kills they'll still have the income to basically 1 shot anyone caught out of position by landing all their abilities and maximizing their passives or procs and CC chains. Then you go down to something like silver or iron or bronze and the CS is completely crap, abilities don't hit anything and the only reason people die is because they run under turrets or have a 2 minute long fight around a dragon, which is beating on both teams and doing more DPS than any player in the game.

The skill gap between pros and the average player that it seems like a 'burst 1 person and GG' at pro play because of vision and map movements that were set up minutes ago, to average play of face checking bush and getting destroyed by 4 people sitting in the bush; is huge. There was a post last year I think by Rito that stated that the average CS above a certain ELO has gone WAY up, leading to 1 shots and snowballing.

In short, everyone's skill has risen a fair margin and more people know how to maximize their damage in pro play.

Chainman310/5/2019, 7:18:09 AM2 votes

Thats because anyone can climb this season without much effort as long as you grind enough with a positive mindset.

ShakeNBakeUK10/6/2019, 12:36:06 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=ixi Josh Sand,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=flXkdui7,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-10-04T20:53:09.914+0000)

Honestly, this season has been the worst experience for me playing league as of late, which is ironic considering this is the first season I finally climbed out of Gold. I should really be enjoying my progression, but the game state manages to regularly deliver a frustrating and boring experience whenever I play.

But I still had some hope come Worlds. A lot of people talk about how exciting the game is to watch now, so I thought i would give it a shot.

Mind you, I was a long time spectator and LCS/LCK fan before this season. I have 4 LCS jerseys, a couple of hoodies, and over a dozen dif team shirts - I've been an enthusiastic fan for some years now.

But trying to watch Worlds this year has been challenging. The game quality just isnt there right now.

Team fights dont play out like they used to. Theres no back and forth play that used to happen between all of the players before.

In teamfights of the past, you would see players adjust their position throughout combat, baiting people to overextend, or closing in after critical cooldowns have been spent.

Right now, the tempo of pro team fights look really similar to the clown fiestas in solo q. Just run around until you can instantly blow one enemy up, then get into a mad scramble to win a 4v5.

Pro teams used to make a name for themselves with things like smart map movements, objective trading, clever gank routes, intelligent team fighting, or just relentless aggression.

Now that the main requirement to win feels like its "just blow one guy up" theres no nuance or distinction between the teams' ability to team fight. It feels like its more about the first salvo than anything else, and that is insanely boring.

There used to be so much strategic nuance to this game, that it took several minutes for someone like Zirene to break down a team fight that lasted maybe 10+ seconds.

Now it feels like its just, "catch and kill a wandering dude before everyone in the shed starts throwing grenades at each other. "

Not a fun viewing experience when you know what this game used to play like.

well, this is what happens when you delete tanks and healers from the game, and just put everyone on PHAT DMG

turns out tho, most of the playerbase prefers playing as PHAT DMG and not as tank/support