And what they said during the last update. I still think this video actually came at the perfect time because this could be the turning point of league’s stagnation into growth. I stopped playing league myself because not enough changes (in a fun way) between seasons. It’s why I enjoy TFT, each set brings a bunch of new, fun everything.
@@ToasteBlade You are being subjective. TFT has the benefit of being simpler by having no micros, so they can go ham with it. I quit TFT after the first 2 season because i have to learn how every champ work and interact all over again. And i haven't even grasp the macro yet. That takes time, and part of those time i have to use to replace my memory, to relearn things. I disagree on riot not making enough changes, they made plenty. In a fun way or not, that's subjective, it had been fun for me, but it seems the opposite to you. I also took frequent break from lol too, so ig that also helps. All in all, i don't think lol is stagnating or even going into growth. It just is and unless nothing super major changes, it's still going to be lol.
@@ToasteBlade " And what they said during the last update. I still think this video actually came at the perfect time because this could be the turning point of league’s stagnation into growth. " You're not the first one to say such things, many said the same thing since like season
To me, League is like a traditional sport. Like basketball. Does interest wane? Sure. But it can always be picked up and played. Depending on the day or friend group, maybe you get into it more or less
Yeah, and just like with sports, it happens with league many times that you lose interest and quit, but then worlds come around, you watch a couple of games and get interested in the game again. Happened to me many times
@@QwartzyG I have just played basketball for 2 hours straight and am coming home to have lunch and play some league. Have been off and on these two games for throughout all my teenage and adult life. What's so different about them?
Last I checked, the NBA doesn't randomly decide traveling is now allowed for this season. Then next season, you can only dribble three times before having to pass or shoot. That's how league works, but far more drastic and frequently.
Well it's kinda easy when we see how it grew. - At it's release we didn't have massive platforms like Epic, GoG, Steam was at it's infancy. It was much more common to have to download a client per online game. Now it's a tedium for a casual player. - The freemium model was also revolutionary (most online games like WoW or FF11 were subscription or P2W). You couldn't properly play most games (especially online) for free, you could with League. - Cyber cafés were at their peak coming off grassroots DotA. League was an ideal per hour for the setting. - People were used to RTS/MobA managing due to Warcraft, Starcraft, Age 2, etc. - Mobas were fresh and a peaking genre - eSports were this total novel thing skyrocketing at breakneck speed. - There were enough champions for variety, but not that many to overwhelm a new player These factors made League incredibly appealing to download and play for any casual. Growth only snowballed until it became the massive sensation. Almost all of these factors have died or become more tedious. Cyber cafés have all but died, people aren't as familiar with RTS controls now, the knowledge barrier to entry has risen exponentially, there's a lot of F2P games of high quality, and people got used to just getting games on one platform. The loss of the casual playerbase to these variety of factors got Riot into a catch 22, either they make the game more straightforward in an attempt to make it more casual friendly (see: current season's pace, midgame is almost nonexistant) while risking losing the existing playerbase or they go back and revert these changes, making it more appealing to the league base but still alienating outsiders. The game is not dying, but each year it's harder to get newcomers on, and the current base is not bringing them at the speed they used to. (See: the Arcane peak interest and the base telling their friends to NOT play the game)
From the Philippines here, it's why League became popular here if not nothing else to play(aside from one or two online games), Playing in the philippines you don't have much if not at all choices, you need to play locally published games or has Philippine servers if not, near it. Cause most popular games back then has physical servers over the west which has huge lag spikes and ping difference, and most importantly, as you said, it was the start of the era of when F2P P2W games are popping up left and right replacing many top-up pay to play games like RO and MU online back then. But we still tried to play these P2W games but if they don't ROI especially MMORPGS with heavy graphics, in one or two years they shutdown, leaving many having a stigma against MMORPGS if not online games.(now corporately called "live games") The problem with League and many similar games, is that they're too Deathball comp prone, unlike games like in BF1, if the enemy forms a deathball comp you can just throw a nade or set a trip wire and counter them, in League they crush everything in their path. I tried HoK Honor of Kings and it has the same problem no matter how skilled you are. It's a challenge to judge the state/popularity since they deliberately avoid steam to avoid steamcharts, but it's not clueless like average & peak viewership from Twitch, sponsors backing out and prize pool getting lower. It's not dying, but it's definitely not retaining old players nor acquiring new ones enough either. It's a giant whale with a stab wound that never heals, not dead but.
I do not think that league became stagnant as much as riot accidentally forced it to be stagnant, years of a repeating the same formila is causing stagnation, 14 days patch cycle and repetitive events are getting worse and worse and i think this is why they bushing the new 4 season thematic next year
@@viciouslyeatingaburger Adding new mechanics might be nice for older players who might start to find the game getting stale, but it actively harms the new playerbase and the casual playerbase. MOBAs already struggle on the new player front, as they require so much information and time to hit the bottom of the skill floor of the game type. Adding a ton of mechanics on top of that , ones that can change drastic things about the game and how you play it, can be a major turnoff for newer players. That's also not helped by the fact that Dota 2 is, by far, a much harder game than League for a newbie to pick up and try to learn.
@@viciouslyeatingaburger Were talking about stagnation, Dota doesnt really gain any new players anymore. The new competitor for league is mobile MOBA not DOTA2
I think lol aint dying soon, it got to the point that its well known for outsiders and it got the Money to cater to them so it can allways be Financial viable
Yep, but it wouldn't hurt if they made the game more beginner friendly so it's easier for more people to get into it. Tutorial sucks and does not explain anything. Currently it is pretty much impossible to get into LoL if you don't watch 100 tutorials on youtube or have a bunch of friends who already play and can teach you.
@@aabeeek How do you make it beginner friendly though? One of the beauties of the game is that its extremely complex both on a mechanical and strategic levels. Its kinda impossible to make it beginner friendly, unless you just tell them to play Garen and that way, they wont have to concentrate too much on the mechanical side
@@justhair17 make it easier to learn, not easier to play. The tutorial is 'this is how you move and attack, good luck have fun' No explanation of levels, items, stats, minions, towers, the jungle at all. Dota does this okay, it's not great but the tutorial system is at least trying.
@@aabeeeki agree it took having a friend explaining the game to me over the course of several games for me to finally get into it after trying it on my own a few times and having no clue what's going on
One of the biggest reasons that's contributing to it's declining popularity is just how much of a time sink it is just to get DECENT, not good, DECENT at the game. On top of that, most of the playerbase that's been around for years are growing older and have responsibilities outside of League, so it's harder to find the time to invest in learning the game improve.
damn i realize how old i am, i started playing league when i was 19 now im 33 xD. I think league is not growing anymore, there are not many new players, the learning curve is huuge so its more like maintaining the playerbase, if you look how many games have risen and fallen during the lifetime of league, i myself made breaks with league and played other new mainstream games, but i always came back. There was no other game in my lifetime that hooked me as much as league, and a part of the relationship with the game is the same like with Marvel movies, many people grew up with Iron Man since 2008, as well as many grew up with League
I think smurfs are a problem I started playing about 4 months ago and I think the fact I never had any bad experiences in the first 30 level is just a matter of luck If seen the toxicity of the game I don't think I would have kept playing.
@@rusticfightr That's the difficult part. Smurf will always happen, either by older player playing with their new/casual friends or deliberately buying/making new account to stomp on people By just maintaining the player base, and making no effort into making the game easier to learn(improve tutorial/practice tool mode), new player staying is less and thus you will encounter more smurf, especially somewhere after lv 30, cause most smurf buy lv 30 account and not lv 1.
@@torahama362 I wonder how many league players are Smurfs XD riot says they have huge numbers still I wonder if they remove Smurfs how big of a player base would LOL really have.
Well the only logical step forward is to offer an alternative to Summoners rift. Like a smaller map with different objectives, for like 6,3v3 players. Baron can be replaced with some other beast, maybe a big spider. Just spit balling here...
Name the spydor milevaw! Do you remember the one week they had 6v6 hexakill twisted treeline? That was ridiculous. But so fun. I sent messages on forums on reddit and to riot games to bring it back but never got a response.
Honestly when most of your community stays not because the game is good but because of habit, your time is counted. Lol has a terrible reputation now and i think unless they make a 180 to become a more casual game, they have more time in their past than their future.
That may be true, idk. However, the tobacco industry would disagree. You may no longer experience the same highs, but it will still "take the edge off." I think the real question here is for how long can it stagnate before dying?
League lost over 52 million players world wide including nearly 50% of their ranked players. Biggest complaints are bad game balance, too much smurfing/account boosting which ruins the algorythm for low rank players match making, and toxic community.
Honestly it is somewhat rare for me to see true toxicity from other players. In my 300 + games for season 14 a majority of them have been mostly neutral to positive. I do agree that this game needs a better tutorials to help guide new players. It need things like "THE SKILL SHOT GALLERY", "SKILL SHOT DODGE" " LAST HIT THE MINION" , "LEARNING TO KITE" , "LANE MANAGMENT WITH CORPORATE MUNDO" and "LEARN YOUR CHAMPS COMBO"
I haven't finished yet, but I find it funny as someone who just got into league a year ago. The game changes faster then I can keep up with sometimes it feels like the items and champs are changing constantly.
The constant changes is something I talked a lot about with friends when I finally got out. Any time it felt like I had a strong grasp of game knowledge to build on, Riot went out of their way to rip out that knowledge base and force players to start over. The longer things are perceived as staying the same, the faster the playerbase will peter out. As a long-standing live service game, they have to fight hard to maintain a fragile balance between familiarity and novelty. And every time they go too far in the wrong direction, it costs them players.
@wiksolop72 this is exactly the same sentiment I had after playing from 2014 to 2018. The first time I played league, it still had it's first map. The very next day, the second map iteration was introduced. Then there was the plethora of changes in the jungle, it takes alot of effort to study new items and mechanics and the changes at some point can overwhelm even the veteran players.
to add another point, RIOT has been ignoring the flaws of the multiplayer experience for 10 years and only started to care for the health of the game when it started to lose in popularity. Too little too late.
I think they just need to add a multi tier difficulty AI, and advanced PvE challenges (eg. Win, while other team starts at level 2, or with enemy team jungler starting at level 5, etc ..).
I can't play League because my computer is blocking Vanguard. It's a hassle to get the game to even work. If I'm in a MOBA mood, I just play Pokemon Unite with my friends.
I mean, I'm on Linux so I just stopped playing the game and went to Fighting Games instead. Also means less time commitment for ranking rewards/penalties, so it feels very fluid and makes going back to League even more of a non-starter.
"A baptism of fire" is EXACTLY how it feels to start playing league. You don't know what you're doing at all yet still find some level of success, then you'll be baptized into playing the same way as everyone else, and then you'll beat the devil out of the next new or inexperienced player; baptizing them potentially against their own interest of finding creative or unorthodox ways to play. You'll never really see a player playing Gangplank adc in the bot lane outside of maybe your first week of playing normals on a fresh account.
or you'll get that Gangplank as your adc in an important promos series, you'll likely flame him, and then he'll be the best member of your team out of nowhere and nearly carry you to victory... before intentionally throwing out of spite and you tilt down two divisions straight
I think a major contributor to a player falloff and lack of interest is EVERY game mode is about sweating and playing it like it is ranked all the time. I don't play ranked and I do want to win, but I want to chill while getting to that win. After arena left I went to spellbook and it was everyone going ham like it was ranked. I was disgusted and immediately turned off. I don't like to use the term try hard, but it was clear even to me in an alt game mode people had NO chill and played like they we shooting for challenger. The fun of just playing the game with strangers started vanishing a while ago, but playing non-arena for once really opened my eyes to how sweaty the rest of league is. It really killed the joy when I went back to other modes, and this I don't know if I can play it anymore. This is by NO means the only, or even the primary, reason league is losing popularity. However, I think it still a major factor. The game is no longer about just being a game.
