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The lack of supports isn't fixable, and that's OK

Mokkun·3/21/2016, 6:27:10 AM·18 votes·2,741 views

I'm not sure that people really understood how few people were willing to play support regularly until Dynamic Queue smacked them in the face with it. I'm going to be lazy and blame WoW having been dying off for too long. The lesson was learned with LFD in that game. Everyone wants to be DPS there. Finding tanks and healers is the hard part. (aka support roles)

The problem isn't exactly that support isn't fun. The problem is that your average gamer wants to be the big damn hero. (And I'm not even entirely sure that that's a problem. That is a major aspect of why people game in the first place.) And supporting isn't being that. You can be the hero, but the "big damn," part tends to be out of reach. To someone who likes supporting as a concept, the role can be fun, as long as you still feel valuable, and can see your own contribution. But for people for whom only the kills are the contribution, it cannot be made fun.

It's not that Riot has removed supports from the game, or should just tweak it with some magical knob. There's nothing Riot can do to fix it, without removing support from the game. Too few gamers are supportive by nature. They don't get enough enjoyment out of enabling others. It's never going away as an issue.

And the lesson from WoW is that even adding incentives to play under-played roles isn't sufficient to balance it back out.

If you want to be the hero, you're just going to have to accept it and wait for your queue. At least now your fun doesn't have to be at the expense of making the poor bastard who was last in the pick order have to play a role he hates. Just be glad that in league it's 20%(40% if you want to make junglers feel good) who are needed to make the "important" people succeed. Instead of say, 90-99% the way it is in the real world.

49 Comments

what you deserve3/21/2016, 7:43:48 AM5 votes

I actually like to support. I just don't like my ADC being a twat and yelling at me when there was nothing I could to to save her. So I'm not going to queue up for support unless I'm in a duo, ever, because too many people suck at this game

Dominick Destine3/21/2016, 6:55:44 AM4 votes

{quoted}

The problem isn't exactly that support isn't fun. The problem is that your average gamer wants to be the big damn hero.

That has nothing to do with why support isn't picked.

Support isn't picked because if your ADC or team in general isn't good, you will not be able to carry through skill alone... whereas if you're playing Mid/Top/Jungle/ADC, you can potentially carry 4 low skill players. That is the difference right there.

LiveYiOrDieHard3/21/2016, 7:06:42 AM3 votes

So you're saying everything should stay as is? Just let the queue times for everybody but supports keep going up and continue driving support mains, and people who don't mind supporting from time to time, further away from the support role. All because you say "oh it can't be fixed".

MacDthree3/21/2016, 1:31:36 PM2 votes

I think the issue with the support role is that people take this point of view on it. If you do anything to help get kills, you ARE carrying.
i'm a raka main myself, and sure - i don't get all the kills. So if that's somebody's definition of "carrying" then yeah support isn't gonna be their thing. I'm a firm believer in the fact that people just don't understand the importance of support. All of those heals that turned a fight, that CC, that one time you shielded your assassin in a team fight, etc... Those all add up, and make huge differences.

Irelia Bot3/21/2016, 7:09:07 AM2 votes

I will admit playing in a silver game it is kinda degrading to feel like you are just an amplifier of other players who might not be that good.

That being said league survived more then 5 years with the old system. Just a few small changes here and there over the years. It isn't what everyone thinks they want but since it made games happen in a way that people found good enough a fair amountof the time then what is really the problem? The old systems you would have to support sometimes but it did often allow enough of an option to get the position you wanted or your second option. That it was a within reason trade off.

This new system got rid of the trade off and an turn added 5 minutes to the wait time for finding a game. A lot of people are actually alright with supporting sometimes but they just don't want to have to do it every time which is what they are signing up for if they put support as the first or second choice. This in turn has made players who say main top but have been alright with supporting sometimes put mid or jungle as their second option since they know they will never get top if they put support as their second option.

The system could be mostly fixed by putting all of the positions in an order and making people who have support as second or third option getting it more often but also more likely to get their first choice after playing support "some kind of hidden reward system". Yes I am saying that I would rather support then be the marksmen or jungler and so long as it was not an eternal punishment of always playing support it would be alright for a lot of people. And yes this would be a way for that person who hates to jungle or go top to more then likely avoid it all together since both positions have their player base already.

No flash no life3/21/2016, 7:19:06 AM2 votes

Make it so game can't end without support. For example, towers inhibs and nexus will stay at 1hp and only someone with sightstone will have a passive that allows possessor to execute it. Yes this is going to be abusable but just throwing out ideas @_@

Abyssphere3/21/2016, 3:07:53 PM2 votes

I really don't think it's unfixable. While you can't make support as attractive a role as the others, there are a lot of ways you can make it feel less bad. Sure, "I can't get the glory" is inherent to the role and you can't really do anything about that beyond increasing gold income to allow "bot lane Brand :D" players their fun, but there's a lot of "feelsbadman" stuff you can deal with and Riot have been incredibly slow to get through it. Support has gradually been becoming less and less "to play this role you need to give up X, X & X" fun thing but there's still so much to it and the support's job feels more stressful than it needs to on top of that.

