The Biggest Problem With League of Legends

hey guys you might be looking at the video title and thumbnail and wondering if this is clickbait seeing as i like to make videos criticizing the game's current state of play over the past few months i've been thinking back to the different things i noticed that's making the game feel more and more unpleasant i've talked about how snowballing the game feels how overloaded new champions are how much healing there is in the game how much more toxic and pessimistic the community is and the rise in feature slash power creep just to name a few but all of those problems can be traced to a direct root cause and i figured out what that route is so today we're gonna break down all of the aspects of league of legends biggest problem the one that's been causing all of the other problems really quickly though just want to give a shout out to today's sponsor zar it's a community based desktop overlay that attaches onto your league of legends client and gives you live tips and guides from match to match normally it's really difficult to look up specific matchup advice or game information while you're already playing but thanks to zar you can get those on screen and those tips are supplied by other players experienced with that champion on the main application there's a database of player submitted guides by which you can download to have them pop up in game tsar appears both in the draft face and in game so in the champion select it gives you tips and intel based on the champion you pick as for in-game it depends on what stage of the game you're at and what role you're playing also whenever you press tab there's a live dashboard available for you showing a wide array of current in-game stats to keep tabs on your and the enemy team's performance if you're still trying to learn the game and are not entirely sure what to be doing at what time i highly suggest you check out this app you can pair this up with other live companions without causing any problems with overlap so if you're already using a game assistant you should have no problems adding this one too i should mention they are riot compliant so they work with the actual company itself to make this program check out the link on screen or in the description below to learn more but for now let's get back into the video i'm gonna be upfront instead of dragging you along with the carrot on a stick league of legends has become too focused on combat that's the fundamental issue that negatively affects the game to everyone who's about to go well duh mobas are pvp games of course there's combat that's actually not true combat is merely a subset of league score gameplay easiest way to prove that is by answering one question how do you win on summoner's rift destroy the enemy nexus right victory in each game isn't predicated on who has more kills in fact there are a pretty respectable number of games where teams win with the negative score happens all the time so let me first explain what i mean by league becoming too combat oriented and then i'll explain how it causes every other problem right now three things first what is the fastest most consistent and most effective way to acquire a statistical advantage in the game kills for the sake of argument let's forget the depreciating value that happens when you feed too many times each kill rewards you with 300 gold plus up to 150 for assists and a sizeable amount of experience especially if it's a solo kill to my knowledge you get a little more than half a level if it was a solo kill and one third of a level each if it was an assisted kill if the targeted champion is above level 9 though it gives an equal amount regardless of solo or assistant to require 450 gold from minions alone it takes you anywhere between 3 to 4 million waves in the early to mid game meaning it will take you 2 minutes to get that much gold whereas the kill can be obtained in a matter of seconds that's just one kill too in a skirmish or team fight you get that times the number of enemies you take down a single five for zero ace puts your team ahead by over two thousand gold and effectively two and a half collective levels the only other elements in the game that provides comparable gold and experience would be baron but he only appears past 20 minutes and every 5 minutes after being taken down there is no readily available source of gold and experience that comes anywhere close to scoring kills second what do all items in the game do give you increased skill pressure the only ones that don't give direct combat stats are control words every other purchase from a mythic item to even a single health potion gives you more kill pressure yes even moby boots mobility in league of legends is a combat stat through and through there are no items in the game that apply a different practical function other than give you a bigger stick to whack the enemy team with there used to be you guys remember banner of command nz rod portal now i understand how bad the banner of command meta was back in the day i was there myself but it was an item that offered your team some other way to influence the game whether you were winning or losing frost green's claim was another one i did mention that mobility is a combat stat but the act of being able to send out dynamic vision wards to scout the enemy team was a super cool mechanic that i was pretty upset about getting removed third alternative win conditions have all been made pretty much invalid split pushing extremely risky unless you know exactly where all five members of the enemy team are at all times since your teammates might accidentally get caught out and beaten down in a 5e4 and then they take 3 towers and a baron at which point your split pushing caused more harm than gain turtling basically impossible tower dives are so easy now objectives are far too valuable to the point where hunkering down and waiting until the game goes super late is pretty much unviable even though technically there's a lot of ways you can go about destroying the enemy nexus all of them entail fighting the enemy team and the only way you can fight the enemy team is through head-on confrontation what i mean by this is that it's you versus them there's nothing you can do except fight them you can't set up traps or create decoys or do anything other than take them head on now before you say look for picks you still have to fight that champion there's no way of indirectly reducing the enemy team's pressure besides fighting anymore chances are some of you might be asking how is that a problem it's a problem because combat in league of legends often comes down