The game isn't designed much around chilling. The game is designed around winning or trying to win, which is the main problem of the game. All mechanics boils down to feast or famine. It is true that Riot tried to make league into a e-football industry and sacrificing the fun elements, this is 100%, but it's only half of the story. Generally the game is bad, the ranked system is a grinding scam that insults its players, the lootboxes turning the game rewards into a slot machine, further insulting the playerbase, the rune system that provide a false sense of choice when in fact you can flamed and reported for picking the wrong option, despite the game allowing you to make irrevokable mistakes before the game even starts. It's just bad and hasn't improved its system ever since 2017, even worse they removed other games modes, while forcing you to downland TFT, even if you never plan to play it, just because RIOT wants you to play their poor-quality auto-chess.
@@novinceinhosic3531 seems you misunderstood, either intentionally or unintentionally. I don't know how long you have played for, but back in the day it was FAR more chill. People were not as toxic and people were just playing game. Yes the game is innately competitive because you have players playing against each other. However, the SWEAT was lower. People were playing to have fun win or lose. However, even in games not specifically made to sweat are now basically ranked without the rank. So yes, I am saying a contributor is the amount people invest in being a try hard in EVERY mode not just ranked. The game WAS far more chill, because it is a game not a job. The game has fundamentally changed because the people who play it are not treating it as a game. Winning and chilling are not mutually exclusive.
@@MrReaperHand I've played for 10 years. I do remember when people were way more cooler. The issue isn't the fact that there was no toxicity (probably you were not used to see it because you were not playing it competitively and did not care about the outcomes of the games), but back then people did not feel miserible, it wasn't a contest on "how to ruing everyone games onlyt to take revenge cuz someone told me I did a mistake or pinged me". Everyone is a sensible whinning dog nowadays, they insta report (they used to do back then too, but the tribunal rarely banned you), they take offense on anything, even in the normal games. The fun of the game, for a very long time, consistented in progressing, in seeing yourself getting better and winning. That was progressively crushed since around S7-9 when they started to rig the ranked system and by the time of S10 the game got flooded with eloboosters and smurfs, so they ruined that aspect of skill progression. They forced the game to be more team dependent with the changes on towers and neutral objectives, while back then you could technically play the game 1v5 and ignore your team if you desired so. Even the cheeses such as funneling and stuff adding to it were removed because how meta-mandatory became in higher elo games. They game is not about chill, specially given that anything can dash and two-shot you, everything snipes you from across the map and you get a gray screen... the reason they lowered the death-time is exactly the reason to keep pace with the fact that the game is feast of famine. The reality is that all you can do in the game is to A) use CC, which is dependent on your position relative to the enemy and your team, which depands on the ability doing something once you hit a CC, B) heal/shield your mates, which is dependent on your ability of having level and items in order to have strong heals and shields or other buffs, C) to tank damage, which is dependent on having items and level to resist the damage coming your way, D) dealing damage, which again is dependented on you having items and level. There is literally nothing else to do in this game, you cannot walk randomly on the map, you cannot build a house with a farm, you cannot have a tea party or anything, it's just winning or losing, with the only freedom being picking how you are going to win, like strategy, which, again thanks to RIOT, is heavily depandent on your team following a plan, which will never happen, or picking a champion you like with the build you desire. And depending on your ability to pilot that champion along with the viability of the champion's numbers/kit and how strong the item/runes build is, you can make your path to victory more or less likely. IF you don't plan to win and don't follow that, then the enemy team is going to play with you, like a dog plays with a bone. Either they perma-keep you in the graveyard with dives and end the game around the 15 min mark (if you don't surrender by that time), or they are going to keep you hostage in your own base while they farm the entire map and are 3-4 levels above and two items advantage along with all the perma drake buffs. >However, even in games not specifically made to sweat are now basically ranked without the rank. People were experimenting more back then. People were not punished that much for playing bad, because everyone was playing bad and the very mechanics of the game were more forgivable. Imagine people freezing lanes back in S3 in normals. Now if you win the lane, what are you doing if not denying the enemy all gold and exp that is possible? >The game has fundamentally changed because the people who play it are not treating it as a game. Winning and chilling are not mutually exclusive. I will say this: I got a feeling, around S9-10, when I lose, specially on 4 losestreak, I feel miserable, specially losing with 20/4 kd. When I win, I simply feel nothing. I've tried messing around with first-time champs, it just doesn't feel right. I got all champs (I think 3 more were released in the meantime by this point), no desire to play any of them anymore, all of them feel bad. New builds? Just look how lame the items are and remember how reasonable they used to be. Runes are also bad, you have a total of 3 types of runes which have as difference among them only either the fixed synergy with the champ or mere stats power, with no effect on the actual gameplay. The reality is that there is nothing else in this game but to win. And if winning doesn't make you feel well, while losing happens, forcefully 50% and that there might be even days in row in which you lose more than you win... then there is simply no point in playing the game. RIOT said once that they were thinking about introducing ranks based on roles and maybe even champions, which isn't much of a thing, yet we are years later and that doesn't seem more likely to come. The game lives off whales and e-sports ads (and probably selling your data to chinese companies too) and doesn't care much about its playerbase. The addicts are going to play it up until their personal lives change, while the rest will move on. Once the whole corpose of league community, which died back in late 2010's, will be forgotten by the nostalgics and whe once the welcoming appeal ceases for the tourists, the game will be put on life support and forgotten into the abyss, which is what RIOT prepares to do since they moved to things like TFT, Valorant and other things.
i feel LoL is in the spot of CS where its never changing but unlike CS it does change sometimes (the current patch is a good showing) where while both are the same one is CS with big new player friendliness and LoL struggles with it both get a good amount of "friend list players" where you might start playing due to another game another player on your friends list invites u to it and while some quit its not fully swinging the new vs quitting player swing kind of like how the deathrate and birth rate is always favouring the birthrate and when it does not that the time the game starts to die and i feel league is going to keep there new players up with new changes for new players kinda like how CS 2 made the game easier to get into League can do so too
No one in America can make teams. We have no local level tournaments. And we have no incentive to play together with anyone. Not having a team in a team game leads to anger, frustration, and ultimately isolation.
I think what makes League eternal is its "sports" aspect, just like most sports, players can play it with friends and also watch professionals on the biggest stage, and the fact that it never fundamentally changes makes is viable as a sport. It could be the first mainstream E-sport.
@@hiruymulugeta4648 Starcraft was mainstream in Korea 20 years ago. Western culture simply does not allow E-sports to be mainstream, we view videogames as purely entertainment and thus view people who play on a professional competitive level as socially awkward weirdos (whether that's justified or not).
@Weerknuffelbeer Différent time back then. 20 years ago. PC gaming wasn't as big as now. PC gaming started becoming big around the 2010s when it was becoming more accessible and advanced. League beta came in 2009. But really hit popularity in season 3&4 (2013-2014). The game is nowhere near dying. This is game is definitely à mainstream game. Gamers are everywhere now. And id say 95% players have heard about league at one point. Games back then were viewed as a geeky/nerd thing. Not so much nowadays. In korea, they are like movie stars. In NA, being a gamer is "cool" when people are praising Henry Cavil for it. Gamers are normalized in today's demographic. League is a staple PC game and moba and also the bigguest esport game out there. More people have watched worlds than a NBA tournament at 1 point.
League has the potential to become like chess: an immortal game, testing skill, game knowledge, strategy and, on top of that, very much alike football and other physical sports, team coordination and cooperation. Unlike these games though, it suffers from its high level of complexity: people cavort easily pick it up, and their early experience is seriously damaged by it. A proper tutorial system would increase the game's lifetime tenfold. Limiting the starting pool for new players, to control the amount of starting knowledge required to navigate other players' game plan, some shorts about strategies related to objectives and how impactful is to control them. Finally, as ppl get higher in lvl, introduce them to fog of war. Some form of playground, in this direction, would allow players to learn the game without being overwhelmed, and increase their own agency over the game (with chats off being the default in those gamemodes).
Lol has way to many things to be trully imortal, in chess you have 6 figures, in lol you have 170 champions + items and what not, you can explain whats is chess about in 2 minutes and a new person will somewhat get it, good luck doing it with league.
Vanguard killed it for me. I went down to only ARAM and only if my friends pestered me, after being a daily player for years, due to recognizing just how much time I was putting into a single match. To play ranked, even in silver, it could take almost 2 HOURS from initial queue to actually finishing a match, and if I ran into an inter/afk or someone who is super toxic (very common) the time was wasted since it wasn't fun to try and win anymore. The highs were massively uncommon vs the lows. On top of all that, I only have one account with a backup that I made when I got a vacation. So, my climb wasn't a rocket-ship to diamond so I could claim to be a diamond level player. What made it fun was experimenting with new champions, rune setups, item builds. Nowadays, if you do any of that outside of Korea you get non-stop flaming. The game simply isn't fun. So I quit, keeping it installed only to be able to play with the friends who still liked it (and even then, I did not just quietly suffer, I made sure they knew I only was doing it for them) Then, Riot decided they needed an anticheat that ran even when I didn't have the game loaded and that was the final straw. I'll never touch it again. Obviously, I still watch league content. Certain youtubers create some entertaining videos (Tobias Fate's editors primarily) and its still entertaining to watch every once in awhile but I'll never play myself again. On top of the overloaded new champions, toxic playerbase, and the inability to actually interact with other players without an extremely aggressive chat restriction system, its just not worth it.
I couldnt stop playing League when I was first introduced to the vast selection of cool champions league had to offer, but once I kind of played all my favorite ones, I just got tired of the same map, and the newer champions werent very creatively designed, all were just humans with crazy long passives
Same here, played it, saw the repetitive cycle. Also didn't help the god awful One-Shot and CC metas we have right now, Idc what the shills say; Getting stun locked for 7 seconds or one-shotted as soon as I leave Base.
I started to play League, at season 3 end, when i played so much with Dota 2, but even if i invite my friends to play 5v1 they vs me in Dota, they say "nah, you come to League and show your skills in League". Than i start play League, reached lvl30 and play ranked right after reach lvl30. Reach silver in that season end and in next season reach gold, while my friends reach bronze or don't even play ranked so unranked. And one thing is always the same in my head, that the game itself is good, but the little or big problems what makes the playerbase big percentage to quit. These problems are hide in the balance in every game. Cause the riot team thinks they should focus on wait less than 1 minute to que up and be in champ select, less than 5 minute to start a new game is the point where they need to focus. But so many old players like me rather would choose to wait more and be in a good balanced match in ranked, than wait less than a minute and que up with filled or troll gen alpha or Z kids who will destroy your game and chance of gain LP instead of losing it because of them. So many challanger and pro player don't even think about this, because "if i can reach solo the challanger rank by myself, you can do if you focus on yourself"... Sure... but after in 2011 Tencent bought Riot games, they just be the game as a gacha... and so many aspect is gacha... your team mates in ranked, or your chance of can reach from silver to challenger in like 1 or max 2 months of play when you play 4 games a day... Even if pro players not say that they chance is highered up by the company itself, i dont think that me or so many of the players like me who know the game cause play more than 10 year, can't reach there dream rank because of this gacha that after you reach a 5-6 win streak or max 10, you need to lose at least 3 match, even if you good enough to not lose if its only on you and not by on 4 random player. You must lose to be in game cause if you or me reach so fast the dream rank, than the game will be just boring and you quit because "oh its so easy to reach challenger in a week from silver even if i play 5 different role". But anyway this gacha and the match making and hidden match making rate was the biggest probleme but they not gona change that... cause they want you to play more than 500 match a year, not just 100 like some pro who will start in emerald at lvl30 account and reach diamond in 3 game, than rush for challanger in 20-50 game...
I was one of the people that had to learn league by myself. But it was easier back then. I started in season 3 and remember the times playing Elise mid building ravenous and runaans because I liked the idea of having aoe in both forms. Didn’t even get flamed by people. Nowadays it feels like the learning curve is so massive, everyone is so good as opposed to back then that if a new player pulls shenanigans like those they’ll get flamed so hard they’d quit. The game doesn’t have enough new players. Most low levels are just smurfs working on their new “level 30 to masters challenge”
I did not leave League. League left me. RIP league of linux. Is it a perfect game with a very supportive community? No. But it's still fun, and I'd definitely rather be able to play it than not.
