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Never Go Full Meta - On the state of the LoL metagame and its effects

Pyro·7/13/2014, 1:50:36 PM·25 votes·5,518 views

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT. If you seek to upvote memes, this isn't the post you're looking for. There's a TL;DR at the bottom.

##Full Meta Strategist

Metagame means "the game outside the game" and refers to unwritten set of rules that the written rules lead to. Most often it means predicting your opponent's strategy basing on your knowledge about them or popular trends, and adjusting your own strategy in anticipation of predicted moves. A good example would be using specific counter cards in collectible card games (MTG, Hearthstone). You do not want to use a card that counters a certain deck if that deck is not popular or if your deck already has a good solution against it. The phenomenon of playing around the predicted strategies in game is called metagame, the game about the game.

For the purpose of this essay we'll put aside all gimmicks that worked this one single game and "broke the meta" and stick to strategies that can win games in a consistent pattern. So no Leona - Jarvan IV kill lanes, for now. We will take both blind and draft pick into consideration, though.

This essay's topic is only assessing and explaining the situaton, and possibly voicing some concerns and drawing comparisons to DotA 2 in order to shed some light on some people's complaints.

##Death From Afar

Every MOBA game revolves around carries. Carries have insane, consistant damage (DPS) and use it to murder the enemy team and destroy their base. Problem is, in LoL it seems like only the ranged carries are viable. Yeah, you can pick a champion like Tryndamere, Fiora or Master Yi, but they sure as hell won't make up for a loss of a ranged carry.

What ranged carries do in LoL that melee ones can't?

  • Siege towers
  • (some) Poke enemy champions (like Ezreal or Corki)
  • Provide consistent DPS in teamfights
  • Farm safely in 2v2 lanes

These are the things that melee carries simply cannot do. In 5v5, they get stunlocked and blown up way too easily. This leaves two things for the likes of Yi: splitpushing and/or cleaning up teamfights. Sure, a fed Jax is scary, but even he cannot replace the ranged carries in 100% of their role.

This is purely a "fight fire with fire" situation, especially in blind pick - you have to picka ranged carry to optimize your strategy. You can win without a ranged carry, but you have much better chances with one. This, paired with the unmatched harass/farm capabilities in 2v2 and 2v1 lanes, makes ADCs the main pillar of the metagame.

##Five Commandments of Meta

There needs to be a ranged carry. Every team needs one marksman.

  • Marksmen get all the gold they can get. If there's a minion to kill, marksman kills it if he can, unless it's a blue buff.
  • You can put a marksman in a long lane, as long as they get help.

Every marksman is babysat by a support.

  • You can cheese a non-standard support pick, but the role is the same: be in lane with carry, never get creeps.
  • Supports can get gold from gold generation items and spend it on team utility items or wards. Supports are the main source of vision control.
  • The duo lane goes bot to increase your power in Dragon fights.

Every team needs a jungler in order to:

  • use the jungle goldstream, leaving the lane resources
  • gank lanes, applying pressure
  • secure dragons/barons with Smite
  • A jungler starts at a big buff at 1:55. Jungling is a dedicated role. There is no possibility of laning first and jungling later.

You put two champions in solo lanes.

  • Short middle lane is typically for an utility mage like Orianna who can control teamfights and output significant spell damage, or an AP/AD assassin like Twisted Fate or Zed who can roam to side lanes and pick up kills.
  • Midlane means safe and easy experience from solo lane, which is very important for ability-oriented champions.
  • Midlaner gets access to blue buff whatever side you play on. Sending your dedicated blue recipent to top lane is an unreliable strategy since it works only on blue side.
  • Long lane is typically for a fighter who can withstand long trades, since going back under the tower isn't as easy as in mid lane.
  • Toplaners can use Teleport to remain in a difficult lane, splitpush and/or join teamfights.

Types of all the three solo lanes (top, mid, jungle) are dependant on the state of the meta, and picks very from game to game.

  • Stacking a single damage type against a team that can easily itemize for a certain resistance can cause trouble. See: Thornmail, Banshee's Veil.
  • Laning phase is still important; you pick champions that are strong in their lane matchups.
  • If the items, runes or masteries favour a particular subclass, it will affect viable champion picks in all lanes (tank toplane meta, assassin midlane meta, etc.).
  • Generally, jungler is meant to initiate fights (ganks, teamfights). There was an attempt to make carry junglers viable. It didn't go well.

You can argue that you can pick almost anything (with 25% of picks being useless in competitive play), but this set of unwritten rules severely limits what and where you can play even in a low-level ranked game. 1-1-2 meta is failproof and set in stone.

##The Devil You Know

Why try so hard to change the meta, though? Are we unhappy? Stable meta can mean ease of access to new players, but it sleo means you have to learn the meta in order to play properly. In a more open game, whatever you pick, you can succeed. In an "everyone plays this meta" game you need to lea rn how to play jungle/support/solo lane wight away, or else you will put your team at an disadvantage.

Eventually it comes down to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". As long as it works, there is no apparent reason to change anything... or is there?

