2015 state of LoL

Hello all my mmorpg readers and welcome to my first post of 2015 ! If you have been following me, you will have noticed I have been playing a MOBA this new year…Specifically RIOT’s League of Legends. It is my first MOBA, and one of my favorites. The game has changed over the years, so here is my review of the 2015 version of League of Legends!

Introduction :

I play on the EU West server. I do have an account in USA. But I only use it when it is down time in EU or low population, or want a taste of different style game play. I have a level 22 account with over 100 victories. My rune page is nearly complete, my skills all fleshed out. I have purchased with FREE in game coin, 5 champions: Amumu, Yorik, Tristina, Janna and Akali. I principally use Amumu and am best with him (and have most runes and skills built around him). In order of most kills and best skill use : Amumu, Janna (I rock with her. Support my team like crazy, and can rake up high kills! She has amazing offensive spell and retreats fast!), Yorik, Tristina, Akali (I am horrible with assassins and mages…mostly because I rarely play them).

Last I played this game, the last updates annoyed me. The auto ban system was too harsh and “broke” and banned me when abusers abused it. They nerfed it (or turned it off. I swear the new ban system is just cosmetic to let ragers let off steam gicing them the illusion they are reporting), and people ban and nothing really happens any more. One of the biggest reasons I left was due to a few class imbalances, burn out of same map game play, mostly unskilled bad pick up games, and some noticible exploits (including an assassin who chopped down en entire lane of towers at level 5 and 1 shot our base (hacked server. Very odd)). That was the last straw, I took a long break.

Recently, they updated the game so I thought I would get back in! Here is the result:

The Good:

Right off the bat, I am having fun. The class balances and general game play has taken a little better turn!

The New Map: They have given the game a new coat of paint. The graphics now have that less “PS2” colorful video game look and have a more “water color” PC background video game look. It is a nice change and they have given a ton more skins to the characters. I even got a free skin for Tristina for accomplishing some goal in game!
They modified the forest er…jungle (it is really forest…not sure why people got off into calling it jungle). That is, for you MOBA newbs, the area between the three major lanes of conflict. They made the jungle areas more pocketed, wider, more twists and turns and some dead ends. A few more monsters now roam the jungle for power ups. There is on strategic thing the new jungle does though : KEEPS PEOPLE OUT OF THE JUNGLE. Yeah, the jungle takes x2 the time to travel middle to side, and X4 from far top to far bottom. UNLESS you happen to be in the middle of the map (usually mid to end game), then you can cut across right away. PERSONALLY; I LOVE IT! It means the players have been very lane minded lately. 2 bot, 2 top, 1 mid, and game on! No more “oh, my attention span has wandered from killing minions, think I will jungle to mid.” Also, when we see some one fighting for a while in another lane, we know the enemy is probably low on HP, so we cut across the jungle to get in that kill steal…making our team mates rage…that is now a bit over, and the A LOT of players are taking the battle where it should be.
THAT DOES NOT MEAN the jungle is useless. It is still a tactical advantage to the game, and it just means if you enter the jungle…it is not to sit around, or wander aimlessly like before, ust waiting to hop into a lane to surprise some one. It means you took your time to calculate a strategic move. It also means if the enemy brings the battle to the forest, it is a heated “oh god, where is he!? And is back up coming behind that rock?” move. It is more intense, and again, it really puts the emphasis on mid to late game jungeling more as well. Some people get it. Others still do not get it, and they try to camp in the jungle at level 1, and it just takes them longer now to level up that jungeler early game. All and all, I like the change.

Balance and New Champions: With age and seasons, comes changes and tweaks. A reason I left the game before was I nick named it: “Leage of Assassins (and Teemp)”. No one played anything but assassins. It was frustrating trying to put a good team together when no one wanted shooters or mages. Just “Master Yi”, “Teemo”, etc…5 players in assassin mode was annoying. And it usually meant a loss to other teams that got it right. This all assassin mentality was geared for “I just want to get high kill ratio”…which is silly since the game tracks your victories as priority…Recent tweaks along with more champions over the years (with new map design) has lead to A LOT of better balanced games! Since I have been playing in 2015, I have yet to join a unbalanced or “unfair” match. If we lost, we usually fought darn hard or had a reason for loosing. Not like before where you got face rolled and the obvious reason for losing was, the other side had an OP Master YI.

