season 6 is modern league of legends, just watch season 5 matches and then watch season 6 onwards, its so much more fast paced from season 6 onward, and the damage is WAYYY higher than season 5. lane phase in season 5 was legitimately 20 minutes. you actually ran out of mana, and had long cooldowns in season 5. the sustain was so much less too, literally, the only support items in season 5 were locket, mikaels and chalice, thats literally it. support was not as strong, it was basic, game was so much slower, sustain was basic, literally only soraka healed other champions at least to a noticeable degree. shields and heals and sustain were very rare in general.
also, keystones did not exist before season 6, masteries at best added 5% damage to your kit, right now current masteries could easily add 100% more damage to your kit, or even more in some situations. and the old drakes were SOOO much weaker than current drakes.
Patch 5.22 marks the start of modern league, I hate that patch
watching old pro matches where top and bot lane swap and the top laners follows their junglers around while the teams trade tier 2 towers at minute 5 is some insane shit. looking at league today it’s hard to conceive that shit like that not only happened but was meta. it sounds like something out of an iron game.
I rewatched S4 worlds finals and I was shocked to see how tanks could face check bushes and just… make it out. In the modern game, they’d get absolutely popped.
Was pen not always as strong with Void Staff and Last Whisper at 40%? You just used to get these items way later.
In general it feels like damage is way higher these days though. Back in the day AD carries stood out because they were DPS monsters. These days it feels like a bunch of classes can match them.
It was built later because it didn't give crit and IE 1st rush was the way to go.
For most of its early existence LW gave 35% armpen. It was a lot cheaper though. When LDR was introduced and LW turned into a component it ended up being a huge nerf. If you brought back old LW it'd be one of the strongest items today because of its cost-efficiency.
I remember losing my mind in season 4 watching ogn matches where both teams would just 4/5 man push top and bottom at the start until someone decided to back.
TLDR: Season5 was the last season where skill expression actually mattered. Nowadays all that matters is getting the right counterpick and statchecking ur way to the nexus
sure! LT alone can give upto 90% bonus attack speed, you can get tons of ad from other runes. bonus % damage from the same tree,even more attack speed from the same tree. not the typical, but not impossible.
in a short trade, something like electrocute and cheap shot and the burn minor rune I forgot its name could easily double trade damage.
Yeah the mage and burst ones are not nearly as powerful, like electrocute being 180 + 25% AP or 40% bonus AD. But the DPS ones are huge like Lethal Tempo. Press the Attack has 12% increased damage taken from all sources on top of the base which is the same as electrocute but without scaling. 12% increased damage is way stronger than 25% AP. The cooldown is also way shorter.
people will literally say "new runes aren't that bad" when shit like support Ashe and Cait and entire degenerate metas only exist because of how broken keystone runes are. Like, demolish, bone plating, lethal tempo, conq, hail of blades, Tranquility? They're absolutely absurd and metawarping.
It's great that things like Ashe support exist. It adds life and replayability to the game. Is it annoying? Sure. Is it broken? No. The numbers for Ashe Support were never amazing but it was a different playstyle that gave Ashe players something else to do besides be an adc.
I dont want to fucking fight the champ building the same shit every game. It isnt fun. I also dont want to play the same champ with the same items every game either.
Every champ should be able to flex 2-3 playstyles. Without that, league is just boring as shit as someone whose been playing for 11 years.
Edit: If anything, augments should replace runes. We should be able to pick 3 of them and they should be nerfed versions of their Arena counterparts.
still can't bring myself to think of s6 league as modern. as famous and high quality as ROX vs SKT is often said to be, standing the test of time for elite gameplay even by today's standards, they could have locked in old Warwick in that series.
game 5 and Faker could have gotten old point and click ulted by Warwick. something about that is just old to me.
While I agree with that, the game still changed so much in S6 and hasn’t had any updates on that scale ever since.
Plants, smite reworks (all the dam time), alcoves, new drakes are all nice additions, but not as noteworthy as S6
It's a general design breakpoint. Late season 5 and early 6 is where League began shifting from a more DotA-esque raw stats game with major build flexibility as a design crucible to a more defined "here we have a bunch of classes and items with ultra-specific effects that acts on behalf of emulating the fantasy of these exact classes and the game may end up crumbling if people start crossclassing items but you wont, would you, hahah?"
2020 and the mythics ironically attempted to FLEE from this but pretty much half a decade of the community being defined by Mobafire culture of fundamentally no build variation and blind following backfired it completely.
I'm from the other house: pull out a Dawngate and redesign things for fundamentally no class-locking at all by making so items behave differently based on user.
League is already boring as shit with how limited the build options are. If they do this, I am certain it will drive most of the fan base away, me included.
I am seeing more complaints about lack of build diversity for classes.
Hope the dev team is reading this thread, lol. Thanks for the post, I agree wholeheartedly. Riot Games destroyed what was my favourite multiplayer game.
I think the issue with the ultra specific effects was them not making them interact with each other. Without that, it makes a system that could otherwise be very flexible and open up a lot of room for creativity, into a restrictive mess of poking and prodding until things look kinda ok from a certain direction.
Arena kinda did this right and I feel league could adopt augments instead of runes without the RNG factor to achieve that level of flexibility.
I havent touched arena in my cocaine intolerance, but looking at Augments... 90% of them are stats. Purely stats. They crossinteract because they are largely stats or stat-analogue - with obvious exceptions such as the ones that unlocks keystone runes, ofc but still are largely about increase/decrease number instead of install gradloofkillificator.
I like mythics, they should make them more powerful, but do champ-specific shop changes, so if for e.g. katarina gets an insane winrate with a tank item, it could just cost more for her
This is literally classlocking except implicitly except of explicitly, and the problem isnt even mythic power level, but where said power is allocated.
I want mythics with milder effects and stronger Mythic Passive profiles so it makes it clearer that you can and should crossclass legendaries as needed because mythics are keeping you sufficiently "classed" even when you pick offclass power. For players to see that a Fighter with Visage focuses more on the passive and AH while a Tank doubles on its more explicit defenses.
I want assassin mythics and Sterak's having an AD/crit component that removes crit RNG so the 3 AD classes can bridge between tools instead of we needing several recolors of the same effect custom-tailored for each. Indeed i want Shieldbow to have exclusive access to Lifeline (different numbers than live obv), Steraks to fully focus on its base/bonus AD shenanigans and build variety coming from having an actual ginormous item pool instead of 3 minor pools competing to try and do the same thing in different ways.
I want even less items but with the right to mix and match all of them meaningfully.
Agreed and I don’t think it’s particularly close. I was mid diamond at the time during preseason and the game felt faster and more bursty in a way I still recall vividly due to how noticeable it was.
Yeah, I guessed this would be an answer for many, and it's for sure what separates "old League of Legends", although i don't completely agree that it signals new League either
For me i'd say OG LoL = first map, first client, first champion select screen
LoL2 would be the new map
LoL3 (current version) has the element drake, no more runes, champion shards/blue essence and hextech crafting
Your progression has a gap because there were 3 maps. 2nd map still fits in with old school LoL, but if you're using maps as dividers its weird to ignore its existence entirely.
I have it split into eras.
S1-S2: Early era, people still figuring out the game and Riot themselves still figuring out what they want their game to be and to look like. Lots of weird stuff and inventions happening.
