League Of Losers

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 6:05 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:My team hit gold this weekend. We skipped our promo series entirely, going from ~90 LP in silver I to gold V. I think we're on an 8 game winning streak right now, and I just want to reach the next promos for the sake of seeing how many divisions we skip if this keeps up.

You should probably let me get games soon, because I'm sure I can be effective against golds, and not at all sure I can against plats.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:35 pm

Kaelik wrote:
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:My team hit gold this weekend. We skipped our promo series entirely, going from ~90 LP in silver I to gold V. I think we're on an 8 game winning streak right now, and I just want to reach the next promos for the sake of seeing how many divisions we skip if this keeps up.
You should probably let me get games soon, because I'm sure I can be effective against golds, and not at all sure I can against plats.

Try and be on around 8 or 9pm EST, we usually get a game or two in around then.

Also, the teams in gold vary wildly from one to another. We had two losses last night, one against a team of plats and diamonds and then another one against... plats and diamonds. Of course, our team wasn't necessarily our best (our other diamond was out) and they were already tilting hard when I jumped in.

Me coming in fresh off a martini probably wasn't helping a whole lot either. ADC with a buzz? Not a big deal, you hardly make decisions. Mid with a buzz? Forget to ward and start to make shitty calls about when to roam and invade. My Syndra just wasn't cutting it.

I wouldn't be worried about playing against plat/diamonds though. Individual skill matters a lot less in organized teams, while shot calling and ward control matters a lot more. As long as you don't come out of lane extremely far behind, rotations, wards, and builds can win the game even though you're up against somebody who can flash all the walls in the game every time.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:50 pm

New champion revealed. Perhaps Galio will become an effective support?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:54 pm

New champion is going to be overpowered on release, because it was made by the CertainT, who is complete garbage excellent at balance.

Note: he made Darius, Yasuo, Thresh, and Zed. All champs that, while not badly designed, needed to get nerfed upwards of 5 times each to bring them in line.

Sorry about not having invites Kaelik, it looks like they reset after a week and I'm not sure when our last invite was. It might come up around Friday, as I think that's the last time we shuffled the team around (it's been a revolving door of a team).

TEAM NEWS: We hit gold III after skipping promos and skipping a division. The team wants to go for Plat "The Dream" and we've been getting matched up against teams that are generally plat, so we expect to skip again if we keep doing well. The games have gotten harder, but when we have our A team we still slap people around.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:42 am

New Season Stuff:

New jungle items are fun.

Scuttle Crab is fucking hilarious, and gives you more reason to pick pushy bot lanes that can clear the crab after shoving. It also gives you more reason to pick pushy tops. Clearing scuttle crab is a great way to protect your lane AND the objectives. It's also a large monster, so it's great for anyone who wants to build that new Feral Flare-esque item.

New dragon will kick the shit out of you early, so keeping your duo bot seems less important than before. However, dragon seems more valuable.

New dragon buff is amazing. Dragons are probably worth more than before, and early ones have no less value than late ones. Early dragons are FUCKING HARD though since 1 enemy champ can ruin your day unless your whole team is there. One of the buffs is "Janna's new passive, but global." It's so strong.

With the emphasis on Dragon, good smiting champs got better. Hello, Lee Sin and Elise. Possible hello to Cho as well.

New camps are pretty easy to clear for Pantheon, I'm not sure why. Also, the increased timers mean more gank time. Fucking gank all day.

New smite uses are good, but the longer CD means you actually need to pay attention to monster spawns and not smite 20 seconds before dragon/baron is up.

New ADC is probably broken, but it's hard to tell because everyone is trash with her. Her ult is fucking incredible, her dps is crazy, and her kite is better than Ashe's. Her only weakness is she can't really burst, so bursty traders (or people who can avoid her DPS, in between their own burst, like Vayne) can beat on her fairly hard. I bet she's great in the jungle if you can make it to level 3.

Minions are less garbage come late game, and taking enemy turrets is less of a chore. This is great, and the game feels more exciting overall since stalling is harder. Even stall games are exciting because you can't waveclear from far away that easily against a baroned up team (or the new banner of command).

