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A Critical Look at Current League of Legends

Squid Lips·9/24/2015, 6:16:40 AM·2 votes·811 views

Warning This post contains a wall of text. If you don't like walls of text I suggest skipping this post. TL:DR League balance is getting worse and the champion count is reaching critical mass.

First and foremost, this article will compare league to DOTA 2 a lot due to being comparable as well as the origin. I will also be comparing it to SMITE, which had very similar balance and has come to have much better balance. Topics will be:

  1. Runes, Masteries, and Summoner spells
  2. Champion balance
  3. Game balance and paradigms
  4. Future content
  5. Closing notes

Runes, Masteries and Summoner Spells

 In short, the gotta go. Masteries are easy enough since they are completely free*(as you level up your account strangely enough). They gimp new players in an odd way. It would make sense if they were specialized like +damage -attack speed, which you would need to know specifically when more damage and less attack speed would be helpful. As it stands, anyone could spend all points and be well ahead of any new player. Even if the points are spent in the worst way possible, it is still some sort of bonus compared to no bonus at all. 

 Runes are the same way except hugely more problematic. Firstly, they have a similar level restriction as masteries. Secondly, you also have to spend the in-game earned currency to unlock them. It takes A LOT of IP to unlock a full page of runes, let alone multiple pages... extra pages themselves... multiple pages per role... It limits choice greatly because not only are players restricted to one role, they are also restricted to few champions due to needing the runes to do well. Players have to choose between having a decent roster of champions that are all weak and unoptimized or they can have only a couple champions to play at all. Runes also pose the question of what to do to get rid of them. A mass IP refund would make sense, but it might hurt Riot financially due to champions being available for RP and IP. Should be fine though, spending RP on champions is a waste anyway.

 Though I must say, runes and masteries are balanced... on the razor's edge between being stupidly OP and entirely worthless. Impressive that what should be a large gray area manages to be a razor's edge in this case. On the one hand, none of the bonuses seem worthwhile. One attack damage here, one damage blocked specifically from minions and not heros or jungle creeps there... At the same time a perfectly optimized build will give you a late game item. That's right, a LATE GAME item right from the start made even worse by the fact that it is invisible, doesn't take up an item slot, and is extremely difficult to discern. Bonuses like attack damage aren't too difficult to tell apart, but some of the more obscure bonuses and even stats that just aren't displayed for some reason are pretty much impossible to track. In games like DOTA 2 or SMITE, I can tell right away how powerful any given character is and possibly even what playstyle they are going for. In League, surprise! That Tristana with a Doran's blade actually has AP runes and masteries, causing her abilities to do way more damage than you could have expected. Surprise! I hope you like doing negligible damage because you just accidently picked AP runes and masteries on Caitlyn and now that is how much you will do and how much your traps are increased by. Again, razor's edge. Why are runes and masteries such a big deal that Riot tries to balance them and yet not enough of a big deal to be changeable in-game. **Even if you could only change them before leaving the fountain for the first time, it would be a major improvement.**

 Finally, Summoner Spells also need to be removed, or at least changed. Right now Flash is far to obnoxious. I've made whole posts about how terrible Flash is for the game, so I'll try to make it shorter here. If flash is required by the community for every champion/build/player/everything then why even bother having it as a select-able? Flash might as well have its own designated button at this point to free up a slot for something more diverse if nothing else. League would go on without it, it would just mix up the meta a little. It could even be great for the in-between season time  when Riot makes major changes anyway. CoD is getting rid of the "noob tube" in BO3. People probably would have rallied behind it too saying that it is too core of an element to remove. Oddly enough, I hardly noticed it was gone and the game was much better for it. Flash isn't a vital organ, it is a tumor. Quick example, "Annie needs flash to initiate." False, Annie is held back by flash because she has to be balance around its existence. If it didn't exist, she would be free to be a close range power house with players tasked with creatively solving the mobility problem. I ALREADY play Annie without flash against people who do use flash. It works out fine.. ish since enemy flashes become the issue instead of Annies innate lack of movment. The argument with flash is the same as nuclear arms, you need it because everyone else has it and everyone else needs it because you have it.

