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League of Legends |OT12| No more Lyte, just darkness.

C

Calvero

Banned
iModem said:
Don't care what the teams are, but wtf Saturday is new years eve. I can only do Sunday you goons.
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It's on Sunday don't worry. We'll win. Someone should make a league thread on gaming side on Saturday night to advertise the event, give the back story and everything :^)
 
B

Black-Wind

Member
I think I just had one of the most civil games of LOL I'v had in a looong time.

No one said shit. No salt in the chat, no BM, no "ggez" bs ... nope, just a solid ass pounding win.

I feel like maybe all the talking was over vc maybe ... seemed like at least 3 of my team mates were living together given their problems connecting.

Anyway I feel like I have to force myself from playing Illaoi for a bit. Want to get into mobile slippery champs and until people stop banning Cammy and Kat I might as well pick up someone like Ekko seeing as I never see him banned.

AP Ekko still good?
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
2be88465478b4c2bdff6d5f08074b580-da3a503.jpg


been thinking back to 2016 like i do every year for everything and it was a pretty interesting year for league

i like putting my thoughts to paper like this and i find it interesting to think how fucking eventful this year was

(this only covers season 6 stuff, so camille, the assassin reworks, replays and new solo q are not included)

THE GAME
the good
  • elemental dragons: i found them to be a super elegant solution to the ever lasting problem of how to make dragons meaningful and also a great way to introduce more gameplay in a subtle yet noticeable way. the dragons were also one thing that was introduced that wasn't like completely meta warping from the get go and that's like, very rare in league.
  • individual reworks: reworks continue to be really high quality and rito finally made me buy ryze. he's still totally busted but finally he's fun. yorick and taric are also really high quality and somehow didn't break the game
  • new champions: new champions were for the most part interesting and original. while champions like jhin and aurelion sol can be very problematic, i still like their concepts (even tho ahol is ugly and dumb looking) and what they uniquely add to the game.
  • taliyah: taliyah in particular was the first champion since lissandra that i found personally compelling in design, story and gameplay. they were super hasty with her buffs and her nerfs (holy shit riot is stupid sometimes) but they'll eventually get her in the right spot and i just love her focus on moving around the map and speed and kiting and how her ult has so many interesting situational uses.
  • killing laneswaps: laneswaps were an interesting part of pro play for a while, and then they weren't. by the time riot removed them from the game, most pro matches were decided by boring, uninteractive gameplay that wasn't even strategic, the team that won the game was the one going through the motions the smoothest. they fixed that with fairly low regular play cost and gave us really fun and exciting games ever since. it's probably the best competitive change riot has made, and first brick is also a fun mechanic that you can actually interact with in regular play.

the bad
  • keystones: keystones warped the meta for months on months (they still do!) while contributing with nothing of value to the game compared to previous masteries. it was a total nightmare for the bigger part of the season and there's nothing to show for it.
  • the mage reworks: pretty much all the mage reworks were a flop. swain, malzahar and vladimir somehow became even less fun to play against, while reworks like syndra, anivia or annie's fixed nothing and were uninspired at best.
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OUTSIDE THE GAME
the good
  • general communication: outside of the ranked stuff, rito continued to improve their already great communication with even more dev blogs, podcasts, q&as and other videos. i'll always complain about not enough transparency because they really fuck shit up sometimes, but the steady improvement is noticeable.
  • new champ select: being able to choose your position is the best, and later in the year when they made it reliably work it was just bliss to play ranked and not having to worry about champ select bullshit. distributing the bans was also really good, even tho it should be the first three picks that do the banning. i played more ranked this season than any other and it was mostly thanks to just being able to fucking play mid by doing that opposite picks thing on a 3 man premade. i miss that...
  • /remake: great addition to the game, fucking finally.
  • easier new player experience: tier 2 runes for 1 ip and reducing exp needed to level up in half are good, hacky measures going forward, as both systems are outdated garbage.
  • the new client alpha: i really enjoyed taking part of the client alpha and seeing them actively react to feedback and build that thing. it's still clunky as all shit but give it time and it'll be glorious.
  • the awesome artbook: the artbook was great and free. i want volume 2 already and i want it to be BIGGER.

