League of Legends XL: Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold

[ex cathedra]

League of Legends XL:
Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold



You can sign up for League of Legends here (http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/). It's a free MOBA, based on Defense of the Ancients.

We maintain lists of players, sorted by server. If you are not on these lists and would like to be, please post in the thread with the following information in bold: Server (if you don't know it, it's likely the region you're in, but it's worth checking anyway), your Forum Name and your Summoner Name
If no reply's been made about adding you after a day or two, first check the lists to see if you've been added, if not, feel free to post again or PM me. Any incorrectly formatted posts will probably be overlooked.

NA Server
{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name
0tt3r | 0tt3r
9mm | cwcriner
Adumbration | Benefice
aethernox | aethernox
Alemil | Alemil
Alter | AlterForm
Anonomuss | OpticalSage
ArcanistSupreme | Arcanist Supreme
Arbitrarity | Arbitrarity
Archangel Yuki | Yocham
assassin89 | nineballcirno
Astrella | Sirroelivan
AtwasAwamps | AtwasAwamps
Aurenthal | Estor
Averis Vol | AverisVol
Baron Corm | Baron Corm
Baxter | Thefettered
BinaryMage | BinaryMage
Blueiji | Blueiji
BobVosh | BobVosh -or- VoshBob
Bookboy | Keledrath
Brother Oni | MarineHK4861
Bliss Authority | Companion N00b
Caradryan | Ying Quliang
Castleraven | Castleraven
cdstephens | cdstephens
Chess435 | Chess435
Copacetic | Azbu
Creed | Moarzed
CrnvorousMeece | CarnivorousMeece
Croverus | Croverus
Cute_Riolu | Cute Riolu
Dallas-Dakota | MustacheMan
Dante & Vergil | Raphiezar
Darth Mario | Darth Mario
Daverin | Daverin
Dentrag2 | Callinectes
dgnslyr | GANKERLagann
Dichotomy | Kaellin
Dire Ferret | Guvna Kit Kit
Djinn in Tonic | The Djinn
Dogmantra | Dogmantra
douglas | DouglasM
Doxkid | Doxkid
Dragonus45 | Dragonus45
Drager0 | Drager0
Dragor | Supernaturalist
Draken | Draken Frosthand
DrakeRaids | DrakeRaids057
Dralnu | TomerIsHot
dukexx | JacksonHicks
Duos | DapperGuy
efdf | efdf
EifieFlare | EifieFlare
Elagune | Chopstyx
Eldariel | Elealar
EndlessWrath | Andurin
Errandir | Ramses III
EternalMelon | EternalMelon
faith | Ferrovax101
FantomFang | FantomFang
Faulty | FaultyClockwork
Fawkes | Count Fawkes
FeverFox | Alcopop
Flarowon | Kruin Avabruc
kFlechair | Master Zealot
Folytopo | Folytopo
Forrestfire | Forrestfire15
Frankelshtein | McFinkelstein
Fredaintdead | Fredthefighter
Gallus | Anechois
Geigan | Geigan
glemis | glemis
Giant Panda | Le Shirrif
Godskook | Bethor Kookalian
mrcarter11 | Mrcarter11
Gourtox | Gourtox
Gruffard | Gruffard
Hanuman | HanumanXoO
Hatevah | Hatevah
Incomp | Incomp
InyutheBeatIs | Believe Inyu
Istari | IstariK
Ivellius | Ivellius
Jamin | CapZich
JKTrickster | ZenTrickster
Joran | Jorana
KaizoMK | KaizoMK
Kara Kuro | RaptorKitty
Kciemir | Ghostface Ki11ah
Kettle | Kettle747
king.com | kingcom
Kinslayer | HaunterReqiuem
kmchii | kmchii
knightMARE|Sir Wiffleston
Kopaka | CelesHurricane
Kotarus | Adrameleck
Kwazey | Kwazey
LegoShrimp | LegoShrimp
LightWraith | TheLightWraith
Lil Shiro | Mizz Mitchell
litewarior | litewarior
Lix Lorn | ElixiaLorn
Lord Generic | Lord Generic
LordShotGun | LordShotGun
LostEnder | LostEnder
Low-Key | TheFuzziestBear
lvl 1 sharnian | StarryEagle
Lyxie | Lyxie
Maeglin_Dubh | Tycho Velius
Makensha | Jarbis
MammonAzrael | MammonAzrael
Manticoran | Manticoran
MasatoHyuga | MasatoHyuga
Master_Rahl22 | Goltoth
master256 | QWERTYSTOP
Math_Mage | Mathmage
Mattarias, King. | Mattarias
Malmagor Andrigal | Madmal
Maxios | Maxios20
McCerberus | MCerberus
Meatshield#236 | Meatshield236
Merellis | Merellis
Mike_the_Mystic | Kraemer
Milskidasith | Milskidasith
Mindfreak586 | Mindfreak586
Mirrinus | Parallaxal
Miscast_Mage | MiscastMage
Moklok | KokoBWare
mrzomby | mrzomby
Mtg_player_zach | MtgPlayerZach
Mushroom Ninja | Mushroom Ninja
Mutant Bunny | WhollySpart
Nadevoc | Xenik
Nanoblack | IwearSILLYhats
Nargan | Naryuk
Necroticplague | Yamidamian
Neoseanster | Neoseanster
NeoVid | NeoVid
neXianXavia | neXianXavia
NotAEvilToaster | NeonPie
oblivion6 | warcrown10
Octopus Jack | Thalric
PersonMan | Nsev
Pie Guy | Qwazes
pilvento | Kandrass
PhoeKun | PhoeKun
Poison Fish | Baron Von Flib
Postmodernist | Postmodernist
Protecar | Godreig
Protecar | Atk
Psychotic | SquirrelFish
Qaera | Qaera
ragingrage | ragingrage
Raistlin1040 | Sanevale
Rama | Nargus
Raroy | setokaibasmt
RationalGoblin | AtillathePun
Raveypoos | Rhaviewoos
recklessabaddon | recklessabaddon
revolver kobold | A Magic Kobold
Reynard | Duke Reynington
Saveducks | ElGrandisimo
Serpentine | Lady Serpentine
Shades of Gray | PierreAbelard
shadowwalker64 | shadowwalker65
Shadowleaf | Shadowdancing
Shadow Lord | ShadowLordgiantitp
Shadowy | DJPON3Vinyl
ShortOne | LittlePoppy
SidCoolios | Irazel
Silverraptor | Silverraptor
Sircarp | Sircarp
SirSigfried | LibertarianSDR
Slash_712 | Catfud
sofawall | sofawall
St. Viers | St.Viers
Starfols | Starfols
SuperPanda | Lokilar
SweetRein | Riot Reinboom
TalonDemonKing | TalonDemonKing
TechnOkami | Techn0kami
Temotei | Temotei221
Terazul | Allegretto
term1nally s1ck | silverdevilboy
tesla_pasta | generictownsman
Thanatos 51-50 | Thanatos Erebus
The_Fiery_Tower | TheFieryTower
TheGlowingRogue | I Glow In Dark
Themage | SirPelletheGreat
Thethan | Thethan
The Rabbler | Paco H Jones
The Shadowmind | The Shadowmind
The Valiant Turtle | Valiant Turtle
Thrantar | Thrantar
Thrawn183 | Thrawnyboy
throtecutter | throtecutter
toasty | toastymow
Tono | Tono Chou
Treayn | Treayn
tribble | Smallbluedot
Tychris1 | Tychris1
userpay | userpay
Vauron | Vauron
Volatar | The Volatar
wandiya | wandiya
Winterwind | DreamingHeart
Winthur | Seyruun
woodzyowl | Woodzyowl
Zabel_Zarock | Jon Talbain
Zeful | Zeful
ZeltArruin | ZeltArruin
Zemro | Shivic
ZeroNumerous | ZeroNumerous
Zeteni | Zeteni
zolga | TheZolga[/table]

EU Server--West
{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name
Acromos | Crannoch
Adumbration | Adumbration
Anonomuss | Anonomuss
Azimov | Sidhe de Athame
Brother Oni | MarineHK4861
Cheers | Sam vds
Cyborg Mage | Cyborg Mage98
Eldariel | Elealar
Even Human | SlyGuyMcFly
Gauntlet | Isva
HalfDragonCube | giantmudkip
Krazzman | Viskerin
Maxymiuk | Maxymiuk
Mc. Lovin | B1GB1RDB4G3L
Miscast_Mage | MiscastMage
Morph Bark | Morpheus Bob
Nargan | Naryuk
PersonMan | Scarge
Reb46 | Reb46
Reynard | Duke Reyn
Runhidesurvive | Jmack10
Saph | StarSaph
shadowwalker64 | shadowwalker64
Talesin | Fridgecake
term1nally s1ck | Silverdevilboy
That'd_be_me | AntiLocke
TheGeckoKing | Alpharis Omega
Volatar | VolatarUK
Winterwind | DreamingHeart
Ziren | Zirenoid
zolga | MasterZolga[/table]

EU Server--Nordic & East
{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name
Dada | Scrattlebeard
Posca | LDRC
Rockbird | Rockbird[/table]

EU Server--Unspecified
{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name
Abakus | Terpfen
Alemil | Alemil
Ayra | Ayramatao
Darwin | DarwinBeGood
Endoperez | Endoperez
Heliomance | Sidhe de Grian
Kurrel | GrinningOni
littlebottom | Littlebottom
lord_khaine | Lord_khaine
Narazil | Narazil
Narkis | Narkis
Penthar | Malderon
Raviepoos | Skittles Unicorn
Shadowleaf | AncientPharma
Socratov | Mbutu
Voidhawk | Sidhe ne Awk
Zefir | Einerwie
Zombywoof | Zombywoof[/table]

SEA Server
{table=head]Forum Name|Game Name
abadguy | Smite Thy Enemy[/table]

MUMBLE
Download here! (http://mumble.sourceforge.net/)
Our main means of communication is a mumble server, playing host to a variety of games, including LoL. We're quite a tight knit community, get to know us! Hanging about is a good way to find a game, and if you don't fancy playing something there's always a good chance of a friendly chat. Contact Djinn_in_Tonic via PM if you have a question or want to donate money to keep the server running.
Address: fish.mumbleboxes.com
Port: 36003

Admins: Djinn_in_Tonic (Djinn); Darth Mario; ShortOne (LittlePoppy, Raven); Dogmantra; Nano (Nanoceraptor).

STREAMS
Some of us run streams. You can watch them here.
Legoshrimp (http://www.twitch.tv/legoshrimp)
sofawall (http://www.own3d.tv/sofawall/live/83936)
Silverraptor (http://www.livestream.com/silverrapter?t=527242)
Lyxie (http://www.own3d.tv/lyxie)

GUIDES
Sometimes people write guides and post them in this thread. Other times pro players write guides that people then post in this thread. They often end up here.
General
A General Guide to Support (http://tpesports.net/index.php?site=articles&action=show&articlesID=32), by Math Mage
Guide to General Common Jungler Set-Ups (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12409551&postcount=575), by Mtg_player_zach
Small Guide to Jungle Counterpicking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12379254&postcount=98), by Winthur
General Guide to AD Carries (http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=9234)
Seizing the fourth digit: Playing your way out of Elo Hell. (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=341821) by Math_Mage
Faulty and Raistlin's Quick Build Database: Notes and Stuff (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10942497&postcount=1004) by Faulty and Raistlin
Turning Skill Into Elo: Solo Queue Mindset And Methodology (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1220673) by MathMage
How to be a Good Team Leader (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1374492) by Darth Mario

Specific Champions:
Be warned. These guides are, by and large, outdated. Some (if not much) of the information referenced in these guides has been made obsolete as a result of League's natural patch cycle. If you're looking for information on a champion, you'll have better luck at SoloMid.net (http://solomid.net/guides.php?champ=&sort=2&display=4&x=98&y=9) or LolPro.com (http://LoLPro.com). Alternatively, ask the thread!
Riven 101 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12579737&postcount=204), by Arbitrarity
Highly Artistic Blitzcrank guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12380155&postcount=115), by Dogmantra
Laser Bear Udyr (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9657101&postcount=39), by Djinn_In_Tonic
Rammus: Can't touch this (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=258919), by Math_Mage
Twitch (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board
[URL="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10267058&postcount=1448), by Djinn_In_Tonic
Jungle Akali (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10498621&postcount=1358) by Djinn
How to play everyone's favourite Lightning Squirrel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10518034&postcount=154) by Dogmantra
Lee Sin (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=636475) by Dralnu
Super Serious Rumble Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11052926&postcount=904) by Dogmantra
OH SNAP Morgana Can Jungle (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11295698&postcount=1238) by Dogmantra
Anivia Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11514141&postcount=845) by Eldariel
Tristana (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11938481&postcount=1029) by MathMage
CLASSY VIDEOS FOR CLASSY PEOPLE*
Watching these videos makes you a classier person. Fact.
Jungle Janna! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC6wm9iaNmM)
How to Win Every Game in League of Legends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrsTE1vpoXM)
Panic at the Nexus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7WlCbaLI3I)
Sunfire Cape Sunday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgjfX6crjrg)
Season One Trailer with Commentary (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/news/season-one-trailer-commentary)
D-Town (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wHp4VJ47v0)
Insanity Mix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGKN1Adzckk&feature=related)
(Truly, Truly) Outrageous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC7S05vI-BU&feature=related)
I'm just a noob (Ryze Ryze Ryze again) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpr1T-pgaZY&feature=related)
e.o.n Shen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs_cGUPQ3M&feature=related)
Vendrim-Ionia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry3E2UQMe3k&hd=1)
Pwn ur FACE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf9VSDt0EN4)
Your -Epic- Dreamhack comes true! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKCs1CyBFLg)
Ezreal Custom Skin Spotlight (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn-HoAPlg-c)
I Just Got Ganked (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpNVN33fj4Y&feature=channel_video_title)
Keep Feeding (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaR0frKc4a0)
Champion Rap Battles -- Brolaf vs. Gentleman Cho'Gath (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ-r300BVFI)
Combinasion BOOM! League of Legends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzsXR4sM_Y)
All in the Cards (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9d3342IXSs)
No One Ganks Like Garen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD4uiTQsRJg)
Rammus Taunts Everyone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-8Q4PM4PXM)

COMICS AND PICS
It's like your eyes are getting a massage.
LoL Comic (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=48169) by Elagune
Learn Your Alphabet (http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/6264/g28376.png) by Dogmantra and Pierreabelard (with a mention in Summoner Showcase #36 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy7JWV-HA28&feature=feedu)!)
Chibi Champions (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=763895) by pika7
Gender Swaps (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=606416) by ShowMeYourMoves
Champion Flowchart Guides (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=608154) by Renekton Bot
Patch Day Comic (http://i.imgur.com/kHtwk.jpg) by DaemianFF
TRAVEL BACK IN TIME: PREVIOUS THREADS
Proof we're not all experiencing collective haullucinations.

League of Legends XXXIX: Harrowing in the Playground (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14079780#post14079780)
League of Legends XXXVIII: Featuring Mumble, The Giant Halibut (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13921041)
League of Legends XXXVII: Thread Name Delayed for Further Testing on PBE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253343)
League of Legends XXXVI: Thread Now Invisible When You're Not Looking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250948)
League of Legends XXXV: Jayce, the Defender of Soon™ (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248760)
League of Legends XXXIV: No Exceptions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=246004)
League of Legends XXXIII: Game of Mundo (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13142848#post13142848)
League of Legends XXXII: Cupcakes and Kittens and Squirrels. Oh my! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237600)
League of Legends XXXI: I'll Start My Own Team! With TF And Janna! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234631)
League of Legends XXX: Must be Summoner Level 18 to View (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231927)
League of Legends XXIX: Are Nerfs Vayne In This Grave Situation? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229460)
League of Legends XXVIII: Ahri-Vederci, Dodge. Hello, Viktory. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12466887)
League of Legends XXVII: Your Sister's Hotter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=225730)
League of Legends XXVI: We've officially jumped the shark (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223894)
League of Legends XXV: Who is your Summoner, and what does he do? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221849)
League of Legends XXIV: Today's Noob Strat, Tomorrow's New Meta (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=219436)
League of Legends XXIII: gunbladeface.jpg (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217744)
League of Legends XXII: Teamwork OP, Nerf Nao (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215725)
League of Legends XXI: For The Love Of God Amumu, Stop Crying! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213794)
League of Legends XX: Riot's in the Playground (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211977)
League of Legends XIX: 15 million players, and nary a Morgana (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210332)
League of Legends: XVIII: ┻━┻ ︵ （╯°□°）╯ (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207908)
League of Legends XVII: Gondor Has No Tank, Gondor Needs No Tank (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205488)
League of Legends XVI: Alas, Poor Game Balance, I Knew Him, Morello (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203298)
League of Legends XV: Robots Are Better Than Trees (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201024)
League of Legends XIV: We're So Broken That We're OP! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198948)
League of Legends XIII: Our Skill is Hard to Deny (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196765)
League of Legends XII: It's Worth It Because I Said So In The Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194886)
League of Legends XI: It's Hard to Post Like This in Heels (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192695)
League of Legends X: Armored Armadillo Delivers Ambiguous Affirmative (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10646164#post10646164)
League of Legends IX: New Thread Available! Only 6300 IP! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188076)
League of Legends VIII: Gali-Os: They're idolicious! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185516)
League of Legends 7: Truly, Truly Outrageous! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182486)
League of Legends 6: Jannaaaaaaaaaa! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178334)
League of Legends 5: Tall Grass Used Garen! DEMACIAAA! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173805)
League of Legends 4:CAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAW (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169616)
League of Legends 3: You only need to click once (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164008s)
League of Legends Goes Where It Pleases 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158135)
League Of Legends: We post where we please. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139094)

[McDouggal]

*subs* and whines that my title didn't get picked :smalltongue:

[Silverraptor]

I get thee feeling the season will he put on hold for quite awhile.:smalltongue:

[ex cathedra]

thread names are super easy to change, if a few people decide that they preferred one of the other options (i counted myself as a vote for this'un, FWIW) i'd be happy to change it.

[TFT]

I prefer this title, so I'll put a vote in it's direction.

Also, 1600s ad carries? 100x more competent then 1500s ad carries. But maybe that's just me.

[Qwertystop]

I vote for a Gragas one just because of the numbering. Also because the next season will probably be out by Friday, making this title not really work.

[TechnOkami]

I agree. Thing is, directing your casual playerbase to play what's essentially a different game is not going to help. That's the conceptual equivalent of encouraging fans to play Cricket as a method of generating interest in Baseball. The 'really' casual players already understand so little about this game that allowing them to disconnect entirely from the pvp scene would make watching the Esports boring for them.

What does help is making the casual pvp experience enjoyable, and Riot has done *HUGE* things in that department, such as both the tribunal and honor system(has anyone else noticed how enjoyable matches have been lately? I mean, compared to what they were two years ago?). You can try to claim that Riot is ignoring its casual player, but that really doesn't hold any water when they've made big strides in one of the biggest issues the game had (http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20110520).

That made me laugh, so hard. Thanks for making my sickly day better.

[Chess435]

Whoo, I've named 3 threads now! :smallbiggrin:

[NineThePuma]

Tribunal and the Honor system have helped, but you still get people who are complete and utter *******s over minor mistakes.

I also love how people who rant and rave over "always get stuck with noobs" and stuff, and fail to realize that it's because of that behavior.

[ChaosOS]

Hecarim is soooo fun. Been playing him on Dominion, he's pretty tanky and pretty powerful. Also, amazing initation.

[MCerberus]

So it turns out... Rengar + Zyra bot = death infinite.
Also RIP Heart of Gold. We shall bury you on Tiamat Tuesday.

[LordShotGun]

Going back to the casual versus competitive argument I will go back to the first computer game that got me into programming. Warcraft 3.

Now in warcraft 3 I NEVER played the actual game. I had to cheat to beat even the campaign. I had a ton of difficulty beating even easy computers.

However!!! I did play thousands of hours (not an exaggeration considering the hours spent playing at high school on our lan) of custom game maps. Footman frenzy, DoTA, Risk, Coming of the Horde, Dark Deeds, Island Defense, Chibi's tower defense, elemental tower defense and so on and so forth.

Then I bought SC2 expecting exactly the same thing. Then they had the godawful arcade popularity system that eventually disgusted me enough that I stopped playing SC2 and haven't booted it up in months.