 It is difficult to tell how problematic the other spells are. I generally find them to be positive, but still believe that they should be made into items instead. The reason Blink Dagger works so well in DOTA 2 is because it has a significant cost and takes up an item slot with now stat bonuses at all. If everyone could start with a cheap blink dagger, of course they would. The ability to blink can make ANY character stronger, the key is to make it an investment, to make it so only characters who really value it will get it. It also of course limits those characters in other ways. Since they  invested in the ability to blink, they now have one less item slot and lack any benefits an alternative item would give.

TL:DR Runes, Masteries, and Summoner Spells should be removed from the game for various reasons.

Champion Balance

 Right now champions are weakly balanced. That is to say that they are generally weak, auto attacks and spells do relatively little. If DOTA 2 is like fight club, League is like day care. In my most recent game I had a good laugh about this. I was Nami vs. Leona in the early game since both ADC's were forced back to base. I had a good 30 second wet noodle fight with her for the fun of it... since at that point there is pretty much no kill potential for either of us. Compare this to DOTA 2. I played Crystal Maiden(support) and was able to kill a Lycan(bruiser/carry) in the late game. This is because pretty much every hero is relevant at every stage of the game. Spells usually don't scale, which means the base damage and additional effects are both typically high. In league, there are plenty of times where you might as well just dance, it's about as effective at killing your opponent as your spell and auto attacks are anyway.

 On the oddly razor sharp flip side, I will frequently be stunned for much longer, and killed much quicker than I ever thought possible. It makes a weird and sometimes even observable paradox where playing with or as a champion makes them weaker than playing against them. I'm sure plenty of people call this "being bad." I chalk it up to Runes and Masteries. Where else did the enemy Graves manage to get 90 attack damage at zero minutes? A Doran's blade only gets you so far... I fail to see how I as Leona can die so quickly while laning while enemy Leonas are all but immortal...

TL:DR Champions are wildly inconsistent.

Game Balance and Paradigms

 League of Legends has one unique aspect and that is scaling. Everything in the game scales and stats can be focused on. There is enough item diversity in the game to scale all the stats as much as you want while wasting as little gold on the stats you don't need. The problem is that League is also weakly balanced, the scaling is just so ineffective in most situations. It is as if balance is stuck in between two paradigms, two ways of thinking. One idea would be to go the DotA route and make base stats high and scaling all but non existent. The other option is to make the scaling fantastic, but the base stats all but non existent. In League the base stats are mediocre at best and the scaling is... also mediocre at best. A stronger design would be to follow either path, which could be on a champion by champion basis. Supports would have unusually high base stats for their spells, but terrible scaling. Carries would have terrible base stats, but unusually high scaling. The idea here is that if you want something, you have to build it. If you want damage, you have to build it. No more full tank Darius blowing you up. If you want survivability, you will also have to build for it. No more full damage Darius tanking entire teams. Most champions will have to find a happy middle ground to fit the situation. Continuing the Darius example, I find very little difference between full tank and full damage. The "pro" strategy is to go full tank since you already deal way too much damage. This is made even worse by his recent acquisition of 200 bonus AD at full passive stacks. How can you possibly try to build damage on Darius when he is already designed to have 200 bonus? Lets see... Sword of the Occult and any B.F. upgrade would take two item slots, lots of gold, a huge risk of losing stacks, and still be 10 AD short. It is oversights like this that are making League a weakly balanced game, champions have such high base scaling it takes multiple items to make the slightest difference. Compare this with both DOTA 2 and SMITE. In both other games, every major item pickup is and feels significant. It is only when you build poorly that any item doesn't feel like a valuable addition to your arsenal and sometimes even your entire team.

TL:DR Champions should have much lower base scaling and much higher item scaling to make itemization more valuable and viable.

