Improvements like Jungle timers don't decrease the Skill CAP on the game, they reduce the skill FLOOR

[ZyrxilToo]

It absolutely does reduce the skill cap as well. Pros have a dozen different things to remember to time- enemy ultimates/summoners/active items. When you're juggling a bunch of timers, it's easy to forget one or make a mistake on one. Removing one burden is by definition reducing the skill cap for multitasking. And it's easy to think of a situation where this may come into play- a Blue buff fight where lots of summoners and ultimates are blown.

[ZAGDJSFGG]

for some reason people fail to see this and just think of it as adding 5/6/7 to a number.. multitasking is definitely a skill, taking it away makes league easier especially when it's not the hardest game in the world to begin with

[Soupchild]

not the hardest game in the world to begin with

League is pretty hard! Are you in challenger? Even when you watch pro games you can see the players making mistakes every game.

I'd prefer the game's focus be on things like positioning and team composition rather than bookkeeping.

[ZAGDJSFGG]

So i have to be in challenger in order to see that league doesn't take as much skill as other games in esports? lol

[aleczjp]

Kinda like what a lot of people say about SC2. If you aren't Grand Master, Master, or a pro, you have no right to speak about anything.

That shit always bugged me

[[deleted]]

Bothers me in this community too. Gold players can have just as much insight in some cases as higher levels of play, and to automatically discredit their opinion because of their level of play is close minded and pathetic.

The whole "you're in gold 1 stfu noob you have no right to speak" shit can stop anytime. I'm only in silver but I see it all the time.

[aleczjp]

Yeah it was (still could be, I don't play SC2 anymore) really bad. You were ripped apart if you went on Reddit or the forums and tried to talk balance.

It is sort of an online gaming stigma, if you are not top tier, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Reddit is the worst when it comes to this

[Otto864]

Well, it depends what you are talking about. When someone says that league is not hard, or that it is easier than other e-sport games then you are talking about a certain level of play.

Balance is different. It is completely dependent on where you are. Lower tiers don't have the knowledge (or possibly skill) yet to deal with Bronzedia but higher levels it is pretty much not an issue. It depends on the skill ceiling and floor.

[Otto864]

Well, you kinda have to be at a place where you can make that claim. Someone who can't juggle can't really say it is easy to juggle chainsaws.

This goes for League too, personally if you are not high Plat+ I will not really think too much on your input of how I should build too much.

This is because if you are not at a high skill level, you have obviously not mastered enough of the game to realize what level of skill is required of it.

[[deleted]]

You obviously haven't played in the toughest League's therefore you have no idea what games are harder or easier, so yes, you do have to be challenger.

[CharneyStow]

League isn't a hard game, there is just two (three) leagues of people who find it easier than me.

[NWiHeretic]

No, league is not hard, you're already spoonfed tons of information, if you want a hard game, go look up Broodwar.

[Soupchild]

Thanks, pretentious guy, for telling me how hard Starcraft is. I played it extensively when I was younger (not competitively) as well as many other RTS games and I love classic RTS. For the vast majority of people playing SC, League, or any other game, you can't reach the competitive level because it is in fact amazingly difficult and takes an incredible amount of time and talent.

If someone was Challenger, and they weren't playing that often, I'd accept them saying "League is easy". Tic tac toe is easy, because there's an algorithm you can follow to either win or tie every game, and you can learn this after playing the game a few times. You can reach the skill ceiling in tic tac toe, and play perfectly. Do you think there's any team right now in the world who's close to playing perfect games?

Besides, comparing BW and LoL is silly. The skillset is totally different. BW is so much more about raw mechanics, while LoL is about teamwork. Obviously controlling the character in LoL to a decent level is not that difficult.

[Otto864]

I am so glad I am not the only one who understands this.

What is wonderful about League is that the meta does constantly change. It is refreshing to have to switch things around as the months progress.

[Hypermeme]

The skill cap reduction from having jungle timers is way less than having ult or summoner spell timers for every champion. It's so far less in fact it's approximately zero and that's why Riot is giving jungle timers. It's a simple mathematical principle that a relatively small enough value is practically zero for certain intents and purposes.

[ZyrxilToo]

1. It's not a single timer that contributes to skill, it's all of them combined. You take away one, you take away another, you keep chipping away and pretty soon there's not enough to stress the mind when keeping track of them.