How did blizzard get my money? It certainly was not the core game. It was the support system for custom map games. League seems like the perfect game to start it's own custom map creator. We already have plenty of models and triggers and spells. They just need to give some amount of control over to the player base and they will do the rest.

Heck, we already have ARAMs and it is now getting it's own map JUST FOR A CUSTOM GAME CREATED WITHIN THE LIMITS SET FOR US! Thus I say that riot should RAISE those limits.

Void invasion should be a fan made creation. Not a creation made by riot themselves. This way, riot would not have to divert nearly as many resources to creating stuff like this once they have created a public map maker and unit/hero editor.

Granted, riot may not want to release such a large amount of information and the creation of a custom map making system and it's support would be quite a daunting task, but I think it would greatly increase the player support of the game.

Now what about monetization? I don't really have any good ideas. Perhaps selling certain super popular maps for IP/RP and giving a cut to the creator? That is a very dangerous option that I do not approve of but it's all I can think of.

Or League can take a page from pre-EA blizzard and implement these features free of charge. Honestly, it may reduce RP sales as people would not want to pay for champions that they would not use in the custom maps but it would increase the number of people interested in the game.

[Nadevoc]

League seems like the perfect game to start it's own custom map creator. We already have plenty of models and triggers and spells. They just need to give some amount of control over to the player base and they will do the rest.

It's actually not at all. WC3 was built from the ground up with the intent of having the map editor available. It's actually just a slightly stripped down version of the tool they actually used to make the game, from my understanding.

LoL was built from the ground up around Summoner's Rift. That means there's a lot of stuff which makes it very difficult for them to plug in other maps. They've fixed some of them and branched out and added other maps, but a few Rioters have commented on how that it is a very significant effort. There are core parts of the code which essentially forgo releasing a map editor unless they go back and essentially redo massive parts of the infrastructure, from my understanding.

[knightMARE]

Posted my info a few threads back but it got lost

Server: NA
Name: SirWiffleston

Being Australian has it's drawbacks playing on the NA server though (much higher ping). I should probably get Mumble, I'd much prefer playing with voice chat rather than randoms.

Champions I can play (kinda):

Top Lane : Volibear, Nasus, Poppy, Lulu, Darius
Middle Lane: Galio, Malz (Kinda)
Jungler: Hecarim, Xin Zhao, Olaf, Alistar, Maokai
Support: Lulu
ADC: Sivir

As you can probably see, I don't play bot lane often,usually ending up in the top lane. Is Sivir that bad of a pick?
I picked up Elise when she came out on a whim, but I've got no idea on how to really build her, picking up mainly AP and some AS, but others have told me this is worthless and I should be trying to build bruiserish on her. Has anyone played her enough to offer advice? I figure that with the next patch buffing her AP ratios it might be worth giving her another shot

[Joran]

Don't get me wrong, Coop has its place. If you don't want to learn a new champ's mechanics in normals or ranked (read: if you're a coward) that's fine, and i'll still infrequently play them with friends who want their FWotD, but like... i have around 100 AI games played total. That's like one AI game for every 20 or so normals/rankeds/customs that i play. I don't understand how people don't get burnt out on AI games despite knowing players with massive AI game:Real game ratios. I'm just wondering about the other side's perspective.

Greatly simplified:

My League of Legends play before Co-Op vs. AI:

1) Get back from 8 hours at work, 2 hours on the road, put baby to sleep.
2) Spend some time with my wife.
3a) I have a spare hour to play; do I play some League of Legends with an unknown amount of time and unknown quality of play? According to matchmaking, I have a 50-50 shot of feeling miserable (I do not like ending on a loss). I go play something else.
or
3b) It's the weekly scheduled night with my friends, who also all work. We play a good 3-4 matches of arranged League of Legends. Sometimes it still ends horribly and I feel pissed.

My League of Legends play after Co-Op vs. AI:

3a) I have a spare hour to play: I spend 10 minutes playing a bot game, get my win of the day, go do something else.

3b) It's the weekly scheduled night with my friends, who also all work. We play a good 3-4 matches of arranged League of Legends. At the end, we relax with a bot game, trolololo.

[ex cathedra]

Posted my info a few threads back but it got lost
You're actually already in the first post, and you were in the first post of the last thread as well.

I picked up Elise when she came out on a whim, but I've got no idea on how to really build her, picking up mainly AP and some AS, but others have told me this is worthless and I should be trying to build bruiserish on her. Has anyone played her enough to offer advice? I figure that with the next patch buffing her AP ratios it might be worth giving her another shot
The most successful build that I've seen relies on abusing her percentile damage skill's base damage while building enough defenses and CDR to survive in melee; stack MPen via Sorc Boots, Haunting Guise, and Abyssal Scepter and complement it with Frozen Heart and some combination of Guardian Angel, Rylai's, Zhonya's, and Deathcap.

Greatly simplified:
My League of Legends play before Co-Op vs. AI:
Playing co-op because you only have the time/opportunity to play co-op and you want the IP so you use it for normal games != only playing bot games because you don't like playing against people.

[knightMARE]

You're actually already in the first post, and you were in the first post of the last thread as well.

I shouldn't be allowed on the internet with this little sleep. Apologies to anyone who's time I wasted with that

The build you posted seems solid though. I tend to forget Haunting Guise exists at all, and when I remember I tend to want something else first. I'll give it a try later though, thanks. It looks like she'll benefit from the MPen changes for S3 too.

[sonofzeal]

Playing co-op because you only have the time/opportunity to play co-op and you want the IP so you use it for normal games != only playing bot games because you don't like playing against people.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/rock_band.png

(edit) I just realized the image by itself might come off the wrong way. Basically it's the same situation though. Learning real music and playing in a real band is awesome if you can do it, and for many people the thrill is incomparable to the cheap gimmicks of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. But not everyone is like that, some people like the lower-pressure, the easier learning curve, the emotional satisfaction of "winning" even if the "victory" doesn't really mean all that much. And there's still a degree of skill and mastery at work, so it gets at least some of that same good feeling of a job well done, without the intensity of the "real thing". And just as that intensity makes it worth it for those who do master the "real thing", there's others for whom that same intensity is intimidating and/or stressful. Or, heck, personal experience shows that one individual can slide forward or backward on that scale depending on how their day's been and what mood they're in.

You might have a relatively unchallenging day, and get your competitive urges out on PvP. These days, I'm reliably working 45-50 hour weeks with few breaks and a lot of pressure, so the milder experience of Co-Op is often more my speed, and I'll often only foray into PVP on weekends. The two experiences are highly analogous as far as psychological costs/rewards, it's just the intensity that changes.

[ex cathedra]

People can enjoy games regardless of their quality, but that doesn't mean that discussing a game's quality is a worthless exercise. League, as a PvE game, is rather mediocre.

[ChaosOS]

Depends. I think in terms of converting PvP games to PvE, Mann vs. Machine is pretty much the gold standard. Valve hit the nail on the head there, and unique upgrades translates well into items, and then the base of having lots of enemies with roughly analogous abilities works well.

[sonofzeal]

People can enjoy games regardless of their quality, but that doesn't mean that discussing a game's quality is a worthless exercise. League, as a PvE game, is rather mediocre.
LoL, as a purely PvE game, is indeed mediocre. Thankfully, it's not purely a PvE game.

- I, personally, aspire to be good at the PvP elements, and enjoy them, but I'm not often in the mood for that level of competition. PvE might not train all the same skills, but it's certainly better practice than, say, playing Bejeweled.

- In a similar vein, I enjoy both PvP and PvE. Getting my PvE jollies from LoL allows me to satisfy both urges without re-learning an entire set of controls, mechanics, suite of champions, etc.

- LoL is popular. Many people play it. People who play PvE socially may be attracted to PvE LoL because it gives them a chance to play alongside their other (more competitive) LoL friends, or at least give a frame of reference to entering into the same discussions. If all I play is Co-Op, I can still talk to a PvPer about my favorite champions, ones I hate facing, changes I'd wish they make, and we can share epic moments of pwnage.

[TheShrike]

So I was playing with some some friends of friends. One of them I knew, and I knew he was a fair bit weaker than me. The rest I did not know, but suspected they were significantly weaker than I. I thought I might need to carry, so I played my stompiest top and went from there.

Well. (http://i.imgur.com/FQl4W.png)

[Silverraptor]

So I was playing with some some friends of friends. One of them I knew, and I knew he was a fair bit weaker than me. The rest I did not know, but suspected they were significantly weaker than I. I thought I might need to carry, so I played my stompiest top and went from there.

Well. (http://i.imgur.com/FQl4W.png)

Those are really good games. I remember when I would play Tryndamiere or Nasus on my smurf with friends new to the game. Farm top for 20 minutes, then proceed to kill entire enemy team single handed.:smallbiggrin:

[Reynard]

And here's me preferring to try and do that well against people of my level and (hopefully) ability, so I know I actually earned it, instead of it basically being a bot game where the bots don't have ze haxors to see you in bushes and the other things they get.

Smurfing has no interest or enjoyment to me. My year-old EU account has only recently hit level 21, because I've managed to find people who play on that server to play with. And even then, the games tend to be stomps, because yeah, level 21 account.

[TechnOkami]

So I was playing with some some friends of friends. One of them I knew, and I knew he was a fair bit weaker than me. The rest I did not know, but suspected they were significantly weaker than I. I thought I might need to carry, so I played my stompiest top and went from there.

Well. (http://i.imgur.com/FQl4W.png)

You know? Some how this doesn't surprise me, at all.

[TheShrike]

At one point I mentioned to my team "I'm half health with 2k gold, I should go spend it". Then my support got caught by 3 enemies, got them to half (lol Zyra) and died. So I just ran in and cleaned up, no big deal. So I tell my team "I'm one third HP with 3k gold, going to go buy" and then my AD Carry got caught and died. So I decided to go avenge him as well, and got the kill. By the time I finished him off, the first three were alive again, but both summoners and my ult had just come up. With Amumu's help, I got another triple kill. Never did get a chance to go back and spend my 4k gold.

EDIT: In retrospect, I probably should have played someone less stompy, like Darius.

[Dada]

League, as a PvE game, is rather mediocre.

How do you know? You are judging purely by expectation and prejudice here. I do agree with you that Coop and Custom games are very mediocre as PvE, yet a lot of people clearly enjoys this. But this is not Coop vs. a semi-stupid AI. This is a completely new context, and we haven't seen anything similar from Riot yet.

[Math_Mage]

People can enjoy games regardless of their quality, but that doesn't mean that discussing a game's quality is a worthless exercise. League, as a PvE game, is rather mediocre.

It might help to have a game mode designed to be PvE, rather than just having PvP with bots replacing the enemy team.

[Godskook]

How do you know?

Its Warcraft 3, but you don't get a base or army. Its not really all that hard to imagine, since Warcraft 3 actually had missions without bases or significant armies(I can't remember if there were missions without any non-Champ units in WC3 or not).


It might help to have a game mode designed to be PvE, rather than just having PvP with bots replacing the enemy team.

Which leads to the next question: Wasn't Warcraft 3 designed in a system based around PvE?

[Math_Mage]

Which leads to the next question: Wasn't Warcraft 3 designed in a system based around PvE?

How does this contribute to your point?

[McDouggal]

OK, so here's my contribution to the debate: Extra Credits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFzFsHc75U) did a video on "easy" games that I think actually has some relevance.

Basically, League is a "deep"game. My god, I'm just getting into the rabbit hole, and I've reached level 21, about 2 games from 22. And yet, I was able to pick the game up because their tutorial was insanely useful, and Co-op vs. AI was a good way to learn the basics before I started normals. I still use Co-op to warm up, as it lets me play in a low stress to determine if I'm going to suck it up in normals, and stop if I'm not.

Also: I seem to be running into more trolls as I get to higher levels. Lower levels, I'd run into the occasional smurf who was nothing but polite, and started running into the first actual trolls/ragers around level 11. It's been happening more and more often lately. Thoughts on if this is just my own bias/bad luck or what?

[sonofzeal]

So... I was asking on Mumble the other day but didn't get an answer - is Urgot a troll pick these days? Or stealth OP? Or something else?

I mean, I know he's one of the least-used champions in the game, not far behind Karma. Lolking and personal experience (literally never seen anyone else play him ever) agree on this point. And everything I hear about him says he got nerfed into the ground and sucks now. But I've been playing him, and virtually never fail to not only cope, but carry, wading into 2v1's and coming out with double kills. Granted I'm mostly talking about PG and Dominion rather than SR.

What are your takes on That Damn Crabgot?

[onasuma]

Hiya all! Been playing league for a couple of months now and Im now level 20. I figure most of you are probably already at 30, playing ranked games, but if anyone fancies a game with me some time Id really appreciate a few less random racists to play with (as that seems to describe everyone I find on random games). Im on EU west and my usernames Onasuma.

[PersonMan]

Personman, I really don't know how to 'log' your vote, particularly cause I know enough about LB to know she really isn't good outside the mage role(I could almost see her running Soraka+LB bot lane, but I doubt that'd work either).

I generally play her support or mid. When supporting I go for the "screw the enemy" type of support instead of the "wait for the enemy to do something, then react" type. Essentially in lane you use your harass-burst to weaken the enemy until your carry looks up from farming, sees low enemies and decides he wants some kills, too.

After laning you basically work like normal LeBlanc only you don't go for kills as aggressively because you want to save them for our team, if possible.

My vote isn't for ADC LB in particular, but rather just LeBlanc, because she's both fun to play and versatile, in my opinion.


What are your takes on That Damn Crabgot?

I occasionally play Supportgot (Ok, Harass/KillThatGuyButton -got) and he seems pretty cool. If I got farm enough for real items I imagine it'd work out pretty well.

[Winterwind]

Regarding the ongoing debate about additional game-modes for LoL, I'd like to add something, too. :smallsmile:

I used to play WarCraft 3 a lot, too (in fact, it was the only game where I got good enough to count myself as "highly competitive" - I never played enough to actually get to the top of the ladder, or even just to a high level, but I did boost my matchmaking rating to a point where I was occasionally playing against people from the top 200 of the 1v1 ladder. And, quite a few times, winning.). And there were tons of custom maps for it - I'd guess tens of thousands. I could see a lot of them being remade into really fun mods for LoL, but I concede that this might require an overly huge resource investment, in particular for the mods very different from the basic game.

Here's the thing though. Amongst all those games, there were many MOBAs, too. Some of them were essentially DotA-clones, thus not notably different from LoL (EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying LoL is like DotA; anybody who knows me a bit should know that I love LoL and loathe DotA with a passion and use it as my primary example for "How to design a game as awfully and un-fun as possible"; but the map-layout, game objective and other core design elements are similar).

But some were, in spite of clearly belonging to the same genre, drastically different in actual gameplay. And I imagine they wouldn't be any more difficult to implement than Twisted Treeline or Crystal Scar were, nor would LoL's core design and balance clash too much with the way they were designed (at least if one took only the relevant interesting additional elements, tossing out the stuff that didn't fit LoL at all), yet adding them to LoL would create a very new and refreshing experience, in my opinion.

So I'd like to describe a few of those maps here:


- Desert of Exile
Desert of Exile had the same core set up as LoL - two bases with a "nexus", connected with a few lanes (four, not three, but that's not that important), towers along the lanes, and minions spawning on all the lanes and running towards the other side. It was played from left to right, and was a overall a bit bigger than Summoner's Rift, in particular in terms of length. In place of inhibitors, there were barracks, different in two things from LoL inhibitors; one of those being that it were the barracks themselves that spawned the minions, and if those barracks were destroyed, there would be no spawn for the lane anymore at all. They wouldn't respawn, either.

Unlike LoL, though, each side had a small secondary base on both the top-most and bottom-most lane, way closer to the front than the main base. Those small secondary bases contained a ring of towers, protected by walls, barracks (the main base had barracks only for the two middle lanes, not for these top and bottom ones), and a fountain (no shop though, and without a fountain laser). Between these secondary bases, there was just no man's land, no towers.

Obviously, if you managed to kill one of the enemy team's secondary bases, you would have a massive advantage - you would have an entire lane where you would still have your spawn and the enemy wouldn't. This was quite difficult though, as the secondary bases were heavily fortified, with a lot of towers.

Here enters the real innovation of Desert of Exile: Most of your gold probably wouldn't go into items (items were quite cheap and not very strong, more used to tweak your champion in a certain way, rather than being crucial for scaling). Instead, at any time, you could spend money at any barracks of your side (without the necessity to be there; if you were bot lane, you could still spend money at the top-lane's barracks, if you wished to). Specifically, you could buy up to a certain number of units (3 or 4, I think? It's been a while) that would be added to the next wave. These units ranged from dedicated siege minions that were extremely good at killing towers, over healers, to keep your push going, over extremely strong tank minions, all the way to fliers, which couldn't be targeted by most heroes or units. With special points that you got on each kill or assist you could even buy special, big monsters, that could very well pose a danger even to an enemy champion.

This, naturally, added a whole new layer of strategy - which minions to buy, on which lane, and when? When to save up, when to spend? And so on.

Desert of Exile had another, fascinating mechanic, but that mechanic cannot really be implemented into LoL, as it would have to have been part of champion design from the very start to work. Since it was quite interesting though, I'd like to at least mention it, hence the spoilers:
Desert of Exile had a certain number of conditions - basically CC effects - like "burning" (takes damage over time), "ruined" (has lowered defences) or "crippled" (powerful damage reduction). Every champion had some abilities that interacted with those conditions - be it by bestowing them on enemies, moving them from one target to another (ideally from a friendly target to a hostile one, or at least from the carry to the tank, or such), etc.

Here the fascinating part, though: A lot of champions had abilities that had special effects if their target was afflicted by particular conditions - basically like Brand's abilities have bonus effects on things that are Ablaze, or Anivia's E deals bonus damage to things that are Chilled - except in Desert of Exile, more often than not, abilities of a champion had special effects based on conditions that the champion itself was not able to bestow - basically, as if it was flipped around and Brand's abilities had bonus effects on units that were Chilled and Anivia's E dealt bonus damage to things that were Ablaze instead, except that both Ablaze and Chilled would be conditions that not just Brand and Anivia could hand out, but a fair number of other champions as well. This created much more intricate champion synergies and chances for cooperation.


- Stand of the Elves
Stand of the Elves was an example of a MOBA with asymmetrical objectives. One side (the Undead) had the usual goal: Kill the enemy nexus. The other side though (the Elves), had a different objective: Simply survive 30 minutes. Accordingly, the map was asymmetrical as well - in the middle was the base of the elves, with six entrances (two on each side, one top, one bot), and consisting of a double ring towers with the nexus in the middle. In each corner of the map, the Undead had one base that was essentially indestructible (their towers had absurdly high resilience and damage, so that for all intents and purposes, it was impossible to kill them), with teleportation platforms allowing them to jump between the bases at will; a lane would go from each of the Undead bases to one of the side-entrances of the Elf-base. The Undead also had stronger waves (basically, they had siege minions, the Elves did not). To put extra pressure on the Elves, every five minutes, a single big wave would spawn above the Elf-base, and rush to the top-entrance, and the Undead could (by making a major gold investment) purchase a (destructible) outpost in the south that would perpetually spawn waves to assault the Elf-bottom-entrance. To make up for this, the Elves only had to hold out long enough (though they would naturally still have to keep pushing the lanes, to make it more difficult for the Undead to overrun them).

Also, different heroes had different damage types - some might, for instance, have an auto-attack that dealt significantly reduced damage to both minions and heroes, but deal massively increased damage to towers, some might be extra-good at clearing minions, others might have an edge against heroes, and so on.


- Regicide
Regicide was based on the same principle as Stand of the Elves - one side (the Rebels) has to kill the enemy nexus, the other side (the Royalists) only have to hold out for a while (different game-modes here, but usually 45 minutes). The main difference was in the map layout - while Stand of the Elves had just a small base in the middle of the map for the defending side, and the attackers came from many directions, here, the attackers all started in the south, and the defender's base was huge - taking up some 90% of the map, in fact, all lined with towers and unit-spawning barracks.

