I recently watched Sulla’s League of Legends retrospective on the state of the game in its early days, roughly when I started playing in August 2010. It got me thinking about the current discussion that seems to be blowing up on reddit, where the main comments getting upvoted are those lamenting the loss of the assassin meta from the beginning of season 3. According to this point of view, it’s much more difficult to carry games in season 4, with the majority of games being decided by bad players being out of position rather than good players making plays. Nerfs to champions like LeBlanc, Zed and Riven, combined with the lowering of first blood gold, have meant that getting early kills is no longer as powerful as a more objective-focused game. I thought I’d ask a different cross-section of players – those on Realms Beyond (there are still some active players here, right?!) – for their opinions on the subject.

My point of view, which seems to be an unpopular one, is that I very much like the game in its current state. I think Riot have done an excellent job in rewarding both teamplay and coordination (which I’ll loosely call ‘strategy’ for the benefit of this discussion) and individual skill (‘mechanics’) in roughly equal measures, where previously there was a bias towards mechanics. I’ll go through some of the changes which have led to this shift now – note that this is entirely from memory so apologies for any errors.

The rise in power of supports



In probably the biggest single change to League of Legends over the last two years, the support position has shifted incrementally from its place in season 2 (where the main supports were Sona and Soraka, glorified health and mana fountains with few opportunities to make impactful plays) to its current season 4 incarnation, where supports come in various shapes and sizes, from the initiating power of Thresh, Alistar and Leona, to the peeling potential of Janna and Nami, to the (albeit heavily nerfed) sustain bots of Sona and Soraka.

The first major shift occurred at the beginning of season 3, where Sightstone and a few new support items were introduced. As important as these changes were – Sightstone is still a huge staple of the game – there were a couple of further problems that needed solving:

- The core support champion pool was composed of champions that are very undemanding (and unsatisfying!) to play: Sona, Soraka and Taric were the main culprits here.
- Supports were still extremely gold-starved; the gold generation techniques that existed – GP10 items, runes and masteries – were expensive in terms of opportunity cost and generally ineffective. The most effective way to build a support, as demonstrated most starkly in the season 2 world championships, was often to buy boots, a Philosopher’s Stone, and wards. Nothing else, for the rest of the game.

To solve the first problem, Riot released new champions (Thresh principally) that were both mechanically demanding and impactful. They also systematically nerfed pretty much every sustain support in the game. Taric got a rework which hurt his power, and Sona got nerfed several times through season 3.



The second problem was addressed at the beginning of season 4:

- Trinkets! These allowed every champion to place wards from the start of the game.
- New support items. The trinity of gold generation items – two of which (the most efficient two) are enabled by mechanics and active playmaking – have given supports a much bigger gold income, allowing them to itemise differently.
- Perhaps most crucially, they limited the number of active wards on the map to three per player. They also made vision wards visible, turning them into mini-objectives to be fought over.



But, of course, there’s an elephant in the room here. By buffing supports, you necessarily nerf other roles. No longer is bottom lane all about the AD carries. No longer are teamfights all about who can get their insane damage combo off first. The result of these buffs has been that as supports have gotten stronger, AD carries and assassins can’t carry as hard. This is something that, in my opinion, has not been recognised for what it is. The respective power of different roles is a zero-sum game; if you want supports to have more power, other roles must have less. And supports were not only under-appreciated in season 2, they WERE severely underpowered. It was very difficult to carry as a support when they were in that state; yet every team was still better off with a support than without. This meant that one role on the team was a dead role, which was terrible for the health of the game as a whole.

I also think restricting wards to three per player was a key move. Wards are still OP – it’s almost always better to have a ward than not in almost every location on the map, given their cost and the length of time they last. Supports can no longer choose how much vision they can have (which is a good thing, because the ‘One Right Answer’ to that question is as much vision as possible).

So yeah, I’ve written enough. I’m curious to see what the RB playerbase thinks. Are you happier playing the current game or past seasons of it? If so, why?

- Terror

Hey guys,

Capitalising on the interest in the world cup, I was wondering how many of you would be interested in doing Fantasy Football for the English Premier League this year?

I have found a free website that does draft-style leagues and I would like to try it in that format to see if it holds interest better and gets more competition going.

I can set up a league pretty quickly if there is significant interest?

Given the matches start on 16th August, any draft would need to be before that point.

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For those who want to sign up, go to Fantrax.com

Then click on 'Join League' & 'Privated Commissioner League'

Then enter these details:

League ID: qgijkvp6hxx4zsj5
Password: rb2014

Sign-ups

1. Twinkletoes89
2. Dantski
3. Jkaen
4. darrelljs
5. Old Harry
6. Gaspar
7.
8.
9.
10.

So, quite often is the case where managing my resources past dlvl6 becomes part of the challenge and the decisions that I make can have a significant impact on the game from that point forward. Now dlvl3 is where I usually run out of inventory space altogether, but most of it is being taken up by stuff that I plan to abandon later. After dlvl4 I usually toss my blunt weapon to open up 3 more spots for scrolls and potions, and I'll gradually trade off any blues I've picked up in favor of reds and scrolls, with the exception of big blues. I'll usually hold onto those until dlvl8, hoping that I'll find an eldritch shrine by then and can turn them into something usable.

This creates problems for me in the mid-game though, because 5 onward is generally when I start seeing a lot of jewelry. Now a unique ring is a no brainer, I'm usually willing to burn an ID on that right away because an RoE is extremely valuable to a Warrior and his ability to hit things consistently in the later levels, acting as a nice substitute for "to-hit". But magic rings and amulets start becoming a problem. I'll generally wear the ones that I think have the highest ilvl and the most potential, but the rest become lost in the ocean of resources that is my inventory, and I quite often lose track of their ilvl, and which ones would be the best to ID.

