I think part of the problem is one that exists in all video games, one that can't just be pinned on Morello. Any competitive video game gains "correct" builds and one usually loses if they don't follow the standard or "correct " build. I personally say this with Starcraft 2. At first a lot of different strategies existed. But every game, one had to begin going the same exact strategy or else they couldn't win. Sure they could slightly modify the build, but it was essentially the same. Starcraft 1 scene was simply maxing the 1 or 2 units which were the best and ignoring all the others. Pros still played the game for over 10 years, but that didn't make it any more fun for the "casual" gamer (aka someone who isn't pro in this case).

I agree with you and think LoL is suffering from the same problem. Now that its been out for awhile there are "correct" roles for every hero, and deviating from the "correct" role generally ends in a loss or at least being yelled at by your team. This can also probably be traced to the fact that a lot of people play video games like LoL or SC competitively to win - to claim victory. Some don't care if they have fun - the outcome is all that matters. I had a friend who had that mentality, and after playing SC2, HoN, and LoL he decided to take a break from competitive games and go to more single-player based games. I also took a break from LoL for a while and while I'm kinda back, I generally just play one game a day for the extra 150 IP and do that in a Co-op vs Ai game. I used to play for fun, and after playing with my friend for a long period of time I began to adopt his mindset that victory is the only thing that matters. I would be on vent with him and hear him yelling at allies for making stupid decisions, going stupid builds, being anything less then Perfect.

Although he was an extreme case, I think that many people only care about winning. When you reach the ~200-300 games played for one to be level 30, you can't have fun with champs anymore. Victory is all that matters. Unfortunately, I think it is human nature to be that way, and nothing Riot, or any other game company, does can fix the problem. Once we get obsessed with winning , its hard to find a game fun anymore imo. That's probably why so many "casual" gamers like playing games versus the AI. Single player seems to almost be a dying game mode, but many people enjoy going through a story, exploring new mechanics, enemies, and challenges.

That's just my thoughts. The game can't really be fun indefinitely, because even with patches, all the older heroes have the same mechanics (for the most part) from their release until the day the servers will be taken down. "Correct" builds pop up, and are the only viable way to go to win the game for your team.

this game got boring for me when AD was added to Abilities.

AP champ, strong abilities weak auto-attack, AD champ, strong abilities strong auto-attack?

I'd also like to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to respond to the thread. I think you brought up some legitimate points that I failed to address in the original post. Just to note though, I don't "blame" you for the direction you took the game. I completely understand why you did and I think you were justified given the unique position that balancing LoL puts you in.

I think that this point exactly sums up my feelings towards the changes over time. You're absolutely right that the "wide" experience is one that is totally lost on me personally, and that I'm looking for a "deep" experience instead. But what does it mean for LoL to be "deep?" My friend (the jungle Annie friend) and I have spent hours discussing balance philosophy in MOBAs and the biggest conclusion that we came to is that "depth" for a single character is more than just the difficulty of playing them or effects their abilities have. It comes down to builds.

You mentioned in your post that you can still play play some characters in multiple ways, and you're right, but that's not the depth from builds that I'm actually talking about. I failed to make this point in my first post, but I'm referring to depth WITHIN builds as well as the total number of them. The ability to take different paths in order to achieve various roles adds far more depth to the game than just having a gimmick or two. You made the point that over time the optimal build for any given role is discovered quickly as a game grows older, and I don't fully agree. I think your focus on "wide, not deep" balance pushed the game towards simple and obvious builds. But you could have (and still can) add more options into the game by including more unique items so that the "best" build can potentially be challenged by creativity.

How many tier 3 items have you added to the game since you started? How many items with unusual passives have you made? The approach that I've noticed you take towards items is that they are just numbers that can be added or subtracted to the champions rather than tools that can change your approach altogether. It seems like when you create a new item you look more to "what niche can this fill?" instead of "what new options could this item bring to the table?" Items with unique abilities, like Lich Bane converting AP to AD or Locket converting spell casts to heals, breathe life into champions old and new.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Before Locket was removed, I was experimenting with a new oddball build for Gangplank that used the item in a unique way for him. I grabbed a Spirit Visage, Locket, and CDR boots with CDR masteries/runes then built pure AD after that. Essentially what I built was a heavy farm, heavy deny, constantly-ulting late game carry AD Gangplank +/- teleport to make me the perfect anti-pusher to allow my team to wander. It was far from perfect, but it was a really fun and interesting build that utilized several unique properties of my champion and the items themselves to create something totally new. Is it the optimal build for a Carryplank? No way. But then again I wasn't trying to make a normal late game carry, and I ended up with something completely original.

