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I can't take this "stomp or be stomped" gameplay anymore

Zellios·5/15/2018, 6:05:22 AM·157 votes·23,329 views

I have played this game since CBT. That's a longggggg ass time.

I've seen every stage of this game, every meta, and every season. Not once in the history of playing this game have I EVER felt more frustrated with the state of the game.

Every game is a stomp. Whether it's winning or losing, the game is decided within the first 10-15 minutes, nearly every time. Maybe I'm alone in this, but this isn't fun for me anymore, and I WANT to be having fun. I've put so many years and so many hours into this game, and I've watched it grow from around 40,000 players, to millions upon million.

The powercreep in this game has become so extreme. Back in the day, one shotting someone wasn't a very common occurrence. Sure, you would see a super fed prerework GP one shot someone with Parley, or a veigar/nasus with ridiculous stats, but those were outliers. Now, I'd be amazed if you played ANY game (at least in plat or above, I cant speak for gold or below) that didn't have at least one champion on either team being able to one shot anyone who isn't a tank.

Sorry, this is pretty jumbled, but it's late and I'm just so frustrated. This isn't meant to be a hate thread by any means, if there's anyone who wants League to continue to succeed, it's definitely me. But I can't just sit here and pretend like League is going in a good direction right now.

Edit: CBT means closed beta testing.

Edit 2: When I referred to matches being decided in 10-15 minutes, I don't necessarily mean the game actually ends, but this part of the game is so insanely pivotal to the outcome of the match and trying to catch up and flip it around takes some very serious errors on the winning teams part. Your chances of turning it around from a bad start were far greater in earlier seasons than it is now.

78 Comments

BLIGHTBRINGER5/15/2018, 6:38:25 AM72 votes

Yeah the ability to one shot someone has been widened out to other champions. But that's the work of Runes, item changes, overall non stop buffing to underperforming champions instead of nerfing what is strong.

Instead of buffing items, or ability damage that are underperforming, they should just nerf damage and buff some resistances to squishies.

Like hell, I see people complain about tanks but when ever I pick to play a tank I can't tank anything (3 - 5 Auto's from ADC + 2 abilities from 2 champions and i'm already at 30% health). In this one game I was playing Poppy, and I had 4000k health, 300 MR, 230 Armor and I got melted by an azir in a matter of seconds.

All those bonus resistances feel useless and I just essentially feel like a squishy but with extra health. But that's the work of the current powercreep damage.

Khristophoros5/15/2018, 7:25:10 AM26 votes

I'm tired of it too.

Nipsahoy5/15/2018, 3:48:31 PM19 votes

{quoted}

I have played this game since CBT. That's a longggggg ass time.

I've seen every stage of this game, every meta, and every season. Not once in the history of playing this game have I EVER felt more frustrated with the state of the game.

Every game is a stomp. Whether it's winning or losing, the game is decided within the first 10-15 minutes, nearly every time. Maybe I'm alone in this, but this isn't fun for me anymore, and I WANT to be having fun. I've put so many years and so many hours into this game, and I've watched it grow from around 40,000 players, to millions upon million.

The powercreep in this game has become so extreme. Back in the day, one shotting someone wasn't a very common occurrence. Sure, you would see a super fed prerework GP one shot someone with Parley, or a veigar/nasus with ridiculous stats, but those were outliers. Now, I'd be amazed if you played ANY game (at least in plat or above, I cant speak for gold or below) that didn't have at least one champion on either team being able to one shot anyone who isn't a tank.

Sorry, this is pretty jumbled, but it's late and I'm just so frustrated. This isn't meant to be a hate thread by any means, if there's anyone who wants League to continue to succeed, it's definitely me. But I can't just sit here and pretend like League is going in a good direction right now.

Thing that really frustrates me is how quickly some champs become able to kill you with no counterplay because damage spikes up so quickly. I played a bot lane game yesterday. Our lux feeds zed 3 kills early on in the game pre 10 minutes. We are shoved under turret by morgana/caitlyn the entire match. Our jungler doesn't come bot ever. We proceed to get dived several times by four people (somewhat that is our bad for not backing out) and we lose our turret and I can get almost no farm and can't get any items because now there's a 4 kill zed that can kill me and theres no counterplay to it at all even though I only died to him once after he killed our mid 3x. Cool... really fun gameplay. A champ I didn't even feed can no farm me whenever he wants by 10 minutes into the game. So instead of dying I stay back but predictably I get almost no farm because I can't push out much. I end the game with like 1-5-3 or something and my team flames me for noob ADC even though they screwed us over completely and offered no help whatsoever.

