Dys said:
Interesting that a DotA clone, particularly one as poorly done as LoL, is so popular. From what I played of it, it seemed to have no appeal to public gamers at all due to the imbalanced permanent skill tree (the old 'unlock blink, cannot be beaten by teams that haven't yet' trick).
It's not poorly done. The design point and background of the majority of their developers came from MMO backgrounds. So what you are essentially playing is an MMO style game. That is why the meta in LOL is extremely strict is because it is designed to be like an MMO.
Oh you don't have your mage or rogue? No Burst DPS for your team. No ranged AD carry? You won't have any damage output for late game. No tank and fighter? Okay you have no peel or intimidation factor for the enemy team to charge at your mage and ranged AD carry.
That is why people give so much crap if you chose a bad champion that goes against the meta it will drastically increase your chances to lose. The only other factor that is why they have bad champion design is that the power creep is where champion mechanics hard counter other champions just outright. There is literally nothing short of the stupidity of the player that the champion that is hard countered can do.
Only other problem LOL has is the drastic cost inefficiencies in attack speed items compared to AD items. You buy a wits end and ionic spark and with the same gold an AD champ can buy a phage, hexdrinker and a BFS.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the hyperscaling of armor and magic resist which leads to champions also being shutdown for the entire match and the snowballing.