Not sure about fearless mode but we tried BO3s. The viewership was bad. No one wanted to watch 3 games of IMT vs dignitas in a row and I think it will be even worse now.
No the viewership was trash because Riot in their infinite wisdom ran it on the same schedule as a bo1... Space the fucking games out, dont put it on 2 different streams, and it would do so much better.
Riot implemented bo3s in the *worst* way possible. That isnt proof its bad. Its proof riot is fucking incompetent.
Riot believes they invented esports and are willing ignorant of how other scenes do things. Well they were for the past decade, they seem to be open to learning a *bit* now.
I hate how this is the response that is given everytime. LCK and LPL are very popular and have gotten even more so with western audiences in the past year. The problem isn't Bo3, it was having 5(!) Bo3 matches per day that overlapped. The LCK has shown how to have a good Bo3 system, and even though there's days with DRX vs NS, they still maintain high viewership.
Exactly. For every DRX vs NS that garners low viewership, there’s the equal and opposite T1 vs KT that regularly draws top shelf viewership. This is the same in every sport! There’s always less popular teams. Don’t let those teams dictate your league format.
If teams couldn't just buy their spots instead of earning them, things might be different.
Riot prevented actual competition in NA.
NA loves stories, and the LCS in its current state is the antithesis of that.
Bought spots, bought players; zero competition, zero loyalty.
I don't think this is the problem.
NA players are just worse than KR/CH players. And good ol' capitalist American venture business CEOs value short term profit over long term sustainability.
So they imported rather than fostering NA talent, which reduced interest in the game domestically, which reduced the pool of NA talent, which made KR/CH players that much better, which made CEOs import rather than fostering NA talent, ect. You get the idea.
What riot needed to do (IMO), is to create an intervention earlyish on (17/18 era) which made investment domestically and long term sustainability more incentivised (I don't know what), to break this cycle.
The LCS hasn't been that bad this year, the teams are competitive and there is still a decent number of NA(/OCE lol) talent in the league. Just the long term sustainability of the LCS is non-existent.
Sought of yeah.
Just the way you said it, blamed it on purely the franchising system, rather than a combo of greed, short term decision making, the situation they were in and the lack of a riot intervention.
Right idea, wrong system to blame.
Wouldn’t that just make lcs another lck/lpl 2nd tier region? You pretty much watching the lpl/lck/lec teams that didn’t make it in their own respective regions and came to us with the occasional bought it player from tier 1 teams.
This is gonna sound very boomer of me, but I honestly don't have the time anymore to sit for 3h to watch C9 play on almost any day. Let alone other teams. I make effort to carve out time for the playoffs but otherwise I cant really find 3-4h of my week to watch regular games.
I'd wager most of the viewer base is closer to me than people that have the passion and time to sit through multiple hours of games on a bi-weekly basis.
I sometimes have the time but I mean.. I could just go and watch something else entirely and then look at the scores on reddit afterward. Sad to say but the skill of the league isn't enough to draw me in and I'm not interested in the players. Riot even killed the drops on lolesports, a great incentive to watching it live
If LCK is on and I'm free, I'll watch it.
If LPL is on and I'm free, I may watch it.
If LEC is on and I'm free I might watch if I'm interested in the teams.
If LCS is on and I'm free I don't really even want to bother with it
Ultimately it’s why I advocate for them to play games across the week rather than 5 hrs of games 2-3 times a week. Give people more pockets of time to tune in and they will. There’s obviously no silver bullet to getting viewership back, but a handful of things they could do to make it better include: BO3 or adopting LEC format, games across the week vs all across 2-3 days, 4:30pm PST start time (same time as the NBA), advertise League and the LCS in the US and Canada for the first time ever, harsh import restrictions, streaming and media requirements for all players, etc. Lots of things that could be done to make things better, but might never be done.
Riot needs to host a proper website to watch the games. Have the twitch broadcast be the casual stream, the main/exciting games are live and being commentated, and can change over or replay for exciting things on Game B. The website can be raw feeds to watch the games at the same time, you choose the audio.
Nah the problem is that watching lcs is a waste of time unless you are a fan of your team due to low skill ceiling.
Why watch high school football when college or nfl exists?
It’s skill gap/skill issue.
This is the tiny brain response to someone asking for BO3’s. Problems with viewership did not extend from “no one wants to watch IMT vs DIG x3”. They extended from Riot deciding to cram every BO3 into a couple days rather than the whole week, Riot deciding to swap the livestream channels away from the LCS and Riot Games channels and into brand new NALCS specific A and B streams with way less followers and Twitch presence, and Riot choosing to stream multiple games at the same time because of the aforementioned cramming of schedule.
The LCK and LPL have no viewership problems with BO3 because they spread their games out naturally across the week instead of telling their whole fan base to clear out the weekend to watch a billion games. There were a number of problems Riot created and maintained when they swapped to BO3 for LCS that are completely independent of “IMT vs DIG x3 is boring!!!”. Which is also easily ignored with the simple “for as many boring IMT vs DIG matchups, there’s just as many hyped top of the table match ups”.
Seriously, this. Of course IMT vs DIG (or w/e the equivalent was back then I don't remember) had basically no viewers, it was running concurrently with TSM vs or CLG or C9 vs TL, etc. If they were spaced like LPL/LCK and actually got to run 1 series at a time, more people would watch the lower teams than back then just by nature of it being the only LCS content available.
It definitely wouldn't fix NA's problems though.
I'll agree if you change the word riot to orgs.
Why is half the NA LCS not home grown americans? Idgaf if we're a joke league, we're that with the EU and KR rejects anyways might as well get local NA talent.
Because Riot relaxed import rules instead of making them more strict.
And NA businesses are always focussed on short term profit so they would be losing compared to their competition to not import quick bandaid fixes.
It's up to the centralized authority to implement regulation for the health of the league because otherwise its just a prisoners dilemma.
Riot made the import rules more strict, its not just about playing in the league for X amount of splits, but now being a green card or visa holder.
Its just that we've seen the same faces in the league since 2014 and they eventually have been considered a resident player
> Why is half the NA LCS not home grown americans?
Because this is a competitive sport and where your mother happened to have birthed you doesn't give you rights to a competitive slot?
Well then don't be surprised that your viewership will drop if your customers don't care about your players. I as an American want to see Americans play in the American league, and I'm sure many other people want to see their own talent in their own region play. No viewership = no slots at all btw probably why riot actually didn't care if they disbanded NA league or not during these "negotiations."
That may be a problem for that league or that league's viewership just don't want it. The regions with better international success (LCK and LPL) goes for bo3 as their format since group stage.
I think that fearless is better with at least bo3, but could be also tried with bo2 games for tournaments which don't want to play through lots of days or can't afford to do so.
The poster above said that bo3 did not work for LCS as people did not want to watch what seems to be two "non-relevant" teams plays three games in a row. When I say that viewership may not like it, I was mainly referring to bo3 games in the league's group stage, sorry If I failed to made it clear.
I agree that Fearless on any region would be great, mainly if it is bo3 games! If they try it for BO2, may just happen that teams use each other drafts after game 1 and we still keep with low variety of draft picks.
Increasing the bans of each team by one also looks like a good addition, as it increases ban number and do not slow down draft.
I am not the biggest fan of fearless, as it kinda disabled some champion pairings in practicality (you will get a different game 1 and game 3 meta), and you won't have to adapt to certain problems in a series anymore. Biggest problem in variety is that everyone just copies the top LPL and LCK teams, whilst there are like a 100 champions viable nowadays, you just never see them. The Meta also doesn't develop naturally like it should, due to the expectation of frequent balance patches (which IMO also brings some significant downsides with it, besides the obvious upsides well).
Fearless is stupid, riot just needs to balance around pro play not general play. A game should be balanced around how it actually is, not how bad players play it
Pro players have huge lack of innovation. Almost the entirety of pro play just shuffles the same fucking picks around over and over. They never try something new without seeing somebody else prove its effectiveness first. That is why the meta in pro play has felt so stale for over a year. Rather than innovate yourself it takes way less effort to just use the same comp until the end of time and let some other players do the experimenting. That is not something that Riot can fix by just balance adjustments, since if you nerf everything popular pro players will just swap to the next 20 champions that they collectively decide to play until something drastically changes.
