If Riot could take a year or two dedicated to reworking old champs and realising one new champ for the role that needs it the most that would be amazing.
@@Shahdaddana Actually, reworks not making money has been stated by Riot as a huge misconception. There are _a lot_ of newer ( and older ) players in League that never bought old champions skins either because the champ isn't interesting or the skin isn't that good. A nice rework putting a champion on the spotlight can create as much revenue as a new champion. That plus post-rework newer skins might sell better thanks to shinier graphics.
@@vonb2792 there have been similar abilities in some champs kits ( 3 hit passive ) but having a literl kit update on another champ is waaaaaay to much, seraphine has a kit that would fit a VGU for sona
Now that you mention it, she does stand out with her white hair and fair skin compared to the dark tones of a lot of league champs! That and she's smack dab in the middle XD
I wouldn't mind so many champions if Riot at least allowed the capability to check full ability numbers and descriptions for every champion ability in the client itself, without having to own the champion first and jump to a practice lobby. I mean, you can check exactly what every item and every rune does in the client itself, why not champions?
literally this. As a new player a year ago, I strongly wished for this since it helps with learning what to max, what to use in which situations, how well the champ scales, etc. It lessens the time it takes to get into game and have some fun with the champ cause you can better know exactly what they do and waste less time in game reading. The feature was so nice in Vainglory
Reading champions abilities on external websites (like MobaFire) is actually better since it directly gives you the scaling ratios. I'm not saying that having to rely on external websites is good design, but I am saying that complaining about not having access to complete data as a player is straight up not true.
@@thomasb5307 so does lol if you press the Shift key while reading an ability ingame The ratios are already displayed in the game, just not in the client
i’m a big fan of this channel. someone who actually takes a step back to look at the game’s health along with reasons for various issues in the game coupled with solutions or ways to mitigate them. the world of league is just really toxic and condescending because no points can come across unless you’re superior to the person you’re speaking to because they’ll just say “ok [rank/champ] player”. vars is underrated
it's so dumb that your rank determines everything. you can be bad at a game and still have valid opinions about it, or maybe even an overall better understanding of the game from an outside perspective than someone who's really good at the games mechanics lol
@@jerrypie1230 Yeah, you can learn from lower skilled players and I know I do on Vars' discord. But so many people have a fat fragile ego, to them there's no way you could teach them. The other problem is tonality. Everyone is defensive because we assume people are condescending when giving constructive criticism.
I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I think the biggest point you left out is what the huge roster does to the new player experience. It's ridiculously daunting for a new player to reach the point where they have a basic understanding of what each champion does, and even then it's easy to lose value to not understanding tiny details like ability cooldowns and passive bonuses.
This point doesn't really make sense, when you consider that many started to play the game around 2013 and forward. When I first started the rosters of champions had more than 110-20+ (I can't remember). Furthermore, guides, streamer, tips and tricks etc. make it a lot easier for a player to learn quicker.
@@mohamedabdullahi3914 Thank you for sharing your experience with it. I played in 2014-2017 and now i recently started back. I am not enjoying the game very much due to the fact that it's always some crazy op person on their team with powers i don't understand, or some crazy op person on my team who's powers i don't understand. I guess it's just a bit weird and unusual to expect players to have to study the top 50 most played champions to be able to play decently. Makes casual 4-5 hours a week players kinda have no idea what's going on.
This applies to both old and new players. I played League waaay back when Garena was still a thing and I just came back to find that my account is already gone since the server shut down. What happens now is that I ban Yone every time.
I started playing Wild rift and after a while I became familiar with the game and had so so so much fun. So my friends told me to download league of legends and play there... Boy.... Not only I don't know more than half the champions, but also I feel so bad because, even though I know some basic stuff (what is happening,the roles, map awareness etc), I feel like I know NOTHING (and end up not wanting to play). It's good to have many options, but for new players, it truly can become overwhelming
Yeah no I understand completely! I only started playing league back in 2019 and the first champion i learned to play and loved was well Yuumi. Her flaws are there yes but it helps me have fun and also absorb the whole game and how it should be played. From the macro, map awareness,pinging. It took me a long time to even know how to ping and what settings to use.
@@AnyaShortcake if you ever try jungle, Warwick is a good first time champ for that role. lifesteal, damage reduction, and a passive that kinda shows where low health champs are. also, keep on keeping on with your Yuumi. I get why people dont like her, but i know she's much harder to play properly than people think.
@@JDReC100 yeah! I do use other supports now like morgana, leona, soraka, lulu etc but yuumi is like a comfort pick when the emeny comp doesn't have alot of cc :3
They've done that before. Remember when they mass-reworked by classes instead of individual champions? It's the day many LeBlanc mains bitched about their rework lmao what a fine day it was in midlane.
I'd say there's another downside to having such a large amount of champions. The learning curve is already pretty high and every additional champion means that you need to play several more games to learn what they do, how they affect the entire match, how they interact with your champion(s), and your team. For older players, it's easier to keep up. For newer players, the "minimum time invested" becomes more and more to the point where it might take literal months to years worth of gameplay to be 'caught up' basically. I started playing in December 2019, and STILL there are champions of which I don't know how to play against them. Combine that with rapidly shifting item metas and constant buffs and nerfs that can even change where champions are being played, and it becomes just increasingly complicated to learn the game.
@@Greenbakugan yes that heal for him and Olaf was disgusting that's true, but why nerf both the item and the champion itself, i didn't see a single Aatrox since the nerfs
@@adriano_cruciani after rework he got like 50 balance changes and removed like half his kit(omnivamp vs minions/monsters grievous wounds on shields and heals on passive revive on ult 2 charges on e e giving ad omnivamp being on passive) and more
Imagine someone started playing league right when a champion is reworked and just look at the champion guides on RUclips and the champion in-game and be like: Wait are these two the same champion?
That actually happend to me with fiddle xD Not exactly guides, I just heared ge Would be so annoing but useless in teamfights, and I just See That ult and W
as someone who plays both dota and league, I find it that dota is way more varied and unique with their heroes because they don't follow a formula a lot of league characters do, some heroes have like 2 ability and 3 passives, some have like 5 abilities you can press
Wukong's mini-rework is one of the best reworks I've ever seen. Riot needs to the same with other old champions before releasing another buggy new champion that will sit on "disabled for esport matches" for 10 months.
Hearing this it really makes me feel like ARAM is a completely different game altogether, a place where you're almost forced to play and also face a larger part of the full champ roster and all.
for dota 2 specifically,they release a 1 new champion every year but they constantly change the map,add and remove items and occasionally rework some frustrating champions.the sheer variety of that game comes from the items as well as the champions as there's a lot more variance there than in lol.(though the Heroes are very diverse too)
In my opinion, one of the greatest flaws in League’s giant character roster is that they’ve put too much emphasis on the map to have the creative freedom to create unique mechanics for new character additions. Simply put, a bunch of map objectives with varying game impact forces champs to be built around the map rather than the champs built around their own mechanics. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but this means that new champ inclusions become less necessary than new map additions. To exemplify this point, we can look at Heroes of the Storm. Their character variety is out the fucking weeds compared to League’s and it’s because their characters don’t have near as much stuff on the map to worry about compared to League. I think League has too many characters because their game, on a gameplay level, simply isn’t built well to emphasize character inclusion.
You made a good point about it being a problem in all MOBAs. Dota 2 tackles this by giving players freedom with playstyle innovation. If someone counter picks your lane, there will be either a champ that can swap lanes with you on your team or you can just choose to play safe for a bit and they go jungle as the jungle in that game is huge and it can support multiple players. League (though I love it more than Dota) sometimes feel one-dimensional, as a top laner if I am counter-picked and trashed in the lane, I have nowhere else to go as the resources are very scarce. My suggestion would be to change the things on the map so it accommodates different play style and incentivise the innovative approaches to different champs.
I knew the moment they passed the barrier of 150 that they were not going to stop ever. Nowadays we get max 2 reworks a year. At this rate, even reworks themselves are going to get outdated compared to the new 9000 year champions.
11:35 I'd say it's not really that much of an issue in dota 2, mainly because that game is focused for the most part on counterplay, so that every champ is viable as a counter for someone else, plus in every big annual patch they give every champ, even the oldest ones, tailor made new toys to play with, like the talent trees and agh's upgrades that unlock new spells, so there are always new ways to play old favs
I feel the same way. Quoting the video, every hero in dota feels unique and special to me. I can pick one favorite hero and make it work against any type of matchup. But in League, pick a wrong champion and you get reported.