Really annoying. Unfortunately it's going to get worse because ADs are going to be nerfed and have their power spike delayed and supposedly Riot wants to nerf shields from supports making assassins even more stupid than they are now. Cause they 0 mechanics Rengar jumping out of a bush and pressing Q for 1200 dmg offers a ton of counterplay because you can't ward every possible area.

I much prefer playing against fed ADs or fed mages or fed bruisers because at least there's counterplay. You can delete the AD if he gets caught, or delete the mage or flash his skillshots or whatever. Assassins just jump in on you delete you in 2 seconds and that's that. It'd be one thing if it took them 20 minutes to come online but they can do it by 10 minutes into the game once they get duskblade. Just terribly exciting gameplay.

Nea1045/15/2018, 1:32:35 PM16 votes

In my experience, it has been a stomp-or-bestomped for MORE THAN 1 YEAR now.

They haven't fixed anything, so it's intentional. Probably because of the 50% win ratio stuff. :D

OurLestrade5/15/2018, 7:30:02 AM10 votes

It's interesting because it doesn't feel too different to me. It's always been stomps going either way in my experience.

Flawless Fetus5/15/2018, 9:34:42 AM9 votes

You're right. On the upside, they're trying to funnel some of the carry potential back into solo players. It's a few seasons late, but I'll take it. Lol. I understand that league is a team game, but I've gotten tired of being unable to carry unless INCREDIBLY ahead. Not directly related to your, more than reasonable, complaint, but once they allow you to carry again, I'm sure things will feel better for you :)

muted team chat5/15/2018, 10:03:17 PM9 votes

I play LoL with WoW open in a second monitor just in case I need something to do while I wait for the game to end after it's been decided in 15 minutes. And this is coming from me smurfing in silver, losing a game I cannot carry as a plat1/diamond player, because my team is so utterly behind in every single lane.

It didn't used to be this way.

Nausicäa 5/15/2018, 11:14:43 PM8 votes

I havent been playing quite as long as you, since mid season 2, but I 100% agree with your sentiments. NEVER in the YEARS of playing this game has the game been this stompy or the burst damage been this high.

Its absolutely unbelievable how easy it is to 100-0 instant kill people even with minimal items (like 1). Champions that use to need to poke you down first before all inning just straight up all in you and kill you with damage to spare. Counterplay is literally no longer a thing on MANY champions, just blow all your shit and kill someone and they cannot even react.

The worst part is that Riot is either in denial of this, refusing to acknowledge it or its straight up their intention and direction but arent being transparent with the community. Either way they have pretty much throw out all the design values that this game was built on and made it fun to play.

Harambre995/15/2018, 5:50:37 PM5 votes

I completely agree, and do you guys want to know the secret why this is, its because of the new Rune and Mastery system, the new Dev's wanted to put there mark on this game, and in doing so created a NEW LEAGUE OF LEGENDS, you cant just broad spectrum with a lazy give everyone this and that like they did with the rune system, most the champions were balanced over years, and i mean the 100 of them, with the old rune/mastery system, its a different game now, and not for the better, they are coming out with new runes trying to make right what they cant, without basically mimicking the old system, allot people took for granted the old system, but it took years to perfect that to get the game to a more competitive environment, I miss the old league where there was a chance for a come back, or if one player screwed up it wouldn't cost the entire team the game. Its just a shame..

Josh Sand5/16/2018, 6:28:25 PM5 votes

I think the most frustrating thing is that there are a number of factors leading into this that haven't been addressed publicly by Riot. None that I have seen on the boards anyways.

Firstly, its the cascading positive feedback loop that has gone completely off the rails that happens in what feels like 9 out of 10 games now. The bloat of gold a team can get that shatters the lane phase is deciding the games faster than an ARAM.

  • One team 4 mans bot and gets first turret gold - massive gold boost
  • Underpowered ADC has to farm while leading team sieges down towers - more gold for lead team
  • Losing team can't control jungle, enemy team gets jungle farm and kills vision - more gold for lead team
  • Losing team is stuck in their own base while being unable to threaten taking a tower - more objectives for lead team

When it feels like every single game is playing out along the same path, that's not a coincidence. The game shouldn't be as predictable as this, but when Summoner's Rift's economy is completely off the rails, the script is going to be steered in the same direction more often than not.

Normally this would not be frustrating, but the fact that this is a one-sided conversation without Riot's participation is disheartening. I just want to know whether or not they want the game to stay in this state or not, because if this keeps dragging out. at some point I'm just going to walk away regardless of what the answer is. I want to know if this is a priority for them, but eventually, I have to take their radio silence as the final answer.