the bad
  • solo q, dynamic q, all that bullshit: while new champ select was a great idea, you can't really talk about season 6 without talking about what a mess dynamic queue was. spotty matchmaking, bizarre queue times, not getting your role for half a season, the removal of ranked 5s, the boosted animal badges, all the months of radio silence and promises of solo q, it was really, really bad. and i love playing ranked with a group of 3 or 4 friends, but it took so long to get there and riot looked like they didn't know what they were doing and the fact that they actually ended up splitting ranked for s7 doesn't fill me with confidence that they actually do.
  • blind boxes: easily my biggest disappointment with league in 2016, rito finally caved in and added full fledged gambling to league. i dislike these predatory systems on principle and it's a pity i can no longer be proud of league for not being part of that shit like i used to. i hate its obtuseness and lack of elegance and i hate how deviously it's designed to create a false need of keys in people. riot can't say with a straight face it cares about its players and then implement manipulative systems like these that prey on them. the fact that they try and pretend this is beneficial to players (fyi your chances of you getting that sweet skin you're hoping for are about 0.001%) is even more insulting.
  • yet another year with no cg video: been two years since a new dawn, meanwhile at blizzard...
  • no more awesome bilgewater esque events: i understand their reasons, but i'm still disappointed. the bilgewater event was the greatest shit ever and all the cold codex entries in the world won't make up for losing the chance of seeing another exciting event like that.
  • merch stuff: that shitty ahri statue is still nowhere to be seen, while other toys continue to be very much not great (and funkopops are shit). they also shut down the south american merch store so that's a bummer.
Click to expand...

PRO PLAY
the good
  • msi, worlds, all stars: all the international events were fantastic, they had really high level games with the most competitive worlds ever and the first worlds finals to reach game 5 and even if i wasn't the biggest fan of all stars 2015, they completely changed my mind about it and i'm super looking forward to it next year. msi wasn't as good as 2015 but it just couldn't be, and even then it still gave us a good share of memes, upsets and fun faker stuffs like usual.
  • prizepool: i was pretty sceptic at first of rito doing some compendium type moneyscam for the prizepool at worlds but they actually handled it really well in a very player friendly way. they motivated people to chip in for the prizepool instead of tricking them to, and that's great. the other changes they're making about giving pros better salaries and finally giving teams money for their skins and whatnot also seems fair and smart.
  • ignite: great song and more than anything a really awesome music video that is finally about celebrating how awesome competitive league is rather than being super self serious and depressing (even tho it kinda still is because the people making these videos are fucking dumb about it).
  • format improvements in na and double streams: much better format for the regular season with bo3 (i forget if they changed anything for playoffs, i want to say they did and i want to say it was for the better), and having multiple streams to just watch the teams i'm interested in just makes sense and is the right way to deliver that shit.

the bad
  • bo2 in eu was super dumb: in comparison to na's exciting bo3's, i watched less eu than ever because of how unappealing ties are. it was a funny meme but they really fucked up eu.
  • rito tryndamere being a total goof on reddit: very stupid of him and just a really bad look that was really embarrassing for the scene as a whole. the whole drama it created was really unnecessary and boring and seriously if i ever hear the words revenue sharing and venture capital again i'm gonna murder somebody.
  • worlds finals ceremony: they ran out of time so they basically had zero time with the players, no celebration, no anything. it was terrible on all accounts and a disservice to how great the tournament had been up until then. this can't happen again next year.
  • the montecristo stuff: i want to say monte is a cool dude that keeps company with the wrong crowd but either way it's a pity 2016 was all about making enemies with him. safe to say the renegades stuff could've been handled much better, and not having him at worlds was a damn shame.
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ETC...
  • mechs vs minions looks cool but i can't afford it and they don't sell merch here anyways.
  • i would've prefered to only have dark lux as a 1350 than what we actually got. i very much hate they did 10 skins in one, i think it's a very lazy and boring concept and lux deserved much better.
  • the star guardian skins except for jinx were all very disappointing. i can live with janna getting a skin but lulu and poppy look so fucking bad, it's really surprising considering how good that anime video was and how good riot generally is at making skins.
Click to expand...

