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Why Riot is not a Good Company

I love tap water·10/3/2015, 5:47:55 AM·4 votes·515 views

To start off with, I am not a 8 year-old rager who cannot manage to keep his composure in an argument and I actual do indeed enjoy playing League of Legends. I am not trying to hate a bunch on Riot, but rather try and provide a different perspective on their works and at least how I see it. I will accept criticism unlike most people who post about stuff like this.

I do have quite a few reasons for why I think Riot is a rather primal company, but I will start with my first one which is balance within the game. Now I will admit, League of Legends is more balanced than a lot of other PvP games and I give them props for that, but that doesn't leave the poor balance in the game inexcusable. In the 2015 spring split of LCS, there were 76 champs used out of the entire champion pool of over 120 champions. Now there might be other reasons for this, but I believe that the reason for this is because those other 50 or so champions are either A; under-powered or B; not fit for the current META of the game. The first issue here is that in a game where it is Player Versus Player combat and you are creating characters to choose out of, all of those characters should be all powerful in there own ways. In League of Legends, there are champions that are better in almost every way, shape and form than some other champions. For instance, Jayce over Yorick. Jayce has pretty much every advantage over Yorick. He can poke better. He can farm better. He can be just as tanky as Yorick. In this situation, Jayce will almost always be better than Yorick at least champion wise (Player skill would add different variables to this equation). The second issue here is that there is a META. A META by common definition of League of Legends players, is the set standards for what you should and should not be doing within the game. This brings me back to an earlier point; in a Player Versus Player game, all champions and other factors within the game should all be equal in strength each also having its own strengths and weaknesses. The fact of the matter is though, it is not. A META is generally developed by players of the game, but usually influenced a lot by the company creating the game. A META is not always necessarily a bad thing such as certain archetypes for champions for example, ADCs will generally want to build AD. The META in League of Legends though, is not like this. The META in League of Legends right now revolves a lot around which champions are strong and which are not. This actually brings me to my next point, banning. Banning should be a preference upon what you want and don't want to go against, except League of Legends takes this to a new level. You are not banning champs mainly because of a preference, but rather because you feel as if you have to due to the champion being overpowered or something of the sort. Another term that we League of Legends players have added to our lingo is overpowered. Overpowered, generally speaking, is when something is stronger than the set standards for most champions and are stronger than what they should be. Although the term overpowered shouldn't have to be used in PvP games, it is. As I have already threaded throughout my argument, champions should all be equal in power if you were to add together all of their strengths. So to really sum it all up, Riot has relatively poor balancing issues.

My next point I would like to make out is how Riot buffs and nerfs champions. This point is a tad theoretical in terms of facts, but I am sure other players of the game would probably agree with me that in the game right now, Riot generally fixes there overpowered issue by buffing other champions. Now whether this is entirely factual or not, if you take notice about how the META moves, it isn't that champions that were overpowered are suddenly under-powered, but rather a new comer rises to plate of fame and get's on the perma-ban list for all of my ranked games. This causes an issue known as inflation or as I will use the term; 'champion inflation'. Champion inflation at least by my definition is when power is rising rather than changing to balance the game. There are several problems that can happen due to this. One out come of this is that some of my friends like and will fall out of the META assuming that they are forgotten. If they are forgotten, then what will happen is those champions will sit there not being played like trophies that haven't been dusted in a while. Another problem that can rise from this is too much power. Champions could very well get to a point where the damage could get into the 1000's by level 5 in game. I am sure there are more problems you could get from this, but this is enough to sort of get the gist of this. To sum it all up, Riot is not nerfing and buffing champions as they should be.

Another point I have is that Riot does not know their community well enough. To clarify, Riot doesn't know enough about what goes on in the actual matches that we partake in (either that or they really just don't care very much for our opinions). The reason I say this is because of something that was added somewhat recently, rising dodge queue times. From what I know based upon what my friend who is very well educated on the works of Rito and Valoran, the main reason that Riot implemented this system was to stop dodge trolls. I am sure most of my fellow players can concur with this; the amount of trolls in champ select are more intent on ruining your game rather than dodging and wasting your time. If Riot truly understood their community, they would know that there are people that are intent on ruining the game and sometimes we have to dodge to stop ourselves from losing more LP than we would have if we were to play the game out. The argument I already know people would use against this one is to go to the tribunal, but in the reality of it all, Riot does not have enough time to go through every single argument in the tribunal as far as I know. There for, it would be much more efficient to just not add as much of penalty for dodging.

