Tag: forums (Page 2 of 3)

      Another great forum post on range and the scalability of melee DPS and mages

      November 14, 2010 /

      masteryi_splash_2

      Another excellent community post has been floating on or near the front page for a little more than a week, this time with regard to the relative power of ranged carries versus melee DPS and mages, and the way that Exhaust and Banshee’s Veil augment that disparity. Again, I’ll let you read through the post on your own, but I’ll cover some of the major points.

      The basic idea behind the post is that by late game, almost every carry in the game will have a Banshee’s Veil, dramatically reducing the opponent’s chance at killing that carry. Because ranged toons can already kite other toons, giving them a free CC block or blocking one spell in a rotation from a mage means that character will probably remain free to stand back and wreak havoc. I think it’s a really good point, and I like the solution he offers: make BV block one CC spell, but no damage. It can still increase your magic resistance, but don’t allow it to completely nullify a spell.

      The author also points to exhaust as a big problem for melee DPS, mostly because it has too small a range to get on your average Flash/Ghost-equipped carry. When players can’t reach the carry, they exhaust the melee DPS, slowing those characters and negating their auto attacks when those champions don’t have a way to get out of the mix.

      I think it’s interesting to note that ranged carries are often the characters with skills to break Banshee’s Veil from ranged. Ashe’s volley breaks it. Ezreal has three low-cooldown spells to pop it. I’m pretty sure Tristana’s explosive shot proc from killing a minion will pop it. Obviously Corki has skills to pop it. MF can use Double Up. Kog’Maw, enough said. All of these characters can break veils from range, allowing them to deal magic and physical damage and exposing enemy tanks and melee DPS to their own tanks and mages.

      In short, I would love to see some mechanics altered to increase the prevalence of melee DPS. I love a lot of the melee characters, but without getting overfarmed or unique use of Flash (enemy players don’t have it), melee DPS is woefully susceptible to control mechanics and kiting.

      Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

      The community feels the development pinch

      November 13, 2010 /

      ireliatt3

      I would normally not bother to read a thread on the forums titled, “This game isent [sic] even worth playing anymore.” I obviously disagree. Despite the downfalls and recent design flaws (at least in my opinion), LoL is still a blast of a game, and I have a lot of fun queuing up with you guys and with my real-life friends. The thread in question, though, is now 34 pages long and caught an interesting response from Phreak.

      I’ll leave you to read the original post, but the author, MoreCowbell, is basically bemoaning the overwheling presence of an AOE metagame and the limited champion selection that performs well in that metagame. He also decries characters with strong mechanics having no serious weaknesses. He doesn’t back a lot of things up, but he makes some good points (many of which I think I back up on this blog) and makes other interesting points.

      I was particularly interested in this:

      One of the biggest issues is that in riot’s design philosophy of making all characters equally viable all game, they would need to make all characters have the same power at all times. Characters like MF couldnt exist as they beat most other characters in a lane and late game. The reason that some characters absolutely dominate the lane in dota was because they were trash later.

      That’s a spot-on observation and a lot of my problem with recent champion design. I would love to see the metagame shift away from the teamfight focus, but characters need to have different strengths at different stages of the game for that to be a real possibility. When a champion like Miss Fortune can 4-5 shot toons without health quints at almost any stage of the game, that kind of diversity can’t exist.

      After 12 pages or so, Phreak dropped by to offer this:

      We’re hitting a lot of the conventional “OP” champs this patch.

      We will also be massively assessing all our AoE champions to ensure they’re not must-pick champions. As much as you say we’re making new champions which just eclipse old ones, we’re trying really hard to not have these super faceroll AoE ultimates since Sona (also: Sona nerfs this patch. And I’m not talking +10sec cd on the ultimate). While Swain and Lux have AoEs (even ultimates), I think we can all agree they’re much more reasonable than Idol of Durand.

      If I read the original post correctly, this is the main complaint yes? That there are ~15 super OP champions that must be played, and everything else is below them?

      We will assess them. Stay patient, beloved summoners. We like playing all of our champions as much as you guys do!

      I haven’t been so (cautiously) excited about a patch in a long time. I’m hoping when he says “hitting” he means with a battering ram, not the tinkering hammer we see more often than not. I also like that he referenced Swain and Lux, two recently released and very underpowered champions, as having more “reasonable” AoE ults. I couldn’t agree more. I think Swain’s character design is really cool, and Lux could be a very fun toon with that short CD ultimate (and a much-needed damage buff for her base skills), but they just don’t stack up against the massive AoE pwnage in the game.

      The simple fact that there are 34 pages of responses speaks to how big an issue the current design direction is to the LoL community. Players are definitely unhappy about the lack of diversity, which shouldn’t be all that shocking considering the underwhelming numbers we see on Twisted Treeline. I’m hopeful this week’s patch will be the start of some changes, but I’m aware it would take a lot of changes for things to be significantly different. We’ll find out on Tuesday.

      Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

      LoL: Urf the Manatee sneak peek

      March 26, 2010 /

      Urf the Manatee.It seems a little early for April Fool’s jokes, so we’re going to pretend this is serious. By pretend I of course mean hope. I hope this is real. It’s a joke that’s been running around the official forums for a little while now, including the fish and spatula weapons. Without further ado, I give you Urf the Manatee.

      Now, we’ve been releasing some pretty revolutionary champions lately with some pretty radical mechanics. If you thought that Ezreal, Mordekaiser, or Shen were edgy you’re in for a treat, because this next champion is borderline shocking. He really rocks the boat! Now, history teaches us that even the most peaceful and lethargic of creatures can be inspired to feats of great valor under the proper set of circumstances, and this courageous sea cow is just such a beast. Mightily armed with fish and spatula, Urf the Manatee stands ready to represent his fellow ocean borne herbivores in honorable combat on the Field of Justice.

      Even if this is just a spoof toon to be released on April Fool’s Day I’ll be happy. Who doesn’t want to be a manatee? I’m actually inclined to think this is real, if only because it doesn’t make sense for Riot to pollute the announcement forums with a bunch of joke posts.

      Development, league of legends

      LoL: Is the forum moderation system working?

      March 12, 2010 /

      LoL forum shotIf you’ve been to the official forums recently you’ve no doubt noticed the fallout regarding T0ggle and his guides. There was the usual threadspamming and mass downvoting from multiple accounts by several parties, all of which led to a pretty interesting thread on forum moderation. A lot of LoL’s moderation is done by community upvoting and downvoting. Too many downvotes and threads get locked. I’ve posted my take on the situation below.

      The biggest reason I don’t spend more time posting in these forums is that the community moderation system seems to heavily reinforce mob mentality. As many others here have mentioned, upvotes and downvotes are often made carelessly or targeted at threads for disagreement rather than an actual rating of the content.

      I hate to bring it up, but the queue dodge penalty was a prime example. Almost all of the discussion around that was severe polarization on both sides of the issue and a back and forth of upvotes and downvotes.

      That said, most of the locked threads I read deserve it. My concern is that the system too easily discards minority opinion simply because it is unpopular. I’ve read enough decent locked threads to know that reasonable discussion gets downvoted because users don’t agree. That’s not a “forum” at all.

      I would also love to see a more robust set of user features – PMs, a small profile, etc. That would give players the option to start/continue discussion between a more focused set of users than the public option allows.

      So what do you think? Is community moderation working? Do we need dedicated admins or would that just be the same problem on a smaller scale?

      Development, league of legends

      LoL: The way surrender might have been

      March 10, 2010 /

      LoL purple Nexus.

      One of the best differentiators between League of Legends and Dota is surrender. If at 25 minutes it seems a sure loss, teams with a heavy majority vote – 4/5 – can surrender the game by simply typing /surrender. It’s a great mechanic for those steamroller games, whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a brutal beating. It saves time and a lot of frustration for most everyone involved.

      It can be annoying, though. I’ve had many games that have been close, only to have the other team surrender as we’re pushing down inhibitor turrets. It’s a small thing, but sometimes it’s nice to have that complete victory. The thing is, the minor frustration of not finishing a game is nowhere near the frustration of enduring a guaranteed loss because your teammates won’t surrender. Quite a few players believe there is some sort of surrender penalty and won’t surrender because they don’t want to cripple their IP gain. It was almost implemented – luckily, Riot was smart enough to see the problem and simply moved surrenders to 25 minutes instead of keeping it at 15.

      Apparently Zileas posted a few months back suggesting a penalty for surrender. I haven’t been able to find that post – what I found was an old post asking Riot to reconsider. Zileas posted a couple times inside, both of which provide a disconcerting look what was then the possible future of the surrender mechanic. Basically Riot wanted to distinguish between true losses and surrenders so that it could properly “reward” players who stay until the bitter end. In turn, teams that surrender will be subject to a penalty, likely in the form of reduced IP gain. His first response is below:

      Players tend to do what they are rewarded for. Players get a lot of satisfaction out of “Finishing” opponents off in our game, and everyone enjoys that sometimes. We want to reward people to not surrender for this reason.

      This “reward” system completely ignores the fact that players can “surrender” by standing afk at fountain while the other team pushes it in. The strategy is used all the time with AFK players because it’s a waste of everyone’s time to play the game out. The new system wouldn’t have “rewarded” anyone, it would have incentivized people to AFK, effectively ruining the game. This was one of Dota’s major problems, one Riot combatted with the surrender vote.

      Zileas’ second response revealed that the game would be going to 15-minute surrenders if a penalty system was implemented.

      we want 15 min surrenders — but the platform doesnt distinguish between losses and surrenders presently. Once it does, we will go 15 mins. Right now, if we did that, the optimal behavior would be to chain surrender at 15 mins every game.

      Luckily the system never went through. I’m not sure I would have noticed if that was the way surrender had always worked. We likely would have just seen a lot more AFK once a player thought the game was decided.

      Development, league of legends

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