Something you don’t mention is that new players are overwhelmed by how many champions there are. For veterans, even if we take a break, we have played enough games to get a feel for a champ (aphelios is still a mystery to me though) even if we’ve never played them. A new player has to learn thier champ and their allies champs and thier opponents champs. This is why LoL takes about a year to learn to play if you play up to 5 games a day. The time investment is insane, akin to an MMORPG. Of course a player could pick a champ they like the look of and stick with it, but this ignores the fact that some people do better with certain champs than others. I know that I am more of a control mage player than an assassin player. Give me a control mage and I’ll pick them up fairly quickly. Give me and assassin and I’ll struggle. However, this took me years to learn. I played for long enough that I’ve tried every play style and many iterations of each so I know what I am good at. A new player will be overwhelmed and may never try to get better due to how LoL players are essentially punished for having bad teammates. The system is so reminiscent of typical Chinese video game ownership styles that are on display in the MMO genre: don’t worry about new players, keep the existing players happy and paying. They focus on the whales to the detriment of everyone else. It’s why so many champs are released too strong. The devs are likely told to not bother testing a champ properly and To instead focus on animating their skins.
Yeah if you compare LoL tournament statistics to other mobas like Dota, it seems pretty bad. As far as I'm aware I heard the last big Dota tournament had almost every single champion picked at least once.
@@TheElitedeath yeah I don't think dota has added many champions over time if any at all as they seem to be more focused on keeping what they have already balanced, instead of LoL's idea of releasing new champs all the time
@@shashank270502 So what you're saying is that I'm right because there are w40 champions so you play about 25%. Thank you for backing up my correctness.
League has many more problems that need adressing, but the overabundance of characters is up there. Every time me and my friends start a game we always look at the enemy team in disgust because of the champs they have selected, because we know we are not gonna be capable of doing anything against them if they play decently let alone are very good, and that considering we have already banned the worst of the worst. But thats what the game is about, beating the other team results in them being miserable, the same as when I get constantly beaten by the other team in a game I am miserable. Its the goal of the game.
To add on to your point that Riot doesn't seem to pay attention as to what happens when they add new champions, in their Dev Doodles for Sylas, they straight up say they "don't want to have to check if Sylas's ult interacts with the new champ in the correct way" and that if they have to make a check then they "have failed in design". I think that is a HUGE clue as to Riot's mentality towards this stuff.
You might be misinterpreting that line. I believe its more about the code that they implemented for sylas and hoping that it's algorithm will always pull the ult correctly, and less about being lazy or busy.
it’s sad that qiyanas getting nerfed right after seeing some pro play this weekend like riot hates the idea of a new champ being seen yet kaisa, udyr and renekton are picked or banned almost every game
As a Dota player, don't think the issue affects the game as much as League, mainly because of the way the game is balanced, its more about counterpicks. New Hero mostly means just additional option and not that often even a better one, mostly just specific to a niche. Never felt like there are Heroes that are just better than others, more of just more fit for the comp we are running. I did feel like some tactics are just better of course, and sometimes just feel like Invoker is bullshit, but thats just game differences :D
I started the game relatively recently, just before season 11, and I can safely say "too many champions" is the least of League's problems. As a moba player it took 5-7 days to get roughly acquainted with all the characters, which isn't bad. But the amount of things that are unconditionally bad design continues to surprise me. This is supposed to be one of the biggest games on the planet; you'd think the client would be better than a pirated Chinese WoW rip-off.
honestly, i really still dont get why a person cant have 2 bans at this point. yes, i know, yasuo, yone, zed, darius ect will be permabanned but i feel like thats a good thing cause one tricks arent a thing anymore. like for goodness sake, there are 130+ champs available to you nontheless, so i dont see the issue.
I twotrick Camille and Aatrox. I would appreciate it if I get to play atleast one of them, not to mention both get cucked by Bramble Vest and Malphite.
It is interesting because in Dota 2 pro play a majority of heros are played. Meanwhile in league, it seems like mostly just meta champs are picked. Imo it's largely due to league favoring damage and utility via abilities (with items mainly being used for amplifying abilities) while Dota 2 favors a lot of utility and damage via items (many heros are practical since items are basically available to everyone). That being said I still prefer league, but I do like that about Dota 2. Maybe riot can think of a way to add a bit more freedom to builds during the game to make more champs viable. Not sure what the solution would be though.
Hey there, smite player here. I personally do think league's roster is a bit large but more for the reason that each champ doesn't really stand out in my opinion. If you were to ask me what a smite character's abilities are then I could almost always answer because smite's characters are simply more memorable in terms of designs and playstyles imo
Hello Vars I will answer your questions about Dota. First, in Dota only 2 heroes are introduced each year, and you can't pick them in competitive for about 3 months as they are often finetuned, soft reworked and receive 2 abilities that you can purchase as in match items if you need them (Aganim Scepter and Ag Shard). Until then they are in a state of basically "beta testing". Mainly Dota avoids this problem via the use of hard counters. A support like Ancient Apparition whose ult shuts down all healing for 17 seconds and executes if you get below a threshold is a counter to many picks who rely on immortality or healing, but only as long as: 1) he hit you 2) he has ult 3) he hasn't been bursted during initiation. There are many cases like that, plus some crazy combos you can pull off with proper drafting, and so will the enemy; the Dota metagame is always very diverse (during a Major in 2017 a team picked 95% of heroes during the course of the tournament). Lastly, new heroes are not overloaded as much as LoL. The newest hero Dawnbreaker plays similarly to Shen, she has: Q dodgeable stun that is treated as a basic attack, W a nuke with minor mobility, E a passive with crit, R global tp with a stun However is countered by any stun interrupting her Q combo or the channel of her R. In general *most* Dota heroes are pretty simple at first sight, what differentiates a good player from a bad one is how they can use the limited design to accomplish crazy or creative plays (also active items share the same Rock Paper Scissors design, so that you can get rid of a counterpick with items, unless he counters your item with his own. Dota is ... complicated)
@@VarsVerum Yeah, it may seem so. The trick however is that once you start to understand the meta and most of the interaction the game really clicks in. Is general consensus that Lesgue is more fun if you're solo, while Dota is more fun if you are in a party. An example would be the combo we pulled off some days ago: I picked Chen a hero that can dominate jungle creeps and control them directly, while a friend picked Clinkz, an adc who can eat a creep to gain temporary stat boost. My creeps received an increase in HP, so when he ate them the Clinkz became *huge* with something like 2000Hp and 200 damage bonus, also I could provide a creep for him mid fight to refill (Normally the bonus should be half of that if you take time to scout the jungle). Truly marvelous 😂
11:35 the key difference between LoL and DotA2 depending that topic is, that for every hero in DotA2, you have at least one item that counters said hero. and most importantly its not a mater of "hmm, they got Malzahar i should build a QSS as a mage". lets take Antimage (DotA2) as an example, one of the best lategame carrys (you could compare him to Kassadin, if you want): as a Support you can go for an Aeon Disc dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Aeon_Disk or a Linkens Sphere dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Linken%27s_Sphere to save either yourself or even a teammate. as a carry or tank you could simply go for a BKB dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Black_King_Bar . as a mage a Scythe of Vyse dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Scythe_of_Vyse does the trick. the only items that counter surten mechanics in League are the ones with grievous wounds for antiheal, items with Quicksilver active against hard cc and Randuins Omen against crit. but said items are not equalli viable on every champ. yes: Zhonyas and spellshield items exist, but they are either used to sustain burst (Zhonyas) or to get into the fight without being CC locked to death before doing anything (spellshields). my personal problem with Zhonyas is that your enemys either die untill its effect wears off, or you get bursted to death by the enemys that were able to wait 2.5 seconds. spellshields are even worse imo, i really liked the old Edge of Night where teh effect was active, even when it had a short channel time, that way i could decide if i wanted to block the Xerath Q and get stuned afterwards, or block the stun of his E. if Riot implemented more items with active abilities to counter anoying bs or mechanics, they could throw as many champs as they want at the players, as long as there is an item to hardcounter them, its no big deal. a good example would be if Mikaels Blessing were able to cleanse Darius bleeding effect off an ally. i dont even ask for stuff that would be overpowered like a Glimmer Cape dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Glimmer_Cape for LoL, so a supp could make his adc invisible, but at least a few more active items to hardcounter surten champs were great.
Syals is a champ where he's healing makes zero sense in my opinion. His passive, q, e and r have that feeling of an ex Wizzard hunter that did escape from prison but his W..... For most champions their ability makes sense but here I have no idea why it exist.
@@hideyourgf8502 I found Gwen okay. She is like a Kayle but if you play somebody like Fiora, Jax she is okay. Tanks are having a bad time because of her passive. But a good Jax can give her a run for her money. She may has 2 dashes but she lacks in cc and she a good window where she can get punished.
@@Bisheimer Jax loses later on because any sane Jax main will not build bork because Jax needs hp to supplement the tank stats he gets from ult. I do agree that Sylas W is bs. Godforbid Aatrox to heal the same amount in such a short burst but apparently since Sylas is a mage, he gets a pass. Yknow how lenient rito games is with mages.
This is the problem I had ever since with the game, in direct result of it may try to overshadowed champions and their impact over time ( feel sorry for guys like Annie and Twisted Fate, though there not my main favorites but hey, these two are from the early releases of the early LOL days, and now their impact was put into vein) & addin new champions sure looks pointless fer sure too (and I’m looking at you Olaf & Seraphine)
There's a principle of design that talks about a ship that sunk because it had too much shit in it. More /= better, you also have to considere the extra work for each new champ, learning to read the stadistics, balancing, reworking, modeling skins and animations, etc. It's impossible to distribute man force equally through all the champs unless you spend money on hiring more people, and that will become an endless cycle.
