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League of Legend's current balancing crisis can be boiled down to just two words...

softest boy·7/10/2018, 6:00:51 PM·168 votes·22,834 views

Damage creep.

Riot has gradually shifted it's previous design philosophy to something entirely different. To many people, it was a complete U-turn from an otherwise good code of design. Time to kill in a moba should be significantly lower than any other game (for the most part) because the roots of League of Legends are made up of strategy and in depth thought processing. League attracted so many people because the expression of skill was potentially limitless.

And that's why so many people are sad. Many of you see these posts flooding the boards and just mock them. People are leaving and you people just say your cheeky little "bye" without much thought of what League could have meant to the person leaving. Veterans fell in love with a League that promoted strategic maneuvering, not I got unlucky and was instantly killed or I was foolish and got caught out, but luckily I have three dashes and a blink... These passionate players making these long posts on the boards are pushed to a breaking point because they're watching a game they've sunk countless hours into change for the sake of change.

Riot is pushing out strategy in favor of flashy playstyles and in-your-face damage,

With the amount of damage flooding the game, more people need dashes and mobility. And if your champion doesn't have burst damage, they give you more mobility and damage. Such as Poppy or even Brand. Little niche damage dealers are being broadened to fill any category. That can be said for Brand once again. He went from a convenient widdling damage-over-time mage to a burst mage who can still do damage-over-time. (Not saying Brand is or isn't op, just an example)

and this change is in large part simply to please the newer crowds. It makes sense for a company to wish to cater to newer players. How else will they continue to thrive? But at what cost, Riot? You're losing many passionate players who have sought your game out of all the others. If they want a split-second, reactionary style game, they will play Overwatch or literally any other mainstream game. League doesn't have to completely abort it's former charm with tons of damage to survive. This new damage obsessed generation will pass, and if you're not going to listen to these "spamming baby board posts" you won't have any former players to fall back on.

Also, to fellow community members: don't just mock fellow players for being passionate about the game. It doesn't make you edgy or cool. It's just mean and crude.

112 Comments

5050BS7/10/2018, 8:22:48 PM69 votes

That and Self Healing (which comes from the damage creep)

If Damage was lower then Tanks could do their jobs If Damage was lower Tanks would not be eating people 1v1, 1v5 If Damage was lower You could out play the enemy Assassin or ADC If Damage was lower games could turn around because your team was smart. If Damage was lower people could climb in Ranked because they were good at using their champ and not because their champ was cheese.

GigglesO7/10/2018, 6:42:34 PM33 votes

[{quoted}](name=honey love,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=j2UEomQ3,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-07-10T18:00:51.944+0000)

Damage creep.

Riot is pushing out strategy in favor of flashy playstyles and in-your-face damage,

Well Yea, Why wouldn't you want to see shit like this every game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4oETNkqLRQ

I got the first hit, therefor I won.

deadlychuck7/10/2018, 10:13:31 PM21 votes

I can even tell you where this stems from, having been around to see its' rise.

The expanding scope of the AD stat.

Seriously. AD use to do what it stands for, increase your "attack damage". Where as now, and around S3 if i remember correctly, they started to recklessly expand the role of AD to include ability power. And I'm not talking about AP, i'm talking about AD increasing the power of champion's abilities as their primary source of scaling damage. (Which a lot of people seem to avoid cognitive association between the two concepts by calling AD scaling abilities "skills"... idk)

The fact of the matter is that with the introduction of a lot of the AD assassins, "skirmishers", and AD mages, they've created an arms race between the classes which utilize the stats involved.

AD abilities(assassins) > AD auto attacks(marksmen) > Defensive Stats(tanks) > AD abilities

The problem is that while each of these categories have classes which blatantly fall into them but also have an increasing number of champions which fall in between, the amount of middle ground between them, while only behaving based on the interaction between two stats, creates a constant circle of motion.

AD skirmishers, AD divers, and AD juggernauts all end up acting as middle grounds between these categories. But remember, 3 categories 2 stats. Basically what ends up happening is that every time you try to buff a class to make them no longer irrelevant, the result is that another class who's already middle of the road, gets buffed to be OP, which pushes another class to irrelevancy. This continues in a circular motion, creating an arms race between the AD classes.

"What about AP though?"... well based on other very popular threads on the forums, which even got a complaint thread about how often people made these threads. AP isn't exactly an equivalent stat to AD anymore, with AD benefiting from CDR, atk spd, crit, lifesteal, armor pen, & lethality as secondary multiplier stats. While AP is limited to CDR and item 3089 (< WHICH IS A FUCKING ITEM NOT A STAT). Mana doesn't behave as a multiplier secondary stat, rather a limiter secondary stat, and they got spell vamp stripped away from them, and compensated with raw health, which doesn't in any way act multiplicative with their primary stats like lifesteal (or arguably CDR & atk spd when you factor in kiting) does for AD. Also because of the nature of CDR, it use to be very inefficient on AD champions, but with AD casters the stat was no longer uniquely an AP multiplicative secondary stat.

LegitBusinessman7/11/2018, 1:34:34 AM13 votes

HEY GUYS MEDDLER HERE WE'RE LOOKING INTO SNOWBALLING AND HOW TO DIAL THAT BACK BUT IN THE MEANTIME

WE'RE REMOVING A HUGE AMOUNT OF MOVEMENT SPEED FROM THE MOVEMENT SPEED RUNE AND REPLACING IT WITH DAMAGE. ALSO THE VISION RUNE NOW GIVES YOU DAMAGE.

ÈvilMorty7/10/2018, 11:27:57 PM10 votes

also mobility creep

Zeromatsu7/11/2018, 7:23:09 AM10 votes

Damage creep? More like "Balance team" .

