“Playing to win”/the meta

rujitra·Jul 29, 2019·1 votes·1,314 views

There are many complaints about how people aren’t punished for not “playing to win”, or for not “listening to the team”, or for not playing what the team thinks they should. There are good arguments on both sides of Riot enforcing some kind of meta or not. Keep in mind Riot already enforces some of a meta - role selection in draft is one example, and AD vs/ AP champion ratios is another.

If you answer that Riot should define “playing to win”, please comment describing what you think should be included (ex: “if baron up and get 3+ kills in a team fight, players should go for it”) and why, as well as how this would be communicated to players (both old and new) and how it would be enforced.

If you answer other options, please comment as to what sorts of champ/item/team/role locking you think should be implemented.

3 Comments

preternaturalJul 29, 20191 votes

if people want nubrac to exist then the role select means nothing. you don't get to play where you want to play or what you want to play EVER if someone wants to run some strat where you just so happen to be running yours. enjoy. very glad not to be playing on NA it must be an utter shit show.

DuskDaUmbreonJul 29, 20191 votes

I feel a distinction has to be made between "playing to win" and "playing well".

With your example of "if baron up and get 3+ kills in a team fight, players should go for it”, that's playing well, but not doing that doesn't mean you're not playing to win.

Honestly, the only criteria I'd say fits "playing to win" is doing your reasonable best effort, and attacking the Nexus when it's open.

rujitraJul 29, 20191 votes

Right - that’s what I’m getting at. Vague, nonspecific rules like “reasonable best effort” are unenforceable - for one, everyone has a different effort they can put forward, and for two, what’s reasonable to your or me is not necessarily what’s reasonable to someone else.

Even “attacking the nexus when it’s open” is hard to enforce - if the nexus is getting killed by others/minions, should dancing/emoting/laughing be punished? It isn’t ruining the game, because the nexus is going to fall, and even if it doesn’t, how is the player supposed to know that? A little bit of competitive shit isn’t a bad thing - but where does it cross the line?