to whichever team has more gold even in the highest levels of play where teams are able to exploit even the smallest opportunities to make a comeback the winning team can often overpower those attempts through sheer force alone you might be able to make a critical pick on the enemy kai'sa but they still have a super fed cat arena and aatrox that you have to deal with after having exhausted three ultimates games that are fully oriented in combat are totally fine to have but that's mostly due to the fact that skill plays a much larger part in those titles oftentimes overshadowing a person's statistical advantage smash bros is a good example you could be down to your last stock while your opponent still has three but because your characters are at the same power level at all stages of the game there's always a chance you can come back if you pull off clutch outplays as there is the opportunity for you to move attack and defend far better than your opponent such a thing doesn't exist in league of legends even the most well-known 1v1 the faker versus ryu's dead i'll play widely touted to be the pinnacle of league of legends mechanics would not have been possible if faker's dead didn't have so much more stuff than ryu you can even look in the video kt bullets is down almost 1400 gold and faker is up two levels take a closer look at their items and faker has a quicksilver sash which used to be able to cleanse death mark back in the day now i'm not saying what he did wasn't incredibly clutch but with how many tower shots he took he 100 deserved to lose that fight if they were on an equal playing field same level same equipment etc items and levels contribute massively to the outcome of a fight and naturally having a bad early start means you're going to be facing opponents with more power and defense than you making it that much more difficult to make a comeback that means getting an early lead takes more precedence than anything else because whichever team starts to snowball gets to essentially control the rest of the game if you're still confused here's a better way to explain you start a game you fight your lane opponent you lose now you come back with two long swords while your opponent comes back with a serrated dirk let's say you're both playing champions to scale reasonably that means the only way you can mount a comeback is to score a kill back but they're stronger than you so you need to ask for ganks but you see how there is no feasible way for you to turn the tides back in your favor besides killing your opponent additionally you're probably down in cs maybe a level and a tower plate all of which give your opponent a higher combat advantage you legit can't do anything other than hope your opponent messes up and you can punish them accordingly but that means you have to fight hypothetically there are ways you can still acquire small leads for example let's say the enemy shaco is ganking a lot and scoring a bunch of kills but he's neglecting his farm and your king gets a 70 cs and two level advantage over him by 15 minutes by stealing his camps sure we can make a case for that being a net neutral outcome except it isn't kane might be fed but his teammates aren't and laners don't exactly have the same concession strugglers do when it comes to searching for other ways to slow the bleeding no matter how you slice it the only way to get your lead back is to fight doesn't matter if it's your opponent standing right in front of you or if you venture somewhere else on the map to get kills instead so let's go how into this is related to every other problem i'll start by going backwards the most recent general issue i talked about was a couple weeks back new and overloaded champions i know i joked about how riot made every new champion bloated in an attempt to sell them and their skins and while that's true another reason is because they're trying to create champions with ways to come back from behind think about it when it comes to certain mechanics like stealth and untargetability those will always remain relevant no matter what dashes will always remain relevant targeted invincibility will always remain relevant riot knows that the only way to make a comeback in league of legends is to fight back despite your disadvantage so they start loading up new champions and reworks with stuff that always has value regardless of their kda their items or levels viego can be 0 and 25 but if he impersonates the 15 and 1 fiora of the enemy team it doesn't matter how weak he is all akshaw needs to do in a team fight is score a takedown not even a kill on a champion who got a bunch of kills and then he can revive teammates no questions asked doesn't matter if he's hard 1v9 or feeding to high heaven that's why nowadays you see so many superficial things shoehorned into new champions that usually just end up being removed it's their way of adding fail-safes to make them still relevant in a game next one snowballing all of the reasons i mentioned in that video are caused by the non-existence of other methods players can go through to achieve victory whoever gets an early lead gets access to goal that will be impossible to obtain by their opponents tower plates go down in 14 minutes first tower gold can only be given to one player runes give so much more combat pressure than ever before item power spikes are the highest they've ever been now just about everyone has a super powerful two item power spike stride breaker and sterax gorge ringer and sterax immortal shield bow and infinity edge leandros and demonic rocket belt and cosmic drive everyone has two item power spikes dragon souls and baron gives so much more combat pressure and elder dragon is the worst defender of them all securing it essentially means the entire enemy team loses 20 of their maximum health due to the execute passive none of these can be circumvented or stopped once either team obtains them for example if the enemy team secures all 15 tower plates and first tower gold you're automatically down over 2700 gold by 15 minutes off of those objectives alone much less the kills and cs leads they've obtained as well then if they acquire other objectives like baron and elder dragon there's nothing you can do to stop yourself from losing because the only way you can come back is if you fight them but you can't fight them because they're way too strong before we continue on i do acknowledge that these mechanics were deliberately put in place to make objectives much more rewarding to pursue rather than just everyone playing team deathmatch for 50 minutes however it also had the unintended consequence of making comebacks