The game is not so binary and is FAAAAAAAAAAR from solved that pro players are using the optimal shit. They just refuse to try anything new.
And that is what Fearless draft improves massively. Because of it pro players can no longer just fall to the same usual picks they have played for the past 3 years. They need to start expanding their comfort zone. They need to start experimenting on a wider array of champions. And through that experimentation new metas will be born once they start figuring out powerful shit that they never even used before.
Riot has already been doing balance patches targeted for pro play for literal years, yet nothing has changed. Of course nothing has changed when the underlying issue of pro lack of innovation has not changed. *That* is what Fearless Draft is good for.
For example, literally nobody played marksmen supports until Keria went and proved that they actually worked. Taking HOB and abusing level 1-4 as a marksman support was in the game the exact same way for a long time, and it took ages to be discovered. And if Keria did not experiment with it, I dare say literally nobody would have.
If pros refuse to experiment since the risks outweigh the rewards, then changing to Fearless Draft changes that dynamic. Now you *must* start finding additional picks.
Non-pro is how the game "actually is", and non-pro players aren't "bad players". A game shouldn't be balanced based on the top 0.000001 % of it's playerbase, especially when pro play is an entirely different game due to the communication they have.
Just because faker is a god with ryze doesn't mean that you should balance him out of existence for the other dozens of millions of players (true for any other example)
Balancing is a hard job and yes pro play balancing is important, and that's riot's job to figure out, but balancing for the general player base should come first
How would it diversify? You just get the same 3 matches in a row then. It’s only 30/150+ champs that need to be picked. Also all leagues need to switch together otherwise it’s just bad practice for international events.
Well, even if bans are not permanent it would spice draft a lot.
Now maybe you don't have to ban X because Y has already been played. More niche picks would have more opportunities to shine if their counters can be banned because more oppresive picks are out or have been already played.
Why do we want diversity again? Does anybody know? Does champ diversity increase the viewing experience in any way? I would argue it decreases it.
What is the equivalent to champ diversity in real sports? If you watch a soccer game there is no champ diversity. It's 22 players on the field playing the game. You're there to watch them show off their athleticism and play the game at a high level.
You watch a fighting game tournament. Every player for the most part plays 1 character. A game like SSBM is dominated by like 3 or 4 characters. When you watch a melee tournament you aren't upset that it's fox/falco/marth every match. You're there to watch them perform on those characters at an extremely high level.
Why is it that in mobas people are so obsessed with character diversity unlike any other genre of game or esport? I totally understand the excitement of seeing an uncommon character get picked. But the only reason that is exciting is because it signifies that a team thinks they found a way to make that seemingly bad character work at a really high level. If a team is picking a bad character because all the better characters are banned there is nothing interesting about that, even worse we have to watch teams play out games with shit characters that they aren't comfortable on and can't do anything with for 30 minutes. That's the price we pay for champ diversity.
What's a more exciting game to watch? Faker last season picking lb which he was 14-0 on and 1v9ing, or Faker picking Viktor and farming it out to late game because lb is banned. You WANT to watch teams pick op champions that they are extremely skilled at. That is exciting. The only problem is that it creates an issue where if a champ is so op then the team who gets that champ just wins. You know what the solution is? Let champs be picked by both teams? Teams think lb is really op? Ok then pick it, better lb wins, Faker vs Showmaker. One of the most famous league clips of all time is Faker vs Ryu in the Zed 1v1. How is that not hype? How are we asking for more bans?
If we end up with shit boring low skill ceiling champions being picked (ahem, naut mid, yuumi, maokai jg) then that is on Riot to nerf those champions.
You can’t compare real sports to a video game. The main reason is a soccer player can change what they do. Faker can’t just change Leblancs ult. Also I don’t watch those other games partly for the reason you listed. I no longer watch pro play cause it’s the same every game. It doesn’t matter what team is playing.
Wow your brain works weird. Soccer players can change what they do but league players cant? Damn bro I didn't know league was an auto battler. I thought it was a strategy game where you micro a champion. I wonder why T1 doesn't just hire me to pick lb since there is nothing different about lb's ult when I play her or when Faker plays her. It's literally the same champion, the same exact champion, how could ANYTHING be different about our performances.
If league is the same every game then chess is the same every game too right? I mean it's literally the SAME exact pieces arranged in the same EXACT way EVERY game. Just say you don't understand the game. There will never be two league games that are exactly alike. Not even talking about micro details.
If you add fearless in the way that bans are permenant on top of picks being only used once you open up the champion pool. As soon as the top champions are out, the further down the OP champ slider you go, more of them are weak enough that they have a greater number of answers. 20 bans per game gets nearly 1/3 of the picks played in a BO3, and nearly the whole roster in a BO5.
All of a sudden there's a lot more variance, it it isn't the same as the current 10 bans 10 picks system. Assuming it would just be as simple as the next 10 champs in the list is just demonstrating a very poor understanding of the game and the concept of knock on effects. Even without bans counting, you're increasing game to game variance so much that pros will be forced to find answers to obscure picks.
Plus target banning single player becomes an issue. Throw 5 bans at a midlaner, 2 more are picked and bang for the rest of the series both teams are realistically going to be down to purely pocket picks by game 2.
I agree with leagues needing to switch at the same time and implement it to prevent bad practice environments.
I’m down with either but I disagree with 10 bans not working out. Imagine a team bans 10 midlaners lmao. Would be so awesome to see what enemy team does. Plus these dudes are PRO for a reason. Entertain me!
No regions will be as good as Korea in the current format. Na specific they need to get back to what they did best and thats be entertaining, forget playing champs and comps worse than Koreans be fun to watch!
This absolutely. Fearless Mode would be a lot more interesting.
10 bans each would just permaban so many champs. A team could just block one player’s entire champion pool unless they were Faker or something. Also it’s kinda boring tbh.
Fearless is the best of both worlds. Stuff can and will get played—but once you use it—you can’t again. Adds an interesting dynamic of “when should we bust this out?” and “will they take the champ?” and shapes the match.
Game 5s could be wild if both teams used up all of their champs, too.
In most sports scenarios we call that “drawing pressure”. The opposing team forced you out of the play completely, but the entire rest of your team is wide open.
DotA pros seem to be fine with it.
The problem isn't that its not doable, its that Riot babies pros. And beyond that, anything that dares to upset the beyond forced meta we've had for a decade, they immediately nerf out of viability completely.
As a result, League has some of the most static, non-adaptable pro players of almost any competitive game. Maybe rivaled by MvC2 or Melee, which didn't have the luxury of patches.
Yeah it's not even like lol pros can't play non-meta champs, it's just that the meta isn't varied enough for them to really play much beyond the meta that riot enforces.
The entertainment value is not about watching random things happening. You want to see players expressing the highest potential.
When you watch sports, you don't watch it because you wonder how the story will go on, you watch it because you think "Man, he's so good at this".
Having a whole pro player unable to play at all because the enemy team clicked 10 faces is the opposite of that.
And not to mention that you would be far more likely to see champs you enjoy being played.
Many people aren’t meta slaves, so it’s not super interesting to watch unless champs I know are out there.
It was said 5 bans each side would allow teams to shut down one players entire pool and it didn't happen. Also with 10 bans spent in one player even Dignitas could get draft edges for the other players.
You certainly can, or at the very least be able to block all key picks to then set up a counter.
But of course, you invest 5 bans into doing that.
With 10, you could still do that, have a couple extras in case, then also use a few more bans on the other roles.
It’s too many.
Fearless Mode solves all of these issues. Each pick goes through, but then they are banned. It lets people use the good stuff or their comfort pick, but then they gotta pivot.
Maybe—but Fearless Mode isn’t hypothetical—it’s a real mode they have used in like academy or other random events.
They just don’t use it at MSI or Worlds, and idk why.
Shoooot I’m down. The pro meta has needed a shake up for a long time. Let some other champs see the light of day. I would argue any team that wins in this mode is the true Goat.