It had a very interesting dynamic - in the beginning, the Rebels would have it tough, as the Royalists would have a ton of unit-spawning barracks, so their waves would be quite strong and difficult to push against. But as soon as the Rebels managed to finally kill the first few barracks (usually either by the usual back-and-forth of lane fighting or by surprisingly changing the focus of their attack (there were three entrances into the enemy base)), the flow of Royalist minions would diminish, and the Rebels would snowball into pushing faster and harder. In most of the games of Regicide I've played, it played out extremely narrowly - either the Rebels finally pushed through and won with only few minutes to spare, or the Royalists won, with it being quite evident that just a few minutes more, and the Rebels would have gotten through.

The nexus here was, incidentally, a King that actually fought himself, when attacked, casting abilities and so forth. Think Baron Nashor, basically.

Furthermore, both sides could, in addition to buying items, also spend their gold on permanently adding new units (of new types, with different specializations) to all wave spawns, or upgrade all of their side's minions in various regards (defense, attack, and so on).

Lastly - though this is, again, something that couldn't really be implemented into LoL - it had champions that would simply be unthinkable in LoL, but actually worked in this game-mode. How about a champion, for example, that could build proper, regular towers? Better than regular towers, in fact? Permanent ones? And able to have like 8 of them out at a time?

___

So, what I would really like to see (and am actually somewhat surprised it doesn't exist already) would be LoL maps, still PvP, still MOBA, but with added aspects like (not necessarily all of them in the same map, naturally):
- purchaseable minions added to spawns just a single time
- permanently upgradeable minions
- asymmetrical objectives for the two teams (including, accordingly, assymetrical maps), for example with one team having to kill the nexus, the other just to prevent that from happening for a preset time.

[Eldariel]

So... I was asking on Mumble the other day but didn't get an answer - is Urgot a troll pick these days? Or stealth OP? Or something else?

I mean, I know he's one of the least-used champions in the game, not far behind Karma. Lolking and personal experience (literally never seen anyone else play him ever) agree on this point. And everything I hear about him says he got nerfed into the ground and sucks now. But I've been playing him, and virtually never fail to not only cope, but carry, wading into 2v1's and coming out with double kills. Granted I'm mostly talking about PG and Dominion rather than SR.

What are your takes on That Damn Crabgot?

He's still a lane bully. His nerfs have hurt him tho and he's not that strong but I still routinely win my lane with him, against almost whatever. He's essentially what amounts to a ranged bruiser with the ult for initiation and then just a lot of natural damage, tankiness and annoyance.

I feel he's okay as it stands though probably not stealth OP or anything. CLG.EU also ran him against Curse last weekend (though they lost that game but not due to lanes; CLG lost two kills in first blood and played catch-up still winning their lanes after) to decent success so clearly he isn't competitively entirely unviable either. Nobody is quite at efficient at hurting AD carry laning as Urgot is.

[ex cathedra]

It might help to have a game mode designed to be PvE, rather than just having PvP with bots replacing the enemy team.

How could you take a game with League's champions and mechanics and make a meaningfully functional and balanced PvE experience? In the tower defense example, what do you do with the champions who excel at tower defense (pushers, AD carries, not much else) or the champions who would be useless in the format (most assassins, such as Akali, Kassadin, and Fizz)?

[LordShotGun]

Regarding the ongoing debate about additional game-modes for LoL, I'd like to add something, too. :smallsmile:

I used to play WarCraft 3 a lot, too (in fact, it was the only game where I got good enough to count myself as "highly competitive" - I never played enough to actually get to the top of the ladder, or even just to a high level, but I did boost my matchmaking rating to a point where I was occasionally playing against people from the top 200 of the 1v1 ladder. And, quite a few times, winning.). And there were tons of custom maps for it - I'd guess tens of thousands. I could see a lot of them being remade into really fun mods for LoL, but I concede that this might require an overly huge resource investment, in particular for the mods very different from the basic game.

Here's the thing though. Amongst all those games, there were many MOBAs, too. Some of them were essentially DotA-clones, thus not notably different from LoL (EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying LoL is like DotA; anybody who knows me a bit should know that I love LoL and loathe DotA with a passion and use it as my primary example for "How to design a game as awfully and un-fun as possible"; but the map-layout, game objective and other core design elements are similar).

But some were, in spite of clearly belonging to the same genre, drastically different in actual gameplay. And I imagine they wouldn't be any more difficult to implement than Twisted Treeline or Crystal Scar were, nor would LoL's core design and balance clash too much with the way they were designed (at least if one took only the relevant interesting additional elements, tossing out the stuff that didn't fit LoL at all), yet adding them to LoL would create a very new and refreshing experience, in my opinion.

So I'd like to describe a few of those maps here:


- Desert of Exile
Desert of Exile had the same core set up as LoL - two bases with a "nexus", connected with a few lanes (four, not three, but that's not that important), towers along the lanes, and minions spawning on all the lanes and running towards the other side. It was played from left to right, and was a overall a bit bigger than Summoner's Rift, in particular in terms of length. In place of inhibitors, there were barracks, different in two things from LoL inhibitors; one of those being that it were the barracks themselves that spawned the minions, and if those barracks were destroyed, there would be no spawn for the lane anymore at all. They wouldn't respawn, either.

Unlike LoL, though, each side had a small secondary base on both the top-most and bottom-most lane, way closer to the front than the main base. Those small secondary bases contained a ring of towers, protected by walls, barracks (the main base had barracks only for the two middle lanes, not for these top and bottom ones), and a fountain (no shop though, and without a fountain laser). Between these secondary bases, there was just no man's land, no towers.

Obviously, if you managed to kill one of the enemy team's secondary bases, you would have a massive advantage - you would have an entire lane where you would still have your spawn and the enemy wouldn't. This was quite difficult though, as the secondary bases were heavily fortified, with a lot of towers.

Here enters the real innovation of Desert of Exile: Most of your gold probably wouldn't go into items (items were quite cheap and not very strong, more used to tweak your champion in a certain way, rather than being crucial for scaling). Instead, at any time, you could spend money at any barracks of your side (without the necessity to be there; if you were bot lane, you could still spend money at the top-lane's barracks, if you wished to). Specifically, you could buy up to a certain number of units (3 or 4, I think? It's been a while) that would be added to the next wave. These units ranged from dedicated siege minions that were extremely good at killing towers, over healers, to keep your push going, over extremely strong tank minions, all the way to fliers, which couldn't be targeted by most heroes or units. With special points that you got on each kill or assist you could even buy special, big monsters, that could very well pose a danger even to an enemy champion.

This, naturally, added a whole new layer of strategy - which minions to buy, on which lane, and when? When to save up, when to spend? And so on.

Desert of Exile had another, fascinating mechanic, but that mechanic cannot really be implemented into LoL, as it would have to have been part of champion design from the very start to work. Since it was quite interesting though, I'd like to at least mention it, hence the spoilers:
Desert of Exile had a certain number of conditions - basically CC effects - like "burning" (takes damage over time), "ruined" (has lowered defences) or "crippled" (powerful damage reduction). Every champion had some abilities that interacted with those conditions - be it by bestowing them on enemies, moving them from one target to another (ideally from a friendly target to a hostile one, or at least from the carry to the tank, or such), etc.

Here the fascinating part, though: A lot of champions had abilities that had special effects if their target was afflicted by particular conditions - basically like Brand's abilities have bonus effects on things that are Ablaze, or Anivia's E deals bonus damage to things that are Chilled - except in Desert of Exile, more often than not, abilities of a champion had special effects based on conditions that the champion itself was not able to bestow - basically, as if it was flipped around and Brand's abilities had bonus effects on units that were Chilled and Anivia's E dealt bonus damage to things that were Ablaze instead, except that both Ablaze and Chilled would be conditions that not just Brand and Anivia could hand out, but a fair number of other champions as well. This created much more intricate champion synergies and chances for cooperation.


- Stand of the Elves
Stand of the Elves was an example of a MOBA with asymmetrical objectives. One side (the Undead) had the usual goal: Kill the enemy nexus. The other side though (the Elves), had a different objective: Simply survive 30 minutes. Accordingly, the map was asymmetrical as well - in the middle was the base of the elves, with six entrances (two on each side, one top, one bot), and consisting of a double ring towers with the nexus in the middle. In each corner of the map, the Undead had one base that was essentially indestructible (their towers had absurdly high resilience and damage, so that for all intents and purposes, it was impossible to kill them), with teleportation platforms allowing them to jump between the bases at will; a lane would go from each of the Undead bases to one of the side-entrances of the Elf-base. The Undead also had stronger waves (basically, they had siege minions, the Elves did not). To put extra pressure on the Elves, every five minutes, a single big wave would spawn above the Elf-base, and rush to the top-entrance, and the Undead could (by making a major gold investment) purchase a (destructible) outpost in the south that would perpetually spawn waves to assault the Elf-bottom-entrance. To make up for this, the Elves only had to hold out long enough (though they would naturally still have to keep pushing the lanes, to make it more difficult for the Undead to overrun them).

Also, different heroes had different damage types - some might, for instance, have an auto-attack that dealt significantly reduced damage to both minions and heroes, but deal massively increased damage to towers, some might be extra-good at clearing minions, others might have an edge against heroes, and so on.


- Regicide
Regicide was based on the same principle as Stand of the Elves - one side (the Rebels) has to kill the enemy nexus, the other side (the Royalists) only have to hold out for a while (different game-modes here, but usually 45 minutes). The main difference was in the map layout - while Stand of the Elves had just a small base in the middle of the map for the defending side, and the attackers came from many directions, here, the attackers all started in the south, and the defender's base was huge - taking up some 90% of the map, in fact, all lined with towers and unit-spawning barracks.

It had a very interesting dynamic - in the beginning, the Rebels would have it tough, as the Royalists would have a ton of unit-spawning barracks, so their waves would be quite strong and difficult to push against. But as soon as the Rebels managed to finally kill the first few barracks (usually either by the usual back-and-forth of lane fighting or by surprisingly changing the focus of their attack (there were three entrances into the enemy base)), the flow of Royalist minions would diminish, and the Rebels would snowball into pushing faster and harder. In most of the games of Regicide I've played, it played out extremely narrowly - either the Rebels finally pushed through and won with only few minutes to spare, or the Royalists won, with it being quite evident that just a few minutes more, and the Rebels would have gotten through.

The nexus here was, incidentally, a King that actually fought himself, when attacked, casting abilities and so forth. Think Baron Nashor, basically.

Furthermore, both sides could, in addition to buying items, also spend their gold on permanently adding new units (of new types, with different specializations) to all wave spawns, or upgrade all of their side's minions in various regards (defense, attack, and so on).

Lastly - though this is, again, something that couldn't really be implemented into LoL - it had champions that would simply be unthinkable in LoL, but actually worked in this game-mode. How about a champion, for example, that could build proper, regular towers? Better than regular towers, in fact? Permanent ones? And able to have like 8 of them out at a time?

___

So, what I would really like to see (and am actually somewhat surprised it doesn't exist already) would be LoL maps, still PvP, still MOBA, but with added aspects like (not necessarily all of them in the same map, naturally):
- purchaseable minions added to spawns just a single time
- permanently upgradeable minions
- asymmetrical objectives for the two teams (including, accordingly, assymetrical maps), for example with one team having to kill the nexus, the other just to prevent that from happening for a preset time.



So basically just more maps and game modes. Seems resource heavy. I think that riot should start allowing us more custom settings for the different maps. Higher gold start, higher level start, double minion count per wave, double gold/experience from minions, All random mode (not necessarily all mid though, just "here are 5 champions, pick your lanes"), health relic mode (add health relics to certain spots on SR) and so on.

Things that are relatively simple to create versus having to totally restructure the game for a custom map creator, or having to focus millions of dollars on creating other maps like what winterwind stated.

[NineThePuma]

AR is actually available as is.

Also, assassins in a PvE environment are obviously going to be less useful, but bursty single target is what the Minibosses and Portal Guardians are for; they go in and try to wreck this guy's **** (and I'm imagining that he's about on difficulty level with Dragon, but with some actives).

[Math_Mage]

How could you take a game with League's champions and mechanics and make a meaningfully functional and balanced PvE experience? In the tower defense example, what do you do with the champions who excel at tower defense (pushers, AD carries, not much else) or the champions who would be useless in the format (most assassins, such as Akali, Kassadin, and Fizz)?

You add mechanics; you vary the challenges. I've been saying all along that development resources are a likely prohibitive issue, but it utterly baffles me that you seem to think it simply can't be done.

Anyway, this is largely a reflection of hunger for more varied game modes; it's not like I would sniff at asymmetrical or multi-base PvP of the sort Winterwind describes.

[ex cathedra]

You add mechanics; you vary the challenges. I've been saying all along that development resources are a likely prohibitive issue, but it utterly baffles me that you seem to think it simply can't be done.

Anyway, this is largely a reflection of hunger for more varied game modes; it's not like I would sniff at asymmetrical or multi-base PvP of the sort Winterwind describes.

i can understand the desire for additional game modes, though i don't share it, but i do sincerely doubt that one could turn LoL into a meaningul PvE experience. PvP custom game modes are perfectly plausible, if an arguably poor use of resources.

[Silfir]

How could you take a game with League's champions and mechanics and make a meaningfully functional and balanced PvE experience? In the tower defense example, what do you do with the champions who excel at tower defense (pushers, AD carries, not much else) or the champions who would be useless in the format (most assassins, such as Akali, Kassadin, and Fizz)?

Once you're in a PvE environment, champions no longer need to be balanced against each other since they won't be playing against each other. Playing a poorly suited champion would simply increase the difficulty.



The reason Coop vs. AI is fun is that using the champions themselves is fun, even in a solitaire-like kind of way - the same reason people play anything single-player.

My experience in Normals is that I have about a one in two shot of getting destroyed and subsequently getting yelled at. The other half of the time, I do decent enough - and either still get yelled at or have a fairly enjoyable experience. I don't like getting yelled at - and ignoring doesn't help. I just don't want to play with mean people period, and ignoring them after they've started being mean doesn't make me forget I'm playing with mean people. Reporting them after the whole thing is done is little solace.

I rarely get that kind of negative experience anywhere close to that often in either Coops or ARAMs - an ARAM matchmaking system would make me tremendously happy.

[NineThePuma]

ARAM queues are a possible thing in the future.

[ex cathedra]

I strongly disagree. League is at its core a strategy game and gross imbalance, even if it doesn't give you an advantage against another actual person, really detracts from my enjoyment. Single-player games need to be balanced. Where that statement *really* falls apart, I think, is that League is still a multiplayer game, even if it's PvE. I sincerely doubt you'd enjoy playing League normals if every game included a teammate who'd intentionally cripple themselves (e.g. 5 ionic spark 1x ninja tabi mordekaiser). You're playing towards an objective, and the capabilites of your teammates can obviously be detrimental to your enjoyment of the game.

FWIW, i'd suggest that you try playing with nice people.

[NineThePuma]

... You know, I just want to note.

You have this habit of taking things to extremes just to try to prove a point. 5x Ionic Mordekaiser isn't a thing. Akali is still going to be Akali regardless of whether or not she's going to be ganking and crushing enemies. She can still contribute to the proposed game mode quite easily.

[Joran]

Christina Norman (Kitae on the Riot Forums, @truffle on Twitter), former lead designer on Mass Effect 2 and now lead creative designer gave an interview which gives insight into what LoL is trying to do with their lore.



When she arrived at Riot, this process involved a writer getting inspired and dashing off a biography. This resulted in a lot of characters like Mordekaiser, an “undead death knight with a giant mace” whose personality began and ended with the word “badass”.

Under the new system, which Norman developed from the TV writers’ room model, character creation is a highly collaborative process that happens in meetings that can last for more than ten hours. After this treatment, Mordekaiser became a much more nuanced character: he has allies and enemies, a homeland, and a tragic back story (the death knight, it seems, cannot remember who he was before he became so very badass)
...
“We want to create characters,” Norman said, “like Tony Soprano and Don Draper.”


The thought is deeper backgrounds will increase player attachment to the game and the characters.

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/woman-behind-league-legends-wants-characters-rich-don-draper-even-if-theyre-undead-death-knights/

[Silfir]

I strongly disagree. League is at its core a strategy game and gross imbalance, even if it doesn't give you an advantage against another actual person, really detracts from my enjoyment. Single-player games need to be balanced. Where that statement *really* falls apart, I think, is that League is still a multiplayer game, even if it's PvE. I sincerely doubt you'd enjoy playing League normals if every game included a teammate who'd intentionally cripple themselves (e.g. 5 ionic spark 1x ninja tabi mordekaiser). You're playing towards an objective, and the capabilites of your teammates can obviously be detrimental to your enjoyment of the game.

FWIW, i'd suggest that you try playing with nice people.

"Single-player games need to be balanced" is really just an unsubstantiated claim in your post, isn't it? I do agree, they need to be balanced to be fun. That's a very different thing from multiplayer balance of characters, though.

I very much enjoy playing Coop vs. AI with people that have wacky builds on my team, actually. See, the capabilities of my teammates aren't detrimental to my enjoyment of the game in the least - if I'm playing Coop vs. AI, since chances are excellent I can pick up a good build and make up for it myself - now having to face an additional challenge.

I'm not really sure how to read that last sentence. It's in fact what I'm already doing - I'm playing with friends whenever I can (not so much Normals since I don't have that many LoL-playing friends and the ones I do have... tend to prefer Coops too for pretty much the same reasons), and ARAM and Coop vs. AI people are nicer to me already.

Didn't you ask the Coop vs. AI crowd at some point why they enjoy playing that way? There's your answer, or at least part of it (mine). I'm a Coop player, this is me, this is why.

Of course I agree that PvE doesn't and will never match the strategic depth or focused, competitive excitement of PvP (even in Normals). I play Normals, too, after all. But I need a certain mindset to do it, and that doesn't happen that often. I get most of my competitive fix by playing online chess, where I don't get teammates yelling at me - I'm pretty good about ignoring anything my opponents say with a smile on my face. I also happen to be not nearly as terrible at chess as I am at LoL, which probably has got something to do with it.

[ex cathedra]

... You know, I just want to note.

You have this habit of taking things to extremes just to try to prove a point. 5x Ionic Mordekaiser isn't a thing. Akali is still going to be Akali regardless of whether or not she's going to be ganking and crushing enemies. She can still contribute to the proposed game mode quite easily.

I didn't say that it was a thing, but i felt it was necessary point to make. With that in mind, it's much easier to argue that balance in a co-op setting would be an issue, isn't it? After all, even if it isn't a 5x ionic spark Morde, it's still a Fizz. I can safely suggest that putting the current champions into a minion-pushing and raid-boss killing scenario would create a game state significantly more imbalanced than any other portion of LoL.

I'd reply to that other person's post if my break wasn't ending, so i'll get back to that later.

[dgnslyr]

So, I've been playing a lot of Olaf lately. A lot of Olaf, actually, with great results. Right now, though, I'm wondering what I should buy as a last item, after Tabi, Shurelia's, Randuin's, GA, and Zeke's. If nobody else plans on buying it, I get Aegis, but when the support actually does remember that Aegis is a core support item, I'm a bit at a loss on what to fill the last slot with.

Right now, I get Frozen Mallet, but it feels a bit redundant when I already have both the axe permaslow and the Randuin's active, so the on-hit effect never feels noticeable. I guess Warmogs, maybe, but I'd buy it so late that I'd have no time to properly farm it up, not to mention that Warmog's is one tank item I don't like getting, because it's too expensive for an item with no utility. FoN is an option, against magic-heavy teams, because I don't buy much proper MR, but it's going to be removed soon, so that's not an option either. Triforce is a possibility, I guess, when he can Reckless Swing every 3 seconds and throws his axe as fast as he can pick it up, but I dunno if I really want to spend 4k on an almost purely offensive item, when I already do plenty of damage with just my 40% CDR. Any suggestions?

[Mephit]

6th items are generally all about rounding out your build depending on the enemy team. Bloodthirster is an option, as with the items you have you're so tanky you can't really be bursted, and the lifesteal makes you even tankier.Triforce isn't really that good as a 6th item, especially on Olaf.

I don't really get your choice for Zeke's herald. If you really want 40% CDR, Frozen Heart seems much more worthwhile.

[sonofzeal]

I didn't say that it was a thing, but i felt it was necessary point to make. With that in mind, it's much easier to argue that balance in a co-op setting would be an issue, isn't it? After all, even if it isn't a 5x ionic spark Morde, it's still a Fizz. I can safely suggest that putting the current champions into a minion-pushing and raid-boss killing scenario would create a game state significantly more imbalanced than any other portion of LoL.