  • The experience issue could easily be dealt with, supports shouldn't need to have a level debt in addition to the gold one. Put Inspiration on Sighstone/GP5 items or even just passive exp in river on the GP5 items.
  • Vision control feels a lot more strenuous in season 6 than season 5 due to the reduction in Sightstone charges. The difference between 4 and 3 is honestly insane and makes you feel so much less capable of putting up wards early. I change trinket a bit later than I used to because of this and it makes me feel so handicapped. Give back 4 charges for less stress on supports.
  • AP support items need reworking outside of FQC which I think does what it need to. Zeke's is utterly horrendous and shows a complete lack of understanding of how to make support feel good. 95% of its passive's power goes into making the ally strong (unacceptable) and the stat profile is too random to be satisfying. Ardent is almost fine (passive is obviously 100% ally power but you feel more in control of it than you do with Zeke's which is a difference-maker) but needs 50 AP, 40 doesn't feel like it really helps you scale. Mikael's feels like it has no stats on it at all and could honestly do with a full rework in terms of stats and build components.
  • Defensive support items need to not just be cheap tank items reappropriated. Locket of the Iron Solari is fantastic but "I'll buy Frozen Heart, it has an aura and it's cheap I guess?" shouldn't really be a thing.

I'm sure someone else could list more stuff but the basic point is that yes, "I can't carry the game" will always be something a support knows. "I have trash items", "I will soon be so far behind in level as to feel worthless" and "I don't feel like I'm able to carry out my role as the vision granter" shouldn't be, though. As someone who plays support a fair bit, I'm certain it'd feel so much better if you took care of these issues, both to support mains and people randomly playing it.

Athenes Lulu3/21/2016, 6:59:06 AM2 votes

I think it's not just WoW, but almost every MMO ever. When players get the choice of going DPS/support, most of them pick DPS, so in the end you have a community of DPS players.

But again, people are also being people; they complain over anything.

It's not hard at all to deal with any of the issues that people have complained all over the forums if someone knows how to play support effectively. Short on experience/gold? Stop roaming excessively and watch what your ADC is doing, and maybe you can get even more EXP than your ADC does (yes it happens). No vision? Quit plopping wards as if they're unlimited, unless you'll be aware that you're going to run around with no wards available later. Can't carry? It's not just about looking flashy, even subtle actions matter just as much. All these are nothing compared to the darkest ages of season 3 where supports are literally ward bots. 4 sources of gold/EXP, 5 people, of course at least ONE person's going to have less gold/EXP than everyone else. People just felt the need to complain because they are not "playing the same game" as their teammates are, and wonder why they are getting different results.

Yes, I'm going to be blunt, because you have to think. You can't be a complete idiot and expect results. Supporting is a mostly tactical role, so people who whine about shit are usually people who don't think. In fact, it has gotten much more popular ever since S4 changes because they are no longer ward bots, so... people just being people.

Unless the role and/or the map get drastic changes, that's not gonna change.

TEEMOcalypse3/21/2016, 3:45:59 PM1 votes

I like to WIN, but having fun is still more important to me.

So i go support trundle :)

Lazypeon1003/21/2016, 7:02:29 PM1 votes

I loved LFD on my alts in WoW my main was a hunter, and I played a tank dk and a disc priest as my alts. While everyone wants to play the hero, sometimes enabling your team to do well and saving lives feels so much more rewarding.

The problem right now is you can't put support as your secondary role, otherwise you will always get it. They need an incentive to support to help solve the problem I think.

Fllesh3/21/2016, 7:27:26 PM1 votes

ummm... u make me feel like a tool by liking and playing and maining the support role..... i don't like this classification

GenghisEmo3/21/2016, 8:42:44 PM1 votes

Now im virtually guaranteed Supp. That is OK, if Supp were actually fun.

Now Supp is not as fun. And it saddens me im no longer picking Fill or Supp 2nd, since those things equal Supp virtually all the time.

Obviously lack of Supps wont be fixed, but making Supp mains like me want anything but Supp is fixable by guaranteeing i get any other role just as often or about the same.

A Basic Island3/21/2016, 11:41:18 PM1 votes

rito just needs to remove dynamic que, and ban everyone that treats this like cod, so pretty much most of the people you're talking about

Baby Ghoul3/22/2016, 12:10:10 AM1 votes

I disagree with some of what you're saying, but not all of it. It's not okay.

Yes naturally the support role is going to be the one with the shortest queue times no matter what, but the support role is dying. It's sad to see the queue times overshadow that.

I know so many support mains who have called it quits in season 6. There are a couple people on here that like to make everyone think that the support role is doing just fine, but they're usually in platinum or diamond. The vast majority of the player base is gold or below. Skill levels and experience vary greatly between summoners in lower ELO, especially in silver.

