League's New Game Mode Is Amazing - But Is It ALREADY DOOMED? 

One more point of clarification that I would like to make - I love this mode, and I think it's awesome. The fact is though these alternate modes do not hold our attention and riot has shown us that they're willing to balance it and give arena a fair shot. We, as a community, have to communicate what it is that we want in order to make sure it sticks around. If you like Arena, tell me in the comments WHAT you like about it. If you don't like Arena, tell me what you DON'T like. With proper communication and time, everyone wins here. Hopefully we can figure out what the mode needs so that we can keep playing it for years and years just like ARAM.

The main problem with Arena for me is just that there are too many champions that don't have all that much value in a straight-up 2v2 brawl. A lot of the champions I enjoy playing in the main game are kind of miserable in this game mode

One of the designers of the Civilization saga, Soren Johnson once mentioned a famous phrase: “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”; therefore, “One of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves.” I personally think what Soren mentions is exactly what keeps Arena from resonating so much with me. The design of most champions is not made for an Arena therefore even if we wish we cannot create a scenario balanced enough so that players who are used and indoctrinated in looking for the best way to win do not end up screwing themselves in their personal fun and that of others.

I think the biggest downfall of this mode is no custom game option. Would be so fun to hop in a lobby of all friends and do specific matchups

what I would like to see is unranked arena game mode where you can invite all 8 slots so you can duel your friends

I think 20 weekly bans would be an amazing change for a separate ranked Mode. Limiting the Pool of broken Champs that are all S+ Tier forces more creativity, just like Rotation did in LOR

I remember the fun of short matches in a different mode with Dominion. Then Riot killed Dominion & it was hard to have the same fun-even with how broken Kassadin was. I bet some long-term friends & played in a number of tournament games, but eventually I quit because I didn’t have the time or the same amount of fun.

About the picking up the champion, i would maybe try to do something similar to the augment selection. You get to choose from 3 champions that are shown and you get 2 rerolls. That way you get to choose from up to 9 champions. That way it is very hard to get unplayable champion and you have much more variety.

I'm kinda baffled that this game mode didn't launch with achievements. I have been playing mostly aram since achievements dropped cause i want the aram god title. I think another way to reward players for diverse combos would be through achievements tracking wins with diverse comps. I also just enjoy numbers going up when i end a game. It makes losses feel more fun.

Something I had thought of for champs would be for each player to get a champ pool to choose for ever game. Maybe 5 or 10 champs to chose from with a balance of each role.

The ladder aspect of it killed it instantly for me. After having a few early wins you only get matched against duo people abusing S tier comps. I want to play and play against fun comps and try stuff out and that is, in my eyes, no possible with a forced ranked system. Sad.

I've been having fun, and it probably comes down to me typing "random champ with me?" every champ select. The second you have 2 people who dont care about the number playing together, the pop-offs go crazier, the loses sting less, and I can happily hover around gold for the rest of my life

I'd like something like a random ban-list aswell, there's 10 champions (give or take) that get banned randomly even before the player-chosen bans-

In my opinion , the randomness in arena should based on what you said, but... Every player gets list of 5 random champs, and then picks one of them. (Of course bans remain untouched) I think that would solve the problem of unfair random champ and the second player dilemma that ''should i unpleasently adjust to the random champ or completely ignore their champ and play by myself " And i think 5 champs could introduce some communication between players , even just the Simple typing in chat 5 champs that we both have and maybe comsidering "let's go with good comp" or " i got good champ, ill Play him "

Seems like if you play Taric and any champ with invincibility you win Also the legend Exil is back with quality content

I just think they should have weekly champion bans based off of which are the most top picked champs of that period or make it so you only have a pool of champs to select from in that week just to lower the amount of people minmaxing it

The only, BIG problem with this mode is the absence of progression. No eternal, no champ mastery, no challenges, nothing. Just a random minigane if you're into it and xp, that's it. (I don't consider ranked a progression. For some it might be, but for me for sure it's not something "you obtain by just keep playing even if you lose"). Why would I play this g mode more than once or twice a day, losing out on everything else I could progress in on aram, normal and ranked games? Even some easy challenges, like win x games, win with x champs, win x games in a row, etc would have been super easy to add and balance but it wasn't done...