##Game of Efficiency

There's a reason Starcraft became overrun by Koreans, and it's s set of factors.

  • Internet quality in Korea was way higher than anywhere else at the time of Brood War
  • The game grew insanely popular. Bigger playerbase and more playtime equals better and bigger pinnacle of pro gamers
  • The game became static, allowing to define all optimal strategies

The last point is the most important. When all strategies and asnswers are known, the only skill becomes manually performing the sequence of commands with hundreds of thousands of keystrokes and mouse clicks. And if there's someone who can spend years perfecting this technique, it's Koreans.

Is LoL endangered by one-nation domination as well? The game is already in a state where South Korea has a hermetic league of a dozen teams who can sweep the floor with foreigners at any international event and no NA team has ever won a single match in the bracket stage of season 2 or season 3 World Championship. Is this inevitable, or does the game design favour Koreans again?

The short answer is: yes. Simple and stale metagame means there is a limited number of possible strategies and team compositions. Everything eventually comes down to mechanical efficiency and some tactical maneuvers, narrowing down possibilities to "what do I pick for this role".

How different could it be, then?

##The Older Brother

Dota 2 is a carbon copy (with new visuals) of Defense of the Ancients, the game that LoL was based on. It's worth noting that DotA wasn't even exactly a game - it was a map for Warcraft III, with all the benefits and drawbacks of the system it operated in. This is where all the core concepts of MOBAs originated: towers, basic attacks, abilities, ultimates and six item slots.

Before we get to "how", let's bring up some single facts: in the last two world championship tournaments, LoL has been overrun by Asian, especially Korean teams, while Dota 2's The International lived up to its name and had a much bigger diversity without dominance of any particular region. How is it possible? I see two most probable answers:

a) The Koreans haven't picked up Dota 2 yet. Once they do, they'll stomp that game as well. b) Dota 2 has more strategy elements that outmatch the mechanical proficiency.

I know it's simplifying things, but I believe it's the latter option. Dota2 allows for much, much more flexible setups, with melee carries, multiple ways of approaching the jungle (leashing to lane, moving to jungle later, etc.), viable roaming strats, etc.

A short summary of what can happen in Dota:

  • Jungle is optional
  • Trilanes (3-man kill lanes designated to make the enemy carry miserable)
  • Dedicated roaming heroes
  • Double support
  • Viable 2-1-2

##Why, Nunu, Why

Why does it happen, though? Why does Dota get all those different strategies while LoL has only one? Again, it's a huge sum of factors. Let's bring up some important ones.

Different means of acquiring gold

  • You can deny your own creeps. This allows melee heroes to stay even with ranged ones (it's easier to deny against a ranged hero)
  • You lose part of unspent gold on death. This promotes cashing in small amounts of gold over saving up big money
  • It's possible to leash and stack jungle camps (you lure the group out of its camp right as the timer checks and spawns the new group since the camp is empty - then you fight two camps at once)

Reversed gold efficiency on items

  • In LoL, the more the item costs, the better its gold efficiency is. In DotA, it's quite the other way around.
  • Early items provide a lots of stats for a low price. Think Doran's items on crack
  • Finishing a big item can take a huge amount of gold
  • You can remain relevant with cheap but efficient items

Attributes: Strength, Agility, Intelligence

  • Aside from the usual damage, attack speed, health, mana and regeneration statistics, heroes have those three attributes that enhance two statistics at once (health+regen, speed+armor, mana+mana regen)
  • Primary Attribute of a hero gives him Attack Damage bonus. STR hero will gain AD from STR, AGI hero wil gain AD from AGI and INT hero will gain AD from INT
  • This solves the fighter problem that LoL has - heroes scale from items differently if the're supposed to be tanks and they scale differently if they're supposed to be carries

No ability power scaling

  • In Dota, supports don't need gold generation items, because they're designed to be useful without gold
  • Mages are designed to fall off lategame, they often use support items with CC to remain relevant

Asymmetrical map

  • Side lanes are uneven, there's a short "safe lane" and a long "hard lane". One team's safe lane is another team's hard lane.
  • This, paired with denying, stronger CC etc. allows for different approaches to laning phase

Higher power level - abilites and items are more powerful in their effect

  • There's a carry item that gives you spell immunity for a short duration (think Olaf ultimate paired with Kayle's), and so on
  • All abilities are much more powerful in terms of crowd control. What is a basic ability in DotA would often be an ultimate in LoL.
  • Long durations of CC and powerful carry items allow melee carries to do their job
  • Turn rates disallow ranged carries to hit-and-run with no consequence

Hero diversity

  • The similarity between hero skillsets is very low. In comparison, LoL champions are quite generic
  • Best example of Lol champions who could pass as DotA heroes are {{ci|Thresh}} and {{ci|Braum}}.
  • Dota 2's metagame is about combining different heroes (best parallel from LoL would be compositions centered around {{ci|Yasuo}} or {{ci|Orianna}})
  • Hero power curves are way stronger - at the beginning, "early heroes" wipe the floor with "late heroes", and likewise the other way around, to a much greater extent than in LoL

##Why Can't We Have Nice Things

Up to this point, you might have come under the impression that I claim that Dota 2 is a better game than LoL. That is not correct. I merely described why it's a game with much more depth than LoL - it's not necessarily a good thing. Unreal Tournement was more complex than Counter-Strike, and we all know which game came out on the top.

