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Unpopular Opinion on Comebacks

KhaZix Bot··157 votes·7,720 views

Personally, I find this to be the least frustrating season in a while since Warlord's Bloodlust has been nerfed. What people don't seem to understand about snowballing and comebacks is, comebacks aren't fun and interesting if they happen every game. They just aren't. Comebacks are supposed to be unexpected and rare. That's what makes them interesting. Playing around upper middle elo (Gold 3-1 in Seasons 4 and 5), it seemed like at least 75% of games involved a comeback. That's just frustrating, is it not?

Yeah, pick/ban is an important part of the game, but so long as comebacks are the norm, pick/ban will be the end all, be all in more games than it should be. Maybe it's blasphemy, but I don't believe that you deserve to win just because you survived to 25 minutes and have Vayne and Malphite. Comebacks should be extremely hard to achieve and fairly inaccessible for the less skilled team.

People seem to think that you can't come back at all now. Of course you can. You just have to play safe as opposed to dying over and over. If you died sixteen times in lane phase, forgive me if I don't think you deserve the win just because your ADC only died four times and managed to scrounge up enough farm for two items while your Nasus sat under inhibitor tower.

People think snowballing is toxic, but how are some comps never being completely shut out any different? One of the worst changes in recent memory has to be the one where you didn't get full gold for kills in the first few minutes. It's gone now, thank God, but why did that ever exist?

If the enemy team comes back because you don't know how to play late game, yeah, that's one thing. However, that just hasn't always been the case in the past two seasons. By the same standard, if you find yourself losing every game this season, maybe you need to work on your early game.

Just an edit here: All I really said as far as power spikes go was "Yeah, pick/ban is an important part of the game". Yeah, that doesn't really explain anything. So, let me clarify:

If you pick Nasus, a late game champion, and play for late game, you are acknowledging the fact that you must play safe early. If you then choose not to play safe early and die ten times in lane, you should lose. Playing safe and getting bullied but staying alive/minimizing deaths? That's fine. Getting trashed and winning anyway because you have a huge unavoidable power spike? That's not okay. Basically, if you pick a late game champion, you play safe early. If you die ten times in lane on a late game champion, you lost your late game gamble and that is that.

149 Comments

ModKnightsKemplar87 votes

I think where I want to append your statements is power spikes for champions.

Comebacks SHOULD be common if you're playing against renekton, Lee Sin, etc. (early game champs), and you fielded Nasus and Vayne (super late game champs). There's a type of champion that thrives on early game and absolutely should not win JUST because they can get ahead early. Nasus and Vayne should only win games by comeback (assuming a good state of balance and equally skilled players, of course). If Vayne and Nasus are capable of getting ahead early (again, roughly equal skill), then those champs are broken. So there has to be some kind of expectation about regular comebacks for game balance, depending on what champs are played.

The spirit of your comments is still right, of course. You can't feed 20 kills over to Renekton, even as Nasus, and expect to come back. Of course not. Vayne doesn't deserve to win JUST because she made it to 30 minutes, either. But I think omitting influence of power spikes on comeback probability is leaving out a significant chunk of the conversation.

I do agree there are too many QQers out there about this. The game is not, and likely will never, be perfectly balanced. Having said that, I do agree that snowball is slightly strong right now. There are a lot of tools being given to early game champs now, and they already had gold lead and dragon control to help them.

Specifically, strong laners get HUGE advantages individually and for their team right now, because towers are so squishy. I think that the way bounties are being assessed is designed to help this, but there's nothing else I can think of that encourages late game meta that got introduced this preseason.

DrCyanide13 votes

Was just about to bring up power spikes, but you did it far more eloquently.

The Ellimiist2 votes

Nasus is actually best at midgame and vayne isn't that weak early either.

If they want faster games they just need to have "lategame" champs hit a midgame power spike earlier and for the most part they do (see current vaynes with only shiv/gun/boots wrecking for like 6k gold).

ModKnightsKemplar4 votes

I can't agree that Nasus is good midgame.

I CAN agree that shorter games mean that the definition of mid and late game might be re-defined. But even if Nasus is "mid-game" right now, I would hope that gets changed. He scales infinitely, like Veigar and Sion. These champs (along with hyper-carries), are intended to be late game threats, not mid game threats. And they should stay that way regardless of other changes in the meta.

Similarly to what I said above, if an infinitely scaling champ can compete in the mid-game with a mid-game champ, they are broken. Infinite scaling should mean a weak early game. No exceptions, imo.