New map is also nice to flash over things. I highly approve, even if I think it looks a little uglier than the old map. Feels a bit washed out (I know, I know, it's for clarity).

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:38 pm

Hey League people, has anyone else been having massive packet loss for no clear reason? There's some issue with the East Coast where some ISP is dropping packets to Riot with some regularity, causing rubberbanding and other fun things.

Then all of a sudden it stopped last night, and whether I was just lucky or the problem was solved is beyond me.

Also hey, Rek'Sai is fucking ridiculous. Shitballs does she do a lot of damage.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:50 pm

Apparently Riot is allegedly working with ISPs to create a complete backbone for League of Legends across the US, because having servers on the east coast would be too hard, so just building a goddam entire alleged network across the US is apparently easier.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:15 am

I'm on the west coast and have been experiencing steadily worse lag spikes since at least patch 4.20 (and probably before). I don't know about the last few days because I've moved and won't have Internet until tomorrow.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:37 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Hey League people, has anyone else been having massive packet loss for no clear reason? There's some issue with the East Coast where some ISP is dropping packets to Riot with some regularity, causing rubberbanding and other fun things.

Then all of a sudden it stopped last night, and whether I was just lucky or the problem was solved is beyond me.

Also hey, Rek'Sai is fucking ridiculous. Shitballs does she do a lot of damage.

I've been experiencing catastrophic lag for a while (Live on the east) but I don't know that it's 'stopped' or anything.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:21 pm

Behind the scenes, the internet is currently a warring hellscape of deliberate sabotage. Your ISP is deliberately manipulating traffic to fuck you, fuck content providing services, and even fuck other ISP's whose traffic crosses their network, and to make that fucking stop they are demanding money. League of Legends is a large service and for reasons no one will ever understand Riot is determined to have its only U.S. servers on the west coast; the former means that it is most likely currently being fucked and the latter additionally means that anyone on the east coast also has to send their packets through an entire country's worth of digital assrape. Depending on your ISP and location, the amount of assrape so endured can vary from none at all to tonsil-tickling.

With that in mind, you should interpret Riot's decision to rent a parallel internet infrastructure from ISP's as an attempt to gain tangible value from their own extortion; if they're going to have to pay out the ass for a functioning service, they may as well pay a little extra for a dedicated fast lane and hope people on the East coast finally stop bitching. And they really shouldn't, because the step up from <50 to 100< is absolutely noticeable in any game that requires timing that precise and it's still not going to be under 100.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:48 pm

My issue isn't pings though, I mean yeah they got a LITTLE (see: ~10-20 ms) higher, but the packet loss was the real problem for me. I was routinely missing the start of animations (ex. Zed would Q but I wouldn't see the startup, so I'd take it to the face), and in teamfights if you can't see what's happening as it happens you're just fucked.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:32 pm

That's basically what you'd expect. ISP's extort money from people by deliberately engineering constant moderate congestion, which in practice means a significant number of dropped packets and sporadic lag spikes - but for the most part median total travel time isn't significantly higher.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:55 pm

Randomly dropping packets from sources is the easiest way to deliberately induce congestion for those sources. It's actually done for nonbullshit reasons with TCP because of how it does automatic congestion control; if you only drop packets once it becomes critical traffic gets this weird sawtooth graph thing going because all the endpoints cut the rate at which they send packets and then ramp it back up.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 5:49 am

I don't think TCP/IP is used to dropping packets. If it dropped packets regularly, why didn't I get dropped packets when playing League literally any other time before December 2014? The problem was sudden and an obvious thing. I've only taken a few courses that involve actually learning the shenanigans behind networks though, so I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to that stuff.

I get extorting Riot, but fuck. Riot needs to step their game up like Netflix did (and by that I mean give in).

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:49 pm

Well I don't know what they did but the lag is gone. Completely. I'm not sure what dirty deal Riot had to make but whatever it is they fixed the issues completely.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:21 pm

Phreak traded his hair to the ISPs in exchange for removing the lag.

That was a mean joke. Sorry, Phreak.