##For-Fun Design

There's a reason for LoL's popularity and it's not just the role of the first commercial title on the market. Riot Games has stated many times that their primary concern is the fun factor for the millions of casual players. That's why CC is shorter, that's why the mana pools are biogger and there are no obscure mechanics like mana burn, that's why you don't lose gold on death, that's why you can't forcefuly move your teammates around. In Dota, it's possible to stun an enemy indefinitely. Think of a time you got stunlocked in LoL. Now imagine standing helpless for 7 seconds, unable to do anything. Congrats! You've just witnessed one single ability, Enigma's Black Hole. It's an ultimate, but it tells you about the type of things yo u have to deal with in this game.

That is also why Riot is content with a set-in-stone metagame. Stable metagame means the game is easy to pick up and noob-friendly, and also important, that there's not that much discrepancy between a mateur and professional play. You can even build the same items as the pro players and be very successful. Even though TI4 assembled a $10 000 000 prize pool, LoL still remains the better spectator e-sport - for now.

##Death of Innovation

So, the game is easy to learn, readable, enjoyable while spectating. What could go wrong?

The death of any MOBA game would be stasis. When the game reaches a state where every strategy has been thought through, only efficiency counts. That is something that I'm afraid already happened. Riot keeps the game alive by frequent patches, item changes and new content, but I'm afraid this isn't enough. Dota 2 doesn't need major changes to remain fluid and fresh - every game is different. It's apparent in the pick&ban statistics - in LoL the lane matchups limit the champion pool, making only 33% of champions eligible for picking in more than 10% games. In DotA, about 50% of heroes were picked in more than 10% of games.

Does this mean the game is about to die? Hell no. Not yet. It's quite certain, though, that the Korean domination in the current environment will continue to grow.

##What Should Be Done Then?

In my opinion, the meta needs to break.

As of now, the only viable carries are ranged. The only reasonable setup is 1-1-2 with jungle. This needs to change. Other options need to emerge and not take over, but oompete with the current setup. I believe this would be the best way to prolong the game's longevity past its currently forseeable lifespan.

Otherwise, I believe the game will lose it's freshness and eventually begin to decline. Not in a year. Not even in five. But in a decade, DotA will be growing strong celebrating twenty years from creation, while LoL might begin its inevitable end once the next genre takes over the casual playerbase. This does not need to happen.

##TL;DR - Summary

LoL has a stable metagame that allows every player to follow and understand the pro scene.

It takes a while to learn how to perform in every one of those roles, as they have a strict set of unwritten rules, but once you get a grasp of it, you play every game in more or less the same way.

The possible drawback is that in a stable enrivonment the game becomes less about strategy and innovation and more about tactics and mechanical execution. This is why Starcraft and LoL are overrun by Koreans while Dota 2 has a fairly diverse set of finalists.

##Addendum

Feel free to leave any positive or negative feedback. Both are appreciated.

If you want to use this article, feel free to do it, I'd just appreciate if you gave me credit.

38 Comments

Neofederalist7/13/2014, 5:09:22 PM12 votes

Nice detailed analysis.

However, I don't think you're giving enough credit to how much variation there currently is within the meta and how much it's changed even just this last year. Remember back near the end of season 3 where purple side always lane swapped into 2v1 lanes? Or the variation afterwards which had 4v0 hard push where both sides rushed down a tower or two in a lane and accelerated the midgame? And then that became 1v0 slow push with 2 people in the jungle with a roaming support.

It sounds to me like you're defining the "meta" as "team composition" when there's really much more to it. And even if we're just talking about standard lane setup, team compositions often handle extremely differently. Just looking at the NA LCS summer split, we saw C9 run basically 4 support champions with Kog'maw, and Complexity run Yasuo + 4 champions with displacement. They both won their games. Sure the COL game had Tristana doing a lot of the damage, but Yasuo was the centerpiece of the comp, not her.

There are other questions as well. Do you run a utility top laner like Lulu/Kayle or do you run a tank like Shyvanna? If your mid laner is Twisted Fate, you can bet that your team is going to try to play differently than if you have Orianna, which plays differently than if you have Fizz, which plays differently than if you have Yasuo, etc.

None of these things are strictly better than one another. A Yasuo knockup composition doesn't auto win against a TF global pressure pick comp (ignore the fact that TF vs Yasuo is a horrible individual lane matchup for TF, for a minute). Neither of these strategies is strictly optimal. As long as there is enough variation within the meta such that different team compositions can win by focusing on different win conditions, having a "standard meta" doesn't mean the death of the game.