League has always been odd because Riot managed to build such a powerhouse IP with just only one game which is unlike their contemporaries like Blizzard and whatnot. I know discussion around the MMO is still the biggest cope under the sun but I think if and when the MMO comes out it would really let the world of Runeterra and by extension League really spread it's wings.
People in the west are bored of being ignored in favour for Korea/China. High damage, High Mobility, High Pressure play has been the flavour of the month for the last 5 years. Alternative metas are not allowed because damage is so high to make the game "flashy" for e-sports. Its just layers of power upon power which is slowly strangling out build diversity and fun. The problem with League is like many people say "Its fun to watch, not fun to play" and that's why its stagnating. There may be a few that like ADHD gameplay like China/Korea does but a lot of people have walked away from the game because of this, Riot betrayed their original fanbase for a more fickle one, especially with the game market being as saturated as it is. Riot don't know how to make interesting champions anymore without overloading them. Riot sold out to China and betrayed their western playerbase.
League used to be my main game. I played it for a long time, but I don't find it fun to play casually anymore. Every game I've played recently -- normals, customs, and quickplay included -- all feel so incredibly sweaty. Nothing wrong with encountering skilled opponents, but it just drains my energy so quickly. I need a rest after two or three games with how much I have to try and dial myself in to play. I'd like there to be more things like Arena or Swarm. Things that are easier to get a grasp on compared to playing on Summoner's Rift that can be done solo, with friends, or with randoms. I'd just like to have more of a reason to boot up the janky League client than hitting gold 4 and collecting a skin at the end of the season.
As someone who's been playing for over a decade and never had any interest in a moba prior to league, I feel safe saying it's because of the diverse champion pool riot has created. I went from playing this because I had nothing better to do and my online best friend played league. To playing it with or without him, rain or sunshine, simply from finding a main I fell in love with playing(Jhin). I've watched my now wife go from a console gamer to solely play league because she found her set of mains she loves playing. Personally I would love to see more lore, MOOOORE! 😂
And that's what is the problem with new league. New champs are just panders to "modern audience" ignoring league lore and style. We will never get another Jhin, another Maokai or Darius. Waiting for the wheelchair trans lesbian champ that has to press R to get insta pentakill (Aurora 2.0)
It’s interesting. I found like, 0 league merch or cosplays at the last con I went to. I think gacha overload is a huge issue in pushing out most games, but the time limitation makes a lot of sense as to why. I stopped playing league for Splatoon because instead of dragging on a 30 minute team game Loss I get a 5 minute team game loss. So can’t deny it’s a tougher sell as time feels more scarce.
Unforgiving, baptism by fire league is truly that. 3 years deep and I just got to plat 😂 Games deep as hell, and with 15 years of exploration I gotta learn a helluva lot more. That's my fun, learning
Honestly for some reason its the boot price changes for me it was creeping up but it was until i sometimes subconsciously back like a muscle memory that leagues been not feeling like its self. Cause no matter what role you played items may fluctuate but boots have always remained the same. Idk maybe its my boomer s4 brain talking here but yeah
While it is debatable whether or not this is THE biggest responsible for league's stagnation, I think everyone agrees few games are as hostile to beginners as league is, and having a low influx of new players isn't the best for the game's longevity. The causes for it are many, and I feel like elaborating on the most obvious ones: the toxic community, the awful tutorial and the ever increasing cummulative knowledge, to be unnecessary, so I will instead talk about those I have the impression fall under the radar. - League's balancing is suffocatingly conservative. At one point in the past, "play your own way" was League's slogan. Nowadays, it feels like League's balance team is just trying too hard to make sure games stays the same on multiple fronts. An early game where all players play in their own isolated bubble with a transition to teamfights around objectives that dictate the outcome of the game. In of itself, this is not a bad thing, the problem is when players try to do something different. If a jungler isn't interacting with camps for 80% of the time, if a mid laner leaves lane and its play is not pixel perfect, they get punished extremmely harshly and all the opponent must do to perform said punish is getting a farm lead. That makes league's early game (a) extremmely monotonous and (b) if there's only one viable playstyle, then the winner is just the more experienced player. Thinking outside the box isn't just not encouraged. It is actively suppressed. TheBauffs probably being the most infamous example of that. When was the last time a champion changed its role for good and replaced its initial role altogether? I can remember Karthus and Nidalee going from mid to jungle, Maokai and Nautilus ceasing to be junglers altogether and Gragas changing roles every so often, but outside that, what happens when a champion finds a new role 99% of the time? Riot will give that champion changes to actively force it the role it was before. Camille jungle, Camille support, Sett and Panthoen support, Lucian and Tristana mid, Swain, Heimerdinger and Cassiopeia bot. Even Brand, who became a support for nearly 10 years, Riot tried forcing back mid lane. If the meta stay with tanks and bruisers top, mages and assassins mid, marksmen bot and mages and tanks bot for all its existence, existing players will never have to relearn the game and the knowledge gap between old and new players will keep increasing. We never had the chance to play a game with double mage kill lanes bot, marksmen mid and no farming junglers like Camille for more than a few months and see how the game would adapt around it. Riot always nerf hammer everything to fold the game back to the previous status quo. - League's new content has became increasingly convoluted. Though convoluted designs are usually more complex than simple designs, convoluted doesn't necessarily translates into complexity. When you make a convoluted champion, even when in practice it is actually fairly simple, there's so much information going it can be intimidating for new players. Meanwhile, you can have complex champions without them being convoluted. The best examples being Zed, LeBlanc, Shaco, Heimerdinger, Orianna, Singed, and Draven. Most of these champions' abilities can be described in a single paragraph, yet nobody would argue against them not being complex champions. A new player is capable of understanding these champions on a basic level right away and see the potential in them. Meanwhile, when facing these champions, you never get the "what the fuck just happened?" you get when you're up against Aphelios or something. I like to use Camille as an example here. Not because she is the worst offender, but because she makes the point really easy to understand. Camille's Q gives two auto-attack resets, the second of which converts your damage to true damage. Her W deals damage and has a sweet spot which deals bonus damage and slows. Her E is a long range dash that stuns on contact. Her R creates an unpassable zone around a target and knocks back all opponents around it. None of these abilities feel underwhelming or incomplete based on these descriptions, yet all of them have effects which I didn't mention. Camille's Q is also a movement speed steroid. Camille's W also heals her. Camille's E is also an attack speed steroid. Camille's R also makes her untargettable and gives her on-hit damage. If you are reading this, you're probably familiar enough with the game to know the things I described above, but a new player facing Camille might wonder why is Camille so fast despite having a basic understanding of her abilities whereas against Master Yi that's easier to understand because he has an ability that's about making him fast. Convoluted abilities like this increase the barrier of entry for new players, not to mention the power creep, but that's whole other beast of its own. It feels like League is balanced around the players that are still around since 2013 while thinking the game will feel fresh enough just by cramming more stuff into new champions' abilities.
I think someone has mentioned it, but one of the main reasons why Mario can be so widespread is because of who he is, not what the game is. You know Mario as a character, but you know League of Legends as a game, a MOBA. This is why (what i like to see and what theyre doing) is to not make League of Legends as a game, but as a world, with multiple characters. That way we might have different characters doing different things, which could or could not be ridiculous (Braum racing Fiddlesticks in Noxus, using Xayah's feathers as an item?)
I started playing League in November of 2023. In January, I picked up Gangplank and in April began one-tricking him. I’ll hit 400,000 mastery on him this week and I seriously can’t imagine a more fun champ for me across any MOBA I’ve played. I have my gripes with League, but the thing that has kept me hooked all this time is finding a champ that I love playing and never feels boring.
Wow, GP is still kinda hard to play, (for me at least), his kit is cool and fun but maybe I just can't pull of the playstyle he demands. So it's good for u to have found your main as a new player. 😅
@@julsegs he takes so much practice. I played well over 50 games with him before I even felt comfortable. Almost infinite skill ceiling. Keep practicing my man. Even after 400,000 mastery, I still have moments where I think I could have played a situation better. That’s one of the things I love so much about him. Always learning something new
@@alexsharp3481 he's far different than his former self, just a Q-tap guy, so I agree with the infinite skill ceiling sentiment. Used to adore him after his rework, (he's one of the best reworks imo), but we drifted apart for some reason, Taliyah and Swain happened. Anw, have you checked out any Solarbacca vids, he's the one I used to watch when I wanted to try him out years ago. Maybe u should try if u haven't yet.
What killed League for me was Vanguard. I played it since season 2, but the moment Vanguard became mandatory, I cold turkey uninstalled it 2 days before the patch hit. Haven't played it since. I'm sorry, but I don't think Riot is competent enough to be trusted with running a thing like Vanguard on my pc. Not even that I think they'll do anything themselves, but they HAVE been target of cyberattacks before.
175 champions and they keep adding dumber and dumber champions, no one wants to learn this game anymore. Even new champions are impossible to understand for casual-veteran players. I'm just waiting GT6 and will never come back to this game, after 12seasons playing.
I think League has a chance to evolve itself into something different if given the chance. The fundamental gameplay is so enjoyable that it works in a PvE setting with the proof of concept being star guardians, followed by being proven to work with Odyssey and then proven again with Swarm. If they make a replayable roguelike/lite experience, this game could easily live for a long time, likely with a small to medium sized audience but a dedicated one.
the thing is that Riot DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT SHE NEED TO DO AS IN THE PAST, because is cost money. Riot don't want to spend money, just take EASY money. This is a problem
I got into League, like really into League, back in the pandemic. Our squad was starting out, everyone sort of learning the game from scratch/ vs AI (and that sucks even more back then) and everyone was settling on their champion and playstyle then. And in the pandemic, online time is not lacking - if not excessive - and so it became a spot to vent, have fun, socialize all in one, which is rather perfect for League because it has massive downtimes (laning phase, mid-late neutral state) and rewards coordinated play and information sharing. With friends, it's the best game to exist that has just enough variety in champion but same experience that people can grow together, which is my favourite part of the game. So long as Arcane brings in people and older players reintroduce to new ones, I can't see League dying out any time soon.
I played league daily for 2 years, slowed down in year 3 and finally stopped in year 5. Started playing aram every now and then recently but i cant recapture that feeling i got at the beginning.
ive been playing for like 8 years and the players have gotten better and better even in the lower ranks which pretty much shows that there aren't really that many new players just smurf and ults
12:00 THANK YOU Number one reason I left league. I only have so many free hours a day and being held hostage in a match only to then get slapped with a leaver penalty was infuriating beyond belief. If you’re going to make a team based game, holding players hostage if they’re having a bad time doesn’t exactly promote loyalty or a desire to stick around
When I first started playing league I could play with my friends, and regardless of how poorly they did I feel like it never affected me much. Idk if it's because of game design or because of the lack of skill of the player base in those days, but I was able to carry my friends more often than not, so when I lost I always felt like I could have done something to win. Over time it became harder and harder to carry my friends, and playing with them was basically an auto-loss, so eventually I stopped playing with them, and the game is simply not as fun without friends for me.
Wild rift has a 1v1 mode that somewhat fixes things - fast paced game mode, that gives you more agency and helps you get used to champions in a more comfortable way than summoner's rift. It could end up becoming a deathmatch game mode, which would be an interesting thing for Riot to create.
Unfortunately, the highest of highs I'll get from this game is when both my team and enemy team is neck on neck with objectives and lane pressure in the late game that 1 more teamfight will determine the outcome. I hate winning at early 15 when enemy decides to ff, same goes when the game is truly unwinnable that I'm forced to ff and don't want to spend another min with toxic, weak minded teammates.