The worst thing about the mode imo is there is a STRICT barrier to entry, which is the ability to kill tanks/bruisers Mages, enchanters etc just feel like dogshit because you can just lose a fight against a 10% hp zac because you can’t out dps their healing

They should do that every player choose a champ and then each player randomly gets one of the chosen champs

It's sad, but as an alternate game mode in League, it was on borrowed time from the start. They have basically already stated that other game modes are slated to have short runs

I liked how it was done in Wild Rift, where you and your ally are given a pool of 9 random champions and you have to pick from there.

What usually kills alternate modes is they're not popular enough. I can't remember which channel did the interview, but there was a riot employee who mentioned that all the alternate modes (and the teams that make them) of the past wind up getting killed because they're not big enough. It's kind of strange though, even if only 100,000 people play something like dominion or 2v2v2v2, that's still just objectively a big success. I guess it doesn't sell enough skins unless it's played by 28+ million people >:C

I wont lie, one of my biggest issues with the mode thats prevented keeping me around is actually the duo nature of the mode. In ARAM when I choose to play solo there really isnt that much of a downside. Maybe I get some weaker players on my team, maybe I get some stronger ones, maybe I get a champ im good at but maybe I get one Im not. I'm already aware and ready for the fact that luck is going to play a large factor into ARAM games. Arena isnt like that though: if you dont have friends who want to play it, or your friends are unavailable, or hell just dont have gaming buddies/friends, then your experience in the game is largely dictated by which random other player you get paired with and whether or not theyre willing/capable to work with you. Its also effected by whether or not they have come to autolock their favorite champ or if they even attempt any kind of synergy with you in champ select. Having a low skill player or a troll on your team in ARAM is annoying, but typically doesnt actually break the game, you can still win sometimes in spite of them. Having a low skill or troll player on your team in arena absolutely does on the other hand. League is notorious for even highly skilled players trolling, throwing, or otherwise griefing if you do something even as innocuous as ask them to work around your own strategy (for example you take Warmup Routine and ask them to wait on engaging, or are playing a character whos cooldown dependent and ask them to play around the plants). All it takes is you doing one thing they dont like, for even a ridiculous reason, for them to throw the game away and move on. While the rounds are short when this happens because you lose fairly quickly and can move on, theyre WAY more frustrating than losses on the other causal game modes have been in the past. Getting a few of these intensely dissatisfying games in a row can make the entire experience a write off, and even the longer lasting satisfying games wont be enough to erase that if youre experiencing it too frequently. I'm not personally willing to risk 5 really awful games where I do 4/5 of the damage on my team but still lose miserably, or games where I cant do anything because the strategy I had in mind isnt working for whatever reason (be it bad augment rolls, getting counterpicked, the lobby being all strong meta picks, or my teammate not cooperating), in order to get that one satisfying game where I feel incredibly strong and place 1st, or outplay someone very well and place 1st. The amount of hassle introduced by the fact that I'm playing solo in a duo game mode just isnt worth the reward you get for putting up with it. And inb4 the "get gud" comments, even highly skilled players cant carry every game, and I was well into the 4.5k+ rating on PBE before deciding climbing any further on a PBE wasnt worth it and stopped to wait for live release, so my rating wasnt/isnt bronze.

just do the hots system where each person is offered a choice between 3 champs

I'm hazy on adding randomness to arena, even just one characters worth. It works in aram because there's enough going on for the games to be disposable. And I don't mean just short, I mean disposable. You can smack minions, tower hug, and there's enough players around for you to get surprise plays on unexpecting players in a team fight scenario. This is 2v2 with zero to maybe one objective if you count sett. These are high stress duels to the death. Some people live and love for that kinda thing and have a blast, but a huge amount of league players really aren't about that for a casual game. No matter the balance, it's always gonna be a focused fight to the death with no real line of combat. Aram lives because it still has objectives and enough players to smooth things over. I don't even think it's cuz of the randomness, though randomness can be a fun addition. I"d love for an optional random queue for sums, arena, and aram if we could get a non random queue too. But I think Arena has a better chance cuz it has something none of the other modes ever got, and aram only got in a bare bones fashion. Complex targeted nerfs and buffs. They aren't just slapping damage penalty percents on em, they're toning down abilities and aspects of specific abilities. They're letting the parts of the kit that arent problems run free while toning down the parts that suck to deal with, and tha'ts something that all game modes ever really needed. The love and care to do those kinds of balancing, and the time for the game mode to settle in. Imagine if they brought back hex twisted tree line and dominion and gave it that kind of love as well as adding mechanics? They'll never match sum rift but... it could be worth while

