Why bother with feedback

Subject 5·Jun 20, 2015·40 votes·2,716 views

Riot ignores the feedback the community provides and listens to the "Tools" that Riot has to use instead of the people that actually play the game. Somehow the PBE servers are pointless and Riot seems to think that what they think is always correct until they see what they did is absolutely terrible. I remember at one point Riot blatantly said that they think a champion has a hidden OP because of basic attack range, the community doesn't know but Riot does. Contradicting statements are contradicting when they then say "Professional players abuse Overpowered factors and champions for winning games." And then they nerf Janna because of this reasoning, yet it contradicts what they have said in the past, future and present.

TL;DR - Why does Riot ignore feedback, even when they reply to the forums and questions? Why does the PBE servers even exist?

65 Comments

MarkedOfKaneJun 20, 201521 votes

I really don't understand why Riot doesn't listen to their community. Yet they talk about how much they do listen to it. It is ridiculous. All they care about is fan art, memes and reddit. Might as well delete the Boards. People don't even post in the right places and nothing gets done.

People cried and cried to leave Veigar alone because Riot was going to gut them and then riot was like "NOPE, THE CHANGE IS LOCKED". Veigar was rather underplayed too. They also do this not long after they release a really good skin for him also.

Take criticism. Seriously.

Subject 5Jun 20, 20157 votes

I've been saying this for a very long time and the board doesn't seem to notice how stupid Riot really makes the community feel. The community wanted a voice chat, Riot used there "Tools" and noticed that the "Tools" came up with the result of more toxicity, therefore we can not have voice chat in a highly team based game that relies on strategy and communication.

"Hey Tom, want to play some football?"

"Okay Dad!"

"Okay Sport, but you can't talk. And you can't call plays like you normally would in everything you have ever done in your life like sports and video games. Use these four colored pieces of paper to say you are going north, east, south and west."

". . . What?"

Synx7Jun 20, 201514 votes

{quoted}

I really don't understand why Riot doesn't listen to their community. Yet they talk about how much they do listen to it. It is ridiculous. All they care about is fan art, memes and reddit. Might as well delete the Boards. People don't even post in the right places and nothing gets done.

People cried and cried to leave Veigar alone because Riot was going to gut them and then riot was like "NOPE, THE CHANGE IS LOCKED". Veigar was rather underplayed too. They also do this not long after they release a really good skin for him also.

Take criticism. Seriously.

"community backlash" Except LeeSin . A big nerf was planned, ppl cried and got instantly removed from the PBE, and there's no source of it anymore. (wonder why). Veigar stopped #LC$ Fla$hy Pay$, thats why they gutted him. Riot doesn't give 2 shits. Get your shit together Riot

What Is SmiteJun 21, 20151 votes

Well being as how Lee Sin is not in the Meta anymore I think the Changes they had planned back then would be a wonderful new experience for everyone now that he is underplayed (as far as i can see lee being pick in ranked)

NarasimhaJun 20, 20155 votes

I really don't understand why Riot doesn't listen to their community.

Because there IS no 'community'. Just a bunch of vocal people. When something gets changed, someone will always complain. If companies actually listened to all of them, it would be one helluva shit show. For every person that wanted Veigar untouched, there was another that said "Well, his stun was kinda ridiculous...". So who should they listen to?

Subject 5Jun 20, 20156 votes

There is an entire item that makes Veigar useless and then you have a support that can stack that item to make it even more useless and then another summoner spell to make him useless. He is picked for Anti AP which is not currently in the meta as much as resourceless high mobility champions that don't really chain spells like Annie, Brand and Vel'koz. That can all be taken into considering for their decision, but Veigar, was nerfed because he was used in the LCS as a support (They didn't build any of the countering items that exist in the game, and they had the chance at taking the summoner.) He also was a niche pick too, he had no damage.