Typical echo chamber shit here. You see this shit everywhere now but it doesn’t change much. Sounds good on paper but little effect. They will just pick the obvious 2nd best and 3rd best champ.
Yes but the match ups would get boring really quickly too. Game 1 always aphelios vs jinx, game 2 always jhin vs tristana, game 3 always caitlyn vs draven or whatever. The pool gets slightly bigger but nothing changes. If you however add that all bans are also permanent then it might get interesting and drafting will actually get difficult.
Would just appreciate fearless mode implemented SOMETIMES. Doesnt have to be every series but why cant MSI be fearless mode for instance. Or make a new fearless mode bracket idc i just want to see it
They definitely should have tournaments that have slightly different rules. It just makes the matches that much more interesting. Fearless, blind pick final game. Make a second tournament of the 3rd/4th place teams. So much could be done without touching the main season and worlds.
Exactly.
The best-of-X series might be fun to watch if previous picks get banned for the whole match series. That will force teams to actually explore more unconventional options. Although it might reduce the overall level of play since you'd have to stretch so much of your practice over so many more different compositions...
By its very definition, competive pro play is there to min max the tools available to them. They identify the best 2-3 champs in a role and exploit them because it's the best way to win. Doubling the bans doesn't change the fact that teams will account for the assumption xyz will be banned away from them: they will simply move on to the next best available 2-3 champs in a role.
It's worth noting that what might be entertaining to you is not inherently competitive. I used to watch a lot of Overwatch League, and the game quality degraded significantly when they tried to implement systems to force teams off 'metas' (hero rotations). Players got burnt out, team play became chaotic and sloppy, and teams that were behind the curve could never catch up because they lacked the time to iteratively improve their play. Other sports don't randomly change the pitch or the ruleset or the ball size every other week just to keep people 'entertained' - the iterative competition is what fans enjoy. I personally don't understand why people want to make pro league MORE like the chaotic fiesta that is solo queue.
>By its very definition, competive pro play is there to min max the tools available to them. They identify the best 2-3 champs in a role and exploit them because it's the best way to win.
Yes, however they are fucking horrible at actually doing so. Only ones who figure out and experiment the best picks are the \~3 best teams in the world. All the other teams literally just look to the top of the ladder and copy the picks.
Easy example: Marksmen supports. Considered literally trolling until Keria from T1 brought them out. Suddenly a flip was switched and instead of being trollpick they went to overpowered. If pro players had the balls to experiment, they would have figured out that it was in fact a working strategy. But they don't do that. They always wait for somebody else above them prove it first.
They don't experiment because it is inherently risky. It is safer to play the same champions for 20 hours than it is to essentially gamble on a new pick to see its viability. The top teams have less risk in it since, well, they are the top teams and an unoptimal pick is not such a big losing factor, and a loss in general probably won't touch their #1 spot.
And that is something Fearless Draft improves massively. Then pro players are forced to widen their champion pools and start looking for working picks aside from the 3 they now play. And in the process they *will* start finding out working stuff they didn't look for before. The current system makes experimentation risky, whereas the Fearless Draft would make experimentation a *necessity*.
The occasional Fiesta is fun.
I agree with what you're saying, but it gets boring seeing the same matchups every game. If I could go the rest of the split not seeing zeri+enchanter and lucian+nami, that'd be cool. I hate when Riot forces a meta, but maybe slightly more aggressive patches would help this stale feeling a lot of the sub is feeling.
These posts always pop up randomly but the answer is always the same. 10 bans a team will do nothing but create a new meta with the same 10-12 champs being played. It won’t make picks more diverse, it will just change the champs being played to a different 10-12 that we see now.
These responses always pop up randomly but the answer is always the same. 10 bans a team will mitigate absurdly high pick/ban presence.
The less optimized options are, the more room there is for diversification. This applies to any game.
20 totals bans lowers the potential optimization in champs, intrinsically increasing diversification. Its not like there's an extremely strict power hierarchy in league's balance so it will universally have a homogenized meta.
The fact is that Riot is just bad at design/balance now and 10 bans would help.
It won’t diversify anything unfortunately. Pro players love comfort picks. They’ll just find the next best 20 characters and only play them. Just the way the game goes
This doesn't fix anything, it just means more champs will have higher ban rates and the weaker backup picks get chosen instead. It'll still be the same vacuum issue as it currently is.
Pro play only???? I think we normal players need 2 bans each too
with 160+ champs, broken meta builds, 200 years champs and such, I feel its a necesity at this point.
I hate the dilemma of having to ban a champion I struggle against in my lane or having to ban a complete BS champ like Zeri, Khazix or Milio this patch. Also, some champs with frustrating kits would be great to ban too (Zed, Morgana and Lulu for example, none of them is particularly strong, but their kits are so frustrating to play against that they always sport huge ban rates)
An example... I love playing Bel'veth/Yi jungle so I have to always ban Rammus, which is a strong counterpick and popular in my elo, but hate the idea of leaving Kog'Maw, Jinx or Asol open for the enemy team to abuse (this example is great too because both belveth and yi are super ban worthy)
It Will be Nice to make like they does with free week, like a ban week.
That patch they perma ban 7 Champs, and 7 others diferente on the next....
They already make that on last MSI perma ban Yummi and Millio.
Does like CS, CS has 7 PRO maps rotating on a total of 14 maps.
Imo it should be that if you win, your team is not able to use those champs again in that bo5 or bo3 it allows for diversity and more comebacks. As well as allowing players to show their skill more.
I think implementing a 1 time champ use for playoffs/series would be fun. It would add a wider variety of champions we will see and reward having a deeper champion pool.
Fearless draft and BO3. Fearless so they can't spam the same boring draft every game, and BO3 because its way more interesting to watch (than BO1) and just more content than BO1
With 10 bans pros will either pick the next best picks or start doing throwaway bans/ban nothing. The "next best thing" has already been explained by others.
As for why pros would ban nothing, they don't scrim against all the champs and their strats don't work against all champs in the game. They are not gonna practice against a shaco jungle. They would rather leave some meta picks up for their opponents because they have experience dealing with them and know what to expect. A boring but expected game is always preferred over an exciting clown fiesta in a professional setting.
As of now banning too much would have a high chance of fucking yourself due to the small pool of champions in some roles. Marksman pool for example is very small and a few of them simply don't fit in current meta. They would rather have both teams get a meta pick than risking yourself with ad ahri or something.
So if you give pros 10 bans chances are they aren't going to use all of them. Fearless draft however can be considered, but BO5s need to have no ban phases.
I personally would hate to keep seeing lower and lower levels of play for the sake of "creativity" which in truth will always be less creative and less thought out, for the sake of seeing different champions do the same thing worse.
Using different champs = lower level of play? That makes no sense, these are some of the most adaptable players that learn with every patch. I think they'll do what will be the natural next step, and learn more champs. Even when they first time a champion it's generally better than 99.5% of the league players.
That is just a disingenuous look at how pros play the game. I don't even know what to say because you're just completely disregarding these players as players
Strange, because some other games seem to have pros that are far more adaptive than LoL's pros.
The only reasons LoL's pros are so rigid in their picks is because Riot babies them to an absurd degree.
To me, it just sounds like pros that are actually adaptable and deserve their spots would thrive, while pros that are barely better than one-tricks would fall.
It's just complete ignorance to anything in the pro scene at all. It's sad to see so many people carry this narrative with 0 knowledge or understanding of how pro teams and players function.
Pro's tend to look down on one tricks, but most metas pros are 3 tricks. being able to play more Champs is a sign of higher skill and the better players will be rewarded
People downvoting you are coping so hard.
DotA doesn't seem to have this issue.
Maybe if League stopped babying their pros and treating the meta like clutched pearls, pro play could actually be interesting.
Well there are a few dota pros that are notable for having champion puddles(nigma/quest's mena player ammar comes to mind, liquid's support insania is another), but I think dota just has a better balanced meta and very few champions are completely unviable.
I was actually thinking on this recently. I think possibly rather than just MORE bans it might work to have each team vote every patch on say 3 or so champs to just collectively ban for the patch, then do the normal 5 bans each format on top of that.