I think what makes ARAM so enduring is the randomness, though I don't know if its a cure-all for Arena's woes. Having random champs makes it feel a lot more casual than SR or even Arena since you're not betting your entire ego on how good you are at your one trick, or specifically building a team to be as toxic as possible. You can just pick it up and play without having to worry about compositions or metas or sweats (usually). Most champions are still viable on ARAM as well, while Arena invalidates quite a few based on the 2v2 format. Arena was fun for the first couple days, when people hadn't quite figured out how to break it and we were all just picking champs we liked or teams we thought were cool. Now it's just people abusing unfun champs that receive an inordinate advantage from the 2v2 format and/or the stage hazards, and playing it casually without top tier picks requires great macro and insanely lucky rolls - something a gamemode intended to be casual fun shouldn't have to rely on.

Yo if they separate the queues, what if they made champ select also have RNG augments? Like certain champs based on region/class or whatever get a buff or debuff; Or instead players can only select champs based on the same principle, like some games only certain regions/classes can be picked, everyone gets a random champ, only two champs can be selected, or sometimes all champs would be unlocked

In any game that people will always try to do their best to cheese and pick the strongest, not giving them that ability to is always the answer. Forcing more random aspect will always make every situation interesting but it begs the question on how much randomness will people tolerate as not having any control will always frustrate a person. Meanwhile the easiest fix for summon champs without nerfing other builds like AD shaco is to reduce stats of summon beings depending on how many a team has. IF there's more than 4 entities including the champ themselves the next summon will have its stats cut by 25-50%. Champs like Heim will be nerfed heavily but since its a "2 v 2" mode they could just buff his stats on other aspects. And there's a reason why there's a lot of ADC carry in the meta, its the "retreat" summoner. Kiting with this summoner is way too easy in contrast to chasing someone with it. Therefor easier to survive just to scale.

Imo visible rank definitely contributes to a problem of abusing meta, if you cant see your rank then some people lose motivation to abuse the same comp over and over just because its op, obviously some people are still going to do that but I'd guess it's far less than when you can see the rank and you can climb the ladder, so either separating ranked and unranked or just removing visible rank would be a significant improvement in my opinion

This gamemode is basically just "which botlane combo works best in this gamemode?" because it honestly is just that. or "which tank can stall and knock back enemies?" basically it just turned into an arguably better Ascension, with its own cheap strats.

I think what would be cool, is the duo gets randomly 10-20 champions to choose from each game. Or even 50 or something.+ bans too of course.

My ARAM dedicated account has now become my Arena dedicated account because it's so much fun, it's so fast and easy to get into, and the community of arena players seem to be the least toxic group of players within League.

After about 50 games winning on stuff like shaco, teemo, kayle, taric ect me and my friend started selp imposing random rules to ourselves. We gave ourselves 2 rolls and we could decide between the 3 picks and it made the game fun again. Eventually we started consistently losing in gladiator as the random picks were gimping us so we just started picking more middle of the pack champs. Overall great fun but makes me crave nexus blitz for some reason.

I'm honestly surprised that this mode wasn't received that well, I thought it had been. I'm still really enjoying it. The mode is already amazing, all we really need is more augments that can work with more types of champs, and specific buffs/nerfs for this mode, like they do in aram, 10% extra damage and such. Add custom mode and this game is perfect.