They need to break from doing new champs and address core issues with the game, the matchmaking, the ranking, the map, the client, and many other systems, not just with outdated champs. League (and WR) have developed into a borderline hostile play experience for non-pros or streamers, and RIOT has not shown average players any indication they even seen the issues causing mass exodus from the lower ranks. Nevermind a sign that anything will be done to address any issue that does not effect pro play, or even that they will address issues that would change anything key to the game, lest it effect pro play.
as someone who has played quite a few MOBA games here is league's problem, its that new champions are all we see they have everything in their kit, cc, heals, escapes, in other mobas characters are signed with CLEAR weaknesses in league there is the concept of playing around a champion and not into them that's very rare in other mobas there is no direct way to deal with these champions also other moba tend to disable new characters for 1 or 2 patches after their release so they have a chance to be balanced first. new champions in league just feel like they are too overloaded, sett is great cuz he doesn't really do much he is designed like an old champion but with modern ideas also other mobas update their old characters as much as possible and make sure that while there are some generally good one everyone should be playable in league it feels like some champion are 100% useless think about it what can zillian actually do that GA cant, riot basically gives up on champions and just makes better versions of them hoping people will forget the old one enough for them to justify a rework, seraphine and sona are the best example of this, sona is up for a rework now that was announced shorty after sona 2 was released. Im gonna be honest here I think riot are just lazy, like a teenager who puts all of his clothes under the bed instead of cleaning them that's what they are doing with champions, also no reworks are really played and this is intentional by riot cuz they want to sell skins for new champions, new panteon was nerfed quickly but ahpelios wasn't really touched for a while. in conclusion riot is a great company who cares about their players but don't really care about their game thank you
Dota2 avoid power creep by not giving heroes kits that are only viable for certain roles eg support, mid, carry, offlane, though of course some heroes are better to be played in certain positions against others. They also have the hero counter mechanics, some heroes counters other heroes so they are viable in certain match ups, also their hero kits can stand alone and there are not so many hero skills in dota that functions the same
Using Jenga logic, Riot should rebuild the whole tower. Not just reshuffling few blocks by for example item rework, but actually filling gaps by champion reworks.
To be honest, I think a lot of older champion's kits, even the most dated ones are rather fine. What I wish Riot would do, is pull an Ezreal on them and get every janky old champion up to par with the newer releases graphically. There's a lot of appeal in a character's visuals, and a good part of the likes of Anivia, Cho'Gath, Corki or Tryndamere being unpopular, on top of their kits not being the most flashy ones, is just their character models being noticeably old to the point where they sometimes feel clunky to play. One of the reasons Blackfrost Anivia, High Noon Lucian and High Noon Ashe are as appreciated. And it's the same reason so much people flocked to Aether Wing Kayle before her rework. The new models and animations make the champion's that much smoother - and thus make it that much more enjoyable to play.
@@Geheimnis-c2e I mean, yes and no. The core idea of Jax's kit has stayed the same, but he still went through a bit of changes over time. Like at some point his passive gave him 5HP per bonus AD and 4HP per bonus AP, meaning old Gunblade gave him 600HP, and his E was a 4-ish second CD stun that you could only activate if he had recently dodged an attack. But yeah, a lot of old kits are actually just fine. But still, they could really use a visual update. I'm even sometimes wondering how is Riot so slow to visually upgrade their older champions, because visual consistency is IMO super important to a game like this.
Since my real return/1st time real playing this game for a long time playing and figuring out who I like and don't is probably my favourite part of league, the moment when a champion clicks and you understand that part you have been missing is dope
Definitely. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing, way too much change. Then they revamped every single item and I just said fuck it, I can't get good at this when shit changes SO MUCH. Not to mention, every single new fucking champion created problems in toplane, which is my lane.
I love the current aatrox. My only problem is. Malphite (or anyone else) destroys me by buildimg armor. Why does he not have build in armor shred like darius and garen. Ofc you can say he got sweetspots and it kills squishys. But i would rather remove the extra damage on sweetspots and make it a cleave. He's a draintanker, not a squishy destroyer. And he cant even destroy squishys lategame, cause they just blow him up (if they got some degree of skill, we are not talking about people who font abuse antiheal, cause its really stupid) because they do a lot of damage, and aatrox has no defenses, no reach, no damage.
I highly disagree that just because no one plays a champion that they have inherent issues with them. I think just like foods not all champions are made for everyone which is why few people play them.
From a gameplay perspective, the best solution for League would be a rotation system. We could have trimestral rotations, in which they could add a fixed number of available champions. This could either be done by (1) creating themes for each rotation, i.e making a faster and cutthroat meta by focusing on squish champions with high DPS; that could create some really interesting metas and allow for some types of gameplay to be prioritized, like allowing a healthier meta for Artillery champions, which wouldn't be so impactful since it's just temporary. The problem here is that if you're the guy who loves hyper mobile class cannon assassins you will hate playing on a tank or artillery rotation, and vise-versa, meaning a portion of the community will always be mad, and since popularity brings money, if you happen to like a certain unpopular playstyle get ready to never seen it again. (2) would be to just pick an X number of champions from each role without any theme, and while this is fairer, it's to be expected that popular and new champions with expensive skins would be on the rotation every rotation, while Asol gets unofficially perma deleted.
I think the commun ground for every game is, there is too many when: 1- the new ones outshine every other one in most everyway possible (works for pve games as well, dont be able to play the champ u loved cause only the new one can make with efficiency the new content is trash development) 2- when the new characters slowly starting to make the experience more overwhelming than enjoyable, and I know its subjective, but as long as i love Viego and wanted to make it my main, the fact that is ban in pro says everything... 3- and lastely when they cant make place to them in the lore anymore, again, works for pve as well, new race of champions cool, but why when where, a vidéo game its not an interactive cofee machine, it brings stories and feelings. And I think its an everything. We cant set a nomber by gender, every game as his own story, i think the limit is relative and cross when the rupture is to big, either u slow down and keep ur game as it is, either u turn over and embrace this new direction even if yes all the old fan will uninstall, but vision is everything. And stay true to that vision is important.
It is honestly amazing how Janna's passive is "go wooosh" and Seraphine's is literally 2 and both of them is good. And yet Janna never really falls into the meta.
I still remember starting league about a year ago and I could barely know the names of anyone in the game. Took me awhile before I finally knew what everyone's names are and have an idea on what they do.
The only thing I think you missed is the new player experience. I've started learning league recently, and just when I think I can sort-of play Garden I match up with a Kled, not knowing at all how to play against him. In a game where knowing matchups is THIS important, 150+ champions is brutal when you're starting out. Love your content.
balance in all things, in this year's dota2 TI out of 115 heroes that can be played in captains mode, only 8 heroes that didn't picked and banned in the entire tournament
Separate the mechanic overhauls from the visual ones. This would allow for much faster updating of mechanically outdated champions and while it might require adding new visual effects for new spells, it won't require redesigning all the models and skins.
Its not too many but its the unique experience you get from learning all of them even if theres alot _that experience includes getting erased by aphelios_
@6:15 My problem with yuumi isn't found in most games when she's supporting a squishy adc. It's how she makes something like Darius an unstoppable 1v9 force if your team didn't counter pick the combination.
I'd say go the route of mini reworks like wukong, not having to put that much time into the visuals but still updating the kit would make wonders for all old champions.
Honestly, I feel like some champions like corki only need the slightest touch-up to be viable again. Make corkis e armor, and Mr shread scale with attack damage, or even attack speed, and you fix one of his biggest issues. The small change riot made to garen giving scaling on his E with attack speed was a Massive boost to his viability, he's still the same spin to win, no brain champion, but it opened the door to so many different builds, and play styles for what you need in different games. Same thing with Rammus more recently.
This gets brought up pretty frequently and again, doesn't matter if it does since new champions are one of the many things that keep casual players (most of the playerbase) interested and people who would otherwise play infrequently coming back. I heard one of the recent champions bought a bunch of people back into the game don't remeber which one tho
The thing is that while adding new characters to a game CAN be interesting and exciting, you can only do so much before you have to start re-treading old ideas (or coming up with insane ones that end up creating more problems than they're worth, Viego). If you look at recent releases, obviously there's Sona and Seraphine, but you also have Samira kinda being ranged Yasuo, Rell is Leona with armour shred, Gwen is basically AP Fiora and let's not forget that two of the champions released in the past 2 years (Senna and Yone) are specifically designed to play similarly to existing champs. I'd rather that Riot focussed on bringing all existing characters up to the same standard rather than creating someone else who does the same but better.
I think the glaring problem with new champs is that a lot of them are jack-of-all trades kind of character, with counterplay being "just dont be close to them". Back in the day we had: Tank, Adc, Mage, Support. Now we have something like yone or sylas that can heal, tank, do assassin tier damage and have cc on top of that. Compare that to a character like singed. He runs fast and farts poison. How cool is that?
