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Hello all, I'm pretty interested in game design and mechanics. I sat down the other day and started to think critically about the time I've spent in the game (which has been a lot). As a result, I'm going to take a break from it and see how the game evolves in the future... but I'd like to discuss LoL a bit, and in general I've found TL to be a better place for productive discussion than the LoL forums... so here we go!
So I've worked my way up over the last few months from bronze to almost platinum. For those that don't know what "Elo hell" is, basically it's when people feel like they're stuck at a lower level of players because they always get stuck with the worse teams. Pretty much everyone feels this... but I think the sentiment is actually a little misrepresentative. Let me explain:
Elo hell basically means you have a blatant feeder, or someone so bad on the team you're bound to lose. But... on the flip side of this, that means the opposite team is experience what I want to think of as "Elo heaven", basically you're being handed free Elo points. Pretty simple so far... so let's make some assumptions and do some math:
- Let's assume every person in a game minus you has a chance of causing an "Elo hell" game to occur. - You are actually a good player => Your team as a 4x chance of having a terrible player, and the opposing team has a 5x chance. If we make the stark assumption that every game is going to suffer from this, we get that the ratio of 4 losses to 5 wins. So you are expected to win ~56% of these games.
If we were to say your primary goal is to advance up the ladder, then this seems pretty good! But... this says nothing about fun. Personally, I find being on either side of these games to be boring. Being carried by/losing to a Master Yi who's 15-0 in 12 minutes isn't fun for anyone (except maybe the Yi). Sure winning feels better than losing, but the majority of your time spent playing (in a good game) there is no clear winner, but it is still fun to play. Hence, winning/losing can only account for how you feel once the game has gotten out of control (hence it's barely a game since you have little influence on the outcome) and on the score screen.
So now let's get to why I'm taking a break/leaving LoL. I consider myself a good competetive player in most games (was good at Dota back in the day, consistently in high masters in SC2 + competed in some tournaments with professionals). In LoL in the last few months (more games than I'd like to admit >.>) I've risen pretty starting from bronze. I have no real complaints about my advancement rate... but I've come to realize something:
80%+ of my games are either Elo heaven/hell
I started keeping track. Out of the last 100 games I've played, over 80 of them have ended with the game getting out of control (hence unfun to play) within 30 minutes. A lot of those were out of control in well under 20...
I've noticed while going up in ranks, the number had gotten better. In bronze, I would venture to guess that 100% of the games were like that. I was learning mechanics & heroes though, so it didn't bother me though. I was probably the one causing those types of games a lot (all gotta start somewhere!).
But now that my ranking is in the top 50% of players (I think... stats are all a bit hard parse in LoL)... I'm shocked that still 80% of my games are still unfun. Watching the world grand finals... Samsung White's domination looked like those games I played. If it's going to be like this literally from bronze up to pro play, why play a game where the majority of games just aren't fun? Comparing to Starcraft, I enjoy 90%+ of those games. Granted the lack of team dynamic makes it more straightforward, since gg'ing and surrendering can be done when I feel like it... the difference between the two is crazy to me.
So I guess what I want to get out of a discussion with you guys is an answer to these two questions: 1) Is League (and Dota from my experience with it) built on inherently unstable balance where the scales just tend to tip extremely in one direction or another? 2) What has your experience been. Do you see similar rates in games? If not, maybe you should keep track! 3) What do you think they could to improve it?
So my answers to put clearly are: 1) I think so. At higher levels a few hundred gold is enough to allow one lane to dominate another. So even though people are less likely to do things like go 0-10, going 0-3 is enough to unbalance the scales. (Looking at you bad junglers >.<)
2) I've already listed my numbers above. I know they're doing a pretty large game design after this season is over, so I'll check back in and probably try another 100 games and see how it goes.
3) I think what they did with the dragon (worth more exp to a team that is behind) was clever. I think they need to take more steps into this direction.