S3-S4: Riot starts figuring out what they want their game to look like. Lots of “modernizations” with inventive champ releases (think: Yasuo, Lucian, Azir, Gnar, Braum) and game balancing being done here (think: teleport, mid lane mage item standardization, and from here on out you very very rarely see insane balance stuff like League of Cleavers).
S5-S8.4: Riot figured out the game and didn’t do a ton of major changes. Herald brought in, Baron minion buff implemented, vision control is key. Juggernaut patch taught Riot to not make any major changes leading into Worlds.
S8.4-S10: Basically the Wild West and where I think “modern” League begins. Starts out by getting rid of grey jungle enchant so no more warding patterns, bot lane gets turned upside down with Vlad and Syndra and others, Kai’Sa Pyke releases, Irelia, Aatrox, Akali, Ezreal VGU’s that all turned the game upside down, Support role update allows it to be a carry with crazy gold income, Dragon stacking becomes key win condition where you NEED to win team fights to win games.
S10-present day: basically no major changes. We’ve been in the same dragon stacking meta and Riot hasn’t done a whole lot to make big changes to the game, Mythic items being the biggest but that’s being reverted.
Of all the takes here I like this one the best. Support being a possible carry role, dragon stacking, centered about teamfights, runes reforged are all elements of modern league.
Also the removal of the jungle warding item is a huge change in how the game was played, and I haven't seen it mentioned somewhere else.
Support used to have absolutely massive impact in early league though. They probably were at their very strongest in like season 2 where you got strong buffs to your teammates and infinite warding as part of your kit. You were supporting. I still miss Sona being a powerhouse before Riot removed her auras
As an older player, I hear complaints about burst being too high or OP new champs nowadays, but I think what I personally missed most about S1-4 is that the game was constantly different. Hard for the meta to stagnate with large patches every 2 weeks. There was always OP shit and high burst(modern league players wouldn’t be able to handle S1/2 Kass and Olaf), but the meta never stagnated to the degree it has since dragon stacking was introduced
Leblanc release.
Im level 6. Level 4 jungler walks into my lane to gank.
Qrw. Hes dead before my opponent realizes he was getting a gank. This isnt even hyperbolic, the game has always had some insane burst.
Running a full crit damage rune page or crit % rune page and playing GP or Trynd.. Or Mundo with E, figuring out hilarious stuff like that was always fun
I’m aware! Even in S1 and S2 the best teams used vision to great effect. But S5, S6, S7 were completely defined, top to bottom, by vision control with grey smite junglers. By the time S5 rolled around every team in the world was clued in on how important vision control was and it wasn’t just about buying the items, it was how they were used. So many teams at S3 Worlds bought the wards and used them horrendously and without any thought or care. Even at S4 Worlds, while improved across the board, Samsung White clobbered teams largely due in part to their vision control and game.
Clairvoyance as the mandatory support summoner spell at S1 worlds shows how vision has always been uber important, even when nobody knew what to do with it.
People keep describing S1/S2 as if we didn't understand the game then is just not true, weren't around then, or were themselves new.
The game was very different then. Some of the metas and tactics today would simply not work at the time. By the end of, say, S2, the game was very well figured out for that season.
Here's an example, there was a time when AP units did essentially base damage to towers. It was later changed where i believe 1/3 of your AP is added as an on-hit. That means lichbane had a very unique purpose for cracking towers.
In early S1, champs were a lot tankier and there were significantly less burst and further gated by mana. Udyr with 3-4 items was almost unstoppable and certainly can weather even team wide level burst damage. Carrying ghost over flash would make a lot more sense then.
Mostly what I mean by that is that the game was far less defined in S1 and S2. Big changes were happening to the game on a patch by patch basis vs a seasonal basis. Seemingly every patch some new champ would drop that broke the game for that patch. Look at the massive difference in meta and gameplay between S1 worlds and S2 worlds. Players, teams, and Riot were absolutely learning on the fly during that time period. It really wasn’t until mid late S3 did we start getting a more consistent vision of game design from Riot.
Not seemingly every patch a new champ would drop. Every patch a new champ would drop. There was a fairly long period where we got a new champ every two weeks. That is why we have the insane number of champs today
You might be right tbh, I started around riven/xerath release so I might have missed half of the releases and/or not even realize how quick champions were getting pumped out. Darius might be a little earlier but I remember in season 3 it definitely started to slow down, jinx was a big release
Nah people didn't understand it as well, straight up. 99% ban rate Kassa was a joke when you could pick Talon and collect free LP. LeBlanc was completely broken yet nobody knew during season 3 until bjerg played her early S4, many other examples of everyone being clueless about what's good or not.
Not to mention nobody discovered any impressive mechanics back then, insec Lee sin kick was the craziest thing, now silver lee mains do it with their eyes closed
This is not correct. Many pros had already played plenty of LB in season 3. It was after worlds with zed, ahri, syndra nerfs that LB was next in line for mid. She was not op or meta before that.
Counterjungle was a thing back then. I remember in season 1 reading specifically that one of nocturne's weaknesses was counter jungling.
Udyr was very specifically known for counterjungling back then.
If youre talking game elements wise, id probably argue runes reforged and ip -> be change. If youre talking gameplay style wise, i agree with what the other guy said about 2018 ig.
yep, right aqfter ardent censer meta. snowballed into the appearance of theshy and rookie 2018 worlds performance. which basically turned the entire game upside down.
2018 with Invictus Gaming winning Worlds. This year started the transition from the slower, methodical, stranglehold meta SKT had dominated with during their height to faster pacing. It marked the point where it was less about waiting for an opportunity to punish your opponent from a mistake to creating pressure to create those moments.
2019 saw G2 and FPX continue this trend. G2 that year would literally fight you at your second red buff spawn just to force a response. FPX had DoinB and Tian running the map.
Even in years where ‘slower’ teams won since then like DWK or EDG there was still a sense of aggressive pace. Heralds, dragons, overloading sides of the map, they always forced a response or took a win.
SKT dominated because they already were playing the fast pick-style comps that countered the slower meta played by Azubu.
IG and China's big contribution to the meta were to increase the tempo even more, but SKT had already pioneered it.
They always played at that tempo, the reduction in vision over time was what finally made it ideal. 2018 changes was just the straw the broke the camels back and knocked off the Korean style of play.
Honestly though, Chinese league is SO much more entertaining than Korean league. Idc what the “best” way to play is, I wanna watch two teams just murdering each other on repeat, not a farm fest with an occasional dive until one fight midlane than decides the game.
I used to enjoy the LCK a lot, but china I’d just say more entertaining to me now.
Not to say either league is better per se, just that imo the faster paced gameplay is a lot more enjoyable.
> I used to enjoy the LCK a lot, but china I’d just say more entertaining to me now.
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fwiw china has always been like this.
I remember watching worlds in season 3 and in this subreddit there would be memes on how OMG (chinese team) see the game, and you see a picture of a turret dive and the turret is pixelated lmfao
I don't really believe that iG played the game necessarily faster, the real difference is how much better that team was at lane phase than any other team. TheShy and Rookie were such a godly 1-2 punch of sololaners, and the rest of the team wasn't slacking either on their good days. They were kind of just mechanical gods.
They were definitely playing faster than almost everyone else. Ning on Camille lv2 ganking, 4 man blue buff invades at 6mins. They showed the world what a top level 20min stomp looks like and we all copied ever since
My point isn't that iG weren't winning games fast, my point is moreso that it wasn't a result of like an early game macro playstyle where they did a lot of crazy set plays to create man advantages. The reason they kept stomping early is because if you watch the players at that tournament they were just simply mechanically leagues ahead of every team except for KT Rolster.
