There was a Red Post a while back.

not a starburst·2/21/2015, 4:18:48 AM·1,365 votes·132,805 views

And in the post (paraphrasing a little) it said that Rioters looked for quality of feedback rather than quantity of words or threads.

So I decided to be a little more brief than usual about my feedback and condense what I feel I'd like to say into a few sentences. I'm not going to couch my terms nicely or give specifics, because that's been done before. I believe that currently, Riot's designers:

  • Have replaced the strategic engagements of older League with a battle of reflex and reaction time, weakening the more cerebral portions of League in exchange for flashier play potential, which threatens to damage League's core element of gameplay, which still is strategy, not speed,

  • Have created mobility champions that excel at counterplay simply by virtue of being mobile instead of having specific counterplay abilities, and therefore thrive in an environment where most skills are now skillshots and where pure tanks, with their more reliable CC, are weak,

  • Have largely reduced point-and-click CC, the largest counter to mobility, further buffing mobility champions,

  • Produce champions whose kits give them far too many options on what they do and how they do it, at great expense to champions with more clearly defined weaknesses, because generalist champions are very easily able to use their large number of abilities to find and capitalize on the weaknesses of other champions while still remaining extremely safe,

  • Produce champions that do not have a true weakness, or have a weakness that is largely irrelevant, who proceed to dominate the meta until they have to be nerfed and then become simply mediocre at everything and therefore useless,

  • Often produce uninspired solutions to problematic portions of a champion's kit that could easily be addressed with a more creative solution rather than a flat nerf or buff,

  • Often buff champions after release, before the playerbase has fully adapted to that champion and learned how to play them, making them ludicrously strong when the playerbase adapts,

  • Have not fixed some very obviously overtuned champions at the expense of every other champion.

  • Have failed to clearly and reasonably address the absolutely devastated lore,

  • Often stonewall community feedback, leading to considerable frustration when nothing happens despite loud, continued, unanimous community feedback asking for a change.

Riot, I don't need to sing your praises about what you've done right. I believe that there are a lot of things you have done and presumably will continue to do right, and I appreciate the thought you put into your work.

For what it's worth? You're my favorite game company, and if I didn't think you were good, I wouldn't tell you what I thought, because I wouldn't care at all. Your power has always been listening to your playerbase and acting for feedback. I ask you to continue doing that, despite that not being strictly necessary, because I believe it is integral to the community you have built. I would hate to see Riot fall into the trap of 'we've got 'em, now we can ignore them' and then throw us under the bus. So far, that's been far from the case, but recent changes have worried me.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: And thank you for all the upvotes. Wow. Thanks.

273 Comments

DevilishMetal2/21/2015, 4:36:00 AM189 votes

I will forever upvote this post. This is what feedback should look like- you stated your opinion in a concise and calm way and managed not to make it a huge text wall. I applaud you on both your manners and the way you went about this.

I agree with your opinion on the rise of mobility- recently, immobile champions have become slightly problematic. However, it feels to me like Riot is in some sort of testing-the-waters stage right now. I feel this because the idea of champion diversity and some recent champion changes and releases recently is very hard to draw parallels between. Also, from what I hear about Riot's past (Joined mid s4, lacking in history), they have never been a company to ignore players. I feel like change will come soon, possibly with the release of Bard?

Tamat2/22/2015, 12:43:28 PM86 votes

Just wanted to jump in here say a few things, but first to talk about the post itself: great job! The feedback is constructive and well written. I don't personally agree with everything being reflective of the state of how things are now, but rather the state of things year(s) ago. That said. that's just my opinion -- I don't represent the opinions of the team that this feedback is for. I know they're reading it though.

I digress.

I found the end state of this discussion interesting, and would like to point out a few things.

  1. Because the post itself was constructive, the rest of the conversation trended the same way. Yes people disagreed with some of the feedback points, but it really didn't become uncivil at any point. Super happy about that!

  2. Look at how many votes it received, and is continuing to receiving over 24 hours later. The quality of the post, in addition to others agreement of the feedback caused many Boards users to vote, and that has subsequently put it in the most visible place of the Boards for over a day. This is a testament, and should be used as an example for anyone wanting to get more visibility on their content. I posted a blurb about why voting is important last month, feel free to check that out for more information about that.

Thanks for the post, I hope the development team jumps in here at some point to give you their 2 cents.

