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Non-summoners rift maps: why do they matter and how to fix them.

Cardbox frog·9/6/2014, 10:03:05 PM·6 votes·1,289 views

Hi there, I just felt like throwing my 2 cents at the issues of the non-Summoner Rift maps. TLDR; crowd be warned, this post will be quite long and probably a little bit boring, so if you don't like reading huge walls of bad-written text do yourself a favor and avoid this topic like the black plague.

[Disclaimer: NSRMs means "Non-Summer's Rift Maps"]

Introduction: the good, the bad and the ugly.

You see, Riot Staff seems to be pretty disappointed with how much the NSRMs under-performed, which is pretty understandable. There was a lot of work put behind it all and we can all agree that the end result was far from satisfactory. At the end of last year, RiotMorello stated that there were no plans to make any other map ("Basketball only has one map and it's a great game"), which provides further evidence of what a bitter taste in mouth this whole experience has left them.

But it's not only disappointment coming from RiotGaming, multiple times they have talked about the possible ill effects of having multiple maps. Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and list a few negative things about adding maps...

  • Maps require maintenance (a.k.a more employees a.k.a more money) but do not attract huge new sources of income. This may sound very trivial, but monetization and where to spend resources should never be over-looked on a Freemium/Free2Play game.

  • Achieving balance on one map is already very hard, but on multiple maps is barely impossible. You either have to iterate like a madman (from Zaun) or make map specific balances. No matter which option you decide, you will end up spending additional resources.

  • You run the risk of of polarizing your own player-base, creating enemity between those that favor one mode or the other, which could really damage the LoL community as a whole.

Taking those things into account, it's no surprise seeing the staff not really focusing a lot of time or resources into those maps (http://pastebin.com/9cne1ctE ). But if they are not willing to put any additional effort into these maps, then why don't they remove them all together? It's not like Riot is scared of pulling the plug on side projects that are not being profitable, we have seen them do it with the "Journal of Justice", the "summoner showcase" and even with the old "Plague Jungle" TT map? So why? What's stopping them now?

If you ask me, I think it's because Riot knows that maps are a great idea if they are implemented properly. Sure, there are a lot of things you should be really carefull about, but in the end they can greatly enrich your product (I will continue with this idea below). Just look at Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, Warcraft 3, all these were objectively better due to their map variety. Heck, even some of LoL's rivals on the MOBA genre can be seen trying different modes every now and then, and a few of them have had a fairly good degree of success.

***Why should you implement maps: the perfect Pasta Sauce ***

Different maps add variety to the game, which in turn attracts a bigger audience. This has been known for years, thanks to a phenom informally known as "perfect pasta sauce". Instead of trying to fully explain the idea, I will leave this TED+talk here that does it 10 times better than I ever could. (sorry if it looks kind of lazy from my part) http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce

Long story short, the idea is that not everyone wants the same thing, so well-though variety helps attract audiences that would otherwise be ignored. There is no such thing as a "perfect pasta sauce" that everybody will like, but there is probably a “set group of sauces” that could cater to almost any group of people with different tastes. The exact same things can be applied to video games, meaning that there is probably different audiences that would prefear different maps.

As a matter of facts, we have examples right now in LoL. Even if they are extremely niche communities, people do play TT and* Dominion.* If you google DominateDominion you will see a group of people that not only have created a community, but also host their own tournaments. And just as a nice fact, when the "Plague Jungle" was removed in favor of the "Shadow Islands" the forums were flooded with people missing their old map's quirks. (random jungle/warding competitions/jumpable terrain/etc.)

Problems and solutions: TLDR; should start reading here

The current situation of the maps is the following: they feel cheap.

One could beat around the bush, but at the end of the day the alternative map don't feel the way they should. It's not a matter of balance, Summoner Rift's balance is far from perfect and yet it has the right feeling. One could argue that even ARAM <with no balance to speak of> has the right feeling, it's casual yet very fun, an entangled mess of badly composed teams trying to find small edges.

So the focus should not be on balance, but on trying to find ways to feel the game feel the way they were intended. On the top of my head I can think of two solutions.

  • Maps specific items: Nowadays, we see NSRMs with 4 or 5 specially designed items, and the rest is extremely similar. Remove them and make all items specific to each map, which in turn could help reinforce the required feeling to the map. After 4 seasons, we have seen how something as silly as items can completely change how the game is players.

  • Dominion is all about Team-fighting and map position. The focus on mobility items besides boots should be a must. Also, cheap actives that affect team fights (shields, cc removal, silence, etc.) would greatly change how the battles are approached and add a lot of "BIG PLAYS". Items that work better or worse depending on the ammount of team-mates surrounding you could also help to shape the current meta to something different.

