So it’s been over 3 years since I posted
my very first video on this channel, and the hardcore fans and maybe even people who occasionally
watch my videos. You might’ve scrolled down to see what my
oldest video was and thought, “why the hell is this a League of Legends game with friends
and he’s playing as Urgot?” And funny thing about that, at the time, he
was the universally accepted worst champion in the game. And the reason that was my first video is
I originally wanted this channel to be based on League of Legends content. But long story short: things changed. And if this isn’t your Cup of Tea Act Man
video, totally fine, but just know that League of Legends was and still is, a HUGE passion
of mine. I mean, I’ve gotten countless hours of entertainment
out of a game I haven’t spent a dime on (except the 100’s of dollars I spent on
skins *COUGH COUGH) And I want to preface this whole video by
saying that I think Riot is a fantastic company for the most part. They’re not perfect but the way they interact
with fans, the jokes they write into every patch, how they highlight community made content. The culture they’ve built around League
of Legends is simply phenomenal, despite some of the negative aspects of it and the general
toxicity surrounding MOBA games. They communicate, they’re transparent. What I’m trying to say is I love Riot as
a company and think most everyone working there is super talented and passionate about
the game, and that they seem to be putting more work into it than ever before. Now, why do I bring this up? Well because there’s something that’s
been bugging me about League of Legends *heavy coughing
A game I’ve loved and played for 6 years. And don’t get me wrong, in this video it’s
going to sound like I’m hating on the game and on Riot, but this is the truth right here:
everything I’m going to say, I’m saying because I love the game and I need to be honest,
alright? So What Happened to League of Legends? Well there are many things that HAVE happened
to the game since it’s full release back in 2009. Goddamn, that is a long time in video game
years. And I’ll talk about the big changes in a
bit. But what happened to League of Legends, is
something that was there all along, something I just didn’t notice until it became extremely
obvious. One of the biggest reasons for League’s
constant success, and one of my biggest problems with it is Riot’s philosophy on CHANGE. *Changes Ad Nauseum
“With these changes we hope some of the biggest barriers to finding the fun in League
will be fixed.” HAH! GAAAAAAaaaaayy! Now I first started playing the game back
in 2012 when Lulu came out because I remember seeing her on the login screen. After playing my first 20, 30, 40, 50 games
I started to understand the basics of each champion, the items, masteries, etc. At the time, whenever things changed I imagined
it was all a part of balancing, improving the game so eventually it would be the way
Riot had always envisioned it. I thought, they probably didn’t expect the
game to do as well as it did – to become so popular. And thus, a lot of things were just unbalanced
or poorly optimized, whatever. You know, I had played old school Dota back
on Warcraft 3 a buttload, so this concept of continuous updates wasn’t new to me. I had the pre-conceived notion that Riot had
an end point that they were trying to get to. Looking back, I was completely wrong. There is no finish line. League of Legends is and always will be in
a perpetual state of development. “There – you know, there’s risk to change
too. There are bad things that we can do if we
change the game too much.” And we’re not talking minor adjustments
to the weapons in a First Person Shooter, or balancing units in a real time strategy
game, we’re talking pages upon pages of patch notes. New champions, new items, tweaked numbers,
updated runes, new masteries, remove this, remove that, bring back this, rework that. It is an endless cycle. And after 5 years of constantly staying up
to date with everything because I was a competitive player, it just became such a huge investment
of my time. And this is just to understand what the f*ck
is in the game. This endless cycle means that inevitably,
there’s gonna be something new that’s added that breaks the game in some form or
another. A busted combo here - a broken item there. So there’s almost never been a point where
League has truly been balanced. What’s worse, is the meta and what is considered
viable, changes with every patch. Entire playstyles can become unviable or unplayable
after a single update! Meaning players have to adapt. This is all a double-edged sword. Because on the one hand, it keeps the game
fresh but on the other, people have been playing certain ways for years! And so, you take that away from them. You know, when I started playing there was