Thefriendlyorc2/21/2015, 6:53:06 AM49 votes

As a person who has been playing LoL a long time I remember when a dash was a significant thing. Gragas was the first champ released when I started, and a dash, a directional dash? That was an immense power house. The fact that he had 2 defensive abilities was compensation for the mobility given. W was a nearly passive buff that gave protections and AD damage and passive was a nice regen ability. I play a lot of the older champions because well, I like them, Singed, Rammus, Old and new sion, these are my jam and I feel like I cant play the game how I want to anymore. I HAVE to pick Vi, J4 or Lee to be a good jungler, or I HAVE to learn gnar for top, or nid/LB or zed for mid. It forces the game into such a narrow view that so many champions feel obsolete, barely playable or even on whole separate levels compared to the new champions released. How is a Singed EVER supposed to catch a Kalista? How is a Rammus EVER going to catch a Nidalee? It wont happen unless a major misplay on the enemy is made. Champions have come from 'oh, this guy does X, but he's not good at Z' to 'This guy is good at X, Y, Z, Q, R, 7 and 12, but if you ban him, you can avoid him.'

Damorion2152/21/2015, 7:15:42 AM40 votes

Sorry to disappoint you, but Riot has already fallen into the trap of "we've got 'em, now we can ignore them". They have already thrown us under the bus. They don't talk to us on here, and if they do talk to us, it's usually on Reddit or some other third-party site that no one cares about. Just them throwing away the lore and ruining our favorite champs has told me enough about what they really are. They're just greedy, like every other company. I don't know if they'll ever create another game or not, I don't if they will ever make League what it's supposed, I don't know how long the LCS will go on. All I know is, they're starting to become a giant scam where solo-queue is filled with nothing but raging, toxic 12 year olds. And the only way to get out is either to be really good and become a pro player or just click uninstall.

I do, however, agree with most of everything you said and applaud your efforts. But it's going to go in vain as no Rioter will be brave enough to comment on here and face the music. And a lot of the community isn't brave enough to start a full-scale riot against these guys. Honestly, League is pretty dead and it's just decaying day by day. It's so bad it makes me want to go check out DawnGate, but it's dead and DotA just doesn't look appealing enough to me. We're all just living in the Shadow Isles while Ryze and Tryndamere are on the mainland, laughing away while sitting on fat stacks of cash.

RiotRiot Sotere2/23/2015, 8:47:15 AM39 votes

[{quoted}](name=Abyssal Plunge,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tudnEmGv,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-02-21T04:18:48.391+0000)

And in the post (paraphrasing a little) it said that Rioters looked for quality of feedback rather than quantity of words or threads.

Heyas! So I want to start off by saying that your feedback is definitely quality. It is still a bit much to digest, and doesn't have a great jumping off point, especially if a particular Rioter doesn't have the time, fortitude, or expertise to dig into all of your questions. I am sadly a bit short on time, but I'll check back in here for the next hour and then towards the end of day tomorrow. Thank you for the collection of feedback.

I believe that currently, Riot's designers:

  • Have replaced the strategic engagements of older League with a battle of reflex and reaction time, weakening the more cerebral portions of League in exchange for flashier play potential, which threatens to damage League's core element of gameplay, which still is strategy, not speed,

This is the most interesting topic to me so forgive me if I delve in a bit. What strategic engagements of yesteryear are you yearning for? When I've been in this conversation internally it boils down to, "Fiddlesticks could turn the game around with a good ultimate and there were global teams," and now that doesn't necessarily ring as true. Is that because the game has fundamentally changed? Certainly, Fiddle's fear doesn't last as long and there are more available countermeasures... but to me it's primarily a function of players getting faster, and partly due to them being more mobile. Interrupting an ultimate is a lot more feasible now, in large part because of people's quick reactions and in some part because people have got better at the strategy, and know how to avoid the big surprise parties.

I feel like other strategic elements of the game have become more and more prevalent in League. Trinkets helped more people buy into the vision game, and a year later, there's still an upwards trend in number of wards placed and destroyed.

S2015 brought about more focus on objectives. Dragon became 'the thing'. Much of competitive play has balanced out in terms of people's talent. You can't count on people winning lane consistently, you have to out-rotate and out-vision.

I guess this loops back around to: what are the strategic elements that are being underplayed? What could we bring back into the fold?

