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Reminder: Every Worlds is the "most boring Worlds ever" with the "least diversity."

Lao Fu the Tiger··94 votes·5,549 views

Just throwing out there that ever since I started playing (very very end of S3), people have always complained about Worlds being incredibly stale and boring.

Here are just a couple things to consider so that maybe you'll understand a bit more about the tournament!

  • The champion pool of any given Worlds tournament usually consists of roughly 20 or so top picks for the majority of games and 10-20 "off-meta" picks a few times. In a game of balance with 100+ champions, there will always be some champions that are objectively stronger for a certain play style that the game revolves around. A key thing to note, however, is that this pool of champions is different every year. Yes, there will always be a currently strongest pool, but that pool does change. Either way, it's still way more diverse than many games like SSBM where it's always Fox vs. Fox (poor example, I know, but it gets a point across).

  • Macro play is much more emphasized than micro play. This is prominent in any split, but especially in Worlds where teams compete in the biggest tournament of the year. Laning phases are, to some, a boring 15-20 minutes where the laners just farm and nothing seems to happen. Teamfights seem to look the same. However, if you look at each game, it's all about macro play. While teamfights may be similar, look at the bigger picture--where is the teamfight? When is the fight? How strong is each player when the fight breaks out?

Ultimately it boils down to League being a combination of the excitement of watching sports with the strategy of a game of chess. Fights are chaotic and exciting for us to watch. However, as an RTS game, League also has plenty of "slow" and "boring" elements at the highest levels of play which many people don't enjoy. Some of us (the few who watch bowling, billiards, or chess) love looking at the macro play. For some of you, it's the micro play. Neither is a "better" way to look at League, but there's no denying each group will be at least a little "unappreciative" at the other side's enjoyment simply because that's the nature of the game itself.

100 Comments

President Swa1n12 votes

Am I the only one that actually thinks this Worlds has been entertaining and far less one sided so far?

Electro5224 votes

Nope. Im with you in that boat. Worlds so far has been VERY entertaining (except for watching Europe get their faces smashed in). Especially with the rise of the Wildcards. Both Albus Nox and INTZ have completely thrown all regular expectations out the window.

Rester9 votes

A reminder that Dota 2's Internationals always has the most widely picked hero pools. I realize they're two different games with different mechanics, metagame, etc in mind. But even teams during that tourney livened things up with strange picks, even ones that didnt fit the meta at all.

Hell even if teams knew they were going to lose it all they at least put on a show.

Hrd2H1t11 votes

I realize they're two different games with different mechanics, metagame, etc

Argument neutralized

CasterGilgamesh1 votes

you cant first off they are both mobas second this game came directly from dota as well hell we even have an item with the name mentioning a "hero" from that game item 3116 many of the orignial game designers for this game came from dota or played dota

Nuparu5 votes

But they play extremely different.

Sure, they maintain the turrets and nexus/ancient, but the gameplay is significantly different.

Dota has different (and stronger!) items that have more purpose, more kits that are designed around a central focus (that's usually unique, for example see characters like Bloodseeker with his lame ass ult), more options to deal with things, and a lot more gameplay mechanics that are intensive (stacking camps, denying, smokes, etc) that make the game itself much more volatile. As such, players can use the different kits to different functions (counterpicks are much more deadly) and create diversity.

Also, the draft phase is different, you get mid-zone bans which can easily destroy a traditional comp and force flex picks. For example, imagine you drafted Lulu and Braum for a Juggernaut Kog comp - (i have no idea if those two are important, i assume so) - they could just ban Kog'Maw and now you have to improvise. Maybe a Jinx would see play, or a Vayne - who knows? More options = higher pickrate.

specter4247 votes

I don't know how people even tolerate watching this shit. It is basically farming simulator and most of the champs picked are the really obnoxious ones that we would rather not ever see.

Lao Fu the Tiger29 votes

I can only speak for myself, but here are a few examples.

Some people watch professional billiards. In billiards, professionals almost always manage to perfectly clear the table. The actual clearing of the table isn't the interesting part; what's interesting in billiards is how the table is cleared. How the cue ball is positioned, the strength it's hit with, etc. What's even more interesting is how mistakes are handled.

Some people watch professional chess. Chess can be a very slow game and if you're good at chess, you can often predict where the players will move. However, when something happens that doesn't go according to plan, the reactions and strategy development really start to shine and demonstrates why these people are professionals.