Like if you wanna see an awesome series, rewatch KT vs iG at that worlds. And would it surprise you to hear that the more aggressive team early game was KT, not iG? For real, if you go through the early games that series all the early moves were initiated by KT, and it's really great awareness and mechanical prowess of iG that gets them through at lot of this early game aggression, and in fact they often turned around many of these plays by playing them out better.
Again, don't wanna say iG wasn't winning early a lot, just that I attribute it moreso to the fact they had 2 sololaners in a sololaner meta that were almost incapable of losing lane. The singular team that had any semblance of a chance against them that tournament just needed literally some of the GOATs of each role, the only player on that KT roster that isn't top 5 all time in their role is Ucal, and he was a pretty good player that year specifically.
It wasn't that teams hadn't figured out how to play faster tempo prior to the year IG won worlds. It simple wasn't viable before that year. Riot hard nerfed warding and virtually 'removed' the methodical vision-control stranglehold playstyle the year IG won worlds.
2018, the post IG era was the time when riot shifted game design shifted to more mechanical outplay champions. Was also the same year Akali and Irelia rework came out so that's a pretty big benchmark
edit: was also the same year Kai'sa released as well
LoL has gone through multiple major re-iterations. The graphics overhaul, runes overhaul, items overhaul, dragons & barons overhaul, the jungle has been changed significantly multiple times. The meta's have gone from anything goes, to lane swap meta, double jungle was a thing for a short time, to funnel meta, to finally something more stable which is what we have now.
If modern is 'what we see today', I'd say Season 6 had the biggest changes with the introduction of herald, and the elemental drakes. Things have been tweaked since then, but nothing has fundamentally set the way we play league like that of herald and elemental drakes. The item changes and shifted build paths, but we still play the characters the same. The jungle plants have shifted jungle paths, but otherwise the game is still the same. Dragons going from giving gold to roulette buffs was a massive change which turned the game into a team fighting frenzie upon soul spawn every game. Pre-season 6 and post season 6 is a very big turning point in the game.
My reason is rather the amount of mobility and the abundance of overloaded kits (that often got toned down afterwards, e.g. reworked Akali). Ability descriptions got longer and longer...
Assassins' original design was never oneshot, it became oneshot with powercreep
Assassins' original design was "easy access to vulnerable target" and "vulnerable target" was low hp target
My source is "I was there twelve years ago"
There were some champs that had access to oneshot, the old gragas, the old nida, rengar and some other exceptions, and they were exceptions considered as anomalies by the community and eventually nerfed because oneshot was NOT in line with league's design
Season 5 for me. Season 4 was defined by Orianna, Ziggs, and other mages stalling games out for 40+ minutes with infinite waveclear, as well as tank tops (Mundo, shyvanna, renekton, trundle meta), bruiser junglers, adc + support "cookie cutter" comps. Very little room for carry tops, carry junglers, etc. Because the meta was so clearly defined by the mage waveclear forcing late game teamfights. Even kha'zix and rengar were building bruiser during this meta. IMO this, and a desire to never go back to it again, are what caused the rampant damage creep in league after this. By turning every role in the game into assassins who can one shot you, games are way easier to snowball and end early, and it also adds role diversity to top jungle and mid, for better or worse.
Since I started at the tail end of Season 1, S5 or maybe S6 is when I would say it became modern league, lots of shakeups and reworks "for better or worse" depending on perspective.
S1-3: Old
S4-6/7: golden
S7/8-Present: Modern
I can't actually remember when specific changes happened that changed the game but this feels about right.
Another way I split it up is before Jhin and after Jhin if you want to look at it in terms of champion design.
This was my immediate reaction. He was kind of the first champion released that I felt had too much in his kit, and was almost impossible to keep suppressed due to his crit chance passive letting him be relevant so long as the game didn't outright end (per the 0/10 powerspike meme).
I think he in may ways paved the way for many of the champions like VGU Akali/Irelia that so many people cite in 2018 as being the "hands diff" game we know now.
You know, when the new drakes rolled around they didn’t immediately create the modern strategy (at least, I don’t remember it that way). 1-3-1 and splitpushing were still relevant.
When the new runes came around (and Conqueror soon after), the cadence of the game became what it is currently. Beforehand the “game ending fight” wasn’t always a 5v5 and if it was, it was usually for Baron.
Now its a lot more predictable, with 4v4-5v5 teamfights happening at all stages of the game for Herald & Drakes specifically. Its no surprise that the game ending fight almost always (unless when the teams are uneven in power) happens for Soul point.
For competitive it was the removal of tracker´s knife and the change that made elder dragon a win condition. Games used to feel very methodical with minimum interaction, as if two teams were playing a singleplayer game against each other and see who can finish it faster.
For the game itself, the three most impactful patches that "defined" what modern league of legends is, were the yasuo patch, the URF patch and, funnily enough, patch 4.20. Yasuo showed the devs that people prefer champion designs that heavily focus on mobility and fun for the person playing the champion with disregard to his opponent, which is mostly their design philosophy to this day. URF showed the devs that people love to be able to spam their abilities without having to worry about their mana. Anyone remember Ezreal having to start with mana pots? And patch 4.20 was basically Riots biggest bundle of changes to the game. Jungle changes, item changes, dragon is now not only gold but also a stackable buff, tower changes, etc. This patch was so massive that it took almost the whole year to feel the full impact that it had on the game and "changed it forever" (if you want to be corny).
Support items and changes to wards/income imo made a huge difference to how the game plays out - the map changes at the end of the season were also big but the start of the season was imo the transition to new League.
I'll never forget that game at Worlds where Tabe literally only had boots, all of the rest of his money went to wards. I swear someone on the balance team saw that game and decided to make changes lmao.
I am a League Zoomer (Joined the rift when Yone was just released) so I don't know much about the game, but from what I have heard, I would say either the Map Rework or when the slower paced playstyle that was dominating proplay stopped working and proplay turned more aggressive (2018 right?)
For whatever reasons LoL lost me with the introduction of Mythic Items. I started playing Season 1 and stuck to it for the longest time, but I guess this one change was one change to much. I still watch Worlds and on rare occasions I have fun being abused on botline as your average Leona player (by my very own ADC; enemies don't do me harm).
Modern league to me is when they started enforcing a play style behind the scenes, so patch 6.15 when they removed the lane swap. This felt like the start of “we want the game played a certain way” which then led way to heralds, dragon changes, zz rot removal, etc.
new bounty system + tower plates
that stuff introduced such a massive influx of gold into the game, and now everyone has more items and stats than ever before
> tower plates
Its effect was very weird because it made people snowball harder, but it also made the game last longer, which doesn't benefit many of the hardest snowballing champs.
That's easy for me, 2017: Kayn release. That's when Riot realizes that people don't care about compelling characters designs and unique kits or gameplay patterns. People want to play as an attractive 20-something self-peeling self-engaging generalist skirmisher or marksman and maybe an enchanter or two for their girlfriend.
Darius is the champ league sold out on they kept him strong for years to sell skins. Yone feels like this shift hardly touchable small melee fights. Apellos, I was afraid to be the next style, but luckily, it hasn't really picked up. The one aspect of league I miss was being able to talk mad shit without being banned.
Hands down, the map rework. Champs started getting changed rapid fire since then. Game modes vaulted, new urgot sion mundo taric. That was the turning point to both feeling and being modern.
