Do you see less and less people playing league ?

option paralysis·Apr 13, 2017·33 votes·4,421 views

All of my friends stopped playing, my 2 cousins that got me into the game, they uninstalled it months ago and never looked back. My whole chat list is playing like once a day, MAYBE. I'm losing interest in the game too, it's hard to do your best and lose the game because "sry, I got autofilled" every other fucking game. I got to d1 in 3 months of grinding league, then I got demoted to d4 in a week. Something doesn't seem right there. Sorry for having a 60% win rate. hehe xd. Broken champs being broken for months without getting nerfs, or getting laughable nerfs that don't change anything. Now the tank update coming with adc items getting buffed, some champs will be broken again, then we will have a wait period before they're nerfed... 10 bans still not here, etc... Idk how much longer I can deal with this shit.

33 Comments

Scary DoorApr 13, 201724 votes

There are several reasons why people have ultimately decided to leave the game.

Mobility Creep: So much is made about "damage creep" that many people forget to mention mobility. Nearly every new champ is equipped with dashes, movement speed steroids and whatnot that it leaves certain champions far behind. Mobility creep and damage creep go hand in hand. If someone dashes in and instantly performs their one shot combo on you without any time to react, it becomes frustrating.
Damage Creep: As mentioned, damage has skyrocketed since I started playing in Season One when there were a mere 79 champions in this game. Keystone masteries, new items, dragon awarding damage/mobility, the introduction of more true damage and %health damage into champion kits... it's all had a cumulative impact. The "one shot" mechanic---by far the most unhealthy game mechanic of them all---exists in League far more than it used to. I knew it was bad when I was playing last season and a tank killed me in one spell rotation (same level, roughly same cs/gold, etc)
Autofill: I understand it's neccessity, but has it's frustrating implications (which include more one-sided matches) outweighed the good intentions of the system.
Season 6/Dynamic Queue/Riot's PR Nightmare: This is when I saw my friends list shrink the most. The community overwhelmingly hated Dynamic Queue, but they were willing to tolerate it because Riot said that Solo Queue would return "in a few weeks", which became "later this season" which became not at all in Season 6. Riot lied about it... the fan boys will tell you otherwise or try to justify the gaffe, but if you promise someone something and then don't deliver, regardless of reasoning, it is a broken promise or---in more simplistic terms---a lie. I don't call someone a liar too often, but Riot's earned that tag more than once and this one might have been the one that hurt them the most. Sure, Solo Queue returned in Season 7, but was it too late?

In addition, during 6, the removal of Team Builder took place. On the surface, it might not seem like a big deal, but when combined with Dynamic Queue and the other nonsense from Season 6, it put people over the edge.

Season 6 saw a huge decline in players, that can not be disputed. In North America, only around 2 million participated in the ranked season, which was down significantly from season 5 (which was down slightly from season 4).

The Community/The Tribunal and another Riot Lie: For years, League of Legends has had the reputation of being among the worst (if not the worst) communities in the gaming world. When I started playing in 2011, this wasn't neccessarily the case. The Tribunal system was one whereby the community decided the standards for which player behaviors would be tolerated. It was a one-of-a-kind system and allowed the playerbase to police itself. Sure, Riot had the final say, but in an overwhelming majority of cases they went with the players' decision to punish or not to punish.

Fast forward to Season 4 when the Tribunal was put into "recess" and that it would return "later this season" (Season 4). Well, of course it never returned, but we were given hope that it would in Season 5... it didn't return, and in fact, it never returned. In it's place we have the automated system.

While there are some who receive chat restrictions and bans from the automated system, these are generally cases where the person was blatantly toxic and/or excessively racist or engaged in using the most extreme pejorative language. Meanwhile, toxicity has grown as individuals have found ways around the fancy automated system. Passive-aggressive language, sarcasm, placing integers in place of letters to use extreme pejorative language and other toxic behaviors that a computer seemingly cannot detect are still running rampant. Bring back the Tribunal... hey... keep your fancy automated behavior system too, but at least allow the community to go through reports.