This was brought up on a post that held legitimate information like this, and the PBE got to tell that the new Viegar is just absolutely unreliable. I would have to smoke a bowl of weed, do some meth and get bombed on 180 proof Absinthe to get hit by his AOE stun now. There is a community that gives feedback like this but they don't get taken into serious consideration, they would rather focus on better things. Like Nerfing Janna and Annie's AA range. (Annie is justified)

(I forgot about the MR item item 3102 )

Nameless VoiceJun 20, 20157 votes

To me, the bigger problem isn't that they change things like Veigar, but instead that they outright refuse to change things on popular or new champions, despite glaring design flaws that have been repeatedly analysed and explained by the community.

I'm not talking about threads saying "X is OP", I'm talking about when people explain that a particular skill, kit, or mechanic is unhealthy for the game as a whole.

They changed Veigar's stun so that it had more counterplay and wasn't just based entirely on the Veigar player's skill - a good plan in terms of design even if it was poorly implemented - but other champions with similar issues are untouched. They talk about their Design Goals, yet even now new champions are being created who outright break them.

LegitBacon66Jun 21, 20151 votes

The players literally play the game more than they do.

sakudaJun 20, 201514 votes

They have to protect the shiny flash #LCSBIGPLAYS

killd0zerJun 20, 20159 votes

The "community"?

Less than 0.01% of only 1 country's playerbase?

Get over yourself

Subject 5Jun 20, 201510 votes

In what context? You just said a fact and put emphasis on a word, and then tried the best insult you could come up with.

Edit: (It's a made up fact)

killd0zerJun 20, 20153 votes

My bad, 0.1%

I apologize

Subject 5Jun 20, 20155 votes

(Still a made up fact also you don't know where I live and how many accounts I may have. The community of League of Legends is made up of the entirety of the world not just a particular server, what you are saying is just nonsense.)

killd0zerJun 20, 20154 votes

You clearly don't understand. I am not talking about you. Nothing I'm saying is about you. Nothing I posted was ever about**_ you_**. Hence:

Get over yourself

The League of Legends Gameplay and Balance forum is not "the community"

It is an extreme minority of the actual playerbase. So when you wonder why Riot doesn't just do what you want, it's because you're insignificant.

Get over yourself

Subject 5Jun 20, 20152 votes

. . . So you just explained to me that you don't know how to use the right word? Well at least I'm not making up facts and acting like a keyboard crusader.

killd0zerJun 20, 20152 votes

. . . So you just explained to me that you don't know how to use the right word?

I honestly don't understand how you got that at all from the words above you. That isn't even remotely close to what I said. I'll just assume you're shitposting.

NinjaToad99Jun 20, 20159 votes

He's saying that the amount of people on the boards (The one country thing meaning, specifically, the NA boards) are not anywhere close to the amount of people who play the game. And these boards have a lot of (VERY) vocal minorities.

So when some feedback comes from boards you can't tell if the majority agrees with the 50 "WTF RITO" threads or if they disagree. Because if you have a view of 100 people's opinions but you're dealing with 10,000 people, the 100 opinions don't hold as much weight until you see the rest of the 9,900 opinions.

Subject 5Jun 20, 20154 votes

So the PBE servers, forums and everything that the community combined altogether as feedback is not enough feedback to actually get a single reply from a red? Or to stop something like the Ryze Patcy 5.10 from coming out? I was speaking for the entire community, the community has not had much of a say in anything besides Lee. And that isn't really the community actually, it's the professional side. But making up facts isn't going to help anything, with that logic the forums for criticism is useless as is the community for actually giving back feedback on balance and criticism.

Thanks for clarifying though!

(Edit: When I mean single reply, I mean some form of input or answer. Most of the time a red just puts their own personal input, I know a few that do it daily and it's really nice but what they say just never actually gets implemented. It's a shame =/)

killd0zerJun 20, 20153 votes

So the PBE servers, forums and everything that the community combined altogether as feedback is not enough feedback to actually get a single reply from a red?