I played for about 11 years. The higher I climb the more time I need to spend on it to maintain my skill and the older I get the less time I have to spend on it. After hitting diamond last fall I think I’m finally hardstuck, so I’m done. I made a lot of friends in college playing league, and kept in touch with friends for much longer than I otherwise would’ve by duo queueing with them, but my friends are all done with it now. Sad to uninstall, but better to quit while I’m ahead than grind diamond solo queue until I’m emerald.
I started League in around February 2011 as a young teenager with a shitty laptop and this period of time was one of the best the game has had. I'ld say the prime this had had hovered around 2011-2016-ish. I remember getting my first pentakill on Twitch for the first time. That was so awesome and a wonderful moment for a kid like me.The game was still fresh back in the day. There was so much to discover, so much to look forward to and experience. This game has been stagnated for years and the best "cool changes" in the recent years were the introduction of "Champion Mastery" This was something cool and it made me want to get one million points on my favourite champion (Twisted Fate, ofcourse...) and I was looking forward to it and it made me want to play so much. I'm an old and responsible adult now and can't play 12h a day anymore and I hate that Riot changed their policy on many things and I hate the changes made to my favourite champions. TF had been changed god knows how many times. Buff, Nerf, Hard nerf, From top AP champ, to some bullshit mix of AP and AD, Toplane (with was great btw with RFC) to a nerfed RFC and E. I hate that my champs always gets changes. I remember when back in the day the game was very much the same for months with minor changes here and there but the gameplay and items stayed pretty much the same for a very long time. That was cool. I wonder what the "Huge changes" are that are said to drop next year. I look forward to it and I'm very much interested in the topic of "League will change forever in 2025". It will very likely be a new game engine with update visuals and Summoner's Rift but what beyond that? I wonder. I will keep an eye out on that. Also the introduction of bullshiit "Vanguard" was the nail in the coffin and one of the main factors that made me quit the game. (sorry for bad Englando)
Genuinely surprised to see no mention of Deadlock. Time can only tell but I think it has a good chance to give many League players an outlet to break the habit or a replacement for it. The game is not perfect, but it gives me the same feeling League used to and will likely be eating more out of my League time than any other mobas I have tried in recent years.
I started League in February of this year. I was intrigued after I watched Arcane. When I started I had no clue what to do I would literally play jinx as botlane and run top lane sometimes hitting jungle camps. Since then I've learned so much from RUclipsrs and managed to get to Gold 3 last week as a Jungle main.
I love league, but vanguard anti cheat means I can’t play it on my computer. I’m not installing windows just for league when I have hundreds of other games to choose fromfrom. I hope the game continues to thrive, I’ll still watch worlds every year. But until it’s gone me and the other 4 Linux users cannot play it
As someone new who’s played other MOBAs extensively and decided to try out League a week ago: I will say, though I am having fun with it, I’m also seeing one part of its bad reputation I heard absolutely holding true, which is rampant power creep leading to some broken, overstuffed champ designs. I’m already dreading the day I step into QM and actually face down someone like Yasuo, Yuumi, Viego, or Akshan, or someone even more broken and badly-tuned than any of those I just don’t know about yet; I can’t imagine how old it gets getting stomped on by them repeatedly for several years.
I genuinely love playing league, and I do recommend it to my friends. I'm not a big gamer, but have been playing league since season 4, and it's the only video game outside of the sims and the anno series that could truly interest me.
Vars, I have a question. You mentioned many times you enjoy playing bruisers, especially Renekton. Are you gonna continue playing them? With split 3 bruiser got pretty weak, especially those reliant on items, like Renekton. I used to be a bruiser main, but I'm switching to tanks or popular picks like Camille and Gwen because bruisers feel insanely weak to me right now. Why does Chogath have more damage than me lvl 4, why does everyone have more damage than us. The problem with is damage is the only thing we had going for us, we had less damage than asassins, but we're more tanky, more damage than tanks but less tanky. Now I feel like that's no longer true
Played since pre season 1. League used to have like 40 champions, and nothing was figured out generally speaking. I recall my first or second game playing taric mid. There were no junglers yet. A player coming into the game now has like 170 champions to figure out, more items, an established rule of how to play the game, and 14 years of experience behind. Unless you really really want to get into the game on your own, or you have any friends, why wouldn't you just play a new game that's recently released where you can be competitive in. In essence, league exists so long because it's an amazing game and recognizable to its long term playerbase, but that brings with it a huge barrier of entry. Even if the game never grows again and just keeps on steadily declining, there's still easily a decade left for it to maintain millions of daily concurrent players.
One thing that's makes me stop playing is one the fact I don't find a character a really want to plays (like deathwing in hots) and second when I found one it get reworked (oldasol)
Yasuo and yone one of the most played and strong champs in soloq and pro play. Gets buffed... While some classes like artillery mages have been basically deleted from the meta for almost 7 years.
Vars, we want to know your oppinion on the ksante rework. You have been a critic of the champion but we need to know what you think about a 40% win rate champion.
The main issue, IMO, is that the matches take too long for an ever-decreasing attention span. They basically need to start everyone at level 10 and have objectives immediately pop up. ( of course, in a League II type game ). 15 minute matches is what they want, not 30-40 minutes.
I remember my first game I played Cho Gath and bought nothing but hp regen because I was not healing back to full health like I did in a final fantasy. Then my friends made me play fiddlesticks support (back when crows bounced and silenced) BEFORE I unlocked flash for his ult. (Or had any P2W runes or blue essence for that matter.) Anyway I'm here to say it's crazy the new user experience just has never been a priority when it comes to actually succeeding at the game. Bots are useless and they really hate to limit the amount of new accounts from banned people. Smurf queue has made a difference but a lack of a problem isn't the solution to another. Lots of old problems not getting solved will be the death of it. Remember the damage reset that lasted a month? There's a lot of creep in this game that is ok for esports but not casual players. My thing is who is going to watch the esports if you need somebody to teach you the game?
league is in the same spot as minecraft, but riot is taking the oposite path from mojang. microsoft went to hunt the casual market and this is profitable while league went on the full competitive path, the reason where tft still not abandoned. riot also abandoned league in favor for full dive in developing other games and ravaged league resources destrying it for that, while mojang despite releasing other titles never abandoned minecraft like riot did with league. microsoft also accepted diversity of gameplay and players creativity while riot purged all of it, they killed twisted treeline and dominion, killed old alternative game modes in the past because the alternative game modes went to develop tft and didnt care to replace them, they kill every creative non-toxic meta and if any champion that shows in other lane other than the one they want is nerfed to oblivion because some salty rioter lost to it(pyke, for example). Other thing that I think riot shoud do is change the whole "role" stuff they have stuck up with for soo long, I know its classic but nexus blits for example showed they can change that.
The thing is that they've clearly made a shift from "Cool AA Dev company with one great game" to "Shitty corporate AAA Dev company with several games and one declining great game."
i physically cant play league anymore vangaurd is like, 'ahh i see your network adapter is plugged in, such a shame i guess ill disable and/or delete your drivers to it. when you alt tab on gray screeen.'
Most League patches feel like change for the sake of change, they had one good patch in recent years right after they removed mythic items and before this latest season started.
I dropped off,now the game has changed so much that if I decide to start again I have to forget something I knew and relearn them.I would not consider this fun.I would be more excited picking up a new game to play.
I think something they could try is to go into development of a league version 2.0 or something. Firstly because the game and code is so old that the system does need a revamp bur also because it doing so they can market the game differently and try and bring in new players with the new shiny thing
it just gets boring really quick if you’re not a junkie. same laning phase every time, same characters against you because of meta, same mordekaisers and gwens, yasuos and yones, zeds and katarinas. nothing new to experience, exept new inting teammates. same 1 hp diana will dive you under your turret and die every single time. your jungler will try to gank your lane when you don’t have any mana and barely any health and then cry you didn’t help. this is just a neverending cycle of the game, and if you’re a normal person without addiction, it gets boring really fast, like in 3 weeks of everyday playing. what you first thought was a challenge becomes an annoying inconvenience.
I've come to realize that the only reason I keep playing it is because my friends are playing it and they don't want to play other games. If I only played games alone, I would quit League right away.
One day, no one will be able to play a game of League again. When that day comes, make sure to have enjoyed it to its fullest, so you won't have have any regrets.
The MOBA genre in general is stagnating, people are loosing interest and prefer to play something else. Much like it's predecessor - RTS, MOBAs are fading, there are going to be games/franchises that are going to stay relevant, but they won't be big or as popular as they are now.
Watching this I realize how unique of a league gamer I am. Personally I felt at my best when playing league. I enjoyed the game and saw myself grow as a person playing it. Before I played league, I was afraid of failing and trying new things. I genuinely thought league as fun to play and got satisfaction from playing it. I was even the weird guy that recommend it to people and said it was fun to play. I guess thank you for making me realize this. Was in a bad mental spot.
I think we, the players, will decide with our actions what happens to league. I am that guy who tells all my friends to play, because I want to see growth. I do tell them not to try the game solo, and every person that tries to learn without coaching runs away. What we have to do is demand from Riot that they improve the new player experience and FIX THE DAMN CLIENT, and be accepting as a community if sacrifices need to be made to address these two issues.
Something they tried to do over the past couple of years was to make the game faster. For me, that was not only a different experience, but it was significantly inferior to a more drawn-out match for me. I do not know if them attempting to return to a longer game will be successful or not, but I am hopeful that the changes will be beneficial even if they are too little too late
League can be summed up as: We are so back! Its over... We are so back! Its over... We are so back! Every patch.
LEAGUE DIED AFTER THEY-
Continued boosting services, did nothing to stop derankers, severe chat restrictions, punishing innocent players that retaliate their broken system.
such unlucky timing when Dumbs just released 15 hours ago a video talking about all the things that's bright for the future of League
The duality of man
And what they said during the last update. I still think this video actually came at the perfect time because this could be the turning point of league’s stagnation into growth.
I stopped playing league myself because not enough changes (in a fun way) between seasons. It’s why I enjoy TFT, each set brings a bunch of new, fun everything.
Virgin league is dying mindset vs the Chad indomitable League spirit.
@@ToasteBlade You are being subjective. TFT has the benefit of being simpler by having no micros, so they can go ham with it. I quit TFT after the first 2 season because i have to learn how every champ work and interact all over again. And i haven't even grasp the macro yet. That takes time, and part of those time i have to use to replace my memory, to relearn things.
I disagree on riot not making enough changes, they made plenty. In a fun way or not, that's subjective, it had been fun for me, but it seems the opposite to you. I also took frequent break from lol too, so ig that also helps.
All in all, i don't think lol is stagnating or even going into growth. It just is and unless nothing super major changes, it's still going to be lol.
@@ToasteBlade " And what they said during the last update. I still think this video actually came at the perfect time because this could be the turning point of league’s stagnation into growth. "
You're not the first one to say such things, many said the same thing since like season
To me, League is like a traditional sport. Like basketball. Does interest wane? Sure. But it can always be picked up and played. Depending on the day or friend group, maybe you get into it more or less
Yeah, and just like with sports, it happens with league many times that you lose interest and quit, but then worlds come around, you watch a couple of games and get interested in the game again. Happened to me many times
You’ve never played sports…. League is nothing like that
@@QwartzyG I have just played basketball for 2 hours straight and am coming home to have lunch and play some league. Have been off and on these two games for throughout all my teenage and adult life. What's so different about them?
@@QwartzyG Stop assuming shit
Last I checked, the NBA doesn't randomly decide traveling is now allowed for this season. Then next season, you can only dribble three times before having to pass or shoot. That's how league works, but far more drastic and frequently.
Well it's kinda easy when we see how it grew.
- At it's release we didn't have massive platforms like Epic, GoG, Steam was at it's infancy. It was much more common to have to download a client per online game. Now it's a tedium for a casual player.
- The freemium model was also revolutionary (most online games like WoW or FF11 were subscription or P2W). You couldn't properly play most games (especially online) for free, you could with League.
- Cyber cafés were at their peak coming off grassroots DotA. League was an ideal per hour for the setting.
- People were used to RTS/MobA managing due to Warcraft, Starcraft, Age 2, etc.