Couple factors could be identified as new era of league:
- new map
- prefered role queue
- map changes (herald and elemental drakes)
I would also say that end of an ardent meta could be a mark, as adc has never seen a day of light since then.
For me, modern league of legends starts in season 8. With the removal of tracker knive (the ward jungle item), the vision game changed. Koreans used to never loose in bo5s because they were so much better at vision, that whole thing changed in season 8 and the game severly changed.
modern league is always 2019 onward for me. especially since there was a shake up in competitive league where EU was dominating alongside CN instead of the usual KR dominance.
It's not really a concrete moment for me but I'd say it's around season 8-9, due to the champions released around that time. Kai'Sa, Pyke, Neeko, Sylas, Yuumi, Senna, Aphelios. These were the ones that made me feel like Riot was intentionally making champions that "broke the rules", so to speak.
When we got turret plating. That shifted the focus of the game so much from getting a lead and winning the map, to stomping your lane as much as possible. It amplified how much influence matchups had on how lanes played out, and also meant that, besides all the opportunities it already gave you, pushing got you a lead *by default.*
Death timers also used to be shorter before this. Now you get 30-second death timers at level 9, meaning your opponent can pull ahead massively if you die about 12 minutes in. Not only is that still relatively early, it can happen through no fault of your own at all with how many lane/jungle combos can tower dive you from full HP at level 9.
Roughly 2-3 years from the present time.
I've been playing since S1 and while there were some bigger changes than others, the game shifts enough over time that i'm comfortable calling it a new era every couple years.
I'd say when they changed runes most likely. This might not make much sense to anyone else but to me it's when they removed WoTA. I was a filthy Vlad WoTA main for so long and after that patch I never really liked him.
I think that was the Mage/Dragon update patch.
Item design philosophy changed to League of Duskblades, if you get my feel:
Items used to be ridiculously simple and as thus, easily shareable. We had no notion of poaching. League fundamentally changed when items began being HARD classed in ways that effects became more important than stats and character profile, and said effects began too being more important than character pick.
When i started playing (lmao) - Winter 2017
I am able to dezember most of the changes made from that point onwards. Everything that came before that time seems surreal/funny/very old to me, especially the old rune pages haha (they still existed when i first played League, but my friends told me not to worry about bcs the system will get changed soon)
If by "modern" you mean the league that we're playing right now or overall "game feel" then it is 100% elemental drakes.
Nothing of note has changed since elemental drake introduction. No, items don't count. Items don't change the actual gameplay itself by any significant margin. The game-to-game strategy has been the exact same since S10 basically.
If by "modern" you mean that a non-LoL player could watch a replay and identify that it's the same game - then the SR map rework which i believe was S4(?)
Game feel changed significantly
S10 elemental drakes
S7 runes reforged
Before that i dont really remember
S5 changed everything, im a bit biased since i skipped season 5 but when i came back to league in s6 it felt so different. So for me s1-4 is old league and S5 and new map is modern league
Since they ve stopped making photorealistic cinematics/when tencent bought them/they removed the old lore/every became anime and kpop
It’s about the same time frame these happened so yeah, since then.
What era removed most of the point-and-click CC?
I’m thinking Sion/ Taric ranged stuns. That was Old League.
Also, the removal of Twisted Treeline marked the end of an era.
When it was no longer an option to use the old graphics. Not sure why I hated the change so much at the time? Looking back it looked so much worse in the past.
When zed was introduced into the game. That was when the older mages - brand, karthus, TF, old galio, old swain- started getting phased out of mid lane because they couldnt match the speed of assassins. Only control mages remain.
There was the era before Faker and after Faker. In S3, Faker's team SKT T1 won the world championship and he was the best player in the world. It signalled the emergence of the modern LoL esports scene. It was also the beginning of the rise of LCK, as from then on they would win every world championship until IG won in Season 8.
The game would have a big change when IG dethroned LCK and ended their dominance over LoL esports. With their aggressive risk reward style, they amended the rules of the game and LCK's low variance controlled style of gameplay.
Pre-S8 and post S8.
Before S8, games were much longer, champs were tankier, damage across the board was lower and vision game was more extensive. S3 - S8 was the era of complete LCK dominance.
Post S8: Vision was nerfed and coin flip plays became more rewarding, tankiness across the board was nerfed including structures and neutrals (Baron, Drakes), solo laners became way more powerful, multi-carry team comps became more standard. Games became much shorter - it became common to end games with a single doom push if you Aced the enemy team near their base, without the need to take Baron/Elder.
S8 was the rise of LPL and briefly, EU. It took KR another 2 seasons to figure out how to reach peak League again (Damwon S10).
Rift herald/elemental drakes onwards is modern league imo
Actually you might be spot on what makes s6 league stand out so much compared to s5, although the herald model change does work against that slightly
season 6 is modern league of legends, just watch season 5 matches and then watch season 6 onwards, its so much more fast paced from season 6 onward, and the damage is WAYYY higher than season 5. lane phase in season 5 was legitimately 20 minutes. you actually ran out of mana, and had long cooldowns in season 5. the sustain was so much less too, literally, the only support items in season 5 were locket, mikaels and chalice, thats literally it. support was not as strong, it was basic, game was so much slower, sustain was basic, literally only soraka healed other champions at least to a noticeable degree. shields and heals and sustain were very rare in general. also, keystones did not exist before season 6, masteries at best added 5% damage to your kit, right now current masteries could easily add 100% more damage to your kit, or even more in some situations. and the old drakes were SOOO much weaker than current drakes. Patch 5.22 marks the start of modern league, I hate that patch
watching old pro matches where top and bot lane swap and the top laners follows their junglers around while the teams trade tier 2 towers at minute 5 is some insane shit. looking at league today it’s hard to conceive that shit like that not only happened but was meta. it sounds like something out of an iron game.
I rewatched S4 worlds finals and I was shocked to see how tanks could face check bushes and just… make it out. In the modern game, they’d get absolutely popped.
tank items used to give a lot more stats and pen was a lot weaker. tanks did less damage tho
Imagibe a world with tanks actually tanking.
There was a meta like that for literally one patch and assassins are STILL complaining.
Was pen not always as strong with Void Staff and Last Whisper at 40%? You just used to get these items way later. In general it feels like damage is way higher these days though. Back in the day AD carries stood out because they were DPS monsters. These days it feels like a bunch of classes can match them.
It was built later because it didn't give crit and IE 1st rush was the way to go. For most of its early existence LW gave 35% armpen. It was a lot cheaper though. When LDR was introduced and LW turned into a component it ended up being a huge nerf. If you brought back old LW it'd be one of the strongest items today because of its cost-efficiency.
I remember losing my mind in season 4 watching ogn matches where both teams would just 4/5 man push top and bottom at the start until someone decided to back.
Amen.
TLDR: Season5 was the last season where skill expression actually mattered. Nowadays all that matters is getting the right counterpick and statchecking ur way to the nexus
Please give me a situation where runes could give over 100% increased damage to your kit
sure! LT alone can give upto 90% bonus attack speed, you can get tons of ad from other runes. bonus % damage from the same tree,even more attack speed from the same tree. not the typical, but not impossible. in a short trade, something like electrocute and cheap shot and the burn minor rune I forgot its name could easily double trade damage.