They did get a reply, and no, a few hundred complaints ain't shit on 10's of millions of players

manliestdinoJun 20, 20151 votes

{quoted}

They did get a reply, and no, a few hundred complaints ain't shit on 10's of millions of players

What is it, 70 million registered accounts and counting?

killd0zerJun 20, 20153 votes

Some absurd number.

1% of that is 700,000 people. I wouldn't be surprised if this forum sees under 2,000-3,000 unique people a day.

NinjaToad99Jun 20, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Subject 5,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wdxAbdXj,comment-id=000200000000000000010000,timestamp=2015-06-20T20:33:54.251+0000)

I was speaking for the entire community

You shouldn't try to. If there are millions of people playing LoL then you can't hope to speak for the entire player base. That makes you seem kind of egotistical, so you should probably be more careful how you word things.

Dextix LTJun 21, 20152 votes

And whose fault is that exactly? Is it ours fault that we actually care about the game and go to its forums? Or is it riots fault that they do not engage with their community in any way?

Riot has also done their share of lessesing the people in this community. THey destroyed the old forums and lost a lot of people because of that, and now they want to destroy these forums to lose even more people.

It is not ours fault that we are the local minority, since riot has done all it can to keep us that way.

Urdnot EntarJun 21, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Subject 5,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wdxAbdXj,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2015-06-20T19:52:41.006+0000)

(Still a made up fact also you don't know where I live and how many accounts I may have. The community of League of Legends is made up of the entirety of the world not just a particular server, what you are saying is just nonsense.)

I've run into this sort of thing before. Nonsense is just about all they have when it comes to defending Riot.

SukishooJun 20, 20156 votes

Why does the PBE servers even exist?

It exists for public testing, in which they do in fact take feedback on. They don't HAVE to take all of it, as they are the ones that planned these changes. It's free to play as well so it's not like they have to do what the world tells them... we didn't pay for it.

Subject 5Jun 20, 20154 votes

We didn't pay for it is the lousiest excuse for every F2P game that requires a community to be successful to not listen to the community. The community said the nerfs on mana was destroying mages, Riot refused to do anything about it besides chopping the mages knees off even more with nerfs. Riot nerfed one champion because of one person, one person that played the champion in the LCS.

Just because something is free doesn't mean that you have absolutely no voice at all. There is no point in the PBE servers if Riot is refusing to take feedback. Last patch when Ryze was released, the PBE got to test him and got feedback. He was still released like he was and clearly he was absolutely broken as he had a snare every (Every 0.8 seconds? Seriously how? Who is paying these people to allow this? Why?)

XonraJun 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

It exists for public testing, in which they do in fact take feedback on. They don't HAVE to take all of it, as they are the ones that planned these changes. It's free to play as well so it's not like they have to do what the world tells them... we didn't pay for it.

No they don't.

Broken ass cinderhulk - Ignores the tons of feedback saying it was too strong - They have since nerfed it
How about that jungle item that has since been completely removed from the game that we shall not speak the name of, that infinitely stacked with monster kills? Or the new jungle version that got WW nerfed into the ground? - Feedback ignored - Since nerfed to hell
So many champion examples that were ignored - Zyra for instance - where we told Riot "holy shit this is broken strong" - Ignored - Since nerfed to hell.

They don't listen to shit people say on the PBE lol They only look at their "numbers" and "data" that we take their word for they even have, and don't listen to any feedback unless it coincides with something they already thought.

Also, we DO pay for this game. You are either willfully oblivious, or just dumb (yes dumb) if you think free means they get no money. They are the most popular and one of the most successful games (not just online) in the world., with a fanbase that lines their pockets with money. That they also continue to ignore despite that fact.

SukishooJun 21, 20156 votes

LOL. I'm on the PBE and I've seen many things that they listen to and change. Just because they don't change things YOU think need it, doesn't mean they don't like.