(paraphrasing a ton): champs are too generally strong, without any actual weakness, too much mobility creates free counterplay, point & click CC is down

I don't have a lot to add to these points. GC talked a bit about mobility over here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/2TavB1Ax-dear-riot-can-we-get-a-straight-no-nonsense-description-of-what-your-vision-for-this-game-is?comment=0016 earlier today. I can say you're right, we're reducing targeted CC. The goal obviously isn't to make mobile people stronger, but that is a side effect and we should be cognizant of that.

I know it's also a goal of the champion team to have actual weaknesses on their champions. To the extent that isn't the case, your feedback and call-outs are warranted.

  • Often produce uninspired solutions to problematic portions of a champion's kit that could easily be addressed with a more creative solution rather than a flat nerf or buff,

The more creative a solution, generally the more divisive it will be and the harder to finalize. I am often a proponent of less creative changes (straight tuning), when champs are simply out of line but perhaps that's why that's not my job. ;)

  • Often buff champions after release, before the playerbase has fully adapted to that champion and learned how to play them, making them ludicrously strong when the playerbase adapts,

Guilty as charged. It is frequently very difficult to avoid. A designer has spent around a year on a champion. It's released, they suddenly see tons on tons of players using the champion. They spot some quality of life fixes they can make. They are going to make them, because they just make the champion holistically better. Then it's a question of, "should we 'compensation' nerf this champion along with these QoL changes?" and since the community thinks the champion is underwhelming, the answer is frequently no. And then there are other times we miscalculate.

  • Have not fixed some very obviously overtuned champions at the expense of every other champion.

Are we talking the Lee Sin variety or some separate beast? Generally agreed that some champions stick around too long.

  • Have failed to clearly and reasonably address the absolutely devastated lore,

This is way out of my wheelhouse, sorry. :(

  • Often stonewall community feedback, leading to considerable frustration when nothing happens despite loud, continued, unanimous community feedback asking for a change.

This is certainly never our intent. Not all feedback will be acted on, but on the flipside: our aim is to make the game better for players. We only know that the game is better/worse based on your feedback. I do say 'your' in a very general sense, though. There have been instances when these forums have been much more negative about a change than the general populace (as taken from surveys in the game). I think the more constructive posts like yours we have and the more dialogue we create, the better off the game will be.

For what it's worth? You're my favorite game company, and if I didn't think you were good, I wouldn't tell you what I thought, because I wouldn't care at all.

Thank you for caring! We care, too. A lot!

Alorasence2/21/2015, 6:09:15 AM34 votes

"Produce champions that do not have a true weakness, or have a weakness that are largely irrelevant, who proceed to dominate the meta until they have to be nerfed and then become simply mediocre at everything and therefore useless,"

I was blind and now I see.

Angry Monster2/21/2015, 8:46:36 AM30 votes

sadly riot is still going to ignore you. The balance team does not even listen to itself.

InsaneSamurai2/21/2015, 7:25:06 AM28 votes

Despite occasionally saying things that may lead us to believe otherwise, Riot does not care what any of us on the forum think, say, or do.

Jamatrix6662/21/2015, 7:35:52 AM26 votes

We, as a community who care a lot about this game and its future, have to upvote this thread the most possible to give it visibility. Guys/girls, don't stop yourself at reading it; upvote it please. Upvote it because I know for a fact that this guy's thread represents thoughts of thousands/millions of players.

Auryiel2/21/2015, 5:12:27 PM20 votes

I agree with all your points, but there is ONE thing I really wanna highlight.

''if I didn't think you were good, I wouldn't tell you what I thought, because I wouldn't care at all.''

This. So much this.

KaisadiIIa2/21/2015, 3:57:41 PM15 votes

Have failed to clearly and reasonably address the absolutely devastated lore,

Is there still lore in this game? I mean, I can write a two-lines story about Amumu by myself.

Yuki Akuma2/21/2015, 8:26:11 AM13 votes

I agree completely and I hope Riot will change their "flashiness" back to what the game was originally meant to be. At least, make things have counters outside of "Oh just CC them and they die." However, I doubt they will do anything, they seem to have forgotten what made them what they are.

Us.

PiVoRx2/21/2015, 10:46:08 AM6 votes

Its not like they dont listen, they keep some champions better than others on purpose, like Lee Sin or Ahri. Proof? Riot was so scared that Ahri will drop from the top with DFG removal that in case they buffed her so hard and shes now insanely overbuffed. Some champions are there just to raise the number..

MasterOfTheOrder2/21/2015, 4:50:22 PM5 votes

12 hours later, still no response from a Red.