To be fair, no other champ can make you decide on whether to farm it out or stop him from proxying. Singed makes you think more options than what you normally would.
@@Geheimnis-c2e Singed is useless if you know how to play vs him. Just be wary of his early(its way more powerful than people think) If he doesnt get ahead, and you ignore him, hes pretty useless. Hes just a fling bot, and many tank supps do that job way better. Problem is, specially low elo, people just focus him for no reason, he does no damage, his cc is decent to bad, and hes not that tanky. But i'd argue that he's one of the best champs to one trick, because only you know how to play against him. Basically, to know how to play vs singed, you need to main him for a while.
I must agree with Vars' analyzation. I think that there are many champions that I don't really like to play because either their looks, effects, or playstyle are too boring or old in comparison to some of the newer ones. I think that reworks have certainly done their job in bringing old champions up to speed and that updating them would do a lot for the game. I must say, though, that there is another problem with having too many champions: trying to decide which ones you really want to play. I have had this problem for a while and it has technically stopped me from climbing much in ranked.
An interesting point I find with this is that from a business standpoint, Riot wants the newer champions to feel special compared to old ones. They want their newer champions to stand out from the crowd so that people buy them and their skins. An example of why can be seen in Taliyah, on release Taliyah did not sell super well as she was decently weak and her user experience and visual appeal were not super impressive. So, yes if they update the old champions that will allow everyone to feel special in their own way. But if everyone is special the newer champions don't feel as special unless they break the mold even more, which just starts the same cycle over again. Riot is a business which means they do things for profit. And as you talked about before, making a new champion is easier, cheaper, and more consistent in terms of money made. Reworking a champion is expensive, reworking skins, remaking animations, designing the champion over again, and they also are under the restrictions of not breaking the existing champion's identity. Plus a lot of the people who care about that champion already own their skins, which means that the profit only comes from new players purchasing skins for the champion. And there is also the fun value for the design and art teams, making something new with no limits will always be more fun than remaking something within its constraints. That is my analysis of why they would focus on making new champions. For the tldr, it is more consistently profitable to make new champions.
While I mostly agree with this video, one thing riot has said is that rework do not cost necessarily more than new champs, but the number of player decreases. Even if the reworked champs are more popular, their player base is not always the same and lots of people have quit the game after their main got reworked.
I really wish they took a year off from creating new champs and focused on updating existing champs by giving them VGU/VU’s. So many iconic league champions like Katarina, LeBlanc, Ahri, Nocturne, Shyvanna, Shaco, Tryndamere, Annie and many others have horrendous base animations and models. They FINALLY got to working on Udyr after years of talking about it. I had hoped that the 10th anniversary would have been the year of VU/VGU’s for existing champs but it didn’t seem like it. Kayle, Morganna and Ezreal updates were really successful and were like a breath of fresh air into those champs by giving them meaningful voice overs and updated gameplay (mainly Kayle). Also updated lores which is always appreciated in making characters actually seem like champions. Lots of older champions could use this. Fiddle and Voli reworks are phenomenal examples of successful updates.
I like your idea of reworks and even in your Quinn video you brought a rework up, but characters like that don't need one in my opinion. Just scaling or design changes to bring people to play them.
I'd rather see a power creep reduction and a re-evaluation on champions that are unanimously considered cancer. Wondering if there are very minor changes you could make to a lot of champions to make their counterplay more apparent
The business standpoint problem of not having as many champion releases isn't impossible to work around either. If they wanted to take time to focus on reworking all of the older roster, they could just focus on pumping out skins for champions that already have a large and dedicated player base to pull in revenue.
Hey Vars! Thanks for another interesting video! IMO:The thing about reworks is they are more risky to do then releasing a new champ. If the reworks aren’t done well and sometimes even if they are you can upset the champs player base.
I think the issue is each new champion released is flashier and more overturned than previous ones. This makes them more of a nightmare to deal with. When they can do 15 different things, you have to counter each of those
No, the game does not have too many champions and I hate this tired take. I do appreciate the effort you put into this video, though. As long as new champions have something unique they bring to the table, I support it. Now, that's not to say that riot doesn't make missteps every now and again, like Seraphine just being what should have been a Sona rework... (I love Seraphine's kit, btw.) However, I do believe that Riot should spend more time bringing existing old champions with outdated or irrelevant kits up to date rather than churning out a new champion every 3-4 months.
At one point they'll have to give themselves a 2 year break to rework all the old champions before they make new ones, probably won't happen until the MMO comes out cause that gives them a place to keep introducing new characters that could later become champions.
One thing that i would love to see even if riot will never do it is to add a community ban, at the start of each week, each player could vote for what champion should be ban and the most voted get banned for every ranked game, so i can start to ban champions that counter me instead of having to ban the same annoying champs every time because i just hate playing against them. This would make one tricks really mad but it would force riot to balance champeons arround being fun to play against instead of just looking at the winrate and calling it a day. I dont think riot will ever do something like this because it would make a big portion of the players not be able to play their champ, but at the same time if the majority of the players are banning the same champeon every game, then those one tricks cant play their champ anyways.
I would say that the limit of champs that are healthy for the game is when no champion steps over another's kit. I think that point has already been reached with Seraphine being Sona's rework.
From my experience in ranked, it is important to point out that the saturation won't be felt if it isn't high per role. I play support mostly, but I sometimes play as ADC, and I'm not gonna lie, ADC feels like the least varied role in the game. Every champion plays pretty much the same as they are all markmen who mostly focus on ranged combat, with the exception of Samira and the occasional mage botlaner. That role wouldn't harm to get some sort of champion designed for the role that allows for the expansion of the champion pool. Because man, does it feel stale from time to time.
I wish riot would balance around different variables other than base/scaling numbers, cooldown, and mana cost. Like spell range, missile speed, missile width/size, duration, damage type etc. ALOOOOOT of champions need updates based on above. Also with items I feel AD has a much more broad itemization choice. So many different items work based on enemies you’re against. With AP you don’t get the same options, and I feel there’s only a couple build paths. I miss building decent movement speed.
If Riot could take a year or two dedicated to reworking old champs and realising one new champ for the role that needs it the most that would be amazing.
They wouldn't, cuz reworking dont sell skins, quite the oposite. Its an effort to rework skins that are already bought
@@Shahdaddana IMO it could work because a champion rework could sell old skins that no one buys.
@@Shahdaddana Actually, reworks not making money has been stated by Riot as a huge misconception. There are _a lot_ of newer ( and older ) players in League that never bought old champions skins either because the champ isn't interesting or the skin isn't that good. A nice rework putting a champion on the spotlight can create as much revenue as a new champion. That plus post-rework newer skins might sell better thanks to shinier graphics.
@@Shahdaddana It does sell more skins by making the champ seem better and a vfx update.
Or make certain dying roles more useful
I like having more champions as long as their playstyle is unique and not a better version of an existing champion.
*cough* Seraphine/Sona *cough*
I like that you didn't even mention the name of the champion but what you said was so specific to the point that everyone knows who it is xD
Cough, Soraphina...
So true but after 156 champions there is a limit to "newness" since every champs must fit the "meta" (game plan of Riot)
@@vonb2792 there have been similar abilities in some champs kits ( 3 hit passive ) but having a literl kit update on another champ is waaaaaay to much, seraphine has a kit that would fit a VGU for sona
After maining Janna for so long, whenever there is a picture depicting all the champions like this one, my eyes go straight to her.
Heheh what a simp
Now that you mention it, she does stand out with her white hair and fair skin compared to the dark tones of a lot of league champs! That and she's smack dab in the middle XD
@@VarsVerum I'm blind so I read thst yoi think Janna is a snsck and then you dsbbed. I like that version better 👌
I know she's my main too
Do you watch paint dry in your spare time too ??
I wouldn't mind so many champions if Riot at least allowed the capability to check full ability numbers and descriptions for every champion ability in the client itself, without having to own the champion first and jump to a practice lobby.
I mean, you can check exactly what every item and every rune does in the client itself, why not champions?
Something like Smite, but not with so much text.
literally this. As a new player a year ago, I strongly wished for this since it helps with learning what to max, what to use in which situations, how well the champ scales, etc. It lessens the time it takes to get into game and have some fun with the champ cause you can better know exactly what they do and waste less time in game reading. The feature was so nice in Vainglory
Reading champions abilities on external websites (like MobaFire) is actually better since it directly gives you the scaling ratios.
I'm not saying that having to rely on external websites is good design, but I am saying that complaining about not having access to complete data as a player is straight up not true.
@@thomasb5307 so does lol if you press the Shift key while reading an ability ingame
The ratios are already displayed in the game, just not in the client
Yes! I couldn't have said it better myself!
i’m a big fan of this channel. someone who actually takes a step back to look at the game’s health along with reasons for various issues in the game coupled with solutions or ways to mitigate them. the world of league is just really toxic and condescending because no points can come across unless you’re superior to the person you’re speaking to because they’ll just say “ok [rank/champ] player”. vars is underrated
Thank you!
it's so dumb that your rank determines everything. you can be bad at a game and still have valid opinions about it, or maybe even an overall better understanding of the game from an outside perspective than someone who's really good at the games mechanics lol
@@jerrypie1230 Yeah, you can learn from lower skilled players and I know I do on Vars' discord. But so many people have a fat fragile ego, to them there's no way you could teach them.