probably forgot about stuff, but whatevs

also doubt anyone will read this shit but congrats if you do get through my shitty writing!
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
23qwerty said:
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Controller_champion

Controller? Is this new?
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they've shifted to these new archetypes a while ago

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/dev-blog-classes-subclasses

basically controllers are control mages and mage supports

Quonny said:
But Star Guardian Poppy is amazing.
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she's less poop than star guardian lulu but she's still poop

Orochinagis said:
I am still waiting for a support. lots of tanks, junglers and a big nose sandy girl so far but not a support.

And Sona's nerf on her E destroyed her
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well they did two supports in 2015
 
Xeilyn

Xeilyn

Member
I read your whole post zky, nice to see that you're so passionate about the game.

Im a jaded bastard so i can only say that my first year of league have made this year slightly less depressing

we should have a EU gaf vs NA gaf sometime aswell
 
N

Newt

Member
Xeilyn said:
I read your whole post zky, nice to see that you're so passionate about the game.

Im a jaded bastard so i can only say that my first year of league have made this year slightly less depressing

we should have a EU gaf vs NA gaf sometime aswell
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As much I would love this, I just don't think EU has the population. It's been a while since I've logged on to my EU smurf though.
 
L

Leezard

Member
We are a number of EUgaffers, I don't know how active we are for the most part though.

It's like me, talents, dobe, costy, terbinator, faridmon, sofo and nev? Sorry if I'm forgetting someone. Inskipp was here for a while but I think he might be inactive. Merovin and Majin Boosted might be active.

Filling all the roles might be an issue.
 
Q

QuantumSquid

Member
i agree with zkylon on the star guardian skins, the theme really doesn't suit poppy. you could argue that it doesn't suit jinx either but in my opinion they made it okay by giving jinx some cheesy voice lines that reference the fact that she isn't really know what she's doing when it comes to being a superhero since she's so used to being evil.

also unless you flew out all of the EU players to NA or all of the NA players to EU to have a local tournament, an EU vs NA match would be unfair because one team would have significantly better ping.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
it's not that poppy doesn't make a good star guardian, it's that she looks like poop

maxresdefault.jpg


they just look bad

Xeilyn said:
I read your whole post zky, nice to see that you're so passionate about the game.

Im a jaded bastard so i can only say that my first year of league have made this year slightly less depressing

we should have a EU gaf vs NA gaf sometime aswell
Click to expand...
haha thanks
 
S

Stone Ocean

Member
I'm not exactly a fan of SG Poppy but it's really easy to make skins look like crap by taking zoomed in screenshots in shitty angles with no anti aliasing lol
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Stone Ocean said:
I'm not exactly a fan of SG Poppy but it's really easy to make skins look like crap by taking zoomed in screenshots in shitty angles with no anti aliasing lol
Click to expand...

i know the screenshot is bad but it had both of them all zoomed in on it

it's a shitty skin and lulu's too, those faces look super dopey

look how great she look in the anime trailer in comparison
 
S

scy

Member
Meant to respond to this last night but forgot but I read the whole thing zkylon.

keystones: keystones warped the meta for months on months (they still do!) while contributing with nothing of value to the game compared to previous masteries. it was a total nightmare for the bigger part of the season and there's nothing to show for it.
Click to expand...

Coming back after like ... 3 years away or something, I'd say they added a lot actually? Increased floor aside, the Fervor, DFG, TLD, Grasp stuff does a lot to help guide playstyles appropriately, both playing as and against. It's the sort of thing where you learn TLD means short trades big burst, Fervor extends, Grasp bullies, DFT pokes and you apply the label of the keystone to the champion using them so you know what to look for as openings or being done to you. That kind of assistance in guiding how to lane gooder is pretty nice to see since it's the type that players can sort of see and deduce themselves which is a nice feelsgood moment for them.

