WTF happened mid season 5 That made riot lose all grip on reality

SwiftKitten88·Nov 23, 2018·101 votes·18,573 views

mid season 5 balance starting going to hell, damage creep started aroud then.. I'm sure the started working on the new "keystone" masteries around then.

in season 6 we got dynamic boost. and lethality changes season 7 we had ADC's becoming busted beyond measure.. season 8 we have "runes reforged" which made damage creep even worse, and and rework, and and now in pre-season 9.. we have completely throwing balance out the fucking window, with horrific dark harvest and celerity changes.. not to even mention the fiasco that resolve is now

WTF HAPPENED TO THE SEASON 4 BALANCE TEAM?

LIKE SERIOUSLY WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM???

120 Comments

SwiftKitten88Nov 23, 201839 votes

early season 5 wasn't bad at all , it was mid season 5 that things started taking bad turns. as if they lost a key team member keeping everything in order. or a mew manger was put in.. or idk... SOMETHING must have happened.. i just don't know what..

BarcidNov 23, 201810 votes

Mid season 5 was absolutely perfect. You kidding? Once Cinderhulk was balanced out it was one of the best things to happen to this game. Tanks could actually, you know - DO shit instead of being nothing but a bullet sponge.

The point that things went south was when Gangplank was reworked, which was okay for a bit until people figured out just how broken he was - then Fiora got reworked and all sense of logic was thrown into a dumpster.

Deadly MittensNov 23, 20183 votes

Riot started going out of their way to enforce item roles. Huh after reworking assassins, they are super popular, and adcs are building anti burst items to avoid getting oneshot, clearly anti-burst items must be op if adcs aren't going glass cannon so let's nerf anti-burst repeatedly

SnugglePuggle94Nov 23, 201828 votes

[deleted]

HibekiNov 23, 20181 votes

Im not disagreeing with ghostcrawler being the problem but didnt he step down?

ModAcademy KaynNov 23, 20183 votes

He was moved to a different project in Riotgames, as I remember.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 23, 201817 votes

So? Four years of him being at the top of the design team. Four years of him probably having a say on who to hire for his department. Which will be people who share the same ideas and philosophies.

AhrisNov 24, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Im not disagreeing with ghostcrawler being the problem but didnt he step down?

It is more like the entire balance team was/is a problem rather than just Ghostcrawler

MLDzXnRRRNov 23, 20183 votes

{quoted}

I say the time they hired the idiot Ghost Cancer is when the game went downhill. He ruined WoW and brought the system that did it to League. And because of their stupid rules, we can't ask for a firing because the mods will punish you for doing so because they can't have their beautiful little Riot egos hurt.

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

Riot, you guys never listen and it is getting fucking annoying.

They have a whole balance team. You can't blame a single person. Plus they have a management that gives directions for future development. I would say that they wanted to make the game more casual, faster and more varied (they added plenty of new items - many with actives). The problem is that numbers are most of the time too high. E-sports is also garbage when soloQ is good, because there is no point in fighting (so they have to buff damage to insanity to have action in lcs), there is no point in laning against each other (that's why RIOT removed laneswaps by reinforcing the defenses), tanks were nerfed etc.

SnugglePuggle94Nov 23, 20183 votes

EVERYONE blames GC for bringing in Runes Reforged. That system is the one that ruined WoW. So yes, he brought that in so he's to blame. The rest of the changes he can share the blame with the others.

Tencent wants that. I don't think Riot did at the beginning. Tencent likes China and the money they bring in so they turned the game to appeal to them- faster games, crazy snowball shitfests, etc.

The game before that happened was slower, you had more time to outplay, more strategy in finding out how to win, fights didn't last 2 seconds, etc. That was when the game was at its peak and was amazing to play.

This crap now barely makes me want to play at all.

ShadowParkerNov 23, 20184 votes

GHOST CRAWLER WASNT IN CHARGE OF THE BALANCE OF THE GAME.

Jesus, people need to stop blaming him. At this point it’s ignorant hatred.

XonraNov 24, 20181 votes

He was literally the lead game designer, which oversees new champions, reworks, direct champion balance, and all designs going into the game. He was basically the head guy over everything design and balance of this game.

It was his title, so how clueless are you?