96 different champions, each with 5 different abilities. And it takes a lot of time to learn what each
one of them does. Now we’re at 134 and it’s like, at what
point is there enough variety in champions? In their abilities? At what point does it became too much for
the casual player to WANT to know and understand the game? I’m not saying change is bad… (CHANGE IS GOOD) yes! Yes it is my squishy little assassin bug! It has kept me coming back, it has kept the
game fresh. I’m just saying at some point in time, I
wanted League Of Legends to settle down somewhere - find it’s place, you know? Here’s another thing to think about. As the game evolved, I always had this thought
in my mind: “hey this one thing is pretty broken/overpowered
but they’re constantly updating the game so they’ll fix it in time!” And I kept saying that to myself... For 5 years. Nidalee spears, AP Master Yi,
“PENTA KILL!” AP Rengar, Leblanc when she had a silence,
Atmogs, black cleaver stacking, feral flare, stopwatch meta, the list is endless, and I’ve
been through it ALL! League is not meant to be balanced, it is
not ever meant to be finished, it is now a continuous stream of revenue which forces
the company to create new champions and skins regardless of the consequences it has on the
overall game. Change for the sake of change… and money. “Now that’s not to say that every change
we make is out there to solve a problem. We do add – make some changes that are just
to add freshness.” You can see this in how they decide to release
their skins. Yorick was notorious, because he had a 5 year
span without a single new skin. From the time he launched up until his rework,
he did not get a new skin. Same thing with Urgot. Why? Because they weren’t popular champions. So now, new cosmetic content is made for champions
that will guarantee a good return in dollars. These are what I call, Priority Skins & Champions. It’s why Twisted Fate has 9 skins, it’s
why Katarina has 10, because they’ve always been popular. And if it’s a popular champion, then the
skin will sell. And we all understand it’s a business, you
know, a free-to-play game has to make money somehow, I get that. And this is the point, Riot’s philosophy
on constant change and new champions, means that inevitably, some just get left in the
dust for years and years. I just think every champion should receive
a somewhat equal amount of attention and love, regardless of how many people play them. So that nobody is left behind. Overall, I think League of Legends is in a
much better place then most of the time I had spent been playing it. They fixed Kassadin god-forsaken mobility,
they fixed Nidalee’s ridiculous poke damage. And eventually, they created a champion with
the exact same cancerous play style that old Nidalee had. And in the wise words of Tyler 1:
“Riot you’re such a SH*T company, dude! How can you get paid to f*cking balance the
game when there’s champions like this? They get paid to f*cking balance the game. That’s all these retards do is balance the
f*cking game! THAT’S IT! HOW IS ZOE STILL THE SAME?!” The reason League of Legends has bothered
me so much in the last two years especially, is because I’ve been waiting years to be
able to consider it a balanced game. The more and more things they add, it becomes
increasingly difficult to manage, to adjust the game around those elements, to memorize
them as a player, to balance them and just have fun. For every Champion Rework Riot gets right,
they f*ck up another. Now, this is all 100% JUST MY OPINON. And I really started to question what Riot
was doing when they reworked Gangplank. Now, I’m going to preface this by saying
I was the type of player who LOVED playing what most people considered sh*t champions
or troll picks, because I didn’t want to be just another guy who stuck to the meta. I wanted to be unique. I played League first and foremost for fun. And found out that many of the champions people
thought were sh*t, were actually incredibly fun when played well. And it made it WAY more satisfying when you
kicked ass because everyone thought you were trolling. Ok, so Gangplank’s kit wasn’t perfect
or all that fleshed out, but the voice! “Yo ho hoooo and a bottle of RUM!” “They have no concept of MISERY!” They took this incredible, jolly, gung-ho
pirate character and turned him into an emo!! WHY?! “The reality was that he was largely forgotten
and umm he just really wasn’t played that much and like, that’s not really a good
thing.” “Whaaat? Bro, what are you talking about, man?” Like, imagine if they reworked Mundo and his
voice went from “Mundo Smash.” To “I am Mundo and I’ll have my revenge.” You’d be sitting there like, bro that ain’t
f*cking Mundo! What the hell? So even if you think that the new voice is
good, imagine yourself as someone who mained Gangplank, played 100 or more games with him,