there are three things aram does well to answer why we love ARAM (at least for me): 1.) snowballing isn't really a thing. you can go in and die a bajillion times early and the enemy only has a small to moderate advantage, unlike in rift where dying is heavily detrimental. This encourages you to go in and take more chances than you normally would in league. You might go for some ridiculous play that has a low likelihood of working, but why not? if you fail, you'll be right back out in a few seconds. at worst, you chunk your enemy and you'll get em next time. not sure how this applies to arena, but it is important for aram compared to rift. 2.) lots of team fights which are probably the highlight of league outside of a really really good 1 v1. arena is only 2 v 2 which is a fun small skirmish, but still not on the same level as a 5 v 5. constant 5 v5s are a blast, especially since ARAM makes them constantly dynamic since you can't just back to heal up. 3.) you're encouraged to experiment way more since the mode gives you random champions and gold income is essentially guaranteed. This means you might go something weird like AP lucian if you're team doesn't have an AP threat and you need poke. Or you might go a tanky lissandra because your team really needs someone who can soak damage for even 5 seconds so you're dps gets a chance to do stuff. In general too, poke is king so a lot of people go those cringey poke builds but thats fun for them because you normally can't play that playstyle. it's jsut built for casual play. anytime you can play the game you love, but can just....play? that's the sign of a good game. Rift works despite not being like that because its probably peak PVP and skill expression. For everyone else who doesn't want to sweat, though, ARAM is perfect. it encourages you to play whatever champ you can get your hands on, experiment with champs you've never played before, and you're constantly doing the fun parts of league with no downside really.

the solution sounds great maybe we can give the mode different modes like you have blindpick draft pick and solo/duo que then you would have solo duo arena, half random( the one exil came up with) and all random ?

From my point of view, the main problem with arena is we're using Champs designed and balanced around a 5v5 game mode. Scaling Champs are really good in arena because they are guaranteed to get a couple items and levels. This is usually countered by having a strong early game comp and ending the game before the enemy team can scale. You can't really do this in arena. If they want arena to work long term, they'll have to work double time to change and balance Champs to work in 2v2s

Boy oh boy this game mode and map brings me nostalgia from the old days of hide and seek and dominion. Never forget

If I'm being honest, I preferred Nexus Blitz. I think people are being overly positive about Arena just because of the lack of alternative and interesting modes we had lately. It's a natural reaction to the recent backlashes: people complain about something, as soon as the company TRIES to address that issue people respond with overwhelming positivity regardless of the solution being affective or not. I think Arena has still many issues to solve, Nexus Blitz worked far better as it was bot a better casual mode and was more healthy if played competitively.

putting more augments in the game and other cameos are the best way to keep it alive,maybe add new fruits and terrains

Ring fire should not always close down exactly in the center but rather close in a random place in the arena. That would nerf the trap comp a bit and not always prespam traps in the middle

the thing is, ranked is just ranked and nothing will ever beat that.

You could compare an Arena match to a fling whereas a classic League match could be comparable to a long-term marriage. It needs commitment and sacrifice, and for a video game, I just wanna fling around.

Arena should operate like TFT. Every 'Season' has a list of 40-80 champs that are enabled and a set of augments. Then the season changes, you get new augments and new champions. Keep it rotating frequently to keep the meta from setting to firmly.

Honestly its not just a arena issue. Some of the big issues IMO that plague SR also plague Arena. Not enough items is the first issue in Arena. Secondly a lot of the augments are just stats or weird abilities like Warm Up or Sled. Those could and should have been made into item actives. The augments should be more effect driven. Use X ability, Y effect activates. More things like Ethereal Weapons and Jeweled Gauntlet and less things like Sled and Warm Up. Yes there are other issues but right now there isnt a reason to pick certain champs because there arent enough effects to work on every champ and not enough items to help with it. This is the issue with both SR and Arena IMO.

I think a major part of the issue is people haven't figured out counters yet. I've beaten a lot of these top level comps with random picks

I personaly don't like random champions not because I don't get the most broken ones, but simply don't get the ones I like. I don't play much aram because of that but then when i struggle and suffer in summoners rift I go back to aram. You pick the champion you like in summoners rift, get stomped, go aram get rengar vs squshy plushys, get a penta call it a day. I don't think it would work well like aram, as it is a 2vs2. What is intresting to me in Arena is the augments, no minions to farm and worry about gold, no towers to hide, it's a brawl fiesta.

I think if they could somehow give the champions that really struggle a buff so they can at least have a chance to compete, it would be perfect. If they had Arena or Nexus blitz permanent I would play more consistently as I usually don't have time to get into a summoners rift game.

