Why ARURF Is Unpopular (And How To Fix It) (Also Wow This Title Is Clickbaitey Sorry About That)

Okay, guys. I love URF. I think you love URF too. Chances are, you came to the boards looking for discussions about the new URF mode. And for a long, long time now, Riot has been stubbornly not letting us play URF.

Now, I know that sounded salty. But this isn't a jab at Riot. They're doing a fine job of keeping the game fresh and interesting and I applaud them for that. But I don't think a lot of people understand why they insist on forcing new gamemodes that we don't enjoy. At least, not as much as URF. And that is in part because Riot is too concerned with balance.

Let me explain first. I know you might be thinking (and rightly) that the problem with ARURF is it isn't balanced. It is far too easy for one team to get Fizz or Veigar and destroy the other team. But that's not the real problem here. It's just a symptom.

The problem with ARURF is that it doesn't give players the choices URF gave them.

Look, it's fun to see Ezreal fire off billions of Qs, I'm not denying that. But it's not what makes URF fun. What made URF fun. What made it fun was the variety of options. Veterans can attest to this; that when URF came out, it was a completely novel experience. No longer was League the same old song and dance everyone was used to, but with the 80% CDR there were so many new OPTIONS. Players could come up with crazy new strategies that would never work in a normal game, and trying out something like a team designed to pull a single enemy champion from the middle of the map all the way back to your fountain is some of the most fun you can have playing League.

At the end of the day, we all liked URF because it was ripe for new silly stuff. Nobody entered with the expectation of winning, nor should they. People who play League to win know that Ranked is the way to go. URF... URF was just fun. It was a massive sandbox that made one change to the game, but that one change made all the difference.

Now let's compare that to ARURF. ARURF is a roll of the dice. Literally, that's how you determine which champion you play. You don't get to pick. Riot did this in the name of balance, and of variety. Sure, that sounds great on paper. The idea is that by making the champions random, you won't often get overpowered champions, and you won't see the same few champions each time, allowing for different team comps to come together. As a whole, this techically worked. You do see less overpowered champions, and more champions as a whole, because of course people are going to pick the broken ones.

But.

This takes away the thing that made URF fun in the first place. The team comps, the weird and wild builds and strategies that you could try with your friends. Like I mentioned before, nobody played URF to win. I mean, maybe some people did, but they were playing it wrong. You won't have fun if you play like that, plain and simple. Ranked supports a play to win mindset because it rewards you more for victory and is more balanced, but that sacrafices gameplay. That's what Riot tried to do to URF, and that's why nobody likes it.

We liked URF because we could have fun regardless of winning. So when Riot took away the ability to choose specific champions, and by extension the builds and strategies you use with them, they took away the fun of it. Now it's just a faster version of League with more frustrating one-hit KO bullshit that makes a player not want to come back.

So how do you fix this? Well, for the most part, just restore it to its former glory. What it was before worked fine. We need bans to get rid of the broken champions, and we need the ability to pick champions so we can try stuff out. If you're looking to make it even better, there are several things you could do to make it both more balanced and more fun. Hundreds of people have made videos and posts making their suggestions, so I would just recommend taking the rest of the community's suggestions, first and foremost, but since I'm already here, I'll throw my hat in the ring.

• Kill off a couple champions permanently. There are a few champions in URF that are just no fun to play as/with/against, and I would argue they ought to be removed entirely. For instance, Fizz. But opinions on champions vary wildly, so be careful when deciding which ones to permaban.

• Don't reduce effects in the name of balance. In ARAM, there's a debuff that reduces healing, (among other things,) which is necessary for a fair game. However, with a few game-breaking exceptions, URF should allow dumb shit to work as the numbers say they do. A player ought to be able to come up with some dumb shit, and if it holds water, then eventually people will come up with a counter for it, or they'll ban it.

• Scale up everything ALONGSIDE the champions. This is one I never see anyone bring up, usually because it isn't considered. But imagine hyperactive minions and jungle monsters running around the map, machine gun towers, and inhibitors with Warmog's. I know, I know, this would be difficult to balance, because neutrals and objectives are supposed to be secondary to the champions, but I am of the firm belief that it would allow for some seriously crazy and really fun games.

Well, that's all I got. If perchance someone with the power to make these decisions about the game sees this, I hope you take it into consideration. I could type about this for hours, actually, but I can already see the TL;DRs below, which is a fair criticism. Thanks.