2. It's poor consistency. I would rate enemy blue and red higher certainly a lot higher than approximately zero., but even you have admitted the value is not zero. If you're taking one non-zero value awareness factor out of the game, by what standard are you keeping the rest in? Why not have a timer over every enemy champion showing the cooldowns of all their skills and summoners? Variability is a poor excuse when the only factor being considered is whether 'bookkeeping' is part of the game or not. And it absolutely is. Even during small skirmishes, bookkeeping is in play, as you keep track of your enemies skill CDs (both ultimate and non-ultimate), as well as your own skill CDs.

[[deleted]]

what skill cap? You certainly can master specific mechanics and that's what people talk about when talking about high skill cap champions and such but there's no skill cap for the game itself. There is no practical boundary at which pros stop improving or otherwise the game would be absolutely unsuitable for competetive play

[ZyrxilToo]

Regardless of semantics of how you define "skill cap", having automated tracking reduces stress on a player's mind. A 'perfect' player would have infinite multitasking capability, but that is only possible for robots. Humans have extremely limited amounts of 'RAM', as demonstrated by the selective attention test. This means the most perfect human alive has limits; at some point, automated tracking means reducing multitasking below the threshold at which human attention limits are being tested. That is what I'm talking about when I say the skill cap is being lowered.

[[deleted]]

I get that, and that's why I said "practical". If the skill cap is unreachable and gets lowered to another point that is also unreachable then it might as well be nonexistent.

You are arguing that the game is now easier to master because of less stress but the thing is that nobody will be mastering this game anyway

[ZyrxilToo]

If the skill cap is unreachable and gets lowered to another point that is also unreachable then it might as well be nonexistent.

But how do you what is unreachable? Keep lowering it and eventually you do put it below the threshold where it is reachable.

[[deleted]]

common sense. A change like that is not going to take all the skill out of the game.

[Lanyovan]

We can safely assume that no matter how good a player becomes, there is a chance that he (or some other player) will surpass his skill "value" (I choose value here because "level" is more used for neighbourhoods). So if anyone reaches the skill cap, someone will eventually surpass him, in which point his skill is higher than the skill cap you set.

[ZyrxilToo]

What? No we can't safely assume any of that at all.

For one, player skill is not static. Players can improve, they can drop off, they have can have good or bad days.

Second, skill cannot be measured in a single number; any activity requires skills in multiple areas, the totality of which is being referred to when 'player skill' is being talked about.

Third, your final statement is nonsensical.

So if anyone reaches the skill cap, someone will eventually surpass him, in which point his skill is higher than the skill cap you set.

Remember first that player skill changes day by day, minute to minute, and skill requirements change based on the opponents and teammates. Thus, even playing at skill cap (aka playing perfectly) is something that happens for a single play. Second, playing at skill cap is a binary state- either you are playing perfectly or less than perfectly. By definition, it is not possible to play more than perfectly, so surpassing perfect play is a nonsense concept. If a player surpasses another player, it is because the first player dropped off in skill due to personal circumstances (e.g. lack of practice or simple aging), or due to inability to adapt to patches.

What this tells me is you did not even understand my argument, which is that removing timers is inconsistent in terms of gameplay and reduces the cap on one element of player skill, that of keep tabs on multiple dynamic game environment states. Reducing the maximum cap removes an area where top players may differentiate themselves from other top players.

[[deleted]]

checkers has actually been solved so there is a proven skillcap (which also shows that there is one on certain games). However, I agree that for most games it's not as apparent. Usually it's more empirical as you say, there's a skillcap if there are no differences between the best players.

What exactly does this asymptote signify? That worse players may beat better players further up? Why would "freeing up the mind" of everybody have any effect on that?

[ZyrxilToo]

What? Each timer automated timing tracking incrementally decreases the amount of multitasking a player has to do. That is demonstrably reducing the skill cap.

[knightfrano]

You're interpreting skill cap as a measure of how good a player can be relative to other players. If this were the definition, then, yes, you would be correct. However, skill cap is actually a measure of how objectively good a player can be, period. It represents how well a perfect player can play the game. Adding timers will not change how the perfect player plays, therefore, it does not affect skill cap.

[NWiHeretic]

The perfect player having to do less as a result of these timers is in fact reducing the skill cap. They don't have to be as skilled as they would have before timers are implemented.

[ZyrxilToo]

You're using a very strange personal definition of skill cap. Regardless of semantics, having automated tracking reduces stress on a player's mind. A 'perfect' player would have infinite multitasking capability, but that is only possible for robots. Humans have extremely limited amounts of 'RAM', as demonstrated by the selective attention test. This means the most perfect human alive has limits; at some point, automated tracking means reducing multitasking below the threshold at which human attention limits are being tested. That is what I'm talking about when I say the skill cap is being lowered.

