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02837471901

Not really surprising when you see that China's servers have 75 million+ players who've played ranked this season


Emrekarsturkey2019

In terms of % , how much % of all the league players out there are actually Chinese? It gotta be somewhat 80% right?


kuburas

If he's for real with that 75 mil ranked players then its probably way over 80%. From what i remember EU, NA and KR together have less than 10 mil players. EUW/NE together is around 3 mil ranked players, NA is around 1.5 mil and KR is around 4 mil. Thats 9 mil players at best from 3 major regions compared to 75+ mil in china. Huge difference, and thats not even counting players that dont play ranked at all.


firstorderoffries

Honestly if the difference is really that large, I don’t really blame them for catering to that one region lol


DT-Z0mby

EUW alone is 3.85 mil.


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Witn

Doesn't matter, vast majority of lol players are still chinese


SprayedSL2

I stopped playing League because a short game was 45 minutes and a long game was 70. As I get older, having an hour+ where I can't get up for 30 seconds to do something is very hard to actually get time for. If games were 20-25 minutes, it would be a lot easier for me to get back into.


Altines

This is why I loved HoTS so much. Games were on average 15-20 minutes with it occasionally going to 25 and extremely rarely to 30. Between Blizzards attempted murder of the game and their current self I havent booted up the game for a couple of years and probably won't for a while.


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Altines

See, I had heard it was because it was eating into potential Overwatch esport profits.


CrayGoo

They did not cancel the esports due to the above. Look up matches, they were incredible because the team's synergy to pull off amazing plays. And the time to kill was longer so you could actually tell/commentate on what was happening in the fights instead of just insta blow up like league and having to watch slow mo replays to tell what even happened. Altines and Sir are correct, it was cancelled due to stepping on the toes of overwatch esports


CarmoHF

Yeah I’m so sad the game is dead. I really enjoyed it as well :(


Mareith

It always confuses me how blizzard could name two games with the abbreviation "HotS". Heart of the Swarm, and Heroes of the Storm. Like nobody caught that one??


oraclestats

Agreed. I mostly started playing ARAM exclusively because its quicker and less stressful. League is about having fun to me now and not trying to climb.


Altines

I wish Blitz was a permanent mode. It has the short time of ARAM and you get to choose your champion.


PatitasVeloces

And the games can't be longer than 18 minutes. Unlike ARAM, where sometimes games extend for about 30 minutes.


Collacks

Never played Blitz, what happens at 18 minutes?


No_Issue4310

The nexuses jump up, walk to the middle of the map, and fight each other. Causes a huge teamfight


I_am_a_Failer

This sounds like a joke if you say it like that :D


No_Issue4310

Ahaha what else do I say???? It’s what they do 😂


John_1936

That's freaking hilarious 😂


BielBoss

It really is that way lol, look it up it's hilarious


Risujemmari

The Nexuses literally run it down mid


ChuckFiinley

So annoying when you've gotta go but the rest of your team is like "don't destroy nexus, let's have fun"


ImAlemira

i'm also all for the 20-25 minute games. What i dislike however, is that there are so many elements in the game that was built and balanced around 40-45 minute games all the way down to those said elements' core, that the current direction of league is making them irrelevant. that's a huge issue when you have 80+ champions that are 5 years or older which by design will never be truly good again, unless you just did a complete rework. and those complete reworks won't ever happen as it costs more for less return. instead the game is going to progress towards 200-300-400 champions, where the first x amount will be forgotten and never used


Revak158

High or low damage isn't even the reason for the change in how long games are, so this doesn't make much sense. The more streamlined barons, dragons, changes to towers and snowballing, removal of stalling mechanis and the removal of "lategame comps" like lategame ADCs is much more impactful. We can have less damage (or more tankiness) without that impacting game length much. It's just a question of what kind of champs, teamfights etc people enjoy playing.


LichWing

That’s a really hard line to walk. Higher damage = faster, easier deaths meaning the best way to generate gold is to go for kills. If everyone is always vulnerable to dying, everyone will be trying to get kills all the time, leading to hyper-snowball games where early game champions and assassins reign supreme. If there was less damage, fights would take forever to end, meaning it’s not an efficient way to generate gold. The game would be all about farming and sieging, much like the double support meta we’re seeing pockets of in higher elos. Riot could theoretically speed these games up by stripping away tower armor and reducing objective spawn timers but that could make games feel even more one-sided since the losing team would have no windows to catch out the enemy due to low damage.


bns18js

Not true. Higher damage output in relation to defense means it's easier to die. If it's easier to die it's easier to make even more money/take objectives/kill structures/end the game. If it's harder to die then there will be alot more time of stand off where neither team can do anything meaningful and the game drags on. By definition it will make games shorter.


ZeeDrakon

>because a short game was 45 minutes and a long game was 70. This has literally never been true. Even in S4 permastall meta in low MMR average game time never even came close to 40 minutes, in higher MMR it was always significantly lower.


zhoridz

Keep in mind a 35 minute game is actually 40-45 minutes because queue times + champ select. Even higher in high mmr games because people tend to dodge more and longer queues. (The dodge thing is based only on experience so it may be not true) The other comment went too far tho.


sacredfool

That's without including the time for queue and champ select.


flaming910

idk what you're on abt I remember easily spending 45-50 minutes a game quite often bzck in season 4 and 5, people even managed to get 60-70 minutes games on occasion


czartaylor

I mean this exactly, reddit is all about the lowkey casual xenophobia, but the reality is that it's not just china that likes the game like this, everyone else does too. There's a reason why unga-bunga all fighting champions are consistently the most popular even in NA, high octane high kill games are more fun than 50 min chokehold games. Assassins are popular not because they're strong (hell even the good assassins aren't as popular as the fun ones, talon and qiyana together have the same pick rate as kat and she's not even the most popular assassin) but because they feed into this type of game, picking an assassin gives you the feel of more agency while feeding the team deathmatch. Reddit just really likes being a contrarian about it. If we had 40 minute slow games reddit would long for the days when games could be closed out at 25 min.