Cinderhulk was a great item. Juggernaut had no power for the jungle, then they made something new from it. It's also been nerfed and is nowhere near what it was when it first came out.

Devourer AND WW were nerfed for the fact they were overpowered and they listened to the community, that's WHY they were nerfed.

We don't pay for the game, we pay for Cosmetics In-game that just add different voices, vfxs, ect to champions. We're not paying for the game directly as you can download and play it for free and not pay a cent after that if you choose. There are many people who have never spent a dime on league, so you cannot say we pay for it when that is in fact wrong.

XonraJun 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

LOL. I'm on the PBE and I've seen many things that they listen to and change. Just because they don't change things YOU think need it, doesn't mean they don't like.

Cinderhulk was a great item. Juggernaut had no power for the jungle, then they made something new from it. It's also been nerfed and is nowhere near what it was when it first came out.

Devourer AND WW were nerfed for the fact they were overpowered and they listened to the community, that's WHY they were nerfed.

We don't pay for the game, we pay for Cosmetics In-game that just add different voices, vfxs, ect to champions. We're not paying for the game directly as you can download and play it for free and not pay a cent after that if you choose. There are many people who have never spent a dime on league, so you cannot say we pay for it when that is in fact wrong.

I've been on the PBE for years, and the number of things I've seen them ignore until it goes to live is embarrassing. I actually test and give feedback, as to others, and there are even multiple posts over the years on the PBE feedback area that say "why was X ignored" and on the same page is a multiple page thread talking about that same thing being too strong for live that was ignored.

Cinderhulk was a great idea and building block, but the item itself broke the entire damn meta, and Riot themselves agreed with that. That isn't a great item if it breaks the game.

They didn't nerf devourer until AFTER the pbe, when it full on went live, then had to nerf a champion on top of it...which hey guess what, we told them on the PBE board WW would become a problem if the item wasn't tuned down.

You are talking out of your ass lol

Edit: Also just wanted to say grats on upvoting your own post and downvoting mine with alt accounts :P Most of the posts with 1 or negative one and suddenly yours has exactly 5 and the one you respond to of mine has negative 5.

lol that's sad someone has such a small ego to need to upvote and downvote with alts to look like people agree with them

SukishooJun 21, 20153 votes

QQ harder kid. You're just wrong in so many ways. Bye.

XonraJun 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

QQ harder kid. You're just wrong in so many ways. Bye.

Be sad and pathetic more having to use alt accounts to up and downvote when you lose an argument lol

Look at all my responses, then look at the one you responded to suddenly getting -5, then look at the other responses, then look at yours with the sudden +5 in under a minute.

You are sad, kid. Get off here if you can't take people disagreeing with you to the point you have to log in alts to upvote your own posts lmao

SukishooJun 21, 20153 votes

yawn You're sad cause others agree and have to come up with an excuss saying they aren't real people.

XonraJun 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

yawn You're sad cause others agree and have to come up with an excuss saying they aren't real people.

Naw, I just know it when I see it. No one has gotten 5 upvotes in this entire thread that fast except your one post (took about 40 seconds from the time you posted, and none before or after got that many) and no one has downvoted me but you lol

You are sad. But whatever makes you feel better. Just calling out some kid that can't stand being wrong so he has to basically bot his upvotes like they are important. Now you are butthurt I called you out so you gotta pretend to be cool saying "kid" and all that lol you are really sad.

SukishooJun 21, 20152 votes

Whatever you say kid. Keep being delusional.

XonraJun 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Whatever you say kid. Keep being delusional.

Keep being sad and upvoting your own posts like you continue to do lol. You aren't even hiding the fact now. None of your stuff was being upvoted before, now you are getting upvotes on your shit talking posts lol You are pathetic, just saying. Done arguing with a 12 year old on his parents computer.

The LexerJun 21, 20151 votes

What do you plan on accomplishing by ranting for ever and ever?

