Support = Thankless Role

Hey. Just a little rant here in place of a review. Only reason I’m doing this instead is because the game I was reviewing has moved its full release back a month and some change so this will give me more time to write a more full review on it. Also I need to bitch about this or its going to drive me insane.

Why do I bother? WHY do I bother? I now know why there are so few supports in games like League of Legends or any other games that have them. It’s thankless work. So much insults, it’s ALWAYS your fault even when the Carry is really to blame. I tried a Ranked game last night and let me tell you it was an absolute nightmare. It was the first time in a League of Legends game where I had to place everyone on an ignore list (my team and the entire enemy team) AND the first time I had to report my entire team.

I was playing as Soraka and went down in Bottom lane with Graves who seemed like a decent person (then again ALL sociopaths mimic human behavior well). He wanted to start by getting these double Golem so I was to leash for him (hit the enemy to start things off then run). It didn’t go too well according to him so we went into lane. He was farming and the enemy was harassing. Like the “good support” is supposed to I purchased Wards to place in the brush to give him more harassing power and to take away any surprise attacks the enemy could make He was farming and I decided to take whatever he couldn’t possibly get to. Then he starts yelling at me for taking his farm and called me a noob for it. Now first of all I was aiming at stuff you couldn’t get at in time, also Wards cost Gold so the more Gold I get the more Wards I can keep on me to keep you safe. He told me I was ruining HIS lane. This is what got me. This as I was lead to believe is supposed to be a TEAM GAME so that would make Bottom Lane OUR lane, not HIS lane.

Of course by this point I got sick of him and said “you can solo lane you know.” As a threat of sorts, perhaps something to make him realize that I’m important too. Of course as I have learned anyone who plays a Carry is a selfish prick who blames everyone but themselves for any failings and see everyone else (especially the Support) as trash they have to put up with or meat shields to let die so they can get away. The insults kept flying and I demanded some decency and an apology. He said “not going to get it”. He goes into fight the 2 enemies in Bot. I was trying to type out something in response to his crass behavior and then he gets killed because I had the chat window open trying to defend myself from his verbal abuse. Then he insults me more. Yeah, I got steamed and made his mortality rate absolute zero, that was my fault entirely but I’ll be honest I SMILED when he died (usually I’m remorseful and broken up if a team mate dies ESPECIALLY if I’m playing a Support because I feel I could have done more to save them even if I really couldn’t have).

I’m not going to try to protect someone who treats me like garbage. The MOMENT you flip out on me and refuse to take it back I don’t care what happens to you. I refuse to enable terrible behavior especially if enabling leads to a win then the jackass will think that you can treat people like crap and still produce a positive result for yourself. Well I’M NOT A DOORMAT! I have self-respect and if you treat me like garbage then you will not receive my help. I’ll lose with my self-respect intact before I secure a win by forfeiting my integrity. Anyway things went further downhill and everyone else on my team starting with our Gangplank (ANOTHER character that is a Carry, which in turn was also an ass…I’m starting to see a pattern I have yet to meet a Carry I DIDN’T want to beat senseless). It got so bad that after I called them out for being Sociopaths I ignored all of them and asked then enemy team if they’d be willing to report my “team” for Verbal Abuse especially since they threatened to report me. I did this repeatedly and I finally got a reply. They said they wouldn’t do it. I tried to play out the game but my heart wasn’t into it. Why should I TRY for those “people”? After a futile struggle we lost and the nail in the coffin…? The enemy team said “Sorry you had to deal with that annoying Soraka.” What little faith I had in Solo Queue Ranked died the moment it was typed.

Long story short I really am starting to hate people. I see why God allowed us to make weapons because let’s face it, some people are so stubborn/evil/uncaring that the only way I could see to correct the problem would be to just pull out your weapon of choice to murder them if all reasoning fails. Why have that stuff going through the gene pool to possibly harass my children and my children’s children? If I am to climb rank I must from now on play with people I know and trust. Not just one person a FULL TEAM because if I leave it to chance odds are I’ll get the remaining spots filled with maladjusted people who should be on my plate instead of being allowed to live and breed. WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET SOILENT GREEN APPROVED!?