SOME of my friends that stopped playing noted the community as the reason they quit and I don't blame them.

The New Player Experience: How do you expect this game to ever bring in new players when leveling an account to 30 is a steaming hot plate of garbage? Any time I have tried to bring a new person into the game in the last 2 or 3 years it has always failed because of the experience they have. It isn't fun being stomped in PVP, bots are boring after a certain time and when you don't have the masteries or runes to compete in a high damage game, even if your skill is decent you will still lose. I don't know what the solution is, but I think eliminating the account leveling process might just be the ultimate answer. Force people to play 150 games before they can participate in ranked or something... The current system is not working.
Automated Support: Have you ever had the need to contact player support? Even if it was just to clear up a billing issue? Good luck speaking to a human. I have not encountered this personally, because my only interaction with player support was years ago when you actually did talk to a person. Honestly though, there is no phone number to call, no live chat and only an email response system.

I've always felt that it was weird that you couldn't actually speak to one of the player support personel. I guess we're good enough to take money from, but not good enough to speak to either on the phone or in a live chat. Automated responses don't earn you points with your customer base.

Keep in mind, it wasn't always this way.

Too Many Changes Within a Season and from Season to Season: Imagine if Major League Baseball operated like League of Legends.

MLB Patch Notes Season 141.3

Not Enough Runs Being Scored During the first few weeks of the season we've noticed that runs-per-game are down 31% from last season; while this will need to be investigated further, we feel an immediate step needs to be taken for the health of the game.

Distance between each base changed from 90 feet to 89.1 feet.

Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, Riot does this with their game every two weeks. It's not just minor numbers changes either... full scale class updates occur during the season! How do you expect to have a competitive ladder when you do major class updates during a ranked season? That seems strange. Change whatever you like between seasons, but even that should have some limitation.

Bottom line is that the game is also almost 8 years old, it's had a good run and will still remain for many more years, just never at the height in popularity that it once had. The cycle of life and death continues...

The JigSAWApr 13, 20172 votes

Agreed with nearly everything you have to say. When you patch just to patch and change things just to change things, you'll inevitably screw up. I feel Riot only cares about making champions and items in -their- personal view of how the game should go and screw the people paying for it, they don't get to have a say. This is most epitomized in the "no refunds for reworks" which inspires little to no confidence in an improved champion.

Team Builder was the most fun I had in years - ever since it went out the window I've had a lot of problems as I dislike draft due to the significant wait and ranked, well, I played ranked to prove myself twice and I did just that. Now, its supposed to only be for fun.

If you think the class updates are bad, what if they put this new client as mandatory -before- the end of the season and it ends up costing people games and promotionals? I've already lived through the period a couple of weeks ago where people were being disconnected due to a bug on their end, and got a Leaverbuster over it. I didn't even bother to contact customer service because I know it'd take until season 15 to get a response. If they have this level of issue on their current client, how can we expect the new one to have any confidence?

So many ways to fix it but nobody in Riot's executive area wants to listen. When I get a new gaming rig next month or so, I'm likely off to Overwatch for a majority of the time because apparently it beats League by a wide margin.

Titanium70Apr 14, 20173 votes

While I agree with most if not all you said - I think the most important factor is the non existing New Player Experience... A game will always loose players over time - bored, growing out of it, RL and many more - that's why you need to create a constant supply of new players if you want to keep your game runiing... and they simply dont give a damn....

Every single person I recommended Leauge to - and I'm carefull with that - quit fast because of smurfs, toxicity and terrible tutorials... sure I can tell them the game is amazing once you learned about all the inconsistent Kits, I can tell them they wont face Smurfs after a few more games because of the system, I can tell them the toxicity is going down once you reach a decent MMR... but why should they bother with all this ** if they can just play something else?