My problem with Arena is no matter the "balance buffs" you win or lose depending on your champ, not how you play , heimer teemo in a team being played by bronzies will win against something like Gwen Evelyn played by diamonds

if I had a 50% chance to be forced to play a random champ I wouldn't play the game probably. the largest reason I play Arena is to run fun duos with my buddies. I was one of the people who played a lot of Twisted Treeline, and I'm still sad its gone. they could have fixed some things on the map to make things more interesting for other players, but I had a pretty common 3 man and I would play Treeline solo a lot as well. I already don't like the randomness in Arena due to augments and the arena hazard champs, but it's not bad enough to bother me right now.

The problem with this mode for me is that it's just stack a stat. This mode is amazing before you get your first rainbow augment. Damage and dps is reasonable, tactics besides rushing in are viable, the fights are close, more and champs are viable. If "every 2 weeks the top 20 most picked champs (not highest win rate) are unavailable + the 10 that will be banned in the ban phase" becomes a thing, then I think the game mode will see longevity

The one thing I was the most disapointed abot when the gamemode launched was that I could only queue with 1 friend, even though we where 6 people. I had hoped for something like tft, where you can queue against your friends aswell, or at the very least it be available custom.

One fix that they can do TODAY is remove blade waltz. No nerf, just removal. Pretty sure that augment has like an 80% winrate.

its because they made the gamemode in a state where counterplay is at its lowest and riot is only focussing on the hypermoments and insane amount of damages. they looked at winrates and buffed/nerfed according which is something you dont do. if they want this gamemode to be fun they need to implement a lot of ways to counterplay a lot of comps. these custom map events are one way but you as a player cant really do something about it yourself. like you mentioned, some comps are just too mega broken and there is little to no counterplay to them.

I think the problem with the new game mode is that it feels too similar to normal Summoner's Rift, to the point that you end up feeling that you might as well just play the "real" thing instead

I think dota2's single draft pick would be the best for Arena, you get 3 champs chosen at random, select 1 thats who you play. eliminates complete randomness of aram, but is still random enough that you probably won't get the top picks.

My problems with the gamemode is just the current balance. -low mechanical skill hybrid champs win most because the number of augments that just work on them. -augment balance is off with 70ap being silver with the fucking sled and 10% bonus ad which aren't equal in power. also veigar passive is gold despite the fact it takes 5+ rounds for 99% of champs to get more than 70 stacks of it and actively discourages killing your enemy quickly. -opponent elo should be visible (i'm tired of getting +45 for a 1st because idk if it was just a low elo stomp or riot hate me) -personally more augs like castle and blitz hook(except blitz hook should be a summoners) and remove a lot of the pure damage augs. They should make the game play differently not just your champ plays the exact same but does more damage.

the biggest problem with the mode, is that its the same 3 maps EVERY SINGLE GAME, the soul fighter champs are very annoying and very common, while the other fun ones like evelynn and viego are almost NEVER seen but are much more fun than naafiri pyke and jhin. The biggest problem i see with arena currently is that its not all random, sure it makes it more competitive but people who want to play the mode for fun makes it impossible since everyone is running the meta champs. If they make it like aram im sure a lot of people will have more fun in the mode

I think making a random pick for someone it would be bad. what makes this mode unbalanced is that people can go duo. ranked mode soloQ\Duo is making the team 25% of the allies something you're familiar with, the playstyle, gameplan etc, and can't go higher than it. in arena mode, you make the randomness of allies 100% gone, which makes way too unbalanced for who is soloQ. duo is 4x stronger in Arena Mode than Summoner's Rift Ranked. the change this actually needs as a ranked mode is duo NOT be allowed, only SoloQ. and a casual ormal mode where you can go duo and even more players like TFT. this would fix better the issue of ranked unbalanced, because the top players here in BR, also only play with someone as a duo, they don't have a mono pick like Kindred\Janna, but they're always playing with the same partner, which makes it unbalanced for other players for who is SoloQ.

