Do you guys really think Riot cares about balancing the game?
Are we being honest with ourselves here? If they need to sell RP to make money, then clearly they have to do things that drive those sales. Their current model seems to be cater to the popular champions and release more skins for them. Let new champions be OP so that people buy that champion, and then nerf that champion a few months down the road.
But why are some champions popular? Maybe its because their kits work better in more team comps and in more situations? MAYBE if Riot spend more time making more of the champions viable, then people would buy more champions. and then of course, more skins AND more rune pages to accommodate all their builds?
People like to say the game is all about perfect imbalance. That is a steaming pile of shit excuse that Riot hides behind. The ultimate get out of jail free card. Of course it used to argue against a "balanced game" and they straw man you by assuming a balanced game would be something where every champion is alike and its all boring. But the opposite is true. If Riot made the champions more distinct and more viable in more situations, then we would see higher diversity of team comps. What IS boring is the same champion EVERY game and the same ones banned EVERY game. I mean holy shit, talk about stale and uninspired. I played like 10 matches today. Saw Darius in 5 of them. Yas was banned in every match I think. Saw VI and Lee several times each. Saw Cait and lux several times. This game is becoming the most boring crap because Riot is clinging to an old business model that is based on keeping some champions super popular and some in the gutter.
A lot of you are going to shoot me down. You will look at my rank and try to discredit my arguments by attacking me. You will defend Riot by saying they made a lot of money so they must be doing something right. None of that addresses what I am saying in this post.
And that brings me to my final point. If there is a better business model and Riot is not doing it, we have to ask why. And please don't suggest that there is no better model. The entire history of business in the U.S alone is basically people finding better ways when no better way was though possible. My theory is this:
Riot is company that secured venture capital at the right time in an untapped market piggybacking off the work of others, and with the help of others from DOTA 2 which in turn was build on Warcraft III. The leadership at Riot wanted to improved MOBAs, and they did....but in life everyone rises to their own level of incompetence at some point. I believe that the people who run Riot have peaked in terms of innovation that they have to offer. If the barriers to entry into this market were lower, I would expect Riot to either go out of business or be forced to change due to competition. But, like McDonalds for decades, they can serve us mediocre garbage and make tons of money, and we all go back for more because its cheap and easy. Popularity and success does not necessarily equal a quality product. To further illustrate my point, go read Marc Merrills blog. The guys is such a condescending ego maniac--he almost has a tone where he talks down to the players of his game. And it takes like...what 7 of the top league payouts to equal the top DOTA 2 prize? What does that tell you about their seriousness to inject any capital into eSports? Have you guys read their asinine LCS contract?
I am telling you guys, don't be fooled by Riot. They are mediocre people offering us a mediocre product using a stale, scared, business model. We need to be dropping the hammer on them daily and calling them out on their BS. And we need to let them know that we are only here because we love gaming. Our addiction to the game is an addiction to competitive gaming. If you came to a village and wanted to play in the biggest most watched sports game, but it happened to be baseball and you love hockey and basketball....but hardly anyone plays it, well you might just end up playing baseball because there is more there--more people, more glory, more potential. Well, League is my baseball. As soon as a better company with a better product comes along, I am so gone.