Variations on a Theme (Day 242)

Hello! I am deep into Dragon Quest III and I plan to play a whole lot more of it tonight. I've spent most of today so far playing League of Legends with a couple of friends--because that's how I like to enjoy my weekends. Or y'know, any day of the week. A novelty mode called URF (Ultra Rapid Fire) has been recently added to the game, supposedly only for a week. It is an insane mode where every champion starts the game with 80% cooldown reduction. What this means is that every champion can use their skills much much more frequently than usual, which sometimes leads to unanticipated results.

Champions with healing spells are almost impossible to kill because they can cast them over and over without stopping. Particularly strong was Sona, who has now been globally banned from the mode for being too strong. Alistar is however probably just as strong, if not moreso because of his incredibly strong CC. He is almost impossible to kill due to constant healing and his ability to knock enemies up and away. Although his damage output is relatively low, he is able to lay down enough disruption to whittle enemies down before they can even react. Another abuse case is Brand. If he can ignite an opponent with one of his fire spells, he can repeatedly throw his Fireball at that opponent to stun. The cooldown is short enough and the stun long enough that he can repeat this infinitely until the opponent dies--or an ally interrupts him.

Granted, the mode is not intended to be taken seriously and in fact it was introduced on April Fools Day--but it's not always a fun ride. If pitted against champions like Nidalee, Urgot, Hecarim, or the aforementioned Alistar, it can be difficult to actually have a good time. Like most modes introduced to the League of Legends community, a certain metagame is eventually decided upon. This is true even for novelty modes, as the popularity of ARAM (All Random All Mid) will attest. When the mode first debuted it was more about experimenting with different champions to see what crazy things they can do. It has now devolved into picking whatever champs are generally considered strongest and facerolling the opposing team if they do not comply with these standards.

It's not a problem with the League of Legends community necessarily. This kind of thing happens with any competitive gaming community that is large enough. Eventually the highest priority becomes winning--not just having fun. It makes me wonder what Riot Games could do with a single player or co-op game set in the League of Legends universe. I would definitely play it since I think they have a massive and colorful cast of characters to draw on. Personally, I would absolutely love an action RPG/dungeon crawler style of game in the vein of Diablo III but with League of Legends characters. Skills would have to be embellished to diversify the gameplay but I think it would be 100% doable.