Something I've learned the bad way is that there will be ALWAYS a tryhard player either in a normal, aram, rgm,ranked, whatever it is there's always going to be those annoying tryhard that'll pick the janna/kindred or the taric/yi and ruin the fun for everyone, that sadly makes league as a hole not fun to play, in silver/gold elo for example you just can't play arena (or even normal/rank games to be fair) without finding some high elo with his smurf account crushing the game tryharding because he and his duo are faaar more skilled than the rest

just had more bans, if the problem is getting the same champs every time then ban more, the gamemode name is 2v2v2v2 so it makes sense for everyone to have 2 bans for each person

at 9:30 , the reason is to get easier games and thus they win more and lose less , it's been abused in both NA and EU

lol the league community have been playing the same 20 champs in this mode since the youtubers released "TOP 10 OP ARENA COMPS FOR EASY WIN" and surprise! fun is dead! its your own fault if you're upset by this, the fun game modes never survive because league players suck the fun out of it the second they get a chance. The ending of this video is great. ARAM survives because more often than not, your knowledge of the *entire* cast of champions, or your general ability at league is what will win you games, as opposed to niche tricks that you can abuse in ranked to get gold leads in lane on your one trick, or to cheese jungle camps for an early lead and then snowball the rest of the game. The randomness demands you to adapt and to be versatile, and puts you in unfamiliar situations that ranked simply cannot offer due to the existence of a meta. I can only imagine with arenas having even more randomness that this would have the same effect, but better.

All of this new game mode talk really has me thinking about Twisted Treeline and Dominion. Dominion was going to go sooner or later, but to this day I’m confused as to why riot just scrapped 3v3s instead of actually putting effort into it. I think the league community of today would support a return of Twisted Treeline

Honestly I love this mode, I was playing it non stop.. I climbed up to 5,5k but I realized rank doesn't matter. I got someone in my team who played the game for the first time. If the rank (MMR) doesn't matter why is there? I stoped playing once I realized rank doesn't matter at all.. They should add a 'normal' and a 'ranked' mode or atleast make it a little bit more realistic with whom u get in ur games.

it's fun if ur an adc/support player. These roles were giga buffed and it's fun not to have an unkillable bruiser that's 700g behind 1v2 you :D

I think a lot of the good thing of ARAM is the fact that it's been there for years. The novelty causes overplaying and burnout. If you keep Arena in the game (and keep doing tiny balances like aram does) playercount will first dip, but then over a few months or a full year it will climb back up and stabilize. If not it's a bad gamemode, yes, but most likely it will

I figured Janna Kindred would be an unbeatable combo. Delay and then double ult might be impossible to deal with.

I don't like this mode for a few reasons. As others have said the game mode makes a lot of champions (that I like to play) obsolete, but also I just don't like the zany random arenas constantly alternating every single match. It negates any strategy and instead relies on you learning some arbitrary bullshot game mode within the game mode to play around against your opponent. Its unfun. I'd rather a static map, or one that barely changes (like how SR can change) but it isn't a last minute flip to some completely different thing entirely. Or even if its random but it stays the same throughout the brackets. Its just too random for me to want to invest time into.

For me it's fun when with duo, I tried play it alone and after a few games it doesn't feel as fun as 20 straight games with a duo What I think could be good for the mood is: - random champ with rerolls so no ban needed - nerf/buff just like how Aram nerf/buff champion The mode is fun and all but it just frustrating when try hard was in the lobby

Arena is fun and I've had my share of it playing Bard, Warwick, Tahm Kench and Trundle, but my man Ornn is still unavailable to play since launch and RIOT won't change this untill the end of the gamemode. They talk a lot about playing the champ that you want but Ornn mains are the ones being left out of the fun.

The reason why I don't really like Arena is the same reason I don't like URF. People are just going full tryhard mode and you see the same champions all the time and if you wanna experiment you can't really have fun. But I don't think that Riot can fix this tbh. Well, it prbly didn't helped that they implemented a ranking system

The gamemode is cool but my main complaints are two parts A. Champs who have a benefit to just staying in one place (shaco, heimer, teemo) are way to strong, not for a numbers reason but by virtue of how their kit is designed and how it interacts with the game (think of how Akali shroud ignoring turrets was OP, it wasn't a numbers thing, it was because how it interacted with core game mechanics) B.some things make it far to easy for someone to troll you, I had an aniva one game who refused to fight, got the castle augment, and continually just castled me into the ring of fire before spamming laugh.

I played 1 game and it was fuckin awesome. Sadly, as soon as it ended I realized I couldn’t be bothered giving a fuck playing more than that because a lot of it revolves purely around stat checking. It sucks for certain champs because you don’t get to push an advantage, so if you take a very early game champ against some infinite scaler they’ll end up catching to you sooner or later which is really unfair for something that is supposed to be competitive.