ModCaptainMårvelousApr 14, 20171 votes

While I disagree with some of your points (to be frank, the constant changes are one of the reasons people still play league. If the game received less updates, I feel like it would have had an even shorter lifespan), your overall message is pretty right. It's an old game. It's never going to hit the high-highs in terms of playerbase it did before.

That said, I feel like it's also less popular in NA than other regions. NA is kind of spoiled when it comes to stuff and we really don't find strategy games all that interesting. That's not a bad thing, mind you. NA players just tend to prefer more twitch-based or action-oriented games. In Korea League is actually STILL at the top of PC Bangs despite OW coming out and fighting it for a solid few months. (And surpassing it in some cases).

IMO, League is a forever game like DOTA or CSGO or WoW. Sure, it won't be #1 forever and it sure as hell won't last until the end of time, but you're probably going to have people come back every now and again for a new patch or to try the newest change made. Just a semi-popular game you can always come back to regardless of the time.

I WatchApr 17, 20171 votes

I agree, good post

PhelasApr 13, 201713 votes

Old people grow out of this game, new join.

I like it, my friends still like it, we play for about 6 years together now, sure, some left, but some rejoined. League by no means is dying out, it's just no more appealing for you, and even your friends, you just got tired after a long time, and it's totally reasonable.

Take a break, if you feel like, don't come back if this game bothers you. After all, you had a damn good time, didn't ya? :)

EDIT: Towards the balance thing you mentioned, i even think it's the most balanced state in over a year, sure there are always 3-4 champs overperforming, but all in all, the current state is much much better than pre-season and last year. Just a sitenote.

La Belle SauvageApr 13, 20171 votes

This +100

AmazoXApr 14, 20171 votes

This 9000+

ScissorsNstuffApr 13, 201710 votes

I usually see 9 other people playing ingame... 8 if its an important game you really wanna win though :(

AhristocatsApr 13, 20176 votes

me and my friends stopped playing alone

it just became cancer, there is no fun to solo in this game

greekvandaLApr 13, 20171 votes

my adc darius is the best thing you ever gonna see.

what you deserveApr 13, 20175 votes

nope pretty much every game has 10 ppl in it same as always

ZelorxonApr 13, 20175 votes

-Getting mocked and insulted for being helpful, useful and positive -Being blamed for carrying -The game right now is infested by squealing 14yo that yell at their mothers to bring them more grilled cheese sandwitches and mountain dew -Have my teammates constantly losing the games i SINGLEHANDEDLY won -Riot doesn't give a fuck about the game -Riot enables crybullies -Riot is trying to push their SJW propaganda on us disregarding the game entirely -The game is balanced around how much bronzetards cry and how much money LC$ brings in, creating AWFUL power creep that makes the game unplayable at alternate patches -The game is a spaghetti fiesta at the point that everytime i press Q on ezreal i'm surprised i didn't grabbed the enemy i hit and everytime i ult as karthus i didn't TP'ed to a random ally and gave him a barrier -The community has always been dogshit but at least back then you could insult back and a few actual gamers (tryhards) existed, now it's just trolls and new players that have no idea how the game works nor willing to learn it -I can keep going for days

GEEE, I WONDER WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE RUNNING AWAY.

The JigSAWApr 13, 20171 votes

Amen.

AnidanApr 13, 20172 votes

-Riot is trying to push their SJW propaganda on us disregarding the game entirely

fucking lol.

greekvandaLApr 13, 20174 votes

I started the game 7 years ago with around 30irl friends on my friend list. Now only 2 irl friends still play the game and they play it once a week. One for inactivity cause he is high diamond and the other one is a low gold player who only likes playing Riven and Graves.

From my premade list i had well over 10 high dia premades 2 challengers and 3 masters. Now i barely see 3 of them play and the challenger dudes who only play to maintain rank LOL. Even my clubs have gone silent nobody talks or plays anymore everybody is quitting this dogshit game for areason.

You see shit like Ivern and Cammile be released. Shit like Spamerina and Leb instagibbing you around the map. Tanks are negatively proactive in lanes you feel like you dont even play the game till sunfire/Visage both as the opposition and the tank itself. Adcs are still spamm mousebutton 2 to win except like 3 exceptions.

