Riots balance strategy cripples new players

slippykitten·2/11/2015, 5:19:48 PM·5 votes·474 views

If you are new to lol, and don't have $300 to drop, it will take you roughly 150-200 hours to grind enough ip for 2 rune pages and enough champions to play ranked. This is, in itself, ridiculous for new players but that isnt my point here.

With Riots strategy of nerfing op champs into uselessness, players have to have a massive champ pool to even be able to consistently perform adequately. When balance is so skewed like it is, and FOTM champs are SO powerful, you are basically at a loss unless you own those champs.

A new player might buy and learn Ahri, only to have her gutted next patch. Couple this with the fact that inexperienced players often waste ip on useless runes (another problem that isnt addressed) and champs that have always been weak, and you pigeon hole new players into bronze 5.

It didnt use to be this way of course. When I started playing in season one, there was no smurfs, no meta, barely even FOTM champs. My first season i got 1900 ELO by duoing poppy and soraka bot lane. Such things arent possible anymore and its painful to watch a new person say "oh eve looks like she would be fun to jungle" and then have a mental breakdown 5 min into the match.

My point is this, that when so much of the game is catered to EXTREMELY experienced players, it would be nice if balance at least gave new people (and i mean new as in they haven't played the equivalent of an entire months time) a chance to perform. This inherently can make the game a pay to win game very easily ( i dont think it is quite there yet, but its close)

TL;DR - Riots system of cycling through and nerfing good champions into unviable ones makes it impossible for new players to succeed.

29 Comments

Envy Sin2/11/2015, 5:31:50 PM3 votes

If someone hasn't played for 100-200 hours at least i don't want them on my team in ranked. I would rather have someone who's played enough to know how most (if not all) champions work, How to build/play against them. Because otherwise you're crippling your team.

What riot needs to do is make smurfs play with level 30s soon after they make the account. THAT'S what the issue for most new players is. Smurfs steamroll them till they quit.

Eleshakai2/11/2015, 5:45:05 PM3 votes

No champion is so weak that they are incapable of being played at low tiers of play.

You have to be at LEAST Plat(honestly, probably not until diamond) before champion matchups start mattering in any real way... and even then you can overcome it with mastery. AFterall, there's that one guy who played teemo every game regardless of role, and was Diamond 1(or maybe even master).

Daen2/11/2015, 5:44:31 PM2 votes

Riots system of cycling through and nerfing good champions into unviable ones makes it impossible for new players to succeed.

This is never their intent, and in most cases nerfed champions are still perfectly viable in every level of play except maybe 5-man professional teamplay. There are very few champions that can be considered non-viable in the current game state, and nerfing the FOTM/overpowered/anti-fun champions to bring them to the level of everything else does not ruin the game.

Also, you mentioned the following:

its painful to watch a new person say "oh eve looks like she would be fun to jungle" and then have a mental breakdown 5 min into the match.

Evelynn is still a very powerful jungler, especially in low tier solo queue. Why do you feel that new players would have a mental breakdown when attempting to play her?

hgjkdlsaf jeldvb2/11/2015, 6:18:10 PM1 votes

I think you'll find that sticking with your mains will rarely let you down at low level. It even works out well at high level. Ahri will still be good, even after these nerfs, and the next round of nerfs. Ahri has always been, at a minimum, viable for solo queue. Nerfs are part of the beast, and they are not as important at low level as you seem to think. Champs with broken mechanics will stay that way, no matter how bad they hit the numbers. That's why yasuo and zed will always be picked and will always be perceived as too good.

aLawfulFalafel2/11/2015, 9:04:48 PM1 votes

first of all, new players shouldnt be playing ranked yet, in reality you should get about a year (if not more) under your belt before going into ranked (ranked means "im better than you and ill prove it" ) so if you're a noob and get, as you say, "pigeon holed" into bronze 5 then guess what, thats probably where you belong since you decided to play ranked as a noob instead of gaining legitimate experience and learning ALL the champs and not just the few you have learned to play in your first month or so since you will be facing almost ANY champ and should know how they work in order to counter them properly

secondly, i find it rare that a champ gets nerffed right into the ground (though it happens) but should that be the case you should be able to play multiple champs, not just one or 2, so if anything it would only help you come out of your comfort zone and play other champs (hence free champ rotation, its not just for noobs, after over a year of play i still use free champs as often as possible to help me learn champs i couldnt picture buying)

and 3rd but not least, new players lacking experience make new players that lack experience their own worst enemy, not riot, i mean, really, like anything if you are inexperienced then you wont be as good as those who ARE experienced, thats why ritos matchmaking takes all sorts of things into consideration to keep you playing with people of your caliber or as close as possible, and there will always be tough matchmaking decisions, like when that gold 2 duos with that bronze 4, pretty tough to match up all opponents easliy in that case

and i cant even begin to see what you mean by P2W, at best i understand it like this : i PAY my time to buy experience which i inturn use 2 WIN, PAY 2 WIN, but thats not what pay to win is, so please, elaborate, because other than a few select skins i see no form of pay to win, and even then those skins just give you cheap tricks, harder to see abilities or a different animation on a kill shot compared to a normal shot, neither will ensure victory, probably just make me worse since im relying on parlor tricks and not ACTUAL SKILL and champ knowledge

Can u even give an example of a sport where experience and practice doesnt help you get better? or for that matter, a sport that has tournaments on a professional level where noobies enter and lose then turn around and say : well that wasnt fair at all, they have experience, i should have a chance at winning! i doubt u can give an example because thats not how sports work, u put ur kid in minor league so that after YEARS of play MAYBE hell have enough experience to join a farm team where hell have to do very well before getting picked up for the majors, and even then your child, who is now grown, might not do well on a professional level thats what league is, an eSport, so if you treat it as such everything makes perfect sense and like any sport the rule books get changed, you might not agree with some, or even any of the rules, but those are the rules and if you want to compete you need to abide by them

now if your complaint was something like, people with toasters shouldnt be matched up with people with super-pcs then id agree, newspaper shin pad kids without shoes shouldnt play adidas shin pad kids with shoes and expect the same results or a fair game, but it still doesnt mean they are gonna lose, with skill and experience its possible to overcome, but there should be something in place to keep the equipped playing with the equipped and vice versa but since rito cant effectively inspect each and everyone of our PCs before each game (especially with sandbox programs and what not to show only whats wanted to be seen) then the only things left to do are organize by area and assumed skill level, so we are seperated by area (NA east coast feels the neglect) and then by assumed skill level (which is ever changing)

Hellhammer2/11/2015, 11:25:00 PM1 votes

League of Legends is like Harvy Dent from the dark knight says: " You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" " You either rage and uninstall or you play long enough until you become the try hard"

I believe the opposite Most new players are going to pick a champion that they think is cool looking or buy a new champ based on how they like the mechanics. New players actually probably enjoy the game far more than we do because to them its all about learning, trial and error of this brand new world that we've kinda exhausted over the course of 100 hours +

they probably are less apt to rage against their team, and they're chill because they don't have some soccerdad coaching them on what champion to play in what lane, with what runes/masteries as well as build.