Riot, you are mistaking complexity for depth. This is completely backwards. You are moving towards a flawed goal. You are making complex solutions to simple problems, and as everyone knows the more complex a system, the more fragile, the more prone to failure, and the more simple problems that pop up. Stop this before it gets too late.
TehNACHO7 votesPlease name specifics before you start a witch hunt for bad game design.
The5lacker4 votesHave you been paying attention the last year or so? It's called a trend. Not a specific instance. A trend of favoring more and more complex solutions to problems that either don't need them or don't really exist. More senselessly complex champion design, like Kalista's bond mechanics and hops, or Yasuo's unlimited in all but a very specific way dash. More needlessly complex item design, like their plan on adding an advanced component to Essence Reaver instead of just using their current mana sustain/CDR options. They're making Champions scale slightly exponentially for no discernible reason. They're adding piles upon piles or random highly situational buffs and items all over the map. I mean, have you looked at the PBE lately? Their plans? It's nonsense.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/VPBE
This isn't a witch hunt, it's an intervention.
Anonagon1 votesHave you been paying attention the last year or so? It's called a trend. Not a specific instance. A trend of favoring more and more complex solutions to problems that either don't need them or don't really exist. More senselessly complex champion design, like Kalista's bond mechanics and hops, or Yasuo's unlimited in all but a very specific way dash. More needlessly complex item design, like their plan on adding an advanced component to Essence Reaver instead of just using their current mana sustain/CDR options. They're making Champions scale slightly exponentially for no discernible reason. They're adding piles upon piles or random highly situational buffs and items all over the map. I mean, have you looked at the PBE lately? Their plans? It's nonsense.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/VPBE
This isn't a witch hunt, it's an intervention.
I wouldn't call out any of the recent champion design except Yasuo. All the new champions recently have been hella cool and unique, and most are pretty simple on the surface; look at Braum and Vel'koz - simple abilities with a lot of potential for mastery, and Gnar is quite simple despite his walls of text in his abilities. Azir may be complex, but he is easily the most rewarding champion in the game to play correctly.
I agree that some of the new preseason changes, specifically the tower changes, seem like a bit much, BUT, they aren't that much harder for new players to learn. To them a tower will be a tower, and the specifics of the inner and inhibitor towers won't matter to them until later levels)
The5lacker2 votesVel'Koz and Braum are both pretty solidly designed champions with impressive depth, to be sure, but Gnar? Azir? Hell, even Aatrox? Are those champions particularly elegant, as the video put it? Not terribly.
And again, the bigger problems aren't the champions, but the items and map that every player interacts with constantly. They're adding piles upon piles of situational buffs and minor objectives and timings and completely nonsensical components. I mean, hell, I initially supported the support item rework, but I'm looking back on it and it's a change that brought massive complexity but offered almost no choice or depth. That's...not great. Not great at all.
Anonagon1 votesVel'Koz and Braum are both pretty solidly designed champions with impressive depth, to be sure, but Gnar? Azir? Hell, even Aatrox? Are those champions particularly elegant, as the video put it? Not terribly.
And again, the bigger problems aren't the champions, but the items and map that every player interacts with constantly. They're adding piles upon piles of situational buffs and minor objectives and timings and completely nonsensical components. I mean, hell, I initially supported the support item rework, but I'm looking back on it and it's a change that brought massive complexity but offered almost no choice or depth. That's...not great. Not great at all.
Gnar is annoying and brokenly overpowered, but he is one great design. Fun to play as and against, clear strengths and weaknesses, and a kit that is fairly basic and self explanatory before you get into the nitty gritty stuff. Azir is still somewhat clunky (its obvious that they kinda had to rush him for the Shurima event) but he is insanely fun to play as, and he has one of the most unique and rewarding kits in the game. I get that not every champion has to be like these two, and I think they are pushing it with three hard-to-master champion releases in a row with Kalista, but these complex designs are fun every once in a while.
I will admit Aatrox is cancer. Easily one of Riot's worst designs, both as a standalone kit and a kit for that specific character.