New Group Finder and Modes: Not really new as of 2015, but very polished now in 2015 is the group creator and ARMA mode. Before we start, I usually only play 5vs5, so ARMA and 3v3 and Domination modes I rarely touch and as of 2015 I have not played at all. That said, the new group finder for 5v5 is nice! It allows you to select your role first with Champion selection, then you pick what lane you want, and then skills. I started off the 2015 testing this out and got into games instantly! They are fun, well balanced, and no one fights for lanes. That said, there are exceptions, where one game, the leader of the server who started the group finder, claimed he wanted TOP, but would not get out of the bottom once the game started…so there are DERP group set ups, but a lot more rare.
I think the best thing to take from this, is that it made people AWARE of how to set up groups. Almost everyone has tested this feature out. The feature tells you “Your X champion, so your best role is X and in X lane”. Thank you RIOT! Thank you for telling it how it is. I was so sick and tired of noobs saying how their champion was better for a lane they obvious were not made for (like mele in a mid lane, the mid lane is best for ranged and mages since it “stretches” longer and requires long shots early game.)
What that did, is now, in BLIND mode or “Classic” group finder; where you just group up with 5 others and everyone free to pick whatever and discuss in pre game chat “Bot”! or “Top”! “NO ME TOP”! “Called it first”…(as deep as this chat goes), has now rendered the population a little more educated. So when we pick champions in blind mode, the players pick a good mix, and in game, we are in the right lanes. A huge improvement since I last player! And all thanks to referencing RIOTS suggested role for your champion in the Group finder.

The Not So Bad:

Here are the things people cry about, that are really not that bad in this game:

The Chat Trolls (or toxic community): This is a MOBA. This is not a MMORPG. The chat in MMORPGS are a huge social part of the game where lots of information, sharing, and commerce happen. I understand in MMORPG, the eye is programmed to scan the chat ever so often. STOP THAT IN MOBA. Just stop. MOBA lobbies have a sort of chat system, but in LoL, it is always plugged up that no one uses it, and I even forget there is a chat lobby. And there is nothing to chat about, it usually is just recruiting. We usually hop right into game or do shopping at lobby screen.
IN GAME, as soon as you start, your fingers should be on QWERTY and ready to hit D and F, and KEEP THAT MOUSE CLICKING. The moment you lift up your hand to type ENTER and then create full sentences….you are either failing as a team member as you AFK idle your character, or you are dead and have time to hit ENTER (you should be using dead down time looking at the map to see what the enemy is doing). So if there is chat, it is from a failure or some one raging beause sitting there dead waiting for respawn. That said. IGNORE THE CHAT. TURN IT OFF! Don’t let your eyes go to it. NOTHING in the chat box is worth your time.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS in MOBA’s. You can literally communicate with movement. If you walk south…bottom…you show your team that you have decided to go south, if they do not want you there, they can ping the map where they need players. Arguing over lanes in game is not chat related, but player experience related. And no chat can fix that.
Don’t let it get to you. Easy to ignore. And lately. NO ONE HAS BEEN USNIG CHAT TO TROLL! (at least on EU WEST). Since late 2014 and now in 2015 very game I have played, TOTAL SILENCE (except end game, when the base explodes and people say “GG”). Occasionally you get a “Report X player please. They are AFK”. Real organization in this game comes from when you join a guild, and use head sets to communicate, but at this level of human contact, you are more mature. People do not scream in the headset with their close 5 friends to troll them. So “toxic community” because of chat. Is a lie and only your fault for using chat.

