I see a lot of people complain about the LCS esports as though it is ruining the game of League of Legends either from a balance point or from the perspective of someone who thinks Riot cares too much about the LCS and does not put enough resources back into improving the game.
So I thought I'd make a poll to see if indeed a lot of people think that LCS negatively impacts your gameplay experience.
I'd like to have options when I choose a bot lane carry beyond "marksman"
Nothing really wrong with proplay. I will grant you that the community's reaction to it can be fairly awful. I don't know how to explain to folks the meta differs over various elos when all the evidence to back this claim up is highly visible just from spectating games from various elos and should be self evident to players with just a brief moment of reflection and logical analysis. I cant think of a "sport" where some back yard team is expected to run the same plays with the same efficiency of a "pro" team, or for the members of that team to expect their teammates to do it even when they personally know they themselves are unable to do it.
Let me give an example, Blue Ezreal was meta in proplay and it required good cs, and efficient tear stacking. It exploded in popularity, yet many players struggled with it. They did not have good tear mechanics, Their cs was mediocre and delayed his power spikes excessively long, all this because they did not play ezreal nearly enough before this and constantly misused his ability's as a result. Hell to this day folks who where around for this still have a negative impression on EZ that he is a bad adc despite him consistently averaging some of the highest damage (admittedly lots of it is badly targeted so its less then useful). Show of hands folks, who has not heard this quote? "Ezreal does no damage"
I enjoy finding my own place in the game, because of this I get trashed talked for this in almost every game I don't thrive in regardless of my history running this. Bluntly speaking I don't want to copy what the top 0.01% do, I don't want some walkthrough or a guide to hold my hand step by step as I climb the ladder. Its not an experience I'm looking for in a moba, If I wanted to use a guide to win then I would be playing a single player game. I like PvP for the fluid and uncertain nature it provides. Its an act of self awareness to not imitate the pros, not ignorance. I cant play at that level, same goes for any one on my team. If we are able to that's where we would be.
I don't think LCS has a negative impact on the game. I think riot's catering towards a competitive environment is the problem, regardless if LCS existed or not.
Competitive environments are created within communities by nature of wanting to test their skill relative to players. Even if the game's balance is all over the place. Due to creating an enjoyable gameplay experience instead of an enjoyable competitive experience, there will still be a good number of players who want to stack up to each other, simply because there are enough that do. There are very few games which have shown substantial growth by focusing heavily on the competitive aspects of their game. League got a lot of momentum before they started focusing so heavily on competitive play, but the acceleration of the game has been downwards for a while. Eventually that will overtake the momentum and... well let's just hope riot doesn't think their game is too big to fall.
LCS and worlds brings a pain to balance via the champions. The list goes on, Rek'sai, Kassadin, Azir, reworked Galio believe it or not. The biggest example before all is Shen. He is a pro LCS World bot ever since Season 2 maybe even 1 (Can't remember 1, started in about the last few months of it.) He has been kept in this state only because he is God in Worlds but terrible in solo que. All because he requires great team mates, then he shines. Which is something hard to find on Yolo que, pro play is entirely different.
A lot of what could make this game more fun is sacrificed for the sake of Esports. If it wasn't for Esports, I'm sure Riot would have never deleted Dominion and we would have a bunch of permanent game modes instead of the rotating queue. The extreme Summoner's Rift favoritism over the other game modes wouldn't exist like it does now and we would be allowed some actual variety.
I never watch lcs or any LoL tournaments or streams, if I want to see LoL I'll just play the game and yet it's clear to me and even told by riot that they favor some champions just for their tournaments, lee sin is an obvious example and that's yeay and all for tournaments but it's bloody annoying for me
Pro play is notoriously cookie cutter with teams afraid to branch out from the toolbox 20 (30 since 5 bans) despite very obvious counters existing in game.
I fully expected Velkoz to trend hard in this tank meta, given that the true damage tank deconstructionist beam is very easy to get intense value out of on the tanky dive lineups we're currently seeing, while Vel himself is safe enough position wise to avoid being the engage target while still being able to land it.
Esports brings in a lot of money so the argument that Riot dedicates too much resources to pro play is void. First, the extra money it reels in means you can recruit more people to work for Riot. Second, the teams that work on organizing Esports events and those that work on the game itself are separate, so no resources are lost that way either (save perhaps Riot celebrities like Phreak attending esports events (does he still do work on the game itself though?)).
The biggest problem is balancing the game. Professional and soloQ are two completely different games. Champions that stomp in soloQ can very well be worthless in professional LoL and vice versa. This leads to the problem that in order to keep some champions fair for pro play they have to be nerfed into uselessness for soloQ. Pre-rework Rek'Sai is a very good example of this. Her map presence in pro play was insane because they coordinate well enough to make use of it. As a result her damage was nerfed to almost support tier (and even in that state she was often pick or ban). This in turn ruined her for soloQ where games are too unorganized to make use of her map presence but because she still dealt no damage she might as well have not been there in the majority of cases.
ppl saying balance is a problem because of LCS are damn hypocrites. LCS is boring as shit because Riot doesn't wanna balance around competitive. Therefore, always the same champions are picked. Like, within a patch, you'll see the same toplaners, midlaners, adcs, jg and supp all the time. It's like a tierlist. Oh X is open? pick him as he's #1 in his role. If enemy picked him, pick the #2. etc.. if there are bans
It's depressing. And Riot says they don't wanna do that cause otherwise other champs would stomp low elo. But this is dramatic because if u want to play on the highest level, you HAVE to play the best champions because they're outright better than the rest, it's as simple as that. They just have a higher skill cap but still, you're literally trolling by picking or training anything else than the best metapick, if your goal is to reach the highest elo possible. And that's kinda.. sad.