12:10 so one player is a first class player that gets to play whatever champion and the other is a third class citizen that has to adapt? i get what you mean, seeing the same thing is boring but being able to pick your champion is one of the appeal of the mode over aram

Isn't a per patch ban list w/ ranked basically the same as balance changes but its more restricting to the player.

Honestly I feel this game mode would be insanely fun with random picks just like ARAM. It gets so annoying seeing the same champs over and over.

I havent finished the video but for me the only flaw in this game is when some player gets a really good Ability Haste synergy. The game can be extremely fun and damage overload is expected to be everywhere, but a CC machine or unending haste on key abilities makes some matches unplayable. If those augments could be toned down this wouldn't have muchs flaws

They need to hard-nerf the broken champs, retune augments and nerf the op ones, add more objectives to the maps to incentivise combat, and add a limited champ pool each day that is randomised with a certain quota for champs to be selected (x of each class). Then it will be actually fun. I don't want to play Cassiopeia or Kayle or Heimer or Kennen just to have a chance and not lose in champ select.

I love casual modes in league and I love arena when I have a friend. But because it’s only me and one teammate I feel uncomfortable playing with randoms, it feels like I’m more responsible for them as opposed to being one part of a larger team. I’d love a solo arena AND duo arena, that being said I don’t think that a whole lotta champs could be viable in that. Just my experience as a casual player.

I don't know why nobody talks about this but my absolute biggest problem with the mode is that it's just not very competitive, nor grindy. The most important motive for playing ranked is to well... rank up. that's what keeps me going and I would not play the game at all if ranked wasn't this competitive. but this game mode despite having a ranking is no where near. reaching Gladiator means absolutely... nothing. bronze players can make it easily and I did too playing only for fun picks in no time. And I think that's one of the main reasons for the game mode slowly dying too.

I enjoy this mode, purely for how absolutely ridiculous the matches can get. In what world are you ever going to see a Naafiri with blade walts catapaulting a full crit Wukong with Chaufeur into the enemy comp and win with it? To me, its fun. I don't have to get stressed out about teammates griefing in solo queue. I can control what happens for the most part.

In my opinion, even a normal mode for arena with no rewards at the end, can be really boring if a duo pick one of the OP META. I mean, sure you lose nothing... you don't get fun neither. Riot should just work around how to prevent abusing meta champs.

I have more than 300 games on Arena and as it stands it is doomed. They have to make two queues because right now all the "casual" players have already left because it is too competitive (was inevitable) But what's funny is that while I think the mode tends to be competitive by nature (it's not fun to lose past the initial discovery of the mode) it's also not very good at being an healthy competitive environment. And Balance plays a big role in that regard, but the draft system does too. You can't have a truly fair and competitive environment if the draft doesn't allow you to counter pick. (Or ban more champions etc) The thing is, it's not a simple fix. I get why the draft is the way it is right now. It's simple and convenient, but a less random/more fair draft system might not even be possible for a 2v2v2v2 game format. So maybe Riot painted themselves into a corner here because no serious player wants to gamble in every game to climb. And no casual player will play the game if people solve the meta on day 1 of every patch. (Which, again, is inevitable in a pvp online game) Also there is no matchmaking yet. But yeah, Riot's best bet might be to cater more to dedicated players that want a challenge because even a normal queue with no ranking will be crowded with optimal comps. It's quite hard really. For now I think the priority is the balance, more than half the champion roster is unplayable so maybe the path of redemption starts there because opening up the meta is a good way to make it less solve-able. If that's even a word.

I hope the success of this new mode helps Riot realize we want more game modes and shorter ones too I'd love to have a 1v1 ranked or 2v2 but not the aram ones we had were you cant even back, give me a FULL GAME of just no team gameplay and it could be as big as the main 5v5 game, imagine having the LCS be about a single player vs another single player and dont just use the aram map, use for example the nexus blitz map! something with jungle camps, objectives, something for the players to fight over! rather than a boring linear map

I believe that the competitive scene is appealing to some people, but that reduces the player base of a new mode. Arena brought back a lot of players that didn't even play league anymore, so a more casual gamemode would feel more natural to those players. The meta is getting the fun out of the game. I suggest 2 major changes to make it better: 1- make an unraked All Random AreNa queue. ARAN (pun intended) 2- give the possibility of custom arenas so we can play with 9 friends and test out weird sh*t.