Now, you are exaggerating the significance and difficulty of the preseason objective changes. The only major changes are A) theres a new vision mob in the river, B) some towers have bonus effects, and C) dragon gives different stuff. All of these things aren't huge essential changes to the game, and they don't make the learning curve any harder. Like in the video, this is not stuff that a player needs to know the first time they play, or even in the first 20 times they play. The idea of towers and dragon and baron are all the same, they just have minor tweaks.
Lord Dusteon1 votesNow, you are exaggerating the significance and difficulty of the preseason objective changes. The only major changes are A) theres a new vision mob in the river, B) some towers have bonus effects, and C) dragon gives different stuff. All of these things aren't huge essential changes to the game, and they don't make the learning curve any harder. Like in the video, this is not stuff that a player needs to know the first time they play, or even in the first 20 times they play. The idea of towers and dragon and baron are all the same, they just have minor tweaks.
There's the entire jungle overhaul; the various smite changes that will require knowing what each one does (oh look, jungler is coming. Does he have the slowing me smite or the AoE minion smite?), the smite rewards for large monsters (meaning even more checking for what each does, and then finding out what one the enemy jungler has), the baron + dragon changes, and then the new items they've made.
DaSneakyGit1 votesNow, you are exaggerating the significance and difficulty of the preseason objective changes. The only major changes are A) theres a new vision mob in the river, B) some towers have bonus effects, and C) dragon gives different stuff. All of these things aren't huge essential changes to the game, and they don't make the learning curve any harder. Like in the video, this is not stuff that a player needs to know the first time they play, or even in the first 20 times they play. The idea of towers and dragon and baron are all the same, they just have minor tweaks.
There's the entire jungle overhaul; the various smite changes that will require knowing what each one does (oh look, jungler is coming. Does he have the slowing me smite or the AoE minion smite?), the smite rewards for large monsters (meaning even more checking for what each does, and then finding out what one the enemy jungler has), the baron + dragon changes, and then the new items they've made.
I imagine the smite icon will change depending on which one they have or something. Either way worrying about a smite probably isn't the biggest thing on your mind when the jungler shows up in your lane.
Fury and Emperor2 votesGnar is annoying and brokenly overpowered, but he is one great design. Fun to play as and against, clear strengths and weaknesses, and a kit that is fairly basic and self explanatory before you get into the nitty gritty stuff.
I disagree though. Gnar has a simple kit that should have been straightforward but is unnecessarily complicated due to a billion effects tacked onto everything and then shaken vigorously until his R is a passive that buffs one ability and his W gives a speed boost when his ult ends.
This is the amount of text you have to read before you understand Gnar:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GTJQAlVvBmg/U-TtTylaTaI/AAAAAAAAVUw/fwTgSZFqpSk/s1600/aaass.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2sUEDwipwZE/U-rv5GKG5QI/AAAAAAAAVjU/3QrlXUQax-o/s1600/2ww.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4VnsmmnSjU/U-ppnMnFONI/AAAAAAAAVac/NGD0j7XFEVs/s1600/eeeee.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MrES_wGL-bg/U-rwBA_IKtI/AAAAAAAAVjk/_SAXvg3YuoE/s1600/1e.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwg57g1XMoE/U-psKwKtH8I/AAAAAAAAVbM/x922msYQH8s/s1600/rrrr.jpg
That's not a clean design. It may achieve depth but it does so by throwing a million things at the wall and hoping that some of them will create depth.
DaSneakyGit1 votesGnar is annoying and brokenly overpowered, but he is one great design. Fun to play as and against, clear strengths and weaknesses, and a kit that is fairly basic and self explanatory before you get into the nitty gritty stuff.
I disagree though. Gnar has a simple kit that should have been straightforward but is unnecessarily complicated due to a billion effects tacked onto everything and then shaken vigorously until his R is a passive that buffs one ability and his W gives a speed boost when his ult ends.