RiotPWYFF7/14/2014, 11:01:51 PM5 votes

Interesting post! You raise some good points, although I think as many people have echoed here, there's a strong focus on lane composition as being meta-defining, where we do see a lot of strategic variety (and we promote as such) within those kind of selections.

There's discussion of regional dominance as a defining factor of staleness, but I'm a little unsure of that. Yes, DotA hasn't picked up much in Korea (although MVP made a pretty good push against Liquid!), but Starcraft for all its eastern dominance is still a beloved esport game and held up as one of the defining grandfathers of the scene. To my original point though, I think regional dominance will always go to those who put in the time to create a sustainable ecosystem for growth, of which Korea has always had in spades. Using regional dominance as an indication of a 'solved' game is a bit of a stretch in that regard.

Going to your original point, however, I'd agree the League of Legends 'sandbox' isn't the largest of them all, but it's difficult to attribute a negative or positive trait to that. Games are certainly about player expression and emergent gameplay, but at what point does it get unrecognizable? Or it becomes a completely different game at the highest level versus the mid level? If we want players to win games through counterplay, skill and decision-making (as opposed to champion selection), how do we reward that? Most sports have well-defined positions, but a good coach recognizes the flux in each role. A scrappy, sharp shooting center might want a speedy wingman for puck delivery, or maybe he wants tanky brawlers who can clutter up the front of the net. In Counterstrike most guns do different things but the better player often pulls through.

I'm not saying one is better or that the world is black and white as to what you give away to get something else, but these are certainly considerations.

As for your concern with League being a solved game, I'd disagree insofar as we're dedicated to evolving it with every change. A new champion should change the landscape such that players are now thinking of new kinds of team comps to work around them. Our system changes are directed at ensuring there's parity and strategic tradeoffs to be had in a choice your team makes. We don't always hit the nail with this (see trinkets in our attempt to make lane swapping not so absolutely dominant as a strategy), but it's something we're committed to pursuing.

Regardless, if you do think League is really 'solved' from a competitive or regular perspective then let us know. This is a concept that is always top-of-the-head for us, but your insight is certainly valuable.

Earl Eulrich7/13/2014, 8:04:31 PM4 votes

I think you really underestimate the complexity of the "meta" in LoL...1-1-2+1 isn´t set in stone, and it is not at all the one defining meta , as laningphase is just a small part of most games (and heavily influenced by picks&bans aswell).

Currently the following "metas" for laning exist in professional play:

  • standard: 1-1-2+1
  • laneswap: either 4-1 or 2-1+2 or 2-1-1+1, depending on picks&strategy
  • roaming support (KTA is brilliant here, some chinese teams aswell) 1-1-1+2

that´s only for laning though, for the game in general there are some archetype-strategies of compositions:

  • poke/siege-comp
  • kite/disengage-comp
  • splitpush
  • splitfight/pick-comp
  • jack of all trades/win lane-win game
  • wombo-combo/teamfight
  • dive-comp
  • (early) push-comp

all have their own strenghts and weaknesses and very different playstyles/powerspikes...and all are perfectly viable depending on the pick&ban-phase (e.g. picking a poke-comp vs a heavy engage/dive-comp is slightly suicidal, while the divecomp might have great difficulties with early-push/kite comps and so on...picks&bans really have a far greater impact on the games as the (fairly flexible) laning-meta).

Koreans don´t dominate the game due to better mechanical executions, but because they have better strategies/a better understanding of their "winconditions" - meaning, they know what must happen in the game for them to come out ahead and what they can do to force this things to happen...other regions just mostly seem to lack this depth in understanding the game and have huge troubles closing out games if they don´t snowball...usually relaying on opponent mistakes more than on their own plays. The mechanically best region in professional LoL currently is China, but you really see their lack in proper gameknowledge/strategy (just to quote Froskurinn: "LPL - that means Challenger-mechanics combined with Bronze 5 brains).

Edit: So I think the best Way to "break the Meta", respectively to broaden variety would be to alternate the pick&ban-phase a tad...which I think truly is the greatest strenght of Dota2 currently. If we had more bans teams would need to prepare a broader variety of strategies in order to have enough options depending on the pick&ban-phase.

Worgslarg7/13/2014, 3:43:39 PM3 votes

I wish to congratulate you on a great post. While I do not agree with several points, you made them clearly and then backed them up with evidence.

I feel that the meta of what class of laner( marksman/ mage, etc) goes where is a good idea, as it allows for structured games that players feel comfortable playing without a full 5v5 group.

I feel that many more champions are viable than what is seen in the lcs, and that the game being balanced remotely around the lcs is a bad thing.

The reason a melee carry is unviable as an marksman replacement is survivability. With good positioning in a fight, a marksman can almost stand still and attack, with a high chance for survival. In turn, a melee needs to dive into the enemy team, if they can group, means suicide for the melee, and the inability to pick off even one target. For a melee carry to build enough tanky items to be able to leap into a teamfight, they sacrifice the damage necessary to compete with a marksman.

This is where assassins are strong, diving a carry with the burst damage to kill the marksman before the enemy team can save them. After the carry is dead, the assassin is often dead aswell.

