How to Better Prevent Future Olafing

Remlap1223·5/27/2014, 11:30:50 AM·12 votes·1,385 views

Another MOBA I dabble in is Smite. I stumbled across their forums and noticed that they have something that League doesn't have of their forums: A specific god (champion) discussion thread. Each of the ones I viewed had a general discussion that allowed players to discuss the overall health of gods in the game. And another thing I noticed? With the exception of a couple underpowered gods of the Graves mana hungry variety, and one really overpowered one of the Nidalee and Leblanc insta-nuke variety, most of the community outside of a couple bugbears in the kit agreed that most gods were balanced. So with the current lackluster champion health in this game, I have to ask why this isn't implemented? Sure we have a champion discussion board, but it's way too random and disorganized. If the Reds were to look at each individual champion thread, and let's say the community agrees that Gangplank is severely underpowered and should be top of the list for a buff next patch (hint, wink, nudge) then the Reds should take that into consideration. It would definitley help get a clear and concise opinion of the health of the champion pool from the community.

16 Comments

RiotRiot Baconhawk5/28/2014, 5:01:36 AM6 votes

Interesting.

flies away cawwing

mi ramfan5/27/2014, 9:30:03 PM4 votes

There are too many champions for individual subforums, but...maybe subforums by role?

So a Marksman subforum, a Fighter subforum, an Assassin subforum...etc

Silverthane5/27/2014, 6:37:33 PM3 votes

very good idea. this should be a feature on the forums

Icy Hot Shoto5/28/2014, 3:44:20 AM1 votes

Or, you can just not watch Frozen. I am so done with myself

Anyways, I have to agree with most of what people are saying. Especially with Leona. Not only is she a tank/support, she can easily go mid/jungle and be and AP-bruiser, or top/jungle as an AD-bruiser.

Too much confusion for one champion, and so not worth the time.

Ding an Sich5/28/2014, 5:27:38 AM1 votes

Community perception is a big topic, however I'm unsure about how long you've actually been apart of this forum community, or even the reddit community (if you are). More times then I can count, the people who generally post on either these or the reddit forums, are the very local minority(as said by Rioter's themselves multiple times). This doesn't mean anything posted here is wrong or useless,if at the very least, this type of idea be a good point to start looking over a base level of perception.

But Riot has to account more for the majority of players who don't post, and they do this especially with actual surveys being sent to players across the entire player base who fit a specific topic Riot is trying to look at. If anything surveys are better simply for the fact it removes alot of the elements that may stunt, or give incorrect beliefs about certain topics (if done right). But it is still a slow process.

One other point: even if these sub-forums were made, Riot won't regularly post in alot of them. Because of the forum communities past experience, Riot members only talk for 4 primary reasons:

  1. A sudden development has happened, and they want to acknowledge it is being looked at (huge issues like DDOS or whatever else)

  2. They have actual news they can share (previous major posts announcing reworks, game modes, champions, ect) These posts usually come in large gaps, have an explosion of activity, and then aren't seen for weeks or months

  3. For rioters who have the time and personal opinion to talk about a champion (Xelnath, phreak, ect)

  4. To announce nothing is currently planned, but it isn't forgotten (talking about ww/cho/taric/ect all being part of a large scale RW/VU, but they aren't the #1 priority)

Because more or less the most types of red posts you see will be 3 and 4, but alot of people on these forum spam posts asking about 2, even if there is no answer, or it has been answered. And because of this people are likely to migrate back to another thread (general discussion) and post there because of the more common red posts, or red posts by particular riot members.

I'm not saying Riot won't or shouldn't implement this, but personally I don't see a necessarily strong case for it given how things already work at this time.

Mansana5/28/2014, 5:53:23 AM1 votes

I'm sure the Smite community would say its balanced but wait till they get around 50 more Gods. 56 compared to 119 champions is kinda of a big difference when a community has to pitch in about who's balanced or not. However, I do love the idea of the community helping with the overall health of the game and the champions. It just seems like a lot of hard work and cooperation is needed to make this game "balanced" especially like some people like myself are biased on the champions we like especially since most champions stick out more than others. We all know we have that one champion that's dear to our hearts and don't want to see them nerfed.

Sir ArmaMalum5/27/2014, 2:04:28 PM1 votes

There would be some problems. League's playerbase (and by nature forum base) size for one, the number of champions and the fact that a patch would probably mean a few of these threads needing to be 'reset' if the changes are big enough. How useful they are would be entirely dependent on the community responses. Naturally a bunch of "OMG SO OP PLZ NERF" comments will negate any usefulness if that becomes the standard.

Honestly now that I think about it, this would be perfect for the PBE. Smaller community of (hopefully, but not always) better informed players who in my experience actually provide useful feedback on the forums. I'm simply hesitant to release this to the entire League playerbase, but it has some potential.

Remlap12235/28/2014, 9:35:21 PM1 votes

I've been reading your guys' comments, and how about this; when a new patch is released, the general discussion thread closes and a new one opens?

GundayMonday5/27/2014, 7:00:09 PM1 votes

I don't think this will help with balancing. Phreak gave some good examples in another thread about people taking forever to figure out that Twitch was strong, or Mid Lulu was viable, because the game is complicated and people aren't always playing a champion to the best of their abilities. I mean, I've played Sejuani more than almost anyone else on the planet, and just found a new trick last week that dramatically improves all aspects of her game (Did you know Sej can solo Baron with 5 items?). You listen to the whining on the forums and everyone would say she's just a bad champ (I don't mind this at all, by the way). See what I mean? Just because people are complaining/bragging doesn't necessarily mean they know what they're talking about. I've been playing this game for almost 3 years and still have no idea what I'm doing.

That said, champion specific forums would be pretty useful from a design perspective or for new players looking for advice. Since League has a ton of champs, maybe it's better to do forums for different types of champions (Marksmen, Supports, Junglers, Bruisers, APCs, etc). I would definitely use those and it would help filter the discussions to what I care about.

Breakstar5/27/2014, 8:18:21 PM1 votes

Isn't it possible that it would just cause a lot of self-congratulatory subcommunities? Like everyone in the Vayne subforum thinks that Vi is OP, and everyone in the Renekton subforum thinks that Jax is OP, etc