Hey Denners, want to do Fantasy LCS? I'm already in one league (team name: Click My Balls [yes, I'm going to draft Balls first]) and would be down for another.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:22 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I don't think TCP/IP is used to dropping packets. If it dropped packets regularly, why didn't I get dropped packets when playing League literally any other time before December 2014? The problem was sudden and an obvious thing. I've only taken a few courses that involve actually learning the shenanigans behind networks though, so I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to that stuff.

There's a lot of layers of network interaction. TCP is designed to make sure the endpoint gets all the packets and puts them in the same order they were sent even if a lower-level protocol along the way drops or corrupts some of the packets. The how is complicated, but basically the recipient sends a message confirming that all data up to some point has been correctly received every time it gets a packet, and if the sender gets a repeat (meaning some data was incorrectly received after the first) or goes an unreasonably long time without hearing a response it re-sends all data past the last success. It'll also cut the rate at which it sends packets, because packet loss is usually caused by network congestion.

If you're having dropped packets as distinct from lag, you aren't using TCP. It's actually pretty common for multiplayer games and streaming media to use unreliable delivery protocols; TCP is a bit slow and packets aren't usually dropped all that often. It requires a bit more design work, because the application needs to sensibly respond to missing packets.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 5:51 pm

I am totally willing to do fantasy LCS.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 8:59 pm

So what does everyone think about building Zz'Rot Portal as a defensive item on ADCs? The voidlings aren't as strong as they'd be if you bought it on a tank, but it provides the same defensive stats as a GA (plus regen), has a less obnoxious build path through Raptor Cloak, and its active has some cool strategic uses. Given how rarely GA's passive actually saves me, I can't see much reason to build a GA over a Zz'rot.

EDIT: In the general case. If I'm getting burst down but the team is otherwise doing well in team fights I'd still probably get GA. It's jsut that usually if I'm getting burst down the team lost the fight before GA could bring me back up anyway.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:06 pm

TCP/IP: Good to know. League kind of sensibly responds to lost packets, everything goes into rubberband mode and just snaps into place. But lost packets on animation stats just meant you got hit by invisible shit because your computer never decided a projectile was around. Glad it's all over.

rampaging-poet wrote:So what does everyone think about building Zz'Rot Portal as a defensive item on ADCs? The voidlings aren't as strong as they'd be if you bought it on a tank, but it provides the same defensive stats as a GA (plus regen), has a less obnoxious build path through Raptor Cloak, and its active has some cool strategic uses. Given how rarely GA's passive actually saves me, I can't see much reason to build a GA over a Zz'rot.

EDIT: In the general case. If I'm getting burst down but the team is otherwise doing well in team fights I'd still probably get GA. It's jsut that usually if I'm getting burst down the team lost the fight before GA could bring me back up anyway.

GA's defensive stats are kind of garbage for an ADC, who lacks the health to really care about the resists. GA's benefit is the revive, it screws over diving/burst teams because the main target now has to be killed twice. Having a GA on all damage threats basically guarantees you will win a teamfight, assuming you have more than one sustained damage dealer on your team.

Portal looks really, really good on Shen, the split pusher who sucks at taking turrets quickly. This might be the season Shen makes a real comeback thanks to the energy cost reduction on taunt and a new item that gives him more pressure to split with. I could see the new default Shen build being sunfire, visage, and portal. Split push strength, tank stats, and some CDR.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:46 am

Cool, thanks for the info. I think I can probably get away with Portal at my current low ELO where there's often two big teamfights where everyone dies while it's on CD without either side being able to finish, but I can see why GA is useful against strong divers. I'm probably underestimating its usefulness because I only tend to have it when the enemy Fizz / Akali / Zed/ etc is already able to kill me, the AP carry, and the jungler while still getting out safe. The rest of the team and anyone with a GA is usually easy pickings for the enemy carries at that point unless we managed to get some truly spectacular burst on the enemy team while the assassin dove.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 2:42 pm

I would be down for Fantasy LCS. I want to try Portal, but it is disabled

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:45 pm

Join TGD's fantasy league

The league name would have been something more fitting, but the website auto-filters content.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 2:24 pm

True story: I made an EUWest account to play with some friends, prepared for lag, because I live in NA.

Result: Ping slightly better in EUWest than it is on NA. Because fuck Riot and West Coast servers.