Mainly, ranged carries outclass melees because in teamfights the melees cannot compete with the ability to deal safe( ish) damage to the enemy team.

I believe that league cannot survive without a meta, as the game will descend into chaos and nobody will be able to enjoy a game as only 5 man teams will be able to agree on a strategy.

JJMC7/13/2014, 7:49:07 PM2 votes

Problem is meta in Dota 2, makes it so that the compositions and lanes are different. However, metas in League usually revolve around the ingame tactics in terms of protect the carries, splitpush, engage, poke, roam, turtle, and things like that.

ThaddeusMike7/15/2014, 2:27:38 AM2 votes

Great post. It was thorough and clear. However, in your analysis of Korean dominance you don't really go into things like existing infrastructure and resources available to teams. These are both areas where western teams have made huge growth over the past few years. The west hasn't caught up to Korea yet, and maybe it never will, but what I see missing from your analysis is an explanation for why if the west can catch up in those areas, it would still lag behind Korea.

ECHOxLegend7/13/2014, 11:56:11 PM2 votes

My 2 cents in staleness, i played dota2 every day for 6 months and loved it, but as you say you can have many option, most of them end with the same result in that you are still fighting, bursting, supporting so all the fun came in combination with your skills, a moba gets all ts life from its characters after all. And one thing that happened once, since you can use all heros for free, which meant for me that I ended up playing all of them way too much, i even used the randomizer but even then it turned into "oh this guy again? Sigh, fine" and the items didnt do anything to help that because yeah, you have lots options , but usually their was a common best option formyour hero. Long story short, it just got boring whereas lol was fresh, but stayed so as new champs were always available because i had the earn them, it was artificial but its still working. Yeah dota is better for meta options as such but as far as im concrnecd, dota is overall more stale simply because of all things that there is to do, ive done them over and over, i coulgdgo back now and feel refreshed but the eventual result would be the same

lHikariAi7/14/2014, 5:25:49 PM1 votes

I believe many people aren't really familiar with DotA to understand the difference in depth between both games.

I used to play DotA on a high level, but after years i grew tired of it. I met someone who only played League and since then i'm here. Even now watching League matches is almost a chore compared to watching DotA matches, every game is interesting while in League you already saw that a million times, it's always the same thing, strategies and execution may be different but it's a strategy that you already saw before a million times, too. It's mostly Lane swaps, poke/siege comps, pick comps or teamfight oriented team.

The rest, like invasion, vision control, ect, aren't really a 'strategy', even 5 in a normal game can do that if you ping enough. It's like saying that de-warding or blocking the enemy's pool or camps in DotA is a strategy. They may be part of one, like 'shut down their jungler early to apply pressure, take towers to gain a advantage so our lone druid can get it's radiance and we go for the win', but just by themselves aren't more than smart attempts to gain a advantage that, without a real plan, won't impact the game enough to achieve a win by itself.

AbiwonKenabi7/14/2014, 6:17:54 PM1 votes

I would say the main reason for Koreans dominating most esports scenes has more to do with organization of teams rather than the way the game is: Korean teams have had more structure, things like analysts, coaches, etc. Esports is waaay huger in Korea, these guys are managed more like a baseball team. NA and EU are finally starting to do this type of thing, and while they still aren't quite performing against Korean teams, they are getting there. It has nothing to do with efficiency; I guess it could be part of it, but certainly not the whole story.

Second, Dota2's games are often decided at the hero selection screen, whereas with League, every strategy has a chance. I just don't see how you can say there aren't a lot of comp options when really we have plenty of really fun ones. There's the AOE teamfight wombo-combo, there's a global ults/tele strat, there's Yasuo oriented comps, there's protect the carry, there's feed the Jax and split-push...and so on. The best part about these is some of them can happen even without picking specific champions. For example, if one particular person on your team happens to get fed, you can change your play-style to accommodate for that particular champion's strengths and weaknesses. Katarina's fed? Try to bait out enemy team's CC, allowing her to dive in safely. Your ADC is fed? Use all of your peel for them; if you don't have the CC to do so, try killing the assassin who's after the ADC. Then there are lane swaps and rotations, support roaming, mid-laner roaming and more...and all of these strategies have come in and out of favor. With S3, mid roamed a lot thanks to the assassin meta. Back in S2, supporty tank junglers were favored for their powerful ganks and protection provide for the then strong marksmen. Even just this season, we've seen shifts in what supports are picked (Annie/Thresh-->Morgana, Nami) what mid laners are picked (Leblanc, Lulu-->Ziggs, Syndra, Orianna) and even ADCs (Sivir/Caitlyn --> Lucian, Twitch, Kog'Maw, Tristana). I've even seen Heimerdinger successfully used in EU LCS. And this is only looking at professional levels, not to mention lower level viability.

I don't understand how you can look at the changes during just this season alone and say things are getting stale. Popular picks are constantly changing, and newer champions are more interesting than ever. There are always interesting ways to play this game, and every match is different I think it more comes down to "easy to parrot, hard to innovate."