The variety being what it is (aka, Grasp top, TLD mid being 95% of match-ups for awhile) is one thing but I thought what they were trying to do with them seems interesting. As the champion pool grows, it's nice having some in-game thing to look at and go, "I don't know really know what X plays like but they have Fervor so AA extended fights are bad got it."

@Star Guardian stuff: I'm just :| that Lulu and Poppy both got one. Well, mostly Lulu. She's a bit overused in this regard even if it was an easy out for the mascot to be tied in.
also mahoiku has me trying to figure out who dies first
 
Q

QuantumSquid

Member
i adore keystones. finally a mastery that has a genuine impact on gameplay.

honestly they could just remove all masteries except for keystones and i wouldn't mind at all.
 
S

scy

Member
QuantumSquid said:
i adore keystones. finally a mastery that has a genuine impact on gameplay.

honestly they could just remove all masteries except for keystones and i wouldn't mind at all.
Click to expand...

I think in an ideal world, we'd probably be picking like 3 tiers of keystones in each tree rather than 6 tiers? So like 2 heavier choices and then a keystone and then 1-2 other choices. A lot of the inbetween stuff are percentage points fluff that can be baked into other places. To me, it'd be at it's best if you actually care about each of these choices when playing vs rather than just the one noteworthy one.

I'm maybe spoiled a bit in that relearning how2Riven means I actually have meaningful Fevor v TLD|Storm v CotC choices that a lot of other champs don't. Mages probably get shafted a bit here since it's basically all TLD except the few DFT weirdos nobody picks.
 
Q

QuantumSquid

Member
scy said:
I think in an ideal world, we'd probably be picking like 3 tiers of keystones in each tree rather than 6 tiers? So like 2 heavier choices and then a keystone and then 1-2 other choices. A lot of the inbetween stuff are percentage points fluff that can be baked into other places. To me, it'd be at it's best if you actually care about each of these choices when playing vs rather than just the one noteworthy one.

I'm maybe spoiled a bit in that relearning how2Riven means I actually have meaningful Fevor v TLD|Storm v CotC choices that a lot of other champs don't. Mages probably get shafted a bit here since it's basically all TLD except the few DFT weirdos nobody picks.
Click to expand...

I agree. runes and masteries that only provide tiny percentage boosts to various stats are super boring and bad for the game imo.

if I could have my way, I would rework the game in one of two ways:

  • way 1: remove runes and masteries, choose a keystone like you choose your summoner spells
  • way 2: remove runes, masteries become 2 trees: offensive and defensive, and you have 10 points to allocate instead of 30. the trees are much smaller to account for this, and every mastery only lets you put in 1 point instead of the way it is now where some let you put in up to 5 points.

either way i think runes need to go, they're terrible for the game and they make league less accessible for new players. losing a 1v1 because your opponent has some stupid rune that gives him 1% more hp or whatever is dumb.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Orochinagis said:
That Nintendo Switch graphics
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just look at it on your quoted post to get rid of the jaggies

they're just ugly face models, it's very unlike riot to make bad models

scy said:
Coming back after like ... 3 years away or something, I'd say they added a lot actually? Increased floor aside, the Fervor, DFG, TLD, Grasp stuff does a lot to help guide playstyles appropriately, both playing as and against. It's the sort of thing where you learn TLD means short trades big burst, Fervor extends, Grasp bullies, DFG pokes and you apply the label of the keystone to the champion using them so you know what to look for as openings or being done to you. That kind of assistance in guiding how to lane gooder is pretty nice to see since it's the type that players can sort of see and deduce themselves which is a nice feelsgood moment for them.