Rant: More Like League of Sociopaths

As the title states I think this game attracts a lot of these people. Well, “people” being used in the loosest sense of the word. I’ve ran into at least one jerk a game today. It’s bad enough all my games today have been losses but it’s made even worse by “people” who think it’s okay to blame others for their failings or to tear into someone who is already having a terrible game. None of them EVER take it back, they ALWAYS believe they’re right and I’m beginning to think if they showed any sign of being a decent human being they’d die on the spot.

At first I saw the biggest concentration of these “people” on at the late night hours. It wasn’t even like I was in a RANKED GAME. This was NORMAL GAME! What is it about this kind of game that makes people think that being a decent human being is an awful thing and acting like an ass is a virtue? Is there a full moon? Something in the global water supply? Or are these “people’s” parents so God damn awful that they never got around to teaching their little dick/cunt IT’S NOT OKAY TO BE AN ASS TO OTHER PEOPLE!?

In every game I’ve played today I was hard pressed on not having someone to report. Of course all the hostility made my already bleak performance even worse. Apparently seeing myself die a lot doesn’t seem to be enough of an indicator that I suck today. NOOOOOO, they got to rub sulfur in the wound with cut glass and acid. I pause momentarily wondering how fucking awful their real life must be if they feel they have to be validated by tearing someone down behind a computer screen, and how these people don’t see that their verbal abuse and refusal to even attempt to make amends has an impact on others.

The more I play, the more I wonder if League of Legends is a game and not some kind of cyber zoo for these “people” to act out on their destructive tendencies without getting themselves killed. Being better than me should never warrant being an ass about it. Being worse than me should not allow you to blame me for your failings. Having a terrible game shouldn’t mean you get to beat on me with your tongue. The bans can’t come fast enough in League of Legends. Account banning isn’t good enough. They’ll just make ANOTHER account and treat lower level people like garbage. Riot…your bans must come sooner. It would be nice if the person/people who reported the person would get an E-Mail stating that the jerk was banned (so we could have some closure). You need to look into harsher ways of punishing these people. Like an I.P. Ban (they’d just use a new IP, but you could make it impossible to connect via proxy servers) or a MAC ban.

As much as I’d like to believe that this is a game for people to play, I feel the only people who can get any enjoyment out of this game are the collection of misfits that like to tear into people who would more than likely get hospitalized or killed for their atrocious behavior.

Musing: Fun Should NEVER be Sacrificed For “Balance”

As some of you might know, I have been playing League of Legends for about two months now. In those months I haven’t been playing ranked games (for those who don’t know to play in Ranked matches you must be Level 30 and as of this post I’m Level 15) but I have been feeling the overall effect of the changes made to them for the sake of “balance”. Why do I use “balance” in such a condescending way? I do so because it’s very hard to do no matter how you set the game up from the beginning.

Let’s take Pokémon for example. Sure, I would LOVE to see my Jigglypuff stomp the face of Legendary Pokémon but statistics state that it’s impossible in higher levels of play because the numbers don’t support it because they just have too great a curb in power between them. Sure there are some examples where true balance can be attained, but these are so few they are pretty much the stuff of legends (Chess and Go are the best example I can think of, and from what I hear Starcraft 2, but since I never played that game I cannot comment on that facet). Gamefreak wouldn’t want to put in the work, otherwise we would be talking about another programming change so drastic that our Pokémon couldn’t be transferred to the next game (or so I hear, don’t quote me on that) thus alienating a large batch of its player base, so Weedle will NEVER be able to defeat Zapdos, but let’s get back to the point I was trying to make.