I'd reply to that other person's post if my break wasn't ending, so i'll get back to that later.
Actually, all experience (and straight up common sense) has shown me that small imbalances matter much more in a highly competitive environment, and hence that PvP games require far more care in balancing than Co-op games. Hence your premise that co-op is harder and more important to balance strikes me as, not just wrong, but the opposite of the reality of the situation.

[dgnslyr]

6th items are generally all about rounding out your build depending on the enemy team. Bloodthirster is an option, as with the items you have you're so tanky you can't really be bursted, and the lifesteal makes you even tankier.Triforce isn't really that good as a 6th item, especially on Olaf.

I don't really get your choice for Zeke's herald. If you really want 40% CDR, Frozen Heart seems much more worthwhile.

Triforce isn't good? Olaf slaps things a lot, so plenty of chances to leave a slow proc, and his abilities have very low CD, so he also has plenty of chances to leave a Sheen proc. But yeah, it's the sort of luxury item I wouldn't usually consider.

I like Zeke's because it gives CDR and attack speed. The aura is also nice for the carry, doubly so when the jungle/top (whichever I'm not) is also an auto attack heavy champ. Frozen Heart feels like overkill when I already have two chain vests of armor from Randuin's and GA, so a third mountain of armor feels excessive.

I'll try out Bloodthirster sometime, though, and see how it goes.

[Mephit]

Actually, all experience (and straight up common sense) has shown me that small imbalances matter much more in a highly competitive environment, and hence that PvP games require far more care in balancing than Co-op games. Hence your premise that co-op is harder and more important to balance strikes me as, not just wrong, but the opposite of the reality of the situation.

Yes, but League was designed as a 5v5 PvP game on Summoner's Rift, and porting the champions over to a Co-op vs. minions game would lead to massive differences in power level of those champions. That's the imbalance he's talking about.

That issue is present in every other map that isn't Summoner's Rift, but it would become more apparent if you warp the game even more.

[Nadevoc]

New Tiamat and its upgrade look interesting:

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2795397

Most notably, a short CD active which does up to 100% of your AD in an area around you. And when upgraded, life steal counts for damage dealt by it. I really want to try it out on Renekton. I'm not good enough at Renek to say whether it will be good, but I think the feel of it really fits: stand in the middle of your enemies, tearing into them and feeding off their pain to keep yourself going.

[Math_Mage]

Actually, all experience (and straight up common sense) has shown me that small imbalances matter much more in a highly competitive environment, and hence that PvP games require far more care in balancing than Co-op games. Hence your premise that co-op is harder and more important to balance strikes me as, not just wrong, but the opposite of the reality of the situation.

Your reasoning is limited to PvE games that don't present a challenge to players with a modicum of skill. By contrast, challenging the player in PvE becomes much more difficult when his options are not balanced. Consider, for example, D&D 3.5e, at its core a Co-op PvE game. The wild imbalances between classes means you pretty much have to specify the power level of your campaign and handicap to match, hobbling high-tier classes with artificial restrictions and giving low-tier characters a boost so they can be useful. I'm sure there are zillions of video games I could cite too, but the point is that balance still matters for giving people meaningful choices in the face of set challenges.

[Todasmile]

Yes, but League was designed as a 5v5 PvP game on Summoner's Rift, and porting the champions over to a Co-op vs. minions game would lead to massive differences in power level of those champions. That's the imbalance he's talking about.

That issue is present in every other map that isn't Summoner's Rift, but it would become more apparent if you warp the game even more.

There's always a lot of reasons to not do something.

Instead, I'd rather ask myself why I should do something, and if those reasons are compelling enough, how to do it well. In a case like this, obviously champion power discrepancy is an issue. I also see the issue of it becoming very formulaic; with a game like LoL, which is played so much, such a game could easily become a source of either easy IP or too little IP for your time.

So what if the game mode offered different rewards? Maybe a summoner icon of a champ you beat it with five times or something. Maybe there are skins or ward skins or something available. If it's a problem of Riot spending lots of resources on things you don't want, well, they do that every time they release a skin you don't like or something like that. Also they seem like they're making a decent amount of money and can probably afford a simple game mode like this.

Such a game mode also offers the possibility of new, possibly fun game modes in the future. Those custom enemies could show up as options in custom matches, maybe.

There's a pretty wide range of things you have to consider, which I always wonder about when I see people reject new ideas so outright, so... unexcitedly. Surely this can't REALLY hurt the game in any tangible way. It's nearly too big to fail, now.

[Silfir]

Dynamic difficulty calculation: The higher the overall win count for a certain champion on the PvE maps, the lower the IP rewards for players who do it again. Best way to score? Playing harder and more obscure champions.

As for the apparent uselessness of assassin characters, nothing says the map has to be all tower defense play. There could be other incentives strewn all about that assassins would be uniquely suited to defeat.

I think a fun PvE game mode is completely possible - it poses design challenges, but those can be overcome. It's probably not worth the investment of money for now, but what's so wrong with investing thought?

[sonofzeal]

Your reasoning is limited to PvE games that don't present a challenge to players with a modicum of skill. By contrast, challenging the player in PvE becomes much more difficult when his options are not balanced. Consider, for example, D&D 3.5e, at its core a Co-op PvE game. The wild imbalances between classes means you pretty much have to specify the power level of your campaign and handicap to match, hobbling high-tier classes with artificial restrictions and giving low-tier characters a boost so they can be useful. I'm sure there are zillions of video games I could cite too, but the point is that balance still matters for giving people meaningful choices in the face of set challenges.
You misunderstand, I'm not talking about an all-or-nothing pattern.

Put otherwise - there's a reason WotC didn't notice the glaring balance issues in 3rd ed, and were satisfied with mere token corrections moving into 3.5, whereas those same balance issues would have been utterly devastating in a game like LoL. Yes they still matter, and yes they're still important, but that relevance decreases significantly the less competitive the game is. One can certainly argue that 3.5's balance disparities are a bad thing, and you'd have a point, but the continued popularity of the system demonstrates just how resilient this sort of cooperative environment is to those issues.

In an environment like this, yeah there'd be some balance issues. Some champions like Anivia and Janna and Heimerdinger would probably do very well, while others like Karthus and Teemo and Evelyn might take a step or two down. However, I would argue that the co-operative environment would be inherently less sensitive to those balance disparities than Ranked PVP. Not completely insensitive, but less sensitive.


Yes, but League was designed as a 5v5 PvP game on Summoner's Rift, and porting the champions over to a Co-op vs. minions game would lead to massive differences in power level of those champions. That's the imbalance he's talking about.

That issue is present in every other map that isn't Summoner's Rift, but it would become more apparent if you warp the game even more.
Eh... what I've found from playing Dominion regularly is that, while the balance is different, it's not all that worse. A lot of champions who really struggle on SR are much happier on Dominion. And there's some who are awesome on SR who are much more mediocre on Dom. But both modes show a large degree of variety, and in any series of games you're going to see a few recurring faces but also wide number of less-common picks that are still doing well. And Dominion's pretty darn different than SR.

I do think there would be some significant power disparities in this sort of PvE environment. But I think we'd still see a good variety of champs represented in viable team comps. Maybe not as many as in SR, but a variety still. It's honestly hard to name champs who'd be hopeless at it - anyone who can build AD viably, or has sustain, or has AoE wave-clearing, or has skills with special effects against minions, or can push lanes while elsewhere, will probably do just fine. And between all of those, that's a pretty hefty variety.

[Averis Vol]

new poster here, so:

SERVER:NA
ACCOUNT NAME:AverisVol

Champs:
Top: Garen, Wukong, Kayle, Olaf, Jarvan, Lee Sin, Renekton, Nidalee, Gangplank, Xin zhao, Malphite, Shen
Mid: Brand, Fizz, Galio, Talon, Malzahar, Fiddlesticks, Karthus
Jungle: Its safer to never let me jungle, just sayin'
Support: Blitscrank, Janna, Kayle, Karma, Shen
ADC: Sivir, Ashe


I've got a quick question. I like to counter pick, as my champion selection is quite diverse, and I also prefer to perform a role based upon my position in the champ selection order. Now has anyone noticed recently how the game has become less "Okay, your last pick and you called mid, good on you" and more "Ohh, your best able to lane against their (Insert role here)? Too bad, I'm first pick, so I get to do what role I want(And will normally get countered to hell because, hey, you first pick auto locked in Brand.... what do you really expect?)

Now I'm feeling like I'm ranting, but ever since the honor system came out (and this isn't indicative to its failure, just a time reference) people have been less concerned about this being a team game, and more about fulfilling their blatantly selfish want to play a champ at the expense of the rest of the groups enjoyment and possible victory in the game.

Now is it just me, or does the quality of gamer feeling like its dropping? I remember way back when (Three months ago, ya know, back when people really knew how to play the game:P) people wanted to win the game rather then flailing about helplessly because they got hard countered and fed their partner to the other end of the world.

[Forrestfire]

I think it's just you, since my experience is that people are more friendly to lower picks calling a role than to first pick.

I main support in ranked, so it doesn't matter to me in the slightest, though :smalltongue:

[NineThePuma]

Considering my last game I got stuck with a feeder top Vladimir who first picked and instalocked, despite me having called it, leaving me to lane bot as Nunu, yeah. I have noticed a slight increase. The number of people who don't seem to know what Draft Pick is depresses me.

[Averis Vol]

I kinda had that feeling..... I main top, and honestly, I've stopped trusting randoms to solo lane, which is why I am glad I usually have 2-3 friends on to pick up some slack....

owell, guess I'm alone in this one.

[Todasmile]

What I've started disliking is the idea of calling your lane. I mean sure, it's better than autolocking, but something about it just irritates me. I'm not sure what.

Maybe it's because it's a perfectly legitimate system and I just get all annoyed that I basically have no reason to NOT go with it. Then everyone instacalls their lane and I inevitably get stuck tanking or supporting or jungling or something when maybe I just want to play a good old bursty caster AP Mid. So what if I don't call my lane instantly, I like midlane too :(

[McDouggal]

There's a pretty wide range of things you have to consider, which I always wonder about when I see people reject new ideas so outright, so... unexcitedly. Surely this can't REALLY hurt the game in any tangible way. It's nearly too big to fail, now.

Nothing is too big to fail. Look at any game; it had its popularity, and then it fell off. League is approaching the end of it's popularity upsurge with the current audience, and if it doesn't keep bringing new stuff in, will not attract a new audience.

[Tychris1]

I'm in a sleepy state, so i'm not concetrating too hard, but off the top of my head here's a few champs who I think would be troubled by a PvE game mode:

Fiddlesticks
Akali
Nunu (I guess you could just support with Bloodboil and throw your iltimate, but eh)
Blitz (Until you get his ult, but that's his only wave clearinf ability. Also, fist becomes useless)
Evelyn
Irelia
Leblanc
Nidalee (Albeit I think her cat form has a AoE effect or something, so less so here)
Poppy
Shen
Sona
Trundle

A few of them i'm unsure of, but put them there due to a lack of AoE or heavy pushing power. Some champs, like WW, who lack AoE/Wave cleared effects but can merely sustain and smash open a lane anyway from sheer punchingness. Aside from that I don't have much else to contribute. It'd be nice to have a game mode like that, but it'd definetely be treated as secondary in comparison to even the other game modes. Something more for laughs and derping around then actually playing League.

[Todasmile]

Nothing is too big to fail. Look at any game; it had its popularity, and then it fell off. League is approaching the end of it's popularity upsurge with the current audience, and if it doesn't keep bringing new stuff in, will not attract a new audience.

It may not be impossible for it to fail, but I strongly doubt something like a new game mode nobody really likes all that much would cut their audience down by any significant number.

[tyckspoon]

I'm in a sleepy state, so i'm not concetrating too hard, but off the top of my head here's a few champs who I think would be troubled by a PvE game mode...

This list sounds like you're only thinking about waves of standard minions. Single-target DPS would still have a place in taking out, say, Promote or Super Minions that might get mixed into the waves, not to mention jungle-buff/Dragon/Baron level monsters that might either be map objectives of this hypothetical game mode or just get dropped into certain waves specifically to challenge builds/teamcomps that focus only on AoE clears... And you can itemize for wave-pushing if that's what you really, really need, anyway. Get a Sunfire and a Tiamat, clear all the waves. Stupid build in (current) Summoner's Rift, sure, but you're not playing Summoner's Rift.

[TheShrike]

Triforce isn't good? Olaf slaps things a lot, so plenty of chances to leave a slow proc, and his abilities have very low CD, so he also has plenty of chances to leave a Sheen proc. But yeah, it's the sort of luxury item I wouldn't usually consider.

I like Zeke's because it gives CDR and attack speed. The aura is also nice for the carry, doubly so when the jungle/top (whichever I'm not) is also an auto attack heavy champ. Frozen Heart feels like overkill when I already have two chain vests of armor from Randuin's and GA, so a third mountain of armor feels excessive.

I'll try out Bloodthirster sometime, though, and see how it goes.

I personally run a build similar to, but distinct from, yours. I run the stupidly powerful Shurelia's/Randuin's opener (sometimes Philo/Ghostblade/Randuin's, if I get fed early). Next item is usually a Frozen Heart, and if it isn't it's a Hexdrinker. Regardless of which one comes first, the other comes right after in most cases. I rarely end games far enough in to get a 6th item slot, but it primarily goes into either Warmog's or GA. Despite what you may feel, 400 armour is only rarely overkill in an endgame scenario. Also, Aegis is not a weak item, even if someone else has it. The aura stacks, after all.

I find that ASpd is a fairly wasted stat on Olaf, mainly due to the fact that he both gets free attack speed and has another way to efficiently apply a 1.0 AD ratio, specifically his Q. You're never going to be able to build enough ASpd to make it worth AAing over axe spam, honestly.

[ex cathedra]

This list sounds like you're only thinking about waves of standard minions. Single-target DPS would still have a place in taking out, say, Promote or Super Minions that might get mixed into the waves, not to mention jungle-buff/Dragon/Baron level monsters that might either be map objectives of this hypothetical game mode or just get dropped into certain waves specifically to challenge builds/teamcomps that focus only on AoE clears... And you can itemize for wave-pushing if that's what you really, really need, anyway. Get a Sunfire and a Tiamat, clear all the waves. Stupid build in (current) Summoner's Rift, sure, but you're not playing Summoner's Rift.

But, in terms of single-target DPS, nothing really compares to AD carries and a few mages so those champions without ranged AoE burst or tons of ranged DPS still aren't worth picking.

[Math_Mage]

I haven't noticed a significant change w.r.t. calls vs. higher pick. People have been bitching at each other about that since time immemorial.

Fair enough on the 3.5 balance point. I didn't think that one all the way through. To people who are still saying "AOE or AD carry or bust," do you really think that the people skilled enough to get through with a tryhard comp won't go back with Fizz? Do you think that these people won't start speed-clear competitions and the like? There's plenty of room for gameplay beyond the first time someone manages to clear the level, if it's done properly.

I do strongly disagree with the idea that League is too big to fail, or that they have a huge amount of leeway to waste money (and more importantly, development time) on a massive side project unless it's likely to bring in major revenue. However, that just means they should test the waters first; it's not a reason not to do it at all.

---

Anyway, the thing I was originally going to post was that I'm offering bot lane mentoring on a limited basis (only so many hours in the day). No charge or anything; then again, no guarantee of skill, either, considering I'm a scrub who couldn't even get plat. :smallamused:

[NineThePuma]

Ah, but did you get Gold?

[Duos]

I think it might be interesting, but I would suspect the resources needed to create and sustain such a game mode would be a bit much for Riot as is. They don't NEED it, so their manpower and money is better spent elsewhere.

On a different note, I have a folder of champion concepts that needs peer review. If anybody is interested, I'd love some feedback; the best ideas never happen in a vacuum, after all. You can find the folder here. (https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BygrQA3hgKNQbHhkTFBKYUFDQ28) All I ask is that you post constructive and specific criticism as best you can, "Your caster is bad/OP/too niche" is sort of unhelpful.

[NineThePuma]

But, in terms of single-target DPS, nothing really compares to AD carries and a few mages so those champions without ranged AoE burst or tons of ranged DPS still aren't worth picking.

Because everyone knows that the game is all about maximizing efficiency. Why bother having fun when there is a clear numerical advantage to be had?

[ex cathedra]

Actually, all experience (and straight up common sense) has shown me that small imbalances matter much more in a highly competitive environment, and hence that PvP games require far more care in balancing than Co-op games. Hence your premise that co-op is harder and more important to balance strikes me as, not just wrong, but the opposite of the reality of the situation.

I don't recall saying that PvE balance was more important than PvP balance, I simply refuted the ridiculous suggestion that PvE balance doesn't matter. Co-Op would be harder to balance because League of Legends was designed as a PvP game, for ****'s sake. These are PvP champions. With abilities meant for PvP. This would be a solid, if not good or even great, concept for an entirely different game, so why does anyone want to shoehorn it into something as functionally limited and poorly suited as League of Legends?


Ah, but did you get Gold?
MathMage ended the season with a top rating just a few wins beneath plat, IIRC. So ya, he was pretty gold.


I haven't noticed a significant change w.r.t. calls vs. higher pick. People have been bitching at each other about that since time immemorial.
People seriously need to get over themselves. People like to use calls/pick order to be selfish, but it's ridiculous. Neither is more valid than the other and both can make you seem like a huge jerk (you're probably a huge jerk but w/e). That's okay. Of course players have a preference, and most people don't care about inconveniencing other players over such a minor thing. That's fine and natural and all, but the only thing that I find silly is how much some players want their calls or pick order to somehow justify their behavior.


Because everyone knows that the game is all about maximizing efficiency. Why bother having fun when there is a clear numerical advantage to be had?
I find it unfun when games offer me the illusion of choice. Let's say that Riot released an AD carry with 700 base range, amazing steroids, a couple of built-in flashes, a short-lived "invincibility button," and two or three large AoE nukes. Seems reasonable. All of the other carries would still exist, but assuming that you wanted to succeed would you really ever have any reason to choose a different carry? What if Irelia and Jax were literally the two best bruisers in the game by a very wide margin. Ignoring the effect they would have on the meta or the competitive scene or whatever, wouldn't you feel that their blatant superiority makes picking and playing your bruiser less enjoyable in general? Maybe you don't. That's also okay. But League is a strategy game. I enjoy its strategic element. People enjoy different things (and different games) for different reasons, but aren't my (potentially niche?) feelings equally valid?

I don't know if anyone else around here picked up Borderlands 2, but it serves as a good example. Broadly speaking, there's a single piece of end-game equipment that was so significantly superior to all of its competition that it not only rendered every other piece of equipment of that type (shields, in this case) completely useless (which is kind of a big deal considering that the vast majority of the series' replay-ability comes from its loot system) but it also single-handedly dictated which weapons and builds were and were not worth using. Sure, I had the choice to use something else, but that didn't stop the object's existence from actively lowering my enjoyment of the game.

[ChaosOS]

Fiddlesticks
Akali
Nunu (I guess you could just support with Bloodboil and throw your iltimate, but eh)
Blitz (Until you get his ult, but that's his only wave clearinf ability. Also, fist becomes useless)
Evelyn
Irelia
Leblanc
Nidalee (Albeit I think her cat form has a AoE effect or something, so less so here)
Poppy
Shen
Sona
Trundle
Fiddle is super useful with his W for tanking anything remotely large
Akali is questionable, her E does give decent wave clear though
Nunu you covered, same reasons you pick him in SR. Plus, anything high AA DPS gets shut down by snowballs
Blitz would be more questionable, give critters buffs they can channel though to make him good
Eve has good wave clear with her Q and awesome map mobility with her W, her passive would be kinda useless but eh
Irelia has solid wave clearing abilities between her QW and R, her E could help her tank anything big.
Nidalee cat does have swipe
Poppy would be useless, but as a tank buster 1v1 she is probably unparalleled
Shen you build waveclear and just never die
Sona is a support, and Q is useful.
Trundle is more of the super sustain, his ult though could wreck any boss-like critters.

