Category: Current Affairs (Page 9 of 17)

      Tribunal still has a few hangups

      May 27, 2011 /

      I wrote just a couple days ago that the Tribunal seems like an early success. I still think it does, but there are a few issues that I think are worth mentioning. For starters, I got the same case twice in a row today. It’s not a huge deal once in a while, but it would suck for that to happen on multiple occasions.

      There is a much more serious issue, though, and it’s one I’m not entirely sure how to handle. Today I played a game in which the Poppy on my team had a rough start. She died four times early in her lane, mostly because she was playing foolishly, soaking entire creep waves to try to get a little harass on the enemy Ashe. It was bad news. She then left lane and started taking my jungle, openly stating that she wasn’t going back to the lane. That’s a bit of an issue when the lane was 2v2 at the start, is now fed, and leaves our teammate 2v1. I tried to help out where it was possible, but I was also actively counter-jungling and couldn’t just stop and lane.

      Things escalated. Poppy started stealing buffs, purposefully stopped helping our team in teamfights, said she was going into “bot mode” and eventually started feeding on purpose. Around the time she stopped helping our team I said something like “meanwhile Poppy farms top” after a teamfight. I also asked the enemy team to please report her for her negligence. The response? “How bout I report you for raging at her.” Now granted, I would probably get pardoned – I never used so much as a curse word – but from that point forward, Poppy was trying to make it look as though I was the troll in chat. To the trained eye it would have been obvious what was going on, but my enemies were quick to assume I was at fault, and so quick to report.

      That’s where the real problem lies. When my teammate is purposely feeding and purposefully trying to steal buffs, I don’t want to be in that game. Frankly, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to AFK. But when the enemy has suddenly chosen you as the bad guy, then my AFK becomes bannable, and that’s not so cool.

      Hopefully, though, the system does indeed work as Riot suggests, so that the false positives that occasionally get reported don’t make it all the way to Tribunal. I would be willing to guess that I could possibly have been reported in three of my last 50 or so games, and at least two of those would be instant pardons.

      Current Affairs, league of legends

      Tribunal seems to be an early success

      May 25, 2011 /

      I had a lot of doubts about the Tribunal when it was first announced. The idea of incentivizing players to punish one another seemed a little odd to me, even if I had played with hundreds of players who deserved a little wrist-slap. After using the system for a couple days, though, I have to admit, I’m kind of impressed.

      The only reason I use the qualifying “kind of” is that the Tribunal’s real value can’t possibly be assessed until we can see some results. When Riot first starting banning players for bad behavior it seemed like games were about to get a whole lot nicer. However, the League of Legends playerbase was growing much faster than Riot and so the need for justice quickly outpaced the execution of that justice. The Tribunal has the potential to turn that around, hopefully expediting the punitive process for Riot and giving everyone a look at just how foolish the rage sounds when it isn’t spewed in the heat of the moment (it also sounds ridiculous then, but I can understand getting steamed here and there).

      That said, it seems the Tribunal is an early success. I’ve completed my three cases in each of the past two days and actually enjoyed the process. It’s interesting to see the kinds of information that can actually be used to punish/pardon a player and the different ways each player in a game understands another player’s actions. I’ve already seen a couple complicated cases that involved a lot of bad behavior from all parties involved. It can be tough to reason out who, if anyone, should take the hit, and if the reported party is actually to blame.

      Of course, I’ve also seen some very cut and dry cases. You don’t die 20 times in 20 minutes without trying, and you certainly don’t die that often several games in a row without some sort of effort. I’ve also been entertained and amused by the things people share on the forums. Part of the problem with ragers is that they disappear once the game is over and very few people are exposed to the ridiculous things they say. The Tribunal bumps that exposure by not only being thrown into the pool but also because players that see it are so keen to share it.

      I’m really hoping we see results. It’s a cool system with some great potential. It would be a huge bummer if it didn’t work out. How has it seemed to you guys so far?

      Current Affairs, Editorial, league of legends

      Patch day passes without champion release

      May 24, 2011 /

      Frostfire Annie.

      I’m happy to report that I wasn’t eaten by bears over the weekend. I did come back to a decent amount of work, though, and there is the usual catching up to do across various gaming forums and RSS feeds. I finally had a chance to check out today’s patch this afternoon and was a little surprised when there was no new champion.

      I know the teaser post was made late in the week, and I’m guessing with the office move Riot didn’t have time to fully balance out a champion. With that in mind, I’m really glad we didn’t see a new champion today. In fact, it has made me wish champion releases were just a little further apart. I’ve mentioned that before, but it’s been a while since Riot has actually missed a release date, giving me some time to reflect on the difference.

      It’s a nice breather to be able to focus on the other champion changes in today’s patch, even if those changes were pretty light. Annie got some minor buffs, as did Kog’Maw, and Vayne saw a few minor nerfs, but Alistar saw some pretty serious damage nerfs that could dramatically affect the way players build him. Irelia also got some significant changes – mostly to her ult – which I’m interested to test out a bit.