This not only causes me management problems in the later levels, but in the case where I come into a dlvl that proves to be too much for me to manage with my current equipment and/or position, I usually have to start burning ID's on my jewelry hoping to gain the upper hand, and this usually proves fruitless. Quite often I'll end up with a collection of worthless Life/Mana jewelry, and I'll not only be down several precious resources that could have proved invaluable in the end-game, but will still be ill-equipped to deal with the present threat and I may have to forfeit right there.

Writing down each jewels ilvl on a sheet of paper would be equally worthless, or at least a major pain in the ass, because I'm constantly reorganizing my inventory to make room for the upcoming potions, scrolls, and equipment to be discovered, and my inventories layout is constantly changing as a result, and sometimes jewels get mixed up or even lost as a result. My brain is often screwy like that.

Basically, I'm looking for some advice on how to better manage my resources and my jewelry in the mid-game so I don't put myself in a desperate situation later. There's always the chance that can happen with bad luck regardless of resource management, but I would like to find a way to cut down on that risk.

So, what do you recommend? Throwing blue potions out earlier? IDing jewelry earlier before the dangerous levels like 7, 9 or 10? I'd really appreciate some input here.

RtR mod 2.0.7.6

RtR mod 2.0.7.6 change log

Quote:Civics: Emancipation: Available at Banking. Low cost. +1 commerce from cottage, hamlet, village. +1 food from cottage. +2 commerce from mines, +1 hammer from farms.

Free Speech: Available at Liberalism. Medium cost. +1 commerce from villages, +3 commerce from towns, +67% tile improvement growth rate

Trait: Creative: +1 culture per city. +100% production of Library, Theatre, Colosseum, Observatory.

Espionage: Active missions removed.

Hey,

Catwalk disappeared a few weeks ago without a word. We need a permanent replacement for him.

PB17 is a greens game. You'd be playing a Civ in a decent position, located between two weaker neighbors.

Post here or in PB17 IT thread if you're interested.

Following discussions with others, here is the short term plan for where I expect RtR to head. Now that I've finished the academic work I have for the forseeable future, I am only detained by the vagaries of life, such as working, finding somewhere to live and moving etc.

I intend to release a stable version that is based off the 2.0.5.3 mod (the one in my sig) that includes much of the behind the scenes stuff that novice has added in, with the observer mode, and Plako's pause fix. It can then be tested and a final version released, and will be available for anyone to start a game with confidence that no stupid bugs exist. I am working a lot of shifts over the next 2 weeks, but I hope that the first version of this mod can be put out over the weekend for testing.

After that is done, I want to move onto sorting out the work boats, PHI and one or two other small things. There will be a few adjustments to the mechanics of tech costs and another pass over the UB and UU for civs, namely nerfing Zulu and Egypt. Any ideas for changes or improvement can be addressed at this step in the development process. This process will only start once the above process has ended, and I do not envisaging anything being made available before mid August. It is also dependent on the availability and willingness of others to contribute.

So, there are the short term plans for what happens. I hope to put up a potential change log (both including all of the current changes, and those to be made) by Sunday evening.

So, at the request of my fans I've started a MoM Let's Play. The vanilla game on impossible. Gnolls. 4 life, 1 sorcery, 1 chaos, 1 nature. Warlord, artificer, archmage.

When I finish this LP I'd like to do a second using Kyub's patch on impossible. (It's been a couple years but I seem to remember enemy wizards starting in on the spell of mastery way early in the game.)

Anyway, I'm taking votes in the comments to determine how I approach LPing Master of Magic (length of videos, post commentary vs. active commentary, ect.)


So yeah, check it out if you're interested. Let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGaV8IqPhGo

In the past there were a lot of pbems and only one PB. Now there are only big Pitboss. Pbem seems to be extinguish now, so what about a pitboss game with pbem settings?

A 5/4 player game, quick speed, RB mod, random leaders
Probably 14-16h timer.

A map will be need it as well as asking Caledorn if he could host the game (or maybe sunrise if PB13 actually end). But first ,is there anyone interested?

Hey RB'ers,

Anyone here who has played the Fire Emblem series?
I was wondering if we could host a FE draft competition here at RB. Fire Emblem 7 (aka just Fire Emblem) would probably be the best game for this.
The basic idea is that we hold a draft choosing characters from the game, then attempt to finish it with just those characters, of course reporting in RB fashion along the way.

So, does anyone want to try another run at playing another play by post RPG on the forums here? This is borne out of talking with Mardoc and Commodore about wanting to play something inspired by the Dresden Files series.

I think that this time around, I've got a setup in mind that will be more likely to last: A game focused on smaller connected parts of a story (mysteries to solve) than one big story, so that players can drop in and out as they would like to, and a system that lends more to writing out stuff on forums than lots of numbers and battle positioning and the like.

The only main definitives that I have in mind are that it's going to be using the FATE system, which will turn the focus more towards description and writing than just raw numbers and mechanics, which I think will work better for forum play. Also, I was thinking this to be in the Modern/Urban/Mystery genre, with the supernatural thrown in there somehow too. Probably running it in a way that there are multiple mysteries going on over time, that players can drop in and out of individual ones, but they are all connected and occasionally combine into a big event as the story requires.

So I guess what I'm looking for now is who would be pretty interested in playing, and if you have any preference for system or don't care and want to play in a cool urban mystery game.

Players:
1) Commodore
2) Mardoc
3) DaveV
4) Lewwyn
5) Ranamar