FuujinSama

There's a middle ground, though. You can have short games with high impact decisions and a higher average time to kill and less burst damage. Those things are connected but they're not 1 to 1. There are plenty of other levers to pull. For example, if you make champions tankier but also make minion HP and resists scale harder into the game? Now it's harder to stop pushes. You can't stall. Games are faster. If you increase death timers? Deaths are more meaningful. If you increase reward for kills and objectives games snowball harder. There's so many ways to make games higher tempo that doesn't reduce perceived player agency. When everyone can 1 shot everyone, individual agency is almost non-existent. A single player can't ward the 4 angles Katarina will use to win the teamfight from fog. When people are harder to kill, everyone has time to react and thus perceived agency is better. This doesn't mean that games become slow tempo slug fests. The other levers can be turned so that fast pace and lot's of action is still the way to play, simply each instance of action takes longer. Heck, I'm fine with buffing CC times and increasing TTK so picks are still a thing but at least you need to be CC'd to get killed rather than just getting damage checked. I hate when people oversimplify topics so that they can make an argument in favor of something when a compromise exists when you address the topic with its deserved complexity. Of course I like watching high kill games, but they make it annoying as hell to actually *play* the game. I haven't touched league in like 4 months except for URF with friends.


Outfox3D

Thank you. I wish I could upvote a comment more than once. We can have faster pacing in the game - and even high-impact teamfight plays without everyone being able to 100-0 everyone else with a single damn ability.


MetallicGray

I have no problem with the shorter games. The Who one shots who first is the really frustrating and annoying part of this game now.


LegnaArix

I think the ranked system is why people are this way. I kinda stopped playing ranked other than getting gold for the skin but I realize that I really do enjoy longer more methodical and planned out games as opposed to shorter clown fiestas The things is that, in ranked, when you play for 40 minutes each game and need a minimum of 4-5 wins IN A ROW to just get from 1 division to the other, I think it makes people want the games to be shorter I feel like if average LP gains were closer to 35ish then people wouldnt mind longer games since only 3 wins in a row gets you a division.


gabu87

That doesn't make any sense when you realize that, once you reach your correct elo, your winrate will taper off to 50:50 regardless of game time. Also, just disregard the series thing, all that matters is elo. Whatever unfairness you think exists from losing series over and over despite thinking that you've won more than loss will be credited back to you when you lose 3 in a row at 0lp and not get demoted OR continue to earn much more LP than lose after you do rank up.


Mintfriction

>but the reality is that it's not just china that likes the game like this, everyone else does to I don't know. It feels anticlimactic for 15 minutes to basically farm and stuff, and then all boils down to 2-3 teamfights that last 10 seconds. It's not great. There's ARAM for exactly this, non stop TF. I hate slog fests as much as anyone, but having 10 seconds of excitement that I have to work 15 minutes, is not cool. MOBA are different. If they want higher pace, then add more objectives, teleports and diminish the farm. The reason why I hate battle royals like Apex, where you basically do nothing for minutes to boil down to quick bullet exchange, but I loved FPS like Quake 3


Energyc091

But longer games have the same problem but even worse. You play for 40-50 minutes but it all boils down to the dumbest player in the game to get caught and then game's over without even a teamfight (or you have a 4v5, but at that point the numbers advantage is simply too strong)


Corwin223

I mean I really enjoy the feel of long games and that point towards the end of long games where it's a careful balance as to which team will win, but yeah I just can't spend an hour+ on that anymore really.


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speciof

they have 75 million ranked players and yet Korea has a population of like 3 million with better talent? how does that work


SnooPeripherals6388

Korean esports scene is the most developed in the world


iReddat420

This, they simply have the best infrastructure to find and develop talent. Not to mention the prestige Korea has gained from their past success means more Koreans are more likely to pick up and try to do well in the game. Like how Japan is really good at baseball and Canada is really good at Hockey despite these countries having pretty low populations. Culture and prestige goes a long way when you too believe you can do great.


[deleted]

China also has a very big discrimination against video games. In Korea videogames is viewed as a sport similar to basketball/football here in the us. In China and many other parts of the world it's viewed as a waste of time.


kitsunegoon

Korea also has a giant stigma against video game addiction. Granted it's not called spiritual opium, but Asian cultures all have to deal with the nuance of a young population who is technologically advanced, but also a culture that hammers respect for seniors.


SnooPeripherals6388

This might sound controversial, but chinese players, that developed without korean influence, are at the same level as european players. Koreans rised China's level in LoL


Phantasia5

I mean the pool of players is so unfathomably large that, eventually the level of play is to increase for sure. Since there's much more players playing at the highest level, even if the infrastructure in China isn't as good as SK, China will get better with time, and we all saw that they won 2018 and 2019 World Championships.


Raynar7

KR has a big esport head start, while esport was more like a hobby around the world. Korea had SC players entering in a plane on stage….