This is the amount of text you have to read before you understand Gnar:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GTJQAlVvBmg/U-TtTylaTaI/AAAAAAAAVUw/fwTgSZFqpSk/s1600/aaass.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2sUEDwipwZE/U-rv5GKG5QI/AAAAAAAAVjU/3QrlXUQax-o/s1600/2ww.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4VnsmmnSjU/U-ppnMnFONI/AAAAAAAAVac/NGD0j7XFEVs/s1600/eeeee.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MrES_wGL-bg/U-rwBA_IKtI/AAAAAAAAVjk/_SAXvg3YuoE/s1600/1e.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwg57g1XMoE/U-psKwKtH8I/AAAAAAAAVbM/x922msYQH8s/s1600/rrrr.jpg
That's not a clean design. It may achieve depth but it does so by throwing a million things at the wall and hoping that some of them will create depth.
Pffft...please people can understand that. Heaven forbid you read the champ before the game and not during the game.
Try playing Invoker in Dota(who is actually very popular and very strong with a high skill cap) if you want to see "complicated".
If someone can't grasp simple sentences they probably aren't the targeted audience for this champ/high level of play with said champ. There's nothing wrong with that.
Fury and Emperor2 votesPffft...please people can understand that. Heaven forbid you read the champ before the game and not during the game.
Reading stuff is fine, but this champion is complicated for its own sake and very little of it actually adds value. Half of that kit should have been left on the cutting room floor for violating the tenet of simplicity.
Try playing Invoker in Dota(who is actually very popular and very strong with a high skill cap) if you want to see "complicated".
Invoker is based around a complex (not complicated) mechanic that creates a ton of depth. It isn't possible to simplify Invoker without sacrificing depth.
Gnar on the other hand just has tons of weak random bloat added to an inherently straightforward kit for no reason. If you kept the basic functionality of his kit and removed everything else like % damage, a slow, attack speed bonus, the R bonus to W etc etc etc, then buffed said basic functionality to compensate, he would play almost exactly the same.
Sailor Mint1 votesMaybe maining a druid has completely desensitized me when it comes to tooltip size, but it's really not that bad.
You can either read it, watch the spotlight or just mash buttons and fail under you figure it out. It's pretty clear what he does when you're playing against him. Unless it's a brand new champion, you should at least have a base of knowing what the champion can do.
You can sum up Gnar as: Auto-attack people when small, smash all the buttons for CC as Mega Gnar.
TehNACHO1 votesThis isn't a witch hunt, it's an intervention.
Well that's one way to sound like the people who were in actual witch hunts.
Fury and Emperor5 votesI like that Riot is adding more depth to League, but they seem to be adding very complex depth, instead of clean and simple depth.
Nami has a very basic kit at first sight, but there's lots of depth and personality hidden underneath the surface. For instance, she has 3 CCs but none of them can be used as a hard engage against an enemy team that's paying attention, positioning her as a peeler and defensive support in a way that isn't obvious at first sight. A third layer of depth is that you can initiate if you're on the same page as the adc and set up a slow-bubble combo. Then there are the multiple ways to poke with her and the advantages and drawbacks of each, and so on.
Thresh has an equal level of depth, but that's not a surprise because he has the equivalent of 8 abilities instead of 5. Throwing in tons of stuff is easy, creating depth out of something simple is much more challenging and much more desirable.
Unfortunately this ethic is not exactly prevalent in the MOBA scene due to Dota 2 promoting the idea that knowledge is supposed to be a skill...
The5lacker2 votesI've been trying to convince a friend for months that League's been taking all of the terrible ideas from Dota without learning how it made them work, but he's kind of an obsessive Dota fanboy. Honestly can't figure out how anyone stands that game.
Meep Man1 votesWhat do you mean terrible ideas from Dota? I have played the game and there are no terrible ideas. Each character is unique in it's own way and have their own strategies to make a super strategic game. I think Riot should learn to takes risks in champion design like Dota and see how players can actually deal with things. For example, a champion that outranges a tower would be a very risky move, but with the right and interesting kit, make for a fun Siege champion that makes for intense objective play and makes a goal for the enemy team to Take Out a Siege Engine so to speak. Dota is fun, it's just some people can't handle how unforgiving, complex, and clutch it is. There I said it, Dota is more complex and clutch than League, do what you want with me.