[Math_Mage]

I find it unfun when games offer me the illusion of choice. Let's say that Riot released an AD carry with 700 base range, amazing steroids, a couple of built-in flashes, a short-lived "invincibility button," and two or three large AoE nukes. Seems reasonable. All of the other carries would still exist, but assuming that you wanted to succeed would you really ever have any reason to choose a different carry? What if Irelia and Jax were literally the two best bruisers in the game by a very wide margin. Ignoring the effect they would have on the meta or the competitive scene or whatever, wouldn't you feel that their blatant superiority makes picking and playing your bruiser less enjoyable in general? Maybe you don't. That's also okay. But League is a strategy game. I enjoy its strategic element. People enjoy different things (and different games) for different reasons, but aren't my (potentially niche?) feelings equally valid?

I feel like now you're shoe-horning in PvP balance considerations to some extent. In PvE, it would be picking, not refusing, the broken champ that would make things less fun.

[ex cathedra]

I feel like now you're shoe-horning in PvP balance considerations to some extent. In PvE, it would be picking, not refusing, the broken champ that would make things less fun.

That depends on where the challenge level is set, doesn't it? Either it's balanced such that every champion is functional and some are blatantly overpowered or it's balanced such that certain champions are balanced, other champions are still overpowered, and several are completely non-viable.

The specific challenges hardly matter when how well each champion is suited to the format varies so unbelievably wildly, you know? There would be no "right" balance choices in that scenario, only many distinct wrong choices.

[sonofzeal]

I'm in a sleepy state, so i'm not concetrating too hard, but off the top of my head here's a few champs who I think would be troubled by a PvE game mode:

Fiddlesticks
Akali
Nunu (I guess you could just support with Bloodboil and throw your iltimate, but eh)
Blitz (Until you get his ult, but that's his only wave clearinf ability. Also, fist becomes useless)
Evelyn
Irelia
Leblanc
Nidalee (Albeit I think her cat form has a AoE effect or something, so less so here)
Poppy
Shen
Sona
Trundle

A few of them i'm unsure of, but put them there due to a lack of AoE or heavy pushing power. Some champs, like WW, who lack AoE/Wave cleared effects but can merely sustain and smash open a lane anyway from sheer punchingness. Aside from that I don't have much else to contribute. It'd be nice to have a game mode like that, but it'd definetely be treated as secondary in comparison to even the other game modes. Something more for laughs and derping around then actually playing League.
Of the ones I've played...

Poppy and Blitz both have something amounting to an AD steroid, and other abilites that support building AD. It may not be the popular build for them on SR, but this ain't SR. They'll be fine.

Nunu has an AS steroid that he can share, and Consume. And a devastating AoE ult. He'll be fine.

Irelia has a lifegain steroid, good base stats for this sort of thing, and more lifegain and AoE damage on her ult. She'll be fine.

Trundle has Contaminate to help turtling, and Decompose for sustain. Not to mention all of his abilities work well in extended engagements. He'll be fine.


I don't recall saying that PvE balance was more important than PvP balance, I simply refuted the ridiculous suggestion that PvE balance doesn't matter. Co-Op would be harder to balance because League of Legends was designed as a PvP game, for ****'s sake. These are PvP champions. With abilities meant for PvP. This would be a solid, if not good or even great, concept for an entirely different game, so why does anyone want to shoehorn it into something as functionally limited and poorly suited as League of Legends?
I understood this quote...

it's much easier to argue that balance in a co-op setting would be an issue
...to imply that balance issues in a co-op setting were more significant than in a PVP setting. If I misread you, I apologize.

LoL's balance does assume certain contexts, but that doesn't mean everything will explode outside of that. Some champs are stronger at wave-clearing, some have more impressive bursts, some excel at duelling, some are strong early-game, some are strong late-game. But the thing is, most of those strengths and weaknesses would continue to be relevant even in a PvE setting. The relative priorities would certainly shift around, just as they do if you're moving to Dominion (wave-clearing is less important, sustain is less important, movement speed is more important), but there's so many champions covering such a nuanced range of abilities that we're almost certain to see whole suites of them doing better or worse, and a pretty smooth distribution at that. I expect Teemo and Karthus to come out poorly, and Anivia and Heimerdinger to come out strongly, but I doubt the variation will be all that huge. As much as PvE isn't Co-Op, there are enough points of similarity that anyone with strengths in SR should be able to find a niche here. Maybe the niche will be bigger or smaller, but it'll be there.

[dgnslyr]

That depends on where the challenge level is set, doesn't it? Either it's balanced such that every champion is functional and some are blatantly overpowered or it's balanced such that certain champions are balanced, other champions are still overpowered, and several are completely non-viable.

The specific challenges hardly matter when how well each champion is suited to the format varies so unbelievably wildly, you know? There would be no "right" balance choices in that scenario, only many distinct wrong choices.



And I'm honestly OK with that. Since it's a PvE situation, I don't think it matters as much how unsuitable the worst picks, as long as the "best" picks, of which there will be some, are not overwhelmingly powerful. I mean, even if you look at the PvP game, there are some champs widely considered "top tier" for whatever reason, which is why you see them disproportionately often in pro games, while a lot of champs almost never see the light of day in serious games, because they're just not that good. Sure, some of it is the flavor of the month phenomenon, and it takes time for people to figure out how to play certain champs well, but I doubt you'll ever see, say, Sion or Tryndamere much in high-level games.

Because it's a PvE game, I wouldn't worry as much about balance, because there isn't as much to balance against. In a way, balance exists to make the game more enjoyable to both sides, but since there isn't an "other side" to a PvE game, it's a bit less of a worry. And hey, maybe some people want to play hard mode, and limit themselves to some distinctly sup-optimal champs. As long as the "best" picks aren't too overwhelmingly so, I think a bit of imbalance is acceptable.

[Reinboom]

Something along the lines of a more unique PvE wouldn't be that major a queue cost as to warrant concern, since fundamentally such a mode would cover almost none of why people actually wish to play League.

The most significant cost here is development time. Game engineers are a limited resource since we're very picky about the engineers we hire. Right now, I don't think that's a suitable cost for such a mode.

Though, that's also why we have thunderdomes. So, who knows?

[sonofzeal]

Something along the lines of a more unique PvE wouldn't be that major a queue cost as to warrant concern, since fundamentally such a mode would cover almost none of why people actually wish to play League.

The most significant cost here is development time. Game engineers are a limited resource since we're very picky about the engineers we hire. Right now, I don't think that's a suitable cost for such a mode.

Though, that's also why we have thunderdomes. So, who knows?
I'm now curious - how modular is LoL's design? A sufficiently modular design should make the implementation of various modes pretty easy (art, interface, and sociological aspects being the major bottlenecks that I can see). On the other hand, LoL was originally designed pretty much purely for the Summoner's Rift map AFAIK, so there was no need for modularity, and modular design always carries a bit of overhead.

[lord_khaine]

The most significant cost here is development time. Game engineers are a limited resource since we're very picky about the engineers we hire. Right now, I don't think that's a suitable cost for such a mode.

Then why dont you just CLONE the dam engineers?

Sheesh.. does the fanbase have to explain everything to Riot? :smalltongue:

[Reinboom]

I'm now curious - how modular is LoL's design? A sufficiently modular design should make the implementation of various modes pretty easy (art, interface, and sociological aspects being the major bottlenecks that I can see). On the other hand, LoL was originally designed pretty much purely for the Summoner's Rift map AFAIK, so there was no need for modularity, and modular design always carries a bit of overhead.

It depends.
Do mind that League of Legends was built with only a handful of employees initially. To heighten this issue, it was built fully (from game engine to web site) without any publisher.

There's quite a bit that's modular now, but it's not far enough along for it to just be a sandbox for design.


Edit:
I'd like to mention my outlook MIGHT be a bit engineer biased. :smalltongue:
Design is also VERY tight on resources right now and it'd require an incredible amount of design work. Preseason and Season 3 has us all pretty much booked.

[Mephit]

There's always a lot of reasons to not do something.

Instead, I'd rather ask myself why I should do something, and if those reasons are compelling enough, how to do it well. In a case like this, obviously champion power discrepancy is an issue. I also see the issue of it becoming very formulaic; with a game like LoL, which is played so much, such a game could easily become a source of either easy IP or too little IP for your time.

So what if the game mode offered different rewards? Maybe a summoner icon of a champ you beat it with five times or something. Maybe there are skins or ward skins or something available. If it's a problem of Riot spending lots of resources on things you don't want, well, they do that every time they release a skin you don't like or something like that. Also they seem like they're making a decent amount of money and can probably afford a simple game mode like this.

Such a game mode also offers the possibility of new, possibly fun game modes in the future. Those custom enemies could show up as options in custom matches, maybe.

There's a pretty wide range of things you have to consider, which I always wonder about when I see people reject new ideas so outright, so... unexcitedly. Surely this can't REALLY hurt the game in any tangible way. It's nearly too big to fail, now.

Yeah, there's no reason to completely shoot down the idea. But like SweetRein said, the development team has limited resources, and in my eyes there's a lot of things that deserve those resources more.

[Talesin]

I get most of my competitive fix by playing online chess, where I don't get teammates yelling at me

This isn't an attack at Riot, but I find it astounding that this sort of thing actually happens and more so that it happens to so many people, including myself. I frequently get out of a game of LoL and honestly wish I hadn't played due to the reactions of the players around me.

You mention you enjoy Coop vs AI but would you play more normals, with or without your friends, if the community wouldn't make you feel so bad after? I know I would.

I agree with the poster, I believe in the previous thread, who said that it is much better than it was a year ago and I also believe Riot has done a stellar job in introducing mechanisms to curb the behaviour of certain players. I know there have been complaints about people begging for honour/abusing the system but i'd rather have someone talk about wanting honour that someone raging.

Also on top of all this i'm incredibly happy that they say they don't feel they've done enough and want to improve the systems they've got in place/introduce additional methods.

I'm not attempting to bash them at all because I believe they are a company that has put its players first. Every time I read a thread with replies from Lyte he remains calm and collected in the face of verbal abuse, aimed at him/his team and his work, and gives resonable responses to some, in my opinion anyway, delirious people. On top of that having the stones to post that he didn't want certain people playing his game and didn't want them back in the community is something I respect highly.

Sorry that went slightly off my original topic.

Edit: Re the PvE game mode. I'd like to see it as more variety isn't a bad thing, assuming the player base is still around to play ranked games etc. I just hope they don't end up doing a wow and nerfing a viable champion in PvP becuase he's OP in PvE.

I like that riot has stuck to its guns with balance focused on SR.

Edit2:

Though, that's also why we have thunderdomes. So, who knows?

It'd be interesting to have one of those "1 day developments" that i've seen in the UK, though they are usually on an independant project that involves creating something in a day that is then released free, or otherwise, on the web.

Ie you have an open call for people to come to a certain location, they post experience/CVs and you cherry pick the people you want weeks before the event (and can ensure they have the relevant skills). Equipment is provided and they spend the day coding set on certain parameters, like a PvE mode for LoL.

It gives them something to add to their CVs as its relevant design experience for a reputable game company so many people would sign up, well i'm just using it based on things that have occured in the UK, for the unpaid opportunity.

Of course this isn't 'free' work, in that someone at riot has to set this up and supervise it etc, and may not provide an actual product but could lay a lot of the base down for people to build on. No idea how you'd go about doing it or whether it'd be worth it, would probably be good PR at the very least.

[Winterwind]

This isn't an attack at Riot, but I find it astounding that this sort of thing actually happens and more so that it happens to so many people, including myself.Every once in a while, I keep linking this in this thread, usually to little to no response at all, much to my chagrin, because I think it is a fascinating topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ

This being a talk of about 13 minutes on how certain game design elements can "trick" people into behaving worse than they usually would. It does not mention LoL, but it talks a fair bit about Heroes of Newearth, so, not far off.

(the second part, dealing with design elements that trick people into behaving better than usual, is here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs&feature=relmfu))

[sonofzeal]

It depends.
Do mind that League of Legends was built with only a handful of employees initially. To heighten this issue, it was built fully (from game engine to web site) without any publisher.

There's quite a bit that's modular now, but it's not far enough along for it to just be a sandbox for design.


Edit:
I'd like to mention my outlook MIGHT be a bit engineer biased. :smalltongue:
Design is also VERY tight on resources right now and it'd require an incredible amount of design work. Preseason and Season 3 has us all pretty much booked.
Point taken. Given the break-neck pace of LoL's expansion, I'm not at all surprised you guys are heavily booked. I have to admit though, I was kind of expecting a decrease in champion releases after things got finalized for the world championships, and/or you guys passed the magic "100" mark. I can't help wishing some of that energy went into these sorts of projects instead... but I do understand how much new champions drive your profit margins, and how something like this would only boost revenue indirectly through attracting a more diverse player base and is thus harder to justify on a cost-return model. Still, I would hope Riot is still at the point where "making the game a better experience" is an end to itself, rather than having to be justified at every turn..... :smallwink:

[TFT]

Current rating of 1635 after 5 support wins in a row. For reference, that is 3 below efdf's elo after the reset(Unless lolking is lying to me, which it doesn't look like) Basically, barring huge shifts in elo, a lot higher then I ended last season. There is no way I deserve this elo. :smallredface:

I don't know whether to be scared or excited. We'll see after my next 5 games probably. :smalltongue:

Oh right, I had a question. When does the inflated elo gains/losses start normalizing, and at what rate? Just curious, and I can't find a good estimate anywhere.(Something like 40-30 first 5 games, lose about 2-3 elo gain/loss on average after that would be a good example, though I don't think that's what it is.)

[PersonMan]

Oh right, I had a question. When does the inflated elo gains/losses start normalizing, and at what rate? Just curious, and I can't find a good estimate anywhere.(Something like 40-30 first 5 games, lose about 2-3 elo gain/loss on average after that would be a good example, though I don't think that's what it is.)

IIRC, it's 10 games of omghax levels of ELO change, after which it immediately shoots down to like 10 per game, more or less the further the enemy is from your ELO, I think.

[9mm]

Dat Draven Passive... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbCpjsSj-eM)

[LordShotGun]

Dat Draven Passive... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbCpjsSj-eM)

At first I was :smallconfused:...Then I :smallbiggrin:

[Dalejn]

Hi guys , this is Dalejn from EUNE server .

I mostly play solo top / jungle , although people have seen me support every once in a while.
Im not a terrificly good player , but i know some things about the game and have a questionable amount of skill. So if its possible , id like to get some advice on how to better understand the game and play my roles better in forms of guides , tips and of course advice from veterans such as yourselves
Cheers!

[ChaosOS]

Hi guys , this is Dalejn from EUNE server .

I mostly play solo top / jungle , although people have seen me support every once in a while.
Im not a terrificly good player , but i know some things about the game and have a questionable amount of skill. So if its possible , id like to get some advice on how to better understand the game and play my roles better in forms of guides , tips and of course advice from veterans such as yourselves
Cheers!

Who do you jungle as?

[Forrestfire]

Dat Draven Passive... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbCpjsSj-eM)

That was amazing.

Also, huh, I was under the impression that draven's passive worked automatically.

[9mm]

That was amazing.

Also, huh, I was under the impression that draven's passive worked automatically.

it doesn't have an immediate tick like teemo, instead he's attack so fast he's refreshing the proc before the first tick happens... so it stacks to boom.

I should mention that this is probably a bug.

[Dalejn]

Who do you jungle as?

Well that depends on the team comp but mostly cho , nautilus , udyr or malphite

[Laudandus]

Current rating of 1635 after 5 support wins in a row. For reference, that is 3 below efdf's elo after the reset(Unless lolking is lying to me, which it doesn't look like) Basically, barring huge shifts in elo, a lot higher then I ended last season. There is no way I deserve this elo. :smallredface:

I don't know whether to be scared or excited. We'll see after my next 5 games probably. :smalltongue:

Oh right, I had a question. When does the inflated elo gains/losses start normalizing, and at what rate? Just curious, and I can't find a good estimate anywhere.(Something like 40-30 first 5 games, lose about 2-3 elo gain/loss on average after that would be a good example, though I don't think that's what it is.)

I still think support is unfairly good for climbing elo. I'm pretty sure that a good attitude and friendly team chat contributes more than 200-300 elo's worth of support skill, so you can pretty much just rise way way above your elo by being friendly and playing the scaredest Soraka.

It's probably not the most meaningful or fun way to get elo, but I do think it's the best overall.

[toasty]

God. I pick Darius. I 1v1 jayce three times in a row back to back. I get ganked twice and get double kills each time. Only time I die to ganks is a 3 man tower dive and an early gank that gave me a double kill anyways. I roam middle and straight up 2v1 the enemy middle/jungle.

Nothing matters because ez was godlike before I even saw him.

40 minute game. We had more kills. We even gold 100% for 90% of the game. We often even went even in teamfights. Nothing mattered because my team didn't know how to play at all. And ez killed everything.

[Joran]

God. I pick Darius. I 1v1 jayce three times in a row back to back. I get ganked twice and get double kills each time. Only time I die to ganks is a 3 man tower dive and an early gank that gave me a double kill anyways. I roam middle and straight up 2v1 the enemy middle/jungle.

Nothing matters because ez was godlike before I even saw him.

40 minute game. We had more kills. We even gold 100% for 90% of the game. We often even went even in teamfights. Nothing mattered because my team didn't know how to play at all. And ez killed everything.

And this is why I like to ban Ezreal now. Dude is freakin' annoying and too slippery.

[Temotei]

Every once in a while, I keep linking this in this thread, usually to little to no response at all, much to my chagrin, because I think it is a fascinating topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ

This being a talk of about 13 minutes on how certain game design elements can "trick" people into behaving worse than they usually would. It does not mention LoL, but it talks a fair bit about Heroes of Newearth, so, not far off.

(the second part, dealing with design elements that trick people into behaving better than usual, is here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs&feature=relmfu))

That was pretty cool. Thanks.

[TheShrike]

And this is why I like to ban Ezreal now. Dude is freakin' annoying and too slippery.

I ban Ezreal because he is like Shaco. The enemy Ezreal will be impossible to catch, land all his poke and buff his bruiser's attack speed while also hitting your whole team with the W to get his passive up instantly. Your Ezreal will miss every skillshot, and E into the enemy team every time.

[Eldariel]

Every once in a while, I keep linking this in this thread, usually to little to no response at all, much to my chagrin, because I think it is a fascinating topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRlYM9F50EQ

This being a talk of about 13 minutes on how certain game design elements can "trick" people into behaving worse than they usually would. It does not mention LoL, but it talks a fair bit about Heroes of Newearth, so, not far off.

(the second part, dealing with design elements that trick people into behaving better than usual, is here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBw4AK3RYs&feature=relmfu))

That's what I've always believed too. Still, I feel there's little to comment here beyond "Yeah, I suppose that's how it is" since the video doesn't really present arguments as much as just lays out what I'd consider facts.

[ex cathedra]

Hurricane may/may not be ridiculous depending on interaction with Pick A Card, Sheen, and some other things that are less interesting. There's no way that PaC would get through, though, even with the otherwise mediocre TF stats.

[Cogwheel]

Hurricane may/may not be ridiculous depending on interaction with Pick A Card, Sheen, and some other things that are less interesting. There's no way that PaC would get through, though, even with the otherwise mediocre TF stats.

Oh, the fun Twitch will have with this and Expunge.


Wonder if it works with Bio-Arcane Barrage too.

[Dante & Vergil]

I'm wondering if anyone here has the same experience as me.
I just had a game, where my laptop decided it was time to restart the computer for me, so it forced me out of the game and restarted, and slowly at that. By the time I got back the game had already been over and I got marked as a leaver. Man is it frustrating...


Hurricane may/may not be ridiculous depending on interaction with Pick A Card, Sheen, and some other things that are less interesting. There's no way that PaC would get through, though, even with the otherwise mediocre TF stats.

Um, what is this all about?

[Forrestfire]

I like the idea of running Hurricane on Teemo.

He'd become a split push god.

EDIT: Wait, does this work for Kayle as well? Can she even buy it?

[Cogwheel]

I want to try a Jax/Fizz top lane now, with the flawless timing this would require.


One day I will make Jax jump the shark.

[Joran]

I'm wondering if anyone here has the same experience as me.
I just had a game, where my laptop decided it was time to restart the computer for me, so it forced me out of the game and restarted, and slowly at that. By the time I got back the game had already been over and I got marked as a leaver. Man is it frustrating...

Um, what is this all about?

