I know people say every season is the most snowbally yet, but

Rewt·Dec 6, 2019·11 votes·7,945 views

In previous seasons I would have many average games. like 4/4/8 or something like that. Just kind of even.

I think I've had 1 this season. In this season I either go 0/20/0 or 20/0/0. It's kind of insane.

My reasoning is the new jungle. Because there is no more catchup XP, if you get ahead you stay ahead. If you fall behind you stay behind. In the jungle if you get ahead early in S10 you will be able to 1v9, But if you get behind the support will 1v1 you.

EDIT: While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, It is just such a strange feeling when If I want to get back into the game Ive gotta prioritize leeching lane XP whenever I can over my jungle since there is still catchup XP for lane minions.

17 Comments

NavaruneDec 6, 20199 votes

The snowball meta isn't just about KDA. I had a game yesterday where I went something like 3/4/15 as support and we still lost decisively because of neutral objective control. Games spiral out of control very quickly now without catchup experience, most of mine ending with the winning team averaging at least 3-4 levels ahead.

I miss the strategy and comeback potential in previous seasons. I miss having to work to actually close out games. I miss having an option to funnel gold into my hypercarry midgame while we turtle to try and wrest control of the game back. Nowadays, your only real hope of staging a comeback hinges on stealing elder or baron, if the game even gets to the point where those are options. This is all really frustrating when you win lane or break even consistently and yet still find your team way behind anyway because of mismatches or simple mistakes, not to mention the other negative things that pop up occasionally.

Riot introduced Honor and have behavioral standards for not encouraging your team to forfeit, yet they steadily enforce this meta where most games are very much decided before the 15-minute mark. What options have they given us to provide some hope of regaining an advantage?

Silent PaceDec 6, 20195 votes

Yea man I hate how snowbally this game is right now. Riot even tried to give power back to top lane with 2 Rift Heralds but that failed cause they made dragon even more contested than it previously was. I'm having more fun playing ARAM.

ZullarDec 6, 20198 votes

Remove comeback exp Give bonus gold to winning team via turretplates Add 2 rift scuttlers to take more towers and plates for winning team Add elemental drake buffs/souls that give winning team permanent advantage with no comeback mechanic Give every new champion 8 dashes, CC, and burst damage with little counterplay to ensure said advantage turns into more kills

That sum S10 so far?

I personally think elemental drakes were the worst decision Riot ever made and they should be changed/removed. Who wants to finish out a match while the other team has a large permanent advantage with no comeback mechanic?

FizzletopDec 6, 20197 votes

Yep, Ive only won one game where the other team had the soul. Out of about 60-70 games 2 or 3 have been close contests, 1 has been a come back and all others have been a one sided snowball for one team or the other. The craziest part about s10 though is, even when its my team winning and snowballing, even if it's me carrying, winning no longer feels rewarding.

BlackXIVDec 7, 20194 votes

Exactly. Whatever your role and whatever your performance you're not the one winning, you get ahead and the map wins for you.

NavaruneDec 7, 20192 votes

So well-stated.

Skia AsteriDec 6, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Give bonus gold to winning team via turretplates Add 2 rift scuttlers to take more towers and plates for winning team Add elemental drake buffs/souls that give winning team permanent advantage with no comeback mechanic

Turret plate gold is down by 40 gold per plate compared to in season 9, and are harder to get lots of plates quickly by having a majority of a team go after one turret.

They only added one extra herald, and it does not spawn till plates fall off even if the first was killed instantly on spawn.

The value of the dragons prior to acquiring the dragon soul is down, especially since the new ocean dragon was hot fix nerfed. Thus the other teams dragon stack have less impact on your ability to comeback and contest 3rd/4th dragon to delay dragon soul.

ZullarDec 7, 20193 votes

Agree mostly. While fire dragon is strictly worse, mountain dragon and ocean dragon add more in-combat stats now and are arguably better.

One other thing they did (a while back) was to increase the gold gained for repeatedly killing somebody over and over (it still drops off... but not much as it used to). So instead of a jungle thinking "I've already ganked and killed him twice... he's not worth much gold so I'll leave him alone" now the jungle thinks "I'll gank him a 3rd time because he'll still give good amounts of gold and we don't have to worry about countergank because we'll win 2v2 or 3v3".

This in combination with turret plate plate gold and first tower blood encourages jungles kicking somebody while their down. Jungles are given incentive to help their winning lanes by repeatedly ganking a poor losing enemy... while ignoring losing lanes. This is a problem not talked about much but I think it adds significantly to game frustration (both for your team and theirs).

If jungles were given a large incentive (unsure how to do this) to help _**losing **_lanes (instead of winning lanes) the game would feel less miserable for losing lanes. Lanes would tend to balance out more instead of snowball.

BlackXIVDec 7, 20192 votes

Turret plate nerf is a band-aid meant to distract naive players from the bigger picture.

The value of Dragons is actually way up. They changed the useless ones and the RNG so now every Dragon matters. The souls are overpowered and more game-ending than baron ever was.

