Snowballing to hard?

[Deleted]

So i watched recently some games from the world championships and i noticed that you almost never see a team coming back when they fall behind a lot, sometimes that saddens me because i mostly start rooting for the loser out of compassion. The problem is that even if they have nearly aced the other team, they wont win because they have to defend or the waves are so pushed in they cant get a tower down because they will be low, waves are in their base and till they reach the point of interests. I know a team should lose when they mess up, but i feel like when they have a difference of 7 kills and 3 towers, the other team could as well give up, but instead games goes on 10 minutes or more. I think it would be nice to have some "back against the wall options" like rebuilding a tower with gold or the more towers are down the stronger the remaining become, because in the end everybody and their mom can tower dive the nexus towers without any danger.

Do you think this will happen some day or do you prefer the current mechanics because they prevent dragging games out forever?

[Strah]

Welcome to League of Legends.
The game is usually decided at ~15 minute mark.

[Duronos]

From what I've seen, people have horrible late game comps. Lee Sin is a horrible late game champion, really doesn't do much but take a few hits, maybe an ultimate and can't do much else. The game can be decided if they are just murdering the other team so badly by 15 minutes. I tend to find when I play my best champion (Anivia) and I duo with my brother who is a fantastic Blitzcrank, we can win before the 20 minute mark sometimes just because they are "usually" getting beaten pretty badly.

Now with that said, you can be winning early game at a decent rate but if not huge and your team comp doesn't scale to well into the late game you may see a small transition in mid game. Basically you just can't stop being offensive if you're an early game comp, just keep pushing and ward everywhere up so ganks don't hurt you. I've been in games where the enemy team can be literally at our inhibitor turrets and just lose the team fight and get aced while we then get baron or take a turret or two down on their side.

Yes early game can do a lot but also organization in team fights. I personally like choosing champions in the solo queue that have great individual power as well as team fight power and that's why I like Anivia so much because of her wall and whatnot. Basically certain champions snowball harder than others, Akali comes to mind, and you honestly just have to be careful about giving them even one kill.

[Deleted]

Welcome to League of Legends.
The game is usually decided at ~15 minute mark.

This often isn't true in lower-tier games just because people are more likely to throw away their advantage, but in serious games I completely agree.

[Deleted]

It's very rare in any high level of competition that someone who begins losing early on will then crawl back in late game, the only exception is when victory is based on points in a time limit like most real sports. When it's just based on one thing being destroyed/captured/scored there are no second chances to any of the mistakes made.

[Axethor]

The ability to rebuild towers or have the towers become stronger with each one lost wouldn't really slow down a snowballing team. If anything it would promote seige gameplay and games like the 76 min on between Dig and CLG during Regionals could become commonplace. Riot doesn't want this. They want the game to be faster paced. Something you could easily watch without losing interest. They have been slowly changing aspects of the game to make this possible and it's also why they don't like Soraka's current design.

There are ways to come back in a game. Early vs late game comp. Lucky ace. Baron. It doesn't take a full team to clear out the base or push a tower.Usually the ADC and a tank can do it without a minion wave or just the ADC with minions.

[Deleted]

This is mostly true but there are teams that are made to do really well early but fall off late game while other teams can have a really good late and a bad early.

Vayne is a good example. It doesn't matter how you do in laning phase, when the team fight breaks out you want a penta and if you get it your team wins.
It won't be easy vs top 200 world but it's still doable with a good team and if your team can do good plays in fights.

[Dundebuns]

One unlucky Ace can spell the end for a team who has been dominating all match. Seen it done, done it to others and had it done to me.

[Deleted]

I often think increasing the starting gold would not only speed up games somewhat but also negate the effect of snowballing early on (as a kill would have a lower percentual impact). Say, 1k gold to start off with. Minion health and damage could be adjusted accordingly. I guess increasing passive gold generation would have a similar effect as well.

[Duilliath]

I often think increasing the starting gold would not only speed up games somewhat but also negate the effect of snowballing early on (as a kill would have a lower percentual impact). Say, 1k gold to start off with. Minion health and damage could be adjusted accordingly. I guess increasing passive gold generation would have a similar effect as well.

That's very dangerous. Look at how some champions scale with gold - AD carries or Hyper carries in particular. Poppy isn't a problem due to her poor laning phase. Give her 1k gold and she starts a Philo stone and suddenly is running rampant by the 15 minute mark. Vayne is hindered by her poor laning. Give her some items that help her rough start and she will snowball out of control. Imagine a Yorick actually *starting* with his tear.