EDIT: I forgot to mention all the effort Riot is putting into bringing older champions up to par. They plan on taking champs like Urgot and Sion and retaining their identity while updating their skillset to be more usable.

March of Dimes7/14/2014, 7:32:43 PM1 votes

Insofar as you're assessing and explaining the current game, I'd say it's a fantastic post.

However, I have to disagree that the meta is set in stone as is, and I'd question when/how a playerbase learns that a meta isn't the only game in town. Melee carries might be in a bad place in league, but does that necessitate marksmen? Do you need to run a teamcomp focused on sieging? If not, are there other classes you can run in place of marksman that provide the other 3 bullet points you listed? If you're no longer sieging, do melee ADCs start becoming viable again? Etc.

I applaud you for taking a very broad look at the meta and what makes it tick, but I think too often the playerbase uses the meta as a forgone conclusion to motivate why the strengths of this meta are required. Personally, I've had a good time running ranged AOE mage bottom instead of ADC, which farms safely in 2v2, provides poke, teamfights with reliable damage, and trades the better siege of a marksman for better utility/AOE/burst. Sure, my team has a harder time sieging, but we usually don't try to put ourselves in that position, instead opting to force fights either via splitpush, contesting objectives, or hard engaging. Having an additional source of AOE/utility that can actually build defense (contrast ADC) makes taking those fights fairly easy, and taking towers is easy once those fights are over. That's just my personal experience with the meta, and I'd encourage others to actually try breaking the meta before they decide Riot needs to do it for them.

Haestro7/15/2014, 12:34:48 AM1 votes

Part of the reason we have this meta is because of how the game and champions are designed. Unlike DotA, which has a very huge variety (relative to LoL) of champion niches that all fulfill roles slightly differently, LoL has much more overlap. If you want an ADC, they all tend to be around the same strength (there are exceptions) with similar items. Riot doesn't want to create champions who destroy early game but fall off completely late game, but a more consistent output. I realize that all ADC's are not carbon copies of each other, so there is a reason to pick one over the other, but it's not nearly as niche as in DotA.

TL;DR : Riot creates champions which compete for the same role. This enforces the meta more because they don't design champion's with a niche, just a certain lane.

Goumindong7/15/2014, 9:26:19 AM1 votes

I will probably make another post later tomorrow. Your construction has a lot to be desired and your conclusion does not in any way follow from your premise(specifically you simply list aspects of DotA2, but they don't have any effect on meta variance even if you tried to explain how they did). Before that though, i just wanted to highlight this

And if there's someone who can spend years perfecting this technique, it's Koreans.

That is super racist(and not just that statement, the sentiment runs through your post). The Korean's aren't better because they're better at perfecting technique. They're better because they have a better team and practice structure which allows them to play more games in a competitive setting and to spend more time honing skills. Most importantly each organization has two teams. Two teams means that those teams can scrim in house without worry about leaking strategies. On top of this they have more coaches and a more focused and structured work environment(which comes down to a lot of things not really worth discussing at the moment).

It has nothing to do with raw mechanical skill or some inherent quality about Korean's. It doesn't have anything to do with the game, or the meta. It has everything to do with how they practice.

That being said i have another short comment with regards to the DotA2 stuff. DotA2 is amazingly poorly designed. From color palate to primary game mechanics. The reason that it has melee carries and league does not has nothing to do with str/agi/int but because League has committed to a design which requires that all members of a team are relevant at all points in the game, while DotA has not. The reason that DotA has str/agi/int at all is because Blizzard Entertainment wanted to make their RTS game have RPG elements in it and that meant "core statistics" at the time, not because it does anything for the game of DotA(in actuality is limits item choices and hampers clarity of item choices, all bad things for a game revolving around level scaling and item actives).

Pushover7/17/2014, 8:34:20 AM1 votes

As a player who switched over from DotA in 2011, I would say that the meta in DotA trickled down from competitive play. In DotA at the time, every public game was 2-1-2, unless there was a jungler like Enigma or Lycan, and while carries did get most of the farm, it wasn't uncommon to see double support/semicarry in one of the lanes. For that matter, the 0 CS support basically didn't exist in public games. Competitive play had trilanes, 0 CS supports, and all the stuff we come to expect in DotA 2 games. In the 3 years since then, public play has picked up on many parts of the competitive play. For that matter, when I left, roaming was not considered a common viable strategy even in competitive. Players would make it work, similar to how we can occasionally see strange things like Kassadin top work.

People seem to forget that League is a much younger game than DotA/DotA 2. Many of the pro players of DotA 2 played back in DotA 1, before League of Legends even existed. DotA has had much more time to settle and balance the game. If anyone remembers times where competitive DotA was rather boring, for example the days of 3 carries and Pit Lord (think wider AoE Ziggs). The games were an immense farm fest while 1 of the carries would hopefully take off and be able to 1v5. There have been times in DotA where certain heroes were very common picks/bans, and it's only more recently that picks have become more widespread.