The other problem is tonality. Everyone is defensive because we assume people are condescending when giving constructive criticism.
I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I think the biggest point you left out is what the huge roster does to the new player experience. It's ridiculously daunting for a new player to reach the point where they have a basic understanding of what each champion does, and even then it's easy to lose value to not understanding tiny details like ability cooldowns and passive bonuses.
This point doesn't really make sense, when you consider that many started to play the game around 2013 and forward. When I first started the rosters of champions had more than 110-20+ (I can't remember). Furthermore, guides, streamer, tips and tricks etc. make it a lot easier for a player to learn quicker.
@@mohamedabdullahi3914 Thank you for sharing your experience with it. I played in 2014-2017 and now i recently started back. I am not enjoying the game very much due to the fact that it's always some crazy op person on their team with powers i don't understand, or some crazy op person on my team who's powers i don't understand. I guess it's just a bit weird and unusual to expect players to have to study the top 50 most played champions to be able to play decently. Makes casual 4-5 hours a week players kinda have no idea what's going on.
omg this, i just start lol and it might make me stop
This applies to both old and new players. I played League waaay back when Garena was still a thing and I just came back to find that my account is already gone since the server shut down. What happens now is that I ban Yone every time.
I started playing Wild rift and after a while I became familiar with the game and had so so so much fun. So my friends told me to download league of legends and play there... Boy.... Not only I don't know more than half the champions, but also I feel so bad because, even though I know some basic stuff (what is happening,the roles, map awareness etc), I feel like I know NOTHING (and end up not wanting to play). It's good to have many options, but for new players, it truly can become overwhelming
Yeah no I understand completely! I only started playing league back in 2019 and the first champion i learned to play and loved was well Yuumi. Her flaws are there yes but it helps me have fun and also absorb the whole game and how it should be played. From the macro, map awareness,pinging. It took me a long time to even know how to ping and what settings to use.
But i realy enjoy the game and I'm really sad about how much its hated qwq
@@AnyaShortcake if you ever try jungle, Warwick is a good first time champ for that role.
lifesteal, damage reduction, and a passive that kinda shows where low health champs are.
also, keep on keeping on with your Yuumi. I get why people dont like her, but i know she's much harder to play properly than people think.
@@JDReC100 yeah! I do use other supports now like morgana, leona, soraka, lulu etc but yuumi is like a comfort pick when the emeny comp doesn't have alot of cc :3
Then switch to DOTA
Goodluck ahaha
I think riot should make a rework year. A year in which no new champions get onto the rift and for example 10 champs get reworked.
They've done that before. Remember when they mass-reworked by classes instead of individual champions?
It's the day many LeBlanc mains bitched about their rework lmao what a fine day it was in midlane.
I'd say there's another downside to having such a large amount of champions. The learning curve is already pretty high and every additional champion means that you need to play several more games to learn what they do, how they affect the entire match, how they interact with your champion(s), and your team. For older players, it's easier to keep up. For newer players, the "minimum time invested" becomes more and more to the point where it might take literal months to years worth of gameplay to be 'caught up' basically. I started playing in December 2019, and STILL there are champions of which I don't know how to play against them. Combine that with rapidly shifting item metas and constant buffs and nerfs that can even change where champions are being played, and it becomes just increasingly complicated to learn the game.
Yes and it needs to fix the old champs rather than add new ones all the time
I love me Skarner 💖
I see the wisdom in that.
Wise words from Skarner
"There is too much wrong with the game"
That's an understatement, my friend
I swear if the game's animations and fluid gameplay weren't the best, I'd given up on this shit long ago
@@thomasalberto613 there is too much put on cheesy picks and tactics think that made the game really toxic
Want to sell Cho Gath skins? Rework him into a void tyrannosaurus
Laughs in Tyranid
@@calmgentleman y'all weak
Cho'gath is so far from needing a rework. His kit is good as it is, and visually, most of his skins are fine.
@@jamiesadf5829 just update his passive to % max HP and Mana and it's all good tho.
@@jamiesadf5829 Maybe the base model because not everyone has the money to buy skins, the hair of Gwen has mor polygons than cho’s entire body
Lmao I laughed when you said “room temperature IQ” in that deadpan voice.
Your channel is honestly such a gem and I love the way you analyze and summarize problems in this game we all love.
Thank you! I appreciate it
you know its bad when my boy, yorick, is being compared with alkali with how much he is cared for.
Same with Aatrox, what did he do wrong to be compared to akali and eve :(
@@adriano_cruciani early season 11 goredrinker. I agree its not *That* bad, but that was still pretty overpowered.
@@Greenbakugan yes that heal for him and Olaf was disgusting that's true, but why nerf both the item and the champion itself, i didn't see a single Aatrox since the nerfs
@@adriano_cruciani after rework he got like 50 balance changes and removed like half his kit(omnivamp vs minions/monsters grievous wounds on shields and heals on passive revive on ult 2 charges on e e giving ad omnivamp being on passive) and more
@@adriano_cruciani true.
Imagine someone started playing league right when a champion is reworked and just look at the champion guides on RUclips and the champion in-game and be like: Wait are these two the same champion?
That actually happend to me with fiddle xD Not exactly guides, I just heared ge Would be so annoing but useless in teamfights, and I just See That ult and W
as someone who plays both dota and league, I find it that dota is way more varied and unique with their heroes because they don't follow a formula a lot of league characters do, some heroes have like 2 ability and 3 passives, some have like 5 abilities you can press
Wukong's mini-rework is one of the best reworks I've ever seen. Riot needs to the same with other old champions before releasing another buggy new champion that will sit on "disabled for esport matches" for 10 months.
yes. would rather have reworks over new champions.
I see Kled on thumb I click
Hearing this it really makes me feel like ARAM is a completely different game altogether, a place where you're almost forced to play and also face a larger part of the full champ roster and all.
dont you love Having your eyes draw to lux's FOREHEAD
As bright as her ultimate
Girls with big foreheads get me weak 😍😩
Worst splash art in the game
@@pianopride212 amumu: Exists*
yes i do. problem?
for dota 2 specifically,they release a 1 new champion every year but they constantly change the map,add and remove items and occasionally rework some frustrating champions.the sheer variety of that game comes from the items as well as the champions as there's a lot more variance there than in lol.(though the Heroes are very diverse too)
Because there's a lot of nuances in DotA as much as there are nuances in League.
Even turn speed is a thing in DotA.
In my opinion, one of the greatest flaws in League’s giant character roster is that they’ve put too much emphasis on the map to have the creative freedom to create unique mechanics for new character additions. Simply put, a bunch of map objectives with varying game impact forces champs to be built around the map rather than the champs built around their own mechanics. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but this means that new champ inclusions become less necessary than new map additions. To exemplify this point, we can look at Heroes of the Storm. Their character variety is out the fucking weeds compared to League’s and it’s because their characters don’t have near as much stuff on the map to worry about compared to League. I think League has too many characters because their game, on a gameplay level, simply isn’t built well to emphasize character inclusion.
You made a good point about it being a problem in all MOBAs. Dota 2 tackles this by giving players freedom with playstyle innovation. If someone counter picks your lane, there will be either a champ that can swap lanes with you on your team or you can just choose to play safe for a bit and they go jungle as the jungle in that game is huge and it can support multiple players. League (though I love it more than Dota) sometimes feel one-dimensional, as a top laner if I am counter-picked and trashed in the lane, I have nowhere else to go as the resources are very scarce. My suggestion would be to change the things on the map so it accommodates different play style and incentivise the innovative approaches to different champs.
I knew the moment they passed the barrier of 150 that they were not going to stop ever. Nowadays we get max 2 reworks a year. At this rate, even reworks themselves are going to get outdated compared to the new 9000 year champions.
11:35 I'd say it's not really that much of an issue in dota 2, mainly because that game is focused for the most part on counterplay, so that every champ is viable as a counter for someone else, plus in every big annual patch they give every champ, even the oldest ones, tailor made new toys to play with, like the talent trees and agh's upgrades that unlock new spells, so there are always new ways to play old favs
not to mention items, you can hard counter enemy champions with the correct items even if your champion is overall weak in that matchup
I feel the same way. Quoting the video, every hero in dota feels unique and special to me. I can pick one favorite hero and make it work against any type of matchup. But in League, pick a wrong champion and you get reported.
Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes on the "give old champions the fiddlesticks treatment" idea.