They also seem to make a lot of balancing decisions around high level of play, so they try very hard to do anything that could look like rubber banding (think something like Mario Kart). I understand the desire to prevent it... but I feel this attitude hurts lower levels. I also think that watching the grand finals & games leading up to it, even higher level play could use a little bit more asymmetrical design around rewarding teams behind to help keep games a little closer.
Thanks all, I look forward to hearing from all of you!
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I enjoy trying to play optimally regardless of whether I am getting carried or smashed and as such don't derive any more or less fun from those games than the even ones.
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People derive fun from different circumstances I think. One of my favourite things to do in League is crush lane and win the game in 20 min. On the other hand if my team is getting crushed I have no issue FFing at 20 (although in ranked games i don't mind playing it out need dat ELO).
Also making big LCS 5000 ELO plays in any game is always fun, regardless of if I am winning or losing.
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Writing Elo as ELO is the true Elo-Hell. The Elo-rating system is named after it's inventor - Arpad Elo. It hurts my pure stats major heart everytime I see it. QQ
Very much like Scip I also enjoy always trying my hardest to win the game, being smashed I often times find more interesting than smashing as it's from those games I learn the most. I haven't noticed that large of my games being stomps, but I'll try and keep track it'd be interesting to see.
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so what you say is that what you like is correct for everyone in the world ? are you also one of the guys at best everyone has a char can do 1 attack make 1 dmg has 10hp ? ... of games get out of control ... and sometimes you can fight back othertimes not its the chars the game its ... wtf you even talking man ... absolute useless threat EDIT: seeing it was your first ... well ... n/c
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I sort of think this is a pretty narrow-minded (but unfortunately pervasive) view of how games can play out. How do you decide when a game is 'out of control' enough to be considered an elo hell game?
Games like LoL and dota are inherently games based on acquiring and exploiting advantages, so it makes sense that a significant number of games feel overwhelmingly lopsided by a certain point in the game. The thing is, even when you're way behind, it's still more than possible to win if your team is able to identify and take advantage of the other team's mistakes. To answer your first question, it doesn't matter how far the scales are tipped in one direction or the other, it's possible for either team to win-- but it's way easier for the team with an advantage to close out the game, as a reward for winning earlier in the match.
Second question, I don't really look at games that way, but I rarely feel like we have absolutely no chance to win a game or like I can just sit back and easily ride my way to victory.
Third, I think the direction they're moving now with moving objectives towards non-monetary rewards (i.e. dragon, crabs) will make things more strategically interesting. Dunno about snowball, thouh.
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I think you're issue is a perspective one, not a game design one.
Before about diamond, most people who snowball early in lanes are good early game players, but that usually doesn't translate to being good late game players.
No one watches a game of hockey and assumes the fastest skating player's are the best at shooting and passing too, you wait until you see it. For some reason with LoL we don't give player's this moment to wait and see. You won at laning? Clearly you're the best player, best shot caller, best team fighter, and most capable. But in reality that player that went 0-3 in lane might just make way better calls and win you the game.
Case in point, take a look at C9's Hai. Clearly he is the worst lane on the team, yet he is the one who carries every game. In Korean soloqueue he reached the highest rank of all foreign player's by a rather large margin, and lost lane nearly every game, boasting a kda of like 1.7.
Meanwhile Froggen was stuck in diamond, with a kda of like 20, hard carrying yet losing games.
Also, elo hell isn't real. Long term, better player's win, worse player's lose. Anyone who is "stuck in elo hell" is just blind to the deficiencies in their oen play.
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On October 23 2014 08:23 Jek wrote: Writing Elo as ELO is the true Elo-Hell. The Elo-rating system is named after it's inventor - Arpad Elo. It hurts my pure stats major heart everytime I see it. QQ
The caps was for effect, yknow #LCSBIGPLAYS #MLG5000ELOSHOCKWAVE etc Thanks though.
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I don't think you have the correct definition of Elo hell. I've always seen it used when people use it as an excuse for NOT being able to climb the ladder because of "bad teams," not when games are snowballed in one side or another.
