EPTOn October 09 2014 04:49 Alaric wrote:
Yes, it's the permanent, and stacking, thing, that sounds contrary to their stated "design goals". I mean, in terms of clarity you just have to look at the jungle which will always look complicated and hard to grasp to beginners, even without the buffs (without them I guess you could sum up the jungle by "monsters give gold, so sending someone there instead of sharing a lane gives the team more gold overall, plus since the enemy rarely has vision of him he can ambush them!").
But when dragon benefits (gold and exp) translate into very tangible benefits (more items and levels, which you can directly see), then although it's arguably worse for snowballing (win a dragon fight, be stronger for the next, unless you're facing a strong timing team or get outscaled fast), it's also very clear and intuitive for people.
With a stacking buff, unless it's a stats stick (in which case it's really uninspiring and uninteresting, as I'd rather have the gold to choose cool items to buy that suit me better, for example), then it's a lot less tangible, and while a gold disparity can be made up for (trading dragon for a tower, using a pick comp to get kills/contesting buffs in the jungle to close the gap before the next dragon spawn, etc.), depending on what the buff is it can pretty easily become an issue.
I'll keep that stance: play around the map (tower mechanics, map layout, the stats and location of jungle camps) for your "macro" changes, and use items if you want to affect stats or "micro" changes. Rely on actives and auras for "intangible" benefits over complicated mechanics.
Shape the power timings and different phases of the game around item prices and cost-efficiency, rather than tie it to slot-efficiency to increase the importance of leads and point the game toward late.
Yes, it's the permanent, and stacking, thing, that sounds contrary to their stated "design goals". I mean, in terms of clarity you just have to look at the jungle which will always look complicated and hard to grasp to beginners, even without the buffs (without them I guess you could sum up the jungle by "monsters give gold, so sending someone there instead of sharing a lane gives the team more gold overall, plus since the enemy rarely has vision of him he can ambush them!").
But when dragon benefits (gold and exp) translate into very tangible benefits (more items and levels, which you can directly see), then although it's arguably worse for snowballing (win a dragon fight, be stronger for the next, unless you're facing a strong timing team or get outscaled fast), it's also very clear and intuitive for people.
With a stacking buff, unless it's a stats stick (in which case it's really uninspiring and uninteresting, as I'd rather have the gold to choose cool items to buy that suit me better, for example), then it's a lot less tangible, and while a gold disparity can be made up for (trading dragon for a tower, using a pick comp to get kills/contesting buffs in the jungle to close the gap before the next dragon spawn, etc.), depending on what the buff is it can pretty easily become an issue.
I'll keep that stance: play around the map (tower mechanics, map layout, the stats and location of jungle camps) for your "macro" changes, and use items if you want to affect stats or "micro" changes. Rely on actives and auras for "intangible" benefits over complicated mechanics.
Shape the power timings and different phases of the game around item prices and cost-efficiency, rather than tie it to slot-efficiency to increase the importance of leads and point the game toward late.
Additionally a stacking permanent buff (stat stick or otherwise) has implications for the lategame, where a team that is behind in gold/dragons will never be able to, realistically, over power the team that got more dragons early, due to the stacking permanent buff.