Autofill is stupid and ruins competitive at least let people choose roles they DONT wanna get autofilled to. Support is a must KNOW ROLE from the moment the meta switched to TOP/JUN/MID/ADC/SUPP even in older seasons you had to know one supp champ or a mage with cc.

The game is grind based. UNless you are superior in every single way to your opposition you wont climb you gonna HAVE to grind its WIN DAY LSOE DAY. I can play Darius and Rengar all day and net 3 wins and 10 loses then the other day play ap ezreal support and win 5 in arow ( this has happened ) .

I'm also prolly gonna quit the game as soon as i manage to spamm some Godfist Lee sin games cause the skin is just MADE FOR ME( i dont play lee whatsoever anymore i just like the skins and im good with the champ ).

MLDzXnRRRApr 13, 20172 votes

Old players quit, new come. I don't play for months and come back, then uninstall after several days.

XonraApr 13, 20171 votes

Sadly I know exactly zero people rl that play anymore, and that is a huge factor in why I don't play much anymore.

Both my roommates quit well over a year ago, all 8 people I knew that played close to since I have palyed are gone as well. I had managed to talk to other friends in the last year to play, but they have both gotten frustrated with the game, or in one case bored with it, and quit/uninstalled. I feel like I go through "random" people on my friends list monthly, as I'll have someone add me (usually when I play support, which I rarely do anymore), and then they suddenly just never log on again.

My friends list is filled with the random adds after games, but aside from that one really nice Riot gal (who to be fair is usually only logged in under Mobile), I never see more than one of them online at any given time. Even I have stopped logging in as much as this season has just felt a little meh play wise, and last year was a mess that almost made me flat out quit the game.

GrymmstrikeApr 13, 20171 votes

We have over 100 players at the small school I am at. Basically 1/20 people at school plays League...

The JigSAWApr 13, 20171 votes

A diamond player with the same complaints I have? Nice to meet you!

I have indeed noticed a massive decline in the people who play. I've routinely been matched with and against the same 15-20 people overall, although I no longer play ranked because of the massive failure of the ELO/MMR system to adequately compensate for the statistics that mean the most. League still basically runs off a nearly 500 year old system designed for predicting the winner of a chess match from Charles Elo, which is sad.

Everybody I began League with 4 years ago has quit outside of me. Two years ago everybody knew the champions if I mentioned their name, lately I've gotten a few "who?" comments outside of League or "Oh I quit that game so-and-so months ago it sucks" as a response.

Who knew removing Team Builder, buffing already broken champions, nerfing the hell out of mana, killing URF mode for the "all random" crap to be victimized by premades with 15 champions in their pool and generally refusing to have enough confidence in a rework to offer a refund if you don't like it would have detrimental effects?

I'm also envious of your winrate. If I didn't have half my team AFK every 1 in 4 games I might have at least gotten to 50.

AmazoXApr 14, 20171 votes

Nerfing the hell out of mana? Bruh what?

The JigSAWApr 15, 20171 votes

In about a year, the following was done to mana:

Removed mana potions
Removed Catalyst's old passive of restoring health and mana to casters on level up
Removed Mana regen per 5 seconds on multiple items outside support for "flat mana pool" scheme
Corrupting Potion grants 75 mana, which won't even be enough to cast on multiple mid-laners not including their ultimates
Mana regen mastery nerfed from 1.5% of missing mana to 1.25% (yeah, seriously.)

In short they give you tons of mana, but little way to regenerate it outside building Morellonomicon and we all know what they do to people if you build one item on a lot of champions right? RIGHT? item 3116 item 3123

NickssaaApr 13, 20171 votes

Riot know that the game is in decline, and all of their actions in season 6 and early season 7 proves this. The best way to play Lol without a doubt is with friends, and this is one of the main points of season 6. Finding ways to enforce playing with friends such as dynamic q, clubs, benefits of playing with friends like double chests in hextech crafting. Even in Season 7, things like the replay system and sandbox mode were introduced because they knew that they needed to pacify the community if they wanted league to survive. I had many friends who religiously played this game the past few years, and all of them left, and its not just my friends, my entire school switched off league for other games like Overwatch.