exceedingly dependent on the winning team messing up not the losing team playing smart and resourcefully moving on the toxicity you may have noticed in ranked games platinum and above people have a tendency to give up really quickly like the moment they hear enemy double kill they just want to throw in the towel and go next truth be told i'm not the most optimistic player myself but i do agree that people are way too negative and quick to give up games at the same time when you look at the number of options or lack thereof i can't blame them for thinking they've lost before they've even began like i said alternative win conditions don't exist anymore even if you play york or tryndamere and you buy hull breaker you still need time and patience to execute a successful backdoor split push and the enemy team likely won't let you get away with it for very long unless they're idiots they're gonna rush towards baron and take it down in like two seconds then speed recall back before you can even get one tower once again acting in the hopes that the enemy team is stupid enough to throw their lead not because your team was able to pull off a more successful macro strategy notice how all negative downward spirals in league of legends are based on the fact that the game has been made so binary in the progression of each match obviously people in lower divisions like platinum gold and silver are more inclined to play a match out because throws happen all the time start reaching diamond 1 masters and such and that's when you realize whichever team gets the first advantage can easily carry it all the way through because overall macro sense is more mature in higher elo not by much but enough to make people give up at the first sign of difficulty i've entertained the thought of introducing more macro-oriented things into the game so that players can try out other win conditions such as maybe setting up massive minion waves to crash into the enemy tower or temporarily reconstructing turrets to stifle baron and power minions but i know those won't ever happen so we're about 12-13 minutes into the video by now and i have yet to explain why riot is making the game so combat oriented easy answer players find it boring no one in this day and age has the time patience or attention span to sit through 30 to 40 minute matches playing convoluted and elaborate games of chess donghua made a video on the korean server widely regarded as the most fast-paced yet toxic region in the world in the video he explained that players would much rather just skip a game and go on to the next rather than play it out because they just want that quick fix they want it fast quick and dirty not only that but watching lcs lck lpl and lec matches where a 40 minute game has only 5 kills is the most tedious thing you can ever see as a spectator although i personally enjoy 50 minute games because i love the tension late game brings both teams are on the edge of their seats being extra careful since one mistake means game over but now i see the score at 15 minutes it's like eight kills to one and i'm like alright gg and i stopped watching because nine times out of ten it's clear who's gonna win when you're playing at the highest level possible professional players almost never throw games because they're so good at minimizing their vulnerabilities and squeezing every mile out of every inch it's funny because now that i think about it i was one of the few people who actually loved the elemental drakes when they came out but looking back i kind of missed the old dragons because they weren't as game breaking as they are now and i miss when baron just gave stats health and mana regeneration and not empowered minions to deal more damage to towers that way you could afford to give up all of those objectives and just safely farm under tower waiting for your chance later on but riot has implemented too many things into the game that force you to fight the enemy team for control over something and that isn't a good idea when you're behind because you'll probably get slaughtered and lose the objective anyway which then makes you lose the game that much harder sadly this will only continue to get worse league of legends has become too much like other pvp games where it's all about flashy explosive short bursts of gameplay and not methodical tactical experiences am i saying mobas like league need to be as hyper complex as real-time strategies like starcraft no but i also don't think winning or losing in league should be predicated on who can kill the other team more all of league's current problems can be linked to the fact that it places too much emphasis on fighting both physically and mentally and all rewards and punishments stem from that that is why there are so many players who give up as soon as they feel like they can't win a fight i heard dota 2 is more macro focused but that game has its own slew of problems and admittedly watching macro plays isn't very fun because it's slow and lacks any flashy execution but i think you get the point though based on my experience i would say if riot wants to fix league of legends from a fundamental level they have to first steer away from trying to make the game a spectator sport with explosive team fights it is fun to watch on the big screen but it ends up damaging the experience for way too many players i love team fighting as much as the next person but not when a single bad skirmish leads to everyone wanting to afk and give up before the 5 minute mark with that said let me know what you guys think about the video i do apologize for making so many heavy topics back to back i'll try to jump back to something more lighthearted in the future so if you enjoyed it would be awesome if you could leave a like don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet consider following me on my socials and joining my discord server and lastly check out my previous discussion videos if you still have time but that's it for today thank you all so much for watching and i'll see you again soon for the next one take care [Music] you

Channel: Vars

Views: 65,623

Rating: 4.893702 out of 5

Keywords: league of legends, proguides, league of legends pro guides, riot games, lol, lol quitting, lol problem, biggest problem, problems with league of legends, lol bad game, vars, vars league of legends, the problem with league of legends, lol discussion, league bad game, problems, lol problems, lol bugs, lol season 11, season 11 league, lol trash game, league of legends toxic, toxic game, most toxic league of legends

Id: 5JM0BHm5SZU

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 12 2021