Slamurai JackJun 21, 20151 votes

You are under the impression that Riot intends to release everything as balanced as possible. This is clearly not true; they consistently release new items overtuned to get people to buy into them and then nerf them later. Would cinderhulk have been a big deal if it were released in its current state? Probably not, we'd still all be whining about how tank junglers are trash and the only viable junglers are the fearsome four. JarvanIV LeeSin RekSai

XonraJun 21, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wdxAbdXj,comment-id=00040001000000000001,timestamp=2015-06-21T01:35:40.618+0000)

You are under the impression that Riot intends to release everything as balanced as possible. This is clearly not true; they consistently release new items overtuned to get people to buy into them and then nerf them later. Would cinderhulk have been a big deal if it were released in its current state? Probably not, we'd still all be whining about how tank junglers are trash and the only viable junglers are the fearsome four.

the fact is, they do in a lot of cases. Zyra was released in a ridiculous state, and it took about 2 days for her to be nerfed. I'd say that is a pretty decent response time, as it wasn't a "next patch", it was a hotfix.

What reason would they have to send out items in broken states unlike champions? They aren't making money on items, they aren't selling item skins, so it is simply not listening to feedback and nothing else.

Slamurai JackJun 21, 20151 votes

Because you have to get people to actually build the item, and people are very stubborn in sticking to their builds. If they don't make the item overpowered on release, people simply don't buy it. It happened with righteous glory when it came out, it's still happening with ZZ'rot portal and Ohmwrecker, Ardent Censer is just starting to be bought, etc. Would Feral Flare have ever taken off if they had launched it in it's final state? No, it wouldn't; it would have been just another option that everyone ignored like wriggles was before Flare was implemented.

Captain AishiJun 20, 20156 votes

feedback is important so they can do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhCMr-9MNIA

manliestdinoJun 20, 20154 votes

Reddit gets more active viewers/posters, so it makes sense that Riot would listen to them more.

KeevalroyJun 21, 20156 votes

{quoted}

Reddit gets more active viewers/posters, so it makes sense that Riot would listen to them more.

Reddit is filled with Nazi white knight moderators and bootlicking esports fanatics that can't prove they've played a single game of League in their lives...

That's their market. Non-player spectators. It makes sense why they choose them over actual players who can prove they play. Their contradicting, hypocritical way of running the program can be pointed out by people who have experience dealing with it. For Redditors, they could be lined up outside of Riot's building waiting for them to piss in their mouths and they'd be happy with it. They like Reddit for the mindless upvote-botting zombies that make up that community.

Players are above that, we can see between the lines and can call them out on where they're being dishonest or wrong about changes, and that's why they don't come to the forums. They don't want to be told they're wrong. Why else do you explain the complete joke of a Q&A the balance team had a while ago where THREE QUESTIONS where answered...and it told us nothing.

I take it back. It showed us how fragile their egos are by watching them cherry pick questions out of a third party program which we can't see the submissions of because we can't point out controversial or pressing concerns of ours that way. They can't call that communication. There was no communicating to be had - just lies and dismissive ignorance.

"But what about comments and rants like yours? Don't you think that's why they don't come here anymore"

Oh I have no doubt that has something to do with it, but consider this: Boards probably wouldn't be such a hostile place if we had some communication and some honesty from the departments we question the motives of. If we were forced to use these Boards instead of the old forums because it would make communication easier, why don't we see more of it?

Maybe it's exactly what I'm guessing the more I notice the constant wall of silence when the community is angry. They don't want to be told that what they believe is wrong. So a player-focused company forcing a forum switch for easier communication (being ignored,) communication instead staying on third-party sites where you can't prove you play...where do we need help fitting the pieces together?

XonraJun 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Reddit is filled with Nazi white knight moderators and bootlicking esports fanatics that can't prove they've played a single game of League in their lives...

