|
This discussion is pretty much just all theory and has no real substance to it. Riot is never going to change their matchmaking to 4v4 and pro teams aren't going to be okay with dropping one of their players (in many cases one of their best players) even if you could make the argument that 4v4 is somehow superior.
I'm sure you could make the argument that 1v1s on SR would be more exciting too. There'd be way more action to get first blood and shit. I'm sure you could decide that Small Forward in basketball is a wasted filler position too or that shortstop is a non-necessary position in baseball.
But there's no purpose in doing so. I could argue that jungler is less important than support. The support actually helps get your team's strongest member farmed while the jungler just ganks sometimes and only kills the neutral monsters. I think it'd be an interesting experiment to see a 4v4 where one team doesn't have a support and one team doesn't have a jungler. I'm pretty sure the non-support team would get rocked.
edit:
Basically, all I have to do is find one example of a support doing something substantial in a team fight and your point of support being a filler role is now moot. If a role can change the tide of the game (and support can and does) then it isn't a filler position.
|
That 6v6 idea sounds pretty cool. Oh, the plays that could be made  The team comps that could be created
I think one reason people don't like supporting is that getting items and seeing their effect on the game is something really important. That's a fun part of LoL. Not having that liberty makes supports pretty boring, especially when items like Shurelia's exist. If Riot made some items that were suited for the role of support (offering utility through actives or passives) at a low cost, you'd probably see supports being liked more because you gain that much more effect on the game. Low gold gain won't matter if you can buy items anyways, and varied ones at that.
|
Without a 5th man, every lane phase would be 3 1v1's and a jungler. Without that 5th man to spice things up with roaming or babysitting or being a bot lane warrior, the early game would become so stagnant and boring that you could conceivably skip it altogether, start everyone at level 9 with 3k gold, and have a more interesting match.
|
So you're mad that other roles can't be support? Well I'm mad that AD carries can't be AP carries.
Edit: Oh I see. It's not so much that "other roles can't play support" as much as "not all Champions can scale as well just off their skill set". Is this the gist of it?
|
This game would be awful with just 4v4. It'd be so stagnant and boring to watch, it would also make the ad carry almost a non playable role. Because most ad carries can be super hard countered by others in a 1v1 situation. The support / AD carry lane is the most interesting and dynamic part of the lol experience imo. And support is very important and I find it rather enjoyable.
|
United States37500 Posts
I'll let this thread run its course but the premise is terrible.
|
If we play 4v4 there would be a lot of adc mid which wouldnt be as exciting (their ganking power is not as strong and it would be a lot more farming)
|
The answer to your question: No.
The duo lane is one of the most interesting facets of LoL, particularly in a team context. The dynamic it brings to picks and bans, the coordination between the two laners, the skill combinations and skirmishes, all of that would disappear if LoL became three solo lanes. The most interesting lane to watch, in my opinion, is almost always bottom.
That there are players who do not enjoy supporting others is nothing new. If you're played MMOs you know that healers and tanks are generally rare commodities. The same is true of LoL, except in the form of players who are willing to be the support. Just because such players do not exist in sufficient quantities to make sure there is one such player for every team doesn't make the inclusion of a playstyle paradigm that suits them a bad design decision.
|
Three solo lanes?
Dear god Panth permaban
|
United States47024 Posts
The OP's whole argument is essentially based around the assumption that with 4 sources of income and 5 heroes, the division of farm optimally results in a hero that gets no farm. Which, as Blaze has shown the world, is not a given, despite the fact that for a LONG time now, everyone in the LoL community has taken that for granted.
Support farm is a very complex and valuable thing, and it's an area of this game that has huge potential for growth and experimentation. Proper application of it has the potential to be extremely powerful.
|
On August 12 2012 09:16 Sponkz wrote:
Ok, then i'm gonna say support isn't a filler role, ap carry is. Without support you can't effectively play AD carry. If you can't play AD carry effectively you can't siege turrets which obviously is the main idea of this game (killing the nexus huehue).
You need an AP carry to keep the enemy honest and not just stacking armor items. You need supporting in team fights for your carries to be effective generally speaking, but supporting comes from more than just a pure support, e.g. Alistar jungle, Orianna mid.