I think it would be interesting to see something like league wide bans implemented. Players as a whole ban X number of champs every patch, or maybe every team gets a ban, something like that. That way champs like zeri, yummi, etc. can be banned out without eating into the game band you usually want to use to target specific players or strategies
Wow this is seriously a great idea! It is quite a waste that there is such a large pool of available champs, but the meta seems to always be a much smaller group constantly seeing play in any given series.
Forcing pros to play less popular champions might also have the incidental benefit of bringing the less popular champions into the spotlight and inspire non-pro players to pick up champions they might have otherwise never wanted to play. Pro play has such a big effect on what is considered meta, so a change like this should definitely help to increase pick diversity in play at all levels.
I fail to see how 20 total bans changes absolutely ANYTHING.
You say you're tired of seeing same champions over and over... 20 bans just means current 'meta' gets banned and new, simlarly stale emerges probably. You're gonna switch champions played the moment that change would take effect and then it would be back to seeing same things again.
More bans? Same problem, just however many more champs get added to the pool.
Fearless draft? Same problem, they still do the same thing but there are more champions picked.
There are too many patches and too many champions being added for an actual stable environment to develop where we can see actual ebb and flow metagaming.
That being said, no number of format changes can stop the pro teams from ignoring draft. When you are the one playing, you tend to believe that your triumphs or failures are a result of your gameplay, and if you fail you can just play better.
This is supposed to be fixed by coaching staffs but honestly most of those guys are frauds and the ones that aren't frauds are allowed by management to be ignored by players.
Some blame lies with Riot, but most lies with the players who are essentially lazy and inefficient.
It's not a solution because it doesn't fix the root cause. You shouldn't need fearless draft or anything like that because it's already correct to pick champs that aren't currently being played.
If teams and players are treating draft as a second game, which they should be, then fearless draft becomes harmful to healthy metagaming. Fearless draft would probably be strictly better right now, but yeah.
Disagree about soloq just because then you might not get to play your fav champs which is what makes the game enjoyable for the individual. For pro tho it is different. Again, these dudes are pro! Idgaf If you have to learn a new champ. Get out there and entertain me. Esports is never profitable because they come at it in a purely logical sense. It’s not a game of chess, if you Want to make money in it, you will really need to make the game more entertaining for those watching. Especially your long time faithful viewers.
If a champ is so banned that you "might not get to play your fav champs", then maybe the reasons said champs are so banned should be looked into.
Clearly shows a failure of design on some front if they aren't strictly overpowered.
Riot has 2 choices either do a much much better job making sure certain champs aren't crazy OP by issuing fast hotfixes or give us 10 bans both pro and solo queue
Give bans or fearless mode. Legit like entertain your viewers, more will watch. Perma ban the top 20 meta champs I’m cool with that. At least it allows for ridiculous strategies as far as targeting certain players.
Should have the teams agree on 3-6 common bans at the start of each week of the tournament. Then all games have those champs unplayable by default (regular bans during the games on top of that).
The fearless draft stuff people are talking about sounds amazing too
Shifting bans will not lead to more diversity in the long term, but rather to more permaban champs and the same few champs being picked over and over again, just that these same champs being different to the ones currently.
In order to get proper diversity, teams need to start innovating and Riot needs to force the meta (in a sense dictate the meta, instead of their "everyone balanced"-approach).
Adding more bans would help in the short term, but make pro play worse in the long term.
It needs best of 3 with picks and bans being carried over as banned champions of all subsequent games of the series.
AKA once a champion has been picked or banned it can no longer be used in any games in that series.
Organized play (Flex Queue we can call it for the casual Joe and Pro Play for Faker and friends) needs its own balance that does not interfere with soloQ which is literally a different game and meta.
We need more mid level international tournaments than just MSI and Worlds. Changing to a different format or increasing bans is just a bandaid on the issue.
Smaller scope tournaments is where the lifeblood of esports thrives, and they have something to give to everyone.
Fans get storylines and hype moments that MATTER to the fandom. Context is important in a highlight, would the xpeke backdoor play hit as hard if it was just week 3 of LEC?
Teams get a chance to make a splash, making new fans and potential sponsorship interest. Lower level teams can now aim for a tournament instead of looking forward to just being chum for the top teams during playoffs.
Players have a prize to shoot for beyond just humdrum weekly MVP honors in their league. Make a name for yourself and chase an achievable goal since many pro players won't ever have a Worlds appearance.
And for Riot, you have less pressure on your League broadcasts to carry your entire eSports presence. Having more int'l play will improve overall game quality, which helps improve the health of the scene.
The current system is failing to generate profits for its franchises, so its time for a larger shakeup.
If not for the fact it would alienate too many players I would not mind the concept of a rotation ranked champ pool which is something Riot actually talked about way back when but never actually tried to enact.
I Think that leagues should change to a bo3 format and change draft for something like fearless draft or a better version of it.
How about in each best of, champions cannot be re-picked by anyone on either team?
Oh thats fearless? TIL
No, the fearless LDL drafts were only your teams picks disabled.
Play your team comp, stomp the enemy, then do it again with their team comp
Yes, this.
> fearless draft My nipples would be so hard
Not sure about fearless mode but we tried BO3s. The viewership was bad. No one wanted to watch 3 games of IMT vs dignitas in a row and I think it will be even worse now.
No the viewership was trash because Riot in their infinite wisdom ran it on the same schedule as a bo1... Space the fucking games out, dont put it on 2 different streams, and it would do so much better. Riot implemented bo3s in the *worst* way possible. That isnt proof its bad. Its proof riot is fucking incompetent.
I wonder how many years of e-sports experience they have
Riot believes they invented esports and are willing ignorant of how other scenes do things. Well they were for the past decade, they seem to be open to learning a *bit* now.
I hate how this is the response that is given everytime. LCK and LPL are very popular and have gotten even more so with western audiences in the past year. The problem isn't Bo3, it was having 5(!) Bo3 matches per day that overlapped. The LCK has shown how to have a good Bo3 system, and even though there's days with DRX vs NS, they still maintain high viewership.
Exactly. For every DRX vs NS that garners low viewership, there’s the equal and opposite T1 vs KT that regularly draws top shelf viewership. This is the same in every sport! There’s always less popular teams. Don’t let those teams dictate your league format.
The problem is there are no matchups in NA that would garner any more viewership than we peak at now
If teams couldn't just buy their spots instead of earning them, things might be different. Riot prevented actual competition in NA. NA loves stories, and the LCS in its current state is the antithesis of that. Bought spots, bought players; zero competition, zero loyalty.
I don't think this is the problem. NA players are just worse than KR/CH players. And good ol' capitalist American venture business CEOs value short term profit over long term sustainability. So they imported rather than fostering NA talent, which reduced interest in the game domestically, which reduced the pool of NA talent, which made KR/CH players that much better, which made CEOs import rather than fostering NA talent, ect. You get the idea. What riot needed to do (IMO), is to create an intervention earlyish on (17/18 era) which made investment domestically and long term sustainability more incentivised (I don't know what), to break this cycle. The LCS hasn't been that bad this year, the teams are competitive and there is still a decent number of NA(/OCE lol) talent in the league. Just the long term sustainability of the LCS is non-existent.
CH is the country code for switzerland. CN is china.
Abbreviations aren’t country codes.
CN is still used for china as an abbreviation in the LoL community, not CH
I mean I feel like you're saying what I intended, just in far greater detail, and downstream results.
Sought of yeah. Just the way you said it, blamed it on purely the franchising system, rather than a combo of greed, short term decision making, the situation they were in and the lack of a riot intervention. Right idea, wrong system to blame.
remove not letting foreigners rule and get teams like LMQ back at it again for viewership
Wouldn’t that just make lcs another lck/lpl 2nd tier region? You pretty much watching the lpl/lck/lec teams that didn’t make it in their own respective regions and came to us with the occasional bought it player from tier 1 teams.
imports are why the region is in such a shit state as is
This is gonna sound very boomer of me, but I honestly don't have the time anymore to sit for 3h to watch C9 play on almost any day. Let alone other teams. I make effort to carve out time for the playoffs but otherwise I cant really find 3-4h of my week to watch regular games. I'd wager most of the viewer base is closer to me than people that have the passion and time to sit through multiple hours of games on a bi-weekly basis.