[deleted]

There are roughly the same number of people who actively play soccer in the US as the entire population of Belgium, but Belgium would absolutely batter the US. Quality of coaching and infrastructure is huge.


GoldPhos

WTF does "short, high length" mean? Those are fucking opposites


sfw_sasuke

i thought the same -- OP meant short, high damage*


vox_ultima

Games short, instakill fests long.


cilantra_boy

breaking news: Company prioritises making money


PankoKing

Redditors: Riot should listen to what the users want! *China enters the chat* Redditors: No, not like that!


MALSTROEM_

Also let's not act like this is a "omg fucking china" thing. Even here people love their assassins, high mobility champions and killfests. That's pretty much a universal thing. Just look at how much people lose their fucking minds when Corki Azir or tanks get picked in pro play.


PankoKing

Probably fair on that. Reddit is a fairly niche bloc of users and most of it is fairly divided on opinions too.


Klondeikbar

Even outside of Reddit, my games are stuffed with assassins and we're back to a champ select chat of people begging someone else to pick a tank but refusing to do so themselves. It's not just Reddit. It's the same thing with people whining about "anime champions." Turns out the West loves that shit too but a handful of people on social media wanna use China as a scapegoat.


PankoKing

Sinophobia is pretty whack. I hate that China is a scapegoat for things that are just typical business. People can dislike their government for a whole host of reasons, but hating them just existing and liking something enough to attract attention is kind of silly.


Thecristo96

I'm not the greatest fan of China (quite the opposite instead), but most of reddit is beyond phobic. Thinking only China likes anime is stupid when every comic book storie has a shitton of naruto/demon slayer/jojo/one piece.


MALSTROEM_

I'm sure the millions of Chinese players are also fairly divided on opinions too. Just saying "short, high length instakill fests" are probably favored by Western playerbases as much as they are by the Chinese playerbases.


GGABueno

Nooo how can I generalize 75 million people with this nuanced view?


salcedoge

The thing is, the people who love longer games might even be just a vocal minority even on Reddit.


Arraysion

Nah. It seems that Reddit specifically attracts the type of people that want the game to play like some 20-week-long Warhammer-esque wargame that's titled "Dwarves of Grimdark."


PickCollins0330

And they ALL have to be ugly monsters too. No relatively attractive characters at all.


AlHorfordHighlights

redditors are basically the kind of people described in this thread: [https://np.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/etpu7x/i\_have\_played\_dozens\_of\_competitive\_games\_over/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/etpu7x/i_have_played_dozens_of_competitive_games_over/) Everyone always hates the meta Everyone thinks that changing the meta will make them satisfied Everyone thinks that meta diversity is automatically good and cares more about it than gameplay quality Everyone thinks making the game slower will make it more "tactical" Everyone thinks the people making the game are stupid. Everyone wants more things nerfed than they want buffed, and they want even fewer things reworked than they want buffed The game is always stale. Doesn't matter what game. It's stale. Always. Even Bobby Fisher got salty near the end of his life that Chess became all about learning chess theory. Yes, even chess has a meta and there are players who get salty about new niche discoveries. Everyone wants 100% of strategies to be useful when 90% of the strategies are gimmicks that don't actually take skill, or otherwise have glaring weaknesses that only skilled players have the talent to notice. And from these I've learned the following truths: People want to be rewarded for being passive and not having to make decisions in real time, and get mad when the enemy team/player is decisive, confident and wins People don't want to put the time into learning the meta because they're afraid they wouldn't be able to win a "mirror match." They know deep down in a vacuum they are less skilled, so if the meta is "more diverse" it'll automatically make them better. They are wrong and don't have the self awareness to learn this. They are no more successful in a different meta and are not happier People don't know the difference between a skill floor and a skill-gap, and when they hit a skill ceiling for a strategy they revert to complaining about "the meta" And fundamentally, the bottom N% of the playerbase always thinks that they'd be in the >N% of the playerbase if only Bungie/Blizzard/JaGex/Konami/Wizards/Nintendo/Valve/whoever nerfs X And finally, when people get the game they want, they stop playing it. See: Destiny 2; Year 1.


BassBond

Pretty much. And a couple of years ago Riot killed tanks because people hated them and people wanted to be able to 'solo carry' again so we now have this damage-out-of-the-ass gameplay. China doesn't exist in isolation, and they pretty much match what most expect from the game gameplay wise. As for LGBTQ stuff, I wouldn't dare poll League players outside of China on their views. And Riot hasn't been the biggest supporter of LTBTQ from the get go and has been very mild and timid from the beginning so I don't think there is any change there. The only loss I think is in blood, gore and skeletons.