Future Content

 Not so much a section as it is an omen. Even with the slowed champion release schedule, there are way too many champions. For every Kindred or Jinx, there is a Tahm Kench or Bard. Not saying the latter two are terrible, I'm just saying I haven't seen them... pretty much ever. I've only played in a game with two random Bards (my friend actually played him a bit which I'm not counting) and never seen Tahm outside of bots. My suggestion, follow DOTA. Champion reworks are common enough to say good job. Rather than turning out new champions, it is much smarter to recycle the old ones. Take a look at DOTA2's Bloodseeker sometime. He has gone through at least three complete overhauls and stays a fresh hero because of it. If each version was its own hero it would cause a burden of knowledge disaster. It makes me wonder about the possibility of retiring a champion completely. Looking at Kindred, I like the idea of new champs. Even if her kit is relatively bland, her character and design is inspired and unique. 

 The problem comes with characters that just... aren't. Tahm's character is top notch, but his kit is about on par with mid level forum concepts. It spoils him as a champion because he just isn't useful. Sure he *can* be useful, but not enough to warrant picking him over other, more well known and generally more useful champions. Bard is just weird. Magical Journey is interesting and can be used and abused in all sorts of awesome ways. His ult is like the amazing 1000 use band. No clear use, but is as useful as you are creative with it. The weird part comes when both are spells that can harm your teammates, which Riot has so carefully avoided for years. Weirder still is his character. I could never understand his video because it was so split toned. People are greatly suffering and dying while he is playfully oblivious? The whole thing just made him seem like such a sadistic jerk. Weirdest of all is what I can only describe as his "blowjob face." I don't mean this maliciously and I trust the community can handle it, it's simply the only thing that comes to mind when I look at his face. DOTA 2 had a similar problem with Beastmaster's ability icon for his ultimate. They fixed it. It's called feedback and drawing attention to something even if it is embarrassing and in this case sexual.

TL:DR There are too many champions and for every great and popular one, there is also a terrible and unpopular one.

Closing Thoughts

I'm looking forward to this article that took me over an hour to make to instantly get flamed and downvoted to oblivion. I really don't care, I made this to voice my opinion before I follow the great man who quit League. I'm finally fed up with League because the balance has gotten so bad. Flipping a coin seems to be the most accurate for predicting the winner and rolling a Nat 20 seems to be the odds of getting an enjoyable match. I'll be sticking around fro Kindred, but likely only in bots. Anyone looking for an intellectual debate, let me know I'd love to discus champion balance and this game in general and will be reading any comments this post gets.

TL:DR read all the other TL:DR's and don't be a troll, I'm up for discussion.

7 Comments

Earl Eulrich9/24/2015, 12:00:15 PM4 votes

we don´t need another dota and you don´t seem to understand either game well enough to create a valuable analysis.

Trylobyte9/24/2015, 12:41:26 PM4 votes

I don't mean to seem like a jerk, but I had to take issue with your analysis in several points.

  1. Masteries. Your main argument against them is that they give veteran players an advantage over new players. First, I'll point out that a veteran player has many, many, many more significant advantages over a new player than masteries, such as knowing how the game works. Second, I'll point out that new players aren't often matchmade against level 30s so it isn't a situation that comes up much. Third, you can't play Ranked (the competitive mode) until you hit level 30 anyway, by which point you're on par with every other competitive player in terms of masteries.

  2. Runes. Yes, they're annoying and overpriced. Nobody's gonna argue with that one. At least Riot seems to (finally) be noticing this. The level lockout isn't a big deal (see masteries above) but the cost is something that needs to be addressed. That's about all I agree with you on though, especially since your point further down about 'inconsistent champions' implies you have no idea how big a difference runes make (hint: that's why champions are inconsistent). I'm also a firm believer that you don't need as many rune pages as most people think. Most players I know get by fine with three generic rune pages (jungle, AD, AP) and might have one or two for their mains. The only people who really need a lot of them are high-tier Ranked players where every little bit counts, and by that point they've usually been playing long enough they can afford them. As for not taking the right runes being a detriment? Yeah, it's a detriment, just like buying the wrong item would be if we didn't have Buyback. You suck it up and deal with it. Should've checked better. And if you had also made a complaint about the lack of champion diversity while bemoaning the fact that runes make champions too diverse and unpredictable, I'd have to slap you.