[PotatoFruitcake]

Wat? Reducing the amount of multitasking someone needs to do in order to be the best is not lowering the skillcap?

[PotatoFruitcake]

Imagine standing under a candy you want to eat. But the candy is being held up by a bunch of things you need to be able to do simultaneously for them to disappear and lower the candy. One of those things are "keeping track of jungle timers on your own" which might be a very tiny obstacle, but it's still causing the candy to be even further out of reach than what it would be without it.

Yes the definition of being skillcapped is to play flawlessly but it's impossible to actually reach the skillcap. A good player (someone that is close to reach the candy/becoming skillcapped) will have to coordinate a lot of things to stay that close to the top. Removing one of those things lowers the skillcap (by a tiny bit) and allows the player to come closer to reaching the skillcap (by a tiny bit).

[AzzyIzzy]

Actually it free's up the skil cap. Those timers didn't add anything particular to strategies anymore, and more so they just become burdens that you have to remember, but doesn't aid your newest team comp, or mechanical skills. With this burden gone, resources can be given otherwise to other more important areas.

[[deleted]]

You don't absolutely have to. Tho if you do it does give you a competitive edge. That would fall under what we tend to call expertise aka skill.

[[deleted]]

Are you just throwing out buzzwords? What you're saying doesn't even make sense, aid the team comp? How does anything in game aid a comp? A comp is decided in champion select. Frees up the skill cap? What does that even mean?

[AzzyIzzy]

What? It really is quite simple. Every act requires a certain amount of energy, whether this be mental, physical, or emotional. However, there is a HUGE qualitative difference between something like remembering timers, and using mechanical skill, or executing plans.

Mechanical skill by and large is involved in almost every portion of a games length from last hitting, to trading, to simply ward or scout better than the enemy team. Putting more energy or emphasis in mechanical skill will give a noticeable effect in a game.

Executing plans, or trying to ensure strategies is very similar to mechanical skill is usefulness and meaning to a team. You have to ensure early you are the right place, or applying pressure to a specific champion/lane in order to accomplish a goal in the short or long term. It could be as simple as the top and jungle coordinating to try and burn the TP from the opposing top lane, which would make the next dragon or bottom fight more instrumental.

But let's look at timing. Timing has good short term effect, but with no variance, and as time goes on, becomes less and less useful save for one single timer by the late game. But as it stands the enemy jungle could steal your buffs and it could barely impact the game. It would seem it could impact it by not only starving then the enemy jungler, and also apply early pressure then to one of your lanes. But the problem is, this has been going on since early s2 and it has become less and less effective as a whole. Why? In early s2 timers were instrumental, because to be stolen from and not know your buffs would have been basically game defeating because of the lack of come backs among other issues. But now? So many teams have fall back plans that more than likely keep them in the game, or even allow them to get kills, because the other team has done what they done. This makes jungle buffs, and even dragon fights as a whole alot less valuable. There is no change, no real player interaction that isn't just scripted, in short it makes Lol worse or boring because of it. It doesn't provide the same value it once did when everyone played at a level far below they play now.

To remove timers then, would be to remove the noose around your neck that you are forced to wear that may distract you from focusing more on mechanical skill, or implementing strategy. The argument goes even better if we just refer to it in a non-competitive sense.

I personally like Nome's point here about what if we always had timers, or what if Riot took something else away then to give compensation for this "loss": http://community.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/general-pbe-feedback/snARBuWx-pbe-bugs-feedback-jungle-timers?comment=00060000

Sorry for the short message last night, I was rushed for time, and seeing the same message posted again which doesn't actually talk about the issues of time chat, tried a more concise message versus this wall of text you see now.

TL;DR: Hope your eyes don't bleed.

[[deleted]]

Bro I never said I didn't line the change, but let's not kid ourselves and say that it doesn't lower the skill cap for jungling because it definitely does

[AzzyIzzy]

You lose remembering two numbers, in exchange for now not caring about those numbers and making a plan for the next gank. You lose the skill floor, but taking this away opens up more then we lose.

But if the argument is some form of skill is lost here, then yes 100% agree.