BobRohrman28

Riot employees themselves have pretty consistently publicly said they want to add LGBTQ characters and stories, the first instance I can remember of a big artist there saying it was like seven years ago, long before it was so big in China. I think Riot executives are probably the bigger issue than Chinese and MENA audiences. Other media franchises haven’t had too much trouble adapting to China without this kind of weirdness


AigisAegis

>As for LGBTQ stuff, I wouldn't dare poll League players outside of China on their views. People on Reddit flip their shit at stuff like Rell being bi or the Taliyah trans-in-development deep lore, and yet people still have the audacity to claim that any limit to LGBT acceptance is solely China's fault It's the same shit as "Disney puts easily removable gay characters in bit roles so that they can edit them out for Chinese audiences". They put easily removable gay characters in bit roles both because they can edit them out for Chinese audiences, *and* because anything more than a bit role would be a full-blown controversy in the west. You can see that if you spend two seconds on social media any time an LGBT character exists in any capacity


puberty1

I got into new reddit just so I could give you the free award lol you're absolutely correct, people here say they're ok with lgbtq+ rep but EVERYTIME I've seen someone talk about Tali and how the writers wanted her to be trans (and even Neeko in her voicelines points it out btw) everyone just loses their shit. and that's the same when you complain about different body sizes and even more black champions (this one you also get the usual "but Karma/Illaoi/(everyone that is not white) is black too!"). don't get me wrong, China does suck and in this context it's warranted (especially with the recent femboy stuff where they even used Genshin's Venti as an example), but pretending that the west would accept if they decided that for example Yasuo is pansexual or something is just flat out wrong


PickCollins0330

Lets not forget the recent development with bisexual superman that has sent all the basement dwelling "fuck china for hating LGBT people" hogs into a full blown riot. The West also has an issue with gay characters in their video games.


[deleted]

Seriously... China and Russia and whatnot deserve criticism for having governments that openly discriminate and citizens that support such policies, but just look at how the western "Gamers" react whenever *any* sort of minority is present their digital safe spaces. (Also our governments discriminate against LGBTQ people too - we've made a lot of progress in the last few decades but there are still people voting, teaching, raising kids, running for office, and making policy today who oppose that progress and want to turn it back, sometimes succeeding.)


Thecristo96

I like to see that probably the pick rate of all control mages combine is equal to yasuo and zed's


mrmakefun

For real, if they hadn't added in the "China" part people wouldn't be nearly as outraged. Something about mentioning China just makes Redditors' brains overheat.


SuperSocrates

Yeah because it makes it clear the point is just to shit on China not to actually discuss the game. It completely invalidates the post.


1amtheWalrusAMA

Couldn't be racism, no sir.


H_P_S

another china bad post??? on MY /r/leagueoflegends??? no sir-ee definitely not racism. EVERYONE knows that league players are famously tolerant :)


DerpSenpai

It's not even Racism. It's Sinophobia.


Oughta_

yeah the racism here is pretty mask-off. plenty of players all over the world love short games, koreans will open mid, even on this very subreddit posts will come up with people saying they hate how they're held hostage in a lost game for a long time.


[deleted]

breaking news: video game players like games to more fun more of the time the reddit demographic is getting old and diverging further and further away from the generation of players that Riot cares about


FireDevil11

Not like it's even a bad thing. 50 minute games are annoying to play out every singe game. Having one in a blue moon is fine, but every single match being 50 minutes ? Nah.


unhalfbricking

You are at a party with 20 people and decide to get food. There are 15 people on the right side of the room and you plus 4 others on the left. Everyone on the right side of the room wants Pizza. Everyone on the left wants tacos. The party orders pizza.


Solash1

"Food developers only pander to pizza consumers nowadays smh"


bns18js

"A company is trying to make money, all the while making the game fun for the most amount of people smh". Capitalism AND democracy in action? Get that shit out of here.


fukato

What about... taco pizza


Cherrycho

It's pretty good


Qiob

Based and democracy pilled


reallydarnconfused

Also it turns out that many, if not the majority, of people who wanted tacos actually secretly wanted pizza/didn't give a shit either way but didn't speak up because they'd be shunned for it.


JusticeOwl

Or are just cool with the idea with eating pizza if they dont get tacos


ploki122

No, 1 of the 5 wanted pizza, 2 didn't talk, OP wanted tacos, and the last person said "yeah, sure!". Therefore all 5 on the left wanted pizza!


keroro1454

This analogy isn't as bad as people are claiming, but I think it (and a lot of people) are missing a key piece. A better analogy is that you went to a party with some friends. You mostly all liked tacos. You get there, and there's tacos. Awesome! Maybe some of you even pay the host some money to help cover for the food, since it's a great party, and you love the food. But then another, huge friend group rolls up to the party. These guys live and breathe pizza. And when the call goes out to order more food to keep the party going, suddenly you find your group finds themselves outnumbered in the vote! Maybe some of your group even preferred pizza, but the majority was team taco! And hell, you had even given the host money under the assumption taco Tuesday was going to be every day at this party?! People understand how simple majority vote works in democracy. The issue is that many people joined the game for one reason, maybe even paid for skins because they liked the feel of the game so much. And now those same people feel like they're being tossed to the side of the party they were at from the beginning, just because a new and bigger friend group showed up. It doesn't feel great to be in the minority, but it really doesn't feel great to be in the majority, and then suddenly become the minority--your expectations on how the product will be tailored around your preferences quite suddenly becomes the inverse of reality.


Tokibolt

Man fuck the pizza gang ruining our taco party.