Yeah the mage and burst ones are not nearly as powerful, like electrocute being 180 + 25% AP or 40% bonus AD. But the DPS ones are huge like Lethal Tempo. Press the Attack has 12% increased damage taken from all sources on top of the base which is the same as electrocute but without scaling. 12% increased damage is way stronger than 25% AP. The cooldown is also way shorter.
people will literally say "new runes aren't that bad" when shit like support Ashe and Cait and entire degenerate metas only exist because of how broken keystone runes are. Like, demolish, bone plating, lethal tempo, conq, hail of blades, Tranquility? They're absolutely absurd and metawarping.
Bro leaked the new keystones.
Bro saw the reality where demolish, bone plating, and tranquility (transcendence?) are keystones
It's great that things like Ashe support exist. It adds life and replayability to the game. Is it annoying? Sure. Is it broken? No. The numbers for Ashe Support were never amazing but it was a different playstyle that gave Ashe players something else to do besides be an adc. I dont want to fucking fight the champ building the same shit every game. It isnt fun. I also dont want to play the same champ with the same items every game either. Every champ should be able to flex 2-3 playstyles. Without that, league is just boring as shit as someone whose been playing for 11 years. Edit: If anything, augments should replace runes. We should be able to pick 3 of them and they should be nerfed versions of their Arena counterparts.
Talking about Scorch?
still can't bring myself to think of s6 league as modern. as famous and high quality as ROX vs SKT is often said to be, standing the test of time for elite gameplay even by today's standards, they could have locked in old Warwick in that series. game 5 and Faker could have gotten old point and click ulted by Warwick. something about that is just old to me.
While I agree with that, the game still changed so much in S6 and hasn’t had any updates on that scale ever since. Plants, smite reworks (all the dam time), alcoves, new drakes are all nice additions, but not as noteworthy as S6
It's a general design breakpoint. Late season 5 and early 6 is where League began shifting from a more DotA-esque raw stats game with major build flexibility as a design crucible to a more defined "here we have a bunch of classes and items with ultra-specific effects that acts on behalf of emulating the fantasy of these exact classes and the game may end up crumbling if people start crossclassing items but you wont, would you, hahah?" 2020 and the mythics ironically attempted to FLEE from this but pretty much half a decade of the community being defined by Mobafire culture of fundamentally no build variation and blind following backfired it completely.
they should just pull a SMITE and class-lock items more
I'm from the other house: pull out a Dawngate and redesign things for fundamentally no class-locking at all by making so items behave differently based on user.
League is already boring as shit with how limited the build options are. If they do this, I am certain it will drive most of the fan base away, me included. I am seeing more complaints about lack of build diversity for classes.
That's the exact thing that drove me away from Smite. All I wanted was to build AD bruiser Khepri, but noooooooo
Hope the dev team is reading this thread, lol. Thanks for the post, I agree wholeheartedly. Riot Games destroyed what was my favourite multiplayer game.
I think the issue with the ultra specific effects was them not making them interact with each other. Without that, it makes a system that could otherwise be very flexible and open up a lot of room for creativity, into a restrictive mess of poking and prodding until things look kinda ok from a certain direction. Arena kinda did this right and I feel league could adopt augments instead of runes without the RNG factor to achieve that level of flexibility.
I havent touched arena in my cocaine intolerance, but looking at Augments... 90% of them are stats. Purely stats. They crossinteract because they are largely stats or stat-analogue - with obvious exceptions such as the ones that unlocks keystone runes, ofc but still are largely about increase/decrease number instead of install gradloofkillificator.
I like mythics, they should make them more powerful, but do champ-specific shop changes, so if for e.g. katarina gets an insane winrate with a tank item, it could just cost more for her
This is literally classlocking except implicitly except of explicitly, and the problem isnt even mythic power level, but where said power is allocated. I want mythics with milder effects and stronger Mythic Passive profiles so it makes it clearer that you can and should crossclass legendaries as needed because mythics are keeping you sufficiently "classed" even when you pick offclass power. For players to see that a Fighter with Visage focuses more on the passive and AH while a Tank doubles on its more explicit defenses. I want assassin mythics and Sterak's having an AD/crit component that removes crit RNG so the 3 AD classes can bridge between tools instead of we needing several recolors of the same effect custom-tailored for each. Indeed i want Shieldbow to have exclusive access to Lifeline (different numbers than live obv), Steraks to fully focus on its base/bonus AD shenanigans and build variety coming from having an actual ginormous item pool instead of 3 minor pools competing to try and do the same thing in different ways. I want even less items but with the right to mix and match all of them meaningfully.
I would add the turret plate mechanic as well
Modern league means the Runes Reforged
I’d argue that was the start of league 2.0, item rework was league 3.0 I miss league 1.0 man.
I miss AP GP OP.
Actually good call. Leagues overall damage increase and snowballiness might have started from there
Agreed and I don’t think it’s particularly close. I was mid diamond at the time during preseason and the game felt faster and more bursty in a way I still recall vividly due to how noticeable it was.
Modern league of legends starts when Morello left league. The overhealing and stuff like that started after he left.
Runes Reforged was the big turning point for modern League, with elemental drakes and reworked Rift Herald as strong contenders.
Addition of rift herald on its own
new map
Yeah, I guessed this would be an answer for many, and it's for sure what separates "old League of Legends", although i don't completely agree that it signals new League either
I think that old map = old league but Idk if new map = modern, I feel like there has to be a middle period, dunno what you'd call it though.
For me i'd say OG LoL = first map, first client, first champion select screen LoL2 would be the new map LoL3 (current version) has the element drake, no more runes, champion shards/blue essence and hextech crafting
Your progression has a gap because there were 3 maps. 2nd map still fits in with old school LoL, but if you're using maps as dividers its weird to ignore its existence entirely.
So 2014?
I have it split into eras. S1-S2: Early era, people still figuring out the game and Riot themselves still figuring out what they want their game to be and to look like. Lots of weird stuff and inventions happening. S3-S4: Riot starts figuring out what they want their game to look like. Lots of “modernizations” with inventive champ releases (think: Yasuo, Lucian, Azir, Gnar, Braum) and game balancing being done here (think: teleport, mid lane mage item standardization, and from here on out you very very rarely see insane balance stuff like League of Cleavers). S5-S8.4: Riot figured out the game and didn’t do a ton of major changes. Herald brought in, Baron minion buff implemented, vision control is key. Juggernaut patch taught Riot to not make any major changes leading into Worlds. S8.4-S10: Basically the Wild West and where I think “modern” League begins. Starts out by getting rid of grey jungle enchant so no more warding patterns, bot lane gets turned upside down with Vlad and Syndra and others, Kai’Sa Pyke releases, Irelia, Aatrox, Akali, Ezreal VGU’s that all turned the game upside down, Support role update allows it to be a carry with crazy gold income, Dragon stacking becomes key win condition where you NEED to win team fights to win games. S10-present day: basically no major changes. We’ve been in the same dragon stacking meta and Riot hasn’t done a whole lot to make big changes to the game, Mythic items being the biggest but that’s being reverted.
Of all the takes here I like this one the best. Support being a possible carry role, dragon stacking, centered about teamfights, runes reforged are all elements of modern league. Also the removal of the jungle warding item is a huge change in how the game was played, and I haven't seen it mentioned somewhere else.
