This is an excellent post. I don't think that these problems are that hard to solve, but they do require some new content and a lot of adjustments. They will require us about a month to mostly address, but we can incrementally address them through that time. I have (prior to your post) been spending much of my day, and working late, to shift around priorities and get the appropriate content designed to resolve the metagame issues that have slowly been emerging. Fortunately, this only affects a small portion of players right now -- but the unfortunate part of being a top player in a new game is that you get to discover and abuse the problems, and sometimes those are fun (CryOPhoenix), and sometimes they are stagnant ( 7 minute nashor, the current top tier metagame, etc). So, we feel the pain, and we want to solve it ASAP, and we really appreciate that you guys are leading the charge on competitive play and discovering these issues.
As a note, I think the 5 man gank squads were an improvement over the prior farmfest... So its really about finding the middle ground. In addition to addressing your other tangential opportunities to improve the overall gameplay.
Champion Selection - Out of the 40 champions, only a select few will make it to top end play. We will call these top tier picks. Most people can easily distinguish top tier champions, mid tier champions, and low tier champions.
Draft mode is near the top of the priority list after server stability, and will address a lot of that. I am not sure precisely when that will be available, but that isn't likely to be avail in november. However, we are going to do a few things that will mute these problems by allowing you to counter top tier champions inside a game:
1) We are adding items that give you reduced % damage from area-of-effect spells. You can buy these selectively in response to an AE stacked team
2) We are adding a cleanse-o-matic click item that gives you self cleanse for a reasonable price.
3) We continue to address individual champion balance problems. I think we can all agree that the gap between low and top tier is not enormous, even though it is significant. Especially in comparison to the state of the game 4 or 5 months ago. There are a few must-have champions right now, such as Amumu OR Malphite and Morgana, but beyond that, there are a lot you can swap -- for a caster you can play Annie, Anivia or Karthus. For a DPS carry, you can play Ashe, Corki, Jax, Master Yi, and even Tristana. And even soraka is effective now, where she was atrocious 3 patches ago. The requirements to assure a top tier win are generally centered around tank initiators and black shield right now.
4) Morgana, Malphite and Amumu are getting the nerf bat. Morgana is a little later, but we are nerfing the power of malphite and amumu's initiation stuns.
Individual Skill - I personally feel that individual skill is not properly reflected. Yes, I know. It's a team game, l2play etc. But this game is extremely dependent on team play. Good thing right? In some ways yes. Some ways no. Again, I'm sure every top 100 player can vouch, they have never seen a single player amaze them. Of course, everyone up here has their pride. No one wants to admit who's better. Mainly because, this game does not allow room for the skill gap to determine who really is better. Everyone has beaten someone, at some time. Because there are so many variables, consistency with skill is almost a non factor. I could go 20-0 one game, and then go 0-5 the next game. When will LoL allow room for the next Merlini? The true definition of a carry. Not a champion. An individual player. Who can LITERALLY CARRY the team consistently. Out of my 500+ games played on LoL, never has there been a Merlini moment. On my team, or the opposing team. I have never witnessed someone who has amazed me. This is not me being an elitist either. I will easily admit when someone is extremely good. I questioned whether it was the players. Or if it was the game. All signs point to the game.
Yes, this is an issue. In our attempts to make the game less painful and remove "wtfganked I couldn't do anything this game sucks" situations, we eased down the ability of players to completely dominate a game. However, we are reversing some decisions where we feel we were overly cautious and can have in the game without making it feel silly like when there is a stacked stealth assassin or something:
1) We are adding click items of significant power. Blink dagger, Dagon equivalent, cleanse-o-matic, scroll of tp, and a weaker version of refresher orb. All of these require significant skill to use effectively, and are slightly OP when used correctly or intelligently.
2) We are making fog falloff faster for champions.
3) We are adding cheap vision wards, which break down the 5 man roving gank squads somewhat, and facilitate a defense against the 5 man gank squad of farming the map and dodging them, thus forcing them to do a 3 and 2 man gank squad, which you can then counter-gank potentially.
4) We are making it so that while you are dead, you gain no ambient gold and no gold from gold per 5 items.
5) We are adding additional minor snowball items that scale as you get champion kills (like mejai's)
6) We are adding additional magic penetration items to facilitate casters being able to become carries in extreme situations.
7) We are attempting to explicitly design more high-skill-requirement champions like Karthus, Anivia, Blitzcrank and Corki. For example, we are trying to make a fragile DPS carry right now with extreme mobility and skillshots -- basically stronger than Ashe if you can play it really well.
8) Aligning incentives such that late game farming pays off vs the risk (which adds a value to risking getting 5 man ganked). This probably takes the form of more minion gold later, and maybe more minion gold early too.