I used to think of ways of how this could be fixed. I would theorycraft about some suggestions I could make on the boards, but at this point, I really don't give a shit anymore. I used to love this game so much, and at times hated it, but at least when I was angry about it, that was a sign that I felt passionate towards the game.

Nowadays I feel less and less like I give a shit about what happens with this game. If it's not going to change, if Riot is content with the game the way it is, I can just save myself the frustration and say "fuck it," and find a different game to play. Which is sad, because I've never played a game with the same fervor and determination that I have with League. It's been such an amazing experience to play it when the games are good, it feels especially tragic to see it eventually devolve into what it is today.

Was fun while it lasted, I guess. :)

Destin du Mal5/15/2018, 2:58:10 PM5 votes

I have the belief that you can take electrocute and ignite on any champion and at some point one shot somebody

omegalopolis5/15/2018, 12:53:20 PM5 votes

agreed it is annoying. it removes strategy and counter play when champs are doing so much dmg.

personally i think they need to remove crit from the game. it doesn't make sense when you play as a squishy and are getting 2-3 shoted b/c the (insert crit abusers here) got 1-2 items

JRobin315/16/2018, 3:57:02 AM4 votes

I have to agree that the game should generally not feel decided before 20 minutes (aka Baron spawn). Games generally feeling decided before Baron is a strong indication that the pacing on the game is off.

Dragon and Rift Herald suffer from a design philosophy of making 'meaningful' objectives. 'Meaningful' eventually translates into 'game winning advantage'. If game pacing is suffering, then RIOT needs to put aside the abstract and seemingly cool-sounding design philosophy of making everything 'meaningful' and make a few things a bit less 'meaningful' to the game (I'm looking at you too 'runes reloaded').

I would say that if games generally feel decided by 10-15 minutes, then Baron should spawn at that time. And if the game is generally supposed to go for 30-40 minutes, then it's bad to have games feel decided before 20 minutes. Like, really, really bad, from a design perspective.

To put this in perspective consider that in patch 5.6 average game time in Master was 31.27 minutes. In 2017 average game time in Master was 24 minutes. In case you are wondering, there was about an 8 minute drop in average game time in each tier of play (not just Master). Now here we are in 2018 and we are feeling like games are decided way too early. I haven't seen the data for 2018, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover that games are decided too early.

RIOT has data. They should be able to graph the data on game length and track down if there the appropriate power levels are generally being reached at the appropriate times in the game. What is the gold difference at each moment in the game? What is the level difference? When are players surrendering? How long are games actually going? Are objectives taken in the early game too strongly correlated with win/loss? Etc.

Let's be clear here: short games aren't a problem unless the pacing for the games is off. And to be very clear: if too many games feel decided before Baron spawn, then the game is not paced correctly.

The Space Cowboy5/15/2018, 9:39:55 PM4 votes

I agree the game needs to slow down. More damage and health on turrets and less burst on champs. However, riot is considering removing the 1.5 minutes before the action starts so I imagine we will be lucky if the games don’t get even shorter. All that said a lot of people are giving up too soon and turn arounds are possible on every game if people don’t give up, stick together, and focus on objectives!

Dead flag blues5/15/2018, 10:38:54 AM4 votes

https://i.gyazo.com/a9ef84f3b7a403b345a282ded31059e7.png

That's my time spent on LoL

I don't even play anymore, only wandering on the boards

rtbf2256182415/16/2018, 12:43:36 AM3 votes

As someone who's mained every single role at some point in my nearly 4 years of experience, the one-shotting isn't the issue, it's how hopeless some scenarios can force the game to become. I've never won against certain compositions or items simply because they have too much guaranteed damage when fed or employed correctly. Counterplay, especially counter-strategizing has lost a lot of it's weight in time because flashy mechanics have made champions unique more prominently and obviously is more visually and aesthetically appealing more often than not.

Needless to say, it is frustrating. I would simply reduce the overall damage in the game by 20% right now, and it'd be in an almost-ideal place for me.

Kyunsei5/15/2018, 1:57:08 PM3 votes

People one shot each-other. (this shut-down a lot of plays/game-play interaction, as they become way too risky)

And auto-filled player don't really want to try most of the time.

Strawberrycocoa5/16/2018, 3:58:39 AM3 votes

This has been my exact source of frustration with the game for the last few years. I can't even play more than a few games every two months or so because, even with that long of a break it's just immediate frustration and irritation and anger just from simply trying to jump in and play the damn game. People just jump out of nowhere and explode you before you can even react to it, all because the game gives huge stat disparities between the winning and the losing teams. Playing on the losing side feels like a complete waste of time, because you can't do anything worthwhile without getting instantly killed. And the general playerbase makes it worse by trolling you if you forget where you are and say anything about it.