And as far as Vayne goes, I think people confuse the difference between "weak early game" and "terrible laning phase." She isn't a terrible laner, but she still needs a few items to push towers and actually win a game. That hasn't changed.

The Ellimiist3 votes

Well his spike in winrate as well as his damage is directly after trinity and his best fight potential is after trinity+1 defensive. He may scale infinitely but he still hits hardest around mid-game.

This is different from viegar who basically gets closer and closer to a 1 shot combo as he scales since he has range/cc to actually reach opponents late.

Audiomancy1 votes

I would say Veigar peaks around 30-35 minutes, when he's stacked a good deal of AP (assuming he hasn't been stomped on early) and before anyone has too much MR. After that, he starts to fall off a little bit, especially if the enemy team has item 3102.

The Ellimiist2 votes

Never really found banshee a problem, just means have to hit em with a q-tip. haha get it, ahem, right anyways. I went 78m with veig once and I could delete mundo with my combo, had over 2k ap xD

KhaZix Bot8 votes

Yeah, I didn't really think to mention this. Edited for clarity. +1

ModKnightsKemplar8 votes

Haha I like the edits. I think we probably disagree about our favorite version of this game, but I'm okay with that. Thanks for keeping it civil. Far too rare on these forums.

TDubH3 votes

Can i give the both of you hugs? Please? lol, i wish i could maintain both a civil and eloquent attitude while attempting to purvey my point, i truly appreciate that others can do so, and judging from the upvotes, i'm not the only one.

RiverWind04072 votes

Did I just witness a CIVIL conversation?

Between two people that are DISAGREEING with each other?

On the BOARDS?

The world will end tomorrow, I swear.

Ravenhale37 votes

If you're snowballing hard and not taking objectives, then you are doing it wrong. Kills do not win the game. Some fights are not worth fighting.

blueberrypancake2 votes

Actually if you can win a game without any kills it is less harder to punish then win a game from kills

Just look at those games in Season 4

frafdo1213334 votes

this is unreadable, please edit

Rozair20 votes

I disagree hard. One gank bottom lane and they get a double kill and the game is over? Fuck that

Mr Broken Wings36 votes

{quoted}

I disagree hard. One gank bottom lane and they get a double kill and the game is over? Fuck that

But the 0-3 jinx that can stall the game 20 minutes because the GAME allows her to, even though she sucked hardcore should be able to come back? No, fucking no. People really want to make their earlygame completly unimportant? Its not a surpise that vayne and jinx were so popular at the end of the last season, because the punishment for playing their shitty earlygame wasnt there. People complain about snowballing and THEN they complain that 0-4 vayne with botrk suddendly wins the botlane. This community really doesnt know what it wants.

disregardable29 votes

This community wants to always win with their favorite role/champ. Everything except what I play should be trash tier, but only when I play it. ^^

V The Support V8 votes

Every complaint comment ever. Well put.

Dukues11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mr Broken Wings,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=s0JI7bcY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-12-02T14:32:23.266+0000)

But the 0-3 jinx that can stall the game 20 minutes because the GAME allows her to, even though she sucked hardcore should be able to come back? No, fucking no. People really want to make their earlygame completly unimportant? Its not a surpise that vayne and jinx were so popular at the end of the last season, because the punishment for playing their shitty earlygame wasnt there. People complain about snowballing and THEN they complain that 0-4 vayne with botrk suddendly wins the botlane. This community really doesnt know what it wants.

I saw so many 0-6, 1-7 jinx last season end up winning games at 40-50 mins. It was really frustrating.

The Yetii Rider4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mr Broken Wings,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=s0JI7bcY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-12-02T14:32:23.266+0000)

But the 0-3 jinx that can stall the game 20 minutes because the GAME allows her to, even though she sucked hardcore should be able to come back? No, fucking no. People really want to make their earlygame completly unimportant? Its not a surpise that vayne and jinx were so popular at the end of the last season, because the punishment for playing their shitty earlygame wasnt there. People complain about snowballing and THEN they complain that 0-4 vayne with botrk suddendly wins the botlane. This community really doesnt know what it wants.

Thing is, if the game is completely focused around early game power, then it becomes an arms race between hyper mobile gankers like Lee Sin and Rek'sai trying to feed their team and hyper mobile laners trying not to die.

Mobile champions rule early game and the only way to beat them is to get to a heavy team fight phase where they can't use the fog of war to initiate as easily.