Loot Set : There is a new loot set option in the lobby under player profile. It helps you set up your loot list for early to end game. And this list actually transfers to your in game match, so when you open the shop keeper, you have your list to build off of in addition to the regular list of items. This helps you plan ahead. You can save this list. It is a good idea, and it worked for me for one match after I saved my list…but when I played a second match it disappeared. I went back to the profile after the match, and poof! It was nowhere to be seen despite the fact I saved it! So, good idea, but not working now I guess?

Speaking of things not working…There are things that plague this title well into 2015. It is time to look at the not so good of this game:

The Bad (nearly if not total game breaking):

The Ping Trolls: Remember how I said above that the chat is easy to ignore and therefore no toxic community. I also said action speak louder than words. LoL is plagued with pinger trolls. These guys get mad, and they know chatting people ignore now, so they constantly ping the map. The pings shut down if pinged too much, but when one troll starts, it excites another, and they take turn between cool downs pinging the map. An easy solution is to turn sound down, but if you like the combat sounds you will be disappointed. This is not as game breaking, and you can learn to ignore it. It also happens less frequently on my server. So it is what it is.

The AFK and Quitters: This is a subject that has shared responsibility. Both RIOT and THE PLAYERS are to blame for this. Let’s start with the difference. AFKers are people that suddenly just stop moving. Then come back “Oh hey back”. Or they have bad internet connections and pop in and out. This is not as bad as leaving as they have a chance to catch up. But certain matches can be lost if they do this at key times. Some AFKers turn into total log outs or Quitters:
Quitters, basically a form of rage. They die once, get mad, log out. They die later on or see the game is not going in their favor, and log out. Many reasons to rage and log out. Or, simply, they have bad internet and decide “well, can’t play in this match, PC logged me out”….
Those that quit can be contagious, and others quit thinking the game is over. In fact, yesterday, mid game, I had a guy rage because he died twice. Quit. This lead to another guy thinking we would lose the match, so he declares we are noobs and quits. Guess what happened. We won the game with only 3 players… So their rage was unfounded. Had they not rage quit, they could have stuck around for a victory.
Sometimes quitting does jeapordize your team and it is an easy loss. Either way. The player needs to be responsible, learn that if they cannot handle a loss, logging out solves nothing (and maybe MOBA is not for you).
RIOTS RESPONSIBILITY is that they know darn well this is a lobby based game that caters internationally. The low system requirements means everyone in all these different countries with no IP restrictions can enter your match. They have set up no lobby “PING” requirements by hosts. This is an easy installation and used in several lobby based FPS games already. You can host your match with open ping requirements or keep it so low ping players get booted. WHY THEY WILL NOT DO THIS, to me is because if they block these other players using a potato gaming machine on dial up, means they lose people logging in. They prefer a bugged game that creates ragers and quitters over quality control options. Kind of sad, but it is something they have done in the past.
Proof, one day, on early LoL launch, I complained of certain bugs and abuse features in the game. The GM shut my thread down, and I did not understand why, the next day they had a T-shirt sale to try and promote this game. After the sale, I did the same post and it was not removed. It is all about image control and getting as many suckers signed in and logged in (how they generate revenue, like websites get hits). Same mentality today. Won’t fix what is broke.

Low Population Waits: This is shocking to me, but it is a reality: This game does not have a lot of players. Twitch boats thousands of viewers. Forum posts on mmorpg sites have tons of people discussing this game. But no matter what time of day, or whether I am in US or EU…It can take up to 10 min for a match and in the new group finder…up to 30min to 1 HOUR WAIT! “But that is the time of a match to be finished”. No. With the THOUSANDS that are claimed to be playing, the various matches that start and stop should be CONSTANT, meaning wait times should be lowered. Yesterday, morning till night, I only was able to play 4 matches. The rest of the day the group finder said: “Long wait” filtering the different roles that “people were looking for”. The blind group finder took me 10 to 20 min average to get a game. 4 matches, that is about 30 min per round x 4 = 2 hours of game play, and the rest waiting or hopping regions. I have a feeling most players are in the lobby search and get into their team structured private games and well….China. Want to boast “we have thousands online?” move your game to China (how WoW is staying alive). I don’t know, I am also limited on this info since I do not run the company. But if you go to the lobby, there are hundreds of people online, but in 0/10 lobby rooms. Later down the list you get the actual playing lobbies of 10 maybe? The rest 1/10 to 8/10 people playing (and this is 5v5 the most popular mode. The other modes wont even load for me since no one is playing them.). I think RIOT is hiding a lot of info concerning this.