- Mobas were fresh and a peaking genre
- eSports were this total novel thing skyrocketing at breakneck speed.
- There were enough champions for variety, but not that many to overwhelm a new player
These factors made League incredibly appealing to download and play for any casual. Growth only snowballed until it became the massive sensation. Almost all of these factors have died or become more tedious. Cyber cafés have all but died, people aren't as familiar with RTS controls now, the knowledge barrier to entry has risen exponentially, there's a lot of F2P games of high quality, and people got used to just getting games on one platform.
The loss of the casual playerbase to these variety of factors got Riot into a catch 22, either they make the game more straightforward in an attempt to make it more casual friendly (see: current season's pace, midgame is almost nonexistant) while risking losing the existing playerbase or they go back and revert these changes, making it more appealing to the league base but still alienating outsiders.
The game is not dying, but each year it's harder to get newcomers on, and the current base is not bringing them at the speed they used to. (See: the Arcane peak interest and the base telling their friends to NOT play the game)
From the Philippines here, it's why League became popular here if not nothing else to play(aside from one or two online games), Playing in the philippines you don't have much if not at all choices, you need to play locally published games or has Philippine servers if not, near it. Cause most popular games back then has physical servers over the west which has huge lag spikes and ping difference, and most importantly, as you said, it was the start of the era of when F2P P2W games are popping up left and right replacing many top-up pay to play games like RO and MU online back then. But we still tried to play these P2W games but if they don't ROI especially MMORPGS with heavy graphics, in one or two years they shutdown, leaving many having a stigma against MMORPGS if not online games.(now corporately called "live games")
The problem with League and many similar games, is that they're too Deathball comp prone, unlike games like in BF1, if the enemy forms a deathball comp you can just throw a nade or set a trip wire and counter them, in League they crush everything in their path. I tried HoK Honor of Kings and it has the same problem no matter how skilled you are.
It's a challenge to judge the state/popularity since they deliberately avoid steam to avoid steamcharts, but it's not clueless like average & peak viewership from Twitch, sponsors backing out and prize pool getting lower.
It's not dying, but it's definitely not retaining old players nor acquiring new ones enough either. It's a giant whale with a stab wound that never heals, not dead but.
I do not think that league became stagnant as much as riot accidentally forced it to be stagnant, years of a repeating the same formila is causing stagnation, 14 days patch cycle and repetitive events are getting worse and worse and i think this is why they bushing the new 4 season thematic next year
And when they changed the formula they lose more players so they really can't. 🤣
it stag rn just look at DOTA introducing new mechanics to their game in just these past couple of years that's already new for us MOBA vet players
@@DemikDragongangeryeah, and it brings new players too, so no changes
@@viciouslyeatingaburger Adding new mechanics might be nice for older players who might start to find the game getting stale, but it actively harms the new playerbase and the casual playerbase. MOBAs already struggle on the new player front, as they require so much information and time to hit the bottom of the skill floor of the game type. Adding a ton of mechanics on top of that , ones that can change drastic things about the game and how you play it, can be a major turnoff for newer players. That's also not helped by the fact that Dota 2 is, by far, a much harder game than League for a newbie to pick up and try to learn.
@@viciouslyeatingaburger Were talking about stagnation, Dota doesnt really gain any new players anymore. The new competitor for league is mobile MOBA not DOTA2
I think lol aint dying soon, it got to the point that its well known for outsiders and it got the Money to cater to them so it can allways be Financial viable
Yep, but it wouldn't hurt if they made the game more beginner friendly so it's easier for more people to get into it. Tutorial sucks and does not explain anything. Currently it is pretty much impossible to get into LoL if you don't watch 100 tutorials on youtube or have a bunch of friends who already play and can teach you.
@@aabeeek How do you make it beginner friendly though? One of the beauties of the game is that its extremely complex both on a mechanical and strategic levels. Its kinda impossible to make it beginner friendly, unless you just tell them to play Garen and that way, they wont have to concentrate too much on the mechanical side
@@justhair17 make it easier to learn, not easier to play.
The tutorial is 'this is how you move and attack, good luck have fun'
No explanation of levels, items, stats, minions, towers, the jungle at all.
Dota does this okay, it's not great but the tutorial system is at least trying.
@@aabeeeki agree it took having a friend explaining the game to me over the course of several games for me to finally get into it after trying it on my own a few times and having no clue what's going on
@@justhair17 i mean damn dota is a more complex game but it has the best tutorial in this genre
One of the biggest reasons that's contributing to it's declining popularity is just how much of a time sink it is just to get DECENT, not good, DECENT at the game. On top of that, most of the playerbase that's been around for years are growing older and have responsibilities outside of League, so it's harder to find the time to invest in learning the game improve.
damn i realize how old i am, i started playing league when i was 19 now im 33 xD. I think league is not growing anymore, there are not many new players, the learning curve is huuge so its more like maintaining the playerbase, if you look how many games have risen and fallen during the lifetime of league, i myself made breaks with league and played other new mainstream games, but i always came back. There was no other game in my lifetime that hooked me as much as league, and a part of the relationship with the game is the same like with Marvel movies, many people grew up with Iron Man since 2008, as well as many grew up with League
I think smurfs are a problem I started playing about 4 months ago and I think the fact I never had any bad experiences in the first 30 level is just a matter of luck If seen the toxicity of the game I don't think I would have kept playing.
@@rusticfightr That's the difficult part. Smurf will always happen, either by older player playing with their new/casual friends or deliberately buying/making new account to stomp on people By just maintaining the player base, and making no effort into making the game easier to learn(improve tutorial/practice tool mode), new player staying is less and thus you will encounter more smurf, especially somewhere after lv 30, cause most smurf buy lv 30 account and not lv 1.
@@torahama362 I wonder how many league players are Smurfs XD riot says they have huge numbers still I wonder if they remove Smurfs how big of a player base would LOL really have.
*When League gets old, you call Braum*
Well the only logical step forward is to offer an alternative to Summoners rift. Like a smaller map with different objectives, for like 6,3v3 players. Baron can be replaced with some other beast, maybe a big spider. Just spit balling here...
Name the spydor milevaw! Do you remember the one week they had 6v6 hexakill twisted treeline? That was ridiculous. But so fun. I sent messages on forums on reddit and to riot games to bring it back but never got a response.
Honestly when most of your community stays not because the game is good but because of habit, your time is counted. Lol has a terrible reputation now and i think unless they make a 180 to become a more casual game, they have more time in their past than their future.
LoL has had a terrible reputation for as long as I can remember, even when it was still growing.
Yep. No matter how Riot tries to spin it, League by design is designed to profit off of unhealthy habits.
That may be true, idk. However, the tobacco industry would disagree. You may no longer experience the same highs, but it will still "take the edge off." I think the real question here is for how long can it stagnate before dying?
@@shanefoster2132 L.
@@Fabiocean2000league was the unique free game as a service in that age
Because it's the same game since 14 years. They even removed maps like twisted tree line and dominion, zero innovation and zero evolution.
League lost over 52 million players world wide including nearly 50% of their ranked players. Biggest complaints are bad game balance, too much smurfing/account boosting which ruins the algorythm for low rank players match making, and toxic community.
Aram is a completely different game from summoner's rift
Honestly it is somewhat rare for me to see true toxicity from other players. In my 300 + games for season 14 a majority of them have been mostly neutral to positive. I do agree that this game needs a better tutorials to help guide new players. It need things like "THE SKILL SHOT GALLERY", "SKILL SHOT DODGE" " LAST HIT THE MINION" , "LEARNING TO KITE" , "LANE MANAGMENT WITH CORPORATE MUNDO" and "LEARN YOUR CHAMPS COMBO"
I haven't finished yet, but I find it funny as someone who just got into league a year ago. The game changes faster then I can keep up with sometimes it feels like the items and champs are changing constantly.
The constant changes is something I talked a lot about with friends when I finally got out. Any time it felt like I had a strong grasp of game knowledge to build on, Riot went out of their way to rip out that knowledge base and force players to start over. The longer things are perceived as staying the same, the faster the playerbase will peter out. As a long-standing live service game, they have to fight hard to maintain a fragile balance between familiarity and novelty. And every time they go too far in the wrong direction, it costs them players.
@@wiksolop72 Whats crazy is it is changing a lot less frequently than it used to. There was a time we got a new champion every 2-4 weeks
*than
@wiksolop72 this is exactly the same sentiment I had after playing from 2014 to 2018. The first time I played league, it still had it's first map. The very next day, the second map iteration was introduced. Then there was the plethora of changes in the jungle, it takes alot of effort to study new items and mechanics and the changes at some point can overwhelm even the veteran players.
to add another point,
RIOT has been ignoring the flaws of the multiplayer experience for 10 years and only started to care for the health of the game when it started to lose in popularity. Too little too late.
I think they just need to add a multi tier difficulty AI, and advanced PvE challenges (eg. Win, while other team starts at level 2, or with enemy team jungler starting at level 5, etc ..).
Pve would turn into a snooze fest
I can't play League because my computer is blocking Vanguard. It's a hassle to get the game to even work. If I'm in a MOBA mood, I just play Pokemon Unite with my friends.
you can vanguard to windowns firewall exceptions
I mean, I'm on Linux so I just stopped playing the game and went to Fighting Games instead. Also means less time commitment for ranking rewards/penalties, so it feels very fluid and makes going back to League even more of a non-starter.
Same! Freaks out when I even open spotify app 😢
Great timing! I literally posted a video yesterday of me discussing why I'm quitting after playing League for over 10 years.
Where is it? Xd ur last vid is 1 month ago
@@DannyMxxre Oh it's on a different channel!
@@TPweisengame can I have a link? X)
"A baptism of fire" is EXACTLY how it feels to start playing league. You don't know what you're doing at all yet still find some level of success, then you'll be baptized into playing the same way as everyone else, and then you'll beat the devil out of the next new or inexperienced player; baptizing them potentially against their own interest of finding creative or unorthodox ways to play. You'll never really see a player playing Gangplank adc in the bot lane outside of maybe your first week of playing normals on a fresh account.
or you'll get that Gangplank as your adc in an important promos series, you'll likely flame him, and then he'll be the best member of your team out of nowhere and nearly carry you to victory... before intentionally throwing out of spite and you tilt down two divisions straight
I think a major contributor to a player falloff and lack of interest is EVERY game mode is about sweating and playing it like it is ranked all the time.
I don't play ranked and I do want to win, but I want to chill while getting to that win. After arena left I went to spellbook and it was everyone going ham like it was ranked. I was disgusted and immediately turned off.
I don't like to use the term try hard, but it was clear even to me in an alt game mode people had NO chill and played like they we shooting for challenger. The fun of just playing the game with strangers started vanishing a while ago, but playing non-arena for once really opened my eyes to how sweaty the rest of league is. It really killed the joy when I went back to other modes, and this I don't know if I can play it anymore.
This is by NO means the only, or even the primary, reason league is losing popularity. However, I think it still a major factor. The game is no longer about just being a game.
The game isn't designed much around chilling. The game is designed around winning or trying to win, which is the main problem of the game. All mechanics boils down to feast or famine.
It is true that Riot tried to make league into a e-football industry and sacrificing the fun elements, this is 100%, but it's only half of the story. Generally the game is bad, the ranked system is a grinding scam that insults its players, the lootboxes turning the game rewards into a slot machine, further insulting the playerbase, the rune system that provide a false sense of choice when in fact you can flamed and reported for picking the wrong option, despite the game allowing you to make irrevokable mistakes before the game even starts.
It's just bad and hasn't improved its system ever since 2017, even worse they removed other games modes, while forcing you to downland TFT, even if you never plan to play it, just because RIOT wants you to play their poor-quality auto-chess.
@@novinceinhosic3531 seems you misunderstood, either intentionally or unintentionally. I don't know how long you have played for, but back in the day it was FAR more chill. People were not as toxic and people were just playing game. Yes the game is innately competitive because you have players playing against each other. However, the SWEAT was lower. People were playing to have fun win or lose. However, even in games not specifically made to sweat are now basically ranked without the rank.
