The cancer that taints the game when new champs are released

DerZermetzelte·10/14/2015, 10:34:30 PM·2 votes·531 views

Most stuff I'll be writing has already been said a million times, but i want to take another try. Also, to not just make it a QQ thread, I'll try to propose solutions at the end.

What I HATE about new champions/champion releases:

  • The champ selects They're not the worst of all, but one of the things that get noticably annoying after a champ release. Instalocking is a pain. Not because I want to try out the new champ, but because of the flaming, afk/feed-threatening and the general dodging, making queues last a multiple of the usual time. And as everyone knows, that is not a fun time.
  • The clueless feeders Some people have so much money, they go into the store and just grab a new champ and its bundle right after realease (Some use saved IP, but the following principle stays the same). Then they enter a matchmaking queue of their choice and make the game a hell for their teammates. It's the same thing after every release. All my games with Kindred in it ended roughly the same. With a completely useless jungler. They load into the game and ask you what their skills do? Survive laning phase and surrender at 20, because this won't end in a win.
  • The champ itself Pretty much all new champs dominate the game-landscape for the next month, until they get nerfed in the next patch. Why? Because they're often overpowered. One could be assuming the worst, and insinuate that Riot creates op champs to grab money from the release offers and freelo-riders, just to nerf it anyways later on. From a company-perspective I could totally understand it, but that's not exactly what this game needs. But Riot makes a deal out of stating otherwise, so let's just believe that for a moment. Fact is, that new champs regularly dominate games for the next few weeks after release. (Bard was pretty much the opposite of that, which was annoying when you got one in your team.) The usual argument is, that players still don't know how to play against that champ. This might be true, but if we take a look at the last few released champs (Tahm Kench, Ekko, Bard, Rek'Sai, Kalista, Azir, Gnar; Ashe, Ryze, Darius, Skarner, Garen, Mordekaiser), we notice that almost all of them had bigger followup-nerfs, to get them down into mortal realms again. Some of them over multiple consecutive patches. Why is it, that new champs are created too strong? I concluded this: The champ has to feel good initially, so Riot rather tends to overdo it "a little" and then adjust them later on, instead of purposely creating them a bit to weak and then buffing them a bit later on. I concluded that this comes from the sell-aspect. It basically means that they rather accept a champ in a broken state for a few days or weeks, instead of creating an underwhelming character. Note the difference between those 2 theories though! One assumes they knowingly create OPness, the other just says that they accept a champ to be too strong for a certain period of time, to not make it feel bad for one or another reason. Another reason could be, that it's not possible for them to gather enough reliable data from the PBE to tune the champ accordingly before release. This is what Riot tells us, and I personally think it's a part of the story, although maybe only 95% of the entire truth. Yes, the PBE has a far smaller amount of testers as the live-servers. But ZenontheStoic's ask.fm showed us, that Riot indeed knows that stuff like Skill-floors and Skill-ceilings exist. So who could possibly assume, that (for example) a champion with tons of CC, mobilty, high AP ratios, and a mana-free get-out-of-jail ult could be abused as a tank jungler? Or generally be a tad too strong. I personally would feel much better, if champs were slightly too weak at release, and then get the neccesary buffs later on. Better than creating this mess after every release anyday.

So yeah. Now for the solution:

  1. Please make people play at least 1 game with a new champ in a bot-game. Just so they know what their skills do. Because appearantly that's not something to be expected when these players load into a match.
  2. I know you guys playtest this, but please take the few minutes to do a quick search on YouTube and find the most broken play that someone delivered on the PBE. Then reconsider your numbers for the last time.
  3. I know I can play draft pick and bann it, but would there be an option to enter stuff like "please not champ X" and then queue up like a normal game? Because it's seriously annoying and boring to see the same champ every game.

2 Comments

Live2LetDie10/14/2015, 10:37:42 PM1 votes

Solution, draft pick and ask for ban. Ez