Anyway, responding to your point, it feels very unfair when some lanes lose hard and you feel like you have no influence because the game is snowballed, but isn't it like that in SC2 also? If you lose an expo or a bunch of workers early, it will feel like you can't make a comeback either.
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Geez, it's like I had this discussion before!!!!!!!
Yeah, 80 out of 100. Hoooly shit. Now wait for the guy who says there IS a possibility of someone being diamond tier but stuck in bronze, because TECHNICALLY it's possible, so I can finally relive my most cringe-worthy experience on TL LoL.
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8. Thou shall not speak of taboo subjects There are certain topics that we do not broach while on TL LoL. These issues have been “discussed” to death and they are based largely about opinion where there’s little to no room of proving right or wrong. - Hide Spoiler [Topics to Avoid] - Elo hell, “what is a tank”, AD v ArPen runes, GP10 items
Elo hell
Elo hell
Welcome to the LoL subforums. Enjoy your stay.
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Thank you to those who've given a good reply! Trying to respond to things in the general categories of responses:
Fun trying to play well in lane - I think this is a fair point! But a question for those of you answering this way, do you tend to enjoy the first 10 or so minute of game (ie, before teamfighting). Or do you feel like you tend to get frustrated once you get out of the laning phase (referring to standard meta games). If not, keep track! I didn't mean to imply my definition of a fun game is the only one. Also to clarify, I've definitely found enough enjoyment in LoL to cram 500 games in the last few months! I've just started finding myself burnt out and started thinking about why, and wanted to talk about others' experiences. I also found my numerical history surprising. But try keeping track of things that you find interesting! A little notepad to scribble on. Even questions like "what % of games that I jungled did I not gank the top lane until after 10 minutes" can be both interesting & hope you improve your gameplay! In Starcraft me and my friends frequently went through replays marking down times and stuff to do this type of analysis (in there things like economy, supply blocks, etc are very important for improving your gameplay)
Elo hell - I apologize for using all caps. I went back and fixed it (as a chess player, I am super embarassed by that...). I was debating not using this term because it's so loaded at this point... but in my original post I explained that logically for games with bad players, you end up getting 55% win rate. I tried using hell/heaven in the original post to get that across that it's about games that one side or the other would feel that way... but I've continually advanced up ranks so I want to stress I'm not complaining about being in it, the avg net Elo gain was still well positive for me (in the 100 I tracked, I won ~60). It's that those games to me seem much less fun. (and my first point is a reply to the definition of fun)
Out of control game - I should have defined this. I defined this by having a team leading by 10+ kills (or 5+ kills and dragon dominance) by the 15 minute mark. Of these 80 games, only one or two ended up turning around to the opposing teams favor. Those mentioning the awesome game swinging plays bring up a good point... but I find those moment to be complete outliers. They do leave a much stronger memory impression though, so it is worth talking about. But like I said above, once I started keeping track of these games, I found the numbers surprising.
Swing of control - I think comparing to Starcraft is probably pretty good. In Starcraft, you can lose in the early game (I'll avoid the debate over cheese... I'm in the field that nothing is cheese). But, in order to beat a player early game, you have to make a pretty large sacrifice to your economy/future game. So you're making a very concious tradeoff. If you lose to that, it's because you were bad at scouting or preparing (some maps do have a luck factor to them, which tend to not stick around too long in tournament pools).
In LoL, I don't think the item pool supports such a meta. You can't say, rush 3 doran's blades instead of building for a larger item and use that to swing the game heavily enough into your favor it was worth the extra 2 doran's blades delay to your BF. If these items were more powerful (ie, 4 dorans > bf for an adc), that might open up a wider variety of possible play & reactions... but I'm not that familiar with advanced item balancing. I could actually be wrong on this... I know that there are some recovery items for falling behind (like getting vamp scepter on first back instead of bf). But these decisions tend to be heavily in the "I've fallen behind gotta react" category, and not active decisions like "I want to push the early game into my favor". I could be wrong on this though, and would definitely like to hear about it. I think maybe at a high level this is what champion composition does... but that's still a little different than SC because you show your hand before the game even starts.