New item



Runaan’s Hurricane
(Ranged Only)
+60% Attack Speed
UNIQUE Passive: Your basic attacks fire minor bolts at 2 nearby targets, each dealing (50% of Total Attack Damage) physical damage. These apply on-hit effects.


http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2798405

P.S. If it's patch Wednesday on my computer, I make sure to patch first before playing LoL. Best case scenario, my computer minimizes my LoL game to tell me I need to restart. Worse case scenario, it reboots it for me and I lose 5 minutes or so to re-enter the game =P

It's happened to me before, but not long enough to label me a leaver.

[Dante & Vergil]

New item

Awesome item, thanks! :smallbiggrin:


It's happened to me before, but not long enough to label me a leaver.

I wish mine would do that, but it just shuts down without a warning. Well, I hopefully fixed that, so whatever right?

[NineThePuma]

New core item on Teemo, kthx.

Works nicely with new cleaver as well.

EDIT: I wonder what New Malady will look like?

[Vauron]

I like the idea of running Hurricane on Teemo.

He'd become a split push god.

EDIT: Wait, does this work for Kayle as well? Can she even buy it?

She becomes Ranged, so it'd work when her E is active, but only then. Its largely the same with Elise, Jayce, and Nidalee.

[Delusion]

Hurricane sounds fun with AD Kennen.

Stuns. Stuns errywhere.

[Eldariel]

My only prob with Hurricane is that it doesn't mesh well with the crit-based itemization that completely dominates the damage charts currently. Will have to see what the S2 changes do about that tho.

[Mephit]

Hurricane sounds fun with AD Kennen.

Stuns. Stuns errywhere.

:smallconfused:
Kennen doesn't have on-hit effects.
Edit: Unless you're talking about the thematic overlap. In that case, well played.


My only prob with Hurricane is that it doesn't mesh well with the crit-based itemization that completely dominates the damage charts currently. Will have to see what the S2 changes do about that tho.

I don't remember where, but I think a designer talked about how they were going to fix the brokenness of crits in S3.

[Eldariel]

:smallconfused:
Kennen doesn't have on-hit effects.
Edit: Unless you're talking about the thematic overlap. In that case, well played.

The W mark of the storm/extra damage on every 4th hit?

[Mephit]

I thought that wasn't an on-hit effect but the wikia corrected me. My bad.

[Godskook]

The W mark of the storm/extra damage on every 4th hit?

Given that Caitlyn only gets Headshot against her primary target but counts up from everyone, I suspect Kennen works the same way. Graves getting CD adjustments on all 3 shots means 100% up time on his AS steroid late-game, as well as ridiculously short active(about every 2s).

[Reinboom]

Point taken. Given the break-neck pace of LoL's expansion, I'm not at all surprised you guys are heavily booked. I have to admit though, I was kind of expecting a decrease in champion releases after things got finalized for the world championships, and/or you guys passed the magic "100" mark. I can't help wishing some of that energy went into these sorts of projects instead... but I do understand how much new champions drive your profit margins, and how something like this would only boost revenue indirectly through attracting a more diverse player base and is thus harder to justify on a cost-return model. Still, I would hope Riot is still at the point where "making the game a better experience" is an end to itself, rather than having to be justified at every turn..... :smallwink:

Misconception correction time! :smalltongue:

Riot Development is split in to two major organizations and a couple minor organizations. (Various minor organizations are very detached from the others)

The two major organizations are: Content and Features.
Content includes sub organizations. These are: Skins, Live, Champion, and Reworks.
Champion is further split in to two teams that alternate champion development.
There is another content dev team that belongs to all of them, this team is mostly used for development exploration and then hand off work to the other teams.

In content... there are ~5 engineers. (I know of 3 definitely and I believe there are a couple others on skins and graphics of whom I've not interacted much with).


Then there's features. Features includes things such as the watch team (Spectator, replays), player behavior (tribunal, the information texts you get between games, lyte), matchmaking, the strike force (small medium to high value features, such as the "accept before joining game" button) and three teams I can't yet tell you the name of (one of which I'm a part of).

Features is... significantly larger than content in both engineer size and nearly so in number of designers. It's also where the majority of our senior design goes.

We spend a lot of time NOT on champions.

[NineThePuma]

... So, perchance, Reina, could you hug Xypherus for me?

He is just made of all of my loves.

[9mm]

My only prob with Hurricane is that it doesn't mesh well with the crit-based itemization that completely dominates the damage charts currently. Will have to see what the S2 changes do about that tho.

Then again I don't think its really for those who go massive crit damage; but more for characters that want to build on-hit, such as the potential abuse case: Teemo.

[McDouggal]

I got really excited about Hurricane, thinking that it might make AD Twisted Fate viable again (Pick a Card applies on autoattacks, as does stacked deck, so...) I read the clarification, and it's one big "nope!"

ARRRGH!

[Tychris1]

I wonder how Spray and Pray would work with it.....

[ex cathedra]

I wonder how Spray and Pray would work with it.....

The only part of S&P that affects Hurricane is the range increase.


Then again I don't think its really for those who go massive crit damage; but more for characters that want to build on-hit, such as the potential abuse case: Teemo.

Teemo's only a potential abuse case if it applies Lichbane, as it should. Even then, that's (estimation) 2400 gold you need. Choosing to buy Hurricane means (in the immediate sense) that you're choosing not to buy Haunting Guise, or that you're choosing not to buy Deathcap, or Lichbane, or whatevskies. Personally, I doubt that this item is strong enough to single-handedly make on-hit a viable build. Niche play on AD carries seems more likely. After all, it is another multiplicative DPS increase that scales with everything but crit chance/damage.

[Reinboom]

... So, perchance, Reina, could you hug Xypherus for me?

He is just made of all of my loves.

If I would, it will be actually on my own merit towards him. We've been working together a bit as of late.

[ex cathedra]

If I would, it will be actually on my own merit towards him. We've been working together a bit as of late.

i'm so jealous right now.

[NineThePuma]

If I would, it will be actually on my own merit towards him. We've been working together a bit as of late.

Is that a yes or a no?

[Nadevoc]

Is that a yes or a no?

I read it as a 'yes, but she's going to hog all the credit for it'

[Reinboom]

I read it as a 'yes, but she's going to hog all the credit for it'

This. :smalltongue:

[TFT]

I still think support is unfairly good for climbing elo. I'm pretty sure that a good attitude and friendly team chat contributes more than 200-300 elo's worth of support skill, so you can pretty much just rise way way above your elo by being friendly and playing the scaredest Soraka.

It's probably not the most meaningful or fun way to get elo, but I do think it's the best overall.

:smallsigh: I think you underestimate the knowledge and skill that comes into being a support, even one like soraka. Sure you can jump slightly higher in elo then you should be able to spamming a champion with a low skill floor like soraka, doing okay, and then relying on the rest of your team to carry. However, you can do that with practically any role. While support is low on mechanics and pure skill, there is a lot more knowledge that the average support needs to have compared to other roles. You're the main warder, so you need to know what parts of the map have to be warded when, or else someone could die for it, they could get free objectives, or you can easily walk into a trap. In teamfights you need at least a little bit of knowledge of all roles, because if you don't you might not heal the jax who could have killed their adc instead of wasting the heal on your adc who would have survived, or silenced the jayce whose cooldowns are down instead of the ryze who is spamming spells, or exhausted their adc instead of the annie who hasn't ulted yet.

Don't get me wrong, I highly respect an adc who can kite well, a mage who knows how to use his spells well, or a bruiser who knows when to go in and on who. Each of those things no one will blame you for because they'll blame it on the other roles more often then not for not kiting well or not hitting all of their spells properly or not going for the right target. And sometimes that's true. Sometimes, however, it is the supports fault.

Playing soraka isn't going to change whether or not you have that teamfight knowledge and ability to map control through warding and counterwarding, just like playing ezreal doesn't help your last hitting or positioning abilities, for example.

But that's just my opinion.

[PersonMan]

New item

Incoming Hurricane on-hit Lulu. Bolts all day, onhit everywhere.


:smallsigh: I think you underestimate the knowledge and skill that comes into being a support, even one like soraka. Sure you can jump slightly higher in elo then you should be able to spamming a champion with a low skill floor like soraka, doing okay, and then relying on the rest of your team to carry. However, you can do that with practically any role. While support is low on mechanics and pure skill, there is a lot more knowledge that the average support needs to have compared to other roles. You're the main warder, so you need to know what parts of the map have to be warded when, or else someone could die for it, they could get free objectives, or you can easily walk into a trap. In teamfights you need at least a little bit of knowledge of all roles, because if you don't you might not heal the jax who could have killed their adc instead of wasting the heal on your adc who would have survived, or silenced the jayce whose cooldowns are down instead of the ryze who is spamming spells, or exhausted their adc instead of the annie who hasn't ulted yet.

This. Something I've noticed that a lot of "support = ward and then AFK in bush" thinking people (not saying you're one of them, Laudandus, but your post seems to indicate that direction of thought) seem to play very very passive supports.

As someone who plays supports often, I think that a support has several things they really should be doing in lane:

-Harassing enemy support and ADC. Focus on harassing the ADC or support depending on things such as lifesteal, heals, etc.
-Making sure your ADC can farm.
-Keeping their ADC from farming as much as possible.
-Winning fights before they happen by harassing/making the enemy waste spells.
-Winning fights while they happen via well-placed use of abilities (i.e. silence just as Graves wants to ult for a kill or Ez wants to jump away; heal right before the Ignite hits).
-Warding to make sure that your aggression doesn't result in massive ganks.

This is...quite a bit to do. You need to judge who to harass (in a lane like Graves/Sona, I'd go for Sona, for example, early on, since Graves' lifesteal will let him shrug off early harass unless it's really concentrated, especially if Sona has lower resistances, to make her use her mana for healing herself), harass them, make sure the enemy can't jump you, make sure you have vision and don't get ganked, try and keep their ADC from farming while protecting your own ADC.

This is probably one of the reasons why I play aggressive supports (or not normally aggressive supports as aggressive; i.e. Soraka who IMO is actually perfect for a hyperaggressive lane), since 'bushcamp, heal when carry is hurt' is the definition of a terrible support in my experience.

One of the reasons I don't play ADC is because, when I do, I almost inevitably want to spend all of laning lecturing my support on how they need to help me in lane instead of warding and sitting in the bush.

[McDouggal]

One of the (lesser) reasons that I main support is that so much of what you learn can be applied to any lane. For instance, after the initial clear of jungle, I tend to be worried if their jungler and a laner are MIA-they might be trying to counterjungle you, or setting up a major gank on another lane. This is something that I wouldn't have noticed before I started maining support (especially the squishy ones, OMG how I hated getting caught out -_-), because it wouldn't have been something that I was watching for.

Support also teaches the value of wards (one of the reasons why I'm building Sightstone on everyone ever for all eternity). I don't know how many times an otherwise perfectly executed gank was stopped by my warding and then being aware of the warded area. I don't remember the last time a jungler had a successful gank on my lane, because I simply never let them get behind me (or beside me. Or even remotely close to me).

I tend to play the more aggressive supports, yet run a more passive lane. If that makes any sense. However, I use this to lull them into a false sense of security (including missing moderate difficulty grabs) so that when we go aggressive, they get shocked for that critical half second.

Also: is it only me, or when you say "coming to gank Xlane, please don't push it," do people pretty much always push it or get uber aggressive and ruin the gank?

[Joran]

Incoming Hurricane on-hit Lulu. Bolts all day, onhit everywhere.


Sadly Pix doesn't apply to the bolts but Malady/Wit's End would.

Here's a rundown on every ranged champion and their interaction with Hurricane:


Actually, let me just run down the list of ranged champions, that might be faster:

Ashe: Frost arrow works, as it applies to every autoattack.

Caitlyn: Headshot charges faster because it applies to every autoattack but she still only fires one empowered headshot per attack when she has it ready.

Corki: Passive works, as it applies to every autoattack.

Draven: Q and Passive both don't work, as they don't apply to every autoattack. The passive requires the attack to critically strike which Hurricane bolts can't.

Ezreal: Has no on-hit effects.

Graves: E is an on-hit effect and thus E's cooldown will shorten each time he hits something with a Hurricane bolt.

Jayce: Jayce's passives will only apply to his primary target, as it is a attack modifier that only applies once.

Kayle: Doesn't work - but that's mostly due to the fact that her autoattack is an instant attack and thus the AoE field doesn't really make a whole lot of sense coming from the secondary bolts. I'll probably have to work on this one.

Kennen: 'W' charges faster as that applies to every autoattack - but the actual empowered shuriken only affects one additional target as that applies only once.

Kog'Maw: 'W' applies to each target hit, currently.

Lulu: Zero interactions

Miss Fortune: 'W' will stack up and apply grievous wounds to everyone hit by Hurricane Shots, as they apply to all her autoattack in a short duration.

Orianna: Orianna's passive applies to everyone hit - although she will never be able to make 'consecutive' attacks against the same target due to hitting multiple people at a time.

Sivir: Sivir's 'W' does not work with Hurricane, as it is an attack enhancer that only triggers once.

Sona; Power chord does not work with Hurricane, as it is an attack enhancer that only triggers once.

Teemo: Toxic shot will work on Hurricane bolts, as it toxic shot applies to every autoattack.

Tristanna: Explosive shot will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Twitch: Twitch's posion will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive applies to every autoattack.

Twisted Fate: Neither Pick a Card or Stacked Deck will work with Hurricane, as they are passives that apply to one autoattack. Stacked Deck will however, charge much more quickly as the charging happens every autoattack.

Urgot: Urgot's passive will work on Hurricane bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Varus: Blighted Quiver will work on Hurricne bolts, as it is a passive that applies to every autoattack.

Vayne: Vayne's Silver Bolts are specially coded to not work with Hurricane, as if silver bolts did work with Hurricane, she would never get a Silver Bolts proc ever again. (Because Silver Bolts has a consecutive target restriction.)

Ziggs: ZIgg's Passive will not work on Hurricane bolts, as it is an attack enhancer that only affects one autoattack.

[NineThePuma]

Incoming Hurricane on-hit Lulu. Bolts all day, onhit everywhere.

Nope. Specifically has no interaction with Lulu.

[Cogwheel]

Also: is it only me, or when you say "coming to gank Xlane, please don't push it," do people pretty much always push it or get uber aggressive and ruin the gank?


No, this happens pretty much every single time.

Generally I tower dive, kill one/both enemies and die (early game) or do the same and live (late game), at least as Skarner, when that happens. Bots, though. It's kind of dumb, anyway.

When I took this to PVP I chased an 80% health fed Singed with Talon dead and won. That was also dumb but I'm okay with it.

[PersonMan]

No, this happens pretty much every single time.

Part of the problem is someone coming to gank when a big wave of minions is forming on your side, meaning that the lane will be pushed and you can't do anything about it apart from waiting for the enemy laner to kill the minions.

Que the jungler: "omg I gank why u push?!"

But I sometimes have this experience, too. More often, though, I just come by and gank, notice no reaction from the laners...and they tell me to ping or say I am ganking in chat. Because a champion portrait and vision on the minimap is too little notice. Even if that weren't enough, you'd think they could react to me running into the middle of their lane to attack...but nope.


Sadly Pix doesn't apply to the bolts but Malady/Wit's End would.


Nope. Specifically has no interaction with Lulu.

Actually I meant the whole 'shoot 5 bolts per attack, apply on-hit effects 3 times per attack' thing, not 'shoot 11 bolts per attack'.

[ChaosOS]

NYANDALEE VISUAL UPGRADE (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/visual-upgrade-nidalee-bestial-huntress)
Sweetrein, did you have anything at all to do with this?

[Laudandus]

:smallsigh: I think you underestimate the knowledge and skill that comes into being a support, even one like soraka. Sure you can jump slightly higher in elo then you should be able to spamming a champion with a low skill floor like soraka, doing okay, and then relying on the rest of your team to carry. However, you can do that with practically any role. While support is low on mechanics and pure skill, there is a lot more knowledge that the average support needs to have compared to other roles. You're the main warder, so you need to know what parts of the map have to be warded when, or else someone could die for it, they could get free objectives, or you can easily walk into a trap. In teamfights you need at least a little bit of knowledge of all roles, because if you don't you might not heal the jax who could have killed their adc instead of wasting the heal on your adc who would have survived, or silenced the jayce whose cooldowns are down instead of the ryze who is spamming spells, or exhausted their adc instead of the annie who hasn't ulted yet.

Don't get me wrong, I highly respect an adc who can kite well, a mage who knows how to use his spells well, or a bruiser who knows when to go in and on who. Each of those things no one will blame you for because they'll blame it on the other roles more often then not for not kiting well or not hitting all of their spells properly or not going for the right target. And sometimes that's true. Sometimes, however, it is the supports fault.

Playing soraka isn't going to change whether or not you have that teamfight knowledge and ability to map control through warding and counterwarding, just like playing ezreal doesn't help your last hitting or positioning abilities, for example.

But that's just my opinion.

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. A well-played support can have a pretty large impact on a game. In particular, something like a really well-played Blitzcrank can make a very large game impact.

But in the average game, the opponent's support is someone who was forced onto support and won't do that well (below ~2100 elo, and even then this happens sometimes). So even if you also can't do well, if you just play a mediocre support and keep team morale up you probably contribute more than your counterpart on the enemy team, and that's all that's necessary for elo gain.

The difference in skill that happens if you're also good at support makes this difference even larger, which is another reason it's easy to gain elo as support.

The skill cap is also distinct from game impact - a good support maybe sometimes wins you bot lane and contributes less than a good anyone else in team fights, which I'm not totally convinced is more than what keeping morale up does. Nonetheless, you can put about as much effort into support as into anything else, it's just that the game impact reward per skill is lower than in other roles.

[TFT]

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. A well-played support can have a pretty large impact on a game. In particular, something like a really well-played Blitzcrank can make a very large game impact.

But in the average game, the opponent's support is someone who was forced onto support and won't do that well (below ~2100 elo, and even then this happens sometimes). So even if you also can't do well, if you just play a mediocre support and keep team morale up you probably contribute more than your counterpart on the enemy team, and that's all that's necessary for elo gain.

The difference in skill that happens if you're also good at support makes this difference even larger, which is another reason it's easy to gain elo as support.

The skill cap is also distinct from game impact - a good support maybe sometimes wins you bot lane and contributes less than a good anyone else in team fights, which I'm not totally convinced is more than what keeping morale up does. Nonetheless, you can put about as much effort into support as into anything else, it's just that the game impact reward per skill is lower than in other roles.

Support is getting more popular right now, to be honest. I've had to fight for support multiple times(The only reason I got it is because I told them I really only play support, which is true.), and the enemy support has been within the first 3 picks at least half the time. And this is at current 1500-1700(1600-2100 pre soft reset). There may be less people who want to play the role, but there is a pool of players who are dedicated at the role. but what you're saying is still probably true to an extent too, I'll admit. It's just that support is still very unpopular and things stated like that don't really help the situation. My hope is more people support more and there's ultimately a strong pool at lower elos, because having played adc at 1400 and having no good supports REALLY sucks.

[Laudandus]

Support is getting more popular right now, to be honest. I've had to fight for support multiple times(The only reason I got it is because I told them I really only play support, which is true.), and the enemy support has been within the first 3 picks at least half the time. And this is at current 1500-1700(1600-2100 pre soft reset). There may be less people who want to play the role, but there is a pool of players who are dedicated at the role. but what you're saying is still probably true to an extent too, I'll admit. It's just that support is still very unpopular and things stated like that don't really help the situation. My hope is more people support more and there's ultimately a strong pool at lower elos, because having played adc at 1400 and having no good supports REALLY sucks.

Admittedly I haven't been to 1500-1700 in a long time, but it's interesting that more people are picking up on playing support. When I was there I played AD carry and it was terrible, hopefully it's better now.

[Dire Ferret]

NYANDALEE VISUAL UPGRADE (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/visual-upgrade-nidalee-bestial-huntress)
Sweetrein, did you have anything at all to do with this?

Overall those look nice, but I noticed she looks lighter than before, especially with the Pharaoh skin. I ended up compared them side by side which confirmed by hunch. So...what's up with that? :smallfrown:

[Cogwheel]

I really hope I can play jungle Singed this well some day. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnNYe6vYocI)

[sonofzeal]

I really hope I can play jungle Singed this well some day. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnNYe6vYocI)
Jungle Singed OP. :smalltongue:

[Adumbration]

Went for my first Pre-Season ranked game. Was carrying handily with Skarner. Guess what, someone on the opposing team did the mass DC abuse. :smallsigh: So frustrating.

