Want to know why Riot cancelled achievements? Look no further than Black Market Brawlers.

iainB85·Aug 3, 2015·86 votes·5,346 views

This mode + event proves why achievements cannot work in League of Legends.

Anyone who has played the game mode more than a few times has already probably suffered through prolonged games where at least one person refuses to group in a won game because, "they need more Krakens for the event".

This pretty much justifies all the fears that adding any kind of personal achievement besides "win the game" would overall decrease the player experience. Luckily it's only for a limited time event meant for fun. If these kind of personal achievements went live to all match making modes, it would really suck.

55 Comments

BastionKrossAug 4, 201519 votes

Oh god, the stories I have.

I cheered on the enemy team once because I had just gotten through two previous games where the enemy team surrendered so quickly that I was unable to purchase a level 3 upgrade. So I actually had to coax them to stay in the losing game long enough to farm up.

Another time, I started the game by telling my allies "Listen guys, if we start to lose big time, please don't surrender until we get a level 3 upgrade". The best (or worst, depending on your view) thing was that two of my allies were immediately right on board with the idea.

One game I spent practically the entire game in the enemy jungle, stealing his large monsters, simply to farm krakens. I didn't care about winning. I didn't care about getting caught. I didn't care about all my deaths. I didn't care about teamfights. I just got fed up with the high benchmarks for the rewards and wanted to farm that icon so that I'd never have to play the game mode again.

Now that I have my icon, I feel dirty. I did some pretty immoral things for something that probably wasn't worth the cost.

Guys, I think this might be how a prostitute feels.

AbodyHUN666Aug 4, 20151 votes

Hell, I'm just at the second quest of the event and I'm already ignoring aram fights and steal farm from allies. xD

rootcypher1203Aug 4, 20151 votes

wait until you get to the third act, if your value your time pick the TF and graves on. The GP one is so LONG.

SKOBODOAug 3, 201518 votes

What's even worse is when people finish when you have 19 Krakens and are about to get the 20th. It's so annoying, it feels like the game was wasted.

PartholonianAug 3, 20155 votes

Or more likely, surrender (genuinely finishing THAT early isn't so common). I once saw someone actually say in chat "don't surrender pls I need level 3 upgrade". You can probably guess what happened immediately after they said that.

I haven't seen anyone on the winning side deliberately prolong the game to reach level 3, though. Any non-surrender is probably going to last long enough anyway. On the other hand, I have refused surrenders when I was close to reaching a level 3 as the behind side. I very rarely surrender anyway, especially when it isn't 4v5 or worse, but some teammates may not know that and think that I'm refusing to surrender so that I can get to level 3. And there may be people who are in fact doing that and are perfectly willing to surrender after they get it.

IMO, the fact that it's for a limited time event makes it worse -- especially before they announced the end date. I wasn't completely sure they weren't ending it THIS weekend, but didn't have the time to spam that many BMBs. Now if I can get 1 game a day that isn't surrendered before I get a level 3 upgrade, I'll be positioned to finish easily over the weekend. So I won't have to be quite so tense about whether or not I'm going to reach it that game.

But the fact that the game can end before you can reach the point that contributes to the icon progress is not good IMO. If they had made the level 3 requirement significantly lower and made the krakens the main thing, a short game would contribute less but still contribute. With the numbers we have, it's almost impossible to reach 15 level 3s and not have the 750 krakens, so the level 3s are the thing you're bound to focus on.

58738074DEL1Aug 4, 20151 votes

[deleted]

Ariel the CruelAug 4, 20152 votes

Objection!

Irrelevant to the topic at hand.

TomatosxAug 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ariel the Cruel,realm=NA,application-id=LFfTlAky,discussion-id=TbAR7UX2,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-04T01:40:52.775+0000)

Objection!

Irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Exactly lol, I was like where is he getting this from

EchoZeeroAug 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

What's even worse is when people finish when you have 19 Krakens and are about to get the 20th. It's so annoying, it feels like the game was wasted.

The last 5 "Level 3 Upgrade" that I had to get, I had to play a stupid amount of games to get them because either my team or the enemy team would surrender before I could get it 4 out of 5 times. The other players didn't care because they probably already had them in the first 2 days of the event. This whole things was very badly planned.

9Q1IMGTQP3Aug 3, 20159 votes

Luckily it's only for a limited time event

There you go, I think this really is a key part and also the reason why I disagree.

I would assume that if Riot were to release a batch of achievements next patch, achievements that are not time limited, it wouldnt really matter and people would try to get them on the fly. The amount of people exclusively focusing on getting the achievements would likely still increase for the first days after the release but after that numbers should normalize.