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Honestly, I think you underestimate the ability to play from behind in LoL. If your jungle and support have superior vision control, that has almost no impact in standard solo queue laning but that alone easily can win so many games from behind.
Even if you're like 10k gold behind, if you trade objectives well you can still easily win. Easily.
I'm a jungle main through and through, haven't spent much time laning since Season 2 aside from filling when jungle is taken. Honestly, I couldn't tell you the last time I won a lane, I lose them all, it's not that I can't last hit, its that I don't know the matchups well and I often give enemy jungles too much credit.
I die 1v1 in lane like a bronze player all the time. Yet despite being behind atleast 1k gold after every lane I play I'm often effective regardless because I just have a different skillset. When I play AD carry I probably lose lane by 30 creeps and a kill, yet I am to be stronger in fights than opposing carries due to positioning and bw micro.
Games do snowball, games are harder from behind, but just because someone plays well in the early game doesn't mean that the game is decided and automatically elo hell / heavan. I think that's a rather poor perspective, makes you sound kind of niave to a lot of the game.
In my opinion, the game would be much less snowbally if everyone gave they're teammates a chance to succeed. Just because someone lost lane doesn't mean they suck or they are useless.
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To tell you the truth I thought the same exact thing when I watched the worlds. It was something that I experienced from bronze to platinum as well. Like more than 80% of the games, disregarding of your rank are getting heavily one sided around minute 20 on average. Sometimes it gets out of control earlier, sometimes the defending team can hold up to late game, even one out of 20- 25 games we can witness a comeback (I think their real names are throws) but having a balanced back and forth game with a lot of making plays potential ( that teams can actually see and do) for both teams is a very rare jewel in LoL. And again ranking doesnt matter, because the circumstances that lead to one sided rapes evolve together with the players. In bronze someone will die 100 times, in platinum someone will pick the wrong team composition, in pro play someone will win the vision war minute 2.
Why this is like that I am not sure exactly. Perhaps having a strategy game with 10 people inside makes the ceiling too high compared to the human capabilities, thus, there is so much space for people to make not only errors but huge errors which the enemies are exploiting intentionally or without even understanding them as well. The ceiling of the game is so high that even on pro level there is too much air between it and the best players.
p.s. The only thing I can think of to deal with this issue is if the game allows the teams to have a strong tool/weapon to deal with the other team no matter what is going on in the game. For example, no matter how many kill, dragons etc one of the team has, the other team can always afford a 5v5 teamfight with very little disadvantage ( I am not saying how this should be achieved). Hence, if you are winning hard you can crush in 2v2 in 1v1 in 4v4 , in split pushing in whatever else, but there is always this 5v5 where if the losing team manages to gets it, they have equal chances with the leading team. It may not be a teamfight it may be anything else that allows you to win a game, but there should be something. Also I am not advocating for that, I am just sharing what I think can fix this issue
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The nature of competitive games, team based or individual, will always lead to stomps and romps, and the occasional dead even last minute goal/touchdown/gg push. You play chess, so you must've at some point made a bad trade, but ended up playing better anyways and won. You were at a disadvantage, similar to let's say levels/gold, but you executed better than your opponent for that match. The next match against a different opponent, you might again make a bad trade, but this time your opponent was able to hold his advantage. Apply this logic to LoL dota sc2 and you can see why games are "80%" hell/heaven. Balancing the game to make it always 50/50 across all games regardless of any earned advantage is poor game design and removes the competitive, and to an extent, fun aspect of multiplayer online gaming. The challenge makes the game fun! The first challenge is to gain the advantage. Next is to hold or extend the advantage, and finally win the game. On the other side, after losing advantage it becomes a challenge to regain neutral or winning by state. The problem with many beginning, intermediate semipro players is that skill makes it harder to recover. The game does balance this as your opponents relative skill should also mean it'll be harder for them to snowball the advantage, but we don't see that happening as much due to players who are horrible at losing that they help themselves lose faster.
Realized I somehow missed Elii's post. Pretty much just reiterated his points.
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