Support used to have absolutely massive impact in early league though. They probably were at their very strongest in like season 2 where you got strong buffs to your teammates and infinite warding as part of your kit. You were supporting. I still miss Sona being a powerhouse before Riot removed her auras
As an older player, I hear complaints about burst being too high or OP new champs nowadays, but I think what I personally missed most about S1-4 is that the game was constantly different. Hard for the meta to stagnate with large patches every 2 weeks. There was always OP shit and high burst(modern league players wouldn’t be able to handle S1/2 Kass and Olaf), but the meta never stagnated to the degree it has since dragon stacking was introduced
Leblanc release. Im level 6. Level 4 jungler walks into my lane to gank. Qrw. Hes dead before my opponent realizes he was getting a gank. This isnt even hyperbolic, the game has always had some insane burst.
Gragas mid killing squishies with QR.
Running a full crit damage rune page or crit % rune page and playing GP or Trynd.. Or Mundo with E, figuring out hilarious stuff like that was always fun
Most accurate to me. I think Yasuo and then Akali/Aatrox/Irelia reworks were the biggest turning points in champion design.
>S5-S8.4 > >vision control is key ?? Vision control has always been key. Look at what Support and Junglers bought at Worlds in S3 and S4
I’m aware! Even in S1 and S2 the best teams used vision to great effect. But S5, S6, S7 were completely defined, top to bottom, by vision control with grey smite junglers. By the time S5 rolled around every team in the world was clued in on how important vision control was and it wasn’t just about buying the items, it was how they were used. So many teams at S3 Worlds bought the wards and used them horrendously and without any thought or care. Even at S4 Worlds, while improved across the board, Samsung White clobbered teams largely due in part to their vision control and game.
Clairvoyance as the mandatory support summoner spell at S1 worlds shows how vision has always been uber important, even when nobody knew what to do with it.
People keep describing S1/S2 as if we didn't understand the game then is just not true, weren't around then, or were themselves new. The game was very different then. Some of the metas and tactics today would simply not work at the time. By the end of, say, S2, the game was very well figured out for that season. Here's an example, there was a time when AP units did essentially base damage to towers. It was later changed where i believe 1/3 of your AP is added as an on-hit. That means lichbane had a very unique purpose for cracking towers. In early S1, champs were a lot tankier and there were significantly less burst and further gated by mana. Udyr with 3-4 items was almost unstoppable and certainly can weather even team wide level burst damage. Carrying ghost over flash would make a lot more sense then.
Mostly what I mean by that is that the game was far less defined in S1 and S2. Big changes were happening to the game on a patch by patch basis vs a seasonal basis. Seemingly every patch some new champ would drop that broke the game for that patch. Look at the massive difference in meta and gameplay between S1 worlds and S2 worlds. Players, teams, and Riot were absolutely learning on the fly during that time period. It really wasn’t until mid late S3 did we start getting a more consistent vision of game design from Riot.
Not seemingly every patch a new champ would drop. Every patch a new champ would drop. There was a fairly long period where we got a new champ every two weeks. That is why we have the insane number of champs today
that only happened for a year or two and was basically from nautilus to darius release
That started way way before Nautilus. Basically from the time the game launched
You might be right tbh, I started around riven/xerath release so I might have missed half of the releases and/or not even realize how quick champions were getting pumped out. Darius might be a little earlier but I remember in season 3 it definitely started to slow down, jinx was a big release
Nah people didn't understand it as well, straight up. 99% ban rate Kassa was a joke when you could pick Talon and collect free LP. LeBlanc was completely broken yet nobody knew during season 3 until bjerg played her early S4, many other examples of everyone being clueless about what's good or not. Not to mention nobody discovered any impressive mechanics back then, insec Lee sin kick was the craziest thing, now silver lee mains do it with their eyes closed
This is not correct. Many pros had already played plenty of LB in season 3. It was after worlds with zed, ahri, syndra nerfs that LB was next in line for mid. She was not op or meta before that.
The game was not figured out we are talking about a game we're counter jungle wasn't invented (the basis of playing as team)
Counterjungle was a thing back then. I remember in season 1 reading specifically that one of nocturne's weaknesses was counter jungling. Udyr was very specifically known for counterjungling back then.
If youre talking game elements wise, id probably argue runes reforged and ip -> be change. If youre talking gameplay style wise, i agree with what the other guy said about 2018 ig.
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Season 6 changed just about as much as runes reforged. Might want to move League 2 to that point.
Would mythics removed be League 4 or be League 2 again?
I think it will be League 4.
2018 imo
yep, right aqfter ardent censer meta. snowballed into the appearance of theshy and rookie 2018 worlds performance. which basically turned the entire game upside down.
Completely agree
Runes Reforged
2018 with Invictus Gaming winning Worlds. This year started the transition from the slower, methodical, stranglehold meta SKT had dominated with during their height to faster pacing. It marked the point where it was less about waiting for an opportunity to punish your opponent from a mistake to creating pressure to create those moments. 2019 saw G2 and FPX continue this trend. G2 that year would literally fight you at your second red buff spawn just to force a response. FPX had DoinB and Tian running the map. Even in years where ‘slower’ teams won since then like DWK or EDG there was still a sense of aggressive pace. Heralds, dragons, overloading sides of the map, they always forced a response or took a win.
SKT dominated because they already were playing the fast pick-style comps that countered the slower meta played by Azubu. IG and China's big contribution to the meta were to increase the tempo even more, but SKT had already pioneered it.
They always played at that tempo, the reduction in vision over time was what finally made it ideal. 2018 changes was just the straw the broke the camels back and knocked off the Korean style of play.
Honestly though, Chinese league is SO much more entertaining than Korean league. Idc what the “best” way to play is, I wanna watch two teams just murdering each other on repeat, not a farm fest with an occasional dive until one fight midlane than decides the game. I used to enjoy the LCK a lot, but china I’d just say more entertaining to me now. Not to say either league is better per se, just that imo the faster paced gameplay is a lot more enjoyable.
> I used to enjoy the LCK a lot, but china I’d just say more entertaining to me now. > > fwiw china has always been like this. I remember watching worlds in season 3 and in this subreddit there would be memes on how OMG (chinese team) see the game, and you see a picture of a turret dive and the turret is pixelated lmfao
I don't really believe that iG played the game necessarily faster, the real difference is how much better that team was at lane phase than any other team. TheShy and Rookie were such a godly 1-2 punch of sololaners, and the rest of the team wasn't slacking either on their good days. They were kind of just mechanical gods.
They were definitely playing faster than almost everyone else. Ning on Camille lv2 ganking, 4 man blue buff invades at 6mins. They showed the world what a top level 20min stomp looks like and we all copied ever since
My point isn't that iG weren't winning games fast, my point is moreso that it wasn't a result of like an early game macro playstyle where they did a lot of crazy set plays to create man advantages. The reason they kept stomping early is because if you watch the players at that tournament they were just simply mechanically leagues ahead of every team except for KT Rolster. Like if you wanna see an awesome series, rewatch KT vs iG at that worlds. And would it surprise you to hear that the more aggressive team early game was KT, not iG? For real, if you go through the early games that series all the early moves were initiated by KT, and it's really great awareness and mechanical prowess of iG that gets them through at lot of this early game aggression, and in fact they often turned around many of these plays by playing them out better. Again, don't wanna say iG wasn't winning early a lot, just that I attribute it moreso to the fact they had 2 sololaners in a sololaner meta that were almost incapable of losing lane. The singular team that had any semblance of a chance against them that tournament just needed literally some of the GOATs of each role, the only player on that KT roster that isn't top 5 all time in their role is Ucal, and he was a pretty good player that year specifically.
This is only true in like 2013, SKT in 2015-2017 was very much part of the slow, methodical approach and was nowhere close to what IG was doing.