Ariel the CruelApr 13, 20171 votes

War Within is out. See ya'll next month.

PlanetSide 2 had a content drop. See ya'll next month.

No man's sky content drop. See ya'll next month.

DFO has an event. See ya'll next month.

D3 season started. See ya'll next month.

Yooka-Laylee is out. See ya'll next month.

. . . Who are ya'll again? XD

######(Just waiting for the the Dawngate to open once more. . .)

Guy Fox TeemoApr 13, 20171 votes

More like old players are leaving and new ones are coming in. Considering Riot said last year that the game has over 100million active monthly users now, vs 2014 67million.

dredzachApr 13, 20171 votes

I started playing from the beginning, but about 3-4 months ago just lost interest, and for me the biggest thing driving me away from this game is/was because of riot changing the champions and items to be more homogenous. I used to feel like each champ had clearly defined strengths and weaknesses and it was fun to try to work around that. Now, the strengths are all nerfed and weaknesses buffed. Same with items.

Not to mention I enjoy playing something and then riot removes it forever. In the case of champions they don't remove the in-game model but they do remove all the abilities and replace them with completely new abilities. It's like deleting the old champion and replacing it with a new one. They call it a rework but it's really just a way to delete an old champion.

Darius StradaApr 14, 20171 votes

Nope. League is still strong. People aren't abandoning LoL for Overwatch like many claim.

BreakuApr 14, 20171 votes

I mean, you can look at the independent gaming data available from multiple different organizations...

Game's still going pretty dang strong, but nobody plays forever. People come and go!

KarfussApr 14, 20171 votes

Overall I've seen a decline, I'm recognising more and more names, and anecdotally, even friends seem to be showing signs of being fed up with League. I myself have left on more than one occasion, lasting between 6 months to a year, longest hiatus being aprox. two years.

Although the reason why all seems to be the same: We're all tired of the community.

In the great words of Master Kenobi, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Trolls and toxic galore.

Im A Jayce GodApr 14, 20171 votes

Old players leave because they dont like change, new players join because they dont know what to expect but adapt to it easier than older players.

Pierce The VealApr 14, 20171 votes

The game has lost any semblance of skill and strategy with damage+cc+mobility creep.

Autofill is annoying

Rito gutting champions out of existence.

Roit game making its own game non-canon and rewriting the lore into random bullshit.

Dynamic Queue plus lying to community/outright dishonesty. Dynamic wasn't bad in and of itself, it was the imbalance and lying that cane with it that made people lose their trust in Rito.

Remember when Rito decided to rerelease old skins? When they said "don't worry 1350 won't be a new pricepoint for skins?" When they used to release champions weekly then biweekly then proceeded to only release 2-3 one year because they're too busy "balancing," and, ahem, churning out more monetization?

Removal of dominion? (I know I know, only a tiny amount of people played it, but still, it was a significant amount.)

We simply don't trust Rito to do us any favors. We don't believe they actually care for us and every day they make it clearer that that is true. Classic small business to big business transition.

Elkington VIApr 17, 20171 votes

It's because all the fun game modes are locked behind RGM, which is chosen for the playerbase at random by Riot. No one I know even plays anymore, mainly because all we really have to play is SR (in all of its rigid glory), 3v3 (which is a broken, unbalanced, boring map), and ARAM.

Vexed HexApr 17, 20171 votes

I stopped playing a long while ago. I just got tired of the sweeping changes they make to champions and items without a single care as to how it affects the player base let alone if the changes are even balanced. Like right now they are buffing armor and nerfing armor pen items in the same patch. Its like they completely forgot about the full on tank meta we had before this with nothing that could stop them. Cant wait for this seasons tank meta again.