For comparison, look at what goes down in Dominion or ARAM. Bringing that to SR might be disastrous for the health of the game.

[Kurdiern]

League is very snowbally, more so than DotA in my opinion. Once a team secures an advantage, it is very likely they will win since there is not much they can do to lose that advantage.

[Duronos]

From what I've seen, the higher the ELO the less area you have for mistake because, lets look at this realistically, people at high ELO are better players who are there because they don't make mistakes or as many as lower ELO or less skilled players. That is a key reason of as to why the instant a player makes a mistake in high ELO matches it usually doesn't turn around unless they have great team fights which is already harder since they are snowballing ever so slightly.

Now lower ELO, anything can happen, it's just rampant.

[Strah]

League is very snowbally, more so than DotA in my opinion. Once a team secures an advantage, it is very likely they will win since there is not much they can do to lose that advantage.

No, not really.

A fed void can get a triple kill within a margin of his ulti. A fed anti-mage will wreck the whole team solo, same applies to naga siren and phantom lancer as well, while in LoL carries have to be protected.

[Kurdiern]

No, not really.

A fed void can get a triple kill within a margin of his ulti. A fed anti-mage will wreck the whole team solo, same applies to naga siren and phantom lancer as well, while in LoL carries have to be protected.

That's not snowballing, that's a 5v1. That's individual heroes powerlevels once they hit a certain mass. The carry could get that way by farming all game without anyone ganking his lane. Snowball is once an advantage is secured, how it rolls over and just gets bigger and bigger.

Losing gold in death works both ways. You can gank a hard carries lane constantly and keep them held down. While in LoL you get the gold it doesn't matter, losing it over and over will delay a carry much more than in Dota than in LoL.

Items get more and more gold efficient as the game goes son in LoL. The carry will get stronger and more efficient as the game goes on. Compared to Dota, where items get less efficient, once an advantage is secured it is easily emphasized and improved upon with items.

Speaking of items, in Dota, there are items that can literally change games. Blink Dagger on an imitate, Battle Fury on AM, Scepter on some, etc...With these items teamfights that were lost can easily be won. There are literally no such items in LoL. The items do not have as much of an impact since they are literally, for the most pat, just +stats.

[Axethor]

That's not snowballing, that's a 5v1. That's individual heroes powerlevels once they hit a certain mass. The carry could get that way by farming all game without anyone ganking his lane. Snowball is once an advantage is secured, how it rolls over and just gets bigger and bigger.

Losing gold in death works both ways. You can gank a hard carries lane constantly and keep them held down. While in LoL you get the gold it doesn't matter, losing it over and over will delay a carry much more than in Dota than in LoL.

Items get more and more gold efficient as the game goes son in LoL. The carry will get stronger and more efficient as the game goes on. Compared to Dota, where items get less efficient, once an advantage is secured it is easily emphasized and improved upon with items.

Speaking of items, in Dota, there are items that can literally change games. Blink Dagger on an imitate, Battle Fury on AM, Scepter on some, etc...With these items teamfights that were lost can easily be won. There are literally no such items in LoL. The items do not have as much of an impact since they are literally, for the most pat, just +stats.

There are a few like a Randiun's (when people use it) or a Zhonyas that can drastically change the outcome of a fight when used right. Xypheros is apparently working on making items more awesome, which includes more on use effects, but I doubt they will go as far as DOTA.

[Crashdummy]

So i watched recently some games from the world championships and i noticed that you almost never see a team coming back when they fall behind a lot, sometimes that saddens me because i mostly start rooting for the loser out of compassion. The problem is that even if they have nearly aced the other team, they wont win because they have to defend or the waves are so pushed in they cant get a tower down because they will be low, waves are in their base and till they reach the point of interests. I know a team should lose when they mess up, but i feel like when they have a difference of 7 kills and 3 towers, the other team could as well give up, but instead games goes on 10 minutes or more. I think it would be nice to have some "back against the wall options" like rebuilding a tower with gold or the more towers are down the stronger the remaining become, because in the end everybody and their mom can tower dive the nexus towers without any danger.

Do you think this will happen some day or do you prefer the current mechanics because they prevent dragging games out forever?