got attached to that character. Imagine the disconnect that person now feels
with what might’ve been their favorite champion – their favorite part of the game. While you personally, may not relate to the
players who are upset over whichever rework it might be, just put yourself in their shoes. Imagine it was YOUR favorite champion who
just completely changed and wasn’t the thing you enjoyed anymore. Keep this in mind, because it’s going to
be recurring concept. “Everybody would be a little bit nervous
hearing that like, a champion that they really like to play is getting like, a massive update.” “You don’t say?” “You don’t say??” “YOU DON’T SAY?!” They did this same thing to Maokai for reasons
I can’t even imagine. Again, I played Maokai a modest amount, and
when they reworked his abilities to scale better, tweaked his ultimate he was in a really
good place. But now his ultimate to me, looks like Nami’s. His voice sounds awful in comparison to what
it was. “Do you want to see twisted?! Torment me no longer!” “Torment at your peril! Where men fall, saplings rise.” Like you got all the trees and bark moving
and sh*t, it sounds… EVIL, EPIC! Maokai’s not the same, and I don’t play
him anymore because of it. Same thing with Galio, his rework REALLY pissed
me off because his kit was totally fine. It really fit the theme of a gargoyle and
his ultimate was one of the biggest game changers if you hit it right. “Ho hoooo no no noooo…” *laughter
He wasn’t broken, you could counter his ultimate pretty easily with one item, and
he was a lot of fun to play. He could be a powerhouse played into the right
composition. And I think Riot reworked him because he wasn’t
played all that much. “The reality was that he was largely forgotten
and he just really wasn’t played that much and like, that’s not really a good thing.” To me, Galio was not a champ you mained. He wasn’t someone played every game, but
could be the best pocket pick against an AP heavy team. But now he’s just… eh… some kind of generic gargoyle. I haven’t bothered to play him much. Taric too had a rework and the same thing
happened, they didn’t just change his kit, but changed his identity and I don’t play
him anymore. These are just examples of champions I used
to play and what I’m trying to get across, is how when they change so much I lose the
desire to keep playing them. And I lose more and more desire to play League. And then they did a slight rework to Cho’Gath,
so they took an already powerful, good, great kit and made it broken for some reason. Allowing his ultimate HP bonus to stack indefinitely
and he loses nothing upon death. “But why?” Why is that a thing? I thought the whole point of Cho’Gath was
the risk/reward of getting stacks but being afraid to lose them. You gain size and HP but if you’re killed,
you lose half of what you had. There’s risk to it! Now you see a Cho get +2000 extra HP from
his ultimate 30min in and you’re just like… “Well that’s kind of ridiculous!” Then his ult scales with HP so you got gargoyles
stoneplate and his ultimate is true damage. Like, 1800 True damage with one click?? Yeah cuz that’s balanced. And this is what I’m saying, they introduce
broken, new mechanics and then don’t fix them until later and that’s a recurring
pattern. You could get Locket of the Iron Solari, you’d
hit 5k HP, doubled with Gargoyles Stoneplate and your team has a 3k HP shield. See, I actually like Cho’gath, but I won’t
play him anymore because I legit don’t feel like I’m good when I can walk up to someone
and kill them when they’re at full HP with one click. In my opinion, it’s not fun to do well in
League of Legends with something that is unfair and broken, I don’t enjoy that. Then you’ve got champions like Ryze who
Riot just cannot seem to get right. His initial set of spells was pretty brain-dead,
but how the hell do you rework a champion and give him the ability to permanently root
enemies. “What the f*ck was that?” How do you f*ck that up? How do you go through testing and not realize
you’ve created something completely broken?? Ryze has been reworked so many times and I
can’t imagine how Ryze mains must feel about him. The issue with some of the champion reworks
I listed is that Riot will sometimes completely change the identity and feel of a character
people have been playing for YEARS. And it can be heart-breaking because people
love this game and these champions and these characters so much! So moments like these,
*Fun Gameplay Noises that I’m to lazy to transcribe
Or memories such as these, *More Fun Gameplay Noises that I’m to lazy
to transcribe Are just that, memories... Because I can never play these champions the
way I used to ever again. That part of the game is forever lost. And then they had finally reworked Urgot. My baby, my homie, dude! My go-to! And even though what they did to him was fantastic
