Since the launch of Twisted Treeline I’ve gone back and forth about playing on the map. For a while, I was in love with it. While people were still learning the faster playstyle, it was easy to pick up some quick wins. After a bad losing streak, I swore off TT, though it was hard for me pinpoint exactly why.

I’ve since gotten back into TT and been mostly successful, but it hasn’t been without frustration. I think I finally have a bead on the design behind TT that makes a loss there so much more frustrating than on Summoner’s Rift. The problem behind TT, or more appropriately, the design dilemma, is that the map has to encourage more fighting to produce a quicker game. It isn’t enough that the lanes are shorter, the towers less durable, and the gold generation quicker. The map has to produce confrontation, and the way Riot chose to do that was by heavily prioritizing the two major jungle creeps, Grez and the dragon.

This is actually why TT is so frustrating in comparison to Summoner’s Rift. On SR the buffs are definitely important, but the map is much larger, so sacrificing position in order to acquire buffs can mean the difference between defeat and victory. Teams that ignore buffs can still win the game if the opponent focuses too much on the buffs without thinking about positioning.

Twisted Treeline, on the other hand, is small enough that you can get the buffs without stepping out of position, especially since many of the stronger heroes on TT have ways to get over the walls. The big problem, then, is that players play TT just like they play SR – getting buffs when its convenient but not prioritizing them. This puts the team at a huge disadvantage, so big, in fact, that I’d say you don’t have a chance of winning if you lose those buffs three times in a row. The buffs not only increase your team damage output, they provide enough experience and gold to set your team way ahead, in both level and itemization.

The problem, at least in my mind, is that the importance of the buffs is discreet. Everyone knows that buffs are good, but most players don’t know how good. One way to fix this would be through some sort of spotlight on map basics. Another potential balance change would be to offer bonus gold for killing the wearer of the buff. It wouldn’t have to be the full amount, but something to help a team that either doesn’t know how important the buffs are or hasn’t been able to properly control the map catch back up. It would significantly slow the snowballing effect that is such a problem on TT.

Have you guys seen the same trouble on TT or is something else typically the cause for your loss?

I’m actually dumbfounded by this bit of news. It’s hard to believe it’s possible, but a player has managed to reach 1000 referrals, netting him a permanent place as a part of the actual game. The player, who plays under the name Grez, will have the lizard on TT named after him.

Just so you understand how difficult a feat this truly is, consider that Grez had to get 1000 friends to not only sign up, but to play until level 10. I have a smurf account that recently hit level 10, and let me say, it took some time. It’s not that I don’t think the game is good enough to get friends – it is – but in my experience, it takes someone really enjoying a game to get as far as level 10 can take.

Grez must have been bombing the whole of the internet with his referral link. Whatever the case, congrats to Grez on his success. You can find a full list of possible referral rewards at the referral instructions home page.

A couple weeks back I decided I was going to take a long break from Twisted Treeline. I like the map, but when I wasn’t playing in a full premade the huge variation in game quality was frustrating. One game my team would win in 18 minutes, the next my team would feed for 18 minutes. I assumed people just didn’t know the map and needed more time to learn.

I made my foray back into the winding woods yesterday and quickly remembered why I had quit. My first game had a feeding Nunu so we lost. The next I had the same Nunu on my team, and though we won (which took far too much “can we please group up” from my end) it was a long and arduous process. The next several games were leaver after leaver, feeder after feeder, save the one game in which I was paired with a duo that had beaten me the game before. I got one leaver who had 10% of his wins in leaves. There should be some pretty harsh penalties for that crap.

Despite my long losing streak from a few days back, I had turned things around. I was back up to 68 games above .500 and winning a decent mix. The TT experience took me down to 61 games but created an even bigger problem. My ELO has now dropped to the point that I’m playing with some seriously inexperienced players. My most recent game was host to a TF that was 0-6 at 15 minutes and a Jax that had 8 creep kills by 20 minutes. There is just no way I can possibly carry that game.

I’ll be spending my time in game over the next week or so trying to get my ELO back up in the hopes of playing with some decent teammates once again. It’s been a rough few days.

When Twisted Treeline first released I was thrilled. I loved the smaller map size, the emphasis on fighting and ganking, and the importance of map control. I thought it would be a great map to learn with the two friends with whom I play most often and a good way to get comfortable with a faster paced game.

Some of those things came true, but as people have started to figure out the map I’ve seen the same teams over and over again. It’s always some combination of Shen/Mundo/Jax/Poppy/Mordekaiser with the occasional Warwick/Shaco/Singed thrown in for a little variety. Mostly, though, it’s the first five, and I’m tired of it. The great part about this game is the variety, which that map limits in a big way. It’s not that three-tank teams can’t be beat, just that they require you to play near perfectly for the beginning of the game. If they get up in any way, or even if they keep pace with you, you’re going to have a very hard time beating them.

People have been asking for fixes to the problem – map specific items, global buffs or debuffs to reduce the effectiveness of three-tank teams – but I think the solution is much more simple. We need draft mode. If each team can ban two heroes and no one can pick the same toon it makes the game much more interesting. You can bet most people would ban Jax/Mundo right off the bat, likely followed by Poppy/Shen or maybe Udyr if the other team has a good Udyr player. Whatever the case, I really miss draft mode from DotA and I love the fact that it gives players the opportunity to filter out some of the more overpowered characters that haven’t received their respective nerfs/remakes.

Riot’s said multiple times that draft mode is in the works but there’s still no ETA. As with the Flash remake, I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later.

I decided to stay up last night and grab a few solo queues on TT to see how I would fare with Kennen. The first game went pretty well. I was holding my own, not necessarily dominating (they had a Shen/Poppy/Warwick so it was tough to burst a target down) but I wasn’t dying and I was picking up the occasional kill. Our own Shen wasn’t using his ult early enough, though, and we ended up losing a long game after some intense teamfights. Overall it was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately that kind of game isn’t the norm for Treeline. Most games I see are landslides in either direction, even if they take 30-40 minutes to finish. It’s a problem I think will be hard to balance if only because 3v3 is much less forgiving to players prone to making mistakes. In the next game my opponents weren’t nearly careful enough with me early game. Only one had cleanse and the others were short on CC.

You can see the results in the screenshot I posted. Take a look at Fiddle’s farm compared to my own. He was so far behind by the time I had 4 kills that there was just no coming back.