Even tho it has flaws, I don't think the game mode will be dropped so easy, this year has the biggest budget for the game in its history and it goes to show when they make balances to a temporary mode, also the idea of having a more attractive and time friendly product surely has the riot team interested.

I love arena and would love alternate versions of it to shake up the meta. The player base will always find a meta no matter what so I think its better to just shake it up. I would love for them to make a revenge draft arena where you pick the comp for the enemy team and other variations

My one problem with the mode is there's like... 10-15 must ban champs that just make the game so boring. Ban Teemo? Heimer comes in. Ban Heimer? Shaco kites you. Ban Shaco? Yi comes in with a pocket yuumi/taric. Then you have Morde, Kayle, Kha'six, Poppy, Alistar, Lucian etc... it's so boring facing the same champs over and over

I think the one random character and one selected character is a fun idea, but who is who shouldn't be totally random. The same way you can pick your roles in draft queue or solo queue, you should be able to select if you want to be the player with a random character or the player that can select (i say this in part because i would love to always be the random one)

I miss your videos about the history of old league but still love the content and support the channel. ❤

i never play aram because not choosing akshan makes me not want to play anymore, if i couldn't choose my favorite champion on arena i will probably miss out on this very fun gamemode

12:15 randomnes in picks would kill that mode for me, because then sure people can abuse less, but if you're unlucky you get destroyed and that's not fun. i also dislike the lack of agency. randomness like that does not go well with tryharding, that's why the player base of aram and SR are pretty different. honestly who cares if that one duo abuse kindred janna? if you play for fun you'll not run into them anyway, the randomness of augment is enough imo

Great points. Personally, I stopped playing after less than 10 games because if I have more than one friend online, it’s not an option. Also, playing against 2-3 heimers, or some other turret/minion champion, in the same game for nearly every game got old fast. The mode has potential, but having only a ranked mode which prevents playing with more friends is just crippling for me

This game mode is tons of fun, but it suffers from tons of issues from what i can see are either oversights, or deliberate ignorance. Something i don't see compained about ever are how these tiny 2v2 maps are built. I think that some arenas just arent fun to engage on, and the meta spamming doesn't make it any better. They have too many champions to try and balance these new maps around, considering they have been developing 1 maps for ages they forgot that all the champs were only balanced for that map and occasionally balanced just for pro play. League as a game already isn't fun a lot of the time ngl, this game mode brings out the best and the worst of the game all in 10-15 minute intervals. This mode needs a lot of love and improvement to actually be consistent.

Personally I never play arena by myself, and I rarely play with a friend just because if we have 1 hour we play SR and if we have less we just called it a day instead.

Honestly for me personally if the champ select became even remotely random I'd drop the mode instantly. A mode has an be exceptionally fun for me to want to play it. It's the reason why I can't stand ARAM. I want to play the champion I want to play and nothing else. If I don't get to do that then there has to be a damn good reason why I'm playing the mode. The only one to successfully get me to give up champ select is ARURF. I know for a lot of people it's the same. The prospect of having limitations on what you can pick is an instant turn off for a lot of people. The balance is something that can be fixed over time but if you dislike the core system in place there isn't anything you can do about it. Most of my friend group would immediately give up on Arena if the champ select became random at all.

As a casual player the worst time I've had was going in solo and getting a tryhard duo flaming me for playing something that is meta.

As someone who is still malding about Dominion, Twisted Treeline, No Star guardian even return, I hope Area dies and isn't permanent we got all this stuff where players periodically are like "y'ah know I miss X" and Riot McScrooge is "NO, NEVER AGAIN" and then spends 5+ months creating all these assests and mechanics for a new gamemode that nobody asked for, yeah I'm still salty.

The core concept is fun but it’s such a meta snore fest. Me and my friend mess around trying fun combos but always get rolled by the metaslave champs. Just make it random, can’t complain about getting stomped by a comp if it’s not even intentional. Would encourage people to actually roll with the champ they’ve been handed.