Thoughts about Ascension
After a few days of playing the new featured game mode, Ascension, I have come to form a few opinions. First, I absolutely love this idea. I've always wanted a game mode in League akin to a team deathmatch mode. This is pretty close considering most of the game is action oriented with teamfights happening frequently throughout the game. I also love the swirling sands obscuring vision, the Ascended Xerath in the middle as a focal point for teamfights, and that Crystal Scar was the map they chose.
That said, I do have some complaints about the game mode. The most glaring problem with Ascension, in my opinion, is that the games just feel way too long. Playing to 200 points is overkill. If I were in charge of developing this mode, I would set the score limit to 100 points so games won't seem to drag on. If the goal is to reach late-game status throughout the course of a match, gold and XP rates could be adjusted accordingly. It would make the mode feel much more satisfying.
Another problem present in Ascension is leavers/AFK's/DC's. Yes, I know that this is a problem in every game mode, but it feels so much worse in Ascension. It may just have been bad luck on my part, but I have had a considerably higher percentage of games with a leaver/disconnect in Ascension than in my experience in the standard game modes. Even worse, since this mode is teamfight oriented, matches feel more frustrating and more one-sided than a match on Summoner's Rift. While there is not really a solution to this problem at present, I may reiterate my previous suggestion of lowering the score limit to 100. That way, players stuck in a 4v5 will not have to play out a losing game that feels like it is taking forever.
Finally, I have found in my personal experience that the "Perfect Ascension" summoner icon is an unhealthy addition to League of Legends. In a standard matchmade game of ascension, it is extraordinarily difficult to obtain the flawless victory requirement to unlock the icon. After playing game after game, I have been unable to unlock the icon, largely due to the lack of communication and teamwork in matchmade games or simply because an opponent got lucky and sniped the ascension buff at the last moment (e.g. Ezreal Ult from the teleport platform). I did finally unlock the icon, but that was only because I was playing a 5v4 game, and it did not feel like I really earned the icon. My point regarding this is that the method to earn the perfect ascension icon is flawed and causes huge amounts of frustration (at least for me personally and some of my friends). Again, lowering the score limit to 100 would relieve some of the frustration because games would not last as long, so players would have more attempts at unlocking the icon. Alternatively, changing the unlock requirements to something less frustrating would be beneficial to the game and make the reward feel more like it was earned and less like it was due to chance.
For those who want the tldr: I love the idea of Ascension, but reducing the score limit to 100 would help the game mode leaps and bounds.
Feel free to critique my ideas and opinions! If you think I am wrong, please let me know how you feel about Ascension and how you would change (or not change) this featured game mode.