While we do not want to achieve hyper-carry status like DOTA where you can 5v1, we would like to facilitate carries that can 3v1 in extreme cases.
Teamplay - Again, this game is not consistent enough to allow room for total domination through pure skill. You can completely smash a team one game. And the next game get completely dominated. All teams have a different style. All games have a different style for that matter. No situation will ever be re-created. Prior to the tournament, through matchmaking, our team has gotten beat by team AoN. Many times. We've beaten them as well. We were not the favorites going into the tournament, however we still managed to make it to the finals against We Carry Roku. AoN were the favorites of the tournament and for good reason. After we had beat them, I was almost fairly certain we would beat We Carry Roku. Again, we've played against We Carry Roku prior to the tournament. We've lost, and we've won. We lost to them in the finals, I'm sure most of you have seen the videos. And before we lost to them in the finals, we also lost to 4th place winners Dont Ban Evelynn. Does that mean we were just lucky to have advanced so far? Nope. It takes A LOT to go against Reginald and his team. What I'm getting at is.. Pool all of the top teams against each other again, and again, and again. There will be different outcomes every single time. Don't even get me started on the amount of times I've lost to random pubs with a full pre-made. Again, I started to question whether it was the teams, the players, or the game. All signs point to the game.
From a theoretical perspective, you cannot expect to beat teams 100% of the time, or even 90% of the time if they are "top teams". That's why tournaments of competitive games are often best of 5. However, I think that some of this has to do with problems like Nashor, as well as the lack of draft mode. I'm of the opinion that adding draft mode will significantly increase skill differentiation as it will expose more psychology games and planning in the champion selection process.
Competitive Play - This is the biggest turn off for me with this game. As all of you have witnessed from the tournament videos, top tier play is EXTREMELY boring. You guys watched the videos with us against We Carry Roku. A lot have commented on how boring it looked. Trust me, as I was in the game, it was beyond boring. I wanted to leave both games not even 20 minutes in. And if anyone had frapsed our team against Team AoN. You would've witnessed the same thing. I was amazed at how much fun I was NOT having, in a tournament. That's got to be pretty bad right? How can you NOT enjoy playing the finals in a tournament? Going into the tournament was fun. Exciting. I was amped up and was looking forward to playing. As the teams narrowed down through elimination, the games just got more and more boring. So basically, let me break down the higher tier play for you guys. First you need to choose a good hero composition (only like 10 heroes to choose from, top tier picks etc). Try your hardest not to get ganked by the opposing team via team communication, mini map awareness, and common sense. Avoid battles when you know you cannot get the jump on the enemy. Stick with your team at ALL TIMES. Do not be shown on the mini map, and if you are seen, expect a gank coming your way. If you see them pushing as a team, defend, turtle. Try to predict their movements. Starve them of their jungle creeps (because they wont be in regular lanes farming). Hide in brushes. Rinse and repeat. This is as competitive as it gets. Both teams are trying to predict each others movements. Both teams are trying to starve one another via neutral creeps. Both teams are avoiding team fights until they get the upper hand via levels or items. Both teams are trying to not get ganked or be seen on the minimap. Both teams are turtling. Etc etc. It's just so damn boring. Really. You and your team are practically FORCED to do these things. Because whenever you're not doing these, you're giving your enemy the upper hand. Games can be thrown away in an instant. All of these things listed, is standard play. And all lead to non amusing games, and terrible action. Again.. not the players.. all signs point to the game.
Yes, the counter to this is to make lane farming significantly more lucrative later, or significantly safer. Wards + increased awards should hopefully do this. If they don't, we will try more things.
Baron Nashor - lulz. Don't need to say more. Nashor wins games.
We are nerfing the regen 35%, and nerfing the damage and AP stats given earlier in games. We are also going to later convert over the damgae buff to a flat +% damage done buff which will avert any possible game timing issues around nashor. Wards also will reduce the amount people get a clean go at this.
@HappyNihil : Casual games are indeed fun. Unfortunately the word casual doesn't apply to the pool of players that I play with or against.
@Rinoa : Yeah, trust me. Game wasn't any different vs Team AoN. Same exact events and strategy.
@Truhls : I agree with you. I think the brush concept in general brings this game down a lot. I've never thought for one second brush being a good mechanic or idea.
@Faro : A regular draft mode will not work. People will still play the same champions over and over. Only playing to win. An exclusive draft mode, however, will definitely force players to broaden their hero choice. I'm all for an exclusive draft mode.
I think brush often adds value. We have some difficulty figuring out where to remove it/add it. If there are some specific places you think its a net negative, I'd like to know... Don't say the entire map beacuse I know it adds some value as hiding/ganking/juking mechanics. Painted over jpgs help a lot if you have a moment...
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I agree with most of this. Good read though
