All CS is equal, but some CS is more equal than others

Necron XCIX·Mar 19, 2015·1 votes·717 views

so I was playing a match a while back in the top lane and while I was playing, I realized that the way that the game shows CS is a bit weird. specifically, about 10 minutes in I went to the scoreboard to compare my CS with the enemy top laner. Even though I was quite a few last hits above my opponent, my opponent got all the siege minions thrown at her while I missed some (I was having a mediocre game), making it so that she had more overall gold.

I feel that Riot should change up the way CS works to primarily accommodate gold value, where a melee or caster minion would count as 1 CS and every other creep would have a CS value based on that (so a siege minion would be something like 2.5 cs and one basic raptor would be like .45).

7 Comments

EleshakaiMar 19, 20153 votes

CS isn't supposed to tell you exactly how much gold the enemy has(if that was the goal, they'd just let you see that), it's just supposed to give you a rough idea.

I think it is left intentionally vague so as to reward people for paying attention.

Necron XCIXMar 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

CS isn't supposed to tell you exactly how much gold the enemy has(if that was the goal, they'd just let you see that), it's just supposed to give you a rough idea.

I think it is left intentionally vague so as to reward people for paying attention.

it still wouldn't tell you exactly, it'd just be a bit more accurate. You'll still be needing to pay attention, you just don't have to do as much mental work. Like dragon/baron timers

DaenMar 19, 20151 votes

Going from "mostly accurate" to "more mostly accurate" is likely not worth the development time nor the initial aversion to change. Dragon/Baron timers were essentially going from inefficiency to efficiency, which is much more worthwhile.

Think about it this way. In 10 minutes, you've seen roughly 17 waves; that's 51 melee minions, 51 caster minions, and 5 siege minions if my math is correct. Let's say that over this period of time minions are worth the following:

Melee: 20.5 gold
Caster: 17.5 gold
Siege: 42 gold

This works out to the following total value of each minion type:

Melee: 1,045.5 gold
Caster: 892.5 gold
Siege: 210 gold

The biggest possible discrepancy with sieges at the same numerical cs total is -5 casters and all sieges vs all casters and 0 sieges. This works out to the following gold comparison:

-5 Casters, All Sieges: 2060.5 gold, 102 CS
All Casters, No Sieges: 1938 gold, 102 CS

The maximum possible difference is 122.5 gold, which is about enough for a ward and a potion. Hardly gamebreaking, and this is assuming you have literally perfect CS other than these variables.

EleshakaiMar 19, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Necron XCIX,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=MV7HKMZl,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-03-19T22:01:06.720+0000)

it still wouldn't tell you exactly, it'd just be a bit more accurate. You'll still be needing to pay attention, you just don't have to do as much mental work. Like dragon/baron timers

the difference is dragon/baron timers only tell you if you actually saw the item go down. CS numbers update once you see the champ REGARDLESS of if you saw them kill the creep or note.

DaenMar 19, 20151 votes

10 minutes in I went to the scoreboard to compare my CS with the enemy top laner. Even though I was quite a few last hits above my opponent, my opponent got all the siege minions thrown at her while I missed some (I was having a mediocre game), making it so that she had more overall gold.

By 10 minutes in that's about 5 siege minions, with each siege being worth roughly double a melee/caster. You would need to be about 13 last hits above your opponent, assuming you miss every siege minion, to have more gold. How did you know your opponent had appreciably more gold, by the way?

Necron XCIXMar 19, 20151 votes

yeah, "quite a bit" was a poor-ish choice of words. I had more cs than her, but not enough to beat her with sheer number of caster/melee with gold.

I knew she had more because, again, I was having a bad game was getting panicky. I mean, it's possible that she barely missed more than I thought, but the point remains either way.

DaenMar 19, 20151 votes

I knew she had more because, again, I was having a bad game was getting panicky. I mean, it's possible that she barely missed more than I thought, but the point remains either way.

This doesn't really answer my question. The potential gold difference is enough to get maybe a ward, it's certainly not enough to appreciably affect builds unless the player was close to an item.

Regardless, my other answer here is likely more relevant. Even if each target has a certain numerical CS value, it would still become inaccurate. What if I CS really poorly for the first ten minutes but then get every minion for the next 10, whereas my opponent does the opposite? We might have similar CS totals, even if we killed the same creep types, but I would have way more money due to the way minions scale.