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The focus on Esport will be the downfall of this game.

SaltyToplaneGoat··175 votes·6,665 views

I miss the olden days, when Esports was the byproduct of a game just being that well made that you could play it fairly on a high competitive level, and not the core design principle.

Do you know what Esport-LoL is? it is fucking boring. Two teams dance around each other for 30 minutes, and the one who then makes the firts mistake loses. Pretty much 30 minutes of nothing for a few moments of action. And since that kinda sucked, Riot was like "well, what if we made games faster so they are cooler to watch?", completly disregarding that the esport group, while it is vocal is just an abyssimal minority when compared to the total playerbase of this game.

And now we are where we are now, where people demand a surreder vote at 10 ot 15 minutes, and for the first time since season 2, I see people actually supporting that idea.

You can either have a game that is fun to watch - or fun to play. Both at once is impossible. And since this is supposed to be a GAME, I'd rather have fun in my own matches, even if this means there will be less tounraments where we will figure out who is the best asian at this game.

137 Comments

NastyMcOutplay52 votes

i preferred the long matches, much more strategy

Rew7112 votes

I only had about 4 or 5 matches in my 3 years of playing League that even made it to 70 minutes. I think only 2 (and that was WAY back in season 3 when I began) that made it to about 2 hours for just one game. I didn't care about dying because it never critically hurt my team (from what I saw) and I never got too over powered from going on a killing spree. You could itemize whatever you felt like (even if its as simple and stupid as just Bloodthirsters or Rabadon Deathcaps) it was fun and we felt like we were in control. If I wanted to go AD Teemo probably in that time, no one would had cared as much as they would now.

Now, not only has Riot done this, they stopped doing fun give aways for the heck of it, they won't give an increase to IP for new players, and game modes are taken away so that players must focus on only Normal campaign. You do get a choice in either going in Summoners Rift to play in either a Ranked mode or Normal mode. But it overshadows the Twisted Treeline map.

I honestly miss how much freedom I had in Team Builder. I miss Trinity Force having AP. I miss the original Zeke's (that should had stayed since we don't have that many support items...). I've lost my will to play. Everyone around me tell me to either quit, do what I feel, or tell of how they don't like the game. I will miss this game. I made it to the PBE, I got very close to getting all the Champions (just 40 more :'|), but none of my friends or peers play it and though its still a popular game on Twitch I can't see myself playing it when there is more to do than waist more time on a game that makes it impossible for new players to even begin, only cares for money, and only has a handful of staff that even look on these boards from time to time. I haven't even seen RiotRepitior in months.

bbQsauçe31 votes

[deleted]

DaSarcasticGuy24 votes

I think the damage creep was the biggest offender. The actual fights are over so much quicker that you don't have time to react to almost anything anymore.

SaltyToplaneGoat4 votes

Yeah Starcraft 2 is the prime example of development gone wrong. With WoL they had a simple game with optional complex depth, but not so deep that it was impossible to understand or deal with. Complex plays could be dealt with by simple counterreactions, altho when properly exdcuted were sitll rewarding to the more skilled player.

And then they were like "you know what's cool to watch? Pro-micro-play!". The thing is: 80% of the playerbase got neither the time nor the nerve to extensively deal with unit micro. The game before had been about macro: build orders, ressource allocation, proper scouting and army building... and then there are units that can, with enough APM, eradicate their own value multiuple times, turning the entire concept on its head. Suddenly nothing I meantioned before mattered, now it became 100% micro skills, and less strategy.

And so people stopped playeing and flocked to other games, simple as that.

bbQsauçe3 votes

[deleted]

JRobin312 votes

I think this is an important point APM is not actually that interesting. It may take more skill, but that's just it. It's like you could go into a hyberbolic time chamber and develop some cool skills based on your actions per minute but ultimately it detracts from macroplay.

It would like if the chess federation thought it would be cool if each side took two moves instead of one each turn. The game would be faster paced and players could coordinate interesting micro plays, but ultimately it wouldn't result in a more interesting and enjoyable game overall.

dominusx30 votes

surrender at 10? i call for surrender as soon as botlane dies 2v2 even if it's 6mins in. XD

SaltyToplaneGoat28 votes

That might be a bit too early, but if Riot keeps changing the game like that, we might as well flip a coin at the start of the game to see who wins lol.

dominusx10 votes

it's simple if bot dies 2v2 means summs are burned aka means jungler can run down kill emagain get fb tower dragon win game. a single mistake can make or break a game in semi high elo ( i dont think d3 is high elo )

SaltyToplaneGoat24 votes

Tbh by definition even Plat is high Elo. High Elo means "above average". Over half of the people in this game are Bronze and Silver, Gold and low plat is "above average", by the very mathematics High Plat and Diamond are high Elo already.

There is just a difference in "High Elo" and "Coordinated 5-Man Teams that play this game for a living".