And the thing is, Riot doesn't see the problem with this state of affairs because they do it on purpose. It's all by design to build the game up to be WATCHED, not played. Everything RIot does for their balance decisions is hinged on making a bloodsport for cheering crowds to watch at tournaments or on streams. They don't care if the non-competitive side of the player base is having fun or not, as long as the E-Sports money keeps rolling in.

The game went to shit when Riot decided to sell out to the sports side of the business. Anything that isn't E-Sports doesn't even register to them, and everything else suffers for it.

Ungrateful Thug5/16/2018, 5:43:20 AM3 votes

I agree, the state of the game sucks. Nothing is more annoying than hearing "enemy double kill!" at 2 mins and knowing that from there on out you are facing the worst kind of uphill battle that will continue to compound against you. And you're stuck in it for at least another 15 minutes, knowing that the chances of coming back become slimmer and slimmer. I never thought that Riot could do worse than the Ardent Censor meta - the only other period that ever rivaled the current level of frustration that I feel with this game - but this season they really goofed.

Modl Ryden l5/16/2018, 5:42:22 PM3 votes

Holy fuck me too. I know games don't end at 15 mins, but they're decided at 15mins because

  1. The opponents have won the game essentially by ganking bot, take tower, take drake, rotate mid, take Herald, rush mid down with herald, or take out top with herald strat.

  2. At 10 mins my allies suggest to surrender at 15 mins because they gave up after 3 deaths.

Magic Sphincter5/16/2018, 10:00:33 PM2 votes

In my experience it seems most games are decided at 2-4 mins in. I've seen some end as early as 30-40 secs. Hell, who are we kidding, some games are even decided in champ select.

I wish Battlerite would catch on. If i'm going to play a fighting game I might as well skip filler.

meelina5/16/2018, 9:23:56 AM2 votes

I've spent almost 7 years on this game and this game alone. I don't have fun playing it anymore either. All of my friends I started out playing with already quit. I wish I played other games or it was easy to just never log in again. :(

SB Arneeman5/16/2018, 10:00:29 AM2 votes

Riot be like - Games are decided too quickly? Let's create an assassin support!

PokladnicaZla5/16/2018, 10:59:47 AM2 votes

Loving the fact that they're bringing back solo carry potential . . .

_More solo carry potential work We're continuing to work on changes that get a bit more solo carry potential back in the game. 8.10's got the bounty changes (solo gold, not team gold) and jungle changes (junglers not being able to level 3 gank as early). For 8.11 we're looking at shifting some tower gold, on both outer and inner towers, from team gold to solo gold, focus that increased power more on whoever's gained that advantage for their team. One important thing to note is that increased solo carry potential is going to result in more cases of single champions snowballing and deciding the game. We think we've pushed too far on teamplay, hence some movement back in the other direction. Does mean there'll be more cases of one person doing well, getting fed and dominating though. If your actions as a single player can carry the game, so can other people's. We think that’ll be good overall, but will come at some trade off. _

-> Meddler gameplay thoughts may 11th

The King Diamond5/16/2018, 12:05:46 PM2 votes

I think its not about oneshooting someone but the snowballing from kills. Team gold, experience, more and more control on map. Single kills on early gamę gives way to much. This is why stomp or get stomped. Kill or get killed.

GreenHydralisk5/16/2018, 5:22:12 PM2 votes

Yah true, I feel lately I have a lot more 15 minute games. Either they surrender or my team surrender.

Keshaun5/16/2018, 9:07:51 AM2 votes

State of the game blows. Not fun anymore.

Bind Me5/15/2018, 4:17:27 PM2 votes

wtf does CBT mean? did you come up with this word?

Power Cosmic5/16/2018, 3:33:07 AM2 votes

It seems you are either engaging/counter-engaging or doing carry damage. To me the game seems overly shallow.

MFTORANK15/16/2018, 7:35:29 PM2 votes

I just got promoted to gold and it's fucking aweful wish i could go back to mid silver where the game would last more than 5 minutes. By the time i reach between 80-100 cs as a toplaner the game is pretty much decided. How fun is that ?

Draehl5/17/2018, 1:45:25 AM1 votes

Agreed. Just uninstalled a few minutes ago. League is an amazing game overall, especially if you enjoy lots of damage, but it feels like it's lost a lot of the nuance it once had. Especially with the long teamfights no longer being a thing. Will definitely come back if they ease back on the snowball factor and un-nerf tank items a bit.