Why is Riot obsessed with nerfing vision?

Basilissa Ilia·Feb 23, 2018·7 votes·1,400 views

Im genuinely curious why you are obsessed with nerfing wards and vision in general. When I first became a support main near the end of Season 3, the thing I liked most about the role was the ability to control the map with wards and the ability to assist my team with more than just my champion abilities. Season 4 came and I was happy to see that they were helping supports with better gold options, only to realize that wards had an arbitrary 3 ward limit plus one pink that was now visible. This was a huge nerf that I would gladly give up the new gold options in exchange for old vision system but alas its a little late for that. At least I had the ability to still affect the map when I played other roles such as ADC or Jungle buy being able to buy wards. Part of the reason I liked jungle in S4 was the ability to buy wriggles and have vision without sacrificing my build path. This went away in Season 5, now if I wanted to have any decent map control I needed to buy wards or sightstone, fair enough it sucks but it really hurts carry junglers that need to outpace the game to have any relevance. S6 came along and I could no longer buy wards. Essentially, if I wanted to have any sense of vision control on the map, I had to play a support, or play a tank/supportive jungler that could justify sightstone. Yes Trackers knife was a good alternative that I took advantage of, but most carry champs besides Lee needed the extra damage to outpace the game. You can buy pink wards, but you still have an arbitrary limit that no longer needs to exist. S7 comes along and pinks are exchanged for control, nice change that is a slight buff for vision, but again the arbitrary limit remains. S8 comes along and more importantly Trackers knife is removed along with the ability to see if my teammates have wards on their 6. Are you trying to get rid of vision? Serious question, I have to play Support to have any relevant vision control. Yes 6 exists but if you have to choose between wards, vision, vision denial. You are in an unhealthy situation where someone now has to make up for where the others lack, and not having the ability to see what those capabilites are for some ridiculous reason makes it even harder. Now I've mentioned the support role alot, and my complaint is not targeted at supports (Whom in my opinion have been significantly over-tuned for the last few years but thats not the point of this post). Its targeted at the vision system, why are you obsessed with nerfing it into the ground ?

22 Comments

HalcyonDwellerFeb 23, 20189 votes

Having vision in the game makes it less active because people will scout things out and then play passive because they know when they are in danger. It makes games a lot less action-y and just a lot more boring. Pro play has become too careful, so Riot decided to limit that.

Another reason is that at higher levels of play, people buy tracker's knife every game, with no exception. Basically it was clearly the most optimal choice and it was killing diversity and risky playmaking.

Sire HippingtonFeb 23, 20182 votes

That may apply to low(ish) elo, in high elo and proplay it's the opposite, a dark map makes players play save because they could be in danger and don't want to risk it. In low Elo, a toplaners has an opportunity for a soloplay and just goes for it, or he looks at the minimap and if he sees no danger near he goes for it. In (very)high elo, a toplaner that has an opportunity for a soloplay looks at the map, only finds 4 of the 5 champs on the map and decides it's to risky as the missing 5th member could be near by. In high elo, every dark spot on the map is treated as if it's an opponent unless all 5 opponents are seen elsewhere.

HalcyonDwellerFeb 23, 20182 votes

I was simply repeating what I heard from discussions with Rioters and red posts.

GigglesOFeb 23, 20184 votes

Except that even less happens when there is no vision, because then players aren't willing to do shit.

Also, the reason pro games are so long right now is because damage is so high. Pro's don't want to be that guy that gives up first tower and auto loses for his team.

HalcyonDwellerFeb 23, 20182 votes

Good points all around, I was simply repeating what I remember seeing in red posts/comments.

The other point I repeated is still relevant, that Tracker's Knife was crowding out the other smite upgrades because of the warding capabilities.

GigglesOFeb 24, 20183 votes

I don't feel like Rioters quite are following their own changes on this one.

Rayjay RedfangFeb 23, 20184 votes

I think the sightstone removal was about letting supports build an additional item rather than sightstone, and I think.the trackers knife had something to do with adjustments to pro play,.but I'm not sure.