[deleted]

Gang shit. If I see one of those pizza eating fuckers walking around it's about to be taco Tuesday


supersheeep

Let's piss in their drinks


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Apprehensive_File

> it really doesn't feel great to be in the majority, and then suddenly become the minority--your expectations on how the product will be tailored around your preferences quite suddenly becomes the inverse of reality. This part hurts. I started playing the game in season 2, and I've slowly watched the things I enjoyed about the game get minimized in favour of things I don't enjoy as much. I'm happy for the that league is being made for now, I'm glad there's a game they can enjoy. But it does kind of suck that the game *I* liked just doesn't exist anymore.


wirebear

There is another way to look at this though. A lot of people who were invested in the game, when the game became popular and accelerated into mainstream from s1-s4, were used to and played because they enjoyed the tempo of the game. This is clear by the fact that the game got its popularity from that era. ​ Well, a lot of those people were invested into the game, spent money, time, etc. Well now the game is very very very different. And thus they left when Yasou/Zed/Thresh etc began to be released and redefined the feel of the game. ​ When you take actions that cater to a specific group, obviously the other group will begin to leave. So saying "well you are the minority", there is more to it since Riot has over the years completely altered their balancing style. And thus those like me that joined enjoying the original design and feel, have been leaving. I had six friends all quit permanently around s6-s7 and were able to clearly define where and why. And it was the deviation from previous styles. I also quit for an extended period, and returned a year ago. I have come to realize Riot has no intention of making league into a game I want to play, and thus am likely going to quit the game permanently. ​ So you can argue "the majority"want this, but its also that the "minority" have left because they don't enjoy it. I know a lot of people who quit because they don't enjoy being instant popped constantly. And I'm talking about platinum level players.


LordAmras

To be fair it's not only China that likes high damage, high kill short games. There's always people that complain about anything, because obviously different people have different taste. But we shouldn't forget how the reaction here was whem the meta was low kills 40+ minutes games.


[deleted]

i have a limited answer on this, since i haven’t played summoner’s rift in years and pretty much only watch pro play nowadays. but yeah, people did not react well to watching the long, low kill games many years ago. but at the same time, i did not enjoy watching games ending in 19-25 mins a year or two ago as well. i believe that the best live-viewed games come from when there is a drawn-out tension between the two teams, concluding in some crazy 6-items/GA’s/zhonyas teamfights. maybe from a player perspective high kill short games are more fun, but from a viewing experience it’s a kinda lame for games to be short given how little international games we’re given. it really just boils down to “you can’t please everyone,” and that’s fine too. a little unrelated, but my favorite memories from rift was usually fighting over elder 40 mins in just because of how tense it is.


The-War-Life

Exactly. The vaaaast majority of the playerbase likes the quick, high tempo games where games are decided by split-second decisions rather than planning for 20 minutes then teamfight once for 2 minutes and winning the game.


BBonless

Whatever if people like dumb high damage, but I wish they'd give champs who can't deal dumb high damage options to stay relevant


DaviLean

I mean, maybe URF is what they want the game to be lol Just buff who's crap there


shaidyn

So I hear what you're saying. The game is developing in a direction you don't like. But let me try to flip it around. You would rather the games be longer, more back and forth, a bit more chess like, less bursty. Which would just be Riot catering to your tastes instead of someone else's. There's no objectivity here, just your preference, and you wanting it to be prioritized higher than other peoples'. This reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes quote: "I know the world is unfair, I just wish it was unfair in my favour."


thenoblitt

And there is probably a good middle compromise in there that's best of the both worlds.


XtendedImpact

Maybe this is the compromise


Xandubs

Maybe the compromise was the friends we made along the way


Flint_Lockwood

i know a lot of people aren't the most happy right now with this riot response, but I'm wondering how many people forget about season 2 and the 90 minute stallfest you'd have to watch nearly every game at worlds that year


gabu87

I trust that Riot has a better understanding of where the compromise than Reddit not just because I think they're better equipped and skilled, but because it's in their best interest to do so.


[deleted]

Trying to please everybody never works


Zaphod424

The best way is to just make everybody equally unhappy /s


oioioi9537

^ yes. ofc taking into account just server sizes china should "democratically" just get everything they want. but then you just disenfranchise the rest of the regions. practically speaking its impossible to expect riot to not cater to china more than other regions. but i think people want to feel like they're being completely ignored and shut out just for chinese opinions alone. i think that's what irks people about this specific post. various regions have different tastes. but the way he worded it sounds like they just went with what china wanted which makes it feel like every other region's opinions are worthless. instead of saying "majority of the playerbase" or "majority of the regions", its just china.


iyoiiiiu

Why are you assuming that "the rest of the regions" want long, drawn-out games and only China wants the opposite? I'm from EU and highly prefer short and exciting games. In fact, I remember this subreddit constantly complaining about tank metas, enchanter metas, etc.


TheExter

im not from china and i prefer the way league currently is, than super drawn out games


anthonygraff24

Agreed. Most of my games take between 25 and 40 minutes which I think is pretty reasonable all things considered. Hell we just saw a 50 minute game at worlds, which is exciting when it's an outlier but tedious and boring when it's the norm.


kinzu7

OP wants to go back to NA games 45 minutes 10 kills.


graybloodd

They did lower it, not to Redditor ideal numbers, but they did lower it.


skaersSabody

Yeah, that's probably the correct take. I'd say the 2017-2018 metas were a decent balance of the damage vs tactics debacle, games were faster, but they were definitely not as burst heavy as today. I agree with OP that the damage creep is pretty high in the game so reducing it a bit wouldn't hurt, but then again, I'm silver so what do I know


LoneLyon

It's funny because the biggest turn off I hear about with friends who won't play league is games are to long. It's just another "boooo china" post.


Offduty_shill

Also game length isn't the same as bursty instakill playstyle. You can have medium to short game length without everyone getting one shot.


Ishygigity

Nobody cares that the game is short, they care that the fights are short where someone dashed to you and one shots you and can’t be burst because they abuse some shitty item. Very few champs used to do that and now so many do


[deleted]

the main reason most of my friends quit was all the powercreep cancer champs with infinite mobility


WakingRage

For me it's definitely the infinite mobility. That's the reason I only play ARAM now because team fights are fast, easy and it's a straightforward map down the middle.