Same goes with League. The games start predictably. Maybe that means lane swaps 95% of the time or simple farming 95% of the time. What makes the games interesting is how the smaller variables and mistakes are handled. How does the player who made the mistake react? How does the other team react? What feats are accomplished due to the mistake? How does the overall game as a whole change because of this mistake?

Some people watch professional LoL to see how a specific champion is played and to learn mechanics of that champion. Some people watch it to see how the game is played in the big picture, regardless of whether or not those champions are the same 10 champions over and over and over again.

I agree, diversity makes games interesting, but to me, strategy development is far more interesting than what champ is being played.

Junkο4 votes

The thing is, you can try to learn from watching professionals play billiard or chess or etc. You can't really apply what you see in pro play to your games for the most part because pro games are like completely different from your average LoL game. While watching pros play things like soccer is fun because there are almost no limitations at all (aside from rules obviously), one team can be losing hard but eventually get their act together and win and they can do some really amazing stuff nobody else can. In LoL once you start losing you usually lost, there is not much strategy involved when you can just send someone to 1v3 and make it out alive while your team does something else and it's not really interesting to watch, if the casters weren't there for hype-y commentary "OMG THE ENGAGE ON TRUNDLE BUT HE IS TAKING NO DAMAGE CAN THEY TAKE HIM OUT" I would prob fall asleep.

But all of that is IMO.

Nautoday5 votes

Thank you for this post. Shot calling is essential to the game and people don't realize that. You can learn A LOT by watching World's, even though you might not mechanically be able to do what they do, you can still start to think more like they do.

Xienwolf3 votes

This reminds me of why I don't watch sports, and makes me confused that sports lovers don't understand the issue with watching LoL.

In soccer, you watch for the rare moment a goal is made. In basketball you watch for the rare moment a shot is NOT made. In each game, so much of what will happen is the same every time from a broad strokes perspective.

Señor Karthus6 votes

You are correct about something: Worlds has always been boring.

Junkο6 votes

Worlds is boring because fighting in LoL in reality just isn't worth it. In Dota 2 a won teamfight will net you a 1 or 2 levels and like 2k-3k gold, and you get a shit ton of gold and exp if you kill someone on a killing spree on top of them having a long respawn time, so it is actually worth to fight constantly and you can easily snowball hard or make crazy comebacks.

But in LoL no matter how ahead you are, in the end the game is decided by 1 guy misplaying, no matter how ahead you were, since early game all the advantage you try to build up is negated by low respawn timers and low gold value per kill (aside from first blood) thanks to Riot nerfing snowballing so hard in S2, yet buffing comeback mechanics a lot (you are on a killing spree after only getting 2 kills now and if you die everyone on their team gets gold).

SFHFWill3 votes

I would disagree with you whole heartily.

Ratbert5 votes

This is a pointless comment if you don't explain.

SFHFWill2 votes

One game doesn't always throw the game. It can stall a game, it can halt momentum but that's about it most of the time. There's normally one play you can say was a turning point, but you can almost never say it was that one play that completely threw a 100% win. That's very rare. I'd say the game is less snowbally than most and less 1 magical play ending than most.

Ratbert2 votes

Late game I have to disagree, because I've won/lost many games because one person got caught out and died, otherwise you're probably right, but the other guy was most likely talking about late game anyways.

TotalJerk1 votes

Dota 2 a won teamfight will net you a 1 or 2 levels

This was the case in the preseason, but they undid it because everyone fucking hated Yasuo or Master Yi having 4 levels over everyone and outhealing anything you can throw at them with Warrior's Bloodlust just because they got 3 kills.

Junkο1 votes

No it wasn't. It was more like that during Seasons 2 and early S3 (and I guess before that but back then I wasn't playing), but after that they have been removing more and more individual snowball mechanics from the game and placing all the power into objectives.

They even made it so people who are lower level than the average level of the game get bonus exp in S5. Anti snowball has been taken to ridiculous levels in LoL.

TotalJerk1 votes

I mean during early preseason 6 people were getting a metric fuckton of experience from kills. It was almost the norm for at least one player in the game to have 3-6 levels on the second highest person. It got nerfed really fast. The game was super snowbally in general during that time and that was only scratching the surface of why. The boards were constantly full of complaints about how one sided games were and even competitive broke records for how short and one sided a lot of games ended up being.