As I was saying earlier I felt the effect of these changes even though I had not played in the upper levels in League of Legends and have no desire to play at such a level because I hear they can ban Champions, and God help me if the three the opposing team bans are the only once I feel I’m really good with, then I become a liability to my team! I felt the effects with the re-works of Champions I had gotten the hang of (it was a SLOW process). Annie’s damage was nerfed all around, Sona won’t really be healing much after the next patch and the Support role is becoming more “action packed” while still leaving them too squishy for this to work. So in a short amount of time, Riot has basically told me to go fuck myself three times in two months while wearing a shit eating grin (Annie & Sona were the first Champions I felt good with and I liked playing the Support role), and I found out WHY Riot had decided to do this. I would like to quote a Summoner named Quantumprophecy because he or she said it in a way that hit me.

“Before I begin let me say, this will be fairly long and there will not be a TLDR. If you aren't here to read a well thought critique of Riot's design philosophy then go somewhere else please.


The Normalization of Champion Power Curves

In the last few months we have seen a fast growing trend in Riot's champ design. We can see it in both the new champs released and the reworks and/or buffs of old champs. What is this design philosophy? It's the normalization of champion power curves. And believe it or not, this philosophy is one of the contributers to many of the other problems we are seeing in the game at the moment. Junglers being to strong in lane, support+AD bot, and many other problems are either directly or indirectly being caused by this.

Now before I go further, let me clarify what a champion's power curve is. A champion's power curve is a term to decide how strong a champion is at different points in the game. Champion's such as pre-rework Tryn would have a low power curve early game, and a much higher one late game. Leblanc on the other hand would have a very high curve early game, and lower later. It's important to realize though that this is all very general. It's not like there are power levels or numbers associated with it. It's all very general and relative.

So where's the problem you may be asking? Well Riot seems to be moving away from varying power curves on champs and normalizing them across the board, with copious amounts of proof to support this. Consider practically all new champs released, regardless of OP or UP. Yorick, Leona, Wukong, Skarner, all incredibly normalized curves. They don't excel at any point in the game, or blow at any other. Now consider champs such as Vayne. Her primary role is meant to be that of a carry, a role characterized by having a bad early game in exchange for much stronger late game scaling. Vayne doesn't fit that definition at all. Vayne is incredibly easy to do well with early game, while being an extremely viable carry come late game.

We can see even more evidence in many of the reworks Riot has put out. Looking back at Annie's rework, one of the reason's given for having it in the first place was to make Annie more viable late game. Look at Allistar and Gangplank. Do either of them have weak points throughout the game? Consider Kayle's rework as well. Another case where one reason given for the rework was to strengthen her early game in exchange for less power early game. Similar reason's were given for Tryn's rework. Even looking into the future, there has been minor talk about Poppy getting nerfs, with reasons behind it being that her late game carrying ability is to high, and in exchange (again) she will have her early game buffed some.

So you might be asking, how is this philosophy destroying the game? Well beyond the obvious fact that it's creating less interesting features between champions, it's also part of the reason we are seeing support+AD bot all over the place. Ranged AD champs will almost always be necessary. But what lane are we to put them in? They can't solo top. They will get demolished by a whole slew of tanky dps with normalized curves, excellent early games coupled with fairly high carry potential late game, such as Jarvin and Irelia. Mid? Nope, can't do that either because of AP carries all with normalized curves. Brand and Annie? Incredible lane presence early, monster burst late game. So that leaves 1 place. Bot lane. But how do you keep the enemy team from sending a strong duo lane against them? Conveniently enough, you make their lane mate a support champ, in a sense helping to strengthen the Ad champs early game.

Another thing this philosophy has brought about, is the laning of great jungle champs. The need for strong laners has become so great that people have started bringing junglers out to lanes in an attempt to dominate early game.

So the final question to ask ourselves is, why is Riot doing this? Well, Riot is actively seeking to make the game more action packed(!) and in their eyes, playing a carry who doesn't start to do anything till late game, or an AP champ that dies off late game, isn't very fun. Okay, I can understand that. Maybe not agree with it, but understand it.