ShadowParkerNov 24, 20181 votes

Lead gameplay designer was Meddler. He oversaw the game balance while Scruffy was the lead champion designer who oversaw all reworks/new champions.

What GhostCrawler did was put down the direction the game should be headed in. So, if he wanted comebacks to be more achievable, someone on the design team might implement bounties to make that happen.

AGAIN. GHOSTCRAWLER DIDNT BALANCE THE GAME

aaaustindestroy1Nov 24, 20182 votes

Even if he wasn't the one that balanced the game, he obviously had an affect on how the game turned out. And he legitimately did not play the game in his spare time, like almost ever, he said it himself, and how is that going to help anybody?

ShadowParkerDec 1, 20182 votes

Not gonna respond or what?

aaaustindestroy1Jan 12, 20192 votes

I wasn't on the boards for about 2 months. Trying to reaffirm your masculinity with "you not gonna respond or what" is a low move. Think of better ways to do things, friend.

TrikzterzArmaNov 23, 201817 votes

Everyone be like "it's just preseason, wait until the season starts" "Can't do anything now during the holidays" "The season just started, wait until midseason" "Midseason now, just wait, it will come" "They can't change anything now, Worlds is coming" "So Worlds is over. Wait until preseason comes*

deadlychuckNov 23, 201816 votes

Back in season 3 and 4 they set up the pieces to start the chain reaction that happened in season 5.

Either intentional or not, a philosophical paradigm shift happened at riot as a result of their short term success in seasons 3 & 4, so they said, "You can't have too much of a 'good' thing", and then let then shifted their development towards moving everything in the game towards those "exception" cases.

The TrentNov 23, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Back in season 3 and 4 they set up the pieces to start the chain reaction that happened in season 5.

Either intentional or not, a philosophical paradigm shift happened at riot as a result of their short term success in seasons 3 & 4, so they said, "You can't have too much of a 'good' thing", and then let then shifted their development towards moving everything in the game towards those "exception" cases.

Actually no, it was in season 1, that's when they planted the seeds. Sion would heal from 1 hp to max hp in one auto attack... Now tell me that's not where it started...

3TWarriorNov 23, 20181 votes

you sure about that? even with 6 bloodthirsters, he would only heal 700+ per hit, which he could only hit one per second

The TrentNov 23, 20181 votes

{quoted}

you sure about that? even with 6 bloodthirsters, he would only heal 700+ per hit, which he could only hit one per second

yikkers someone didn't play back in season 1. Sion got reworked bud. He used to either be an ap burst melee character because he had a point and click stun and shield that exploded which both scaled off ap or he was a squishy tank because of his ultimate and passive. His passive let him reduce damage taken randomly by a lot and his ultimate literally gave him a ton of life steal and he would also heal his allies when he attacked. Please do you research lmao.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULYYxESai0U

here's what a sion looked like back in the day, this wasn't even the life steal build and he had grevious wounds and he would still easily go from half to full in one auto.

btw sion was pretty much always considered an extremely underpowered character so just think about how bs every other champion was. Ezreal could literally heal his teammates lmao.

btw my earlier reply to this thread about the seed planting was sarcasm. People say this kind of stuff every season. I'm making fun of the people who do that.

SwiftKitten88Nov 24, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Trent,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qxAGoVWW,comment-id=0000000000000001,timestamp=2018-11-23T19:35:31.805+0000)

yikkers someone didn't play back in season 1. Sion got reworked bud. He used to either be an ap burst melee character because he had a point and click stun and shield that exploded which both scaled off ap or he was a squishy tank because of his ultimate and passive. His passive let him reduce damage taken randomly by a lot and his ultimate literally gave him a ton of life steal and he would also heal his allies when he attacked. Please do you research lmao.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULYYxESai0U

here's what a sion looked like back in the day, this wasn't even the life steal build and he had grevious wounds and he would still easily go from half to full in one auto.

btw sion was pretty much always considered an extremely underpowered character so just think about how bs every other champion was. Ezreal could literally heal his teammates lmao.

btw my earlier reply to this thread about the seed planting was sarcasm. People say this kind of stuff every season. I'm making fun of the people who do that.

i didnt play in season 1 or 2.. but

season 4 was better than season 3... EARLY season 5 was about the same as season 4... but by mid season 5 the game got WORSE, by season 6 it was BAD.. and then each season just got progressively worse balance wise.