To poke at each of your examples: Different means of acquiring gold: In League, the pressure is placed more on fighting the enemy champion over every creep rather than fighting with attack damage over denying/last hitting the creep. Stacking is a cute way to gain gold or give gold to the carry, and pulling is a cute way to deny part of a wave or generate a push, but it's in some ways a form of PvE in a game that's supposed to be more PvP. Some people prefer stacking and pulling to be part of the game, but it's another mechanic that has to be learned, and it's not an exciting interaction with opponents or allies. Reversed gold efficiency: This is one of the few areas that I think League should follow DotA in, it allows for greater variability of earlygame items, more niche midgame items (since current midgame items in League tend to not have enough of a power spike to warrant buying). It also allows the player to make meaningful choices about inventory space. Do you want another cheap item, or do you want room for wards in the earlygame? It also makes the statstick items worse, so you get items for what unique abilities they provide, not because they provide you with the pile of stats you want. Attributes: They matter in terms of how you build a hero, but the kit determines what sort of hero a Dota hero is. Huskar is still a carry despite being STR based. Windrunner is still a carry or semicarry despite being INT based. Tinker/Storm Spirit are carry and are INT based. Earthshaker is not a tank despite being STR based. Attributes are a suggestion of what items you should build, but not really what role the hero is. While attributes increase the variation between hero builds, it also means that there are about twice as many items that players need to know about. No AP: There's also no MR, you can get more spell resistance in an item, but it's not particularly common. In general you buy health to counter magic damage, and armor and health, just like in League, to counter physical damage. Lategame most damage is physical since carries are the ones dealing damage. It's really a preference whether you like having mages perform a lesser role/utility role in the lategame versus still be strong, albeit not as strong as the ADC. Character limit :(

Even in the Starcraft example, Brood War's metagame was not particularly static. Bisu vs Savior showed how innovation could still occur, when everyone thought that PvZ was static and in Zerg's favor, Bisu evened it up with his innovative new build, upsetting arguably the best player at the time with a crushing victory in the finals of a tournament.

TheJuzzo7/13/2014, 6:22:16 PM1 votes

One Idea Ive been thinking about here and there, that would address most of this, yet pertains specifically to one section of your post, is one to do with itemization.

I think that tagging champs as to their roll, and having items work differently for different rolls would make itemization less stale, open new avenues for balance, and create options for differing builds on champs (as opposed to one or two correct build paths).

They sort of do this with ranged/melee champs and a few items, but I feel they should go farther.

Break it into assassins, ranged, fighter, jungle, mage, tank...etc etc..The more tags to define champs the better.

Items stats could be different for champs with different tags, this would make it so much easier to say..buff a class through itemization (or nerf it) without causing another class to explode (into OP or UP land)....Or create an item that doesnt get abused by those it was not meant for, on a smaller scale than trying to work with ALL melee or ALL ranged.

Korazul7/13/2014, 9:50:31 PM1 votes

The only disagreement I have with this is the reason for the death of League.

I think that the main reason why games die is the lack of new players. The negative effect that the Meta has on League is the fact that new players have to follow it.

In the beginning 1-29 levels 2-1-2 is fine cause of the lack of depth of Champions and Runes that players have. It is when a player is going into Ranked that Meta becomes a problem.

Your Dota comparison may have something to say besides differences between the two games. It hints how the two games deal with the meta and their interaction with new players.

In Dota the meta doesn't matter in the beginning because the basics are so much more important to learn and apply than strategy all the way until the mastery of all of the heroes and the basics.

The importance of Meta isn't how to win it is how to interact with players. Yes Meta means what you pick and why you pick it. But Meta does not mean the game itself. When you teach or introduce new players to the game, your success is defined by the how the game is presented not by what is picked or why.

Yes having a static and unchanging game is dangerous. But more dangerous is having players have to play that uninspiring Meta from the beginning.

The Meta will change for League one day and if not, there is always League of Legends 2 but that will only happen when the new players can't replace the exiting players.

CatmanJones897/13/2014, 11:46:03 PM1 votes

I enjoyed reading your analysis of the Meta and I agree with a majority of what you said. Currently there is really a small amount of variety in champion selection, simply because everyone is more adept to which champs are "better" than others.

  • An Udyr/Lee jungle against Khazix is almost hell.
  • Lucian dominates bot lane(exception to heavy Vayne/Kog'Maw play) as well as Thresh and the addition of Braum's onslaught,
  • top can differ from a tanky Shyvana or a Jax.
  • Now I will say i enjoy the diversity of mid lane, no one champ really "dominates" because a Ziggs/Orianna can ruin your day, but not be game defining(yes every champ can have game defining moments but this is generalized)

So, yes the current "Meta of Champ Select" is stale and, although it does change slightly from patch to patch, ultimately will not be enough to sustain the game. An idea to force variety in Ranked would be to add one or two more bans for each team, to a total of 8 or 10. Because honestly without doing serious reworks on champs, the only way to change who gets picked, and to create new strategies, is to force the larger group of "unpopular" champs into the spotlight be creating a higher chance that the "OP", or the champs with the highest pick rate, get banned.