So for everyone who likes playing immobile champions. Yes we want the early game to not matter.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Thing is, if the game is completely focused around early game power, then it becomes an arms race between hyper mobile gankers like Lee Sin and Rek'sai trying to feed their team and hyper mobile laners trying not to die.

Mobile champions rule early game and the only way to beat them is to get to a heavy team fight phase where they can't use the fog of war to initiate as easily.

So for everyone who likes playing immobile champions. Yes we want the early game to not matter.

Brand and Anivia are strong right now though.

Jinx is still strong.

All Mundo does is run and throw things and he's op as shit.

EcchiOtakuTM4 votes

Mundo is only op because noone rushes executioner's calling when lane phase is over.

If the playerbase would invest in an 800g item past laning phase mundo wouldn't be op or nerfed.

Handin Out Naps2 votes

No. Mundo is op because he does as much damage as a carry while being a tank. It has nothing to do with executioner's calling. Similar to Tahm they shouldn't be running around doing stupid amounts of damage while being tanky as shit.

EcchiOtakuTM5 votes

Damage is fine and even if it isn't riot is nerfing his early game. He out sustains most damage done to him because everyone thinks executioner item is something you get when the game is almost over to deal with sustain champs.

If the player base started building executioner's calling as soon as the lane phase was over watch a large amount of sustain champs become that much easier to deal with.

Jefftiffy4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mr Broken Wings,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=s0JI7bcY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-12-02T14:32:23.266+0000)

But the 0-3 jinx that can stall the game 20 minutes because the GAME allows her to, even though she sucked hardcore should be able to come back? No, fucking no. People really want to make their earlygame completly unimportant? Its not a surpise that vayne and jinx were so popular at the end of the last season, because the punishment for playing their shitty earlygame wasnt there. People complain about snowballing and THEN they complain that 0-4 vayne with botrk suddendly wins the botlane. This community really doesnt know what it wants.

The thing is I am all for come backs because snowballing is a terrible experience to have to deal with. You fuck up one time and you lose? Hell fucking no. If you are allowed to stall by the enemy team its their own damn fault. If you are snowballing you should be trying to end the game. Not play TDM and try to get a good KDA.

My Waifu Vanilla4 votes

But at that same point snowballing against the enemy vayne last season or their nasus and then losing because Viktor shit on every minion wave you tried to end the game with due to stall was even worse to deal with.

Dukues11 votes

{quoted}

I disagree hard. One gank bottom lane and they get a double kill and the game is over? Fuck that

Its not though...... thats the thing

Meep Man9 votes

I feel like this is more user error since any ADC with 2 kills has never been a problem for me.

ThePartyLeader13 votes

I agree for the most part. Just glad the game isn't about who gets caught out at post 35 minutes anymore.

My Waifu Vanilla7 votes

goes to ward after 40 minutes an ally has been slain

Then you single-handedly lose the game because 1 minute death timers are an eternity

Dukues10 votes

Man i agree. I am only in silver but damn every game averaged at least 40 mins. Low silver was ridiculous, but at silver 1 it seemed like at least most games were close. Idk how many games I lost last season where my team was way ahead and then instead of being able to end at 25 mins, played another 20 and lost. It was so damn frustrating. Of course, there were a few games where my team did bad and then we came back and won at like 50 mins but I would rather just lose that game at 25 and play another.

I have also only played a few ranked games this preseason but they still are lasting around 40 mins...... not sure wtf everyone is bitching about.

BluePolarizer2 votes

that is because you are very low elo. the game has always been stompy at such low elos.

TheDiff1 votes

True. Even if i did get shit on i would shit on other people during the next game. That has always happened in lower elo's, but now it's different. I'll get stomped and then i'll do the stomping, but then the next few games are really equal in terms of feeders, afk's, trolls and such----neck too neck if you will.

BluePolarizer2 votes

I think that kind of play is terribly unfun. So I'll get shitstomped 1 game where I can do nothing, and next game because I get a lucky gank or kill, I can essentially AFK and still win? the fuck?

I escaped low elo to NOT play those types of games. Now the entire game is like this.

TheDiff5 votes

{quoted}

Man i agree. I am only in silver but damn every game averaged at least 40 mins. Low silver was ridiculous, but at silver 1 it seemed like at least most games were close. Idk how many games I lost last season where my team was way ahead and then instead of being able to end at 25 mins, played another 20 and lost. It was so damn frustrating. Of course, there were a few games where my team did bad and then we came back and won at like 50 mins but I would rather just lose that game at 25 and play another.