Apart from that, I yet have to see someone in my games actually prolong games because he needs more Krakens.

RetillinAug 3, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kassadin Bot,realm=EUW,application-id=LFfTlAky,discussion-id=TbAR7UX2,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-08-03T19:36:56.032+0000)

Apart from that, I yet have to see someone in my games actually prolong games because he needs more Krakens.

Then you are lucky. I've seen both on my team and the other team. Multiple times people get a huge lead and just start farming kills/jungle creep kills/ect... to get as man level 3 upgrades as they can.

KuboxAug 3, 20153 votes

The only game mode where a fed team doesn't do that is ranked.

And even then .....

RetillinAug 3, 20151 votes

No, not like this. I've seen some REALLY BAD and blatant moves.

iainB85Aug 3, 20157 votes

I think:

a) You must have gotten pretty lucky not to see people going out of their way to keep a game going so they can farm for the event.

b) You say the number of people going for achievements would "normalize" -- that still sounds unnecptable to me. Even if only 1 in 20 of my games is ruined or prolonged an extra 20 minutes because someone is trying to get a specific achievement, then it's still having a negative impact on the game overall.

We all know how those "1 in 20" stats go too -- even if Riot claims something like, "there is only an AFK/Leaver every 1 in 20 games" all it takes is an unlucky streak where you get 3 of them in 5 games to make even the calmest person want to blow up and rage at the game.

LeetriAug 4, 20153 votes

I have yet seen anyone going for the GP icon, actually. I've asked my team every game (I've played 7 so far) and they've all gone for the Graves/TF one. I got a feeling not many picked the GP icon, or at least a minority.

Count BuffonAug 3, 20151 votes

People would rage out hard if you steal penta.

ChaoticPineconeAug 3, 20152 votes

just because you dont see it doesnt mean its not happening. I, myself, have refused surrenders to get a couple more Krakens. Sometimes its not level 3 - sometimes its just because i needed 1 or 2 more to spend 10, to accumulate enough for the 750 requirement.

S H A Y C 0Aug 3, 20153 votes

I think i understand. I would still like your personal performance in a ranked match to have some effect on your mmr or at the very least lp gain or loss. There really just is no reason why anybody who go 20-5-15, has amazing cs, pushed towers, rotated properly and on time, and warded like they were going out of style should lose or gain the same lp as the raging feeder, or the nerd that paid to get boosted thinking he was amazing and turns out hes totally bronze4life. Just my opinion.

T RexHasTinyArmsAug 3, 20152 votes

Maybe, but the last time I saw someone lose a game they did that well in was so long ago I don't remember. Most of the time it's someone who is like 12-4-10 and rotated decently, but not perfect, complained about their team (and the team lost focus typing back and started doing worse) and at some point someone makes a questionable call that gives the other team a big lead. That's my experience though, and I don't think balancing around an issue that happens 1 in 1000 games is as big a deal as most people seem to.

XonraAug 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=LFfTlAky,discussion-id=TbAR7UX2,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-08-03T18:13:58.455+0000)

Maybe, but the last time I saw someone lose a game they did that well in was so long ago I don't remember. Most of the time it's someone who is like 12-4-10 and rotated decently, but not perfect, complained about their team (and the team lost focus typing back and started doing worse) and at some point someone makes a questionable call that gives the other team a big lead. That's my experience though, and I don't think balancing around an issue that happens 1 in 1000 games is as big a deal as most people seem to.

I've lost plenty of games I had a 5 kda or higher. I've lost games where I had 15 kills and 3-4 deaths, but 2 teammates with 18 deaths each. Part of that is unfortunately the rank I am at and the mixed bag of skill level you run into, but it isn't 1 in 1000. Maybe 1 in 100 at most. (for me personally, not everyone.).

Then again I've got about a 50% win rate so I win enough, and I'm not really complaining, just stating it from my personal experience.

T RexHasTinyArmsAug 4, 20152 votes

I certainly understand the sentiment, and I think you're probably right with 1 in 100. (I feel like that's probably what it feels like for me, maybe 1 in 50 that is 100% impossible to win no matter how perfect I played at the worst, but usually I make enough mistakes it's at least possible I could have won.)