like if u EXCLUDE balance... then yeah the CLIENT got better.. sure, the maps did... the visuals... the lore.. the music, then riot has been doing great

but BALANCE if pretty much THE ENTIRE GAME.

nothing else matters in a game if the game is completely unbalanced not matter how many improvements in things like visuals, role section, client. you get.. if the ACTUAL GAMEPLAY SUCKS

YOU HAVE NOTHING!!

it doesnt matter how many great improvements riot makes outside of balance if their balance remains shit and the game remains in a stat where its frankly NOT FUN to play

I DESPERATELY want to play league. BUT ITS A COMPLETE MESS

its like going back to diablo 2... after there are player killing bots that will just join the game and kill you.

or going back to an mmo where suddenly you can just pay $ to bypass THE ENTIRE GAME

or even more accurately.. it's UNCANNILY similar to what happened in diablo 3. like SCARY similar to what happened with the damage creep diablo 3 had. making "sets" op rather than actual uniques and customization.

i played diablo 2 from 2001 to 2012 it was THAT GOOD

diablo 3 postgame was bad from the start but it only ever got worse.

and now i just feel like its diablo 2 again and we are entering 2012.. the game just ISNT FUN

its been RUINED

Projectile VomitNov 23, 201816 votes

Tencent Bought Riot [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Nah, jokes aside; I have no idea. Some important members of the team must have been swapped out or something

HibekiNov 23, 20185 votes

Actually the answer

ModAcademy KaynNov 23, 20184 votes

Except it isn't, considering that Tencent had a majority on Riot's stock in the first place, Tencent 'buying' Riot out, simply meaning taking the last minority that Riot held onto.

HibekiNov 24, 20183 votes

And that last minority was keeping them from turning the game into a complete money grubbing catastrophe

ModAcademy KaynNov 24, 20182 votes

Not how it works. It doesn't matter if you have a few shares, all that matters is that you have the majority of shares. I asked my friend whose a boss in a major company about whether it matters if you have all of them. It does not.

HibekiNov 24, 20183 votes

It does, a simply majority can take years to install the people you want and removing the policies you want.

If having a majority was enough, tencent would never have completely bought them out. Think about it.

ModAcademy KaynNov 24, 20182 votes

If having a majority was enough, tencent would never have completely bought them out. Think about it.

Or maybe, it's because they wanted all the profits they could get from a company they thought it was worth owning. You know, it's complete value. Majority of stock holding means you get votes. Tencent had around 90% of Riot's stocks before they bought the rest. Having 10% doesn't give you anything, when someone holds 90%.

ŚhunpoNov 23, 201810 votes

Morello

The DrBonjigolloNov 23, 201814 votes

I just wanna say, I still really want Team Builder back. [sg-soraka]

SnugglePuggle94Nov 23, 20184 votes

Me tooo! That was such a fun aspect to the game. Want to play something wonky and not get flamed? That was the place to do it. Or want to build your own team? It was so fun picking and choosing your own team. Ugh, Rito plz bring it back :(

LeetriNov 23, 20181 votes

How did you get into a game playing something wonky? I legit got kicked from queues for over an hour for wanting to play Ezreal mid. When I eventually got into a game I hard-carried a 4v5 and won. The only wonky thing people accepted in my experience was anything support because they got fed up waiting 20 minutes for an actual support and not a Zed main who queued support for faster queues. If you only played support it was great, otherwise it was 15+ minute queues on average (at least in my experience).

SnugglePuggle94Nov 23, 20182 votes

That never happened to me. I loved to play pre-rework Sejuani support and it never took that long. At least it wasn't something too overboard then it didn't take too long.

PaffWasTakenNov 23, 201812 votes

The juggernaut rework was the beginning of the never ending age of terror we live in, seeing Rito make the dumbest decisions possible over and over again

RαyNov 23, 201811 votes

I actually loved this game even up until season 7 ended, with all my heart. I was completely passionate about it for five years, non-stop. This changed twelve months ago.

Starting season 8, League turned into a oneshot fiesta and a lot of champions lost their identities. Everyone deals a massive amount of damage and strategic teamfights turned into three seconds of button mashing. The calm aspect of the game, the part I loved most, completely vanished. Get seen/hit first, die. We became a Call of Duty MOBA.