[Winterwind]

That was pretty cool. Thanks.:smallsmile:


That's what I've always believed too. Still, I feel there's little to comment here beyond "Yeah, I suppose that's how it is" since the video doesn't really present arguments as much as just lays out what I'd consider facts.Well, I guess that's true, but on the other hand, we could have a discussion on what elements of LoL actually provide an incentive for people to behave like jerks (and there must be some, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them), what elements of LoL provide an incentive to behave better, and what changes might be possible to improve the situation further. After all, some of the elements that contribute one way or the other may do so in a subtle, not immediately apparent way. For instance, it doesn't take long to realize that people not getting increased income in LoL if somebody on their team leaves (as it used to be the case in DotA) removes one major incentive towards negative behaviour that existed in DotA. On the other hand, off the top of my head, I wonder if, for example, towers in LoL being stronger and having a much better AI (that locks onto enemy champions that attack an allied champion in range) doesn't actually provide an incentive towards negative behaviour, as now a spitefully minded person might have it easier to reason that if somebody dies they must do so deliberately or be dying out of personal incompetence, rather than simply being outmatched, as tower-diving becomes much more difficult and playing defensively should be easier (not saying that I'd like to see a change in this regard - quite to the contrary - nor that I wish to discuss the effect of tower AI on player behaviour specifically, it was just meant as an example).

[Delusion]

Soo with Hurricane, Kennen applies mark of storm every third attack or so?

Nice.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Went for my first Pre-Season ranked game. Was carrying handily with Skarner. Guess what, someone on the opposing team did the mass DC abuse. :smallsigh: So frustrating.

What abuse is this?

[Reinboom]

NYANDALEE VISUAL UPGRADE (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/visual-upgrade-nidalee-bestial-huntress)
Sweetrein, did you have anything at all to do with this?

No
I've never worked with the skins team beyond general get togethers.

[Adumbration]

What abuse is this?

Don't know the specifics of the mechanics, but here's what happened to me: in the middle of a teamfight (which we were winning) the screen froze like in a DC (you could still try clicking, but the champions just stood there) and it started trying to reconnect. At first I thought it was a problem with my internet, but after booting my connection it still did not connect. I exited the game and it threw me straight back into the front page of League client. No traces of the game - recently played summoners list, the games in my profile, Elo change - were to be found.

It's as if the game never happened.

[dgnslyr]

I think it had something to do with Maokai dying and activating GA while inside his ult. Something like that, anyways.

[NineThePuma]

I hate leavers.

Just got out of a TT game where it was Cait, Yi, and Rammus. Yi and Rammus were both AFK, but Yi was going AFK out by our outer top turret, within easy picking distance so as to be killed.

I still managed to drag the game out to thirty minutes or so, solo, with 2/4/0 KDA. I love Cait.

[Silverraptor]

I really hope I can play jungle Singed this well some day. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnNYe6vYocI)

This guy needs to be banned. I can understand if he did this in a custom game for the lols, but it looks like he did it in a normal/ranked game against players who were not expecting it. Insta-permaban right now!

[Cogwheel]

This guy needs to be banned. I can understand if he did this in a custom game for the lols, but it looks like he did it in a normal/ranked game against players who were not expecting it. Insta-permaban right now!

From what I heard, Ranked, but on PBE, so basically meaningless. Still a nasty surprise, though.

[Reynard]

This guy needs to be banned. I can understand if he did this in a custom game for the lols, but it looks like he did it in a normal/ranked game against players who were not expecting it. Insta-permaban right now!

All this stuff happened a few months ago, and yes, people got banned for it. Some people got slaps on the wrist, those that only used it to see if it worked and/or only played a single game with ze hax.

[Silverraptor]

All this stuff happened a few months ago, and yes, people got banned for it. Some people got slaps on the wrist, those that only used it to see if it worked and/or only played a single game with ze hax.

Oh, it was back then? Okay, that makes me feel better than. I knew there were some kind of gliches and bugs, but I didn't know exactly what it was. How did they exploit it?

[Reynard]

Oh, it was back then? Okay, that makes me feel better than. I knew there were some kind of gliches and bugs, but I didn't know exactly what it was. How did they exploit it?

Something happened (not sure what) that let you put more mastery points into a mastery than the stated cap said you could. This made the 15% cdr on summoner spells mastery much better than it should have been.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Oh, it was back then? Okay, that makes me feel better than. I knew there were some kind of gliches and bugs, but I didn't know exactly what it was. How did they exploit it?

If I remember correctly, there was a glitch in the Mastery pages that allows you to put more than the usual number of points into any one thing.

Needless to say, one mastery offers percentile CDR for Summoner Spells. You can imagine the rest.

[Silverraptor]

If I remember correctly, there was a glitch in the Mastery pages that allows you to put more than the usual number of points into any one thing.

Needless to say, one mastery offers percentile CDR for Summoner Spells. You can imagine the rest.

Ah, so all 30 points in the Summoner spell cd reduction. Apparently that doesn't stop at the 40% mark. That explains everything.

I remember when we were talking about a no cooldown on champion abilities. Everyone was picking Karthus or Mundo. And then I said "Tryndamiere" and won that discussion.:smallbiggrin:

[PersonMan]

An honor question: I normally have Honorable Opponent, but when entering Champ Select I now have the Great Teammate ribbon.

I was considering if this means that I have both, with enemies seeing HO and allies seeing GT. Anyone tried confirming if it's like this?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I was considering if this means that I have both, with enemies seeing HO and allies seeing GT. Anyone tried confirming if it's like this?

This is correct. Your opponents will see Honorable Opponent, while your teammates will see the "rarest" ribbon you possess in your region.

[PersonMan]

This is correct. Your opponents will see Honorable Opponent, while your teammates will see the "rarest" ribbon you possess in your region.

Ah. Cool.

It's a shame I don't get to see all of them at once, though. That would be nice.

[Mephit]

New support incoming! (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801565) My wallet is developing a will of its own!

Morello's being very vague so far, but she'll apparently be water-themed, and have a way to heal in combat. (Read: Morello's excited because it'll be a healer that won't be all about lane sustain but rather clutch heals in fights)
Her pic:
http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/images/news/November_2012/2012_11_15_Nami_Sneak_Peek/Nami_Concept_thumb.jpg
In before she has Urf's passive.

[ex cathedra]

Ah, so all 30 points in the Summoner spell cd reduction. Apparently that doesn't stop at the 40% mark. That explains everything.

I remember when we were talking about a no cooldown on champion abilities. Everyone was picking Karthus or Mundo. And then I said "Tryndamiere" and won that discussion.:smallbiggrin:

No cooldown on champion abilities != no cooldown on items/summoner spells, so Trynd would still be easily counterable, i'm afraid.

[JKTrickster]

No cooldown on champion abilities != no cooldown on items/summoner spells, so Trynd would still be easily counterable, i'm afraid.

How do you counter someone who doesn't die? :smallconfused:

EDIT:

With the new HoG nerfs should I still pick it up for Shen?

[Forrestfire]

New support incoming! (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801565) My wallet is developing a will of its own!

Morello's being very vague so far, but she'll apparently be water-themed, and have a way to heal in combat. (Read: Morello's excited because it'll be a healer that won't be all about lane sustain but rather clutch heals in fights)
Her pic:
http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/images/news/November_2012/2012_11_15_Nami_Sneak_Peek/Nami_Concept_thumb.jpg
In before she has Urf's passive.

I knew I had bought extra Riot Points for a reason :smallamused:
Is it sad that the first thing I thought was "Where's her Arlong Pirates tattoo?"

[Eldariel]

Don't know the specifics of the mechanics, but here's what happened to me: in the middle of a teamfight (which we were winning) the screen froze like in a DC (you could still try clicking, but the champions just stood there) and it started trying to reconnect. At first I thought it was a problem with my internet, but after booting my connection it still did not connect. I exited the game and it threw me straight back into the front page of League client. No traces of the game - recently played summoners list, the games in my profile, Elo change - were to be found.

It's as if the game never happened.

Could be Riot serverside problem too. But there was the drophack going around that basically drops a game from the server; basically some type of a DDoS on the server I recall.

Riot sorta mitigated it (so that it should only cause latency rather than dropping people), but this was what it did. So there's always the possibility that someone used it/modified version that still functions and it worked.


This guy needs to be banned. I can understand if he did this in a custom game for the lols, but it looks like he did it in a normal/ranked game against players who were not expecting it. Insta-permaban right now!


Ah, so all 30 points in the Summoner spell cd reduction. Apparently that doesn't stop at the 40% mark. That explains everything.

I remember when we were talking about a no cooldown on champion abilities. Everyone was picking Karthus or Mundo. And then I said "Tryndamiere" and won that discussion.:smallbiggrin:

No, you still had to qualify for it. Unfortunately 15*7 is 100% so yeah.

100% Champ Cooldown reductions would have a few quite retarded options. Soraka is pretty bad (sit on spawn, spam no-cast time/no-cooldown Wish), Skarner would be retarded, Karthus would be stupid, etc.

Curiously Trynd could still be killed by pulling him to spawn laser which ignores his ult. And with no CDR that wouldn't be very hard.


New support incoming! (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801565) My wallet is developing a will of its own!

Morello's being very vague so far, but she'll apparently be water-themed, and have a way to heal in combat. (Read: Morello's excited because it'll be a healer that won't be all about lane sustain but rather clutch heals in fights)
Her pic:
http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/images/news/November_2012/2012_11_15_Nami_Sneak_Peek/Nami_Concept_thumb.jpg
In before she has Urf's passive.

Nami, huh? And a mermaid. *Insert random One Piece comment here*

[Forrestfire]

Honestly, I think Riven would be one of the strongest champs with no cooldown. Mainly because in order for people to use their OP ults, they have to reach level 6. Once she hits level 3, she has an infinite shield, permastun, and infinite dashes.

Stick a cleanse on her and she literally could end the game on her own.

[Tychris1]

:smalleek: Oh dear god, Ezreal

BLINKBLINKBABLINKBLINKBLINKBLINKQQQBLINKBLINKBLINK QQQWBLINK

Soraka: So, you wanna go to lane now?
Ez:.... Naw BLINKBABLINKBLINKBLINK

[PhoeKun]

:smalleek: Oh dear god, Ezreal

BLINKBLINKBABLINKBLINKBLINKBLINKQQQBLINKBLINKBLINK QQQWBLINK

Soraka: So, you wanna go to lane now?
Ez:.... Naw BLINKBABLINKBLINKBLINK

You know they'd still cost mana, right? :smalltongue:

[Godskook]

Honestly, I think Riven would be one of the strongest champs with no cooldown. Mainly because in order for people to use their OP ults, they have to reach level 6. Once she hits level 3, she has an infinite shield, permastun, and infinite dashes.

Stick a cleanse on her and she literally could end the game on her own.

If we're going down the Omnificiser path, Alistar beats Riven rather handily. He's got his insta-win as early as lvl 1, and easily at lvl 2(mini Malphite pwnage). If you're not behind your tower, he can kill you before you hit the ground.

And then there's Morgana's long range snare, for lvl 1 pwnage, since you can't run from or towards her once you get caught. I'm sure there's other lvl 1s that do ridiculously well with no-CD abilities, but Morgana is fairly up there. Nidalee, probably, due to her spear's ridiculous base damage and range, thus not needing CC unless everyone had this power somehow.


Nami, huh? And a mermaid. *Insert random One Piece comment here*

Gawd, they're really making that reference, aren't they?

[Tychris1]

You know they'd still cost mana, right? :smalltongue:

Manamune, Athenes, AA, Boots of whatever, more Mana regen. Sit in fountain. ULT THE WHOLE MAP. Try to push lanes now :smallamused:.

[dgnslyr]

Since abilities would still cost mana, yeah, I think a manaless champ with hard cc would do quite nicely, and Riven fits the bill perfectly. I guess Renekton has his stun, too, but that's single target, and attached to an autoattack, so I'd say Riven's is still superior. I mean, she has an infinite number of dashes to reach you, and an infinite amount of stuns to kill you. Her ult even increases the range of both of those things. The only counterplay is not getting hit, or perma-locking her, but with mana constraints, she'll come out on top as long as her health outlasts your mana.

[Tychris1]

Wait...... Would Renekton's ultimate stack? That's a free 300 HP increase, AoE effect, and passive rage regen. Not to mention I'm pretty sure his W resets his auto attack counter, so with no CD that means infinite autoattacks in rapid succession, building up rage which then deals more stun damage. Renekton seems to be pretty well off in that department.

[NineThePuma]

Rengar. QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ.

Some of those are even ferocity boosted!

I mean, sure he has to close the gap to do it but once he does he's kind of turning you into mush.

[Tychris1]

Oh yeah, Rengar E aswell. Permaslow and every 5th one stuns, so basically you're never catching him.

[dgnslyr]

I doubt his ultimate would stack with itself. It's basically a buff, yes? And most buffs/debuffs of the same kind don't stack, they refresh, like Nunu's Bloodboil. And his stuns are still limited by his auto-attack animation, while Riven's are limited by cast time, which I'm pretty sure is shorter than Renek's animation. Also, I think her stun outranges most melee-range autos, but spells and autos also work a bit differently in regards to range, I think, so I dunno.

[Dire Ferret]

I think I'll add my name to the player list if you folks don't mind.

Server: NA
Forum Name: Dire Ferret
Summoner Name: Guvna Kit Kit

I'd like to be able to play some games where I can actually talk to my team. :D

[ex cathedra]

You don't need to worry about minions if there are no cooldowns, so Ezreal would suck. Karthus would be strong but shields/heals/spellshields/wishes would invalidate his threat. With a couple of mana items Skarner and Rammus would kill the otherwise unkillable Trynd/Riven, whose only objective would be to take towers. Olaf and, to a lesser extent, Alistar would be the go-to pushers if they had secured Soraka support. Even if you can't kill Trynd, Fiddlesticks et al could shut him down indefinitely and could kill Riven & friends.

[Reinboom]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

[Eldariel]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

Wow. This looks really interesting. I've always felt the current system is a bit clunky and provides less information than it could. I'll have to see how this works out in practice but in theory, this seems great. Are you at a liberty to tell how long this project has been worked on?


Now if only unit health bars were accompanied by armor/MR bars and perhaps some way to communicate any armor penetration, CDR and MPen those units have I feel all the important information would be readily available in the in-game screen.

[NineThePuma]

That moment when your support takes too long picking and randoms another ADC. :smallsigh:

Thankfully, the OTHER adc is Kog, and he has a ton of utility; Kog + Cait is going to be interesting.

[ZeroNumerous]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

I notice the tower Kog's player has targeted has an item in its inventory.

[Reinboom]

Wow. This looks really interesting. I've always felt the current system is a bit clunky and provides less information than it could. I'll have to see how this works out in practice but in theory, this seems great. Are you at a liberty to tell how long this project has been worked on?


Now if only unit health bars were accompanied by armor/MR bars and perhaps some way to communicate any armor penetration, CDR and MPen those units have I feel all the important information would be readily available in the in-game screen.

I've been working on it since it was in itty bitty prototype form, throughout the extensive user testing, and all through the development.
This is in addition to the numerous other things I've been working on.

Prototyping started... about a year ago. Or a little bit more so, given that demo I posted here actually ended up becoming the prototype. :smallwink:

[Silverraptor]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752


I've been working on it since it was in itty bitty prototype form, throughout the extensive user testing, and all through the development.
This is in addition to the numerous other things I've been working on.

Prototyping started... about a year ago. Or a little bit more so, given that demo I posted here actually ended up becoming the prototype. :smallwink:

So, the thing you wrote up that got you into Riot is finally being finished up, eh Riena?:smallwink:

[Cogwheel]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

Thank you so much for this. Can't say I need it as such, but I know a lot of people who do and I certainly won't turn down convenience myself. Great to see this being added.

[Math_Mage]

That moment when your support takes too long picking and randoms another ADC. :smallsigh:

Thankfully, the OTHER adc is Kog, and he has a ton of utility; Kog + Cait is going to be interesting.

I played a couple of normals where one of the guys I was queued with decided he was going to copy me, so we played duo AD bot, first his Ashe to my Graves, then his Sivir to my Corki. Oh, and the second game someone else was AP Kog mid, except he went AS Kog instead. You can imagine how fast we took Baron with that team.

[Godskook]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

What's there to talk about, seriously?

1.You were working on this? Nope, we knew that a year ago.

2.Its awesome? Nope, new that a year ago too, before you were even hired by Riot.

I mean, I suppose reconfirmation of the awesomeness, as well as the idea that its finally coming out is something, but I really don't see why Riot would object to you sharing that.

Did I mention it looks awesome? I did? Ok, good.

[Eldariel]

I've been working on it since it was in itty bitty prototype form, throughout the extensive user testing, and all through the development.
This is in addition to the numerous other things I've been working on.

Prototyping started... about a year ago. Or a little bit more so, given that demo I posted here actually ended up becoming the prototype. :smallwink:

Well, what can I say... Congratulations on finally getting this near the finish line! Seems like the year has been time well spent. And thanks for making the whole interface sleeker and easier to use; pretty sure this'll help especially all the newer players I try to introduce to the game to get a hang of things faster (and I'm pretty sure this'll make it easier to figure out the new itemization of S3; also, I no longer have to browse under "Magic" to get to "CDR" when playing AD casters or whatever, which always felt a bit unintuitive :smalltongue:).

[Reinboom]

What's there to talk about, seriously?

1.You were working on this? Nope, we knew that a year ago.

2.Its awesome? Nope, new that a year ago too, before you were even hired by Riot.

I mean, I suppose reconfirmation of the awesomeness, as well as the idea that its finally coming out is something, but I really don't see why Riot would object to you sharing that.

Did I mention it looks awesome? I did? Ok, good.

You may have inferred with such, but the vast majority of the world (and gaming sites, and news publishers and...) did not and thus it was still secret.

Limiting the number of eyes on a project such as this is VERY important due to players ... pretty much saying what you are saying. Though usually with additions such as "...ugh... finally..."

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

Looks great. Also, I see a "Crystalline Flask" item there, as well as a new Zeal upgrade! Looks like either a spear or the "Statikk Shiv" that's been alluded to. Time will tell.

I like the new format quite a bit, although I'm a tiny bit disappointed that it still doesn't allow us to customize our own recommended item sets. That saddens me.

Still, nice work. :smallbiggrin:

Edit: Also, I saw in the Preview thread that you're considering making terms like "Armor Penetration" searchable...please do. If I could type in "Penetration" to see all those options immediately, it would be really, REALLY helpful.

Further Edit: Based on THIS (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=558477&d=1353012692) picture you posted. That's a GREAT recommended item interface, and I really, REALLY hope that some day soon we can customize our own versions of this on a per-champion basis. I absolutely love it.

That said, did you guys ever consider making the text for "UNIQUE Passive - Passive Name" a different color, to make the effect stand out better? I don't know about everyone else, but having that in a slightly different shade would really draw attention to the item's strength, and increase readability of the text block.

Nitpicking because it's what I do. That said, this is wonderful, and a marked improvement on anything they have currently. Again: beautifully done.

[McDouggal]

Oh, thank god, there's a search function. When I'm trying a new build from online, sometimes I can't find an item and end up skipping it.

Also: Since I only picked League up in mid-September, is it bad that my roommates (one of whom is level 30 with ~450 normal wins, the other almost 30 with ~200 normal wins, both of whom have been playing much longer than me) are asking me what the "best" build is for something?

[dgnslyr]

Well, since spammable hard CC would be absolutely lethal, Olaf's ability to not be CC'd makes him pretty invaluable. Does Kayle invulnerability negate CC? Or just damage? Also, Olaf can push and has a powerful, uncounterable manaless nuke, which makes him rather scary. With max ranks in Vicious Strikes, his Reckless Swing doesn't even have a health cost, even healing him for 1%.

EDIT: And apparently I can't math, because one-fifth and two-fifths looked similar enough for a moment.

[Reinboom]

Edit: Also, I saw in the Preview thread that you're considering making terms like "Armor Penetration" searchable...please do. If I could type in "Penetration" to see all those options immediately, it would be really, REALLY helpful.

Further Edit: Based on THIS (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=558477&d=1353012692) picture you posted. That's a GREAT recommended item interface, and I really, REALLY hope that some day soon we can customize our own versions of this on a per-champion basis. I absolutely love it.