I think part of what makes things frustrating is that there tends to be a misconception about what "doing well" in a game entails. My mechanics are terrible. I forget to use zhonyas when I have it, or use it too late/too soon, don't aim skill shots right, can't play assassins to save my life. However, I play objectives decently and so I think bronze is the most fun division ever bc I can beat anything up to about silver 2 pretty consistently and then my champion pool starts to get restricted if I want to win. I feel like it must be what plat/diamond players feel in gold where I struggle, but for them it seems easy. For me the difference is objective control and utility. I can crush a game as Nunu and have very few kills (although with all the assists I guess he does play into high KDA representing skill, but not the same concept I think if you aren't doing damage/getting kills). In large part I can hard carry in lower elo on Nunu jg because if I don't have perfect early dragon control something is wrong, and I can usually control enemy buffs decently and counter gank consistently to keep my lanes alive so the enemy jg has less pressure and gets less gold. 5 dragons and baron wins low elo games almost every time, and it's easy to get that w/ Nunu control because consume means I control dragon, and blood boil means outer and probably inner turrets are easy off small advantages so we just get ward control and take baron or bait an absolute zero channel team fight.

My favorite champ, Heimer is the same way. I played a game recently and the team went like 1-6 to start w/ bot struggling or going even by 15 minutes and mid feeding their opponent. I was 1-0 or 2-0 top lane w/ cs advantage and tower down I think and swapped w/ mid. Instead of fighting the fed mid lane (which I might have done in the past and possibly lost the game for it) I shoved mid lane and went bot where we tower dived w/ my ult getting a shut down and two assists for me then taking drag. I don't look good from a stat line, couple assists, not carrying right? However, it turned around a losing lane, got shut down gold, a tower, and a dragon, plus freed up bot lane to help push mid and force the fed mid laner to fight 2v1 or 3v1 and stopped them from getting any more ahead/farming easy.

I'm not saying you're doing poorly or that you're wrong in terms of some games being unwinnable, and I'm certainly no great player myself. However, in lower elo the variability is greater, but that can often emphasize great play. I'm sure most games that you have a 5 or 6 kda you win easy (if not it's definitely a macro issue), but I'd wager half the ones you don't are ones you have team problems, but the other half are ones you could win if you changed your play. If you want I'll put my money (time) where my mouth is and review a couple games if you can record them on 3rd party like op.gg or something and I can watch them. I may find nothing to add and just apologize and agree w/ you, but I may find things that I can help you focus on to improve your play and it hopefully would be something that would let you win more. Let me know if you'd be interested, if not, no worries.

DreampodAug 5, 20151 votes

+1 good guy TinyArms

TurquoiseYoshiAug 3, 20153 votes

The thing is, if the achievements were on a GOOD game mode, I would enjoy them. But Black Market Brawlers isn't fun.

Noctius28Aug 4, 20153 votes

the first 2 acts were fine and none evasive achievements, the act 3 was the bad one, to get the rewards you had to play outside the norm for the krakens and upgrades

but getting X assists/kills or X gold in Aram or destroying X towers in aram?

Those were fine and I experienced no abuse for those rewards, those encouraged playing you best, not stalling the game

Achievements are fine as long as they play to the general strengths of the game and not out of place extras

iainB85Aug 4, 20151 votes

I think ARAM is a bit easier mode to do it on as well. How much can you really alter the play style on a single lane mode? There's no where else to go!

Summoner's Rift is a whole different can of worms though.

JanamanaAug 3, 20152 votes

I think the champion mastery stuff is kind of like an achievement. I mean it feels good when you get a champion to level 5 mastery. They should make the icons/rewards achievable outside of the game so people will be more focused in the actual game mode.

DeusVultAug 3, 20152 votes

Just spitballing here

What if they made it so that you earned points towards acheivements, such as kills, CS, Assists, etc, but only if you won the game. Keeps people from trying to just max that stat because if they lose they don't get anything towards it. It might make certain people more toxic because "WTF noob, im 19/2 and we're still losing, this is gonna fuck my score" but those people already exist so w/e

ModKnightsKemplarAug 3, 20152 votes

I successfully avoided the urge, despite wanting to delay several games. It definitely diminished the experience, and made me loathe the game mode that was otherwise pretty fun.

ShosukoAug 4, 20152 votes

Definitely true - My last game to finally achieve my 3rd tier upgrade and kraken 2 people on our team, and 3 people on the opposing team co-operated to prevent the game from ending while we finished our event goals. I was jinx in base with 3 inhibs down and they withdrew while we played about 20 more minutes to help people on both sides get what they needed.

Achievements are BAD m'kay? At least for this type of game yeah.

I think for an event it's okay - like in this one - as long as it's not going to effect normal games then we're good. This was isolated to the event mode, and half the people were in agreement (one of them spammed /ff since 20 mins tho)

RoyaiChaosAug 4, 20152 votes

Time to bookmark for future reference~

iainB85Aug 5, 20151 votes

http://www.troll.me/images/compliment-bender/indeed-well-played-sir-well-played.jpg

AnnapiiAug 3, 20151 votes

sigh. This is why we can't have nice things.