So yes, I am saying a contributor is the amount people invest in being a try hard in EVERY mode not just ranked. The game WAS far more chill, because it is a game not a job. The game has fundamentally changed because the people who play it are not treating it as a game. Winning and chilling are not mutually exclusive.
@@MrReaperHand I've played for 10 years. I do remember when people were way more cooler. The issue isn't the fact that there was no toxicity (probably you were not used to see it because you were not playing it competitively and did not care about the outcomes of the games), but back then people did not feel miserible, it wasn't a contest on "how to ruing everyone games onlyt to take revenge cuz someone told me I did a mistake or pinged me". Everyone is a sensible whinning dog nowadays, they insta report (they used to do back then too, but the tribunal rarely banned you), they take offense on anything, even in the normal games.
The fun of the game, for a very long time, consistented in progressing, in seeing yourself getting better and winning. That was progressively crushed since around S7-9 when they started to rig the ranked system and by the time of S10 the game got flooded with eloboosters and smurfs, so they ruined that aspect of skill progression. They forced the game to be more team dependent with the changes on towers and neutral objectives, while back then you could technically play the game 1v5 and ignore your team if you desired so. Even the cheeses such as funneling and stuff adding to it were removed because how meta-mandatory became in higher elo games.
They game is not about chill, specially given that anything can dash and two-shot you, everything snipes you from across the map and you get a gray screen... the reason they lowered the death-time is exactly the reason to keep pace with the fact that the game is feast of famine.
The reality is that all you can do in the game is to A) use CC, which is dependent on your position relative to the enemy and your team, which depands on the ability doing something once you hit a CC, B) heal/shield your mates, which is dependent on your ability of having level and items in order to have strong heals and shields or other buffs, C) to tank damage, which is dependent on having items and level to resist the damage coming your way, D) dealing damage, which again is dependented on you having items and level. There is literally nothing else to do in this game, you cannot walk randomly on the map, you cannot build a house with a farm, you cannot have a tea party or anything, it's just winning or losing, with the only freedom being picking how you are going to win, like strategy, which, again thanks to RIOT, is heavily depandent on your team following a plan, which will never happen, or picking a champion you like with the build you desire. And depending on your ability to pilot that champion along with the viability of the champion's numbers/kit and how strong the item/runes build is, you can make your path to victory more or less likely. IF you don't plan to win and don't follow that, then the enemy team is going to play with you, like a dog plays with a bone. Either they perma-keep you in the graveyard with dives and end the game around the 15 min mark (if you don't surrender by that time), or they are going to keep you hostage in your own base while they farm the entire map and are 3-4 levels above and two items advantage along with all the perma drake buffs.
>However, even in games not specifically made to sweat are now basically ranked without the rank.
People were experimenting more back then. People were not punished that much for playing bad, because everyone was playing bad and the very mechanics of the game were more forgivable. Imagine people freezing lanes back in S3 in normals. Now if you win the lane, what are you doing if not denying the enemy all gold and exp that is possible?
>The game has fundamentally changed because the people who play it are not treating it as a game. Winning and chilling are not mutually exclusive.
I will say this: I got a feeling, around S9-10, when I lose, specially on 4 losestreak, I feel miserable, specially losing with 20/4 kd. When I win, I simply feel nothing. I've tried messing around with first-time champs, it just doesn't feel right. I got all champs (I think 3 more were released in the meantime by this point), no desire to play any of them anymore, all of them feel bad. New builds? Just look how lame the items are and remember how reasonable they used to be. Runes are also bad, you have a total of 3 types of runes which have as difference among them only either the fixed synergy with the champ or mere stats power, with no effect on the actual gameplay.
The reality is that there is nothing else in this game but to win. And if winning doesn't make you feel well, while losing happens, forcefully 50% and that there might be even days in row in which you lose more than you win... then there is simply no point in playing the game. RIOT said once that they were thinking about introducing ranks based on roles and maybe even champions, which isn't much of a thing, yet we are years later and that doesn't seem more likely to come.
The game lives off whales and e-sports ads (and probably selling your data to chinese companies too) and doesn't care much about its playerbase. The addicts are going to play it up until their personal lives change, while the rest will move on. Once the whole corpose of league community, which died back in late 2010's, will be forgotten by the nostalgics and whe once the welcoming appeal ceases for the tourists, the game will be put on life support and forgotten into the abyss, which is what RIOT prepares to do since they moved to things like TFT, Valorant and other things.
i feel LoL is in the spot of CS where its never changing but unlike CS it does change sometimes (the current patch is a good showing) where while both are the same one is CS with big new player friendliness and LoL struggles with it both get a good amount of "friend list players" where you might start playing due to another game another player on your friends list invites u to it and while some quit its not fully swinging the new vs quitting player swing kind of like how the deathrate and birth rate is always favouring the birthrate and when it does not that the time the game starts to die and i feel league is going to keep there new players up with new changes for new players kinda like how CS 2 made the game easier to get into League can do so too
Lots of really good points, I like this comment but I did feel like a badger was trying to dig through my skull reading this
Arcane, and whatever show comes next will keep it kicking for at least another 5 years
It pains me to say it, but you're right, although it's also partly possible that the shows will overtake the game in popularity.
I hope this game dies
Having just come back after like 10 years of not playing…the game feels difficult. Skill benchmark may have gone up while I was away
No one in America can make teams. We have no local level tournaments. And we have no incentive to play together with anyone. Not having a team in a team game leads to anger, frustration, and ultimately isolation.
I think what makes League eternal is its "sports" aspect, just like most sports, players can play it with friends and also watch professionals on the biggest stage, and the fact that it never fundamentally changes makes is viable as a sport. It could be the first mainstream E-sport.
@@hiruymulugeta4648 Starcraft was mainstream in Korea 20 years ago. Western culture simply does not allow E-sports to be mainstream, we view videogames as purely entertainment and thus view people who play on a professional competitive level as socially awkward weirdos (whether that's justified or not).
@Weerknuffelbeer
Différent time back then. 20 years ago. PC gaming wasn't as big as now. PC gaming started becoming big around the 2010s when it was becoming more accessible and advanced. League beta came in 2009. But really hit popularity in season 3&4 (2013-2014). The game is nowhere near dying. This is game is definitely à mainstream game. Gamers are everywhere now. And id say 95% players have heard about league at one point.
Games back then were viewed as a geeky/nerd thing. Not so much nowadays. In korea, they are like movie stars. In NA, being a gamer is "cool" when people are praising Henry Cavil for it. Gamers are normalized in today's demographic. League is a staple PC game and moba and also the bigguest esport game out there. More people have watched worlds than a NBA tournament at 1 point.
League has the potential to become like chess: an immortal game, testing skill, game knowledge, strategy and, on top of that, very much alike football and other physical sports, team coordination and cooperation. Unlike these games though, it suffers from its high level of complexity: people cavort easily pick it up, and their early experience is seriously damaged by it.
A proper tutorial system would increase the game's lifetime tenfold. Limiting the starting pool for new players, to control the amount of starting knowledge required to navigate other players' game plan, some shorts about strategies related to objectives and how impactful is to control them. Finally, as ppl get higher in lvl, introduce them to fog of war. Some form of playground, in this direction, would allow players to learn the game without being overwhelmed, and increase their own agency over the game (with chats off being the default in those gamemodes).
Absolutely not, I love the game and all but it will never be like chess due to its live service nature and unpredictable balance
@tokofukawap4055 the year is 3024, there are over 1000 champions, 3 yuumi varients and we are still on the same client built.
It will never be like chess, not even close. Too many unbalanced heroes.
Lol has way to many things to be trully imortal, in chess you have 6 figures, in lol you have 170 champions + items and what not, you can explain whats is chess about in 2 minutes and a new person will somewhat get it, good luck doing it with league.
If AI becomes so advanced that they do a much proper way in balancing the game than today
Vanguard killed it for me. I went down to only ARAM and only if my friends pestered me, after being a daily player for years, due to recognizing just how much time I was putting into a single match. To play ranked, even in silver, it could take almost 2 HOURS from initial queue to actually finishing a match, and if I ran into an inter/afk or someone who is super toxic (very common) the time was wasted since it wasn't fun to try and win anymore. The highs were massively uncommon vs the lows. On top of all that, I only have one account with a backup that I made when I got a vacation. So, my climb wasn't a rocket-ship to diamond so I could claim to be a diamond level player. What made it fun was experimenting with new champions, rune setups, item builds. Nowadays, if you do any of that outside of Korea you get non-stop flaming. The game simply isn't fun. So I quit, keeping it installed only to be able to play with the friends who still liked it (and even then, I did not just quietly suffer, I made sure they knew I only was doing it for them) Then, Riot decided they needed an anticheat that ran even when I didn't have the game loaded and that was the final straw. I'll never touch it again.
Obviously, I still watch league content. Certain youtubers create some entertaining videos (Tobias Fate's editors primarily) and its still entertaining to watch every once in awhile but I'll never play myself again. On top of the overloaded new champions, toxic playerbase, and the inability to actually interact with other players without an extremely aggressive chat restriction system, its just not worth it.
We got KDA Gragas before GTA 6
Oh shit Ur right
YEEAAAAHH
I couldnt stop playing League when I was first introduced to the vast selection of cool champions league had to offer, but once I kind of played all my favorite ones, I just got tired of the same map, and the newer champions werent very creatively designed, all were just humans with crazy long passives
Same here, played it, saw the repetitive cycle.
Also didn't help the god awful One-Shot and CC metas we have right now, Idc what the shills say; Getting stun locked for 7 seconds or one-shotted as soon as I leave Base.
I started to play League, at season 3 end, when i played so much with Dota 2, but even if i invite my friends to play 5v1 they vs me in Dota, they say "nah, you come to League and show your skills in League". Than i start play League, reached lvl30 and play ranked right after reach lvl30. Reach silver in that season end and in next season reach gold, while my friends reach bronze or don't even play ranked so unranked. And one thing is always the same in my head, that the game itself is good, but the little or big problems what makes the playerbase big percentage to quit. These problems are hide in the balance in every game. Cause the riot team thinks they should focus on wait less than 1 minute to que up and be in champ select, less than 5 minute to start a new game is the point where they need to focus. But so many old players like me rather would choose to wait more and be in a good balanced match in ranked, than wait less than a minute and que up with filled or troll gen alpha or Z kids who will destroy your game and chance of gain LP instead of losing it because of them. So many challanger and pro player don't even think about this, because "if i can reach solo the challanger rank by myself, you can do if you focus on yourself"... Sure... but after in 2011 Tencent bought Riot games, they just be the game as a gacha... and so many aspect is gacha... your team mates in ranked, or your chance of can reach from silver to challenger in like 1 or max 2 months of play when you play 4 games a day... Even if pro players not say that they chance is highered up by the company itself, i dont think that me or so many of the players like me who know the game cause play more than 10 year, can't reach there dream rank because of this gacha that after you reach a 5-6 win streak or max 10, you need to lose at least 3 match, even if you good enough to not lose if its only on you and not by on 4 random player. You must lose to be in game cause if you or me reach so fast the dream rank, than the game will be just boring and you quit because "oh its so easy to reach challenger in a week from silver even if i play 5 different role". But anyway this gacha and the match making and hidden match making rate was the biggest probleme but they not gona change that... cause they want you to play more than 500 match a year, not just 100 like some pro who will start in emerald at lvl30 account and reach diamond in 3 game, than rush for challanger in 20-50 game...
I was one of the people that had to learn league by myself. But it was easier back then. I started in season 3 and remember the times playing Elise mid building ravenous and runaans because I liked the idea of having aoe in both forms. Didn’t even get flamed by people. Nowadays it feels like the learning curve is so massive, everyone is so good as opposed to back then that if a new player pulls shenanigans like those they’ll get flamed so hard they’d quit. The game doesn’t have enough new players. Most low levels are just smurfs working on their new “level 30 to masters challenge”
I did not leave League. League left me. RIP league of linux. Is it a perfect game with a very supportive community? No. But it's still fun, and I'd definitely rather be able to play it than not.