HügöFeb 23, 20182 votes

It makes pro games to long because they need to play safer the more damage riot puts into the game.

Professor WardFeb 23, 20182 votes

Literally because 90% of fights in high elo are started because of lack of enemy vision, increase this, increase the fights.

MimrFeb 24, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Professor Ward,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=nc1U4xv3,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2018-02-23T20:47:18.938+0000)

Literally because 90% of fights in high elo are started because of lack of enemy vision, increase this, increase the fights.

This. Vision is all fine and dandy, but too much of it completely kills aggression. It's also a large contribution to the fact that pro games regularly end with kill scores like 7-4 over a 35 minute game.

ErockandrollFeb 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

This. Vision is all fine and dandy, but too much of it completely kills aggression. It's also a large contribution to the fact that pro games regularly end with kill scores like 7-4 over a 35 minute game.

I vaguely remember the days when the contention of vision was the game. (And the audience would sarcastically cheer when a ward was destroyed.)

I vaguely remember when teams would create their line of vision, and try to defend said line of vision. Which is why I enjoyed the fact that Riot transferred the vision game partially to objectives like scuttler, and the jungle plants.

Vision is good, but the fight for vision needs to be short and sweet.

HäxelFeb 24, 20182 votes

Sry but do you want to deny that every season came new vision back too? to buy green wards got removed but trinkets got hard buffed, no upgrade cost of 475 or 250 Gold, 2 stacks always availabel, increased time they remain. Than there were the monstersmites that broguht the ghostwolf and the raptors vision to remove wards that could bring you to not take redtrinekt and stick to green trinkket on junglers. That got replaced by jungleplants, we now have a visionplants that reveal a huge area of the map and even the wards in that. And now we got ghostporo and zombieward. Like for every ward you clear you get a free ward. Riot doesn't remove vision out of nowhere. Riot replaces vision cause they realize from time to time that there is to much vision on the map. Compared to older seasons and other games like dota is the whole map brighter as ever. Controlwards are still a thing between and if a jungler wants to stick to wards he can stick to green trinket and controlwards and remove wards with the controlwards and the visionplant or duskblade. And with zombieward even get new wards in this place.

Blinded MelonFeb 24, 20182 votes

maybe Rito has actually been run by Nocturne all along.

lilpokflufFeb 24, 20182 votes

They want to make pro players have to play more risky and fight/for more little do they know that they play EVEN SAFER when they have less vision.

rtbf34841792Feb 23, 20181 votes

Because of TSM so they can let their jungle actually play the game instead of being a ward :))

MistaFarenheitFeb 23, 20181 votes

like people have said its mostly for pro play. nothing happens for awhile in pro games and thats being compounded by the ridiculous amount of vision granted so far this season.

Sire HippingtonFeb 23, 20181 votes

that's ignoreing half the world...it's only na and korea with the slow games, the rest of asia is rather fast paced with lots of action, and eu also has alot games that have quite some action.

MuffledGarbageFeb 23, 20181 votes

To be fair, Vision = less risk = slower LCS games = less skins = less fun for every1

Well at least Riot was thinking that...

LordGeovanniFeb 23, 20181 votes

most people didnt want to be ward bots as support but to have more people warding they want to nerf it because people who actually use warding properly (pros) would have too much info and would never do anything

ErockandrollFeb 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

most people didnt want to be ward bots as support but to have more people warding they want to nerf it because people who actually use warding properly (pros) would have too much info and would never do anything

As a support main, I do value vision, But when I jungle, I do have at least one other reason I would go trackers, and that's simply how I use smite.

For me, smite was a means to increase clear speed. So I almost never had it available to use on a champion. (Which makes chilling/challenging smite kinda pointless.) So instead, I would just get Trackers and help with the vision game.

I'm not sure whether the vision itself, or the fact that I don't use smite upgrades, gave this pick more merit. But I wouldn't be surprised if that was a factor in why Trackers was go to for the pro scene.