      I am a little curious when we’ll see Orianna. I would love to see her put off another two weeks; I can’t imagine it makes financial sense to release her even mid-cycle and then give us another champ a week later. If anything, I suppose I could see pushing her back a week and then pushing the development cycle out a week from here forward.

      What do you think? Is this a nice respite from the stream of champion releases or do you prefer to have someone new in champion select every two weeks?

      Champions, Current Affairs, league of legends, News

      Riot pre-releases the Tribunal amidst forum unrest

      May 18, 2011 /

      If you spent some time on the forums today you might have noticed a higher than average amount of unrest about Riot’s development cycle. Among the many lessons the internet has taught is the fact that the internet and its denizens do not forget a date, a time frame, or anything that sounds vaguely like a promise. It’s the reason developers are unwilling to lay down release dates that aren’t absolutely set in stone.

      One of the more prominent threads today asked for a timeline on achievements, a feature that has had a tab in the PvP.net client for quite a while but hasn’t received a whole lot of airtime. Phreak stepped in today to quell any hopes that we might see achievements soon, pointing out that balance changes and features like the Tribunal are higher on the totem pole. The thread quickly filled with complaints that even those features high up on Riot’s to-do list haven’t been done, that is until Riot did something I never saw coming: Riot released the Tribunal.

      Technically, the company is calling it a pre-release as it will only be accessible to summoners that have achieved level 30. I use the future tense because shortly after the official pre-release it seems interest in the feature rocked the Riot servers and brought the website crashing down. So now we sit, patiently waiting out a 4-hour maintenance window to see what this new feature, which was first announced in January, is all about.

      It seems like a strange confluence of events that Tribunal would release on one of the most active forum complaining days I’ve seen in months. I’m not saying Riot made the release based on the griping, but rather that Riot’s timing is either perfect or perfectly awful.

      If Tribunal works, if summoners really get behind the idea of doling out justice to the grouchy bastards that ruin so many games, the system could be a real boon for the community. I think it could definitely lift spirits enough to carry people into Season Two at the least, about which we’ll hopefully get some news over the next couple weeks. There’s also a solid chance that it will generally improve behavior in game, which I think everyone would welcome.

      Tribunal could be a flop, though. I know a lot of people who have been waiting a long time for the League’s gameplay to evolve, something that hasn’t happened in quite some time, at least not for veterans of the game and genre. While Battle Training and Co-op vs. AI are certainly gameplay features, the first has no value to seasoned summoners and I would consider the second situational at best. If Tribunal doesn’t capture our collective attention, I can already hear the gnashing of teeth about the informal priority list Phreak served up today. As I mentioned earlier, the internet doesn’t forget, and they certainly won’t forget this one, even if Phreak was just giving an example.

      Current Affairs, league of legends, News

      Champ of the Week: Damn that Kog’maw is slow

      May 13, 2011 /

      kogmaw_splash_1

      This may have been a bad week to try Kog’Maw as my champ of the week. I’ve actually had some enjoyable games with him but I’ve also been playing Vayne and, as far as anti-tanks go, she obviously has the upper hand. Let’s be honest, though, she’s more of an anti-anything-that-moves than she is anti-tank. Still, I’m forging ahead with the Kog’Maw testing so here are a few thoughts.

      I had forgotten just how damn slow Kog’Maw feels. I’m playing with the amazing Monarch Kog’Maw skin, which may contribute to the slow feeling in part. When he’s hopping around flapping his wings he certainly doesn’t feel very fast, but in teamfights I always feel like it takes me longer to get any place than I would like.

      The most common Kog’Maw build also lacks the burst that many other ranged carries build for. Since most of his damage is percentage based, he doesn’t feel much different from the point that you finish Madred’s Bloodrazor until the end of the game. It’s a unique mechanic, unlike any other champion currently in the game. It also translates strangely into his gameplay.

      In my most successful Kog’Maw matches I regularly have a few fights in which I start out at half health and, at a time I would normally run on other ranged carries, I turn and fight whoever is in my face and often win that fight. The percentage based damage gives him the ability to do this fairly early in the game and continue to do it through the game’s duration. With other ranged carries I simply wouldn’t do that until I have a monster farm, if for no other reason than that so much of your damage comes from critical strikes. With Kog’Maw, though, it is usually a finite and unwavering number of attacks that will kill an individual target, affected only by the target’s purchase of magic resistance or your own build changes. In some ways that makes Kog’Maw very enjoyable to play, but it can be frustrating to think that just one simple crit could have meant a kill on a retreating carry.

      My biggest problem with Kog’Maw right now is how much damage high magic resistance targets can absorb. Malady is really his only option for addressing that problem, and it doesn’t reduce MR by very much. The rest of the magic penetration items are AP based, which feels like a waste of money. You could get Sorcerer’s Boots, but Cloak and Dagger isn’t really designed for a champion like Kog’Maw. I’m going to have to try a few games with Cleanse to see if that would be enough.

      Champ of the Week, Current Affairs, league of legends

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