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So I spent the time to make a serious response to Riot's "How 2 fix supportz" thread. Instead of reporting/linking that here, I'd like to lay it out in a non-Q&A format.
Supports invest all of their gold in wards and Oracle's Elixirs because those are the most powerful and efficient options available to them. Between the consumable nature of these items and interference from the enemy support/team, supports will spend the entire game sinking their gold into vision and vision control. The ultimate reason supports feel so poor isn't because they have so much less gold than their allies/opponents, but because half of their income or goes into wards/Oracle's/Sightstone.
As it stands supports get to complete their first non-vision item around 26-30 minutes into a game, and may get to finish a second item if the game lasts into the 45-50 minute range. That's not very interesting.
There are basically three ways to solve the problem:- Retool support items like Shurelya's, Locket, and Crucible to be much cheaper, and thus much easier for a support to complete.
- Make vision/vision control less compelling or costly.
- Increase support income.
These are not exclusive, and I think the optimal solution will involve a little bit of each.
Riot's current issue is that they seem oblivious to the first bullet point. They are aware that most of a support's income is going into vision/vision control, and they're aware that supports also make less than other roles to begin with, but they don't seem to realize that part of the problem is that support items are simply too expensive as well.
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Important to note that the team has already been practicing together for two months prior to this announcement.
On September 12 2013 15:05 TheLink wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 14:39 Zdrastochye wrote:On September 12 2013 14:35 zulu_nation8 wrote:
I don't get how a team of Koreans is allowed to play in NA LCS. Just accept it Bly, it's for the better. Forces NA baddies to get better, or die! This is like the entire reason I don't watch SC2 anymore. The Korean pro's all kind of merge together and I just stop caring. This I can handle but if it gets to a point where entertainment value begins to suffer like it does in SC2 then I'd like to see Riot stamp it out. For now though I'm cool to see how it goes.
Having to actually live in North America is a pretty big deal. It'll dissuade a lot of teams from coming over imo.
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On September 12 2013 15:19 TheLink wrote:
See thats the kind of argument that always drives me nuts. Koreans are more motivated than NA pros (in either game) is complete bullshit.
Ok so it must be their racial makeup giving them the advantage?
Give me a break, if NA pros had started ~2 years ago with team houses, getting coaches, and playing/discussing League 14-16 hours per day every day no excuses they'd be beastly too.
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On September 12 2013 15:40 Zdrastochye wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:19 TheLink wrote:
See thats the kind of argument that always drives me nuts. Koreans are more motivated than NA pros (in either game) is complete bullshit. Ok so it must be their racial makeup giving them the advantage? Give me a break, if NA pros had started ~2 years ago with team houses, getting coaches, and playing/discussing League 14-16 hours per day every day no excuses they'd be beastly too.
Saint said he would never play in that condition, even though he knows tahts what it takes to be the best. It's a culture thing, Amurrican not gunna work dat hard. Same reason why shit ton of other countries schooling America in early education as well.
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If someone paid me to do it I'd play/discuss league 14-16 hours per day.
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On September 12 2013 15:42 wei2coolman wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:40 Zdrastochye wrote:On September 12 2013 15:19 TheLink wrote:
See thats the kind of argument that always drives me nuts. Koreans are more motivated than NA pros (in either game) is complete bullshit. Ok so it must be their racial makeup giving them the advantage? Give me a break, if NA pros had started ~2 years ago with team houses, getting coaches, and playing/discussing League 14-16 hours per day every day no excuses they'd be beastly too. Saint said he would never play in that condition, even though he knows tahts what it takes to be the best. It's a culture thing, Amurrican not gunna work dat hard. Same reason why shit ton of other countries schooling America in early education as well.
They don't HAVE to do it, Link was just calling it bullshit that Koreans are more motivated at league than NA. My point still stands though.
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They don't have to do it
+ Show Spoiler +
If c9 didn't make na better not sure how cKR will.
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On September 12 2013 15:43 Seuss wrote:
If someone paid me to do it I'd play/discuss league 14-16 hours per day.
That's pretty easy to say when you don't
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There's a reason Jamaica doesn't have a world class bobsled team.
Korea's strength is the same as in any other sport. Existing infrastructure, talented coaches and a wider talent pool to draw from. Are the Europeans so good at soccer because all the other countries just don't really want to win the world cup? hell no.
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Korean LoL is so good because they literally just copy/pasted Brood War. NA teams are moving in the right direction with getting team houses, analysts, coaches, etc. But the one thing they're really missing is talent scouting.