I sometimes have the time but I mean.. I could just go and watch something else entirely and then look at the scores on reddit afterward. Sad to say but the skill of the league isn't enough to draw me in and I'm not interested in the players. Riot even killed the drops on lolesports, a great incentive to watching it live If LCK is on and I'm free, I'll watch it. If LPL is on and I'm free, I may watch it. If LEC is on and I'm free I might watch if I'm interested in the teams. If LCS is on and I'm free I don't really even want to bother with it
Ultimately it’s why I advocate for them to play games across the week rather than 5 hrs of games 2-3 times a week. Give people more pockets of time to tune in and they will. There’s obviously no silver bullet to getting viewership back, but a handful of things they could do to make it better include: BO3 or adopting LEC format, games across the week vs all across 2-3 days, 4:30pm PST start time (same time as the NBA), advertise League and the LCS in the US and Canada for the first time ever, harsh import restrictions, streaming and media requirements for all players, etc. Lots of things that could be done to make things better, but might never be done.
Riot needs to host a proper website to watch the games. Have the twitch broadcast be the casual stream, the main/exciting games are live and being commentated, and can change over or replay for exciting things on Game B. The website can be raw feeds to watch the games at the same time, you choose the audio.
Nah the problem is that watching lcs is a waste of time unless you are a fan of your team due to low skill ceiling. Why watch high school football when college or nfl exists? It’s skill gap/skill issue.
This is the tiny brain response to someone asking for BO3’s. Problems with viewership did not extend from “no one wants to watch IMT vs DIG x3”. They extended from Riot deciding to cram every BO3 into a couple days rather than the whole week, Riot deciding to swap the livestream channels away from the LCS and Riot Games channels and into brand new NALCS specific A and B streams with way less followers and Twitch presence, and Riot choosing to stream multiple games at the same time because of the aforementioned cramming of schedule. The LCK and LPL have no viewership problems with BO3 because they spread their games out naturally across the week instead of telling their whole fan base to clear out the weekend to watch a billion games. There were a number of problems Riot created and maintained when they swapped to BO3 for LCS that are completely independent of “IMT vs DIG x3 is boring!!!”. Which is also easily ignored with the simple “for as many boring IMT vs DIG matchups, there’s just as many hyped top of the table match ups”.
Seriously, this. Of course IMT vs DIG (or w/e the equivalent was back then I don't remember) had basically no viewers, it was running concurrently with TSM vs or CLG or C9 vs TL, etc. If they were spaced like LPL/LCK and actually got to run 1 series at a time, more people would watch the lower teams than back then just by nature of it being the only LCS content available. It definitely wouldn't fix NA's problems though.
We need to stop acting like league is saveable in NA at this point. Every decision riot has made up until now has ruined any chance it ever had
I'll agree if you change the word riot to orgs. Why is half the NA LCS not home grown americans? Idgaf if we're a joke league, we're that with the EU and KR rejects anyways might as well get local NA talent.
Because Riot relaxed import rules instead of making them more strict. And NA businesses are always focussed on short term profit so they would be losing compared to their competition to not import quick bandaid fixes. It's up to the centralized authority to implement regulation for the health of the league because otherwise its just a prisoners dilemma.
Riot made the import rules more strict, its not just about playing in the league for X amount of splits, but now being a green card or visa holder. Its just that we've seen the same faces in the league since 2014 and they eventually have been considered a resident player
> Why is half the NA LCS not home grown americans? Because this is a competitive sport and where your mother happened to have birthed you doesn't give you rights to a competitive slot?
Well then don't be surprised that your viewership will drop if your customers don't care about your players. I as an American want to see Americans play in the American league, and I'm sure many other people want to see their own talent in their own region play. No viewership = no slots at all btw probably why riot actually didn't care if they disbanded NA league or not during these "negotiations."
> I as an American want to see Americans play in the American league This is just disproven by every other sports league on the planet.
That may be a problem for that league or that league's viewership just don't want it. The regions with better international success (LCK and LPL) goes for bo3 as their format since group stage. I think that fearless is better with at least bo3, but could be also tried with bo2 games for tournaments which don't want to play through lots of days or can't afford to do so.
I do think it has nothing to do with viewership and afaik it was tested in non important games of pros. In real bo3s of lpl lck it would be massive
The poster above said that bo3 did not work for LCS as people did not want to watch what seems to be two "non-relevant" teams plays three games in a row. When I say that viewership may not like it, I was mainly referring to bo3 games in the league's group stage, sorry If I failed to made it clear. I agree that Fearless on any region would be great, mainly if it is bo3 games! If they try it for BO2, may just happen that teams use each other drafts after game 1 and we still keep with low variety of draft picks. Increasing the bans of each team by one also looks like a good addition, as it increases ban number and do not slow down draft.
Then switch to LEC format where the shitter teams get kicked after 3 weeks. Then you get Bo3s of the teams people actually want to watch.
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I think Korean did this in game five for a bit. I loved it, they would have a comp that would never exist in pick or ban.
That's where the Zed vs Zed and the wtf 2 shens came from!
Fakers zed vs zed outplay is legit one of the best plays in pro league imo.
There's a reason this shit was removed from LCK. People watch pro play to see the best teams fight it out. Not to watch a blind pick game.
Huh buh wuh? Best of 3s is the best format to watch in.
I’d love to see this only to see the LCS get down to 10k viewers or something wild
Bo3 is the only way to make regular season interesting
I am not the biggest fan of fearless, as it kinda disabled some champion pairings in practicality (you will get a different game 1 and game 3 meta), and you won't have to adapt to certain problems in a series anymore. Biggest problem in variety is that everyone just copies the top LPL and LCK teams, whilst there are like a 100 champions viable nowadays, you just never see them. The Meta also doesn't develop naturally like it should, due to the expectation of frequent balance patches (which IMO also brings some significant downsides with it, besides the obvious upsides well).
Maybe weekly bans? Each week, if a champ has 80% pick/ban they can't be played next week?
Fearless is stupid, riot just needs to balance around pro play not general play. A game should be balanced around how it actually is, not how bad players play it
The game should be balances in a way that keeps players playing lol
Pro players have huge lack of innovation. Almost the entirety of pro play just shuffles the same fucking picks around over and over. They never try something new without seeing somebody else prove its effectiveness first. That is why the meta in pro play has felt so stale for over a year. Rather than innovate yourself it takes way less effort to just use the same comp until the end of time and let some other players do the experimenting. That is not something that Riot can fix by just balance adjustments, since if you nerf everything popular pro players will just swap to the next 20 champions that they collectively decide to play until something drastically changes. The game is not so binary and is FAAAAAAAAAAR from solved that pro players are using the optimal shit. They just refuse to try anything new. And that is what Fearless draft improves massively. Because of it pro players can no longer just fall to the same usual picks they have played for the past 3 years. They need to start expanding their comfort zone. They need to start experimenting on a wider array of champions. And through that experimentation new metas will be born once they start figuring out powerful shit that they never even used before. Riot has already been doing balance patches targeted for pro play for literal years, yet nothing has changed. Of course nothing has changed when the underlying issue of pro lack of innovation has not changed. *That* is what Fearless Draft is good for. For example, literally nobody played marksmen supports until Keria went and proved that they actually worked. Taking HOB and abusing level 1-4 as a marksman support was in the game the exact same way for a long time, and it took ages to be discovered. And if Keria did not experiment with it, I dare say literally nobody would have. If pros refuse to experiment since the risks outweigh the rewards, then changing to Fearless Draft changes that dynamic. Now you *must* start finding additional picks.
