Monday, April 25, 2011

Episode 9



This week we discuss some of our most memorable League of Legends horror stories, our thoughts on how season 1 as well as what we would like to see in season 2, and as always we answer all the questions from the blog. Sorry for the short delay, had to get some things sorted out with the website that hosts our podcast. Thanks for listening and leave your questions / comments / criticisms / corrections in the comments section!

Minions Have Spawned - Episode 9


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27 comments:

  1. Please take a moment to upvote our reddit page :) http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/gx5ov/minions_have_spawned_league_of_legends_podcast/

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  2. Meow meow meow meow meow!

    >.>
    <.<

    I do agree...this game makes you RAAAGE!
    I try and be nice about it though.......

    Good job again dudes. Just a comment about picking champs that normally get banned...right now i'm about lvl 21 just doing normal games. Well I play with my twin brother a lot we are close to the same lvl and he always wants me to pick like rammus or shen....champs that I hear get banned alot. I just don't want to play champs other people may think are OP...one reason is, because when you do well...people would just say, "well you only did well cause that champs OP" meh...just my thoughts on that.So here is my question and i'm not sure if you have covered it before but, from each of you what champs would you want banned the most from ranked?

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  3. In response to your horror stories....

    Zugare and I were in a normal match. At the start of it, Jax says "dishes afk" and was gone until just about everyone else was 6+.

    Start the game, go do dishes.

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  4. LoL Horror Stories entry:

    I told dirtyjoe about this the other day.

    I was in RANKED. I was the first pick and grabbed Malphite. Awesome right? The rest of my team was Garen, Brand, Cait, and some other melee champ. We go into the game and I run to bottom lane. Cait AND Brand both start to yell at me, 'Malph go mid! Malph go mid!'..... Our ranged carries REFUSED to mid. Oh and I had to mid against Karthus :(. We got curb stomped. Moral victory = I didn't die to Karthus once and Brand and Cait went a combined 10/25.

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  5. QZip here again to make more long, but interesting posts (something I'm good at). Thanks for mentioning my name this time in the podcast, last time you didn't.

    This week I'd like to talk about the ranking system (since you mentioned it). Now, I don't play ranked games, but I had a massive college school project on ranking systems. Specifically making my own program that contained a ranking system (in this case the ELO ranking system) and game database.

    They're using the ELO ranking system. The way ELO works is that, when you win when you were "supposed" to lose, you get lots of points. When you win when you were "supposed" to win, you get only a few points (and vice versa). In the system, you're supposed to play several games against random players with fairly static ranks for them to give you a preliminary rank. Usually between 1000 and 1400.

    Where LoL seems to go wrong, is that ELO is specifically made for 1v1 games. It is NOT supposed to be used for team games. They could've avoided that by doing the Company of Heroes thing by having each team have it's own ELO (so you get your bros Meatmash and Dirty Joe and together you have 1 shared ELO as a team of 3).

    They think "well, people will play enough games to get a decent average so ELO will work." It really won't because you won't get as high of a range (law of averages) pitting you against players of quite different skills, and, even if you're better than your ELO, you can still lose because of your allies.

    You'd think this would even out over time, which it technically does, but it makes the change slower than it should be, leading to the concept "ELO Hell." And you can't just increase the amount it changes or you'll swing ELO around way too far just because of random streaks of wins/losses (making having a ranking system useless anyway).

    Making a ranking system for any AoS game is a tough proposition (no one's really tried to do it). The best way would probably be to put those metrics mentioned in my last post to use and pit you against the global averages for stats like k+a:d and your cs/time on a per hero basis. They have enough of a database built up now that this is really not a problem, only an issue in the day or 2 after a patch or release of a new hero. So, if you do better than average over time, regardless of win or loss (possibly even IN SPITE of win or loss, I mean, think about it, if you still do above average when you LOSE that's more significant than going above average when you win), you'll have a better than average ELO (based on percentiles of performance thrown in some fancy algorithm, yeah, it's complicated because we're doing individual rankings for a team-based game).

    I assume in the system now, they just start everybody at 1200 or 1400 ELO. 1400 ELO should be a high ELO in a system like this used for teams (and just above average if the system were being used properly). So, if everyone starts there, that's a huge issue. What they should probably do is take your recent match history and assign your ELO based on a rough guess from that.

    Your local game design buff, QZip.

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  6. ... Actually, I misquoted the Jax I previously mentioned.

    What he actually said was "care dishes". It was awesome.

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  7. Very interesting post as usual Qzip, I would love if there were some kind of personal rating that is outside your win/lose rating. Like you said they have enough data now to know that someone with a 40 CS and 2/8/3 probably didn't contribute as much to the team as someone with 200 CS and 7/3/10. I know the game is team based, and a rating like this might cause people to play more selfishly, but it would be nice if something like this could work.

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  8. @kreeves, usually when a teammates performance is completely baffling it causes me to be amused rather than ragey.

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  9. Yeah, that's why I suggested k+a:d over k:d:a (that way who actually gets the kill is of no consequence, only who contributes to get kills, something champions of all types should be doing, yes, even pushers). There should probably be some boost for creep kills since you'll get less of them jungling than in a lane. People could still be selfish about creep kills, but, people already are selfish about creep kills.