League has always been odd because Riot managed to build such a powerhouse IP with just only one game which is unlike their contemporaries like Blizzard and whatnot. I know discussion around the MMO is still the biggest cope under the sun but I think if and when the MMO comes out it would really let the world of Runeterra and by extension League really spread it's wings.
I mean when talking about blizzard, world of Warcraft is still 1 IP and it’s still healthy today
@@woo22-q8l World of Warcraft is not one IP. It was the culmination of years of previous warcraft games and lore.
People in the west are bored of being ignored in favour for Korea/China. High damage, High Mobility, High Pressure play has been the flavour of the month for the last 5 years. Alternative metas are not allowed because damage is so high to make the game "flashy" for e-sports. Its just layers of power upon power which is slowly strangling out build diversity and fun. The problem with League is like many people say "Its fun to watch, not fun to play" and that's why its stagnating. There may be a few that like ADHD gameplay like China/Korea does but a lot of people have walked away from the game because of this, Riot betrayed their original fanbase for a more fickle one, especially with the game market being as saturated as it is.
Riot don't know how to make interesting champions anymore without overloading them. Riot sold out to China and betrayed their western playerbase.
League used to be my main game. I played it for a long time, but I don't find it fun to play casually anymore. Every game I've played recently -- normals, customs, and quickplay included -- all feel so incredibly sweaty. Nothing wrong with encountering skilled opponents, but it just drains my energy so quickly. I need a rest after two or three games with how much I have to try and dial myself in to play. I'd like there to be more things like Arena or Swarm. Things that are easier to get a grasp on compared to playing on Summoner's Rift that can be done solo, with friends, or with randoms. I'd just like to have more of a reason to boot up the janky League client than hitting gold 4 and collecting a skin at the end of the season.
As someone who's been playing for over a decade and never had any interest in a moba prior to league, I feel safe saying it's because of the diverse champion pool riot has created.
I went from playing this because I had nothing better to do and my online best friend played league. To playing it with or without him, rain or sunshine, simply from finding a main I fell in love with playing(Jhin).
I've watched my now wife go from a console gamer to solely play league because she found her set of mains she loves playing.
Personally I would love to see more lore, MOOOORE! 😂
I recommend Necrit channel
@@Navue-cn2tx I've seen his stuff. It's great! I just wish they would flesh the characters out with more per.
And that's what is the problem with new league. New champs are just panders to "modern audience" ignoring league lore and style. We will never get another Jhin, another Maokai or Darius. Waiting for the wheelchair trans lesbian champ that has to press R to get insta pentakill (Aurora 2.0)
@skyper8934 sounds like u got some deep rooted hatred there bud
@@TravMenace yeah. Don't want shitty representations in my games.
It’s interesting. I found like, 0 league merch or cosplays at the last con I went to. I think gacha overload is a huge issue in pushing out most games, but the time limitation makes a lot of sense as to why. I stopped playing league for Splatoon because instead of dragging on a 30 minute team game Loss I get a 5 minute team game loss. So can’t deny it’s a tougher sell as time feels more scarce.
Unforgiving, baptism by fire league is truly that.
3 years deep and I just got to plat 😂
Games deep as hell, and with 15 years of exploration I gotta learn a helluva lot more.
That's my fun, learning
Congratulations, the climb from plat to emerald to diamond will be even worse :)
People have been saying that LoL is gonna die or is dying for years now, and it never did so why would it die now?
Unless RIOT actively runs it all down, it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
I heard this so many times like this video for example and I am tired of it.
@@nelmvn i feel the same way and is so counter productive
@@nelmvn This video is not about league dying
there aren't a lot of new players coming and staying in, but there are players leaving the game
Honestly for some reason its the boot price changes for me it was creeping up but it was until i sometimes subconsciously back like a muscle memory that leagues been not feeling like its self. Cause no matter what role you played items may fluctuate but boots have always remained the same.
Idk maybe its my boomer s4 brain talking here but yeah
While it is debatable whether or not this is THE biggest responsible for league's stagnation, I think everyone agrees few games are as hostile to beginners as league is, and having a low influx of new players isn't the best for the game's longevity. The causes for it are many, and I feel like elaborating on the most obvious ones: the toxic community, the awful tutorial and the ever increasing cummulative knowledge, to be unnecessary, so I will instead talk about those I have the impression fall under the radar.
- League's balancing is suffocatingly conservative.
At one point in the past, "play your own way" was League's slogan. Nowadays, it feels like League's balance team is just trying too hard to make sure games stays the same on multiple fronts. An early game where all players play in their own isolated bubble with a transition to teamfights around objectives that dictate the outcome of the game. In of itself, this is not a bad thing, the problem is when players try to do something different. If a jungler isn't interacting with camps for 80% of the time, if a mid laner leaves lane and its play is not pixel perfect, they get punished extremmely harshly and all the opponent must do to perform said punish is getting a farm lead. That makes league's early game (a) extremmely monotonous and (b) if there's only one viable playstyle, then the winner is just the more experienced player. Thinking outside the box isn't just not encouraged. It is actively suppressed. TheBauffs probably being the most infamous example of that.
When was the last time a champion changed its role for good and replaced its initial role altogether? I can remember Karthus and Nidalee going from mid to jungle, Maokai and Nautilus ceasing to be junglers altogether and Gragas changing roles every so often, but outside that, what happens when a champion finds a new role 99% of the time? Riot will give that champion changes to actively force it the role it was before. Camille jungle, Camille support, Sett and Panthoen support, Lucian and Tristana mid, Swain, Heimerdinger and Cassiopeia bot. Even Brand, who became a support for nearly 10 years, Riot tried forcing back mid lane. If the meta stay with tanks and bruisers top, mages and assassins mid, marksmen bot and mages and tanks bot for all its existence, existing players will never have to relearn the game and the knowledge gap between old and new players will keep increasing. We never had the chance to play a game with double mage kill lanes bot, marksmen mid and no farming junglers like Camille for more than a few months and see how the game would adapt around it. Riot always nerf hammer everything to fold the game back to the previous status quo.
- League's new content has became increasingly convoluted.
Though convoluted designs are usually more complex than simple designs, convoluted doesn't necessarily translates into complexity. When you make a convoluted champion, even when in practice it is actually fairly simple, there's so much information going it can be intimidating for new players. Meanwhile, you can have complex champions without them being convoluted. The best examples being Zed, LeBlanc, Shaco, Heimerdinger, Orianna, Singed, and Draven. Most of these champions' abilities can be described in a single paragraph, yet nobody would argue against them not being complex champions. A new player is capable of understanding these champions on a basic level right away and see the potential in them. Meanwhile, when facing these champions, you never get the "what the fuck just happened?" you get when you're up against Aphelios or something.
I like to use Camille as an example here. Not because she is the worst offender, but because she makes the point really easy to understand. Camille's Q gives two auto-attack resets, the second of which converts your damage to true damage. Her W deals damage and has a sweet spot which deals bonus damage and slows. Her E is a long range dash that stuns on contact. Her R creates an unpassable zone around a target and knocks back all opponents around it. None of these abilities feel underwhelming or incomplete based on these descriptions, yet all of them have effects which I didn't mention. Camille's Q is also a movement speed steroid. Camille's W also heals her. Camille's E is also an attack speed steroid. Camille's R also makes her untargettable and gives her on-hit damage.
If you are reading this, you're probably familiar enough with the game to know the things I described above, but a new player facing Camille might wonder why is Camille so fast despite having a basic understanding of her abilities whereas against Master Yi that's easier to understand because he has an ability that's about making him fast. Convoluted abilities like this increase the barrier of entry for new players, not to mention the power creep, but that's whole other beast of its own.
It feels like League is balanced around the players that are still around since 2013 while thinking the game will feel fresh enough just by cramming more stuff into new champions' abilities.
I think someone has mentioned it, but one of the main reasons why Mario can be so widespread is because of who he is, not what the game is. You know Mario as a character, but you know League of Legends as a game, a MOBA. This is why (what i like to see and what theyre doing) is to not make League of Legends as a game, but as a world, with multiple characters. That way we might have different characters doing different things, which could or could not be ridiculous (Braum racing Fiddlesticks in Noxus, using Xayah's feathers as an item?)
I started playing League in November of 2023. In January, I picked up Gangplank and in April began one-tricking him. I’ll hit 400,000 mastery on him this week and I seriously can’t imagine a more fun champ for me across any MOBA I’ve played. I have my gripes with League, but the thing that has kept me hooked all this time is finding a champ that I love playing and never feels boring.
Wow, GP is still kinda hard to play, (for me at least), his kit is cool and fun but maybe I just can't pull of the playstyle he demands. So it's good for u to have found your main as a new player. 😅
@@julsegs he takes so much practice. I played well over 50 games with him before I even felt comfortable. Almost infinite skill ceiling.
Keep practicing my man. Even after 400,000 mastery, I still have moments where I think I could have played a situation better. That’s one of the things I love so much about him. Always learning something new
@@julsegs and let me know if I can help!
@@alexsharp3481 he's far different than his former self, just a Q-tap guy, so I agree with the infinite skill ceiling sentiment. Used to adore him after his rework, (he's one of the best reworks imo), but we drifted apart for some reason, Taliyah and Swain happened. Anw, have you checked out any Solarbacca vids, he's the one I used to watch when I wanted to try him out years ago. Maybe u should try if u haven't yet.
I quit because they demand that you let them put spyware on your computer.
What killed League for me was Vanguard. I played it since season 2, but the moment Vanguard became mandatory, I cold turkey uninstalled it 2 days before the patch hit. Haven't played it since. I'm sorry, but I don't think Riot is competent enough to be trusted with running a thing like Vanguard on my pc. Not even that I think they'll do anything themselves, but they HAVE been target of cyberattacks before.
Had it for 4 years it’s not bad lol
Soon the game is even too old for jax players to keep playing
175 champions and they keep adding dumber and dumber champions, no one wants to learn this game anymore.
Even new champions are impossible to understand for casual-veteran players.
I'm just waiting GT6 and will never come back to this game, after 12seasons playing.
I think League has a chance to evolve itself into something different if given the chance. The fundamental gameplay is so enjoyable that it works in a PvE setting with the proof of concept being star guardians, followed by being proven to work with Odyssey and then proven again with Swarm. If they make a replayable roguelike/lite experience, this game could easily live for a long time, likely with a small to medium sized audience but a dedicated one.
the thing is that Riot DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT SHE NEED TO DO AS IN THE PAST, because is cost money. Riot don't want to spend money, just take EASY money. This is a problem
@@eujacks7888 stroke?
@@leonlion_ Wow that's awful kind of you to offer I'll have several as well. *unzips* Get to it.
I got into League, like really into League, back in the pandemic. Our squad was starting out, everyone sort of learning the game from scratch/ vs AI (and that sucks even more back then) and everyone was settling on their champion and playstyle then. And in the pandemic, online time is not lacking - if not excessive - and so it became a spot to vent, have fun, socialize all in one, which is rather perfect for League because it has massive downtimes (laning phase, mid-late neutral state) and rewards coordinated play and information sharing. With friends, it's the best game to exist that has just enough variety in champion but same experience that people can grow together, which is my favourite part of the game. So long as Arcane brings in people and older players reintroduce to new ones, I can't see League dying out any time soon.
I played league daily for 2 years, slowed down in year 3 and finally stopped in year 5. Started playing aram every now and then recently but i cant recapture that feeling i got at the beginning.
This is what was so great about arena, if you lost, or did bad you can surrender at round 4 ish or when you get knocked out you can just leave.
ive been playing for like 8 years and the players have gotten better and better even in the lower ranks which pretty much shows that there aren't really that many new players just smurf and ults
You made this video right before arcane
"it's the same thing, there hasn't been and will never be a League of legends 2"
Counterstrike, Overwatch and Smite fans: laughing in the corner.
