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Act 3 Gangplank Icon Reward Track is bad design and feels rather abusive

Dreampod·8/6/2015, 1:41:59 PM·7 votes·1,138 views

I like the idea of rewarding participation in the event and encouraging players to try out the new modes but the Tier 3 track for Gangplank Icon is ridiculously brutal. I did the first two tiers without any concerns able to complete them each in around 5-7 games in a variety of different modes (3-4 hours of gameplay) but in order to finish this track it is going to take (on average) 19 matches of Black Market Brawlers to complete or roughly 13 hours of gameplay that needs to be completed within the 10 day period for the 3rd act. That gameplay time is strictly the ephermal Black Market Brawlers gamemode and doesn't work towards Champion Mastery or ranked progression and doesn't allow you to improve your strategic skills because of how much the brawler minions distort the normal gameplay. Normally, I'm happy just to get to play a second match on any given day because I prioritize my job and my family and gaming gets left to be my entertainment rather than what I spend all my time at - however to earn the limited availability icon that I really want I'm having to do a mediocre job at meeting my adult responsibilities for a week and a half. League of Legends has never been a hardcore game that requires big time sinks to achieve - it has always allowed casual players to compete on the same level and even the rare rewards are earned based primarily on skill rather than time invested. It feels like the Act 3 Gangplank reward track was poorly thought out and doesn't match up with the first two acts or even the Act 3 Combo icon reward track.

Beyond the being excessively hard to achieve the requirements for moving along the track are distorting gameplay in Black Market Brawlers matches so that players can try to get the icon. People are recalling to buy brawler upgrades instead of destroying undefended nexuses, ignoring objectives and teams to kill monsters in the enemy jungle, asking other players to stall out the game or organize kill trading, and shifting players objective from being team focused 'win the game' to selfish 'get krakens'. I've had a game where I felt stupid afterwards because it came down to a 1v1 base race and I won the game for my team but had 24 unspent krakens, enough to get another level 3 upgrade, left and I should have just recalled, bought my upgrades, and let the other team win because that would have saved me 40 minutes towards finishing the stupid achievement. I've had other games that were less extreme but again left me feeling bad for playing to win and close out games rather than going and spending krakens instead of taking the nexus or locking the enemy in their base for 15 minutes while I farm the jungle. When playing the game properly leaves you feeling like you are making a mistake it is a sign of extremely poor game design.

6 Comments

Dreampod8/6/2015, 10:05:50 PM4 votes

Just had 3 games in a row where there was a surrender before I earned the 40 krakens to get a tier 3 upgrade so that is another hour and a quarter wasted towards getting this icon.

Mistiya8/9/2015, 5:17:43 AM3 votes

If the achievement had been to earn the coins instead of spend the coins it wouldn't encourage people to make strange and abnormal decisions during games like recalling in a panic to spend coins instead of finishing an enemy nexus. This achievement (or goal, or whatever you call it) does encourage abnormal play.

I agree with pretty much everything in the OP here, and would add I do not understand why the requirements are so steep (15 upgrades when not every game will even net you a single upgrade, and you might get 2 upgrades if your game goes over an hour but that is very unlikely given the snowball nature of the BMB minions!)

This achievement was poorly designed, and unlike ALL of the other achievements for icons in events that I've played over several years (including the two previous icons in this event!) it's not FUN.

Kinjishi8/6/2015, 10:26:12 PM2 votes

"When playing the game properly leaves you feeling like you are making a mistake it is a sign of extremely poor game design." But you didn't always play the game properly (i.e. you didn't recall when you should have). Also, there will have been 2 weeks to achieve this when it ends. If you are only using 10 days, then that isn't Riot's fault either.

JayPeePee8/8/2015, 2:13:59 AM1 votes

I agree I actually threw a game because I knew that it was going to take about 3 more matches to get enough time to get the damn lvl3 upgrade. it came to me recalling at the enemy base because i feared we were gonna win and had to upgrade my brawler... team flamed me for it but i got my notch for lvl 3