and he needed it, not gonna lie; this killed some of my drive to keep playing the game. Because the Urgot I knew was gone and would
never return. And I was left with only my old clips and
games to remind me of what I once had… All these reworks lead to a main problem with
League, it’s become streamlined. If I’m not mistaken I believe there’s
an old quote on a forum somewhere from a Riot employee when talking about changes and the
meta. If this sounds familiar just let me know cuz
I’ve only heard about it but haven’t seen it. But basically, it was how Riot never intended
to force a meta because they wanted players to figure out what worked on their own. You know, players would realize that tanky,
sustain-type champions worked well in the top lane. AP Mages were good in mid. Mobile damage dealers with some Crowd Control
were great for the jungle. And ranged AD champions were most effective
in bot lane with someone to support them. This ideology, led to some really creative
strategies and setups. Some were viable, others weren’t. For many years, you could play what was highly
considered unviable and still have success. I did that and got to Diamond, alright? It can be done! But this has changed tremendously in recent
years especially after Riot’s biggest change to the runes and masteries. I never saw anything wrong with this system,
and while the new one is still good. It feels so streamlined. As if Riot themselves have been trying to
eliminate unusual strategies and picks. The issues of the new rune system arise because
EVERY champion now needs to have some sort of interaction or synergy with the runes,
and it’s inevitable that certain champions will benefit off the runes better than others. The stats from the old runes were just a way
for players to cover up their weaknesses or play to their strengths. While the masteries added more strategic elements. You had near-complete freedom in what you
optimized in. My point is, the old system had way more options,
it wasn’t that complicated. It was modular and could breathe life into
otherwise unviable picks and strategies. If you want an example of how League is becoming
streamlined, with certain champions more or less forced into particular roles, I can think
of no better example than Alistar. “You can’t milk those!” Again, one of my favorites. Most people would play him as a support and
he works well in that role. However, in the early seasons it was entirely
possible to jungle with him. Hell, I used to play Alistar top in platinum
& diamond ranked games. It wasn’t meta, it wasn’t exactly viable,
but it had it’s perks, and with the right runes and masteries you could make it work. Unfortunately, Alistar top & jungle is basically
never seen anymore. I still play him top but his reworks and the
changes to the runes have pretty much exclusively forced him into the support role. You can see this streamlining in how newer
champions and reworks are handled. Taric too is exclusively a support now because
the usefulness of his abilities is largely dependent on having other allies near you. You used to be able to play just about anything
in any lane, and Taric top was something I legit used to play. But bringing him top lane nowadays is just
a death wish, he can’t be played well up there. The problem is Riot streamlines the game in
ways that make it more boring, and over complicates it in ways that are just confusing. For example at some point they changed armor
penetration to lethality, and I don’t even know what the difference is. Armor penetration is simple, you pierce through
that amount of armor. But when they changed it to lethality, it
still says armor penetration in parenthesis?? Like, whats the point? Just have it say armor penetration! Now let’s just take a look at how passives
have changed in newer champions. Alright, we got Kled here. *long droning description of Kled’s overly
complicated passive “Shut the f*ck up! You know what shut the f*ck up mean?” You-you have 3 passives in one. Look at this f*cking box of text! This-this is a page! And then you look at a champion like Jayce:
gain bonus movespeed when you press R. Ok… I know what that passive does in just 2 seconds. And now I’m looking at Ekko’s page and
apparently his W has a passive that makes him deal bonus damage based on missing health. See, I didn’t even know that… HE’S BEEN OUT FOR 2 YEARS! Yeah, you could say that’s my fault for
not paying attention but GOD DAMN! There’s so many unnecessary mechanics, passives,
and all this sh*t in some of the newer champions that makes it incredibly difficult to memorize. Riot’s early champion designs were simplistic,
easy to understand even if you didn’t play them, but always hard to master. When you’ve got 139 different champions
each with 5 different abilities, some with 4 separate passives, it’s important that