After the exp thing maybe individuals didn't snowball as hard as back in the day, but the team as a whole snowballed like a motherfucker.

Only Play Darius5 votes

But last year you had melee carries like Darius/Mord/Fiora/GP to liven things up.

JackMcSnipeyz45 votes

GP was a broken mess that was too strong and barely melee, more like attack barrel carry. Fiora was also busted with tanky build and everyone complained.

Not saying your opinion is wrong, just pointing out how people complain no matter what.

JVP1530 votes

"Attack barrel carry"

I love this line.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

I mean people who call GP melee have really never played the champion. GP RARELY goes in melee range unless it's a free kill if he does and is basically a ranged carry with an AS based on the CD of Q.

Surr20plz1 votes

{quoted}

GP was a broken mess that was too strong and barely melee, more like attack barrel carry. Fiora was also busted with tanky build and everyone complained.

Not saying your opinion is wrong, just pointing out how people complain no matter what.

I don't care what is broken op it's fun to watch the pros use those champs against each other as well.

The Deckowner6 votes

all 4 of these were broken at release, prema banned most of the time in worlds.

TurquoiseYoshi4 votes

I mean, this Worlds has had tons of diversity. With the exception of support because of Nami, every lane has had 5+ regular champs played with a few odd pocket picks on the side.

TotalJerk4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lao Fu the Tiger,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fus8qxpa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-02T16:39:23.609+0000)

many games like SSBM where it's always Fox vs. Fox (poor example, I know, but it gets a point across).

It's a very, very poor example. Half (13/26) the roster is considered viable, and ~31% (8/26) are considered top tier. This is around the same as League, which receives regular balance patches.

Also, only 36 of the top 100 Melee players even play Fox at all at a competitive level. ~57%(15/26) characters have some representation in the top 100. Even if you only count characters with more than one player it's still ~46%(12/26). Meanwhile Nidalee currently has a 100% pick/ban.

Melledoneus3 votes

I just wanna see a Worlds where they set up rules. Every top pick is banned, and the pros must play champions like Urgot, Aatrox, and Singed.

EDIT: Or what that guy said. I v

WoonStruck6 votes

Or once something is above a 7% pick rate, its banned until its deviance is less than ~3% from the entire roster's average.

This almost guarantees that 'popular' champs end up banned, meaning pros have to either have a unique pool, or an extremely diverse pool that they've practiced, that way the meta doesn't 100% completely and totally change with each minor tweak Riot makes to the top end.

It also means that the semis and finals are likely to have the full roster open by the end; either that or you can leave the semis and finals alone, leaving that rule only for group stage and first-stage knockout.

Of course, this should be tested at a few invitationals first, as it would likely have too many problems to just throw into worlds.

Hinagiku333 votes

Also if any match is Best of 3 or 5, any champion that is picked is disabled for all other matches in the set. We have 130 champs, I'm pretty sure we can lock-out 10 after each round without running out. Might even make the pros think more carefully about when to go with their power/pocket picks and who to ban.

...or just make everyone go through a round with random picks. I'm good with either.

Xonra1 votes

That would pretty much suck lol

Let's just force everyone to play champs that are objectively bad, so it just turns into a really bad clown fiesta.

ZT Xperimentor3 votes

League hasn't been played like chess since season 2. What strategy is needed when the snowballing team can just bowl their way to victory?

CodyBear 3 votes

Worlds would much be better if the pros get random champs. Lets see how pro they are trying to adjust and make the team dynamics work.

Veltox1 votes

Agreed that it would be more exciting and stuff but what if one team gets a bunch of melee's and the other gets Karma Janna Teemo etc.. Where's the fair in that?

CodyBear 1 votes

If they are truly qualified as "Pros" they need to learn to adjust their builds and use those champs the best they can with strategy. This would make Worlds more interesting. Rather than all the teams using the same 10 champs all the time.

Veltox1 votes

Fine i'm for it.

Matezoide3 votes

If you think LoL is balanced or exciting in Pro Play, you never saw Dota 2.

Reminder all but 5 characters were picked in the Manilla main event alone, people actually fight in-lane and pro players often have huge hero pools.

I am not even saying Dota is a better game or anything, but as far as pro games go, Dota 2 is objectively better. A very strong reason for this is the amount of bans and the way pick order works in Dota though (10 Bans total and they take turns between picks/bans).