    Only problem I really notice that I'm not sure can be fixed is that, often when you zone out the enemy, that's great but you get less creep kills and they tower hug so you get less hero kills too.

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. Thanks for answering my question in the last podcast

    My next question is more LoL based. Could you go through the LoL roles (AD carry, AP carry, support etc) and tell us your top three for each?

    Also , what do you think of gimmick teams (such as the football team, with Alistar, Singed, Blitz, Gragas and Janna)? The example team is all about luring someone out and then constantly knocking them up so as to make them useless.

    I removed the last post because of some horrible typos.

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  12. Hey guys; really enjoy the podcast (although I wish it were longer, as I usually listen while doing other things so I don't mind the "ramble" as much as some others might :-P).

    In honor of helping Kayle get her grove back, I posted a suggestion I'd been considering for a while. I know she has a reworking coming up, but it wasn't an idea I'd seen brought up and I think it at least deserves consideration. I also plugged the podcast at the end, since I somewhat blatantly stole the title from your poll. :-P

    Link to the article is provided, so please let me know what you think. In short, the change I propose is for her ult: rather than invulnerability, incoming damage heals the hero (resist-reduced damage, not pure damage) while all other stats stay the same. It doesn't really change things for stopping burst initiation, or saving a fleeing ally from a Karth-Cait ult, but it makes the ult useful mid battle when AOE is getting thrown around or a squishy is getting focused (but not bursted). Most importantly, it forces players to respect the ult and back off, rather than simply spam damage over the duration until it runs out.

    Again, let me know what you think, and if you like it please plug it: upcoming remake aside, I think it's a good change (and, as I cite in the post, there is precedent for this same change from DOTA).

    http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=698835

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  13. Great post BloodBaron, the forums definitely need more actual discussions rather than flaming, and this is a great example of that :)

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  14. Have you seen starcraft 2s MM? I feel having different brackets and different ratings are better than just 1 4 digit rating, in SC2 you can get be platinuim play with a bronze and have a new rating that you dont have to worry about.

    Basically if your 1500 playing with a 1100, your 1500 rating is on the line and that doesnt really make sense if you gonna get matches with 2 1300 in return and lose according to the MM.

    Another comment about the nerf/buff changes: If you played ever played Magic: The Gathering you will know that when they release expansions that had really imbalance cards to the point that they ban then the games sales go up! When they made a balance expansion the game sales when down. It seems over buffing or over nerfing champs cause some kinda hype that gets players to play said nerf/buff champ. Just a theory.

    I'd also love to be a guest on your podcast :)

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  15. I've heard that argument before Hoywolf and it makes my designer's heart cringe. I can maybe see releasing a hero that's too powerful and then bringing him in line next patch (the DotA strategy really, Meepo was about the only hero released under-powered). Since, no one knows how to play him yet and you want to "hook" people into playing him, generating hype for your game. But just nerfing/buffing at will to create controversy? That's just annoying.

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  16. Regarding the current poll: The game type I play most is neither Ranked nor Normal. I mostly play AI co-op games. At first I played Beginner AI, but now I play Intermediate AI. Yes, I am a lower-level player. There must be a lot of us playing these AI games because the queue-up is instant.

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  17. I didn't think about that Anon, probably bc when I was going 1-30 that mode wasn't available yet. Co-Op vs. AI games would be good for learning the basic mechanics of LoL such as last hitting, builds, and just how the game plays in general, but you definitely need to get some live opponents involved to learn the deeper meta game such as jungling, map awareness, pushing, etc etc. Also playing against other players will thicken your skin a bit, which you will definitely need when you start que'ing at 30.

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  18. Hey guys,

    Really enjoy your show. Youre doing a good job, keep it up :) Just wanted to tell you that the evelynn video is blocked when im trying to watch it from Norway.

    "The video includes content from SMEs that have blocked it in your country, on the basis of copyright."

    - Dev

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  19. I'm very sorry Dev! When I uploaded it to YouTube, SME (Sony Music Entertainment) blocked it. I guess the video violated their copyright, so they blocked it. I put some music on there that I guess they weren't too happy with, but again my apologies.

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  20. I wrote your first iTunes review :D

    Also, yay, I can post again.

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  21. I can't posy on Google Chrome though. :/

    That comment was from me ofc.

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  22. @ Aiden thanks for the review :) also looking into what the deal is with chrome

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  23. Hey guys! Been listening to your podcasts for a few weeks now, and since I'm taking a break from LoL for college finals, you guys help me get through my withdrawal! Keep up the good work! I do have a question about Lee Sin though. Is it a smart idea to rush Bloodthirster on Lee? I have been doing this, and I've been told it's a foolish move to do with any champion, but so far I've won nearly 80% of all games I play when I play Lee with this rushed build (afterwards building Frz Mallet, Merc Treds, and damage/dps items). How reliable would this rush build be in ranked games? Thanks!

    - A Purple Manatee

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  24. Congratz on all of you getting out of ELO hell and into the 1400s :P

    Also if this works it was from chrome

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  25. I always post from Google Chrome. So, I don't have his problem.

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  26. I don't think the problem itself is with chrome, I just know I never have it with another browser.

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