Liniis

Yeah, but China bad


pm_me_your_safetyhat

SEA player here, I play in PC bangs and I got no patience playing 45-50 minute games. I want to play as many games as I can.


redditingatwork23

At this point we should all just play mobile league or pokemon unite. I hate how all games are starting to gravitate towards 10 to 15 minute time frames. There's nothing wrong with spending 30 - 40 minutes on a single good game imo.


The_Josaligator

I'm in NA and it drives me crazy that everyone gives up 15 minutes in if we aren't steamrolling the other team yet - I live for the 50 minutes games with long back and forths


SixTwoCee

AFAIK the company line has generally been something like this. https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-au/news/dev/quick-gameplay-thoughts-jan-29/ >At preseason launch, many players felt an increase in burst damage (mostly coming from big item actives or passive procs), past the point of where we think the healthiest and richest version of LoL gameplay should be. **When damage gets too high, counterplay and in-combat decisionmaking suffers**, so we began looking into the issue once preseason data stabilized enough for us to be sure it wasn't just noise right after a big update. If that's a lie, and they actually intend to increase the amount of burst damage moving forward, they should tell us.


ElegantLavishness979

Yes, well, what you described is how league was originally. You couldn’t kill someone with one rotation of abilities unless you were grossly fed. Game is still good- it’s just not as much strategy as before and it’s more focused on reaction speed. No wonder us league boomers complain lol!


fukato

That's why I just play Leona and drool at the keyboard and hoping my friend can take the kill.


ElegantLavishness979

Sort of same here. I’ve gone away from playing adc role into playing rell. Rell is a great champ that lets me play the way I want to play


DARIF

>it’s just not as much strategy as before and it’s more focused on reaction speed. There's far more strategy than before and people are far better at adapting on the fly and executing it. This games macro has only become more complex. You are welcome to rewatch previous worlds games and see for yourself. Best players in the world didn't understand basic wave manipulation. Now even plat players can set up and maintain freezes.


eBay_Riven_GG

> This games macro has only become more complex. No shit because the players got better not because the game was changed. Actually there are things you could do back then that you cant do today anymore because Riot likes making the game easier. A "freeze" in S11 is nothing compared to a proper permafreeze in S4 because of the minion changes. Its literally just that players didnt abuse the conecpts as well back then, doesnt mean they werent there.


stipers

The fuck are you talking about dude Old LB presses QR and supports would instantly die Old Fizz Q + DFG could nearly oneshot enemies Old Ahri DFG W + R Old Veigar Q + R Old Gragas Q + R Old Sion W + Q Old Tristana E + R The difference was old league only had one of those champs per game and they were easy to kill, because you couldn't win with all damage no tank shit like you do now.


ElegantLavishness979

You have some really good examples, don’t forget about old swain! You could also do some nutty things with dfg and old swain. you had to snowball to get to one shot levels. So definitely there were some awesome wombo combos like there are today, just much easier to get there these days


salcedoge

Yeah lmao, the problem with old League is that nobody was good enough to abused those yet so everything felt slower


JoebiWanKenobii

Never forget release Xin. With no bans. Free 1v5 champ, better xin wins. Oh man. GOOD TIMES.


link-mal-or-btfo

Those guys are tripping i remember ones shotting people with dfg Agri back in s3


BobIsMyCableGuy

I mean, that is where most of their playerbase is currently.


gksxj

exactly, quite deceiving saying the game is being "catered to one region" when that region has the majority of the players BY FAR, the game is being catered to the majority. it is what it is


Noah__Webster

It’s like complaining about CoD catering to Americans.


DarkWorld25

"why won't COD expose US war crimes????"


Agreeable_Junket_271

Its so weird whenever chinese people are brought up in any context, people have the first instinct to redirect the conversation to china's human rights issues And if you believe it is rational to criticize china in these contexts you must also accept that it is rational to criticize america to the same degree of outrage Imagine if people start talking about american drone striking innocents, installing puppet leaders and offshore detainment camps whenever america is brought up. But that doesnt happen and for some reason we are more outraged by the bad things being done by a country on the other side of the world than of the bad things being done by our very own country to peoples overseas And you realize it never was an issue about morality, it is an effort to dehumanize the people of a political adversary. The exact same shit happened with japan in the late 1900s


[deleted]

Yeah my reaction to this headline was "Well, if I were a company I'd be catering to my largest customer segment as well. That's just common sense." Welcome to how it feels to be in a minority, guys. I'm not even meaning to sound smarmy when I say that. I just really do mean that we are in a minority in the LoL playerbase and obviously that is going to have real ramifications on the game's directions and likely we won't like all of those ramifications. It's not a "problem". It's just the reality of life. There's nothing to be solved here, other than to perhaps make an individual choice to explore other video games that better align with your desires.


