Do you think this game has been dumbed down?

miightofdemacia·Nov 3, 2019·11 votes·2,860 views

With all the high damage that everyone does, including supports who have no cs and players who miss skillshots but still do a ton of damage to you anyway. Or how there is so much catch up gold and exp now like minion catch up exp and bounty that gets put on anyone who is ahead even if they aren't on a killing spree and just farmed will all game while others didn't. Does anyone feel like they dumbed down the game? Or is all the free high damage from runes so that anyone behind can still do a lot of damage and high amount of gold from bounties, turret plating, first turret blood actually not a way to help close the gap between lower skilled players and higher skilled?

10 Comments

thefatlazycatNov 3, 20196 votes

Riot's been playing to the chinese markets, they prefer fast-paced reaction time-based gameplay as opposed to strategy based gameplay. Sadly Riot doesn't think we matter, referring to what they consider non-issues as "Western Phenomenons"

Cind3rkickNov 3, 20192 votes

Its Europe and China that like faster paced games.

Back when SKT and Korea dominated worlds, some games could have under 10 kills in 50 minutes while now, in the all chinese semis, FPX had nearly 5 times that in the same time frame.

And we all know G2 stomping TL at msi in the fastest BO5 in history.

thefatlazycatNov 3, 20191 votes

thank you for the correction

iMidg3tNov 3, 20192 votes

I agree with you, the game is dumbed down, but not because of the reasons you mentioned. Imo it's because of the new leveling system, new player rewards, being able to choose lanes you wanna queue up for and new runes.

Before season 8 it was harder to get to lvl 30. But even after that you needed IP for champs, runes and optimally rune pages. Because of this you needed to play more games to get IP. And when you combined with how ranked was blind pick, you had to learn all roles on at least the basic level.

Nowadays new players get so much BE and new champs that past lvl 30 you dont have to grind games to be able to buy champs. Runes are also free and can be edited in champ select so you dont have to buy runes and rune pages. And learning 2 roles takes much less time than learning 5 roles. All of this resulted in players not having to play a lot of games past lvl 30, which also means they dont get as much gameplay experience.

Cind3rkickNov 3, 20191 votes

The opposite has happened, with incredible snowball and insane damage, combined with bounties and other comeback mechanics the games can end in under 20 minutes from simply a few small mistakes. Meaning that players have to be way more alert and intelligent with what they do. Players came come back from thousands of gold behind if they manage to outplay their opponents and quickly swing the game into their favour.

There is no way the game has been dumbed down with how significant a single kill can be.

CdoreNov 4, 20192 votes

{quoted}

The opposite has happened, with incredible snowball and insane damage, combined with bounties and other comeback mechanics the games can end in under 20 minutes from simply a few small mistakes. Meaning that players have to be way more alert and intelligent with what they do. Players came come back from thousands of gold behind if they manage to outplay their opponents and quickly swing the game into their favour.

There is no way the game has been dumbed down with how significant a single kill can be.

I wouldn't call playing safer as intelligently. Anyone can play away from the lane or opt out of being away from their turret, but that doesn't make it anymore "strategic". Even a bronze player can play like that.

Sailor MintNov 3, 20191 votes

It's harder for bad teams to stall games indefinitely.

If anything, one thing that has remained consistent throughout the years is games eventually devolving into a coinflip if the game lasts long enough.

AvicouNov 4, 20191 votes

I think the main problem is runes. They add a level of meta game-play that is no longer necessary, and usually skews heavily in favor of a select few builds that vary by patch as Riot attempts to balance it. The old rune system was pure stats, which were dictated by the characters you played so much they might as well have been built in to the kit.

The new rune system was a well-intentioned attempt to add more variety to pre-game champion options. But what ends up happening is they synergize too well with certain champs or builds, which usually means much more damage in early game than would be present with items alone. I get the philosophy that a game centered around getting kills means offensive runes should have an edge over defensive runes, but the disparity is so large that a lot of the time taking damage is better, even for defensive characters.

If runes were removed entirely, the meta would be that much more stable. Champion kits have much more depth than they used to, items do much more than they used to, there's no real reason to keep around runes other than Riot's stubbornness that they can never undo a design choice, except for all the reworks and changes that introduce as many problems as they solve.