I have also only played a few ranked games this preseason but they still are lasting around 40 mins...... not sure wtf everyone is bitching about.

I've been playing ranked during this whole preseason. It is not that bad. People just cry over every little nerf and just want to win every game. Which is normal in a competitve game, but it's really not the end of the world. Ranked games helped me cope to the new season changes and actually made me like a whole lot more. I suggest you try it!

MrSlowDie8 votes

75% of games involved comebacks ? prove please? And of course I don't want an anecdotal evidence.

and yeah, if the comeback team had hyper carry(ies), meanwhile the other had early game champions. It's a common sense to come back if you let the game long enough.

Spoofghoul6 votes

I agree with your stance on comebacks, but right now its just the smae mess at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Games are a bit too stompey. Yes if you win lane you now have alot more influence over the game, well that is if everywhere else things are roughly even. And we all know this almost never happens. A teammate who is having a bad game will drag you down harder then ever too.

I think games right now snowball too easily. Im fine with champions whoma re snowballing. But my problem is that they now just snowball the enire map through winions and easy peasy objectives.

Hell im even ok with the damn minion changes i don't care...

Right now League is requiring less and less team effort to win or lose. One dude fucks up ok gg ff20, You manage to get firstblood great for you as you can now stomp your lane and take easy towers/objectives.

Making objectives Tougher the longer a game goes on gives early game champions a chance to get the snowball rolling and use this with team effort to keep it going ending the game before the opponent late game champs become relevant again.

Warning rant alert on objective balance changes!

I think objectives need to scale much better into lategame, for example Dragon will cumulatively take 10% less damage for every time your team has taken it, in addition it will increase its damage too by 10%. Same thing can be done for Rift herald and Baron Nashor. Maybe max 4 time stacks.

This makes objectives increasingly harder to keep controll of and take them the more you took. Which makes it more important to actually use your lead ingame wisely.

Towers should also scale much better and require more than i got first blood i won lane i take tower now b4 5 minutes have passed . . . Remove the fastpush armor. Double or tripple their armor/mr scaling. Give them a flat damage reduction applied after armor/mr every 5 minutes. Something like 5 which stacks, Starting at minute 10 up to a hardcap of 50 flat damage reduction. Give towers 2hp/5sec staring at 20 minutes into the game. Increasing by 1hp/5sec every 5 minutes up to a hardcap of 7hp/5sec.

Removing the early fastpush armor allows earlygame focused teams to snowball off of towers by taking out the lane opponent then focusing down the tower with jungler + laner(s). However the longer you wait with taking towers the harder they get to take out. After 20 minutes have passed you will need teamwork to force them down, whether this is splitpushing or sieging either goes but at least it will require team effort to make it happen.

This gives lategame teams a chance to bunker down early on and try and wait things out a bit maybe only losing 2-5 towers in the proces.

However by the time they become relevant again they face the same strong towers and the game becomes harder for them too. Using teamwork to keep as many towers alive sacrificing a few neutral objectives along the way to keep cs and towers even.

These are just some of my ideas for balance changes im sure half of you will disagree.

Anu3isII5 votes

Yay , I'm not nuts when I say comebacks are still here :D

Now seriously, I had so many comebacks since the preseason has started , that I thought boards went crazy xD

Auryiel5 votes

But snowballing is way too strong right now. You don't even need to play the game to know this.

Kog sitting at about 40% win rate is proof of this. His late game is TERRIFYING. He shreds through literally everything, but he's getting buffed right now (more specifically he's getting an early game buff and a large late game nerf) because it's impossible to get there.

Honestly if you can't win with a 6 kill lead early game, you deserve to lose. Right now the game wins itself for you just because you won early game.

My Waifu Vanilla3 votes

The game doesn't win itself. You said it right there that you won the game because you WON early game.

Auryiel2 votes

Yeah, you win the first 5 minutes and then everything's in the bag. Unless you make catastrophic mistakes the game is all yours. That's not a version of LoL I want anything to do with. Your decisions should matter all game long unless you're insanely fed. That insanely fed criteria is being reached way too easily right now.

Stars Shaper4 votes

Feeling uncomfortable even when you stomp the enemy team because you know that there will be a come back it's so frustrating that I had better chances when my team did bad so that the enemies fell into the trap of being comfortable.

You cannot make a winning team worry so much because they did good at the begin.