GULAG 4 U3 votes

d3 is high as fuck elo lol

quoting Dong huap, if your lol skills were transfered to RL, d3 are those guys buying off the fucking elections xd

dominusx1 votes

nah it's not. you say it because you aint playing in it. the only time i've actually felt high elo in this game was preaseason in diamond 1 flex que cause it was only masters challengers.

GULAG 4 U4 votes

D3 is like the top 1-3% of the server lol

dominusx2 votes

yeh because 80% of the players are dogshit. Just because a few players arent trash doesnt mean they are also good bud. the difference is so big cause the game caters to casuals just like cod. the average kda in cod is 0.8. i have at least 1.4 on every cod aka if you take it down into stats i'm close to the top even tho i'm actually trash compared to real good players. you got my point?

GULAG 4 U4 votes

I wonder who's the low elo downvoting this lmao.

I get it. Just because 90%+ of the player base is trash, it doesn't mean the top 10% are actually good at the game.

dominusx2 votes

they downvote cause they dont know how the game works in a competitive inviroment i see people getting 20+kills in silver spectating my low elo friends and i just tell em do that do this and its like the guy with the 20kills doesnt even exist in the said game.

Spoofghoul2 votes

jk that shit is happening in gold too

id say go with the coin toss

game already feels like a coin toss anyway

grug13 votes

"league of legends is essentially 5 retards per team walking around aimlessly on the map until some retard gets caught and dies" - Dunkey explaining the essence of L0L.

HongChongDong12 votes

For the past year and a half riot has specifically stated in articles and patch notes that they're basing more and more balance decisions around "fun" and "interactive gameplay" for both parties. Though they do tend to see-saw back and forth between both sides every now and then when they reference their design policies. Point is that they're definitely trying for both regardless of whether you think so or not.

EndlessSorcerer19 votes

Sadly, one issue is that people have different interpretations of fun.

I'd prefer a strategic, objective-oriented game based around controlling vision, map rotations and decision-making.

Others may prefer playing Team Deathmatch and may consider mechanical skill as the be-all-end-all factor.

Anidan4 votes

I'd say that's the real killer. People have been saying that the strategy element of League is dying ever since you could reasonably start saying it. In strategy games, there tend to be things like counters to work around that you have to play around very carefully, assuming it doesn't invalidate you outright, which is a distinct possibility. It's only in mechanically-oriented games that counters stop being very hard and everyone has the chance of playing around anything with anyone. Part of the strategy in a strategy game comes from seeing what the enemy has planned and countering that plan as much as you can while they counter yours, which in itself requires good game sense and long-term thinking so you can enact your plan or improvise a new plan as your current one is countered.

League doesn't require as much strategic play because it focuses on mechanical play. This isn't to say that the strategy isn't there, but it's not as deep as other games' strategy elements. If I was going to be 100% honest, I'd nod my head in agreement if someone said this game didn't require a ton of strategy just as much as I'd nod if someone says it did require a lot of strategy.

GayFluffyUnicorn6 votes

"Do it or not. There is no trying."-Gandalf, Legend of Narnia.

No for real though, i just watched the first EU LCS game this year between OG and H2k. You know what happened? 20 min farm fest with a few picks here and there by using way too much resources. Apart from that noone was trying to force botlane tower to fall before 5 mins. In fact the first tower fell around 15 mins. Jungler didn't gank more often even though they tried but most of the time they looked pretty helpless with no idea on what to do now since every camp is cleared and every lane knows where the junglers are. So riot once again screwed over fun and gameplay health in soloQ for the LCS and in the end didn't even achieve their goal. Let's see how fnatic plays if the changes affect the gameplay but i doubt it.

SmileInABox2 votes

Origen sucks and H2K has some obvious communication issues. If you watch some of the Korean games youll see that the jungle timers have caused an increase in aggressive jungling with more gank heavy styles. Since powerfarming is harder, more aggressive junglers will succeed.

KVbqbFsC8e8 votes

Well, people have only been saying this for what, 4 years now? When is this "downfall" going to happen?

SaltyToplaneGoat10 votes

Not overnight, so much is certain. Such is a slow but steady process.

Every year it gets a bit worse, every year more people jump off, go play something else, etc. Even I, who has months worth of playtime in this game, simply paused for several weeks at times because I was just not enjoying the game anymore - only to get occasionally hooked back in by lore events. I can only imagine how this goes for less passionate players...

Mira Arya Enthe3 votes

Just like WoWs downfall 13 years ago. Oh wait...

Moetaro5 votes

WoW is practically dead. People thought it was immortal, that there would never be a wow killer. And there wasnt, the game killed itself, from the inside, with stupid game design decisions. Isnt it, ghostcrawler?

They thought the same way you do in your post, now, they dont know what to do with half of their servers, because they lack of players to fill them.

With lol will happen the same. If they continue ghostcrawling, they will soon have no idea about what to do with their unused hardware.