So that it's. My own personal critique on Riot's new favorite design philosophy. I'm not looking for upvotes. I'm not looking for red responses. I'm not even looking to start a discussion. I just like writing things like this up and getting them out to the community to hopefully open peoples eyes a bit about where this game is actually going.

Enjoy and thanks for reading.”

Click here if you want to see the entire thread (assuming it’s still there)

Homogenization (third meaning) is the word of the day, readers. While I can understand the need for it I can’t help but feel that “balance” wants to kill my fun to death. In Chess, it works because all the pieces are the same and it comes down to who’s smatter/luckier/more arrogant/short sighted, but in games like League of Legends or fighting games PEROID the characters are designed differently because they all fight differently, they effect the game differently. Some cases can be so outrageous that they MUST be bought into line somehow (Akuma, anyone?) while others stem from bad choices, ignorance of the character or just plain vindictive nature of people (Example: “I hate Annie, so I’m going to convince the Riot staff that she’s busted so I can stomp her more easily because I can’t suck she’s just busted! Never mind the fact she’s designed to be able to hit like a truck yet be squishy enough to die in under three seconds!”).

So because of the completive set I and those like me have to suffer for it. But they don’t care, and they never will because to a good deal of them think the “casual player” is a subspecies that doesn’t matter. Then you have the vocal minority that sounds louder than it is complaining on the forums about these things, and the egomaniacs on the site who flash drag there high ELO rating into the mess or your low or non-existent ELO rating into things in an attempt to discredit you just because you don’t spend as much time as he does trying to make his ELO rating big to compensate for his small dick. Even if you got a valid point it gets washed away in the mess produced by the circle jerking.

This is not helped by how Riot plans to just club Support to death. My idea of fun in this game is not to get killed repeatedly (but it tends to happen anyway if my Tank gets killed), so I pick support mostly so I can affect the tide of battle WITHOUT having to start fights, but my role is being made obsolete because of homicidal, psychopathic easily bored sociopaths that get pissed off if what they attack doesn’t die in less than five seconds. You want that kind of instant death gratification where Healers can’t stave death? Join the Army. I assure you that no Healer can sustain someone who got there head blown off by a sniper round.

I’m sorry if this seemed all over the place but it just came to me tonight after browsing the League of Legends forums. Anyway, feel free to post your thoughts on this.

League of Legends: The Field of Justice Welcomes You

I have seen my associate, Aron play this game on and off. I never thought about playing it for awhile, if only because my computer back then was so crappy and running it would make its CPU explode into cyber salsa. Now I have a new machine which is working nicely, though I wish the connection in my area were faster. It’s not a snail’s pace, but still…anyway, let’s get on with the review.

League of Legends is a game of the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA henceforth, which is the widely accepted short hand anyway for those not familiar) games. They boil down to this. You and your team try to destroy this critical structure the enemy team has before they wreck yours. Sounds simple enough on the surface, but once you get into the game this turns out to be a more involved process than it sounds. What do I mean by that? Well, I’m about to tell you.

Gameplay: League of Legends reminded me of those micro managing real time strategy games. I HATE THOSE! I don’t see how people can get enjoyment over having to constantly tell section A how to do their job, and then checking on sections B, C and D with so many units, checking on the resources you currently possess so you can do the really good stuff. Thankfully that isn’t the case here. Sure, there are minions, but you don’t command them. They do their own thing. The only person you have to worry about managing (in terms of building stuff on) is your Champion.

This character has access to four abilities that can be used and pumped up. Catch is you can’t use all of them right away. You got to kill enemy minions, neutral creatures that hide in the forest areas of the map (the term “Jungling” describes that, but it’s a misnomer since as of yet none of the maps in game thus far has a Jungle. So it’s more like “Foresting”, but that’s not as cool sounding I guess) and of course, members of the opposing team for experience points and Gold which is used to buy items (these items do not carry over from game to game) to increase your stats and other good stuff.