Fuckin' people.

GundayMondayAug 3, 20151 votes

THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW.

I was so mad at our ADC last night because he kept going off into the enemy jungle to farm camps when we had the game won if we rushed the open enemy nexus. Completely understand if he had to farm more rewards.

And yeah, you're completely right OP, this is annoying as hell.

Magister RagunAug 3, 20151 votes

Achievements are ususally just a way for bad or linear games to pretend they have replayablity. League doesn't need them.

AnidanAug 3, 20151 votes

Yeah, you're right. Similar happens during specific times in World of Warcraft battlegrounds, most notably during the Children's Week event for the infamous "School of Hard Knocks" achievement that's required for a meta achievement which rewards a mount and a higher tier of flying if you don't yet have it (may have been changed now). First you have achievement hunters that don't like PvP in the first place, making it a miserable slough for them to go through with it, since you had to have the child present during various milestone achievements in a battleground, and the achievement made it miserable for players that prefer PvP because they have to deal with people who don't enjoy PvP even more than usual.

Sometimes, achievements just aren't a good route to go. Mixing gameplay styles like WoW did with that infamous achievement was a bad implementation of the achievement system. If Riot was to implement an achievement system you'd have many, many people going out of their way to try obtain those achievements, ruining other peoples' fun for their own ambitions that may or may not even have an actual reward system in place. Even if it was to normalize later, the damage it did in the first place would very likely be a scar on the idea of their implementation for a very, very long time. I'd say it's honestly too late to implement an achievement system, and it's not advisable to begin doing it anymore. Even DotA2 tried implementing achievements, and then removed them.

KoKobotoAug 3, 20151 votes

Totally agree with OP

ZtokaAug 3, 20151 votes

I have had many people cry/rage/beg to keep the game going so they can get their 20 kills, 150 cs, more coins etc. I just say, play another game. No point turtling.. Really, if you want to be fair, and get everyone their 20 kills/cs etc, the game would never end...

Infiny MageAug 4, 20151 votes

Barely any time in matches to actually get something meaningful accomplished towards your quota for the icons. I gave up, I'm all for event icons and game mode specific things but the grind seems too much. We get people who go on one extreme and don't want to do anything but get their kraken. And often times it's just another 20 minute wasted because of a surrender due to the snowballing lol

MandaariAug 4, 20151 votes

The same thing has happened in lots of other games. I remember a few years back WoW had a holiday achievement for Alterac Valley to cap towers. Horde and Alliance just traded off capping and saving towers. Anyone that tried to actually play the game got berated.

SolaxoAug 4, 20151 votes

Maybe achievements should be hidden then. Like you're getting an achievement but you don't exactly know why

SKOBODOAug 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Maybe achievements should be hidden then. Like you're getting an achievement but you don't exactly know why

People would post it on the forums. If Riot decides to delete such posts, then people will post them on other websites.

AMYS GRAVEAug 4, 20151 votes

haha yeah, when one goal was farming aram i went into the game and no one would attack enemy champions or towers. no one wanted to win the game they just wanted to fight over farm.

KitsyAug 4, 20151 votes

I agree and i am one of those players who would exstend the game a little if i was close to upgrading a unit to max. Its not my fault Riot made an achivement that requiered long games. I wanted the icon and i went for it. Lucky for me those few times i exstended the games we still won. But i dont agree that this is how games should be.

TuffrootAug 4, 20152 votes

I couldn't tell you how many times playing this mode I went off to counter-jungle or hunt down the other jungler when I "should" have been pushing an objective. Or how many times I fed myself/a turret/a few teammates to the opposing team in order to keep them from feeling so down they would surrender. And once I even jumped into the enemy fountain so I could die and pick up my second level 3 upgrade as my team was killing their nexus. Never cost us a game doing this stuff, but still...

I definitely played BMB different from a normal SR game. However, I don't think it was the type of different the dev team probably wanted.

rootcypher1203Aug 4, 20151 votes

I asked my team to extend a few games if I was close to the achievement as well. The key word being, I asked. If the majority of the team wanted to quit or push to end the game I helped them , and moved on to the next game. The third challenge was too much. They asked for 750 spent kragens, and 15 3rd tiered upgrades. Usually I would only get one 3rd tiered upgrade per game.

Ballsiest LissNAAug 4, 20151 votes

I didn't suffer through it until I couldn't spend any more for 15 minutes. Karthus game on my main acct, I went 25/5/27 or something and had every upgrade, replaced boots with luden's, and literally everyone else just kept dying alone.

Dr EasterAug 4, 20151 votes

I disagree. The event won't be there forever so this puts pressure on people to get it quickly. Personal archievements would be available all the time