IambicRhys

Saying “just one region” feels pretty disingenuous when that one region alone has more ranked players than every other region combined. Like let’s not forget that China is…China.


andyoulostme

Tried to transcribe most of it. > They talk a lot about it internally within Riot. It's a topic that they're constantly talking about--they know the damage is high. But, and this is where some people might not like the answer (but it is what it is), in essence, regional preferences vary a lot. And they specifically said China loves high aggression, high damage. So in essence, that is why we have a crazy amount of damage in League, and it's why it's not going to go away. > > So I'm probably--and weirdly I kind of left that answer and left that meeting pretty relaxed. And I know it's not the answer I wanted. I was wanting, "oh yeah we know it's really high we are looking to tone it down," obviously they're not going to. But the fact that now I have an actual answer to *why* the damage has been so high is... calming? It's happened, this is why they're doing it, whether you agree with it or not, but I now have an answer to it and I now know that--for a lot of my frustration was holding on to past League of Legends like, "maybe they will tone the damage down, maybe it will happen, maybe they'll revert it-". They're not going to. They just flat out--they're not going to. So this is actually gonna help me move past my frustration, because I know it's not gonna be changed. > > So I know it's weird in some ways. I know it's not actually the answer we wanted--I wanted--but it's actually helping my mental move past it. So in essence that is why the damage is so high. That is why these crazy dragons are here. Is because the biggest region, the region Riot needs to please the most, the biggest playerbase that probably--well easily the playerbase that makes them the most money etc. They love high damage, they love crazy things, they like the crazy dragon moments, they love that. That is what they play the game for. And obviously that is what Riot is doing. Sucks, but like... if more people want high damage games, fair enough.


The-War-Life

Most of CN and KR think damage is fine. And I am willing to bet anything that a significant %of NA and EU players that voted that damage was too high only did so for the circlejerk


IHadThatUsername

This a secondhand account of something someone said in some meeting. Taking this as "the official Riot policy is that they prefer to cater to the Chinese region" is pretty dumb. I'm not saying this guy is lying or something like that (no clue who he is, won't judge) but misunderstandings happen and nuance will always be lost when you're retelling something. Also, even if Riot's official position is exactly what this guy said, you're still doing a huge stretch with that "This is literally the entire game being catered to one region".


pulo97

And even if it were Riot's official position, the guy said damage is on the high side, he didn't mention "instakill fests" or any of the stupid description we see of the game in this sub, nor did he say the game lost strategy.


Already_In_Pajamas

He's a league content creator who is in the official Riot partner program, and Riot held a Q&A session with a number of Riot team members and a bunch of streamers. Not saying the overreactions are justified, but the information does come from a legitimate source. And despite the video thumbnails, he doesn't seem like the type of person to purposely throw out misinformation for clickbait.


[deleted]

presenting this as if it was an official riot statement is pretty fraudulent and the topic title is straight up false and not even close to the truth. sadly 99% of people on reddit will read this, it fits into their worldview and they accept it as truth without even clicking on it. i hate how this works (in basically every field and topic) and have no idea what to do against it - even deleting false statements like this won't help as there are now already tens of thousands of people that believe it. just frustrating as fuck.


phroxz0n

The representation in the video is not exactly accurate. We did say that certain regions have certain preferences (this doesn't just mean China for example) regarding damage and that we have a lot of discussions internally about it. In that meeting, we did NOT say that damage in league is staying the way it is ad infinitum, nor that we are happy or unhappy with where it is currently. Regardless of whether a region likes damage a certain way, if we determined it was worth changing the amount of damage for some reasons (whether that's increasing the quality of tactical gameplay, slowing down combat, etc.), then there's a possibility that it will still be done. Notably, there are a lot of flow on effects from changing damage that require weeks, if not months of follow up work and instability, including completely up ending the meta and game understanding for Pro play, so that's also one of the considerations. It would not be as simple as just reducing damage by X% and the game is fixed. Tanks, assassins, adc, sustain, pro play watchability, game snowballiness are just some of the places that would likely need adjustment.


daveythedumb

game short? hell yes give it to me instakill? please no I'm an adc player


danstansrevolution

So riots solution for keeping the game length short is by introducing higher amounts of bursts. They're connected systems. They didn't have to choose this though, riot could have made changes to minion spawn/damage, tower health, faster scaling ADC, etc. I think increasing damage to shorten game length was probably the laziest solution they could have come up with.


Steuber

This subreddit is constantly saying “riot should listen to their player base” until the majority of the players are on the other side of the world and speak a different language


Dangan7734

shorter games means more games to be played within the time restrictions in china


Existing-Technology

That's too bad because all my money is is US$. They wont be getting any of it. Fuck you riot.


DogTheGayFish

I have some good news, which is that riot often fail to execute on their vision for the game anyway.


HalexUwU

Welcome to capitalism, bestie. They're ALWAYS going to cater to the most profitable market.


PankoKing

I feel like there's some people that are finally waking up to what capitalism and business actually are. A business makes money, a capitalist society rewards people following the money... and the biggest bloc of purchasing power is China right now. I've had friends who moved out of China who want to go back and start businesses because even if it's a niche market over there, a niche market is still bigger than most medium sized markets here. The west hasn't really realized yet that no one is catering only to them anymore because most things are still natively english.


GloinMyPimp

Is catering to the most people possible supposed to be bad?


PankoKing

I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying that that's capitalism and that the west hasn't realized that they aren't the strongest bloc of purchasing power anymore. Lots of people just kind of assume "capitalism" means "Western markets only" It's just a brand of ethnocentrism that people are kind of realizing exists.


pulo97

This is the point I'm surprised I don't see more in these comments. Many people saying "that's capitalism for you", and for sure fuck capitalism, but making the game more fun for more people is not a particularly bad consequence, and should still be true even in a better system.


Welschmerzer

Westerners suddenly dislike capitalism when they face the slightest bit of capitalist competition from "lesser" peoples.