And that's only talking about Ranked matches, I would have to say that the diversity of Blind Pick is quite fun. Sure, you'll get a Lucian, or a Lee Sin, or a Yasuo in a high percentage of matches as well, but it opens the door for the Urgots, Volibears, Sorakas, Kennens and Tarics to be played. You almost can't compare Ranked draft pick to Blind pick, because they are on different tiers if you will. You play random 5v5/3v3 blind picks first, then eventually after 30 when you feel confident you can now play ranked, so you have a higher understanding of the game and it's strategies as well as the players around you.

I love this game and am just getting to the point where I can talk about it coherently and yes, LoL has the capacity to survive for years to come, but only if it can adapt and keep it's fan base on a constant search to find ways to become better at it.

Remlap12237/14/2014, 12:40:24 AM1 votes

The whole point of MOBAs, specifically League was the ever changing meta. I'm relatively new to the game (started late season 3 and started ranked play in season 4) and even then the meta changed drastically. Now it's gotten to the point where nothing major is changing. The most major change was the removal of mana tanks top (which is more balance related than meta related) and the removal of casters for AP assassins. These champions have been absolutely stubborn to remove, and it's gotten to the point where there seemed to be no end in sight, until Quinn and Vayne top became a thing. Now there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and more options are available. Occam's razor is not the right answer all the time, but Riot's model is shaped by this. It has lead to a very top heavy meta, and a very static meta, and I for one would be very happy to see that evaporate completely.

Nyhver7/14/2014, 2:11:55 AM1 votes

If the meta doesn't change then it will lose its freshness, that's just a fact of the matter. There are two questions that engender out of that, one being will that happen, and two being is there novelty, enjoyment or entertainment that can capture people still. The danger and possibility of the first one is a legitimate concern, but there's definite arguments for the second one being relevant or true for some.

Personally I want the game to be more focused on mechanics than it is, currently. Having an astronomically high action rate isn't the dictating factor in the fights, either, because it's not starcraft, this game is league. If there was more focus on outplay from every champion while being mechanically intensive, (for instance, Garen and Ryze lack a lot of outplay and mechanical intensity, you don't really outplay Ryze or Garen hard mechanically, it usually is a calculation/positioning/bait outplay) I would find this game way more fun to play and watch. As it is, I'm not too concerned with the same picks in the LCS, I'm more concerned that there's so little variation in their fighting patterns, mostly due to the nature of the opponents and allies of the champions. Lee Sin has a really high skill cap, because he has tons of potential and a lot of it is very mechanical, too, but the opponents he fights are boring. I wanted Leblanc to remain a relevant middle instead of Kassadin, Orianna or Ziggs, they're really boring to watch and overrated in terms of difficulty or as far as mechanics and interest goes. If every champion was more like Yasuo, Lee Sin and Zed, I would enjoy this game so much more, and watching it would be fun, too, because there's a lot that goes on in these fights. Barring accurate knowledge assessment of capability due to circumstance (items, levels, whether you'll be backed up by teammates, or not, same with the enemy) fights can be really dynamic. As an example of a fight I think that has a really high skill cap no one is at yet- Zed vs. Zed. Zed almost instantaneously be in 3 places at once, and because of that, with flash, his range of motion is ridiculous. His 'e' can be dodged (being just outside of 'e' range, avoidance mechanic like fizz trickster, dashes, flash, etc.) and his 'q' can similarly be dodged. Add all that up in a Zed vs. Zed, and the mind games, prediction and reaction with micromanaging w, q and e cooldowns and whatnot along with intuition vs. plan, and I think anyone who understands how complex duels can be can appreciate that Zed vs. Zed is probably one of the highest skill cap fights out there. I don't see that in the LCS, though, I see auto attack champions like Shyvana, Jax, Tristana, Kog'maw, Twitch or a bunch of other boring champions being played that lack a lot of mind games and mechanical intensity. I don't find that intriguing or enjoyable. I personally don't mind the lack of diversity as much as I do how boring I find most champions to either play as, with or against.

I don't fault you for it because it's subjective and very gray, but there's also the issue of perceived reality and reality. Part of why there's very low champion pick rates (besides kit being enjoyable) is because of the stigma that people have regarding which champions are weak and strong. This is either close to the truth, exactly the truth, very true, wrong or very wrong. You assume that the perception people have of champion's reflects reality when it could be wrong. As an example, Riot has stated before that they want there to be options but not a singular option- referencing to the dual targon's with no jungler or so, then no one does that anymore. Either due to the reality of the item not being strong enough anymore compared to what a jungler gives, or because of the perception of it, whether the reality coincides with it or disagrees with it.

Worgslarg7/14/2014, 12:50:45 PM1 votes

Another thing that came to mind is that when comparing dota 2 to league, regarding picking champs that work well together, is how in dota you do not need to purchase champions, they are all free.

This is a non issue at higher levels of play, but at low levels of play, many players have a limited enough champion pool to inhibit forming combos.