Maybe not in this last tournament, but in other tournaments there were several comebacks. Hell, CLG ws known for having a pretty bad start because they liked to farm untill the 20 minute mark (they were ussually down in kills at that time) and then they went all in and turned games back.

I dont think rebuilding towers or making them stronger is really a good idea, LoL is the MOBA with better chances of comebacks available already, the problem is that when you are down in kills gold and towers, you kinda need to othr team to make a mistake, and teams like TSM or M5 and such dont make many mistakes.

In normal games, i once won a game that ended 27 to 74 in kills, and i was in the 27 team.

---------- Post added 2012-09-05 at 11:24 PM ----------

League is very snowbally, more so than DotA in my opinion. Once a team secures an advantage, it is very likely they will win since there is not much they can do to lose that advantage.

No its not. In Dota the dead player losses money, in LoL that doesnt happen, that means in Dota the team getting more kills snowball harder. You can prevent someone getting their build in Dota, in LoL, provided the match last long enough, everyone will have their builds completed.

Again, there have been many comebacks in LoL in tournaments, it just didnt happen much in the two last regionals.

[Thallidomaniac]

For comparison, look at what goes down in Dominion or ARAM. Bringing that to SR might be disastrous for the health of the game.

There's also the fact that snowballing in Dominion is not as big as in SR, as it'd take a double digit number of kills for the snowball effect to be noticeable.

[Crashdummy]

That's not snowballing, that's a 5v1. That's individual heroes powerlevels once they hit a certain mass. The carry could get that way by farming all game without anyone ganking his lane. Snowball is once an advantage is secured, how it rolls over and just gets bigger and bigger.

Losing gold in death works both ways. You can gank a hard carries lane constantly and keep them held down. While in LoL you get the gold it doesn't matter, losing it over and over will delay a carry much more than in Dota than in LoL.

Items get more and more gold efficient as the game goes son in LoL. The carry will get stronger and more efficient as the game goes on. Compared to Dota, where items get less efficient, once an advantage is secured it is easily emphasized and improved upon with items.

Speaking of items, in Dota, there are items that can literally change games. Blink Dagger on an imitate, Battle Fury on AM, Scepter on some, etc...With these items teamfights that were lost can easily be won. There are literally no such items in LoL. The items do not have as much of an impact since they are literally, for the most pat, just +stats.

So Battle Fury is not a +stats item with a passive aoe?

There are plenty game changing items in LoL, the problem is that they have counters, there are no match winning games, unlike Dota where if a certain champ gets a certain build, then its almost over (void comes again to mind).

Items are not really that much powerfull in Dota, the thing in Dota is that late game fights are almost a 2 vs 2 with 3 more in each team doing very little contribution, so any item that nullifies one carry will be more important, but not because Dota has better items, but because it has worse late game fights.

[Kurdiern]

So Battle Fury is not a +stats item with a passive aoe?

There are plenty game changing items in LoL, the problem is that they have counters, there are no match winning games, unlike Dota where if a certain champ gets a certain build, then its almost over (void comes again to mind).

Items are not really that much powerfull in Dota, the thing in Dota is that late game fights are almost a 2 vs 2 with 3 more in each team doing very little contribution, so any item that nullifies one carry will be more important, but not because Dota has better items, but because it has worse late game fights.

Battle Fury is. Scepter, Mek, Pipe, and Blink aren't. Active items are much more powerful and influencing in Dota 2. Items in LoL don't counter each other. Items in LoL come down to "How much gold am I paying per stat?" There's a reason there is so much more math and theory crafitng in LoL compared to Dota 2. The lack of Active effects on many items means deciding to buy it comes down to "Is this more cost-efficient?" The fact you're even trying to compare the two games items shows how much you don't realize. There is nothing in LoL that can compare to SK or Enig getting a blink, QoP getting her Hex, or pre-nerf DS getting an Aganims.

Void is an example of one of the hardest carries in the game who requires a significant amount of baby-sitting, farm. and time to get to that point. To allow heroes like that to reach that critical mass is a fault on your part. There are ways to shut down carries, even when they get to that point (Sheepstick).

Late game fights being a 2v2? Ok, sure. Supports generally are killed quickly after they exhaust the first round of their spells, but 2v2? No. Everyone plays a role. Dota 2 late game fights are MUCH better than League's in my opinion.

[Thelxi]

I agree, it makes the last 15 minutes of most games very boring.