The variety being what it is (aka, Grasp top, TLD mid being 95% of match-ups for awhile) is one thing but I thought what they were trying to do with them seems interesting. As the champion pool grows, it's nice having some in-game thing to look at and go, "I don't know really know what X plays like but they have Fervor so AA extended fights are bad got it."
Click to expand...
i've written about how the one thing keystones did good is setting up clear laning pattern groups for champions but in the context of how much they fucked up balance for the whole season and that their supposed goal was to let you personalize your playstyle, then idk if i really see that silver lining

it was really frustrating specially as a midlaner using the same set of masteries every single game and then seeing others champions go completely broken all around me because of those things that did nothing for me

it was a really disruptive change that the best you can say about it is that it accentuated how champions already worked

i've said it before, put those things on items, put thunderlord on doran's ring, put grasp on doran's shield and warlord on doran's blade. put the speedy ap one on ludens echo and put fervor on phantom dancer, idk.

scy said:
I think in an ideal world, we'd probably be picking like 3 tiers of keystones in each tree rather than 6 tiers? So like 2 heavier choices and then a keystone and then 1-2 other choices. A lot of the inbetween stuff are percentage points fluff that can be baked into other places. To me, it'd be at it's best if you actually care about each of these choices when playing vs rather than just the one noteworthy one.

I'm maybe spoiled a bit in that relearning how2Riven means I actually have meaningful Fevor v TLD|Storm v CotC choices that a lot of other champs don't. Mages probably get shafted a bit here since it's basically all TLD except the few DFT weirdos nobody picks.
Click to expand...
actually ryze and cassio both run the speedy mastery

but yeah, i run thunderlord on everyone except varus

it's a damn joke
 
S

scy

Member
QuantumSquid said:
I agree. runes and masteries that only provide tiny percentage boosts to various stats are super boring and bad for the game imo.
Click to expand...

I think Runes are fine as flat (or scaling) boosts but the Tier 3 cost is still a little much; these are really just the choices of how do I want my early game or starting resistances or CDR to go. Nothing major but enough to know things like I want base 10% CDR, scaling MR + scaling HP is fine in MR matchups, Armor and AD to fill. Basically, I think runes are about as impactful as they should be, but should also be closer to trivially costed for this impact.

zkylon said:
it was really frustrating specially as a midlaner using the same set of masteries every single game and then seeing others champions go completely broken all around me because of those things that did nothing for me
Click to expand...

Yeah, Mages got a bit shafted in that everyone is essentially TLD users to varying levels of success. That Stormraider's and DFT aren't better for more picks is kind of a problem here.

it was a really disruptive change that the best you can say about it is that it accentuated how champions already worked
Click to expand...

From a fighter / bruiser / Yasuoisfeeding perspective, I can't agree with this? It accentuates playstyles or goals that champions aim for. You don't really play vs Fervor | TLD | Grasp | CotC the same on the same chjampion. They have different windows of power and different spots you can punish. Like I said though, I think my viewpoint of it from Riven and the like makes it more of a "this is a match-up choice" thing that I know I don't particularly think of when I play Kat or something.

i've said it before, put those things on items, put thunderlord on doran's ring, put grasp on doran's shield and warlord on doran's blade. put the speedy ap one on ludens echo and put fervor on phantom dancer, idk.
Click to expand...

This removes them as options for the majority of champions. Like, from an AP standpoint some of that works but there's a variety of champs who want Fervor that won't build a PD and won't build it early enough for the mastery to warrant it's placement, even if it's relatively weak in early lane.

Ultimately, this seems more like keystones are a failing to Mages rather than keystones are a failing? Midlane is pretty much varying levels of what kind of 3 hit burst to expect at level 2 or how to properly spell harass in lane when it comes to TLD and too many of them are forced into that bucket even if they have other play patterns.

actually ryze and cassio both run the speedy mastery
Click to expand...

I was going to joke edit message Ryze likes to be different but yeah, you're right, there's a few other niche picks with Storm. Ryze and Cassio to run them down and ... that's basically it, unfortunately. It's this balance problem though with the zoning burst mages that are kind of just stuck with TLD while aggressive all-in cheese ones benefit from TLD far more. At the same time, it's "fair" but it's a pretty bland environment.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
idk scy, idk about riven cos i don't play her but all the champions i ever play use one mastery and that's it

all adcs use either warlords or fervor, the one that's more op at the time. jhin uses dft cos he's weird. all junglers used that hp mastery for all year, all tanks used grasp, all mids used thunderlords, etc.

you already play differently against different champions, this isn't something terribly new imo
 
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