Top and jungle are generally pretty interchangeable in terms of role and even champion which makes the top bruisery/tank the most likely "to go" in the case of four champs since you can still get most of the role/utility you want, just less of it.
That said, 4v4 would be horrendous and do extreme harm to the game, its popularity, and especially its competitiveness. If you know what to look for you can often see the tremendous job that pro supports do in lane and in team fights. A lot of it is extremely subtle, which is why you only tend to notice things like Janna or Sona ultis or flash pulvs by Alistar.
Further, 4v4 is simply a completely different game than 5v5. Think of how Twisted Treeline plays out where bruisers are king and carries are generally god awful. Even accounting for the differences in the map, you still get much of the same fighting issues where carries can't be protected both to get farm (in the case of several AD carries early on) and can't be protected to do damage in team fights.
Consider how much of a failure every attempt at remaking the traditional 5v5 3 lane style has been across every game in the genre. Fact of the matter is, despite how there's a very vocal minority that bitches up a storm about playing support, people still gravitate right on back to 5v5 Summoner's Rift because it's heads and shoulders above anything else that's been done.
|
On August 12 2012 15:28 TheYango wrote:
The OP's whole argument is essentially based around the assumption that with 4 sources of income and 5 heroes, the division of farm optimally results in a hero that gets no farm. Which, as Blaze has shown the world, is not a given, despite the fact that for a LONG time now, everyone in the LoL community has taken that for granted.
Support farm is a very complex and valuable thing, and it's an area of this game that has huge potential for growth and experimentation. Proper application of it has the potential to be extremely powerful.
Eh, blaze gave the support "targeted" farm to hit specific goals. Goals, that to be fair, were intended to help the other players on the team much more than the support. We are talking Aegis/Zekes/Shurelias not Abyssal/Wota (among aura items). They certainly didn't give the support farm so it could buy a Rode of Ages, warmogs, or bloodthirster. Blaze just did the LoL equivalent of cutting SCVs (cutting carry farm) for a timing push (Aegis). Support farm just for its own sake is still dumb.
|
United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2012 16:43 cLutZ wrote:
Eh, blaze gave the support "targeted" farm to hit specific goals.
70ish CS is a fair bit more than just "targeted farm" to finish an item. That's an entire item's worth of gold in and of itself.
On August 12 2012 16:43 cLutZ wrote:
Goals, that to be fair, were intended to help the other players on the team much more than the support.
I don't even understand what you're saying here. There's no "help myself" vs. "helping other players" when it comes to a 5 player competitive game. There is only the team.
EVERY player's item choices only serve the purpose of helping the team. They just help the team in different ways as dictated by their role.
On August 12 2012 16:43 cLutZ wrote:
We are talking Aegis/Zekes/Shurelias not Abyssal/Wota (among aura items). They certainly didn't give the support farm so it could buy a Rode of Ages, warmogs, or bloodthirster. Blaze just did the LoL equivalent of cutting SCVs (cutting carry farm) for a timing push (Aegis). Support farm just for its own sake is still dumb.
Mentioning Abyssal/WotA and RoA/Mogs/Bloodthirster makes no sense, because even if a support could get laner-level farm they still wouldn't buy those items because they contribute nothing to the intent of a support. They spend gold too inefficiently on buying/augmenting personal damage for a role whose intent is not to provide damage.
|
On August 12 2012 17:03 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 16:43 cLutZ wrote:On August 12 2012 15:28 TheYango wrote:
The OP's whole argument is essentially based around the assumption that with 4 sources of income and 5 heroes, the division of farm optimally results in a hero that gets no farm. Which, as Blaze has shown the world, is not a given, despite the fact that for a LONG time now, everyone in the LoL community has taken that for granted.
Support farm is a very complex and valuable thing, and it's an area of this game that has huge potential for growth and experimentation. Proper application of it has the potential to be extremely powerful. Eh, blaze gave the support "targeted" farm to hit specific goals. Goals, that to be fair, were intended to help the other players on the team much more than the support. We are talking Aegis/Zekes/Shurelias not Abyssal/Wota (among aura items). They certainly didn't give the support farm so it could buy a Rode of Ages, warmogs, or bloodthirster. Blaze just did the LoL equivalent of cutting SCVs (cutting carry farm) for a timing push (Aegis). Support farm just for its own sake is still dumb. 70ish CS is a fair bit more than just "targeted farm" to finish an item. Mentioning Abyssal/WotA and RoA/Mogs/Bloodthirster makes no sense, because even if a support could get laner-level farm they still wouldn't buy those items because they contribute nothing to the intent of a support. They spend gold too inefficiently on buying/augmenting personal damage for a role whose intent is not to provide damage.