But none of this is as important as this game breaker:

BOTS!

I never thought I would see the day players got so low, they would create bots in a MOBA. I under stand bot farming in MMORPG to a degree. But MOBA…Seriously…
In 2015, 1/5 matches is a bot match. Players are trying to get rich and pass time by having the PC use a bot program to run their accounts in matches. How to spot a bot: Name: hfgdjsjhfj
Fighting style: Stays in one lane, does the same 2 attacks over and over, runs back to base when HP lowered to 20%ish.

At first I thought it was a noob. But I noticed the top 2 champs were all doing the same thing in odd behavior. Some one on my team then says: “Another bot match…I got 2 bots down here”. So 2 bots top, 2 bots bottom, and the mid is a real player…That means he is the host of this match and logged his bot army in looking for a 5 person real team to quickly end so he can farm….
This leads to FAST win (by the non bot team), but it feels cheap ad boring. As soon as we found out they were bots at early game around level 2…I was bored. All we did was continue to farm the kills to power level to 10, then just zerged one lage (since the bots could not level up it was easy) and the match was over in under 20 min. but still, you can’t help but feel upset that LoL has turned into a “You are either with trolls, AFKers, Quitters, low population, and now if you land a match, it is a chance it is al bots

I find it odd League of Legends has not spoken about a way to fight this. I do not think they can. They won’t address it and of course they will count these bots amongst their “Millions of players online”.

After that, I already started looking for other game to play. But taking into account that this happened 1out of about every 5 games…and it gives me an instant victory…I can’t complain too much…just disappointed. Makes me want to test out this DOTA 2 people keep talking about…

(Me and friend vs. bot in match)

Conclusion:

RIOT has evolved their game taking it into good directions with balances, upgrades, and good old moba fun!
However, they run a shady ship! They like to say they ban certain Pro players for “toxic behavior” and like to put on the illusion they are actively patrolling the game. The reality is, they chose certain people to use as examples, and it is an IMPOSSIBLE task to monitor every match, every player, every complaint in over 10 different languages the game has to offer. And it is not a reality. Just a “we are actively in our game” marketing strategy.
That said, the “toxic” community is not the chat. It is the Pinging of the map (Riot just has to add “Turn ping on or off” button for each player. The AFK and Quitting toxic players can be controlled by setting up ping filters in the lobby and match creation. Again, something RIOT will not due, and I imagine because they are afraid it will scare off the potato PC on dial up regions of the world…But if they do it, they can also unite the potatos into potato filled server, letting potato battles rage on! (they would need to rehaul the UI in the lobby to show the lobby room. Currently you have to go to Match – PvP – make match to access it. That of course, would meant hey have to work…and they prefer to put on world champ leagues instead of fix the toxic servers).
For as many of the things they fixed that got me back in, they created as many things to keep me out…but it is not “created” as much as “just is”. Nature of the beast I guess. Longer waits. Two world regions with same wait time = this population is not as high as it once was. Last but not least, the bots have made me very depressed. Makes you wonder if bottable, what hacks are floating around now as well.

Score: 2/5

Two points for effort into 2015, if they can maybe take time out marketing these “international championship” events, and invest in a better game. That would be epic. I still have the game installed and plan to play casually here and there…since that is what I literally am forced to play.

**Update. The global chat has been turned off since 2014, so my topic about "general chat plugged" is nul. There is not general chat. That further supports the "there is no toxic chat community" as well.*