Something you don’t mention is that new players are overwhelmed by how many champions there are. For veterans, even if we take a break, we have played enough games to get a feel for a champ (aphelios is still a mystery to me though) even if we’ve never played them. A new player has to learn thier champ and their allies champs and thier opponents champs. This is why LoL takes about a year to learn to play if you play up to 5 games a day. The time investment is insane, akin to an MMORPG. Of course a player could pick a champ they like the look of and stick with it, but this ignores the fact that some people do better with certain champs than others. I know that I am more of a control mage player than an assassin player. Give me a control mage and I’ll pick them up fairly quickly. Give me and assassin and I’ll struggle. However, this took me years to learn. I played for long enough that I’ve tried every play style and many iterations of each so I know what I am good at. A new player will be overwhelmed and may never try to get better due to how LoL players are essentially punished for having bad teammates. The system is so reminiscent of typical Chinese video game ownership styles that are on display in the MMO genre: don’t worry about new players, keep the existing players happy and paying. They focus on the whales to the detriment of everyone else. It’s why so many champs are released too strong. The devs are likely told to not bother testing a champ properly and To instead focus on animating their skins.
We have too many champions but only like 20 ever gets played
Yeah if you compare LoL tournament statistics to other mobas like Dota, it seems pretty bad. As far as I'm aware I heard the last big Dota tournament had almost every single champion picked at least once.
@@TheElitedeath yeah I don't think dota has added many champions over time if any at all as they seem to be more focused on keeping what they have already balanced, instead of LoL's idea of releasing new champs all the time
That's sort of the point he makes in the video. Only like 1/4 of the characters are played because they're objectively better than the other 3/4.
@@meow_nyx plus league has lore based hence the amount of champ release as compare to dota its not lore based as much
@@shashank270502 So what you're saying is that I'm right because there are w40 champions so you play about 25%.
Thank you for backing up my correctness.
League has many more problems that need adressing, but the overabundance of characters is up there. Every time me and my friends start a game we always look at the enemy team in disgust because of the champs they have selected, because we know we are not gonna be capable of doing anything against them if they play decently let alone are very good, and that considering we have already banned the worst of the worst.
But thats what the game is about, beating the other team results in them being miserable, the same as when I get constantly beaten by the other team in a game I am miserable. Its the goal of the game.
To add on to your point that Riot doesn't seem to pay attention as to what happens when they add new champions, in their Dev Doodles for Sylas, they straight up say they "don't want to have to check if Sylas's ult interacts with the new champ in the correct way" and that if they have to make a check then they "have failed in design". I think that is a HUGE clue as to Riot's mentality towards this stuff.
You might be misinterpreting that line. I believe its more about the code that they implemented for sylas and hoping that it's algorithm will always pull the ult correctly, and less about being lazy or busy.
it’s sad that qiyanas getting nerfed right after seeing some pro play this weekend like riot hates the idea of a new champ being seen yet kaisa, udyr and renekton are picked or banned almost every game
As a Dota player, don't think the issue affects the game as much as League, mainly because of the way the game is balanced, its more about counterpicks. New Hero mostly means just additional option and not that often even a better one, mostly just specific to a niche. Never felt like there are Heroes that are just better than others, more of just more fit for the comp we are running.
I did feel like some tactics are just better of course, and sometimes just feel like Invoker is bullshit, but thats just game differences :D
I started the game relatively recently, just before season 11, and I can safely say "too many champions" is the least of League's problems. As a moba player it took 5-7 days to get roughly acquainted with all the characters, which isn't bad. But the amount of things that are unconditionally bad design continues to surprise me. This is supposed to be one of the biggest games on the planet; you'd think the client would be better than a pirated Chinese WoW rip-off.
honestly, i really still dont get why a person cant have 2 bans at this point. yes, i know, yasuo, yone, zed, darius ect will be permabanned but i feel like thats a good thing cause one tricks arent a thing anymore. like for goodness sake, there are 130+ champs available to you nontheless, so i dont see the issue.
I twotrick Camille and Aatrox.
I would appreciate it if I get to play atleast one of them, not to mention both get cucked by Bramble Vest and Malphite.
Yes in terms of balance and relevancy, but at the same time a lot of choices to make in helping ppl find what play suits them best
It is interesting because in Dota 2 pro play a majority of heros are played. Meanwhile in league, it seems like mostly just meta champs are picked.
Imo it's largely due to league favoring damage and utility via abilities (with items mainly being used for amplifying abilities) while Dota 2 favors a lot of utility and damage via items (many heros are practical since items are basically available to everyone).
That being said I still prefer league, but I do like that about Dota 2. Maybe riot can think of a way to add a bit more freedom to builds during the game to make more champs viable. Not sure what the solution would be though.
Hey there, smite player here. I personally do think league's roster is a bit large but more for the reason that each champ doesn't really stand out in my opinion. If you were to ask me what a smite character's abilities are then I could almost always answer because smite's characters are simply more memorable in terms of designs and playstyles imo
The answer is yes
period
No
No
Hello Vars I will answer your questions about Dota.
First, in Dota only 2 heroes are introduced each year, and you can't pick them in competitive for about 3 months as they are often finetuned, soft reworked and receive 2 abilities that you can purchase as in match items if you need them (Aganim Scepter and Ag Shard). Until then they are in a state of basically "beta testing".
Mainly Dota avoids this problem via the use of hard counters. A support like Ancient Apparition whose ult shuts down all healing for 17 seconds and executes if you get below a threshold is a counter to many picks who rely on immortality or healing, but only as long as: 1) he hit you 2) he has ult 3) he hasn't been bursted during initiation.
There are many cases like that, plus some crazy combos you can pull off with proper drafting, and so will the enemy; the Dota metagame is always very diverse (during a Major in 2017 a team picked 95% of heroes during the course of the tournament).
Lastly, new heroes are not overloaded as much as LoL. The newest hero Dawnbreaker plays similarly to Shen, she has:
Q dodgeable stun that is treated as a basic attack,
W a nuke with minor mobility,
E a passive with crit,
R global tp with a stun
However is countered by any stun interrupting her Q combo or the channel of her R.
In general *most* Dota heroes are pretty simple at first sight, what differentiates a good player from a bad one is how they can use the limited design to accomplish crazy or creative plays (also active items share the same Rock Paper Scissors design, so that you can get rid of a counterpick with items, unless he counters your item with his own. Dota is ... complicated)
Sounds like a mess... LOL
@@VarsVerum Yeah, it may seem so. The trick however is that once you start to understand the meta and most of the interaction the game really clicks in.
Is general consensus that Lesgue is more fun if you're solo, while Dota is more fun if you are in a party.
An example would be the combo we pulled off some days ago: I picked Chen a hero that can dominate jungle creeps and control them directly, while a friend picked Clinkz, an adc who can eat a creep to gain temporary stat boost. My creeps received an increase in HP, so when he ate them the Clinkz became *huge* with something like 2000Hp and 200 damage bonus, also I could provide a creep for him mid fight to refill (Normally the bonus should be half of that if you take time to scout the jungle). Truly marvelous 😂
11:35
the key difference between LoL and DotA2 depending that topic is, that for every hero in DotA2, you have at least one item that counters said hero.
and most importantly its not a mater of "hmm, they got Malzahar i should build a QSS as a mage".
lets take Antimage (DotA2) as an example, one of the best lategame carrys (you could compare him to Kassadin, if you want):
as a Support you can go for an Aeon Disc dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Aeon_Disk or a Linkens Sphere dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Linken%27s_Sphere to save either yourself or even a teammate.
as a carry or tank you could simply go for a BKB dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Black_King_Bar .
as a mage a Scythe of Vyse dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Scythe_of_Vyse does the trick.
the only items that counter surten mechanics in League are the ones with grievous wounds for antiheal, items with Quicksilver active against hard cc and Randuins Omen against crit.
but said items are not equalli viable on every champ.
yes: Zhonyas and spellshield items exist, but they are either used to sustain burst (Zhonyas) or to get into the fight without being CC locked to death before doing anything (spellshields).
my personal problem with Zhonyas is that your enemys either die untill its effect wears off, or you get bursted to death by the enemys that were able to wait 2.5 seconds.
spellshields are even worse imo, i really liked the old Edge of Night where teh effect was active, even when it had a short channel time, that way i could decide if i wanted to block the Xerath Q and get stuned afterwards, or block the stun of his E.
if Riot implemented more items with active abilities to counter anoying bs or mechanics, they could throw as many champs as they want at the players, as long as there is an item to hardcounter them, its no big deal.
a good example would be if Mikaels Blessing were able to cleanse Darius bleeding effect off an ally.
i dont even ask for stuff that would be overpowered like a Glimmer Cape dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Glimmer_Cape for LoL, so a supp could make his adc invisible, but at least a few more active items to hardcounter surten champs were great.
A few Champions should never be released. I want more Reworks.
Syals is a champ where he's healing makes zero sense in my opinion. His passive, q, e and r have that feeling of an ex Wizzard hunter that did escape from prison but his W.....
For most champions their ability makes sense but here I have no idea why it exist.
True, for me at least viego and gwen, cuz those champs are just buggy af + their abilities are unfair
@@hideyourgf8502 I found Gwen okay. She is like a Kayle but if you play somebody like Fiora, Jax she is okay. Tanks are having a bad time because of her passive. But a good Jax can give her a run for her money. She may has 2 dashes but she lacks in cc and she a good window where she can get punished.
@@Bisheimer Jax loses later on because any sane Jax main will not build bork because Jax needs hp to supplement the tank stats he gets from ult.