For the first time in my life, almost every game of League felt empty, unsatisfying or frustrating. I kept telling myself: 'be patient, there has always been rough patches.' I kept telling this to myself for twelve months. I thought something similar to the old rune system would finally return, but this pre-season is a joke as well.

I can not take another year of absolute frustration. It is sad, but I guess I will turn my back on this game after six years and spend my free time meaningfully again. I really do not get how Riot does not see they could slow down the decline of their game massively by just reverting the rune system and champion base stats. It seems like the Chinese internet café scene is too important, so they force twenty minute oneshot fiestas down our throat.

I just want my favorite game back, but I guess that does not happen.

ZybertoothNov 24, 20182 votes

its like we've lived the same life...

boricCentaur1Nov 23, 201810 votes

I would say lethality would be considered season 7 rather then 6 since it was the preseason when it was put in. Also what is dynamic boost since I forgot.

InfernapeNov 23, 201821 votes

Dynamic Queue. Basically what we call Ranked Flex except Riot forced it upon everyone by getting rid of solo/duo when they added it.

boricCentaur1Nov 23, 201819 votes

{quoted}

Dynamic Queue. Basically what we call Ranked Flex except Riot forced it upon everyone by getting rid of solo/duo when they added it.

Oooooooo yeah I blocked that from my memory well thanks.

6KEMBE4ORBANov 23, 20182 votes

I haven't.

I shove it and will continue to shove it in Riot's ''' cause of the braindead lead game designers/balance team and whoever ever thought that was a good idea in the first place and then went ahead to implement it and ignore OBVIOUS FACTS/COMMON LOGIC ETC presented in threads both here on the boards and on Reddit with thousand of upvotes during the fking preseason and then this sht continued for 8 FKING MONTHS.

I repeat, whoever thought and claimed that DQ represented/represents anything at all, was and is still is a retard of the highest caliber (that ofc includes riot's employees)

...

Yes, I remember - that is why I now regret spending that much money on RP. Nowadays, I've corrected my mistake and I just play.

In another news, I thought League can't get much worse than Season 8. :D

ProzzakNov 23, 20184 votes

Thanks for answering him but why create a new term instead of just saying dynamic queue which everyone would actually understand.

3TWarriorNov 23, 20185 votes

he means that it was basically ENDORSED BOOSTING where players could queue up and be given ranks unfitting for them because they had a better team than someone of h igher skill

it's why Flex Queue exists now and is still laughed at

StraconyNov 23, 20189 votes

Real answer: Tencent.

They realised the Chinese market is all that matters.

KnifeCatNov 23, 20188 votes

At a certain point in season 5 we had a tank meta, with low dmg, and games lasting 50+ mins .... people complained .. All we wanted was for things to be how they were in s3-5 before that tank meta.... They went way too far though, and pushed damage to the extreme, as well as making games shorter and shorter and more snowbally with each season since then. All we wanted was to go back to how it was pre tank meta s5, y’know, 30-45 min games, NOT 20-25!

PepijndMNov 23, 20185 votes

I honestly wouldn't mind another tank meta; it might actually compel me to play SR again. (I only play HA nowadays, except during temporary funmodes like BB or dominion.)

ŚhunpoNov 23, 20187 votes

Morello left the balance team and Ghostcrawler was made Lead Designer.

Irelia BotNov 23, 20187 votes

Juggernaut patch is when it all started.

5.16: the patch league started the years of decay

Beacon AcademyNov 23, 20182 votes

Riots need to push updates + Major Class Updates

Thats what happened from S5-S7

Then they realized class updates full of holes that they only ever applied band aids to

So they stopped the class updates and brought system overhauls (Old masteries and current runes) instead

Now its Season 9 and they've already gone back on their promise to deal with damage.

Autrah FangNov 23, 20189 votes

[{quoted}](name=Beacon Academy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qxAGoVWW,comment-id=0011,timestamp=2018-11-23T12:05:38.026+0000)

Now its Season 9 and they've already gone back on their promise to deal with damage.

Riot- "We're aware of damage being too high, so we're going to fix that"

Also Riot- Nerfs tank utility and tankiness, buffs tank damage, continues buffing damage across the board, and now gives players who are ahead in lane an even bigger advantage with turret plating gold

Oh really, Riot? Tell me more about how you're reducing damage. [zombie-nunu-bummed]