Category: league of legends (Page 107 of 163)

Do you lie about your performance?

September 23, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I feel like I already know the answer to this question, and even if it was yes, I doubt many people would be willing to admit it. I had a strange thing happen the other day. I got into a game in which a teammate was playing Shaco. I love Shaco, and I think he can do great things for a team if he’s smart. Our Shaco seemed fine, but he just kept saying how great he was with Shaco. He finally said, “guys, I have never lost with Shaco.” My response: “that’s a lie, but no big deal. Play smart, have fun.”

It was probably an unwarranted instigation, but there was just no way that was true. Very few people playing this game can boast a record so significantly over .500 that they would have champions they’ve played quite a bit be undefeated. My teammate proceeded to feed, giving up his double buffs to the enemy Xin Zhao shortly after acquiring them on several occasions. At this point, he deserved a little grief. I said, “First loss, eh?” to which he replied, “Yup, check my profile. I was 16-0 until this game.”

Now why would you say that in a game that makes stats publicly available? My only regret is that I couldn’t check his stats from the lobby to share the info with our team (and our enemies, who he had been goading before the game started). The screenshot shows our friend’s stats. Not only were the 16 wins a complete fabrication, obviously he had lost quite a few ranked games as Shaco as well. I really don’t get why he would not only lie, but initiate the lying. Weird.

So do you lie about your performance in game?

league of legends

in game performance lying lying about performance shaco

Riot adds “The Button,” service ticker to PvP.net

September 22, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

That’s a game from last night, shortly after Riot’s new service ticker alerted me that the company was aware of some general service issues and working on a fix. Loss forgiveness comes as a result of what’s known as “The Button.” The Button is a switch Riot can throw whenever there’s trouble that sets the game into a special mode to prevent players from accruing losses and losing ELO as a result of technical difficulties. In the game you see above, everything was fine until about the five minute mark. From that point forward there was a solid five second delay between a given command and the corresponding action. I’m glad to see I didn’t lose any ELO as a result. The Button does allow winning teams to still get the win and get ELO recorded, but at 50 percent the normal rate.

While I understand the idea behind the service ticker – more communication with the player base – I do hope Riot uses it sparingly. It could easily create a placebo effect, which might result in more backlash than if Riot just hadn’t said anything. I know when I see that yellow box all lit up, I’ll be looking for problems, and that’s not the way the game was meant to be enjoyed. If used sparingly, though, I think it could do just fine.

Development, league of legends, Patches

client problems game client lol client pvp client pvp.net server stability stability updates the button

Sona impressions – the gift that keeps giving if it lives long enough

September 22, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I’ve seen Sona in every 5v5 game I’ve played since the patch dropped and I’ve had a chance to play her a few times myself. At the outset she looks like a pretty solid support toon, though she does seem to enforce the rule that you shouldn’t have more than one support. Her damage output is very low, but the buffs she offers her team are nice. Sona’s biggest drawback is her health pool and the fact that there isn’t a ton she can do to stay alive.

As I sort of expected, Sona plays a lot like Udyr. She’s very spammy, which is fine for a time, but in most games I felt like it didn’t matter when I pressed my buttons so long as I pressed them every time they were up. That’s not exactly an exciting way to play the game. Soraka isn’t particularly exciting, but it is nice to see that fat heal actually save someone, whereas with Sona, you get to watch your heal almost save a few people.

That said, the buffs Sona provides are actually pretty nice. The movement buff is great for running down enemy carries, or even getting in range to take them in a team fight. The constantly rotating damage and resistance buffs aren’t huge, but they’re enough to give your team that extra oomf when you need it. Think of Sona like a very tiny (but big-breasted) version of the Baron buff. Of course, you get that buff at the cost of another tank or dps toon, but in the right comp it seems okay.

The main thing that will keep me from regularly playing Sona, though, is that spammy playstyle. Because each aura persists for three seconds after a new aura is activated, it’s easy to get the cooldown reduction for 100 percent uptime, which means you can basically knuckle-roll your way up the lane. That’s not a fun playstyle, and it creates one of the most annoying mix of sounds in the game (seriously, I can’t handle the constant refresh of that harp – it’s awful).

Champions, Editorial, league of legends

sona sona ability list sona build sona impressions sona op sona skill list sona thoughts sona up

Unannounced skins for the Sona patch cycle

September 21, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

As with most patches, the Sona patch includes a few unannounced skins that we can expect to see early next week. This time around we get Grim Reaper Karthus, Barbarion Sion, and Pre-Void Kassadin. Riot’s really running with the Darth Vader theme for Kassadin, though I suppose they did give him hair.

The Karthus skin is particularly nice, but I hope it’s not a legendary.

league of legends, Skins

barbarian sion grim reaper karthus karthus skin kassadin skin pre-void kassadin sion skin

Sona Champion Spotlight

September 21, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I’m glad this has finally gone live because it explains quite a bit about the way that Sona plays. As it turns out, every cast produces a persistent aura that remains in place until 3 seconds after the next aura is cast. It’s a playstyle that closely mimics Udyr and will provide solid support in the right hands. As Phreak mentions in the video, though, Sona is very frail, so it’s likely we’ll see a LOT of Sona players that can’t manage to keep themselves alive.

Champions, league of legends

sona sona abilities sona ability list sona build sona champion spotlight