  • Twisted Treeline is all about Skirmish, Ambushing, Scouting and taking objectives. A vision game would be extremely interesting, even if they are not regular wards. Visible wards that start working 1 minute after being placed (giving the enemy a huge window to destroy them before that happens), more items to reveal bushes, etc. And then things to help Skirmish, additional damage when catching isolated enemies, etc.

  • I think Howling Abyss is fine as it is, but if some tune was needed, it should be directed towards giving meelee champion a more engaging time. Having Garen on Aram is one of the most things ever.

  • Maps specific role balance: This idea is harder, but I think it could help. Add multipliers to a champion's stat, for example:

    • Gragas Passive : {4% x passive_regen} Q: {120 damage x *mid_ranged_spell *} W:{10% damage reduction x dmg_reduction_buff} etc...
  • ![DrMundo](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/DrMundo.png)  Passive: {0.3%  x *passive_regen*} Q: {15% x mid_ranged_spell x current_health_spell } etc...

On summoner's Rift all those Multipliers would be 1, but on NSRMs they could be 0.5/0.9/1.1/etc. This could help you to easily tune up/down specific roles WITHOUT forcing you to change each champion individually. You think that massive_health_regen is too strong on Treeline? (like Singed's R or Mundo's R) Then simply set the multiplier to 0.75 on Treeline and problem solved. You would be no longer required to do champion specific work, which is time consuming and difficult to document.

1 Comments

itsCHANCEyo9/10/2014, 7:51:48 AM1 votes

Hey card box- Just thought i'd throw in my 2 cents, as I appreciated your well thought out post. Made it through the whole thing ;P

As far as the NSRM's go... I actually am an almost exclusive TT player. Having only been playing LoL since January (played DoTA back in the Warcraft 3 mod days xD) I stumbled upon the 3 v 3 mode as it was similar to another game I was playing at the time (Solstice Arena - iPad/Mac/Steam MOBA). As Twisted Treeline mentioned a shorter (in theory) length of 3 v 3 play, I was drawn to try it first. I have been highly satisfied with the TT map, the experience, and generally the length of the game (although most games can go for 30-40 minutes, a little lengthier than the riot stated "20-30" minutes). Now though, when I jump in for a 5 vs 5 game... it just seems exhaustive. Lots of jungling, wards, crazy team fights with 10 people on the screen at once. Feels a little scrambled to me. I feel the more simplistic nature of the 3 v 3 battlefield provides a chance for more character strategy, rather than it dumbing down the experience. Twisted Treeline is LoL to me, since it's what I played first and continue to play most often. I would hate to see it disappear.

I DO have to disagree that their should be different item sets across the map though. The few map specific items right now drives me bonkers. It seems unnecessary to have to remember different builds for the same characters just because you're playing a different map. Items should be based on the champions and team comps that you're playing against (need more armor, or magic resist) rather than based on the map that you're playing on top of. To me, the only thing the different maps should provide is different lengths of play time. Speaking of....

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a quick match map that boils down to 10-20 minutes of play time. Anyone every play Solstice Arena by Zynga? Even though it has now officially been abandoned by developers, it was a hugely rewarding play style. 3 v 3 MOBA, no farming, just champion fights to the base. Sort of like 3 v 3 ARAM, without the random picks. Games were usually wrapped up within 15 minutes. This sort of quick match was great, because if you won, you wanted to jump right back in and win again. And if you lost, then you want to jump right back in so you can win the next time :D ha... I often times could sit and play hours of that game. And while i do the same with LoL, knowing i could play almost 3 times as many games in the time it takes me to play one Summoner's Rift game makes me a little frustrated with the length of LoL games.

To close this long and aimless post.... haha, I definitely agree with your points though that there should definitely continue to be well supported alternate maps to Summoner's Rift. While I know it can be a pain for RIOT to develop for multiple maps, I know that I would probably not have renewed my interest in the LoL style of game, had it not been for the Twisted Treeline 3 v 3 map. I would hate to see it someday be unsupported, or even worse, removed from the game. It makes me a little sad to not see TT get as much support or mentions from RIOT as developers, but overall... I think they're doing things right. Keep the multiple modes 5 v 5, 3 v 3, ARAM, Dominion.... but any more, and things will start to get a little cramped. Enough choices to please most people, without needing to support 10+ different maps and play styles. The limited time featured game modes are cool (DOOMbots, URF, Ascension) but i feel like they could probably spend some of those resources tweaking or updating the currently under supported modes.

JUST my 2 cents.... a long 2 cents... wow, sorry. I should go to bed now :D Thanks for reading y'all!