If it was truly that just Americans weren't hard working enough then Korea wouldn't be better than Europeans and Chinese and other Asian teams. Unless we want to argue that Koreans are the hardest working people in the world.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 12 2013 15:46 Itsmedudeman wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:43 Seuss wrote:
If someone paid me to do it I'd play/discuss league 14-16 hours per day. That's pretty easy to say when you don't
Yeah of course it sounds pretty good at the outset.
Now what happens when you're sick of the game 6-8 months from now, yet also haven't achieved anything?
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On September 12 2013 15:48 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:46 Itsmedudeman wrote:On September 12 2013 15:43 Seuss wrote:
If someone paid me to do it I'd play/discuss league 14-16 hours per day. That's pretty easy to say when you don't Yeah of course it sounds pretty good at the outset. Now what happens when you're sick of the game 6-8 months from now, yet also haven't achieved anything?
Yeah, I tried playing poker full-time for like a month. There is a world of difference between a hobby and actually doing it full time. Poker drove me insane.
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did taht syndra only player ever make it to diamond
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United States47024 Posts
On September 12 2013 15:47 overt wrote:
Korean LoL is so good because they literally just copy/pasted Brood War. NA teams are moving in the right direction with getting team houses, analysts, coaches, etc. But the one thing they're really missing is talent scouting.
If it was truly that just Americans weren't hard working enough then Korea wouldn't be better than Europeans and Chinese and other Asian teams. Unless we want to argue that Koreans are the hardest working people in the world.
I don't think that Americans on the whole are less motivated than Koreans. Just most of the ones that are currently actually involved in competitive play.
I do think that the streamer culture that LoL grew up on in NA was a major impediment to the game's competitive growth here. It basically put quite a few players in the spotlight that honestly in the long run have no future as competitive progamers. There's legitimately talent that's motivated enough on NA, I just think that those existing players/teams have done a lot to make it hard to oust them, and Riot's really not helping by doing favors for those teams by making LCS relegation favor the teams already there.
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On September 12 2013 15:23 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Too bad MiG was never the best team or anything close
Didn't they win OGN back when they were MiG Frost? Or maybe second losing to MiG blaze. I forget
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On September 12 2013 15:47 overt wrote:
Korean LoL is so good because they literally just copy/pasted Brood War. NA teams are moving in the right direction with getting team houses, analysts, coaches, etc. But the one thing they're really missing is talent scouting.
If it was truly that just Americans weren't hard working enough then Korea wouldn't be better than Europeans and Chinese and other Asian teams. Unless we want to argue that Koreans are the hardest working people in the world.
It's arguable that working hard enough does mean getting serious with team houses and coaches and whatnot. Least that's how I see it. If you're serious about it, make it a real job for you to play it and improve at it with you and four others. Make sure everyone is committed 100%, and stop being lazy on solo queue for days at a time. Even now NA teams with all the resources available to them aren't using them to their fullest potential, partially because they want to live their own lives and not devote everything to being great league players first, and having a social life etc second. It's not a PROBLEM that they're doing this, but it's a conscious decision to be worse at the game as a consequence.
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On September 12 2013 15:47 TheLink wrote:
There's a reason Jamaica doesn't have a world class bobsled team.
Korea's strength is the same as in any other sport. Existing infrastructure, talented coaches and a wider talent pool to draw from. Are the Europeans so good at soccer because all the other countries just don't really want to win the world cup? hell no.
Then why the hell do you care? According to you quantic shouldnt do well in na lca then because they dont have the k-infrastructure, so why so mad? This ia different from sc2 since they are moving to NA.
VES players prob cried themselves to sleep and have nightmares of korean overlords taking their jobs.
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On September 12 2013 15:46 Itsmedudeman wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:43 Seuss wrote:
If someone paid me to do it I'd play/discuss league 14-16 hours per day. That's pretty easy to say when you don't
I've lead a WoW raiding guild while holding a full-time salaried position. I did that for roughly four years. I meant what I said, and I know what I'm talking about.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 12 2013 15:53 Zdrastochye wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:47 overt wrote:
Korean LoL is so good because they literally just copy/pasted Brood War. NA teams are moving in the right direction with getting team houses, analysts, coaches, etc. But the one thing they're really missing is talent scouting.