Although I could probably add more to this list, these are really the main points I have on my mind. Riot in my opinion is a relatively primal company which in my eyes detracts from what is initially a fantastic game. As I have already said, criticism is accepted here and if Riot were to read this, I highly doubt it will change any of these things. I am also not trying to rage and hate upon Riot, but to rather criticize and provide a different perspective. You can all take this how you want to, but I think I will be on my way. Have a nice day.

16 Comments

ninjaIRL 10/3/2015, 6:22:12 AM2 votes

RIot's working to keep the game fresh and new because of how static everything, and the meta, is.

Yorick being useless is being worked on but they, reportedly, are having problems fulfilling the theme of undead armies whilst keeping it balanced and interesting. Right now Yorick is useless, at least that is better than being an unstable champion like pre-rework Rengar or Mordekaiser.

I think a big issue is the lore of this game. It used to be consistent and deep but because Riot needed to add more champions and the restricting nature of the Summoners, they needed to scrap the whole Institute of War. What Riot is missing is more in game development in lore. There should be game modes were lore is respected i.e. Noxus vs Ionia, Noxus vs Demacia, Ionia vs Shadow Isles or Bilgewater vs Shadow Isles, or the Void vs the Shadow Isles. Champion alliances need to be solidified in gameplay. This could be done through lore immersive quotes but honestly, the quest system that the Battle for the Freljord had before should be brought back.

It provides more fun when you beat play a champion against their nemesis. It would add immersion and more reason to find the game fun other that stomping game or making cool plays.

Right now it feels like the lore team is being put on ice.

I am hoping lore will be delved further on when all the technical game issues are resolved such as mac updating freezes and a crappy client. As well as balance.

What I find annoying is how Aatrox is considerably weaker than Tryndamere when it was Aatrox that "created" Tryndamere in the first place. These inconsistencies...

Sarutobi10/3/2015, 6:28:12 AM2 votes

What i feel Riot could really use is to start having deadlines. While i understand some problems can happen that might make things take longer than usual. It seems to me that they have a "things will get done when its done" attitude which is just wrong. You need deadlines for basically everything you do. Especially if you are working. Some of the things you do at your job has deadlines and if they arent done there is some type of consequence. Yet at least from what im seeing for Riot it seems pretty chilled when it comes to working on/releasing content especially those that have been talked about for years!

Also they need to actually work on the servers. Granted with the move i will say the servers have been stabled. There are some times when lag spikes, or lag in general make the game unplayable. Usually this is something on Riot's end and i feel like they still believe this is a small game and still treating it like its a not a populated game.

While i will agree with some of things you posted. One thing i really dislike is the dodge. While i understand people talk a lot of crap in champ select doesnt actually mean they'll troll in game. Me and my friends sometimes do this when we play and yet when we actually get into the game we take it just as serious. While ill admit being able to dodge at least once or twice should be ok. When people talk about being able to dodge they want to be able to do it continiously which i think is wrong. because then people will leave just because. like bad team comp on both teams, or not liking when someone is playing a certain champion/role. it will get abused if left without some type of consequence.

Deep Terror Nami10/3/2015, 6:56:14 AM2 votes

I'd say it boils down to "the average player actually has no idea what Riot does and does not do, or why". Ignorance is rampant in this community (though sometimes it's simply because of Riot's lack of clarity).

MilkyLemonade10/3/2015, 5:49:44 AM1 votes

Such Emo Rage, Much Cancer item 3070

Environmentalist10/3/2015, 5:52:34 AM1 votes

I really want to read this, but it's longer than 4 words. tl;dr

Guy Fox Teemo10/3/2015, 7:52:40 AM1 votes

1: Lcs only uses the most overpowered champions during a patch, nothing is perfect there will always be some that are stronger then others. Don't even try to argue that, this is the most balanced season out of all of them. 2: Riot nerfs champions more then they buff generally. 3: There's really no way to fix the dodge issue other then maybe implementing a free dodge once a day. But they probably have internal reason's not to that. 4: Riot is a company, League of Legends is their game. Please do not act as if the 2 are the same thing, although they only have one actual game. Riot itself isn't "League of Legends".