That said, did you guys ever consider making the text for "UNIQUE Passive - Passive Name" a different color, to make the effect stand out better? I don't know about everyone else, but having that in a slightly different shade would really draw attention to the item's strength, and increase readability of the text block.

Nitpicking because it's what I do. That said, this is wonderful, and a marked improvement on anything they have currently. Again: beautifully done.

The screenshots are like... 2 days old.
I implemented the color thing about 13 hours ago. :smallwink:

Also, in that thread I'm being passive and indefinite due to the audience size.
Here I can more safely say "I WILL be implementing extra search terms such as penetration."

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

The screenshots are like... 2 days old.
I implemented the color thing about 13 hours ago. :smallwink:

Excellent. 'cause that's always bothered me. Glad to know that my design ideas aren't bad. :smalltongue:

[Godskook]

I like the new format quite a bit, although I'm a tiny bit disappointed that it still doesn't allow us to customize our own recommended item sets. That saddens me.

Personally, I would implement that client-side, not within game. The exercise of adjusting reccomended items is generally clunky, and with a good menu system(Which we're getting), serves little purpose in an individual game.

In a similar vein, I wish we could get more than a 6-item set for that. That way Wards, Potions and other go-to items can be put into it manually for the appropriate champions.

[Temotei]

Well, since spammable hard CC would be absolutely lethal, Olaf's ability to not be CC'd makes him pretty invaluable. Does Kayle invulnerability negate CC? Or just damage? Also, Olaf can push and has a powerful, uncounterable manaless nuke, which makes him rather scary. With max ranks in Vicious Strikes, his Reckless Swing doesn't even have a health cost, even healing him for 1%.

Spell vamp doesn't proc on true damage.

[Eldariel]

I like the new format quite a bit, although I'm a tiny bit disappointed that it still doesn't allow us to customize our own recommended item sets. That saddens me.

I'm pretty sure there's already support for this. In fact, I'm positive. You have to do it manually but somebody wrote a program for it. You can try to google for it. It was on the official League forums at some point and apparently there were two files, one for SR/TT and one for Dom (probably 3 now that TT has separate items).

[Godskook]

Spell vamp doesn't proc on true damage.

You're wrong. Not sure exactly on Olaf, but I know for a fact that it does, since I spellvamp on Smite all the time when I Lee Sin.

Looking up.....and nope, Olaf proc's Spell Vamp on his true damage too, at least according to the wiki.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

Wasn't this stuff that landed you the job at Riot? I'd wondered a few times if we'd ever see the shop improvements you'd suggested. Looks awesome!

[dgnslyr]

Spell vamp doesn't proc on true damage.

I'm pretty certain it does; spell vamp procs on all ability damage, including physical and true damage. Even Smite procs spell vamp, if you happen to have any, which is why it's helpful to have Olaf's or Lee Sin's W active when you smite. Even the wiki (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Olaf/Ability_Details)seems to confirm this, for Olaf at least. Hitting W before E helps reduce the health cost, which helps him sustain even harder.

Shen'd pretty hard.

[Temotei]

You're wrong. Not sure exactly on Olaf, but I know for a fact that it does, since I spellvamp on Smite all the time when I Lee Sin.

Looking up.....and nope, Olaf proc's Spell Vamp on his true damage too, at least according to the wiki.


I'm pretty certain it does; spell vamp procs on all ability damage, including physical and true damage. Even Smite procs spell vamp, if you happen to have any, which is why it's helpful to have Olaf's or Lee Sin's W active when you smite. Even the wiki (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Olaf/Ability_Details)seems to confirm this, for Olaf at least. Hitting W before E helps reduce the health cost, which helps him sustain even harder.

Shen'd pretty hard.

Derp. I meant to say "his" true damage. I was pretty sure it didn't. Cool beans.

[Reinboom]

Wasn't this stuff that landed you the job at Riot? I'd wondered a few times if we'd ever see the shop improvements you'd suggested. Looks awesome!

Yes, yes it is.

[Eldariel]

Derp. I meant to say "his" true damage. I was pretty sure it didn't. Cool beans.

I thought the same 'til I checked. It's hard to notice since you need ~40% Spellvamp to break even on max rank Reckless Swing (the health cost is brutal), let alone gain health. Then again, with W already granting you 21% a simple WoTA is enough.

Now add Van Damm's Pillager and Spellvamp Runes and Masteries to that and you're actually gaining substantial health when you axe/smack somebody (of course, without WoTA you're still just breaking even after all that). I do prefer Move Speed Quints on him tho so meh.

[Silverraptor]

I thought the same 'til I checked. It's hard to notice since you need ~40% Spellvamp to break even on max rank Reckless Swing (the health cost is brutal), let alone gain health. Then again, with W already granting you 21% a simple WoTA is enough.

Now add Van Damm's Pillager and Spellvamp Runes and Masteries to that and you're actually gaining substantial health when you axe/smack somebody (of course, without WoTA you're still just breaking even after all that). I do prefer Move Speed Quints on him tho so meh.

Interesting. I didn't realize this either. I was thinking the extra spell vamp gain was for his axe. And as for the Wota, you don't need to get it, just have the ap carry get it, and then you're set. Interesting...:smallamused:

[Mephit]

Way to leak the DFG changes, SweetRein. :smalltongue:

[Reinboom]

Way to leak the DFG changes, SweetRein. :smalltongue:

Allll my leaks here are intentional. :smallwink:
(Unlike my accidental leak of Rengar's item a couple months back... oops)

[Eldariel]

Interesting. I didn't realize this either. I was thinking the extra spell vamp gain was for his axe. And as for the Wota, you don't need to get it, just have the ap carry get it, and then you're set. Interesting...:smallamused:

Well, duh, that's why I mentioned WoTA instead of Gunblade, Revolver or whatever; 'cause it's an aura some mages want anyways. Olaf goes more than perfectly into those Super Sustain Karma comps on TT (other good champs include: Lee Sin, Shen, Urgot, Riven, Udyr - basically, tanky people with extremely strong sustain, optimally able to shield others too).

We actually ran one with Adumb and Darwin some time ago and the result was this (funny thing is, enemy had probably the biggest counter to something like this in the game; Vayne):
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7234/datteamcomp.png

We ended the game with a ~5 minute lasting straight push where we killed them ~3 times under their various towers without losing significant amount of HP.

[NineThePuma]

I wish Rengar's item wasn't super worthless.

[Silverraptor]

Allll my leaks here are intentional. :smallwink:
(Unlike my accidental leak of Rengar's item a couple months back... oops)

When did that happen?

[NineThePuma]

How does Panth vs Jax go?

[Reinboom]

When did that happen?

About 3 days before Rengar was announced.

I control the systems that automatically update the items, champions, and runes section of the website (and yes, I know it's borked in parts. It's a steady fix of a project) and, although I correctly hit the blacklist for Rengar, I didn't hit the blacklist for an item that was attached. Hence, bonetooth snuck out on to the website for an hour or so.

[Dire Ferret]

I'm pretty sure there's already support for this. In fact, I'm positive. You have to do it manually but somebody wrote a program for it. You can try to google for it. It was on the official League forums at some point and apparently there were two files, one for SR/TT and one for Dom (probably 3 now that TT has separate items).

For anyone interested, Enigma's Item Changer (http://enigmablade.net/lol-item-changer/index.html) is an easy to use program for changing recommended items.

[ex cathedra]

I can finally talk about one of the major projects I've been working on.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801752

'kay, I'll bite.

I love itemization. Items are the best. It's seriously my favorite of the genre's core gameplay tenets. So it should go without saying that the shop interface is pretty important to me.


Who else worked on this project? You recently mentioned a collaboration with Xypherous, was that during this development or that of another project?
Totally expected the DFG rework, so I'm pretty pleased. I'll do my very best to resist the urge to re-up that image and spread it for sweet, sweet reddit link karma. nvm ;-; (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/139cm6/new_dfg_change_leaked_season_3/)
How extensive is the search system? Does it work in the same way as the (currently broken, but that's another issuenvm, fixed last patch) custom game search function in that you can search strings and it'll show all relevant items that contain that string in their names/descriptions? Does it have a tag system? Can I search "slow" or "CC" and find Phage and Rylai's?

edit:
tch. should probably have checked the 38 redposts before asking those, but w/e. maybe this is an excuse for you to go more in-depth.

[NineThePuma]

Any way some other stuff could sneak out? :D

[9mm]

wut. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtltD2jNpRQ&feature=youtu.be)

YouTube can be so weird.

[Forrestfire]

wut. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtltD2jNpRQ&feature=youtu.be)

YouTube can be so weird.

That was awesome. :smallbiggrin::smallamused:

Draven needs a helicopter /joke now.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Yes, yes it is.

Just call me Slowpoke :smallredface:

[NineThePuma]

So... since it appears to have been missed.

Jax vs Panth. Who will win?

[Math_Mage]

So... since it appears to have been missed.

Jax vs Panth. Who will win?

It's a pretty rare matchup, hard to comment without experience. Certainly seems like Panth would have poke advantage early and mid-game mobility, while Jax scales hard into late and will certainly shut down Panth 1v1 with some items.

[Reinboom]

'kay, I'll bite.

I love itemization. Items are the best. It's seriously my favorite of the genre's core gameplay tenets. So it should go without saying that the shop interface is pretty important to me.


Who else worked on this project? You recently mentioned a collaboration with Xypherous, was that during this development or that of another project?
Totally expected the DFG rework, so I'm pretty pleased. I'll do my very best to resist the urge to re-up that image and spread it for sweet, sweet reddit link karma. nvm ;-; (http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/139cm6/new_dfg_change_leaked_season_3/)
How extensive is the search system? Does it work in the same way as the (currently broken, but that's another issuenvm, fixed last patch) custom game search function in that you can search strings and it'll show all relevant items that contain that string in their names/descriptions? Does it have a tag system? Can I search "slow" or "CC" and find Phage and Rylai's?

edit:
tch. should probably have checked the 38 redposts before asking those, but w/e. maybe this is an excuse for you to go more in-depth.

Xypherous, FeralPony, Boourns, LowPolyCount, Ponts, bigbadabruin, Brackhar, Samamayhem (I think that's hit red name...), Fruitstrike, and ... I don't know the red name of the other person.

Xypherous and FeralPony being items themselves, the rest being Team Game UI.

Team Game UI is split mostly from there further. For the itemshop itself it was about ~90 me on dev, ~9 on LowPolyCount for dev (he was mostly focused on the new HUD and doing other small features / being a features shield), and ~1 boourns on dev.
Design is pretty openly split. Riot encourages tons of feedback and everyone has a voice, so it's difficult to really give a originator of ideas.

Edit:
And Joy2TheWorld for graphics.

[NineThePuma]

Who is usually picked to shut down Jax? =V

[Math_Mage]

Who is usually picked to shut down Jax? =V

Without extensive experience in top lane, I'd hazard that Jayce, Malphite, and Yorick can poke him down and mitigate his combos.

[Eldariel]

Who is usually picked to shut down Jax? =V

Jayce is a straight-up counter. Malphite is pretty strong vs. him (though Wickd beats Malphite with Jax; but he also beats Jax with Malphite so meh). Irelia is fairly good vs. Jax. Shen does okay. Rumble is pretty good. Yorick too. Jax is pretty hard to shut down (outside lane swaps which he can't deal with at all) but plenty of laners do fine vs. him.

[dgnslyr]

What about Bruce Lee Sin? He's got his super-sustain with W and an attack speed slow with E, both of which are bad news for Jax. Why exactly isn't Lee Sin played top more often, besides the opportunity cost of not having him in the jungle? Is it because he doesn't scale as hard as Jax, Irelia, and Shen into lategame?

[Eldariel]

What about Bruce Lee Sin? He's got his super-sustain with W and an attack speed slow with E, both of which are bad news for Jax. Why exactly isn't Lee Sin played top more often, besides the opportunity cost of not having him in the jungle? Is it because he doesn't scale as hard as Jax, Irelia, and Shen into lategame?

Scaling and he's just kinda hard to play (you can't afford to miss too many Qs in trades and you have to use your mobility to its fullest). Lee's fine vs. Jax of course as is Nidalee. Oh, and Darius is fine vs. him.

I'm pretty sure Akali does well too tho I haven't tested the match-up; her innate sustain and burst seems like quite a good match for Jax now that QE procs Q thus negating any dodge silliness.

[Cogwheel]

wut. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtltD2jNpRQ&feature=youtu.be)

YouTube can be so weird.

This is the best possible video.

[Forrestfire]

Isn't Jax one of the supposed "counters" to Yorick though? I know that I dread facing him when I play yorick.

That may be because I'm bad, though.

[Eldariel]

Isn't Jax one of the supposed "counters" to Yorick though? I know that I dread facing him when I play yorick.

That may be because I'm bad, though.

I dunno. You prolly want a laneswap if possible at that point anyways tho 'cause Yorick is a great 1v2 while Jax is a horrible 1v2.

[Chess435]

Does that turret have an item? (http://i.imgur.com/MtcsG.jpg) :smallconfused::smalleek:

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Does that turret have an item? (http://i.imgur.com/MtcsG.jpg) :smallconfused::smalleek:

Turrets need their spellshield, man. :smalltongue:

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Turrets need their spellshield, man. :smalltongue:

I wouldn't hate the idea of upgrading your turrets. Money lost when they get roasted, maybe, but still pretty neat.

[Forrestfire]

Turret loadout: Tiamat, Tiamat, the new Hurricane item, Guardian Angel, Bloodthirster, Bloodthirster. :smallamused:

[Qwertystop]

Yeah, but then you get a GA and an FH.


Turret loadout: Tiamat, Tiamat, the new Hurricane item, Guardian Angel, Bloodthirster, Bloodthirster. :smallamused:
Tiamats are now melee-only and don't stack anyway. I say debuff-auras. And a Sunfire to kill the melee minons even when they're not the target.

[Forrestfire]

Yeah, but then you get a GA and an FH.


Tiamats are now melee-only and don't stack anyway. I say debuff-auras. And a Sunfire to kill the melee minons even when they're not the target.

Bloodthirster, Hurricane, Phantom Dancer x2, Infinity, GA.

Works for me XD

[Qwertystop]

Turret loadout: Tiamat, Tiamat, the new Hurricane item, Guardian Angel, Bloodthirster, Bloodthirster. :smallamused:

Wait wait wait...

Get a FoN. Or whatever gets its percentage-health-regen if they remove it and redistribute its abilities like they said they might.

[Nadevoc]

Turret loadout: Tiamat, Tiamat, the new Hurricane item, Guardian Angel, Bloodthirster, Bloodthirster. :smallamused:

Turrets are ranged and thus cannot purchase Tiamat. Your entire build falls apart. :-(

[Forrestfire]

Set up one nexus turret the way I mentioned, and the other with Sunfire, Frozen Heart, a %health regen item, Zeke's Herald, Hurricane, and Bloodthirster. :smallamused:

And stick a heimerdinger there too.

EDIT: Taunts OP, too. Rammus becomes the new flavor of the month because he can melt towers with his ult. AD carries fall out of favor in exchange for Taunt Comps with heavy split push power.

Do it, Riot! :smallwink::smalltongue:

[Qwertystop]

Is the server down for anybody else? I mean, when I open up the patcher-loader-thingy, it says it's online, but then I try to log in and it either says the server's "busy" or gives an unspecified error with a link to support.leagueoflegends.com.

[Nadevoc]

Is the server down for anybody else? I mean, when I open up the patcher-loader-thingy, it says it's online, but then I try to log in and it either says the server's "busy" or gives an unspecified error with a link to support.leagueoflegends.com.

Both the PVP.net and website servers blew up temporarily, but appear to be up again

[MCerberus]

BRB. Buying Malady, Frozen Mallet, Hurricane, PD, IE, Bloodthirster for my turret.

[NineThePuma]

Reina, are we likely to see the new UI in this PBE patch?

[ex cathedra]

holy
****ing
****


Boots give 25 less movement speed across the board.
All champions have had their base movement speed increased by 25.

[Nadevoc]

holy
****ing
****

Interesting. Where'd you see this?

It's one of the better suggestions I've seen for trying to vary starting items, though the numbers I remember were more like 10-15. We'll see whether this makes people buy different items or everyone settles into the same start again.

It's good for supports, though. Not being able to start with boots could be a real pain sometimes.

EDIT: Found it. Feel kinda dim for not finding it earlier.

EDIT EDIT:
To make it easier for others to find: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2801597

I like the ward items and am really excited to see what they do for supports. I'm wondering if the Banner of Command (Promote item) will also become a support item; I might try to pick it up on some supports. I also note that Kage's now builds into some items that should work well for supports...

[Forrestfire]

While I am depressed that Zeke's herald got less useful... again...

The movespeed buff is great, the new support items are awesome...

My favorites are the one that makes a super minion, the one that QSSes an ally, and the ward item.

[toasty]

While I am depressed that Zeke's herald got less useful... again...

The movespeed buff is great, the new support items are awesome...

My favorites are the one that makes a super minion, the one that QSSes an ally, and the ward item.

It got more useful. Supports don't buy another wasted stat. As it is, Zekes is 100% ideal on... Nocturne... maybe Shvyana. Now its useful on every support.

[Forrestfire]

I generally bought it to make a carry carry harder. If I want CDR and health as a support, I'll get Shurelia's, since lifesteal is a wasted stat here.

In any case, someone purporting to have Nami's loadout has posted: (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2804787)


Note these are subject to change :

Passive : When Nami's spells hit allied champions they get increased movement speed for a short duration.

"Hydro Blast" Q : Nami launches a giant bubble into the air, when it lands it encases all targets hit into bubles for a short duration.

"Surging Tides" W : Unleashes a tide of water that surges between allied and enemy champions, healing allies and damaging enemies.

"Aqueous Empowerment" E : Empowers a champion for a short duration, causing them to deal increased damage and slow their target.

"Tidal Wave" R : Summons a massive tidal wave that moves across an area and knocking up targets briefly and massively slowing them


All deal damage. W bounces up to 3 times, always alternating between ally and enemy champion.

Q does 75 to 295 + 75% AP on a 16 - 10 sec CD
W does 50 to 210 + 50% AP on enemies (50 to 170 + 30% for heal on allies) on a 9 sec CD
E can make your next 3 attacks do 25 to 85 + 20% AP each (assuming it can be cast on self, 5 second window to use them) on a 11 sec CD
R does 150 to 350 + 80% AP on a 150 - 110 sec CD.

[Silverraptor]

holy
****ing
****

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/008/491/dafuq.jpg

[Todasmile]

Well, freaking epic items and S3 changes aside (Incidentally, what do they mean by the Summoner's Rift map edit? That little ledge on the path from Blue to Baron/Dragon?)

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3679/woooooooow.png

I think I'm starting to get the hang of Hecarim.

[Eldariel]

Welp. Time to relearn the game on Season 3. Most of the items look pretty solid depending on values. Deathfire Grasp is quite worrisome in efficiency; 20% damage dealt can often be more than the old passive. I'm not sure Statikk Shiv is going to be much better than Ionic Spark.

A lot more kill/assist related effects, interesting. They won't be competitively that strong though unless pushed. I like the increase in ally-affecting things tho. Also slows; now I no longer have to build Randuin + Phage on every non-Rylai melee champ without a built-in slow.


That'll be a lot to stomach. Suffice to say, the game as we know it will be changing radically. I wouldn't be surprised if this changed champion and even team composition level considerations significantly; e.g. the new Sword of the Divine creates a much cheaper (gold-wise) sort of a "burst AD"-role that didn't really exist previously.

[ChaosOS]

It's pretty much a massive ton of changes incoming in the next patch. You think TerrorQ is bad now? Think about post-patch. Also, time to start doing math once I grab all the new item stats off of the PBE.

[McDouggal]

Anyone else having a problem where they can't reconnect to a game?

I decided to practice jungle Amumu in beginner bots, fix my path. At 1:20, the game stops and it gives me attempting to reconnect. After 2 minutes of waiting fruitlessly for that, I went and reset my router (yes, I am on hardline). It's (probably) not a bad connection after I did the router reset.

I went to log back in, and the game is giving me the dreaded "Connection Error: cannot connect to PvP.net servers" message. Multiple times. With latest Windows updates installed, and a few restarts.

Basically, anyone else having the same problem? And thank god it wasn't a Normal, it was just bots. My unintentional leave didn't ruin a victory (I hope :smalleek:)

The official League Wobsite appears to be down as well.