**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Comments
I dont encounter that problem often but in the end it comes down to personal preference and Limber might help on War def thats true.
I think it is a given now that when it comes to higher tier content, most players want more interesting content rather than just be hammered with super high stats. We don't all agree what "interesting content" is, but I think a strong common denominator is content that requires a deeper understanding of the game mechanics and the champion roster, to allow for thoughtful game play to be rewarded by the game.
If game mechanics interactions always favored the player, then the game has to presume that all content is going to be tackled under those favorable situations, and it has to be made much more difficult to compensate for that. But if game mechanics are "neutral" and they can go either in favor of or work against the player, we can balance content to be intrinsically less difficult and reward players for smarter play (and punish them for dumber play) relative to the average. I personally think this is a good thing.
I also think this is a large component of many players expressing the notion that higher end content is "easier." Until relatively recently, all content required higher and higher levels of twitch reflexes, because those were the only counter to the ever higher numerical stats and punishing nodes that higher tier content contained. But more recent content has shifted to more meta-gaming, where players are encouraged to find optimal champions and strategies for dealing with content. I think a lot of us are discounting the effort required to do that. If you have deep knowledge of the game's mechanics and champions, picking the right champs for the right path and using the right tactics in those fights can seem trivial, and that gets assigned zero effort. But for the average player, this can be even harder to do than learn combos and intercepting. The overall effort is the same or higher, but a lot of it has been shifted away from the hands and towards the brain.
All of this is jeopardized, I believe, if we are too judgmental about how different mechanics interact. If we start targeting Pacify as "not doing the right thing" when interacting with nodes where we want certain effects to trigger because they are helpful, it isn't a very long drive to the devs deciding that what we call cheesing the content by finding especially powerful interactions that favor the player is actually an exploit that violates the design intent of the content. And that narrows the field of opportunity for the developers to design interesting content and the players to find out of the box strategies for dealing with that content.
To put it another way, if the players demand that all of their abilities always benefit them in every possible circumstance, then it is logical to assume the content designers will want all of the defender nodes to only benefit the defender in response. And the whole idea of players trying to turn a situation to their advantage disappears, and to me that's the foundation of interesting content: to turn a bad situation around with knowledge, skill, and strategic gameplay.
Dr. Zola