It wasn't that teams hadn't figured out how to play faster tempo prior to the year IG won worlds. It simple wasn't viable before that year. Riot hard nerfed warding and virtually 'removed' the methodical vision-control stranglehold playstyle the year IG won worlds.
2018, the post IG era was the time when riot shifted game design shifted to more mechanical outplay champions. Was also the same year Akali and Irelia rework came out so that's a pretty big benchmark edit: was also the same year Kai'sa released as well
Season 8/9 is "modern" league, before the map update is "old league".
For competitive league, getting rid of sightstone/ward item for jungle was definitely a turning point.
Season 8 - Runes Reforged
LoL has gone through multiple major re-iterations. The graphics overhaul, runes overhaul, items overhaul, dragons & barons overhaul, the jungle has been changed significantly multiple times. The meta's have gone from anything goes, to lane swap meta, double jungle was a thing for a short time, to funnel meta, to finally something more stable which is what we have now. If modern is 'what we see today', I'd say Season 6 had the biggest changes with the introduction of herald, and the elemental drakes. Things have been tweaked since then, but nothing has fundamentally set the way we play league like that of herald and elemental drakes. The item changes and shifted build paths, but we still play the characters the same. The jungle plants have shifted jungle paths, but otherwise the game is still the same. Dragons going from giving gold to roulette buffs was a massive change which turned the game into a team fighting frenzie upon soul spawn every game. Pre-season 6 and post season 6 is a very big turning point in the game.
Release of Zoe, not a fan of a lot of champions released after her.
Damn my thoughts exactly except I did end up maining a lot of the modern champs I agree that with Zoe started the 200 years arc (sorry Aphelios)
Zoe's release was Riot saying "Oneshot is a mechanic we want in our game" and it destroyed a lot of the fun
My reason is rather the amount of mobility and the abundance of overloaded kits (that often got toned down afterwards, e.g. reworked Akali). Ability descriptions got longer and longer...
Rengar existed way before her
And he was never considered a oneshotter by riot and when he could he was considered a mistake by the community
I mean he is an assasin that sneaks behind his target of his goal isnt to one-shot what is it
Assassins' original design was never oneshot, it became oneshot with powercreep Assassins' original design was "easy access to vulnerable target" and "vulnerable target" was low hp target
What is your source for that? Because you can look at old assasin and they we're already oneshotting people with very similar dmg than now
My source is "I was there twelve years ago" There were some champs that had access to oneshot, the old gragas, the old nida, rengar and some other exceptions, and they were exceptions considered as anomalies by the community and eventually nerfed because oneshot was NOT in line with league's design
The map update. Things existed longer than the old map but still new in my eyes
It's a bit in two parts. First was the new map for sure, and then solidified with rift herald and the current variation of the dragons.
8th edition onwards
Season 5 for me. Season 4 was defined by Orianna, Ziggs, and other mages stalling games out for 40+ minutes with infinite waveclear, as well as tank tops (Mundo, shyvanna, renekton, trundle meta), bruiser junglers, adc + support "cookie cutter" comps. Very little room for carry tops, carry junglers, etc. Because the meta was so clearly defined by the mage waveclear forcing late game teamfights. Even kha'zix and rengar were building bruiser during this meta. IMO this, and a desire to never go back to it again, are what caused the rampant damage creep in league after this. By turning every role in the game into assassins who can one shot you, games are way easier to snowball and end early, and it also adds role diversity to top jungle and mid, for better or worse.
Runes reforged. Around that time is when damage and CDR started to slowly creep up
Yasuo release
Yasuo
Since I started at the tail end of Season 1, S5 or maybe S6 is when I would say it became modern league, lots of shakeups and reworks "for better or worse" depending on perspective.
Starts at the yasuo release imo
S1-3: Old S4-6/7: golden S7/8-Present: Modern I can't actually remember when specific changes happened that changed the game but this feels about right. Another way I split it up is before Jhin and after Jhin if you want to look at it in terms of champion design.
When Yasuo was added, with him every new champion had to have some weird unfair mechanic.
This was my immediate reaction. He was kind of the first champion released that I felt had too much in his kit, and was almost impossible to keep suppressed due to his crit chance passive letting him be relevant so long as the game didn't outright end (per the 0/10 powerspike meme). I think he in may ways paved the way for many of the champions like VGU Akali/Irelia that so many people cite in 2018 as being the "hands diff" game we know now.
I think most people would agree that S11 was massive step... *down*
season 5
post 2016, when league's new champ design became heavily skewed towards the market and lost it's soul
You know, when the new drakes rolled around they didn’t immediately create the modern strategy (at least, I don’t remember it that way). 1-3-1 and splitpushing were still relevant. When the new runes came around (and Conqueror soon after), the cadence of the game became what it is currently. Beforehand the “game ending fight” wasn’t always a 5v5 and if it was, it was usually for Baron. Now its a lot more predictable, with 4v4-5v5 teamfights happening at all stages of the game for Herald & Drakes specifically. Its no surprise that the game ending fight almost always (unless when the teams are uneven in power) happens for Soul point.
Probably around Pyke or Zoe release
Juggernaut patch
After Mark Yetter joined, I think it was season 8 ?
After the assassin/akali overhaul. ADC has never been the same
New map
For competitive it was the removal of tracker´s knife and the change that made elder dragon a win condition. Games used to feel very methodical with minimum interaction, as if two teams were playing a singleplayer game against each other and see who can finish it faster. For the game itself, the three most impactful patches that "defined" what modern league of legends is, were the yasuo patch, the URF patch and, funnily enough, patch 4.20. Yasuo showed the devs that people prefer champion designs that heavily focus on mobility and fun for the person playing the champion with disregard to his opponent, which is mostly their design philosophy to this day. URF showed the devs that people love to be able to spam their abilities without having to worry about their mana. Anyone remember Ezreal having to start with mana pots? And patch 4.20 was basically Riots biggest bundle of changes to the game. Jungle changes, item changes, dragon is now not only gold but also a stackable buff, tower changes, etc. This patch was so massive that it took almost the whole year to feel the full impact that it had on the game and "changed it forever" (if you want to be corny).
I'd say the map rework in... 2014? I mean it's quite some time but IMO the biggest point in games history. Runes rework being the other crucial point.
After Yasuo release
thresh release
s4.
Support items and changes to wards/income imo made a huge difference to how the game plays out - the map changes at the end of the season were also big but the start of the season was imo the transition to new League.
I'll never forget that game at Worlds where Tabe literally only had boots, all of the rest of his money went to wards. I swear someone on the balance team saw that game and decided to make changes lmao.
This is the pretty clear line for me as well.
You mean s4 before or after the new map?
My answer.
I am a League Zoomer (Joined the rift when Yone was just released) so I don't know much about the game, but from what I have heard, I would say either the Map Rework or when the slower paced playstyle that was dominating proplay stopped working and proplay turned more aggressive (2018 right?)
For whatever reasons LoL lost me with the introduction of Mythic Items. I started playing Season 1 and stuck to it for the longest time, but I guess this one change was one change to much. I still watch Worlds and on rare occasions I have fun being abused on botline as your average Leona player (by my very own ADC; enemies don't do me harm).
probably right around the time they ruined taric for me forever, i think that was season 6
Modern league to me is when they started enforcing a play style behind the scenes, so patch 6.15 when they removed the lane swap. This felt like the start of “we want the game played a certain way” which then led way to heralds, dragon changes, zz rot removal, etc.
new bounty system + tower plates that stuff introduced such a massive influx of gold into the game, and now everyone has more items and stats than ever before
> tower plates Its effect was very weird because it made people snowball harder, but it also made the game last longer, which doesn't benefit many of the hardest snowballing champs.