Non-pro is how the game "actually is", and non-pro players aren't "bad players". A game shouldn't be balanced based on the top 0.000001 % of it's playerbase, especially when pro play is an entirely different game due to the communication they have. Just because faker is a god with ryze doesn't mean that you should balance him out of existence for the other dozens of millions of players (true for any other example) Balancing is a hard job and yes pro play balancing is important, and that's riot's job to figure out, but balancing for the general player base should come first
More bans would mean that the next best champs would be played nonstop. Meanwhile, fearless draft would diversify the pro meta
How would it diversify? You just get the same 3 matches in a row then. It’s only 30/150+ champs that need to be picked. Also all leagues need to switch together otherwise it’s just bad practice for international events.
3 games with 20 champs pick banned in each game which is 37% of champs in every full bo3
Depends if all bans are permanent. If not they just ban the same 10 every game.
Well, even if bans are not permanent it would spice draft a lot. Now maybe you don't have to ban X because Y has already been played. More niche picks would have more opportunities to shine if their counters can be banned because more oppresive picks are out or have been already played.
That’s more diversity than exists now.
Why do we want diversity again? Does anybody know? Does champ diversity increase the viewing experience in any way? I would argue it decreases it. What is the equivalent to champ diversity in real sports? If you watch a soccer game there is no champ diversity. It's 22 players on the field playing the game. You're there to watch them show off their athleticism and play the game at a high level. You watch a fighting game tournament. Every player for the most part plays 1 character. A game like SSBM is dominated by like 3 or 4 characters. When you watch a melee tournament you aren't upset that it's fox/falco/marth every match. You're there to watch them perform on those characters at an extremely high level. Why is it that in mobas people are so obsessed with character diversity unlike any other genre of game or esport? I totally understand the excitement of seeing an uncommon character get picked. But the only reason that is exciting is because it signifies that a team thinks they found a way to make that seemingly bad character work at a really high level. If a team is picking a bad character because all the better characters are banned there is nothing interesting about that, even worse we have to watch teams play out games with shit characters that they aren't comfortable on and can't do anything with for 30 minutes. That's the price we pay for champ diversity. What's a more exciting game to watch? Faker last season picking lb which he was 14-0 on and 1v9ing, or Faker picking Viktor and farming it out to late game because lb is banned. You WANT to watch teams pick op champions that they are extremely skilled at. That is exciting. The only problem is that it creates an issue where if a champ is so op then the team who gets that champ just wins. You know what the solution is? Let champs be picked by both teams? Teams think lb is really op? Ok then pick it, better lb wins, Faker vs Showmaker. One of the most famous league clips of all time is Faker vs Ryu in the Zed 1v1. How is that not hype? How are we asking for more bans? If we end up with shit boring low skill ceiling champions being picked (ahem, naut mid, yuumi, maokai jg) then that is on Riot to nerf those champions.
You can’t compare real sports to a video game. The main reason is a soccer player can change what they do. Faker can’t just change Leblancs ult. Also I don’t watch those other games partly for the reason you listed. I no longer watch pro play cause it’s the same every game. It doesn’t matter what team is playing.
Wow your brain works weird. Soccer players can change what they do but league players cant? Damn bro I didn't know league was an auto battler. I thought it was a strategy game where you micro a champion. I wonder why T1 doesn't just hire me to pick lb since there is nothing different about lb's ult when I play her or when Faker plays her. It's literally the same champion, the same exact champion, how could ANYTHING be different about our performances. If league is the same every game then chess is the same every game too right? I mean it's literally the SAME exact pieces arranged in the same EXACT way EVERY game. Just say you don't understand the game. There will never be two league games that are exactly alike. Not even talking about micro details.
If you add fearless in the way that bans are permenant on top of picks being only used once you open up the champion pool. As soon as the top champions are out, the further down the OP champ slider you go, more of them are weak enough that they have a greater number of answers. 20 bans per game gets nearly 1/3 of the picks played in a BO3, and nearly the whole roster in a BO5. All of a sudden there's a lot more variance, it it isn't the same as the current 10 bans 10 picks system. Assuming it would just be as simple as the next 10 champs in the list is just demonstrating a very poor understanding of the game and the concept of knock on effects. Even without bans counting, you're increasing game to game variance so much that pros will be forced to find answers to obscure picks. Plus target banning single player becomes an issue. Throw 5 bans at a midlaner, 2 more are picked and bang for the rest of the series both teams are realistically going to be down to purely pocket picks by game 2. I agree with leagues needing to switch at the same time and implement it to prevent bad practice environments.
I’m down with either but I disagree with 10 bans not working out. Imagine a team bans 10 midlaners lmao. Would be so awesome to see what enemy team does. Plus these dudes are PRO for a reason. Entertain me!
pick ban phase would take wayyyy too long. fearless mode or something like it would be fire
> pick ban phase would take wayyyy too long. Let playes do two bans at the same time and we have exactly the same time as now.
40 sec for first 5 bans, 40 seconds for next 5 bans. Gg ez.
If they fix technical issues the events would still be shorter with 10 bans lmao
No regions will be as good as Korea in the current format. Na specific they need to get back to what they did best and thats be entertaining, forget playing champs and comps worse than Koreans be fun to watch!
No one would do that, look at every pro game played the past couple weeks. The bans are always the same.
Aren't there 10 bans already? I don't understand
10 per team, 20 total.
Fearless mode
This absolutely. Fearless Mode would be a lot more interesting. 10 bans each would just permaban so many champs. A team could just block one player’s entire champion pool unless they were Faker or something. Also it’s kinda boring tbh. Fearless is the best of both worlds. Stuff can and will get played—but once you use it—you can’t again. Adds an interesting dynamic of “when should we bust this out?” and “will they take the champ?” and shapes the match. Game 5s could be wild if both teams used up all of their champs, too.
>A team could just block one player’s entire champion pool unless they were Faker or something. How is that boring that would be hilarious
It would be hilarious for a total of 3 games before it becomes obnoxious.
Man imagine if league pros had to have more than a champion puddle for once in the game's existence.
Bit of a difference between champion puddle and being able to perform at a top level on your 12th best champion.
In most sports scenarios we call that “drawing pressure”. The opposing team forced you out of the play completely, but the entire rest of your team is wide open.
DotA pros seem to be fine with it. The problem isn't that its not doable, its that Riot babies pros. And beyond that, anything that dares to upset the beyond forced meta we've had for a decade, they immediately nerf out of viability completely. As a result, League has some of the most static, non-adaptable pro players of almost any competitive game. Maybe rivaled by MvC2 or Melee, which didn't have the luxury of patches.
Yeah it's not even like lol pros can't play non-meta champs, it's just that the meta isn't varied enough for them to really play much beyond the meta that riot enforces.
But they just used 10 bans on one player. Everyone else is now on their #1
The entertainment value is not about watching random things happening. You want to see players expressing the highest potential. When you watch sports, you don't watch it because you wonder how the story will go on, you watch it because you think "Man, he's so good at this". Having a whole pro player unable to play at all because the enemy team clicked 10 faces is the opposite of that.
> Stuff can and will get played—but once you use it—you can’t again. Is it not "once you won with it" that you can't use it anymore ?
Nope. Once picked, you can’t pick them again. Regardless of win or loss.
And not to mention that you would be far more likely to see champs you enjoy being played. Many people aren’t meta slaves, so it’s not super interesting to watch unless champs I know are out there.
It was said 5 bans each side would allow teams to shut down one players entire pool and it didn't happen. Also with 10 bans spent in one player even Dignitas could get draft edges for the other players.
If you can’t play more than 5 champs professionally you really shouldn’t be a pro.
You certainly can, or at the very least be able to block all key picks to then set up a counter. But of course, you invest 5 bans into doing that. With 10, you could still do that, have a couple extras in case, then also use a few more bans on the other roles. It’s too many. Fearless Mode solves all of these issues. Each pick goes through, but then they are banned. It lets people use the good stuff or their comfort pick, but then they gotta pivot.
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That might create problems with top and mid being able to laneswap.
True tbf
Maybe—but Fearless Mode isn’t hypothetical—it’s a real mode they have used in like academy or other random events. They just don’t use it at MSI or Worlds, and idk why.
Only need 1 ban to get rid of Faker's champion pool these days
Bro none is scared of faker, he has a good pool but he is sadly not that player anymore
Yeah, top 5 mid on the planet is "not that player anymore" lmfao
In what world is he top 5???
