It happened with Runescape, it sort of happened with WOW, and it may very just happen with League of Legends; the classic version of the game will replace the modern version as the more competent of the two.
I don’t say this with some flippant rose-tint delusion, either. Modern League of Legends excels within the realm of balance and pro-friendly gameplay that is so closely monitored that, for the average player, all of the fun and experimentation that was once in the game has been watered down such that there’s not much to do in the game except get better at the micro of any specific champion.
Macro? It can lose you games, but it can rarely win them before high-diamond. Let’s talk about bounties, summoner spells, and wards, but not in that order.
Forced Smite, Forced Wards.
Wards used to be purchasable items that took up an item slot. This didn’t make them function any differently that today in terms of mechanics, but it did mean that players who took the time to purchase and place them effectively had a massive advantage over their opponents who, often, neglected them.
Riot saw that this type of gameplay required too much thought on the part of the player and decided to streamline the process: wards became inherent parts of a player’s kit, and were free on a cooldown.
Bounties.
I think the extent of the bounty system’s benefit within League of Legends starts and stops at the player’s imagination.
That is to say; when players see their teammates feeding, they automatically become tilted (by default), but then set their eyes on some mini-game like goal of going after the fed player specifically for the bounty gold assigned to that player’s character.
It’s a cheesy anti-strategy mechanic, lame in terms of strict levels of fun, and punishes good gameplay. This is doubly true ever since they threw the bounty system onto players just for farming well. 10 cs per minute? Good for you, you’re now worth an extra 200 gold for your opponent if they kill you, which might very well happen if you’re playing a tank or bruiser who is designed to die in teamfights on occasion. This bounty system, while still present, will be much simpler and, hopefully, far less intrusive in League Classic.
I, at least, think that this game mode will be so successful that Riot will be forced to bring back some of that old-school design we all love so much.