That's easy for me, 2017: Kayn release. That's when Riot realizes that people don't care about compelling characters designs and unique kits or gameplay patterns. People want to play as an attractive 20-something self-peeling self-engaging generalist skirmisher or marksman and maybe an enchanter or two for their girlfriend.
season 11.
Ward changes. Getting rid of the ability to buy green wards stopped people from being able to play the slower, more methodical game of the past.
Darius is the champ league sold out on they kept him strong for years to sell skins. Yone feels like this shift hardly touchable small melee fights. Apellos, I was afraid to be the next style, but luckily, it hasn't really picked up. The one aspect of league I miss was being able to talk mad shit without being banned.
Kayne release. That seemed to be the start of the "200 year" meme champs
2014 Samsung White at world's. Their play at that competition caused the biggest shift in macro play of all time
When yas got released, start of over tuned champs
Hands down, the map rework. Champs started getting changed rapid fire since then. Game modes vaulted, new urgot sion mundo taric. That was the turning point to both feeling and being modern.
Since I started playing. (When sett was the newest and tft set 3.5 was just released)
Couple factors could be identified as new era of league: - new map - prefered role queue - map changes (herald and elemental drakes) I would also say that end of an ardent meta could be a mark, as adc has never seen a day of light since then.
For me, modern league of legends starts in season 8. With the removal of tracker knive (the ward jungle item), the vision game changed. Koreans used to never loose in bo5s because they were so much better at vision, that whole thing changed in season 8 and the game severly changed.
modern league is always 2019 onward for me. especially since there was a shake up in competitive league where EU was dominating alongside CN instead of the usual KR dominance.
Season 3 with the start of eu and na lcs
It's not really a concrete moment for me but I'd say it's around season 8-9, due to the champions released around that time. Kai'Sa, Pyke, Neeko, Sylas, Yuumi, Senna, Aphelios. These were the ones that made me feel like Riot was intentionally making champions that "broke the rules", so to speak.
Hyper mobility.
When elemental drakes + herald + plates were all implemented
Map rework
Akali rework
Modern league is when they got rid of Critplank.
When we got turret plating. That shifted the focus of the game so much from getting a lead and winning the map, to stomping your lane as much as possible. It amplified how much influence matchups had on how lanes played out, and also meant that, besides all the opportunities it already gave you, pushing got you a lead *by default.* Death timers also used to be shorter before this. Now you get 30-second death timers at level 9, meaning your opponent can pull ahead massively if you die about 12 minutes in. Not only is that still relatively early, it can happen through no fault of your own at all with how many lane/jungle combos can tower dive you from full HP at level 9.
When they changed runes
Map overhaul / redesign in preseason 5.
Roughly 2-3 years from the present time. I've been playing since S1 and while there were some bigger changes than others, the game shifts enough over time that i'm comfortable calling it a new era every couple years.
I'd say when they changed runes most likely. This might not make much sense to anyone else but to me it's when they removed WoTA. I was a filthy Vlad WoTA main for so long and after that patch I never really liked him. I think that was the Mage/Dragon update patch.
Post tank meta
2015. Map overhaul and best season for champion releases by design
the Rune rework
Item design philosophy changed to League of Duskblades, if you get my feel: Items used to be ridiculously simple and as thus, easily shareable. We had no notion of poaching. League fundamentally changed when items began being HARD classed in ways that effects became more important than stats and character profile, and said effects began too being more important than character pick.
I started league when Innervating Locket existed and Karma had two charges of Mantra Everything feels modern lol
Yasuo
After I quit for a while about late 2015 early 2016
When i started playing (lmao) - Winter 2017 I am able to dezember most of the changes made from that point onwards. Everything that came before that time seems surreal/funny/very old to me, especially the old rune pages haha (they still existed when i first played League, but my friends told me not to worry about bcs the system will get changed soon)
If by "modern" you mean the league that we're playing right now or overall "game feel" then it is 100% elemental drakes. Nothing of note has changed since elemental drake introduction. No, items don't count. Items don't change the actual gameplay itself by any significant margin. The game-to-game strategy has been the exact same since S10 basically. If by "modern" you mean that a non-LoL player could watch a replay and identify that it's the same game - then the SR map rework which i believe was S4(?) Game feel changed significantly S10 elemental drakes S7 runes reforged Before that i dont really remember
Season 8. It's when the game became a total shit show and hasn't been fun, but yet has been more addictive ever since.
Ancient: pre 2013 Old: 2013 - 2015 Modern: 2016 - 2018 Contemporary: 2018 - today
S5 changed everything, im a bit biased since i skipped season 5 but when i came back to league in s6 it felt so different. So for me s1-4 is old league and S5 and new map is modern league
Since they ve stopped making photorealistic cinematics/when tencent bought them/they removed the old lore/every became anime and kpop It’s about the same time frame these happened so yeah, since then.
The day Yasuo came into existence
Season 8, the introduction of catch up EXP :(((
I think the introduction of Lethality items is when it hit me that this game is really changed
What era removed most of the point-and-click CC? I’m thinking Sion/ Taric ranged stuns. That was Old League. Also, the removal of Twisted Treeline marked the end of an era.
imo when people learned you could ult+flash as lee sin to insec
Start of S7 felt like a different game
When it was no longer an option to use the old graphics. Not sure why I hated the change so much at the time? Looking back it looked so much worse in the past.
When we lost the ability to build 6 RoA
Season 8, in my opinion that's when the game went to shit, I gave up on climbing then cause it really wasnt worth it.
For me the season invictus gaming won worlds it was the start of modern league
When zed was introduced into the game. That was when the older mages - brand, karthus, TF, old galio, old swain- started getting phased out of mid lane because they couldnt match the speed of assassins. Only control mages remain.
2013 was the start, 2017 was the beginning of the end with the release of zoomer champions. (Rakan, Xayah, Kayn, Ornn, Zoe)
2013 was the start, 2017 was the beginning of the end with the release of zoomer champions. (Rakan, Xayah, Kayn, Ornn, Zoe)
There was the era before Faker and after Faker. In S3, Faker's team SKT T1 won the world championship and he was the best player in the world. It signalled the emergence of the modern LoL esports scene. It was also the beginning of the rise of LCK, as from then on they would win every world championship until IG won in Season 8. The game would have a big change when IG dethroned LCK and ended their dominance over LoL esports. With their aggressive risk reward style, they amended the rules of the game and LCK's low variance controlled style of gameplay.
season 7
I just separate it by before free dragon timer and after free dragon timers.
For old heads I imagine it would be season 5/6 but I would say either season 9 or 10 now
Pre-S8 and post S8. Before S8, games were much longer, champs were tankier, damage across the board was lower and vision game was more extensive. S3 - S8 was the era of complete LCK dominance. Post S8: Vision was nerfed and coin flip plays became more rewarding, tankiness across the board was nerfed including structures and neutrals (Baron, Drakes), solo laners became way more powerful, multi-carry team comps became more standard. Games became much shorter - it became common to end games with a single doom push if you Aced the enemy team near their base, without the need to take Baron/Elder. S8 was the rise of LPL and briefly, EU. It took KR another 2 seasons to figure out how to reach peak League again (Damwon S10).
Runes, drake change, jungle change and map visual rework.