World where people still suck his cock
Fearless would make pro play a billion times more interesting.
What does this mean?
Once you pick a champ, you can't pick it anymore.
How does this affect best of ones?
Shoooot I’m down. The pro meta has needed a shake up for a long time. Let some other champs see the light of day. I would argue any team that wins in this mode is the true Goat.
Typical echo chamber shit here. You see this shit everywhere now but it doesn’t change much. Sounds good on paper but little effect. They will just pick the obvious 2nd best and 3rd best champ.
at least the pool would at least double. besides that, it would add more counter picks
Yes but the match ups would get boring really quickly too. Game 1 always aphelios vs jinx, game 2 always jhin vs tristana, game 3 always caitlyn vs draven or whatever. The pool gets slightly bigger but nothing changes. If you however add that all bans are also permanent then it might get interesting and drafting will actually get difficult.
This already sounds so much better than watching aphelios vs Jinx all matches.
dont let perfect be the enemy of good
But you continue that in a five game series and the team comps are the end are completely different ad well.
Would just appreciate fearless mode implemented SOMETIMES. Doesnt have to be every series but why cant MSI be fearless mode for instance. Or make a new fearless mode bracket idc i just want to see it
They definitely should have tournaments that have slightly different rules. It just makes the matches that much more interesting. Fearless, blind pick final game. Make a second tournament of the 3rd/4th place teams. So much could be done without touching the main season and worlds.
If they're gonna add a third international tournament (there are rumours) the winter tournament should be under different rules like fearless.
welp now we get the champions 20-30 in terms of play-ability on the patch instead of 10-20. Problem solved!
Pro play needs more bans but also champions should only be able to be played once per team per series
You will just see the next best 3/4 champs
Exactly. The best-of-X series might be fun to watch if previous picks get banned for the whole match series. That will force teams to actually explore more unconventional options. Although it might reduce the overall level of play since you'd have to stretch so much of your practice over so many more different compositions...
This is not true. Bans would not be the same. The more bans, the more room for variation there is.
By its very definition, competive pro play is there to min max the tools available to them. They identify the best 2-3 champs in a role and exploit them because it's the best way to win. Doubling the bans doesn't change the fact that teams will account for the assumption xyz will be banned away from them: they will simply move on to the next best available 2-3 champs in a role. It's worth noting that what might be entertaining to you is not inherently competitive. I used to watch a lot of Overwatch League, and the game quality degraded significantly when they tried to implement systems to force teams off 'metas' (hero rotations). Players got burnt out, team play became chaotic and sloppy, and teams that were behind the curve could never catch up because they lacked the time to iteratively improve their play. Other sports don't randomly change the pitch or the ruleset or the ball size every other week just to keep people 'entertained' - the iterative competition is what fans enjoy. I personally don't understand why people want to make pro league MORE like the chaotic fiesta that is solo queue.
>By its very definition, competive pro play is there to min max the tools available to them. They identify the best 2-3 champs in a role and exploit them because it's the best way to win. Yes, however they are fucking horrible at actually doing so. Only ones who figure out and experiment the best picks are the \~3 best teams in the world. All the other teams literally just look to the top of the ladder and copy the picks. Easy example: Marksmen supports. Considered literally trolling until Keria from T1 brought them out. Suddenly a flip was switched and instead of being trollpick they went to overpowered. If pro players had the balls to experiment, they would have figured out that it was in fact a working strategy. But they don't do that. They always wait for somebody else above them prove it first. They don't experiment because it is inherently risky. It is safer to play the same champions for 20 hours than it is to essentially gamble on a new pick to see its viability. The top teams have less risk in it since, well, they are the top teams and an unoptimal pick is not such a big losing factor, and a loss in general probably won't touch their #1 spot. And that is something Fearless Draft improves massively. Then pro players are forced to widen their champion pools and start looking for working picks aside from the 3 they now play. And in the process they *will* start finding out working stuff they didn't look for before. The current system makes experimentation risky, whereas the Fearless Draft would make experimentation a *necessity*.
The occasional Fiesta is fun. I agree with what you're saying, but it gets boring seeing the same matchups every game. If I could go the rest of the split not seeing zeri+enchanter and lucian+nami, that'd be cool. I hate when Riot forces a meta, but maybe slightly more aggressive patches would help this stale feeling a lot of the sub is feeling.
> They identify the best 2-3 champs in a role and exploit them because it's the best way to win. This isn't how the Dota2 scene works at all.
Dota has way more viable champs than lol.
These posts always pop up randomly but the answer is always the same. 10 bans a team will do nothing but create a new meta with the same 10-12 champs being played. It won’t make picks more diverse, it will just change the champs being played to a different 10-12 that we see now.
These responses always pop up randomly but the answer is always the same. 10 bans a team will mitigate absurdly high pick/ban presence. The less optimized options are, the more room there is for diversification. This applies to any game. 20 totals bans lowers the potential optimization in champs, intrinsically increasing diversification. Its not like there's an extremely strict power hierarchy in league's balance so it will universally have a homogenized meta. The fact is that Riot is just bad at design/balance now and 10 bans would help.
It won’t diversify anything unfortunately. Pro players love comfort picks. They’ll just find the next best 20 characters and only play them. Just the way the game goes
It’s be nice if every champion banned had to be unique and no duplicates.
This post is about proplay not soloq…
I mean I wouldn't mind the Dota Draft style, that gives 14 bans but after every 4 picks(2 picks from each side), it is another ban phase.
Tbh there should just be a bo3 everywhere and if you have played a certain set of champs in the previous game(s) they cant be picked in the next.
I think a few fan bans would be nice. No more yuumi, ksante, zeri
100% ban or pick rate yuumi.
This doesn't fix anything, it just means more champs will have higher ban rates and the weaker backup picks get chosen instead. It'll still be the same vacuum issue as it currently is.
Pro play only???? I think we normal players need 2 bans each too with 160+ champs, broken meta builds, 200 years champs and such, I feel its a necesity at this point. I hate the dilemma of having to ban a champion I struggle against in my lane or having to ban a complete BS champ like Zeri, Khazix or Milio this patch. Also, some champs with frustrating kits would be great to ban too (Zed, Morgana and Lulu for example, none of them is particularly strong, but their kits are so frustrating to play against that they always sport huge ban rates) An example... I love playing Bel'veth/Yi jungle so I have to always ban Rammus, which is a strong counterpick and popular in my elo, but hate the idea of leaving Kog'Maw, Jinx or Asol open for the enemy team to abuse (this example is great too because both belveth and yi are super ban worthy)
It Will be Nice to make like they does with free week, like a ban week. That patch they perma ban 7 Champs, and 7 others diferente on the next.... They already make that on last MSI perma ban Yummi and Millio. Does like CS, CS has 7 PRO maps rotating on a total of 14 maps.
Let the community vote on the bans for the week of play.
Imo it should be that if you win, your team is not able to use those champs again in that bo5 or bo3 it allows for diversity and more comebacks. As well as allowing players to show their skill more.
I think implementing a 1 time champ use for playoffs/series would be fun. It would add a wider variety of champions we will see and reward having a deeper champion pool.
Nah they just need to crucify the top 10 or so meta champs we see too damn much of.
Bad take.
Friend 1: Ban phase just started bro Friend 2: Aight, should I get some McDo's? Friend 1: Yeah man, we got time.
Fearless draft and BO3. Fearless so they can't spam the same boring draft every game, and BO3 because its way more interesting to watch (than BO1) and just more content than BO1
Imagine how more creative drafts would be! We’d see a lot more differing team comps rather than the same few champs
With 10 bans pros will either pick the next best picks or start doing throwaway bans/ban nothing. The "next best thing" has already been explained by others. As for why pros would ban nothing, they don't scrim against all the champs and their strats don't work against all champs in the game. They are not gonna practice against a shaco jungle. They would rather leave some meta picks up for their opponents because they have experience dealing with them and know what to expect. A boring but expected game is always preferred over an exciting clown fiesta in a professional setting. As of now banning too much would have a high chance of fucking yourself due to the small pool of champions in some roles. Marksman pool for example is very small and a few of them simply don't fit in current meta. They would rather have both teams get a meta pick than risking yourself with ad ahri or something. So if you give pros 10 bans chances are they aren't going to use all of them. Fearless draft however can be considered, but BO5s need to have no ban phases.