I do agree that Sylas W is bs. Godforbid Aatrox to heal the same amount in such a short burst but apparently since Sylas is a mage, he gets a pass. Yknow how lenient rito games is with mages.
This is the problem I had ever since with the game, in direct result of it may try to overshadowed champions and their impact over time ( feel sorry for guys like Annie and Twisted Fate, though there not my main favorites but hey, these two are from the early releases of the early LOL days, and now their impact was put into vein)
& addin new champions sure looks pointless fer sure too (and I’m looking at you Olaf & Seraphine)
There's a principle of design that talks about a ship that sunk because it had too much shit in it.
More /= better, you also have to considere the extra work for each new champ, learning to read the stadistics, balancing, reworking, modeling skins and animations, etc. It's impossible to distribute man force equally through all the champs unless you spend money on hiring more people, and that will become an endless cycle.
They need to break from doing new champs and address core issues with the game, the matchmaking, the ranking, the map, the client, and many other systems, not just with outdated champs. League (and WR) have developed into a borderline hostile play experience for non-pros or streamers, and RIOT has not shown average players any indication they even seen the issues causing mass exodus from the lower ranks. Nevermind a sign that anything will be done to address any issue that does not effect pro play, or even that they will address issues that would change anything key to the game, lest it effect pro play.
Vars: likes dogs and cats, chill piano music only. Just the best lol channel, right? 💓
as someone who has played quite a few MOBA games here is league's problem, its that new champions are all we see they have everything in their kit, cc, heals, escapes, in other mobas characters are signed with CLEAR weaknesses in league there is the concept of playing around a champion and not into them that's very rare in other mobas there is no direct way to deal with these champions also other moba tend to disable new characters for 1 or 2 patches after their release so they have a chance to be balanced first. new champions in league just feel like they are too overloaded, sett is great cuz he doesn't really do much he is designed like an old champion but with modern ideas also other mobas update their old characters as much as possible and make sure that while there are some generally good one everyone should be playable in league it feels like some champion are 100% useless think about it what can zillian actually do that GA cant, riot basically gives up on champions and just makes better versions of them hoping people will forget the old one enough for them to justify a rework, seraphine and sona are the best example of this, sona is up for a rework now that was announced shorty after sona 2 was released. Im gonna be honest here I think riot are just lazy, like a teenager who puts all of his clothes under the bed instead of cleaning them that's what they are doing with champions, also no reworks are really played and this is intentional by riot cuz they want to sell skins for new champions, new panteon was nerfed quickly but ahpelios wasn't really touched for a while. in conclusion riot is a great company who cares about their players but don't really care about their game thank you
Dota2 avoid power creep by not giving heroes kits that are only viable for certain roles eg support, mid, carry, offlane, though of course some heroes are better to be played in certain positions against others. They also have the hero counter mechanics, some heroes counters other heroes so they are viable in certain match ups, also their hero kits can stand alone and there are not so many hero skills in dota that functions the same
Octopath Traveller music, good choice
I can’t imagine the game without all these champions. Well... except one.
*demonic pop music intensifies*
Using Jenga logic, Riot should rebuild the whole tower. Not just reshuffling few blocks by for example item rework, but actually filling gaps by champion reworks.
To be honest, I think a lot of older champion's kits, even the most dated ones are rather fine. What I wish Riot would do, is pull an Ezreal on them and get every janky old champion up to par with the newer releases graphically.
There's a lot of appeal in a character's visuals, and a good part of the likes of Anivia, Cho'Gath, Corki or Tryndamere being unpopular, on top of their kits not being the most flashy ones, is just their character models being noticeably old to the point where they sometimes feel clunky to play.
One of the reasons Blackfrost Anivia, High Noon Lucian and High Noon Ashe are as appreciated. And it's the same reason so much people flocked to Aether Wing Kayle before her rework. The new models and animations make the champion's that much smoother - and thus make it that much more enjoyable to play.
Reminder that Jax is just as old as they are and he still has his basic kit since his conception.
It's the reason why scrubs bark when Jax gets fed.
@@Geheimnis-c2e I mean, yes and no. The core idea of Jax's kit has stayed the same, but he still went through a bit of changes over time. Like at some point his passive gave him 5HP per bonus AD and 4HP per bonus AP, meaning old Gunblade gave him 600HP, and his E was a 4-ish second CD stun that you could only activate if he had recently dodged an attack.
But yeah, a lot of old kits are actually just fine. But still, they could really use a visual update.
I'm even sometimes wondering how is Riot so slow to visually upgrade their older champions, because visual consistency is IMO super important to a game like this.
Since my real return/1st time real playing this game for a long time playing and figuring out who I like and don't is probably my favourite part of league, the moment when a champion clicks and you understand that part you have been missing is dope
Fixing the client plus reworking champions.
And I thought the client would be fixed when they reworked it during season 5-6.
But everything changed when sylas was introduced.
tbf the client and champions are two different aspects of the game and therefore have each of their own departments too
Definitely. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing, way too much change. Then they revamped every single item and I just said fuck it, I can't get good at this when shit changes SO MUCH. Not to mention, every single new fucking champion created problems in toplane, which is my lane.
I love the current aatrox. My only problem is. Malphite (or anyone else) destroys me by buildimg armor. Why does he not have build in armor shred like darius and garen. Ofc you can say he got sweetspots and it kills squishys. But i would rather remove the extra damage on sweetspots and make it a cleave. He's a draintanker, not a squishy destroyer. And he cant even destroy squishys lategame, cause they just blow him up (if they got some degree of skill, we are not talking about people who font abuse antiheal, cause its really stupid) because they do a lot of damage, and aatrox has no defenses, no reach, no damage.
I highly disagree that just because no one plays a champion that they have inherent issues with them. I think just like foods not all champions are made for everyone which is why few people play them.
From a gameplay perspective, the best solution for League would be a rotation system. We could have trimestral rotations, in which they could add a fixed number of available champions. This could either be done by (1) creating themes for each rotation, i.e making a faster and cutthroat meta by focusing on squish champions with high DPS; that could create some really interesting metas and allow for some types of gameplay to be prioritized, like allowing a healthier meta for Artillery champions, which wouldn't be so impactful since it's just temporary. The problem here is that if you're the guy who loves hyper mobile class cannon assassins you will hate playing on a tank or artillery rotation, and vise-versa, meaning a portion of the community will always be mad, and since popularity brings money, if you happen to like a certain unpopular playstyle get ready to never seen it again. (2) would be to just pick an X number of champions from each role without any theme, and while this is fairer, it's to be expected that popular and new champions with expensive skins would be on the rotation every rotation, while Asol gets unofficially perma deleted.
I think the commun ground for every game is, there is too many when:
1- the new ones outshine every other one in most everyway possible (works for pve games as well, dont be able to play the champ u loved cause only the new one can make with efficiency the new content is trash development)
2- when the new characters slowly starting to make the experience more overwhelming than enjoyable, and I know its subjective, but as long as i love Viego and wanted to make it my main, the fact that is ban in pro says everything...
3- and lastely when they cant make place to them in the lore anymore, again, works for pve as well, new race of champions cool, but why when where, a vidéo game its not an interactive cofee machine, it brings stories and feelings.
And I think its an everything.
We cant set a nomber by gender, every game as his own story, i think the limit is relative and cross when the rupture is to big, either u slow down and keep ur game as it is, either u turn over and embrace this new direction even if yes all the old fan will uninstall, but vision is everything. And stay true to that vision is important.
I remember around season 4 where I thought “ they could just focus on champion updates / remakes and the game would be fine”
It is honestly amazing how Janna's passive is "go wooosh" and Seraphine's is literally 2 and both of them is good. And yet Janna never really falls into the meta.
I'm a Janna main, and i don't want her to be meta again after the Ardent Incident.
@@thelastsepheramain6867 That was a fun meta. Unhealthy sure, but everyone feared the support.
I still remember starting league about a year ago and I could barely know the names of anyone in the game. Took me awhile before I finally knew what everyone's names are and have an idea on what they do.
9:20 god damn, that combo tho
The two Ionian brothers came in clutch there ngl
i love that you're using octopath traveler music in the background
The only thing I think you missed is the new player experience. I've started learning league recently, and just when I think I can sort-of play Garden I match up with a Kled, not knowing at all how to play against him.
In a game where knowing matchups is THIS important, 150+ champions is brutal when you're starting out.
Love your content.
Hope a lot of people understand what you put over the table, love your channel and your style, keep it up.
Having watched this, I'm glad I play DotA 2
balance in all things, in this year's dota2 TI out of 115 heroes that can be played in captains mode, only 8 heroes that didn't picked and banned in the entire tournament
Separate the mechanic overhauls from the visual ones. This would allow for much faster updating of mechanically outdated champions and while it might require adding new visual effects for new spells, it won't require redesigning all the models and skins.
Its not too many but its the unique experience you get from learning all of them even if theres alot
_that experience includes getting erased by aphelios_
And also getting erased as aphelios
I love your background music selection, in general.
Glad you like it!