First of all I want to make clear I don't thing 4v4 is superior, I just felt there were too many straw men being torn down by people objecting to the OP.
2. Wota would be situationally great on supports in certain comps where no other AP really wants to buy it (it also gives vamp on AD abilities).
3. You are making the statement: "contribute nothing to the intent of a support" that embodies what the OP actually hates about the current system. I like playing support, only because Alistar, Nunu, and Janna are awesome champs though. How would those items NOT help a support who wasn't gold starved?
|
United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2012 17:25 cLutZ wrote:
2. Wota would be situationally great on supports in certain comps where no other AP really wants to buy it (it also gives vamp on AD abilities).
It's "nice to have". But it's not an efficient use of gold. If it were, an AP should buy it because they use the self-stats better than a support does.
On August 12 2012 17:25 cLutZ wrote:
3. You are making the statement: "contribute nothing to the intent of a support" that embodies what the OP actually hates about the current system. I like playing support, only because Alistar, Nunu, and Janna are awesome champs though. How would those items NOT help a support who wasn't gold starved?
Is he complaining that supports don't get to buy personal damage? In which case, there's nothing objectively wrong that there is a role whose purpose is to provide utility, rather than damage. He's playing it off like there's something objectively WRONG with the way it is now, when if his only complaint is that supports don't get to buy personal damage itemization, there isn't. They're playing a role, and their role isn't to do damage. And honestly, that has nothing to do with the number of players in the game. It has to do with multiplicative damage scaling. So long as DPS/gold scales better with damage placed on one person than across multiple, it will be more desirable to focus damage items on carries, rather than dispersed across multiple people with singular token damage items.
Bloodthirster? Of course that wouldn't help supports.
Warmog's? Buying pure HP is inefficient in and of itself. Mog's needs to be supplemented with powerful defensive steroids that already boost someone's armor/MR to the point where that much HP is the most efficient way to get survivability (no supports have personal defensive steroids that strong), or be bought with Atma's, turning that HP into a damage source.
RoA? You're spending a LOT on AP. While AP has some usefulness for support ability scaling, it's primary usefulness is still as a damage stat.
A support's role is to provide CC and utility. To do so, their primary goals are survivability, CDR (both of which allow them to use their skills more times in a fight), active items (more utility options), and auras (not support-specific, seeing as everyone is realizing the power of aura items at this point).
|
On August 12 2012 17:36 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2012 17:25 cLutZ wrote:
3. You are making the statement: "contribute nothing to the intent of a support" that embodies what the OP actually hates about the current system. I like playing support, only because Alistar, Nunu, and Janna are awesome champs though. How would those items NOT help a support who wasn't gold starved?
Is he complaining that supports don't get to buy personal damage? In which case, there's nothing objectively wrong that there is a role whose purpose is to provide utility, rather than damage. He's playing it off like there's something objectively WRONG with the way it is now, when if his only complaint is that supports don't get to buy personal damage itemization, there isn't. They're playing a role, and their role isn't to do damage. And honestly, that has nothing to do with the number of players in the game. It has to do with multiplicative damage scaling. So long as DPS/gold scales better with damage placed on one person than across multiple, it will be more desirable to focus damage items on carries, rather than dispersed across multiple people with singular token damage items. Bloodthirster? Of course that wouldn't help supports. Warmog's? Buying pure HP is inefficient in and of itself. Mog's needs to be supplemented with powerful defensive steroids that already boost someone's armor/MR to the point where that much HP is the most efficient way to get survivability (no supports have personal defensive steroids that strong), or be bought with Atma's, turning that HP into a damage source. RoA? You're spending a LOT on AP. While AP has some usefulness for support ability scaling, it's primary usefulness is still as a damage stat. A support's role is to provide CC and utility. To do so, their primary goals are survivability, CDR (both of which allow them to use their skills more times in a fight), active items (more utility options), and auras (not support-specific, seeing as everyone is realizing the power of aura items at this point).