I was 14 when I started playing and now I’m 26… we both grew old
What’s shocking, I picked up League with no help from others at all but I had experience of base MOBAs through Smite
12:00 THANK YOU
Number one reason I left league. I only have so many free hours a day and being held hostage in a match only to then get slapped with a leaver penalty was infuriating beyond belief. If you’re going to make a team based game, holding players hostage if they’re having a bad time doesn’t exactly promote loyalty or a desire to stick around
When I first started playing league I could play with my friends, and regardless of how poorly they did I feel like it never affected me much. Idk if it's because of game design or because of the lack of skill of the player base in those days, but I was able to carry my friends more often than not, so when I lost I always felt like I could have done something to win. Over time it became harder and harder to carry my friends, and playing with them was basically an auto-loss, so eventually I stopped playing with them, and the game is simply not as fun without friends for me.
As someone who played since S2, I never thought the game would lose popularity. Specially around S8
Wild rift has a 1v1 mode that somewhat fixes things - fast paced game mode, that gives you more agency and helps you get used to champions in a more comfortable way than summoner's rift. It could end up becoming a deathmatch game mode, which would be an interesting thing for Riot to create.
Unfortunately, the highest of highs I'll get from this game is when both my team and enemy team is neck on neck with objectives and lane pressure in the late game that 1 more teamfight will determine the outcome. I hate winning at early 15 when enemy decides to ff, same goes when the game is truly unwinnable that I'm forced to ff and don't want to spend another min with toxic, weak minded teammates.
I played for about 11 years. The higher I climb the more time I need to spend on it to maintain my skill and the older I get the less time I have to spend on it. After hitting diamond last fall I think I’m finally hardstuck, so I’m done. I made a lot of friends in college playing league, and kept in touch with friends for much longer than I otherwise would’ve by duo queueing with them, but my friends are all done with it now. Sad to uninstall, but better to quit while I’m ahead than grind diamond solo queue until I’m emerald.
I mean I never see any adverts for it. Surely that could help get some fresh eyes on it
I've never thought about League being analogous to a full RPG playthough. It makes so much sense now, why the game is so addictive and fun to re-play.
Every time I sit here and think: "I would like a new Vars video rn" a vars video drops.
I started League in around February 2011 as a young teenager with a shitty laptop and this period of time was one of the best the game has had. I'ld say the prime this had had hovered around 2011-2016-ish. I remember getting my first pentakill on Twitch for the first time. That was so awesome and a wonderful moment for a kid like me.The game was still fresh back in the day. There was so much to discover, so much to look forward to and experience. This game has been stagnated for years and the best "cool changes" in the recent years were the introduction of "Champion Mastery" This was something cool and it made me want to get one million points on my favourite champion (Twisted Fate, ofcourse...) and I was looking forward to it and it made me want to play so much. I'm an old and responsible adult now and can't play 12h a day anymore and I hate that Riot changed their policy on many things and I hate the changes made to my favourite champions. TF had been changed god knows how many times. Buff, Nerf, Hard nerf, From top AP champ, to some bullshit mix of AP and AD, Toplane (with was great btw with RFC) to a nerfed RFC and E. I hate that my champs always gets changes. I remember when back in the day the game was very much the same for months with minor changes here and there but the gameplay and items stayed pretty much the same for a very long time. That was cool. I wonder what the "Huge changes" are that are said to drop next year. I look forward to it and I'm very much interested in the topic of "League will change forever in 2025". It will very likely be a new game engine with update visuals and Summoner's Rift but what beyond that? I wonder. I will keep an eye out on that. Also the introduction of bullshiit "Vanguard" was the nail in the coffin and one of the main factors that made me quit the game. (sorry for bad Englando)
Genuinely surprised to see no mention of Deadlock. Time can only tell but I think it has a good chance to give many League players an outlet to break the habit or a replacement for it. The game is not perfect, but it gives me the same feeling League used to and will likely be eating more out of my League time than any other mobas I have tried in recent years.
Does Wild Rift count because once I switched I haven’t gone back.
well, this year was meant to have something for everyone and next year it's meant to change forever, so we'll see
I started League in February of this year. I was intrigued after I watched Arcane. When I started I had no clue what to do I would literally play jinx as botlane and run top lane sometimes hitting jungle camps. Since then I've learned so much from RUclipsrs and managed to get to Gold 3 last week as a Jungle main.
I love league, but vanguard anti cheat means I can’t play it on my computer. I’m not installing windows just for league when I have hundreds of other games to choose fromfrom.
I hope the game continues to thrive, I’ll still watch worlds every year. But until it’s gone me and the other 4 Linux users cannot play it
As someone new who’s played other MOBAs extensively and decided to try out League a week ago: I will say, though I am having fun with it, I’m also seeing one part of its bad reputation I heard absolutely holding true, which is rampant power creep leading to some broken, overstuffed champ designs. I’m already dreading the day I step into QM and actually face down someone like Yasuo, Yuumi, Viego, or Akshan, or someone even more broken and badly-tuned than any of those I just don’t know about yet; I can’t imagine how old it gets getting stomped on by them repeatedly for several years.
I genuinely love playing league, and I do recommend it to my friends. I'm not a big gamer, but have been playing league since season 4, and it's the only video game outside of the sims and the anno series that could truly interest me.
Vars, I have a question. You mentioned many times you enjoy playing bruisers, especially Renekton. Are you gonna continue playing them? With split 3 bruiser got pretty weak, especially those reliant on items, like Renekton. I used to be a bruiser main, but I'm switching to tanks or popular picks like Camille and Gwen because bruisers feel insanely weak to me right now. Why does Chogath have more damage than me lvl 4, why does everyone have more damage than us. The problem with is damage is the only thing we had going for us, we had less damage than asassins, but we're more tanky, more damage than tanks but less tanky. Now I feel like that's no longer true
Played since pre season 1.
League used to have like 40 champions, and nothing was figured out generally speaking. I recall my first or second game playing taric mid. There were no junglers yet. A player coming into the game now has like 170 champions to figure out, more items, an established rule of how to play the game, and 14 years of experience behind. Unless you really really want to get into the game on your own, or you have any friends, why wouldn't you just play a new game that's recently released where you can be competitive in.
In essence, league exists so long because it's an amazing game and recognizable to its long term playerbase, but that brings with it a huge barrier of entry.
Even if the game never grows again and just keeps on steadily declining, there's still easily a decade left for it to maintain millions of daily concurrent players.
I’ve been playing league since season 4 and honestly the last 3 years is where my playtime is peaking.
One thing that's makes me stop playing is one the fact I don't find a character a really want to plays (like deathwing in hots) and second when I found one it get reworked (oldasol)
Yasuo and yone one of the most played and strong champs in soloq and pro play. Gets buffed... While some classes like artillery mages have been basically deleted from the meta for almost 7 years.
Vars, we want to know your oppinion on the ksante rework. You have been a critic of the champion but we need to know what you think about a 40% win rate champion.
They removed all the things i loved old mordekaiser, old swain, old urgot and all the other things i loved. Why should i keep playing it???
The main issue, IMO, is that the matches take too long for an ever-decreasing attention span. They basically need to start everyone at level 10 and have objectives immediately pop up. ( of course, in a League II type game ). 15 minute matches is what they want, not 30-40 minutes.
I remember my first game I played Cho Gath and bought nothing but hp regen because I was not healing back to full health like I did in a final fantasy. Then my friends made me play fiddlesticks support (back when crows bounced and silenced) BEFORE I unlocked flash for his ult. (Or had any P2W runes or blue essence for that matter.)
Anyway I'm here to say it's crazy the new user experience just has never been a priority when it comes to actually succeeding at the game. Bots are useless and they really hate to limit the amount of new accounts from banned people. Smurf queue has made a difference but a lack of a problem isn't the solution to another.
Lots of old problems not getting solved will be the death of it. Remember the damage reset that lasted a month? There's a lot of creep in this game that is ok for esports but not casual players. My thing is who is going to watch the esports if you need somebody to teach you the game?
We'll never find peace in league of legends, there's always the thoughts of violence. you are lying to yourself otherwise
league is in the same spot as minecraft, but riot is taking the oposite path from mojang.
microsoft went to hunt the casual market and this is profitable while league went on the full competitive path, the reason where tft still not abandoned.
riot also abandoned league in favor for full dive in developing other games and ravaged league resources destrying it for that, while mojang despite releasing other titles never abandoned minecraft like riot did with league.
microsoft also accepted diversity of gameplay and players creativity while riot purged all of it, they killed twisted treeline and dominion, killed old alternative game modes in the past because the alternative game modes went to develop tft and didnt care to replace them, they kill every creative non-toxic meta and if any champion that shows in other lane other than the one they want is nerfed to oblivion because some salty rioter lost to it(pyke, for example).
Other thing that I think riot shoud do is change the whole "role" stuff they have stuck up with for soo long, I know its classic but nexus blits for example showed they can change that.
Minecraft is considered educational... It's in schools for FREE. major loss leader (tax write off), which is not possible for 99% of games
Minecraft always been casual, stop trying to throw unnecessary shade at Microsoft.
I dont remember league having 100k+ mods but okay
13 years of LoL, but I still don't have a Yorick skin for my main😭
The thing is that they've clearly made a shift from "Cool AA Dev company with one great game" to "Shitty corporate AAA Dev company with several games and one declining great game."
i physically cant play league anymore vangaurd is like, 'ahh i see your network adapter is plugged in, such a shame i guess ill disable and/or delete your drivers to it. when you alt tab on gray screeen.'
Most League patches feel like change for the sake of change, they had one good patch in recent years right after they removed mythic items and before this latest season started.
I dropped off,now the game has changed so much that if I decide to start again I have to forget something I knew and relearn them.I would not consider this fun.I would be more excited picking up a new game to play.
i'm still waiting for the region videos 😭
I think something they could try is to go into development of a league version 2.0 or something. Firstly because the game and code is so old that the system does need a revamp bur also because it doing so they can market the game differently and try and bring in new players with the new shiny thing
it just gets boring really quick if you’re not a junkie. same laning phase every time, same characters against you because of meta, same mordekaisers and gwens, yasuos and yones, zeds and katarinas. nothing new to experience, exept new inting teammates. same 1 hp diana will dive you under your turret and die every single time. your jungler will try to gank your lane when you don’t have any mana and barely any health and then cry you didn’t help.
this is just a neverending cycle of the game, and if you’re a normal person without addiction, it gets boring really fast, like in 3 weeks of everyday playing.
what you first thought was a challenge becomes an annoying inconvenience.
I've come to realize that the only reason I keep playing it is because my friends are playing it and they don't want to play other games. If I only played games alone, I would quit League right away.
One day, no one will be able to play a game of League again.
When that day comes, make sure to have enjoyed it to its fullest, so you won't have have any regrets.
The MOBA genre in general is stagnating, people are loosing interest and prefer to play something else. Much like it's predecessor - RTS, MOBAs are fading, there are going to be games/franchises that are going to stay relevant, but they won't be big or as popular as they are now.
Watching this I realize how unique of a league gamer I am. Personally I felt at my best when playing league. I enjoyed the game and saw myself grow as a person playing it. Before I played league, I was afraid of failing and trying new things. I genuinely thought league as fun to play and got satisfaction from playing it. I was even the weird guy that recommend it to people and said it was fun to play. I guess thank you for making me realize this. Was in a bad mental spot.
I think we, the players, will decide with our actions what happens to league. I am that guy who tells all my friends to play, because I want to see growth. I do tell them not to try the game solo, and every person that tries to learn without coaching runs away.
What we have to do is demand from Riot that they improve the new player experience and FIX THE DAMN CLIENT, and be accepting as a community if sacrifices need to be made to address these two issues.
Something they tried to do over the past couple of years was to make the game faster. For me, that was not only a different experience, but it was significantly inferior to a more drawn-out match for me. I do not know if them attempting to return to a longer game will be successful or not, but I am hopeful that the changes will be beneficial even if they are too little too late