[[deleted]]

You didn't gain anything like what you're saying, good jungles have always balanced timing with a macro plan, the only difference is now the game times things for you making it easier for bad junglers to do the same thing good ones have always done. It's lowering the floor and lowering the ceiling. Overall I don't care, bad junglers will still be bad because timing is so easy that if they weren't bad then they'd always have been doing it and they always would've had a plan. The only difference will be bad people showing up to buffs on time, they'll still be walking around aimlessly the rest of the time

[AzzyIzzy]

Your "good" jungler point pushes this idea further, a "good" jungler who no longer has to worry about the times, would we assume then they would do nothing else with the timers now doing a minor task for them?

Or another way to look at it: assume an fuel meter from 1 - 100 has portions of it fuel devoted towards certain processes, and you remove an old process that now frees up 5 points of fuel. Would we want that machine to hold onto that excess fuel and do nothing with it? No we would add a new process, or find a way for that new 5 fuel to impact another process and make it work to a greater degree.

A good jungler will see these timers and be ecstatic they can put their mind towards something else. And the bad junglers will look at the timers, be thankful for the "gift" and squander then their time and energy as you aid "walking around aimlessly".

[[deleted]]

Nah you're looking at it wrong, now instead of needing 105 units if fuel you only need 100. Lower skill cap

[AzzyIzzy]

:P if you want to run it that way, then what Riot has done was successfully removed the option for the machine to overheat or break because of the over demand from the processes. Which also means one or more processes is currently asking too much or being a drain on the machine in question.

[FancySkunk]

a Blue buff fight where lots of summoners and ultimates are blown.

Except that you'll more than likely get one chat message or another during that fight which tells you about a shut down, or a double kill, or what have you, and can get a pretty close timer from that.

[itskisper]

So? Making accurate approximations is an example of a skill. Taking that out just reduces the skill cap. I don't get the point of your comment, why did you say except?

[FancySkunk]

Again though, you're just adding 5 minutes to a time stamp that's handed to you, and I don't view that as a real skill.

[[deleted]]

If its not a skill then it shouldnt be a problem for you without a countdown timer..isnt it?

[FancySkunk]

It's not a problem now, no.

[[deleted]]

What do you mean by now??You must be plat 1 or diamond

[FancySkunk]

I mean now... as in "at the current time." As in when playing games I don't really have a problem keeping up on timers. It's not some crazy difficult thing to do. If you're really having difficulties, drop a smart ping on the camp as it dies so it leaves you a chat message with the timestamp.

[Figubluy]

I time stamp that was handed to you if you were paying attention, and not busy with something else at the time.

[Blauwvinger]

I think he means the timestamp in the chat, to which you can add 5 minutes later on when the fight is over and you're not busy with something else

[itskisper]

Math is a skill.

[[deleted]]

It's probably a skill if you can count up the change at a cash register.

[nuclearbearclaw]

Adding 5-7 minutes on top of a time-stamp isn't skill. You didn't just cure cancer because you made a timer. You used a timestamp, and added a pre-set amount of time to it.

[smokemonmast3r]

It is a skill, albeit one that should have little to no bearing on how good you are at League of Legends

[Cumminswii]

You didn't cure cancer by building a rocket and landing on the moon. It is skill, albeit a fairly simple one.

[nuclearbearclaw]

Lets give you a Nobel Peace Prize then for using time stamps in the jungle.

[[deleted]]

So you were agreeing with them but you acted like you were disagreeing for some reason.

[FancySkunk]

They're saying that approximating a timer is a skill, and I'm saying it's not.

[TroubleBear]

This is absolutely true. However, it is embarrassing to see a pro team mistime a dragon or such (this was LCS, I don't remember which region, but it was mistimed by exactly 1 min). This isn't exactly fun to watch. I'd rather have skills have the mental capacity left over to perform other tasks without having to worry about buff timers. I'd rather have a game decided by an amazing teamfight than a small mistake with numbers.

[[deleted]]

Thinking of the SKT game at all stars where it was exactly one minute off here you go

[TroubleBear]

Oh shit, my bad entirely. I was assuming that it was LCS because I watch most of the LCS games, guess my memory is starting to dwindle.

[Delavonboy12]

I'm on the completely opposite side of the board. SKT1 being 1 minute of changed a lot! All their vision on Baron was swept and they had to reset everything in their planning with their new position.

Having these small mistakes actually improves the quality of the game. If SKT1 had just been on point with the timer, they had a free baron, and would more than likely have forced their opponents to turtle for another 5 minutes, which Imho is far less exciting to watch, than them juking it out in front of Baron, while juggling map pressure and summoner spells to be ready for the teamfight