GayFluffyUnicorn7 votes

Wasn't wow basically dead from a veteran perspective before the recent expansion? Just because many people are still playing it doesn't mean it is a good game anymore. WoW lost a huge chunk of it's playerbase and fluctuated heavily up and down. Without blizzard and the big name this game would be dead since a long time imo. In my defence i'm no wow player i can just say what i read and hear from current and ex player

AMYS GRAVE4 votes

notice how last year they started having big trouble with queue times and they haven't released any playerbase numbers in several years? Why do you think that is?

Quepha2 votes

{quoted}

notice how last year they started having big trouble with queue times... Why do you think that is?

Role selector, support availability bottlenecks queue times regardless of the size of the playerbase. It's hilarious that a lot of people deny queue times were an issue last season when trying to argue that autofill should be disabled.

Spaceman5pff2 votes

The common argument is "I will wait longer for better game quality"

I agree with that, but in high elo (diamond+) Autofill may be an absolute necessity.

ChaosThief2 votes

If you need autofill to fill in games faster... just run fill instead. They accomplish the same thing, and if you don't care what role you get, it gets you in faster.

Spaceman5pff2 votes

I don't think you understand what the issue was.

Master tier + was seeing queue times of as much as 1 hour. Diamond was getting some absurd queue times as well.

Either everyone needs to be on board with using fill, or autofill needs to be enabled (in master + / maybe diamond)

Leetri9 votes

They actually did release new numbers. Last year they had over 100 million monthly players; Forbes, Fortune and several other sources reported on it. That's almost twice as many players as 2 years ago.

Greymoore7 votes

Don't forget about first blood tower thanks to lane swaps in pro games

Ultîma4 votes

I fundamentally disagree with your statement OP. A game can both be action-packed (fun to watch) and fun to play. League has also continued to grow over the years as well as the Esports scene. In spite of having an extremely saturated player market, Riot manages to capture an even greater base year-to-year. Unless you have substantiate claim that Esports is hurting League, your argument pretty much boggles down to "I'm salty because Riot isn't catering to my gaming tastes". This is very subjective, anecdotal, and not at ALL indicative of how other people feel. I wasn't an Esports fan until last year when I went to see the NA Finals in Toronto; both the atmosphere and Esports community were absolutely electric. If you don't share their taste for it, all the power to you, but don't go around saying that their passion and love for this game - and Riot's focus on it - is a bad thing.

AMYS GRAVE3 votes

League has also continued to grow over the years as well as the Esports scene.

source? They haven't released numbers in years so i'm not sure the basis for that statement.

Shynana2 votes

i forget when but they did release numbers last year, ill see if i can find the post real quick

Ultîma5 votes

Forbes literally wrote and article about it in September of last year. If you're a filthy adblock user like me, then feel free to look it up on Fortune.

Many more articles were written about this. Multiple valid sources and all.

Spaceman5pff2 votes

They released numbers on it last season lmfao

GayFluffyUnicorn6 votes

Well if riot wants to become a moba based CoD they should keep going. But in the end, when noone or hardly anyone is playing this game anymore it will die out. All we are doing is trying to get riots attention because we do NOT want this game to die. And one of the biggest aspects was that league was easy to get into unlike dota without lacking strategy and a steep learning curve. Once this game become a CoD shitfest half the playerbase will leave and all left are people jumping up and down switching from one game to another.

Golden Tager X4 votes

From a strategy game standpoint you are pretty much right, chess is fun to play, but it is boring as hell to watch.

SaltyToplaneGoat5 votes

Yeah, now imagine if someone came up with the idea of "Lol you know what? let's add dices and other random elements to the game to spice things up! Imagine the comebacks! So much fun to watch!". And maybe it would be fun to watch - but I doubt any chess-pro would accept what abonimation would have become out of his well balanced game.

TheHappyReaperz4 votes

Riot makes the games shorter, so that Esports are more enjoyable. That's why 2016's championship had a game over 70 minutes.

BALDG1VEN BOOMER2 votes

Take a look what happened to Azir, even though he was in the low 40s in terms of winrate he still got numerous of beatdown with the nerf hammer because of his dominance in pro play.

Blåbæret4 votes

{quoted}

Take a look what happened to Azir, even though he was in the low 40s in terms of winrate he still got numerous of beatdown with the nerf hammer because of his dominance in pro play.

Azir got nerfed because his mains were overperforming. Has nothing to do with pro play.

Kharn Skyshatter2 votes

You may want to recheck that fact. He was in fact (and stated by Riot I believe) due to pro play.

Droogzy2 votes

You're both essentially correct.

He became a pick and ban in pro play because he single handedly could carry games, no matter how behind his team was.

Faker once put this on full display in one of his games, I can't remember the date or team SKT was against, but with all three inhibitors down (meaning double supers), he was still capable of clearing all three lanes with Azir (And came back despite being down all game).

Those pro players subsequently started maining him (as well as a handful of others) and even though it was maybe only a couple hundred that could play Azir to his full capacity, they were outright decimating with him to a point it had to be done away by nerfing, a fully mastered Azir could pretty much never lose.

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