YaskamasandwichDec 6, 20195 votes

That's because Riot constantly tries and out performs previous seasons. Which what is supposed to happen, however it is being executed the exact opposite. All Riot does is just increase the power creep constantly to the point where the match is decided at character select.

There is no more strategy, just pick the op champions, and the only way to beat op champions is by counter picking them. Which is a failed system in of itself. You can't just say "to best X champion, pick Y champion" what if you're first pick? Yet that's the only strategy there is to besting overloaded op champions. Just ask anyone on the forums how to best overloaded X champion. It is always the same: "LOL NUB! L2P THE GAME! PLAY X OP CHAMPION! PICK Y CHAMPIONS! LAWL!" Before you could go "To beat X champion, play in this style, buy these items, when game reaches 15 minutes, start roaming, or farm, or push the lane, etc." It had nothing to do with what champion you played.

Games are not decided by the 15 mark, they're decided in champion select.

Waka FIockaDec 6, 20193 votes

just read a post from 4 years ago saying pretty much what everyone in these forums is saying today about the game (s10 changes + champ additions/reworks). damage too high, tanky champs being super tanky without tank items (full dmg garen for instance)... and since this was posted 4 years ago riot's idiotic team has only ~~doubled~~ tripled down on these decisions. damage is super high, runes are nutty, items constantly get changed, new champs are overloaded & difficult to play against. throw in the game changing nearly entirely every season, all the changes to mechanics... even something as simple as minions being a trump wall that you can't get over/around anymore are noticeable changes that weren't even discussed with the community.

they added scuttles, turret plating, dragon stats instead of just team gold, dragon soul, elder, 1 herald and then upped it to 2 heralds, bounty gold, Pyke..

the problem with these objectives is that the team ahead benefits from them. the team behind cant really roam, let alone get vision or group up without sacrificing their lanes/base. another issue is that elder is so decisive that you could be winning and doing super well but their jg steals and the execute wins them the game. that's bs to me lol. the game isn't about skill anymore and hasn't been for a while. you follow riot's cookie cutter idea of how a game should play out and whoever has the better, flashier, newer champs and an early jungler with high damage and mobility wins the game. :)

RewtDec 7, 20191 votes

Turret plating was introduced because people were level 2 ganking and doing 1/2 the towers HP before they could even make it back to lane. Towers were dropping by 6min. So they added plating to slow the process, but still reward the player ahead for pushing.

NavaruneDec 7, 20191 votes

Won (and lost) a game each by an elder theft. This is not really a comeback mechanic and more an opportunity to throw for the jungler. A real comeback is through coordinated team effort that flips the game's advantage through a series of well-planned calls and control. Lux blind stealing Elder with an ult or Nocturne going kamikaze for the steal so the rest of the team can 4v5 by effectively eliminating 20% of the ENTIRE ENEMY HEALTHPOOL, these are luck of the draw. Games should never be decided by luck (unless you're talking about TFT)... or by picking and having a modicum of skill with Ekko, Senna, Akali, or any of the other OPs of the moment. (Oh wait, another set of champs with a recent skinline release all OP... come on, Riot!)

Kendren1Dec 6, 20193 votes

There's also less chance to outplay in fights. Leads typically transform into more leads because the one with the lead just insta pops the other.

BlackXIVDec 7, 20192 votes

This season is the most snowbally yet BY FAR.

At this point I'm convinced that was Riot's goal all along, this preseason they achieved it and just lied about their intent because people don't like it, not on paper at least.

Every singe change they made was towards early snowball, that is a fact. So we either decide we like it or we call them out and move to greener pastures.

NuclearBurrito2Dec 7, 20191 votes

Not going to try and contest that there is more snowball now, but is this really a BAD thing?

I mean think about it, given a perfectly balanced competitive game if a perfect team faces another team which is otherwise perfect but makes 1 mistake then the perfect team should have some set of actions they can take to turn that mistake into a victory. If they couldn't it wouldn't be a mistake, it would be just an alternative viable move.

Now that means in order for you to comeback from a mistake, ANY mistake, your opponent must also make a mistake. So having more ways to capitalize on an opponents mistake (via plate gold, dragon's, heralds ect) and turn that into a victory thus improves the game's ability to function as a competitive Esport.

The better team isn't the one that is playing from behind, so how could a comeback ever happen if the better team always wins? Shouldn't this be exactly what we want?

RewtDec 8, 20191 votes

In premise that sounds great, But lets take the reality of League of Legends into account. Snowballing favors early game characters. In this case against a late game champion you expect to lose early game, but drag the game out to hit your powerspike so that you can fight back. In the case of a very snowbally meta you make it so that late game champions are just..... bad. It also makes off meta picks significantly weaker as the meta champions are significantly more likely to gain an early lead which almost always turns into a win in S10.

Because league of legends has champions that fit into time based catagories (early, Mid, Late) In a snowball meta it makes it so that early game champions are just outright better than champs that fit different archetypes. and in this case champions are supposed to be Archetypes, Not just straight up tier lists.

But Because of the game being so snowbally (And the jungle especially) It makes it so that many champions that aren't early game, just straight up aren't viable to play.