If damage creep would be all there is, you could do something about it. But the balance team refuses to nerf things. They just further buff the things that are weaker and they do it every patch which results in an endless cycle of the same shit.

Just look at the recent pbe buffs:

Cassiopiea Noxious Blast (Q) AP ratio increased from 70% to 80% Total damage increased from 75/120/165/210/255 to 75/125/175/225/275

Corki Gattling Gun (E) total damage changed from 80/140/200/260/320 to 120/160/220/260/320 total resistance reduction increased from 4/8/12/16/20 to 8/11/14/17/20

Pantheon Aegis of Zeonia (W) damage increased from 50/75/100/125/150 to 60/85/110/135/160

Rek'Sai Queen's Wrath (Unburrowed Q) AD ratio increased from 40% to 50% Prey Seeker (Burrowed Q) AD ratio increased from 40% to 50% Void Rush (R) AD ratio increased from 185% to 200%

Sion Decimating Smash (Q) Minimum damage increased from 30/48/65/83/100 to 30/50/70/90/110 Maximum damage increased from 90/143/195/248/300 to 90/150/210/270/330

Sivir Boomerang Blade (Q) cooldown lowered from 9 at all ranks to 7 at all ranks

Vayne Silver Bolts (W) bonus true damage increased from [4/6/8/10/12% of target's max health] to [4/6.5/9/11.5/14% of targets max health]

Vel'Koz Plasma Fission (Q) AP ratio increased from 60% to 80%

Liandry's Torment Unique Passive - Torment bonus magic damage increased from [1% enemy max health] to [1.5% enemy max health] [burn damage still 2% enemy max health, tooltip updated to note this]

Does that look like they want to reduce dmg in the game? Instead of buffing underperforming champs why not just nerf the overperforming ones?

The only dmg nerf there was this:

Sejuani Permafrost (E) Active damage lowered from 30/45/60/75/90 to 20/35/50/65/80

Śhunpo7/10/2018, 11:41:03 PM8 votes

No, I have two better words.

New runes

Hong Kong Annie7/10/2018, 11:33:04 PM6 votes

This reminds me alot of how Halo has changed over the years. Ever since 3 they have been adding more and more mobility and lowering the time to kill, likewise every game after 3 has sold less then its predecessor. Now once was a juggernaut of the gaming industry is a sad shell of its former self, and just like Riot, Microsoft and 343 refuse to admit that they are wrong.

Yaskamasandwich7/10/2018, 10:54:13 PM6 votes

This seems to be the general trend in all video games, hell even include comic books. Pushing out strategy for plays, and at the same time push out the old devoted fans for new fans.

Smithy2Q7/11/2018, 12:55:15 AM6 votes

Is Ghostcrawler two words? If yes, then I'll go with that.

If not, then how about "Hiring Ghostcrawler."

ISLAMICWARRIOR997/11/2018, 6:26:28 AM5 votes

Damage creep is just a symptom of riot refusing to nerf tanks. Tanks do wayyy to much damage to every other role needs to do a shit ton to be viable vs them so they just end up 1 shotting eachother. Tanks need to have their damage like halved, something that can sit and soak damage with tons of unmissable cc should have exactly 0 1v1 chance unless ahead af.

Melledoneus7/12/2018, 8:21:00 AM4 votes

Bye

I do feel like some special part of League: the wonder, the excitement, the unpredictability of a hard-fought game, are just gone.

Gone are the days where trying a champion was more about discovery and taste rather than raw power and gimmicks.

Gone are the days when I could build a certain way on a champion usually thought unconventional and still succeed, or have a nice laugh when I blunder.

Gone are the days when I could play the champions I like without worrying about the meta directly affecting my chances of winning or losing.

Gone are the days where I could play Shen as a tank without essentially forfeiting lane and possibly the game. Or the days where I didn't even have to play him in a lane, where I could jungle as him and keep up with creative jungle paths and ganking manuevers.

I miss a lot about this game. Mainly when I could point at Vayne and say "I don't like true damage" rather than point at 3/4 the roster, or when I could say "guys, stay behind me, Kha'Zix can't kill me."

I sure do miss quite a few things.

Huh.

Wínters Dawn7/10/2018, 11:29:48 PM4 votes

Its not a crisis to riot tho. They change the game to what it is now to what, to appeal to the current player base majority. They are probably still making a crap ton of money so in their eyes there is no problem. They still have a mass amount of players playing the game and buying stuff. As much as the VETS are hurting riot has almost no incentive to change the game towards what you describe.

It sucks, but it seems like riots made up their minds.

SugeMinPikk7/11/2018, 12:37:28 AM4 votes

The two words are actually "new runes"

Reklaimer7/12/2018, 12:03:15 AM4 votes

I completely agree.

Four of my friends have stopped playing because of the current state of the game. One of them keep saying, "I'll come back when they fix the game." I'm afraid Riot won't, and then my friends won't want to play LoL at all anymore. I would then eventually stop playing, because playing with friends is a big part of my motivation.

Also, queue times for normal games were around 40 seconds at the beginning of this year and prior for high gold, low plat. Since these changes, queue times have been around 2 minutes. That's a big difference.

Bios Element7/12/2018, 5:49:56 AM3 votes

Couldn't agree with this more. Both winning and losing are becoming less impactful when it's a case of whoever slips up first is guaranteed to lose. Then snowball kicks in and the loser gets smashed into the ground. That isn't fun gameplay for either side.

big boi edri7/11/2018, 3:45:58 PM3 votes

League attracted so many people because the expression of skill was potentially limitless.

Idk, me and my friends came over bc Sc2 died out for the most part.

We also used to laugh and call it a brain dead monkey game. Turns out there is a high skill cap, but def not why we started playing. I don't think I really know anyone who came to League for the limitless skill potential.