I really believe that it would be possible to keep up the feeling of discovery in this game without creating the noob traps you mentioned. You just need to allow the players to decide what builds are optimal by giving them plenty of options to work from instead of telling them what items/builds they should or shouldn't use on their characters.


TL;DR
There is only 1 ranged AD carry build, 1 mage build, etc. You can literally copy/paste the same builds for any champs that fill that role, and you'd immediately have 90% of the optimal final build. Release a new burst AP champ? Got you covered. A new support? Got that too. So literally the ONLY difference between champions has become numbers and a few unique abilities. Its just become tiresome and repetitive for a lot of players that have been playing most of the game's lifespan.

The OP made a really good point, I also really enjoyed playing Gragas as tank and now with all the nerf to his early game and base dmg, I think that going full tank isnt working anymore... Maybe this feeling is due to char beeing better at this job like Jarvan but the problem is more about forcing champ in a single build that seems balanced with no other option.

Ezreal is a really good example aswell at the dumbing down builds. Ez could go AP, hybrid or AD when he was realeased which was awesome but with the myriad of nerfs and the remove of heal on W, Ez has now only 1 viable build.

For the record why can't you make some champs allow for versatile build paths instead of limiting them into one best build?

A good example would be the AD carries:

- Miss Fortune could really excel as an AP or hybrid carry if the active on her W would be buffed and her ulti made hybrid scaling.

- Why do characters like Vayne or Noc only really scale with AD concering burst damage output? Isn't AD caster supposed to be a niche role? Like Renekton who has 3 AD scaling skills but all of them are of moderate dmg so he still relies on auto-atk-ing a lot. Some of Vayne's and Noc's skills could scale with AP since they have an AD steroids anyway.

- Lee Sin's offensive skills also all scale with AD. Only his shield gains from AP thus AP builds are not-viable on him.

- Why doesn't Xin or Garen have an AP ratio on their ulties? Why can't Renekton have a better AP ratio on his ulti ( since all his other skills scale with AD)?

There is a reason why some ppl like to play AP Yi or Trynd.

Certainly, and I don't mind multiple roles as a rule, and I don't think "nerf hybridization" is a philosophy, though it may have been a result of trying to fix things.

I think tank-vs-damage type hybridization is fine, or things like AD/AP Sion are fine, but it's hard to balance assuming both are optimal. I do think we could improve on finding that balance.

I like these posts.

I'm so young money, if you've got eyes look at me now. *****!

Then guide people out of the mob mentality morello. One of the things that kills this game is when you trained and got an exotic build as effective as the "mob build" is that the mob takes all your desire to use it and even worse, your will to think about different builds.

Why don´t we have 3 pages of recommended builds? And with pros/cons? Why phreak uses only one build alternating but not changing from main objective? Isn´t riot job to do that "little push" for people to try new things and not use the same thing over and over again? Variety and versatility will always leave that "new and fresh" feeling that you talk about.

I can run Warwick, Xin Zhao, Irelia, Yi, Soraka, Poppy, Singed, Sion and Morde in 3 different ways and still be effective about it

I see people running Trist and teemo using the nuts and bolts of their skills and ratios and being effective, hell I´ve seen Hybrid Tryn trampling people over in a 1600+ game.

But I can´t run alistair in another way and be as useful as ap ali
I can´t run Grags in another way and be useful as ap graggy
There is only ONE way to run Ryze.
Akali ain´t hybrid as you wanted to be.

And the list goes on.

Also, what´s the problem in releasing more specialized heroes that can be built different with the right set of runes/masteries/items? Enough of heroes with cc/dash/nuke/etc.

I agree with this personally. It does come down to builds. For LOL to be Deep it would design champions with many build paths and still allow those champions to be viable. For LOL to be Wide, it allows all champions to be viable with 1 build, and they can scale and use other builds but would not be viable. Wide is easier to balance.