When is Riot going to address death timer abuse?

Illabethe··4 votes·1,953 views

Okay. I have a topic that irks me more than any other.

If you're reading this, you generally understand how Death timers work right now:

They are based purely on what level you are, and the duration of the game.

That's it. You can die 20 times, and your ress timer will be exactly the same as someone whose went 20/1 and just died.

I want you to look at this game:

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2829209192/243999882?tab=overview

The Veigar was support. He literally ..... spent the entire game..... trading kills. In other words.... doing nothing, but exploiting the fact his AP gain is based on how many times skills hit, kills, takedowns.

He and his adc spent the entire early game trading kills. Fed the crap out of Teemo ..... to the point where ONE SHROOM could 100% - 0% anyone on our team. No even joking. I could hit a shroom on Ahri and lose 80-100% of my HP.

He didn't realize at all that by trading kills, he was literally feeding 300+G every single death. In 21 deaths, he fed at least 6300g, probably more....

He figured..... by trading.... he reduced the game to 4v4 for the rest of us, when in reality he unloaded at least 3 majorly fed champs on his own team.

I had no less than 11-12 times this game where I was the only one alive, and stopped a lane push solo while he was dead, and the others were suffering major setbacks from the champs he fed.


In other words, I'm making it VERY clear that I believe -this play style creates unfair disadvantages for your own team. -this play style is abusive when playing a scaling champ. While it's true Veigar got fed enough to 1 hit, He also could have done so without suiciding.


.... And here I get back to my original conversation:

Why the heck aren't death timers tied to how well you play or how little you die?

DEATHS SHOULD NOT be Encouraged.

If you yolo 21 deaths, you SHOULD GET PUNISHED for that! Maybe not with IFS, but at least with increases to death penalties.

There are so many people climbing by purely abusing death timers. Talon Karthus Yasuo Tryndamere Veigar all notoriously trade kills/objectives. Has riot ever considered all these champs would be less hated if you actually got rewarded for killing them with more time before they return?

I think this simple change would actually get a lot of people who play well to get out of Silver elo, because it would separate those who abuse a mechanic to win from those who express skill. And I think that's also important, because it educates players. While the play styles are combined, it teaches nothing. it creates more infighting..... because some players in solo queue believe in yoloing while others have disciplined play.

P.S. Yeah. I Ahri Jungled. I don't like picking a meta jungle when I'm first pick. Why get yourself countered when you can confuse your opponents.....

7 Comments

OniZetsu6662 votes

This. I have had so many people say "Gee riot I wonder why we are snowballing so hard in this game...maybe its because of the death timers being so damn long in the early game and it doesn't punish idiots or promote safe play! GEE I WONDER WHY"

MrFawknSunshine1 votes

didnt they just reduce death timers in early game? like to 8 seconds to start off?

Chembaron Yamada2 votes

I don't like how this would make comebacks even harder than they already are, tho.

Let's say you are behind and try to turtle to scale. The enemy tries to get baron, yet your team manages to contest and both teams end up with 4 people dead. The team that was ahead yet still get advantage because they have shorter death timers. Even if that was actually a successful play from the losing team to defend baron against a team with advantage.

While deaths shouldn't get encouraged, punishing the losing team even harder for being behind than they already get would feel terrible. It is rare enough to manage to turn a game around, why make it even harder?

Tahminatrix 1 votes

{quoted}

I don't like how this would make comebacks even harder than they already are, tho.

Let's say you are behind and try to turtle to scale. The enemy tries to get baron, yet your team manages to contest and both teams end up with 4 people dead. The team that was ahead yet still get advantage because they have shorter death timers. Even if that was actually a successful play from the losing team to defend baron against a team with advantage.

While deaths shouldn't get encouraged, punishing the losing team even harder for being behind than they already get would feel terrible. It is rare enough to manage to turn a game around, why make it even harder?

I think I would rather have longer death timers from having a bad time in the early game rather than being forced to have a terrible time in the early game....

If riot did something like this they could start to make early game champions fall off a tiny bit faster or just be slightly weaker in general because with every kill they manage to get they have still contributed to late game.

Illabethe1 votes

Keep in mind that generally, snowballs have all these features:

  1. A player who gets all the take down gold, (whether they go 20/0 or 20/20)
  2. several players who are either getting suffocated or going average.

Contestable games generally have a different set of occurrences:

  1. Kill bounties spread out over teams.
  2. One or more players who are LOW on deaths.
  3. Conservative gameplay to defend objectives when they are needed to be defended, offensive when they need to be offensive.

You're thinking short term impact of such a change versus long term benefits.

Short term..... yeah. there may be 1 in 100 games where death timers would play a role in a game swing. But the impact would probably be just that..... 1 in 100 games.

I'm going to emphasize something: I'm not even talking about dramatic increases. I'm talking about..... lowering the base resurrection timer, by what amounts to ~ 18- 38 base, increased by ~ 3 seconds for deaths above 5.

In this instance, the Veigar who went some 11 deaths in 15 minutes.... would be at about a 29 second base ress. His penalty for 11 deaths in 15 minutes would be 18 seconds. So he'd be 47 seconds at 15 minutes for feeding about .9 per minute. That'd be pretty painful for him. So.... after 10-20 games.... he might realize that this strategy is not working, and he will reform the behavior to try to get to the right side of the stats.

And once he reforms, his games will begin to look a lot more like mid-high elo games: Smart farm, objectives, and burst plays. Skill expression.

70% of League is Silver or below. This is one of the major reasons why: They see no penalty in Yolo. They see 24/21 and say "I did good vs my crappy team." This is why Tryndamere can win games he shouldn't: because he can just keep suiciding and coming back for the next turret without any skill expression at all.

Until deaths are punished, whether you like it or not, deaths are encouraged.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Deaths are already punished by giving the enemy gold and free farm, so you can't say they are encouraged.

And I get the idea that you want to force a shift of behaviour in players, but I don't think this is the right approach to do that. A player who is dying constantly is already punished harshly by having no farm (so, gold) and no levels.

Another penalty for dying would increase snowball, since the enemy gets more time to claim resources uncontested. And I definitely don't want to increase snowball even further.

Illabethe1 votes

Did you even bother to check the game I linked? 24/21 Veigar had most gold in game. But he fed 3 people on the other team over 20k gold!.

You gain levels by killing people.

Yes. There are downsides to doing this, but it's all downsides TO THE TEAM of the feeder. The Veigar himself or whatever other champ does it..... doesn't care about their deaths or the math behind it. You give players far too much credit in intelligence. They don't care about anything but...... :Did I get a kill for my death? Okay.... COOL!

And no. Dying would not create snowball unless you relentlessly feed. If each team is performing about 25/25.... their resses would be about the same as the other team.....

Snowball is more often caused by unstoppable split pushes than any other factor in the game, btw.

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