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It's about map gold - Why not minion sprees?

Terricus·9/24/2013, 4:55:40 AM·6 votes·610 views

It seems clear that having gold-starved champions on a team is an unbeatable strategy. And so long as Summoner's Rift offers gold to players in the way it does now, things will stay that way.

Sure, Riot can (and should) put limits on wards and sweeping so that the most starved champions in the "meta" aren't completely bleeding their tiny supplies of gold away, but even that won't do anything to weaken the strategy of gold-starved champions. And so, here we are with people trying to suggest "solutions."

Many who dislike playing the gold-starved champions on a team will suggest ways for Riot to invalidate this role altogether. But, I don't like this option since the specifics always seem to change the game in nonsensical ways (due to how the true problem is about gold income) while also, sadly, removing the gold-starved play-style from people who actually enjoy it (which I sometimes do).

Others who mostly care about the true meaning of the word "support", suggest meaningless ways to make those support champions feel like they aren't being starved while they actually are being starved. This approach usually involves overly complicated buffs to various items, "support" champions themselves, or assist gold, and, generally, these ideas are all simply terrible. First, they seem to cement the gold-starved role into the game even more than it is already (which just makes "the carry" even stronger). Second, while I completely understand the desire to feel like I've achieved a gold income that can afford powerful support plays, I think I should actually have to earn that gold first.

However, in Season 4, what would be wrong with Riot introducing a simple rule to Summoner's Rift that affects how gold's distributed? A rule that doesn't cement gold-starved champs and their greedy carries into the meta even more, nor removes them, but, instead, allows other team strategies to compete?

Here it is: Only 4 minions can be slain by the same champion within 30 seconds of each other before all minions get a death spree against that champion and reward him or her with less gold on kill (until that specific 30-second period is over).

Now, I've contemplated ideas like this for a while, but I'd say this is the best formulation that's occurred to me yet. While clearly this isn't the only way to introduce competition for the gold-starved role on Summoner's Rift, at the very least it is an example of a very coherent, elegant, and intuitive way to do so.

It works like this: If a greedy carry wants to hog all the gold in a lane, only half the minions in a normal minion wave will be worth their full value. This would allow a true duo-lane that shares minion kills to have a slight-to-substanstial edge in team-gold over a greedy carry lane. (A lane that shares kills would be farming at full value while a greedy carry lane would be penalized to some degree.) As such, other team roles could evolve into the meta (like perhaps semi-starved supports, or semi-junglers) which would be able to compete with the completely gold-starved supports because they'd have more gold for their entire team (in exchange for less gold being concentrated on a few, deadly champions).

Obviously, balancing the gold of a "minion death spree" penalty would need to be fairly precise. On the one hand, Riot would want the amount small enough to keep the current meta's strategy of gold-starved champions the top performer. However, they'd also want it large enough to allow a meta where at least one or two other gold-income strategies could pay off when risked.

What do you think?

(Oh, and as a tangent concerning "sprees", I want to say I'd like it if death sprees were removed for champions and replaced with a system where champions are simply worth less gold when their KDA is bad. While I don't claim to know all of the reasoning behind the current approach, I do know it feels awful when trolls or people having bad games simply "reset" to full gold value with just ONE KILL. I'm shuddering with disgust just thinking about it)

8 Comments

Xyltin9/24/2013, 1:03:12 PM4 votes

The problem i see here is that junglers would want to farm the 2 solo lanes all the time to get the max gold out of it.

Also supports and ADCs have to talk how much CS they already got. When does the ADC stop farming and the support can start? Did my ADC get that one CS now or did he barely missed it?

What about stacking creep waves? Freezing the lane would work better now cause you have the time to really CS slowly and get a second champ to your lane to take the rest, what makes pushing turrets way less important cause the enemy team will get nearly the normal income back while your team will lose it.

Pushing will get really bad. You want to push as fast as possible. Split pushing would be very weak.

Going B will punish you even more, making harassing and sustain more important.

If you want to split gold, then take away 4 gold of every last hit and give one to every team mate.

The farming lanes will lose a bit of gold and the ones that don't get as high CS numbers will get that gold.

With 200 CS top/mid/bot and 100 CS in the jungle you will get the following changes:

  • mid/top/ bot will get 300 less gold each
  • jungle will get 300 more gold
  • support will get 600 more gold => same gold overall
PriorityOne9/24/2013, 3:16:00 PM4 votes

There are simpler solutions (imo):

  • Passive gold gain is doubled or tripled for the champion of each team with the least gold.

  • Objectives such as towers, dragon, and baron now give 50% of their bounty to the champion with the least gold and divide the remaining amount among the other four champions.

With changes like these, we not only help out supports who are generally the lowest gold members of each team but can also even lanes. You could lose top really hard but if your team, as a whole, is playing well then you can come back. As opposed to the current scenario where if you lose lane then you're basically a non-factor in the game.

I would also like something where experience is doubled or tripled for team members who are two or more levels below the average level on the map or something. It's depressing to see the AD Carry at level 18 when the jungler and support are still level 13 or 14.

Tortferngatr9/24/2013, 6:16:59 AM3 votes

It might be interesting for Riot to test this idea internally. However, punishing the player for doing something they're supposed to do (last-hit) is a fairly big no-no in terms of design, so don't be surprised if it isn't implemented.

Diplomacy9/24/2013, 4:43:43 PM1 votes

I don't particularly agree with you that intentionally gold starving yourself in order to feed an adc is a design flaw in the metagame. It isn't that champions like Soraka and Malphite can't wave-clear/last hit, they intentionally give their CS away. Its completely different, and I agree with you, getting your support a sight-stone is a very important advantage early game--but I don't think gifting extra gold is the answer(or requiring a support to lane or lose map gold) . the net result will be that pinks will just become that much more popular, good supports might just become just a little beefier and ability will matter just a little less.

If that is your goal, you may as well reduce the cost of the sightstone, change the base stats of the support champs and call it a day... or better yet, make summoner's rift a 4v4 map instead, and let the ADC buy their own wards.

Imo, the base premise here comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of support's meta. The idea behind support in lane is about applying pressure. buff champs like Sona and Soraka do this by healing the ADC for HP and mana. Champs like Bliz do it by disrupting enemy positioning, while other champs can do it simply by taking harass and poking like Galio, Malph and Sion(who desperately needs a rework). Mid/late game, a good support will have as much gold as a decent top-laner because they should be present for more than half of the team's kills. If you are having trouble with vision, ask your ADC to ward bot bush and jungle to ward enemy blue/red. if your playing as though buying wards is your support's "job" then you're doing it wrong. you are all part of a team and you can all share that responsibility. Having vision (and denying it) is a type of pressure, sure, but a good support shouldn't be written off as a ward vender with a little CC. In teams that function properly, you shouldn't feel "gold starved," at all... assists, objectives, golems(sometimes), ward clears(on occasion), there is plenty of gold to be had, but perhaps most importantly, playing smart will help you manage your inventory.