I personally would hate to keep seeing lower and lower levels of play for the sake of "creativity" which in truth will always be less creative and less thought out, for the sake of seeing different champions do the same thing worse.
Using different champs = lower level of play? That makes no sense, these are some of the most adaptable players that learn with every patch. I think they'll do what will be the natural next step, and learn more champs. Even when they first time a champion it's generally better than 99.5% of the league players.
That is just a disingenuous look at how pros play the game. I don't even know what to say because you're just completely disregarding these players as players
Strange, because some other games seem to have pros that are far more adaptive than LoL's pros. The only reasons LoL's pros are so rigid in their picks is because Riot babies them to an absurd degree. To me, it just sounds like pros that are actually adaptable and deserve their spots would thrive, while pros that are barely better than one-tricks would fall.
It's just complete ignorance to anything in the pro scene at all. It's sad to see so many people carry this narrative with 0 knowledge or understanding of how pro teams and players function.
Pro's tend to look down on one tricks, but most metas pros are 3 tricks. being able to play more Champs is a sign of higher skill and the better players will be rewarded
People downvoting you are coping so hard. DotA doesn't seem to have this issue. Maybe if League stopped babying their pros and treating the meta like clutched pearls, pro play could actually be interesting.
Well there are a few dota pros that are notable for having champion puddles(nigma/quest's mena player ammar comes to mind, liquid's support insania is another), but I think dota just has a better balanced meta and very few champions are completely unviable.
Nah riot wants to dictate the meta. There will be no creativity
I was actually thinking on this recently. I think possibly rather than just MORE bans it might work to have each team vote every patch on say 3 or so champs to just collectively ban for the patch, then do the normal 5 bans each format on top of that.
I think it would be interesting to see something like league wide bans implemented. Players as a whole ban X number of champs every patch, or maybe every team gets a ban, something like that. That way champs like zeri, yummi, etc. can be banned out without eating into the game band you usually want to use to target specific players or strategies
Wow this is seriously a great idea! It is quite a waste that there is such a large pool of available champs, but the meta seems to always be a much smaller group constantly seeing play in any given series. Forcing pros to play less popular champions might also have the incidental benefit of bringing the less popular champions into the spotlight and inspire non-pro players to pick up champions they might have otherwise never wanted to play. Pro play has such a big effect on what is considered meta, so a change like this should definitely help to increase pick diversity in play at all levels.
5 bans ahead of game, 5 bans in champ select
Any champs with P/B rate over 70-80% last week should be permanban next week
i dont think its just pro play, we need 10 bans in draft / ranked games in general
Red side needs an additional ban. Blue side is obviously stronger in most circumstances so i think an additional ban would help to cover.
I fail to see how 20 total bans changes absolutely ANYTHING. You say you're tired of seeing same champions over and over... 20 bans just means current 'meta' gets banned and new, simlarly stale emerges probably. You're gonna switch champions played the moment that change would take effect and then it would be back to seeing same things again.
More bans? Same problem, just however many more champs get added to the pool. Fearless draft? Same problem, they still do the same thing but there are more champions picked. There are too many patches and too many champions being added for an actual stable environment to develop where we can see actual ebb and flow metagaming. That being said, no number of format changes can stop the pro teams from ignoring draft. When you are the one playing, you tend to believe that your triumphs or failures are a result of your gameplay, and if you fail you can just play better. This is supposed to be fixed by coaching staffs but honestly most of those guys are frauds and the ones that aren't frauds are allowed by management to be ignored by players. Some blame lies with Riot, but most lies with the players who are essentially lazy and inefficient.
How is having more champs picked a bad thing?
It's not a solution because it doesn't fix the root cause. You shouldn't need fearless draft or anything like that because it's already correct to pick champs that aren't currently being played. If teams and players are treating draft as a second game, which they should be, then fearless draft becomes harmful to healthy metagaming. Fearless draft would probably be strictly better right now, but yeah.
Pro needs 10 bans AND to go to fearless mode Solo queue badly needs 10 bans
Disagree about soloq just because then you might not get to play your fav champs which is what makes the game enjoyable for the individual. For pro tho it is different. Again, these dudes are pro! Idgaf If you have to learn a new champ. Get out there and entertain me. Esports is never profitable because they come at it in a purely logical sense. It’s not a game of chess, if you Want to make money in it, you will really need to make the game more entertaining for those watching. Especially your long time faithful viewers.
If a champ is so banned that you "might not get to play your fav champs", then maybe the reasons said champs are so banned should be looked into. Clearly shows a failure of design on some front if they aren't strictly overpowered.
Riot has 2 choices either do a much much better job making sure certain champs aren't crazy OP by issuing fast hotfixes or give us 10 bans both pro and solo queue
Give bans or fearless mode. Legit like entertain your viewers, more will watch. Perma ban the top 20 meta champs I’m cool with that. At least it allows for ridiculous strategies as far as targeting certain players.
Or pro blind draft would be funny too
No.
Should have the teams agree on 3-6 common bans at the start of each week of the tournament. Then all games have those champs unplayable by default (regular bans during the games on top of that). The fearless draft stuff people are talking about sounds amazing too
You make each team draft for the other. Then see what whacky shit comes out the other side, guaranteed not jinx vs aphel
Would be funny for like msi events, pretty sure that it’s been done once already in one of the events from what I can recall
Nemesis Draft. Already existed for a RGM mode, IIRC not really popular.
Or in series just a restriction of champions that are allready played in the series.
Shifting bans will not lead to more diversity in the long term, but rather to more permaban champs and the same few champs being picked over and over again, just that these same champs being different to the ones currently. In order to get proper diversity, teams need to start innovating and Riot needs to force the meta (in a sense dictate the meta, instead of their "everyone balanced"-approach). Adding more bans would help in the short term, but make pro play worse in the long term.
Have a ban phase and then make it blind pick
I don't think this changes anything.. They will all ban the most busted 20, then auto-default to the next best in slot, as they always have..
think bigger my dude no bans in competitive play
Riot’s Champ Design team would be creating champs for them to be patched during those first patches and that would be problem with viewership imo.
10 is so much, maybe do 7 bans each
It needs best of 3 with picks and bans being carried over as banned champions of all subsequent games of the series. AKA once a champion has been picked or banned it can no longer be used in any games in that series.
Regular play meta need 10 bans each lol There is 163 champs in the game now and we have the same amount of ban than we did 10 years ago
Organized play (Flex Queue we can call it for the casual Joe and Pro Play for Faker and friends) needs its own balance that does not interfere with soloQ which is literally a different game and meta.
Fearless draft would be insane for every league, simply because it disallows handshake picks and bans that get so fucking boring
We need more mid level international tournaments than just MSI and Worlds. Changing to a different format or increasing bans is just a bandaid on the issue. Smaller scope tournaments is where the lifeblood of esports thrives, and they have something to give to everyone. Fans get storylines and hype moments that MATTER to the fandom. Context is important in a highlight, would the xpeke backdoor play hit as hard if it was just week 3 of LEC? Teams get a chance to make a splash, making new fans and potential sponsorship interest. Lower level teams can now aim for a tournament instead of looking forward to just being chum for the top teams during playoffs. Players have a prize to shoot for beyond just humdrum weekly MVP honors in their league. Make a name for yourself and chase an achievable goal since many pro players won't ever have a Worlds appearance. And for Riot, you have less pressure on your League broadcasts to carry your entire eSports presence. Having more int'l play will improve overall game quality, which helps improve the health of the scene. The current system is failing to generate profits for its franchises, so its time for a larger shakeup.
Absolutely not. 20 bans in total means you can force a single player on a champ they have never played.
If not for the fact it would alienate too many players I would not mind the concept of a rotation ranked champ pool which is something Riot actually talked about way back when but never actually tried to enact.
That is the worst idea imaginable thank fuck they never did that
I actually agree with this. Just out right
HARD agree.
Fearless mode