@6:15 My problem with yuumi isn't found in most games when she's supporting a squishy adc. It's how she makes something like Darius an unstoppable 1v9 force if your team didn't counter pick the combination.
good content - I enjoy the tone and the subjects you're treating
👏👏👏👏👏 the quality just keeps improving.
Good job and thank you very much, you did a great job 👏
I'd say go the route of mini reworks like wukong, not having to put that much time into the visuals but still updating the kit would make wonders for all old champions.
Aatrox wasnt a rework they made a new champ with the same name
I want his old kit in a new champion.
Everyone else gets to be a statstick with insane sustain, I fail to see why his old kit can't exist.
With how big the champion pool is, Riot could implement 2 bans per player and still have a wide pool to choose who to play
Honestly, I feel like some champions like corki only need the slightest touch-up to be viable again. Make corkis e armor, and Mr shread scale with attack damage, or even attack speed, and you fix one of his biggest issues. The small change riot made to garen giving scaling on his E with attack speed was a Massive boost to his viability, he's still the same spin to win, no brain champion, but it opened the door to so many different builds, and play styles for what you need in different games. Same thing with Rammus more recently.
This gets brought up pretty frequently and again, doesn't matter if it does since new champions are one of the many things that keep casual players (most of the playerbase) interested and people who would otherwise play infrequently coming back. I heard one of the recent champions bought a bunch of people back into the game don't remeber which one tho
The thing is that while adding new characters to a game CAN be interesting and exciting, you can only do so much before you have to start re-treading old ideas (or coming up with insane ones that end up creating more problems than they're worth, Viego).
If you look at recent releases, obviously there's Sona and Seraphine, but you also have Samira kinda being ranged Yasuo, Rell is Leona with armour shred, Gwen is basically AP Fiora and let's not forget that two of the champions released in the past 2 years (Senna and Yone) are specifically designed to play similarly to existing champs.
I'd rather that Riot focussed on bringing all existing characters up to the same standard rather than creating someone else who does the same but better.
I think the glaring problem with new champs is that a lot of them are jack-of-all trades kind of character, with counterplay being "just dont be close to them". Back in the day we had: Tank, Adc, Mage, Support. Now we have something like yone or sylas that can heal, tank, do assassin tier damage and have cc on top of that. Compare that to a character like singed. He runs fast and farts poison. How cool is that?
To be fair, no other champ can make you decide on whether to farm it out or stop him from proxying. Singed makes you think more options than what you normally would.
@@Geheimnis-c2e Singed is useless if you know how to play vs him. Just be wary of his early(its way more powerful than people think) If he doesnt get ahead, and you ignore him, hes pretty useless. Hes just a fling bot, and many tank supps do that job way better. Problem is, specially low elo, people just focus him for no reason, he does no damage, his cc is decent to bad, and hes not that tanky. But i'd argue that he's one of the best champs to one trick, because only you know how to play against him. Basically, to know how to play vs singed, you need to main him for a while.
oh and proxying is out of the question with the quadrillion dashes and junglers like kayn, its just not possible to proxy.
Love your content man, a neutral perspective on League's controversies is quite nice to see.
I must agree with Vars' analyzation. I think that there are many champions that I don't really like to play because either their looks, effects, or playstyle are too boring or old in comparison to some of the newer ones. I think that reworks have certainly done their job in bringing old champions up to speed and that updating them would do a lot for the game. I must say, though, that there is another problem with having too many champions: trying to decide which ones you really want to play. I have had this problem for a while and it has technically stopped me from climbing much in ranked.
An interesting point I find with this is that from a business standpoint, Riot wants the newer champions to feel special compared to old ones. They want their newer champions to stand out from the crowd so that people buy them and their skins. An example of why can be seen in Taliyah, on release Taliyah did not sell super well as she was decently weak and her user experience and visual appeal were not super impressive. So, yes if they update the old champions that will allow everyone to feel special in their own way. But if everyone is special the newer champions don't feel as special unless they break the mold even more, which just starts the same cycle over again. Riot is a business which means they do things for profit. And as you talked about before, making a new champion is easier, cheaper, and more consistent in terms of money made. Reworking a champion is expensive, reworking skins, remaking animations, designing the champion over again, and they also are under the restrictions of not breaking the existing champion's identity. Plus a lot of the people who care about that champion already own their skins, which means that the profit only comes from new players purchasing skins for the champion. And there is also the fun value for the design and art teams, making something new with no limits will always be more fun than remaking something within its constraints. That is my analysis of why they would focus on making new champions. For the tldr, it is more consistently profitable to make new champions.
6:26 I like how you didn't feel the need to runback on the pokemon joke, but did for the dog/cat joke
While I mostly agree with this video, one thing riot has said is that rework do not cost necessarily more than new champs, but the number of player decreases.
Even if the reworked champs are more popular, their player base is not always the same and lots of people have quit the game after their main got reworked.
I really wish they took a year off from creating new champs and focused on updating existing champs by giving them VGU/VU’s. So many iconic league champions like Katarina, LeBlanc, Ahri, Nocturne, Shyvanna, Shaco, Tryndamere, Annie and many others have horrendous base animations and models. They FINALLY got to working on Udyr after years of talking about it.
I had hoped that the 10th anniversary would have been the year of VU/VGU’s for existing champs but it didn’t seem like it. Kayle, Morganna and Ezreal updates were really successful and were like a breath of fresh air into those champs by giving them meaningful voice overs and updated gameplay (mainly Kayle). Also updated lores which is always appreciated in making characters actually seem like champions. Lots of older champions could use this. Fiddle and Voli reworks are phenomenal examples of successful updates.
I like your idea of reworks and even in your Quinn video you brought a rework up, but characters like that don't need one in my opinion. Just scaling or design changes to bring people to play them.
I'd rather see a power creep reduction and a re-evaluation on champions that are unanimously considered cancer. Wondering if there are very minor changes you could make to a lot of champions to make their counterplay more apparent
Vars I'd like to thank you for helping me on my English exam for the argument essay. I just copied your format and wrote the essay that way
The business standpoint problem of not having as many champion releases isn't impossible to work around either. If they wanted to take time to focus on reworking all of the older roster, they could just focus on pumping out skins for champions that already have a large and dedicated player base to pull in revenue.
Hey Vars! Thanks for another interesting video! IMO:The thing about reworks is they are more risky to do then releasing a new champ. If the reworks aren’t done well and sometimes even if they are you can upset the champs player base.
Very true! But Riot tends to do a great job imo they have like a 90% hitrate XD
I think the issue is each new champion released is flashier and more overturned than previous ones. This makes them more of a nightmare to deal with. When they can do 15 different things, you have to counter each of those
No, the game does not have too many champions and I hate this tired take. I do appreciate the effort you put into this video, though. As long as new champions have something unique they bring to the table, I support it.
Now, that's not to say that riot doesn't make missteps every now and again, like Seraphine just being what should have been a Sona rework... (I love Seraphine's kit, btw.)
However, I do believe that Riot should spend more time bringing existing old champions with outdated or irrelevant kits up to date rather than churning out a new champion every 3-4 months.
At one point they'll have to give themselves a 2 year break to rework all the old champions before they make new ones, probably won't happen until the MMO comes out cause that gives them a place to keep introducing new characters that could later become champions.
Come to Dota guys, no Hero's left behind.
I just played it but dropped it
One thing that i would love to see even if riot will never do it is to add a community ban, at the start of each week, each player could vote for what champion should be ban and the most voted get banned for every ranked game, so i can start to ban champions that counter me instead of having to ban the same annoying champs every time because i just hate playing against them.
This would make one tricks really mad but it would force riot to balance champeons arround being fun to play against instead of just looking at the winrate and calling it a day.
I dont think riot will ever do something like this because it would make a big portion of the players not be able to play their champ, but at the same time if the majority of the players are banning the same champeon every game, then those one tricks cant play their champ anyways.
I would say that the limit of champs that are healthy for the game is when no champion steps over another's kit. I think that point has already been reached with Seraphine being Sona's rework.
Sona's a buff bot who loves the neutral game. Seraphine's an area control mage who loves fights.
From my experience in ranked, it is important to point out that the saturation won't be felt if it isn't high per role.
I play support mostly, but I sometimes play as ADC, and I'm not gonna lie, ADC feels like the least varied role in the game. Every champion plays pretty much the same as they are all markmen who mostly focus on ranged combat, with the exception of Samira and the occasional mage botlaner.
That role wouldn't harm to get some sort of champion designed for the role that allows for the expansion of the champion pool. Because man, does it feel stale from time to time.
Could we get a playlist to the background music of your videos ? Because it's amazing
Alot of it seems to be from Octopath Traveller and Fire Emblem. JRPGs
I wish riot would balance around different variables other than base/scaling numbers, cooldown, and mana cost.
Like spell range, missile speed, missile width/size, duration, damage type etc.
ALOOOOOT of champions need updates based on above.
Also with items I feel AD has a much more broad itemization choice. So many different items work based on enemies you’re against. With AP you don’t get the same options, and I feel there’s only a couple build paths. I miss building decent movement speed.