KoKoboto4 votes

Thing is comebacks are practically impossible now, which is the only problem If we got back to the center line then it would be alright, some games will be stomps, some will be comebacks, some will just be normal wins

SerBlaise4 votes

I agree mostly, but one problem I see is that if you are playing a game you deserve to loose...it's 20 minutes of feeling like shit. I would rather deserve to loose because I failed at one teamfight at 30 minutes than deserve to loose because of a mistake I made at lvl 3 that snowballed out of control. It feels better to loose a close game, so the more close games we have, the better I think league will be. It feels better to loose a game because of a mechanical or strategic mistake/outplay in a fight rather than simply because the other team had acquired more gold.

To add to this, I can't always control in game how close the game will be. I can't stop bot from feeding kill after kill every time. So a good deal of the responsibility for keeping games close has to be on Riot.

UNSC3 votes

I had a comeback from a huge deficit the other day. Was my first huge comeback this season. Came from all of my teammates grouping together and functioning as a well oiled machine. We got a few picks and eventually got back into the game and win. Was by far the most exciting game I've had this season :)

Chroud3 votes

Played a game the other night when We lost the first 20 mins of the match but stopped the feeding. We then played safe and farmed and had a epic comeback 44mins into the game. Comebacks are possable but it takes the whole team to realize its gonna take some time and farming. I think the problem is when you get the people with no patients then your just done no hope.

Nimmer3 votes

Gold 3-1 is just upper elo, statistically speaking. The middle elo is silver 3-4. Even silver 2 is in the top 50% of players. Agree with you about the comeback situation, though

ChaddyFantome3 votes

While I understand and agree with the core ideology behind the post, I can't agree in full. Not only should the game not be straight up decided by early game (this is just the opposing end of the spectrum of your complaint), but Pushing advantage should be the winning teams hard prerogative and they should be properly punished when they fail to do so.

I like the minion changes, though i do think it could use some tuning.

The fact of the matter is, unless you are some petty child with deeply rooted insecurities and an inferiority/superiority complex, stomps aren't fun, regardless of which side of the stomp you are on. In the losing scenario, you just feel like 20+minutes of your life is wasted/pointless and might as well w8 at fountain. No game should be simply unwinnable. Otherwise people simply don't play.

This comes back to the winning side where they simply get bored because they get half assed gaming experiences. Most of my games this preseason have either been boring as hell because my team snowballed and I feel like i didn't do jack shit all game other than lane or fruitless endeavors, and I say this as a person who religiously refused to accept surrender vote since I joined this game back in late S2, and never even so much as typed /ff in his entire career until just today.

Then we get into champions. There are champs specifically designed for late game. This basically invalidates their existence whole sale.

While I agree the winning team should properly be given advantage for playing well, they should not be simply be handed the win like they mostly are now. And most importantly, The losing team should also be properly rewarded for making smart decisions too.

At the moment, the game is basically requiring the winning team to essentially make less effort for getting advantage instead of the more sensible thing which would be to give them to tools to push advantage.

But nope, instead they are rewarded with not having to try as much. The game pretty much wins itself once you build advantage, atm. And while comebacks aren't impossible, they happen far more due to ridiculously stupid mistakes made by the winning team rather than smart decisions made by the losing team.

The games where I made comebacks all felt like the comebacks were just handed to me, and that while more fun right now than League of Avalanche, still feels incredibly cheap.

One thing i could say for sure back in S5 was that when we made a comeback, it always felt like we earned it. Now its even worse than S3 where all a comeback was good for was to use as baggage against the enemy rather than something to feel proud of.

BluePolarizer2 votes

exactly this. Any time my team gets an advantage and still loses, I don't say its because of the enemy team being smart and getting a catch -> getting objectives and coming back. It's almost always due to a moron (probably a boosted d5) chasing for kills or farming jungle instead of listening to pings and just taking absolutely undefended objectives. When you tell them "go for objectives" they say "stfu moron i'm carrying".

lol.

RISE Shlack1233 votes

We all know that games stalled out to 50-60 minutes on a regular basis was annoying. But right now, the opposite thing is happening - games are getting decided before 15 minutes more and more frequently. Games are very well decided with several minutes before you can surrender, and this is the opposite problem. If a game is over, and I mean you know it's over, like all 3 lanes losing, lost all inner towers and 10-0 enemy mid or adc. Those games will end up forcing you to suffer through several minutes of unwinnable garbage before you can even hope to surrender. And a lot of teams won't just push mid and end when they clearly won - they want to drag the game out a little bit and toy with you. And if you just sit in base and wait for the game to be ended, you run the risk of being reported, even if you have no feasible chance in hell of winning.

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