I don't want to put words into the OP's mouth, but pretty much everything you said as "what a support should do" seems to be the common complaint of people about supports (also, most supports get blown up when they get sneezed at, which is a big problem if they are going to be your "aura bot").
If you don't like those items what about some other big ticket items? Randuins? Frozen Heart? Banshee's veil? Also, AP on some supports is awesome. Janna Shield, Soraka Heal,etc. These items are not built on supports, not because they wouldn't help the support perform its role better, but because that same gold is more efficiently used elsewhere on the team.
All of this is, just to point out that blaze didn't really give the support farm, they donated the support 1-2 "items" that the other characters didn't want taking up an item slot.
|
Creating a second toplane is clearly not a good idea. AD carrys would be very hard to pick because they're bad at 1on1. Supports might disappear too.
The only good thing about 4v4 would be that it would be easier for teams to travel/get sponsorship/be invited. We saw with mlg arena that it's a problem : getting 20 players in is expensive but it makes only 4 teams (and one was reaaaally bad)
|
United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2012 17:53 cLutZ wrote:
I don't want to put words into the OP's mouth, but pretty much everything you said as "what a support should do" seems to be the common complaint of people about supports (also, most supports get blown up when they get sneezed at, which is a big problem if they are going to be your "aura bot").
Roles that play that way are not exclusive to LoL, or even to the genre. Non-damage focused, utility-based support roles are ubiquitous in team competitive games.
They also tend to be balance issues when they're not on the squishy side.
On August 12 2012 17:53 cLutZ wrote:
If you don't like those items what about some other big ticket items? Randuins? Frozen Heart? Banshee's veil? Also, AP on some supports is awesome. Janna Shield, Soraka Heal,etc. These items are not built on supports, not because they wouldn't help the support perform its role better, but because that same gold is more efficiently used elsewhere on the team.
Physical damage mitigation and an active as in-your-face and offensive as Randuin's tend to be more relevant to front-line heroes rather than back-line supports (the major source of physical damage on any team is going to be the AD carry, and the support often should not be positioned in such a way as to be accessible to take damage from them. Likewise, it's not a given that the support should be even in range for for the Frozen Heart aura to even apply to the enemy AD (people take aura ranges for granted, but 1000 range is really not that long). And neither item is that amazing in multiples, so it's obviously more suitable for heroes that need the stats more and will be in position to use them to get those items.
Banshee's gives things that a support might want, but the item itself is not in a terribly fantastic place overall right now. I don't see why you're surprised that nobody's giving supports farm to buy Banshee's when pretty much no one else is buying Banshee's, period.
On August 12 2012 17:53 cLutZ wrote:
All of this is, just to point out that blaze didn't really give the support farm, they donated the support 1-2 "items" that the other characters didn't want taking up an item slot.
What is this "other characters don't want"? Every member on the team only wants one thing. To win. I don't see how anything about what Helios or FantasyStar does or doesn't feel like carrying holds any bearing on this.
Lustboy got those items because Lustboy getting those items contributed to Blaze winning. By extension, getting Lustboy farmed to that point contributed to Blaze winning.
|
First of all, the game would be too symmetric. While symmetry is good from an aesthetics point of view, it creates the following problems:
1. There would be two "top lanes", where snowball is a huge factor.
2. You would push out most of weak-early game characters, almost breaking the AD carry role. Just characters like Tristana, Graves, Corki and Ezreal would survive the axe, making them very high picks and probably banned in lots of matches, since they have a relatively safe early-games compared to other ADs and they scale really hard.
3. Securing map objectives becomes harder, because you lose so much by leaving your lane.
4. Certain champions would be crazy good with the absence of supports that favor CC and utility. Look at Twisted Treeline, for instance - it is dominated by bruisers with CC or hard chase/scape abilities.
This and many more reasons, but I'm kinda in a rush, so I can't write them all :B
|
It would be better if they made the support role more active throughout the whole game, ie if supports could get more useful activatable items, and all of their abilities were useful in teamfights throughout the game.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