We know how these games go. It's not as team fight oriented, and everything is very scattered the majority of the time. Honestly lately it feels like 70 percent of the time the game is called before the laning phase is even over this season. Supports get hit hard by this because they're shackled to their ADC. I used to love to roam, but I've noticed not a lot of supports do it as successfully as they did in previous seasons. It's not fun just supporting one person, especially if that person is struggling that game or being toxic. However even if they are being toxic you can't roam because you just hit level 6 and that Zed is mid lane at level 9.

The support role needs a complete rework, and I think it's about time for that to happen. I get it's not an easy role to figure out, but it needs to happen.

What they can do immediately is fix our scaling issues. I should never have to struggle to make it to level 18 when I'm preforming my job really well. This enemy Mundo was level 15 at 0/6/0 with mediocre farm and I was 0/0/12 at the same time, but at level 13. That is so ridiculous and really makes me not want to play support anymore. The gold income issues suck, but I can deal with that. When scaling issues are tacked on though it becomes painful to play.

I'd eventually like them to address support itemization and vision in this game as well. Vision control does seem more tedious this season than in previous ones, I can't put my finger on it. It feels very boring, and it's depressing seeing some "supports" not build sightstone and end up on the winning team more often than not this season. I still do always build it because I know it's very risky not to, but God does it feel like a chore.

I don't pick support because I want to be the fastest climber. I'm content with making little strides here and there since it's only March. I think a lot of people are like this, more than you would think. I usually only have 2 divas at the most on my team, so I know that they're out there, and I think if Riot took a proper look at the support role and made some adjustments that people would start playing it again.

Right now the lack luster feeling you get in the majority of your games is not worth it.

ModKnightsKemplar3/21/2016, 6:30:34 AM1 votes

I agree, sort of.

Supports seem to have less impact on the game right now, win or lose. I don't see a downside to fixing that, but it's true that it won't ever even out completely. They COULD help the problem, though, by getting rid of the need for sightstone and allowing supports more ways to get XP and/or gold.

I myself come up with more and more ideas every time I think about all the ways to get creative with this. I'm sure Riot could think of something if they would devote resources to it. We just have to be polite and persistent in telling them that's what we want. It's best for everyone that plays the game.

A Dizzy Lulu3/23/2016, 2:47:15 AM1 votes

I missed the entire point of this thread; where's your tl;dr so I can contribute something meaningful without desperately looking for your point?

Bootleg Gay3/21/2016, 11:03:09 AM1 votes

This is why I like supports with big "WOW" moments for ultimates. Sona, Nami, Leona, Bard, Lulu.

Makes it feel good to turn around fights.

Maximum Morde3/21/2016, 11:38:22 AM1 votes

I play "Support" Kalista. Usually I have more gold than the ADC. TY passive.

Only Play Darius3/21/2016, 1:44:37 PM1 votes

A good Thresh makes it obvious that he is THE damn hero

Iqqi3/21/2016, 1:58:44 PM1 votes

My post about this too

Link

Every decent support knows that they play a much larger role than others in games. Every ADCs with their weight knows their success is completely based on the ADC and the jungle.

I won't go into it here anymore. You can ready my post if you like, but you are absolutely correct. The support role gameplay is not the problem it is us and in a way the game Riot made.

PDE5 Inhib3/21/2016, 2:01:28 PM1 votes

I'll tell ya what it did do, though. Before DynamicQ, I didn't mind supporting. I was a "fill" player. Now dynamicQ either means pick a role or get support literally 100% of the time by selecting fill. So I will never pick fill. The support pool shrank in that regard.

Rain Smurff3/21/2016, 3:13:32 PM1 votes

Supports are play makers. They roam and set up people and control vision. Support players dominate where their team can and cannot go. I can see why this is an issue as NA lacks basic macro play (doesn't matter what elo below D1) and it disgusts me to some point on the perspective of many about this topic.

Since the meta is so reliant on snowballing, supports have a massive impact. I don't know what you guys are on about. In higher levels of play one good play can mean the game. Understand that support is the backbone of the team, it always was, is and will be. The lack of support players are not because of the fact that it isn't "fun", its cause of the lack of understanding about the game.

Would you rather have fun or climb elo? Pick one, you can't pick both. There is your answer.

FreshAsFebreze3/21/2016, 3:14:42 PM1 votes

I wouldn't mind supporting at all for mid or top lane. It's just that, IMO, ADCs feel the most entitlement so every wrong step or wrong ability is criticized by them or if you do something right, it's all because of the ADC follow up or some BS. I can just tell the character of an ADC by when I have item 3401 . They clearly know I have little blue balls floating around me, not hard to see, but they continue to go all out on CSing leaving me nothing, and because of this and the lack of gold for supports already, "supporting" your teammates becomes even more difficult which just leads to ridicule.