League of Legends - PROBLEMS WITH DISAPPEARING CONTENT, AND THE ARRIVAL OF CONTENT! (Part 1)

(The following is a very long rant that has been brewing in my mind for a while.  Please have consideration for your body and take frequent breaks and the occasional sip of juice.  You have been warned.)

This will probably begin to make me begin to rave but I really can’t help myself! This, This more than anything is probably the most aggravating thing that Riot Games does. What am I talking about you might ask? I'm talking about the removal of content they have made for the game!  Being a free to play - MMO like game, Riot Games must include content updates to the game periodically to keep the people playing the game interested.  These updates include more champions, skins, changes to the game and more.  But, with these usually needed changes come some that really make me scratch my head.  These are the changes the actually remove content from the game!  Completely!  What the hell, Riot?!  You’re a company that makes a game that is free to play and on top of that you’ve been using the two same basic maps for gameplay since the beginning of League of Legends, you really, seriously, completely, need to keep as much content in the game as possible.  As a content designer, I would think that giving players more options is a more successful strategy than inhibiting them from playing things in your game, whatever reasons you decide are necessary. 

(Please, keep in mind that I’m not complaining about various nerfs or buffs that CHANGE things about the game, just decisions that REMOVE content.)

Allow me to give some examples of what I’m exactly talking about, Shall we?

First and foremost: Items.  These are maybe the important things to talk about first because they are the content that has most been removed, although some items have been changed in such ways that make them used in less or meaningful ways than they were when originally created, its fine.  They’re still in the game.  The two items I’m talking about are Innervating Locket and Zhonya’s Ring.

The Locket was mid-expense item that did a lot of different things.  It gave you health and mana, health and mana regen aura that could also be used by surrounding team-mates, reduced cool downs by 10% and on use it regenerated your own personal supply of health and mana.  Once I found out about this item, I would often use it on all of my support champions and also some other champions because it gave you great laning power and a little bit of everything except damage, which was the payoff.  However, over the next couple of patches I saw a steady stream of changes and nerfs before finally just removing it all together.  Now, why the reason for such abrupt behavior?

Many believe it to be because of the release of Sona which is a support champion that could use it to wicked potential by combining it with the other auras she possesses to make her a very powerful healer and increase her buffing potential to allies.  But why remove it instead of just nerfing it into line with other aura/regen items?  Do you think it was because it was an underused item that they didn’t feel had a specific purpose? Not at all! If this was the case they would have removed a number of other items in the game that are a lot more specific and not incredibly useful to be honest.  Off the top of my head I can think of removing Tiamat, Wit’s End among a couple of other items could have been taken off because of similar thinking

(This does not mean that I am advocating the removal of MORE items in case you are reading this, Riot!) 

Since that time they have even made a new item that it more specific in use, being the cool-down reduction boots – Ionian Boots of Lucidity.  Personally, I think the reason it was removed because they just didn’t give it enough thought and made a hasty decision which resulted in removal.  Yes, I feel it was quite Lazy!  You may ask me, "Tombaugh,Why are you being so critical, surely this was a simple mistake that will be corrected in a soon to be released patch.” I would respond as such: First, please stop stuttering, I can't understand you.  Second of all.. Sorry, but I really don’t think so.  Yes; I am being critical because I’ve seen how careful Riot is for their changes and how tact they can be, but this one is just totally out of left-field.

(This amazing specimen of bad assery is Alistar, the Minotaur.  As seen here using his ground slam to burst from the hells of Mount Doom.  This is all in part to the useful necessity of Innervating Locket.)

(Unforunately, due to the removal of the Locket, What was left of Alistar became what you see in this picture.  Sad.  Unmotivated.  Feeble.)

(...)

 (Seriously, what the hell is up with that nose ring?  It must be painful to live as him.)

Zhonya’s Ring however is less of a dire change and as I stated earlier, I appreciate the care that Riot employed on this item, as opposed to the Innervating Locket.  It is an item that gives a mana defense bonuses and an increase to their ability damage.  The item was deemed too powerful because it gave casters a very defensive and powerful click ability and extremely large increases in damage, which made it ultimately the only item that mages would build for.  Instead of just removing it and calling it quits, they removed it and decided to change it into two items, putting the defense stats on one item, caster stats on the other.

This is a great idea, but it gives me concern because they just throw away the ring as a whole.  Sure, you can spend double the gold to buy both items, but that makes you cripple your champion by taking up an extra slot.  Why not just allow you to combine both items back into Zhonya’s Ring for a considerable gold cost? Now there’s an idea, that doesn’t force every heavy AP champion to buy it to be good but doesn’t remove the option to allow you to.  More options are better and more fun, right?

(Yes, I have even more to say about this issue, look forward to the second part, soon.)