That's their market. Non-player spectators. It makes sense why they choose them over actual players who can prove they play. Their contradicting, hypocritical way of running the program can be pointed out by people who have experience dealing with it. For Redditors, they could be lined up outside of Riot's building waiting for them to piss in their mouths and they'd be happy with it. They like Reddit for the mindless upvote-botting zombies that make up that community.

Players are above that, we can see between the lines and can call them out on where they're being dishonest or wrong about changes, and that's why they don't come to the forums. They don't want to be told they're wrong. Why else do you explain the complete joke of a Q&A the balance team had a while ago where THREE QUESTIONS where answered...and it told us nothing.

I take it back. It showed us how fragile their egos are by watching them cherry pick questions out of a third party program which we can't see the submissions of because we can't point out controversial or pressing concerns of ours that way. They can't call that communication. There was no communicating to be had - just lies and dismissive ignorance.

"But what about comments and rants like yours? Don't you think that's why they don't come here anymore"

Oh I have no doubt that has something to do with it, but consider this: Boards probably wouldn't be such a hostile place if we had some communication and some honesty from the departments we question the motives of. If we were forced to use these Boards instead of the old forums because it would make communication easier, why don't we see more of it?

Maybe it's exactly what I'm guessing the more I notice the constant wall of silence when the community is angry. They don't want to be told that what they believe is wrong. So a player-focused company forcing a forum switch for easier communication (being ignored,) communication instead staying on third-party sites where you can't prove you play...where do we need help fitting the pieces together?

This post made me laugh so hard, and I mean that in the good way. Thank you lol!

Knight SoIaire Jun 20, 20153 votes

meanwhile rioter posted a patch forecast/said that its not his job to answer in this thread/said to fk you all in the anus becuase he likes so

everyone upvotes to make them thiink that we are happy ... and then they will continue to showell literal crap out here becuase riot indeed ditches us up jst caring about rp

ofc ensure them that we want it ... why would we want to improve the game

LegacyDAPJun 20, 20153 votes

I've created a similar post to this, but it's more to the cause of Riot not responding in general to the community.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/VFKbBAET-regarding-the-red-response-issues

See for yourself.

XonraJun 20, 20151 votes

I'm trying to remember who it was the other day (a Red post) that said, and I can't remember the exact quote, but basically:

"We do listen to feedback, but we tend to take our direction from internal factors heavily, over community feedback. That isn't to say we don't listen to the community at all, however."

That isn't the exact quote, but very close to it. This was not even a week ago I read that, and I remember just going O_O what?!

KeevalroyJun 21, 20152 votes

"We do listen to feedback, but we tend to take our direction from internal factors heavily, over community feedback. That isn't to say we don't listen to the community at all, however."

Translation: We know what's best for League, and will mostly only agree with the playerbase if it means their ideas are the same as ours.

PartholonianJun 21, 20151 votes

Well, to be fair, the community is full of shit about half the time. Or more accurately, most of the time the community is divided, so half of it is full of shit.

You can't listen to everyone when they're saying directly opposite things. Well, you can listen to them, but you can't obey them, which is what people are really complaining about when they say Riot "doesn't listen".

If Riot spent a lot more time saying "We've seen this idea and here's why it sucks", not only would they have less time to actually work on the game, but it would piss people off even more, even though it was proof they were listening.

People who start threads like this one don't just want Riot to listen to them. They want Riot to do whatever they say. And different people are saying to do different things.

EvilRabbittJun 21, 20151 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_OUjPlGgek

I feel this is relevant. Not in the Rapunzel leaving, but that Riot can balance without community feedback. Just...reapply lol.

Arch Mage MagnusJun 21, 20151 votes

Honestly, Tryndamere, Lyte, Ghost Crawler and the like hit the lottery when League became big. It's like the same chances of Harry Potter or Twilight being such a success. They have no clue wtf they are doing with a company and player base of this size. Also they are too egotistical to admit wrong doing; is they fuck something up or have huge balance issues it's simply seen as "testing purposes".