Lets have a real talk about the LOL community

This post WILL get many dislikes

Before we start, I want everyone to come with an open mind, and the "Blame myself instead of others" mentality. I want people to seriously think about how they act towards aspects of this game.

I AM NOT IMMUNE TO ANYTHING I HAVE TO SAY IN THIS POST, I AM JUST LIKE EVERY ONE OF YOU GUYS.

Its hard to start this post, really because there is so much to talk about. Might as well start with what the community thinks of as "balanced"

Just a thought experiment, If everyone got their way, and champions like , or got nerfed to the ground like a large portion of the League community wants them to, then will the game be balanced, in their eyes at least? Keep in mind, if those champions end up with 40% winrates, will the community then see them as "balanced"? Will the community then say that another champion is overpowered? Now that the annoying assassins are gone, who will be left to police the immobile mages, like or ?? Will they become OP too? and if they do become OP then will the community want them to be nerfed to the ground as well? How about every little change that a buff or a nerf to a champions makes for the rest of the champions and items in the game. You nerf tanks, there is no one to survive assassins or burst mages is there? You nerf adc's, then who is there to melt the tanks? Every little change has a reaction to the rest of the champions and items, regardless how small it is. This is part of the reason Riot says they want to try and rotate op's, they can't really create perfect balance, so they simulate it by making changes that kind of just rotate who is good and who is bad. True balance in this game will never objectively exist, its a subjective matter so everyone thinks of balance differently. I for one, think that this patch right now is probably the most stable patch this season. Changes in the next patch will be very nice however so I'm not going to stand on my statement.

It definitely isn't fair to view the League of Legends community as a collective. The League of Legends community is full of individuals with different ideas on what balance "ought" to be. So with a community where everyone thinks that they know what balance is, who is right, and who is wrong? Balance is subjective, and everyone thinks differently on it. Riot, unfortunately, has the task of trying to make everyone happy. One positive to a certain group of people is a negative to another. Buffing assassins for example. The assassin players will be happy, while the immobile/squishy players will be upset.

Unfortunately, people will refuse to understand that certain champions have advantages over other champions. People don't want to have the mobile assassins outdamage and outplay the immobile mages in a 1v1 early in the game. And they really don't want the assassins to be able to snowball because of that. Riot take into account that a skilled mage player should be able to outplay a bad assassin player. That's why counters don't necessarily exist in this game like they do in dota or something like that. There is nothing wrong with that, however it creates a gap between champs with high and low skillcaps. which in turn, means that the higher you go up the ladder, the less champs get played, which is what we see in the LCS.

People always complain about the LCS not having diverse picks. The truth of the matter is that there are no real counters in this game. In a game with no counters, you pick who you are best with. Some champions are better than others once you hit their skill ceilings. The best player will always win more games than the best player, just by nature of gangplank being able to do more with his kit. That's just the way the game works. There are only theoretical counters, and they are pretty insignificant when skill ends up being the deciding factor in games.

Overall, I feel like the community does not have the best idea of what balance is, mainly because everyone has a different idea of what it should be. I'd imagine that's the main reason Riot is taking change very slowly. Riot are trying to piece together every statistic and come up with ideas that will nudge champions into where they think that they should be. It just isn't as simple as "lower these numbers" or "gut this champion." As I said before, every change has a reaction. A nerf to Q for example would hinder his effectiveness against close range enemies, meaning ALL close range enemies in the game would get a "buff" if they are against him. It is also important to remember that Riot has a subjective idea of what balance should be as well, and they need to take this into account when it comes to champion changes, which in my opinion, they have done well with recently (except for ). There are obviously more changes that they need to make to stabilize the game even more.

TL:DR : Balance is subjective There is no "true balance", nor is it possible in a game like this There are no "true counters" because skill in this game is a more prominent feature, however, that makes champions with high skill caps naturally better than champs with lower skill caps. ^ LCS players know this and chose from a small pool because of it. Riot has to take into consideration a LOT before they make any changes.

The other thing I want the community to think about is how they treat eachother, and Riot themselves.

I'm going to be blunt here, If I was Riot, I would not be excited to come to work only to see hate from everybody who has a different opinion on how the game should be. Every day there are posts about Dynamic queue sucking and the usual "gut this champion" post that every board user has seen already. However, when Riot does do something Really good, like hextech crafting for example, they don't get any recognition for it. I don't know about anyone else, but in the last week I have gotten at least 4 1820 rp skin shards from boxes (with a couple augment caches thrown in there). Look at every other F2P game. CSGO for example, you play like 10 games for a 7 cent skin. League on the other hand definatly requires a bit more commitment, but you get the chests and key shards. And you have a much higher probability of getting an expensive skin. The hextech crafting system is the best crafting system/get free stuff system in any existing F2P game. (^I went on a bit of a tangent here) Riot really just doesn't get a lot of credit for their work. People are so fast to criticize their work, when a lot of the time they don't really have a good idea to fix it.

The community is no better to itself. I see people calling each other boosted animals for using dynamic queue, or bad players for playing support a lot. I see people trying to create divisions in this community because of those reasons as well. Its disappointing that people act like this to each other. Aren't we all league players? Can't we all just get along lol? Either way, It really seems like the community is blowing things that Riot does out of proportion. Dynamic queue for example, People have blown that WAY out of proportion. Its gotten to the point where Solo's are trying to separate themselves from people who use dynamic queue. As a Solo player who doesn't mind Dynamic queue, I really don't think that dynamic queue is the problem. In fact, I seem to do much better when I'm alone as opposed to when I queue up with a friend. And TBH, it seems like all the feeders I get are solo Pref players, so go figure. I don't want to be called a solo pref or dynamic pref player, I want to be called a League player.

Another point about the community tearing itself apart. This community seems to go on a witch hunt about every month about who is the most op champion, then demonize the mains of that champion when they try to share their opinion. It really seems like people are more interested in sitting in an echo chamber rather than actually debate about the champion.

TLDR : The LOL community shows Riot no appreciation when they do something good, but are quick to demonize them when they do something bad The LOL community tears itself apart over many issues The LOL community tends to go on champion witch hunts without wanting to hear the opposing opinion on that champion. Overall, I think people are being too critical towards each other, and are trying to create more and more divides between themselves. Riot is getting no appreciation for what they do right, but overwhelming criticism for when they screw up.

I want everyone who made it this far to seriously consider what I have said. I am guilty of this stuff as well. I do not hate the League of legends community, I am simply criticizing it. If its ok to criticize Riot, then its ok to criticize the community. I genuinely want everyone to start considering both sides to champion arguments, and start appreciating the good parts about this game, rather than just obsess over its shortcomings. I don't want this community to keep separating itself due to arbitrary titles such as "boosted monkey".

Have a nice day :)

Edit: It is important to call Riot out on things that end up becoming completely broken, like the Sona or Malz rework. The PBE is a limited community with many changes coming in at one time, so there is not enough control for the variables in place. We need to make sure we do our part in the balancing cycle.