The game has always been free to play. Every so often Champions are rotated in and out for you to play with. If you want, however, you can pay some money (or Influence Points (IP henceforth), which can only be earned by playing the game) to keep them in your roster permanently.

If you’re like me, you’re conditioned to click the left mouse key in games to move. Getting used to having to right click could be bothersome at first, but you get used to it in time. As for the curb of the game…it’s not exactly easy to learn, but it’s not exactly a ball buster either. As of now I’m Level 10 in the game (Max 30). Each level grants you mastery points to put towards small changes towards the way you fight. Runes can also have an impact on how you play. Unlike Champions, you can only get Runes with IP, so…you can’t buy power (well, you still have to buy the Runes, but you just can’t do it with cash).

One of things I had the biggest issue getting over was getting used to the camera panning. Starting out, it was a hindrance for me, but now I manage just fine. Fiddle around with it before you really get started ASAP.  The game does provide a tutorial for first timers, which introduces the basics, but it feels rather incomplete when you get to the Co-Op V.S. A.I. A.I CANNOT prepare you for fighting against players. It can vary anywhere from dumb as dirt to very tough (and even then they can get stupid).

No one character is a lone wolf. Not a single one can take the game by themselves. It is highly team oriented. I won’t get into breaking down all the roles available (the Alteil one was long enough as is) but combinations are also key. A Champion that’s a bad fit for the team (even if you’re awesome with them) can wreck synergy and cost you the game before you even fight, and if you aren’t communicating with your team it can be a real disaster (play a Support role character in the random que at your own risk). I don’t have a playgroup as of yet, so it can be a real gamble…I’d like a playgroup, so I need to get to finding people.

Concerns: The game is not without its faults. ONE CHAPMION could set you back as much as $10. I really suggest you wait for sales and buy bundles, and this is even before skins (which can only be obtained by purchasing with real cash). They can cost as much as a Champ (only way I get them is from a bundle or one of their giveaways) and do nothing but change the appearance...if you ask me something purely COSMETIC shouldn’t cost as much as a Champion, EVER (and then people buying them rage about how they have to split between champs and skins and worried going broke on Riot Points (RP henceforth))! If you REALLY WANT A CHAMPION permanently, and not clean out your bank account in the process…I can’t stress enough about waiting for bundles and sales (and if you go against that advice, be sure you actually can play with said character).

If any parents are reading this, you might not want your younger kids on the forums. When the servers go down you could easily see crazy stuff like this:

I found it funny, but gross…very…very…very, gross. Speaking of mind numbing things, I hear the server downtime can be rather…insane. The joke is that Riot can’t seem to make an update without the servers going down like a hooker on a cop trying to get out of a parking ticket. Since I have started playing, this has only happened once, so I cannot testify firsthand the history of these issues.

The game only has two maps…almost 80 Champions as of this review, and only TWO MAPS! One for 5v5 and one for 3v3. New Champions come out every two weeks I hear, and new maps…nowhere near as fast. The game has almost been out for about two to three YEARS…and only TWO MAPS! Different opponents each time make the game a different experience, but I would really love MORE MAPS to play on.

Also balancing issues. I see talk of this a lot (though I have yet to feel the effects). One of my favorite Champions, Annie is complained about a lot, and a good deal of people think she’s unfair. I say they just hate the idea of being beaten by a fire wielding girl with a demon teddy bear that’s on FIRE! Also, the communities high tier players (and a bunch of others) can be quite snotty when it comes to ones thoughts on how to improve/nerf a character. You can tell how much of a stuck up fuck one is if they drag your Elo ratting into it to discredit you or bring theirs up to prove a point. Must be a lot of people on that game with tiny penises in this game.

Final Judgment: It’s a casual alternative to other MOBA’s out there, so for that reason I like it. But I also don’t like it because of the lack of maps. I play sparingly because I don’t want the maps to get old and because I lack a group. But if you bring a bunch of friends in your experience should be a nice one.

See you on the Fields of Justice, my fellow Summoners.