If it was truly that just Americans weren't hard working enough then Korea wouldn't be better than Europeans and Chinese and other Asian teams. Unless we want to argue that Koreans are the hardest working people in the world. It's arguable that working hard enough does mean getting serious with team houses and coaches and whatnot. Least that's how I see it. If you're serious about it, make it a real job for you to play it and improve at it with you and four others. Make sure everyone is committed 100%, and stop being lazy on solo queue for days at a time. Even now NA teams with all the resources available to them aren't using them to their fullest potential, partially because they want to live their own lives and not devote everything to being great league players first, and having a social life etc second. It's not a PROBLEM that they're doing this, but it's a conscious decision to be worse at the game as a consequence.
I think there is talent on NA willing to make that commitment, but it's hard for those players to break out because of how much of an old boy's club the scene has been forever. The fact that the same 3-4 teams have dominated the scene since almost it's inception is a testament to this. Some might argue that it's because no one has really pushed to rise above those teams, but C9 has proven this isn't the case. It's just that the barrier to entry is really high to even get to play on that level, let alone surpass it.
Basically in order to legitimately break into professional play, you basically have to ALREADY be good enough to contend with the bottom end LCS teams. It's really hard to break into NA pro play because talent has to already be developed for sponsors to commit to it, and Riot's not helping this by making a relegation system that heavily favors teams already in LCS.
A lot of the current strong teams in Korea developed while they were "on the scene" already despite having mediocre performances. Ozone and T1 are the best examples of this--they were known teams for a quite a while but they weren't powerhouses until very recently. Dade, Imp, Dandy, etc. have been on legitimate pro teams for more than a year now,despite their first few months probably being un-notable to most people. In the context of a region run like NA, those teams might never have risen up above being Challenger teams because of how stratified everything is.
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On September 12 2013 16:00 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 15:53 Zdrastochye wrote:On September 12 2013 15:47 overt wrote:
Korean LoL is so good because they literally just copy/pasted Brood War. NA teams are moving in the right direction with getting team houses, analysts, coaches, etc. But the one thing they're really missing is talent scouting.
If it was truly that just Americans weren't hard working enough then Korea wouldn't be better than Europeans and Chinese and other Asian teams. Unless we want to argue that Koreans are the hardest working people in the world. It's arguable that working hard enough does mean getting serious with team houses and coaches and whatnot. Least that's how I see it. If you're serious about it, make it a real job for you to play it and improve at it with you and four others. Make sure everyone is committed 100%, and stop being lazy on solo queue for days at a time. Even now NA teams with all the resources available to them aren't using them to their fullest potential, partially because they want to live their own lives and not devote everything to being great league players first, and having a social life etc second. It's not a PROBLEM that they're doing this, but it's a conscious decision to be worse at the game as a consequence. I think there is talent on NA willing to make that commitment, but it's hard for those players to break out because of how much of an old boy's club the scene has been forever. The fact that the same 3-4 teams have dominated the scene since almost it's inception is a testament to this. Some might argue that it's because no one has really pushed to rise above those teams, but C9 has proven this isn't the case. It's just that the barrier to entry is really high to even get to play on that level, let alone surpass it. Basically in order to legitimately break into professional play, you basically have to ALREADY be good enough to contend with the bottom end LCS teams. It's really hard to break into NA pro play because talent has to already be developed for sponsors to commit to it, and Riot's not helping this by making a relegation system that heavily favors teams already in LCS. A lot of the current strong teams in Korea developed while they were "on the scene" already despite having mediocre performances. Ozone and T1 are the best examples of this--they were known teams for a quite a while but they weren't powerhouses until very recently. In the context of a region run like NA, those teams might never have risen up above being Challenger teams because of how stratified everything is.
I'd say a lot of the blame lies with the teams and recruitment process. Seems like it's typically "ok, let's get 5 guys together and look for a sponsor!" rather than the sponsor looking for them. What I mean by that is the recruitment process. You either get the whole package or none at all when you start a team. It's up to the jurisdiction of the players who have ties with each other to decide who gets to stay and who gets replaced. In korea the recruitment process works much differently. Talent is scouted and tried out. This is how SKT T1 formed. If you don't perform or there's someone out there better than you then you get replaced off the top of the ladder very quickly rather than dragging it out and having a million reddit posts about that person and how good they are for the team.
For people who aren't professional NA players there isn't that much incentive for them to try and climb the NA ladder and get challenger. If they're mid diamond+ and they're popular that's typically better. The recruitment process is pretty unprofessional here. If you're in korea and you get to the top of challenger and start dumpstering people it's essentially guaranteed you WILL get offers.
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EPT