I can just look at this shit and understand what I’m playing against from a glance. And it’s like, nah you gotta look em up
online to see EXACTLY what they do now. Then somewhere along the line Riot that that
influence points were too complicated or something, so they added all these keys, chests, blue
essence, puzzle pieces, shards, mastery tokens, all this sh*t and I don’t even care to figure
out how it all works. The stream-lining of champions, putting them
into specific roles that have labels, and overcomplicating the game in other areas,
made League into something much more difficult to grasp even for an experienced player like
myself. 5 Years under my belt, man! “League is a game about mastery and getting
better at the game. And that can be really frustrating when you
feel like the developers are just out there kind of shaking the table all the time. It’s like, why bother investing time to
get better when Riot’s just gonna change things anyway? But for me, the last straw, the thing that
damn near killed my desire to play this game ever again… Was the Removal of Dominion. Ok, I hear you. “NOBODY PLAYED DOMINION, ACT MAN! DOMINION WAS SH*T! THERE WAS LIKE 2 PEOPLE ON IT! WHO CARES? WHO CARES ABOUT IT?” You just shutup and listen, boi! At my peak, I was playing League a sh*t ton,
anywhere from 2-9 games a day. I climbed to Diamond 4, but the day I truly
began to stop caring about my rank, my skills, and this game was when Riot took out Dominion. Once again, if you didn’t like Dominion,
if you never played it, if you thought it was trash, lemme just say that there were
people that DID enjoy it! There was a population. And yeah they’ve got ARAM, they’ve got
a rotating game mode, but it’s not Dominion. It’s not Dominion! It was the perfect thing to play when you
didn’t have a guaranteed hour for a full match. It took more skill to succeed in Dominion
than it does in ARAM. ARAM is a lot of luck. Dominion, you could pick your champion and
go in all sorts of crazy builds! Bro, I would f*cking get some pre-workout
ready, I’d stir that sh*t up, drink it as the game went on, cuz I knew it wouldn’t
be longer than 25 minutes, play some stupid ass build because you could, there was basically
no laning phase and I would just get so into Dominion before I went to workout. And it’s like, that whole ritual I had,
it was taken from me. My habits, the way I wanted to play, poof… I understand, it might’ve been for the best,
Riot had their reasons and I’m not dismissing those. All I’m saying, is it didn’t have to be
this way. Riot could have tried to make it work, they
basically launched the mode and then barely touched it afterwards. This is what has been happening to League
of Legends for many years - the champions the items, the game modes, all these different
pieces of why people play the game, have been systematically, changed, altered, or removed
entirely. And it’s not the same game. “The more the game changes the harder it
is for someone who’s taken a break to come back to League. We know that dramatic changes can have a huge
impact on players who have spent, you know, hundreds of hours perfecting certain plays
or strategies and we try to be very sensitive of that. You know, I just want everyone watching to
understand that some people did play it, and they loved it. I remember there was a guy with the username
“Cool Dominion” who would always play Warwick, and I checked his profile once, I
would se him all the time. And if I remember correctly he had over 6,000
games in Dominion. Now how do you think he felt when it was removed? We all get get tired of the long games or
don’t have time for them and ever since Dominion was removed, that fast-paced action
and intensity hasn’t been replaced by anything. You know, it’s a difficult thing, to describe
what has happened to League of Legends, this – this game we’ve invested so much time
and effort into. This may not have been the most comprehensive
analysis, this is just the opinion of an Acting Male. League of Legends has had a lot of good changes
over the years and I’m not knocking on the positive things Riot has done, it’s their
game, it’s free to play so it’s always something I can go back to. But you know, I just realized this: it’s
not that I’ve gotten bored of the game, I’ve gotten bored of change. It’s so tiring now to try and keep up with
all the massive overhauls, reworks, new items, masteries, 15 page patch notes, and so on. The game has lost that simplistic, easy to
grasp charm it used to have. I’ve lost passion for League after Gangplank,
Taric, Galio, Urgot, Maokai, Alistar and so many others have been changed into something
I no longer want to play. And it’s sad because, the game to me, will
never be as fun, unique, or engaging as it was. And the reason for that, is because… League of Legends had to change… *More fun gaming noises