  3. Summoner spells. You don't really have an argument against them other than 'I like what DotA does better.' And that's fine. But it's an opinion, not an argument. I rather like having useful utility I don't have to pay for, even if it is on a long cooldown. And yes, Flash is ubiquitous. But it is what it is, a tool, and it's one the game's been doing fine with for a very, very long time now. Removing Flash isn't gonna magically make mobility creep go away. It's going to do the opposite, in fact, since now immobile champions will really have no escape from mobile ones.

  4. Champion Balance. Your entire argument is undermined by your clear lack of knowledge. If you have no idea why certain things are happening it's a fair bet you don't understand the underlying systems at all, and that fact alone makes any argument you try to produce on the subject of balance questionable. To cite your Nami and Leona example, yes, that's a fight that won't go anywhere because, surprise, neither of them is an autoattacker. Leona is a tank and Nami is a mage. It's like trying to eat your cereal with a screwdriver - It doesn't work because you're not using the right tool. Doesn't mean the tool is useless or irrelevant, just means you don't know what you're doing. I've already addressed the 'inconsistency' issue so I'll decline to do so again.

  5. Scaling. Again, this seems like another opinion piece. Yes, individual items are less visually impactful, but let me tell you, the difference between their ADC getting a BFSword while you can only afford a pickaxe is massive and you will notice it. Other champions have noticeable power spikes when they get certain items, and playing around these spikes is critical to playing the champion well - Corki and Trinity Force, Vayne and Blade of the Ruined King, Fizz and Lich Bane. The impact isn't immediately obvious, like I said, until you run into someone that really knows how to exploit it and you find yourself wondering how you got destroyed so badly. As for champion build paths, yes they are a bit static and I'd like to see that changed, but what you propose is what's already in the game. Different champions scale differently and it makes them want to build differently. Darius's short range and high-scaling damage mean he wants to build defense so he can get in there and apply that damage to something without dying. Other characters might not do that, or might build similar otms for different reasons. Leona, for instance, has a ton of crowd control and good durability scaling so she typically builds even more defense so her CC has time to reset, which lets her keep using it and bringing her more impact to the fight. No game is immune to this and you'll find guides on what you 'should' build in every game.

  6. Champion Design. No one person is going to like every character. Just because you don't like Tahm or Bard doesn't mean nobody likes him or that those characters were failures. I still see a good bit of Bard around and the occasional Tahm as well, though both Bard's and Tahm's kits have a tendency to turn people off because they require a degree of coordination not usually found in solo queue. As for spells that can harm your teammates, I'll just point out this happens so much in DOTA2 that they had to add a feature to turn off teammates' ability to 'help' you.

League of Legends. It's not a perfect game and there's a lot that needs to be done to fix it. But I see a lot of flaws in your arguments and think you're off-base about how that needs to be done.

Yxion the Yordle9/24/2015, 6:30:09 AM1 votes
  1. Would love to see something like Dawngate did with their puzzle-piece style setup to get cool passives and random stats, instead of current runes and masteries. Increase summoner spells to 3 and rebalance from there.
  2. Balance is a myth.
  3. I like HotS lack of items.
  4. More focus on reworks is in order.
Android Cowboy9/24/2015, 11:21:28 AM1 votes

Well done, you made clear what I've been starting to notice lately, too. Upvoted. Gnar

Android Cowboy9/24/2015, 6:19:09 PM1 votes

Did you just say level 30's aren't matched with new players, so there's no mastery difference? Gnar

HentRex9/24/2015, 6:42:53 PM1 votes

If you think League is like daycare have you played HOTS? Was still fun but I'd rather league. I agree on Rune/Masteries, on that they need something to change. I'd like to believe that making them all free and available is the way to go. That and allowing rune changes in Champ select much like mysteries. As for summoner spells I just made a thread about some changes that would buff some of the unused spells. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/TM2rzuTa-static-summoner-spells Let me know what you think. Most of the other things take to much thinking for me at the moment so I kinda wandered and therefore withhold any comments on them.