DaSneakyGit3 votesAdding "complicated" effects on skills is inevitable in a game that lasts as long as this and needs new champs. You can only have so many skills cost X deal X damage before every champ is a clone of another.
There's only so many original "simple" mechanics you can use.
The5lacker4 votesOne, "it's already been done" is no excuse to throw random crap together and see if it works. I can think of a dozen ways to make Kalista less complex while maintaining her identity.
Two, there's more to this game than just champions. In fact, it's the items and map buffs that are the bigger problem right now, as almost every idea they've had for them in the last year or so has been mind-bogglingly insane.
DaSneakyGit3 votesI dunno..think you're just making a mountain out of a mole hill here. Don't give me that "burden of knowledge" crap....some people actually like to learn all the nooks and crannies a game has to offer instead of being spoonfed a simple champ/map over and over again.
I hope you never play Dota..you'd be really upset then.
4nth0l0gy2 votesI don't blame Riot for irreducible complexity in their game. When they publish a champion, they give clear outlines of what the abilities are supposed to do, without focusing on numbers. Same with new items. They give a dumbed-down version before they release the nitty-gritty stuff. They really do make champions easy enough to understand from a novice standpoint. "Oh, gnar can jump with his E." "Oh, Gnar transforms into a big brute thing, and his abilities become more brutish." That makes sense at a basic level, even if it will take time to master the champion and fully understand how he works.
I think if anything, it's the community that has forced players to become masters of the game's complexities. Because of the meta, because of the competitive nature of League, we have to know exactly how strong an ability is when stacked against other abilities of a similar nature. We have to know which animations can be cancelled. We have to know what items are gold-efficient. Newer players don't really care about that, they just trust that Riot did their job and made the item work the way it seems like it should (which, in recent history, has been the case almost always).
I think League actually does a really solid job of giving depth in its character selection, its item choices, and their combinations thereof. It also allows for a player to develop the level of complexity by which they take the game; there's a good ceiling, but the floor is also just about ground-level.
It's okay to criticize game design OP, but it's important to highlight outstanding issues if you're going to do so.
Onegarion1 votesPersonally I'm a little shaky about the new jungle changes. I'm already not a great jungler, but with more options it doesn't always mean that its going to be better. There is a difference when you talk champions as opposed to items. There is a reason I never got into DOTA2 and thats because the build paths were rather confusing especially compared to league. I never felt like I new what I was really building even with the in game guides. I see this as a small step towards that imo. Its not fire and brimstone or defcon 1 kind of level, but its kind of discerning. I'd actually like to see them take jungle items out of the game and see how things go. Just for an experiment
WooBeeWoo2 votesI totally agree. The changes to the game is season 5 are ridiculous and honestly Riots big goal of having a more balanced game this way is a joke. They are making is more complex and then saying they can balance it.... yeah right
Meep Man1 votesYou are making complex solutions to simple problems, and as everyone knows the more complex a system, the more fragile, the more prone to failure, and the more simple problems that pop up. Stop this before it gets too late.
But what if you are able to dodge all the problems and make those buffs work? You make an extremely fun and strategic experience. And Riot can do that with this game since they can update the game. Stop complaining about change and adapt. 
SoapyTrout1 votesI have always been interested in what League will turn into. Sure, Dota has a bunch of heroes but the flavor of the month phenomena is strictly LoL. The new champs have insanely more complex and powerful kits than old ones (compare thresh to taric) and it looks like design is mostly focuses on champion creation. The balance team only nerfs the top OP champs instead of buffing old ones. It seems like a recipe for disaster but people are still not complaining and they've been doing this gradually since S2.
ItsStout1 votesI agree for the most part. While I really like Riots goals, oftentime they make things needlessly complex. They really need to streamline some things, especially champions like Aatrox and Gnar.
However, I personally think the new s5 jungle system solves a LOT of its issues. Could be more elegant, but the concept is fresh and works nicely.
ItsStout1 votesAlso, 5lacker man...
Do you have a Skype? There's alot of things me and Bass talk about, and I think some things are ones you would definitely like to be a part of. It would be nice to talk to you and stuff as well.