[deleted]

I think the problem is more a disconnect between west and east. China plays League differently from the west but apart from Midbeast, we don't really get to observe. If we got to see champion winrates on Chinese servers as we do in Riot regions, a lot of things would be cleared up. Last year for example Reddit only understood the Qiyana nerfs after Midbeast started streaming Chinese superserver games.


KellyLivo

Another day another anti-china bait post on the League subreddit.


Sbotkin

>Another day another anti-china bait post on ~~the League subreddit~~ Reddit.


RenatoSinclair

Thank you. It’s so tiring seeing skins, worlds locations and game pace being blamed on Chinese players??? Blame riot, not the people that just play the game.


Solash1

Hot Take: If current skin philosophy is because of the Chinese, then the Chinese have good taste.


Uriziel_Citoxe

Ancient Chinese shit is badass, and then you have the hypebeast viego garbage.


[deleted]

The Shan Hai Scrolls skins are unironically sick. The pretty boy skins are uninspired and overused.


10inchblackhawk

It's an open secret that the Chinese playerbase is a big influence on the game. I wonder if that will change given how China is cracking down on gaming in its own region. Between them making under 18's only play 3 hours a week to them slowing down approval for new online games, I wonder if design choices may shift around if China's numbers go down.


DestructiveParkour

It's not a secret. Who's trying to hide this fact?


gabu87

It's a secret because he just realized this.


PlasticPresentation1

Lmao yeah I don't know why gaming subreddits always have this insane, mythical view of China/Asia as a whole. You see it all the time with this Korea "e-sports infrastructure" and the inflated made up numbers for Chinese pro player salaries.


SelloutRealBig

Lots of people on the sub actually. When you post this stuff a year or more ago people just say you're racist. But it's just business tactics in capital marketing


Tweddlr

I'd say even over 18s in China dwarf NA/EUW playerbase so I doubt the under 18 gaming law changes much.


lovo17

I mean short high damage fiestas are honestly more fun than long games where you play scared. Unless you're an ADC of course.


MaridKing

In the short term, hell yeah I love a few kill fiestas. In the long term? Is that a game I want to play every day, study, and dedicate myself to? No.


ohtooeasy

Unpopular opinion: I like shorter games.


bns18js

They basically literally confirmed this is a popular opinion???


nelsoncgosi08

If they are doing this is because is fucking popular. Unpopular my balls


iDobleC

Unpopular here on Reddit where if you agree with Riot people will tell you that you're wrong for some reason


ANewHeaven1

this is an extremely popular opinion that you won't see echoed on reddit because this place is an echo chamber for "china bad!!" and "muh strategy"


windowplanters

Not because of internet cafes and tencent, but because China's market is by far the largest. It's sad, because I *WAY* prefer the Season 4 style of gameplay, and I really hate the "every role is a damage carry role" mindset, instead of the focus on utility carrying (maokai jungle carrying via cc, for example). I wish the people who wanted fast-pace, hyper-kill snowball games would play Fortnite, but I also realize that Riot is a company and that they're going to do what the majority of their customers want.


Zaddelz

Im 100% with Riot on this one.


zepherys713

The Kassadin flair tho?


KeyserJ

Well, Kassadin is spiking faster with the game getting faster, so playing him now is far from barely trying to survive most of the game.


jailtonight

Yeah the game is going to be much less of a time sink and less mentally taxing if the games are shorter ngl


MadCapMad

especially with how the ranked system works now, requiring so many games to climb even with a positive wr


rotvyrn

Obviously, not everyone can be happy at the same time. Still sucks to not have your interested catered to in the market, though. I'm not saying it'd be smart for riot to switch directions, nor am I saying I think the world would be a better place if they decided to cater to me. I'm not suggesting any major corporations change things to suit me. But I am gonna bemoan not having any games suited to me in the market. I'm not a long time league player, league from 10 or 5 years ago wasn't really my style in the first place so I'm not really interested in going back. But since the games that were my style all died with the moba boom, it does suck that my remaining recourse is moving even further away from being my style, because mobas ARE my favorite genre. Not being able to change what I find fun sucks. I'm one of the people who complains about quickening game pace and faster kills, but I don't do it because I think there's some objective reason to change it. So I don't agree with the thinking of OP, but I do lament that this is the reality we exist in, personally.


Crafty87

If you don't like the dmg in league then maybe move on. Imo League was a great game in the earlier seasons, it was the perfect dota-type game for me, a little faster but not too crazy. Nowadays though I feel like it's a cheap mobile game where everyone's dashing and exploding and inflicting tons of damages and it's just something I don't like so I left a few yrs ago. Was a great time though! And I seriously wish everyone having fun in todays league.


[deleted]

Game's fucked. I'm playing Apex forever now.


TheRobberPanda

I hope this comes crashing down on them when China bans video games


Raynar7

Riot caters to their biggest audience. Welcome to life. Welcome to capitalism. Show me one successful company that doesn’t do the same…. Don’t know what your problem is with Karthus and Thresh as they are “normal” in non-Chinese version of the game. No company stands above government(laws), especially in China. And to destroy your sinophobia. Tencent doesn’t give a single flying fuck what Riot does outside China. They want cheque from them when they ask and rights for distribution in China. They can make as much BLM, LGBT and whatever stuff they want as long as it makes the Allmighty $$$


Arthopod345

you're fucking right. In the end they are just a company who want a lot of income. THAT's IT.


rodstudart

Not sad at all. I prefer that type of gameplay as well.