If LoL were to allow harder counters in general, both for picks and items, revamped the ban system, and buffed champions not named Lee Sin for LCS, Pro games would be that much more varied.

grug2 votes

actually I believe its more to do with the nature of league of legends itself

In league there are many safeguards (flash, multiple wards, trinkets, extremely strong towers etc) that drag the games too long, it just so happens that they are used the most effectively at the highest echelons where risk-taking is already averse.

Using pro dota as the antithesis, the game has supremely better defensive options but also extremely devastating offensive ones. It just appears designed more for people to fail and die of poverty until they lose.

You can appreciate what both of them are but be mindful to understand what your viewing and what is going on subliminally.

xelaker2 votes

I should see all the champions at least once at worlds. is that too much to ask for?

Iwinatlife421 votes

Well think about this, How many Champions can you play at your best? 2? 4? maybe 10? and i'm just guessing that you are not currently challenger let alone pro. So how can you expect each player to have roughly 9 champions fully mastered for the Highest level of play?

General Esdeath 2 votes

Just waiting for the day when the same 6 champions are banned and the same 10 are picked every game.

KoKoboto2 votes

I found S3 worlds not stale, granted I just started playing League back then lel

LordGeovanni2 votes

Believe it or not adcs used to fear supports poke pre 6.( there was macro play even more so in previous seasons but now you cant risk anything at all or lose the game) but then riot decided supports were doing too much things and wanted to highlight adc (not like they weren't still the only role where you cant shake up what could be played there at the time. when is riot gonna spotlight supports and tanks and fighters not just ranged carries and hyper mobile assassins

Hawkefire2 votes

While I do agree with you, I must say, that during the LCS of season 5 (when cinderhulk was more-or-less in its prime), was perhaps the greatest diversity I had ever seen on the pro scene.

MonkeyMadness2 votes

Well said, OP. Trouble is, you have these kids that want LoL to function like DotA where literally every character has been picked in pro games. They forget, however, that LoL is much less about specific counter picks and more about team synergy.

Matezoide1 votes

{quoted}

Well said, OP. Trouble is, you have these kids that want LoL to function like DotA where literally every character has been picked in pro games. They forget, however, that LoL is much less about specific counter picks and more about team synergy.

Dota is about both, and you would know that if you had knowledge on that game. Nobody ever picked Luna without Shadow Fiend, for example.

Why does the reason even matter anyway? One has slighty over half the roster being picked over an entire tournament. The other has over 90% getting picked in the main event of another. You can't argue which one has better variety.

MonkeyMadness1 votes

I mean, I agree with you...

I'm just saying that there are a lot of people in this game that think the fact that all 132 are not played with equal consistency at all levels of play makes the game unbalanced or in some other way less good and it pisses me off.

Athenes Lulu2 votes

Somewhere along the lines of strategy and optimization isn't everyone's cup of tea, and OP is merely explaining on why some (or actually, many) people enjoyed watching LoL Esports.

This also explains why Riot had to make changes for the sake of change, so there's always new things to strategize. Multi-colored smites (though that's more for outside professional play), camp smite buffs, elemental "rng" dragons, ward limits, trinket changes, and so on. Most of these changes macro play more than micro play, if anything.

And we should point out that "tier lists" are completely subjective and based on playstyle and environment players play in.

I'm not a fan of competitive esports of anything, but that's just opinion of ONE person. Sure, it does get boring as hell to watch sometimes so I can choose to never care, but if there's one thing that I don't like, it would be how Riot shove those things into our faces. No, we're not talking about balance here because there's gotta be somewhere for Riot to base off balance from, we're talking about how things are advertised and the content (paid or free) they give us. That's one of the bigger problems concerning esports, and people blamed on how boring it is to watch esports.

Preach [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

manbearswine2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lao Fu the Tiger,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fus8qxpa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-02T16:39:23.609+0000)

in a game of balance with 100+ champions, there will always be some champions that are objectively stronger for a certain play style that the game revolves around.

Enough with this crap already, competitive balance is shit because we balance for plat winrates above all else. How many times has a champion who sees 0 competitive play has been nerfed? How many times has a champion which was weak-balanced in competitive been nerfed? How many times do people outright oppose buffs for champions who are clearly very lacking in the competitive scene?

When the majority of champions aren't balanced around competitive play don't expect variety, and don't blame it on other things, we don't balance this game around competitive play and hence competitive play isn't balanced, what's so complicated about that?

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